[8] By the discovery of the Diary of Henslow, the illiterate manager of the theatre, connected with Edward Alleyn. Henslow was the pawnbroker of the company, and the chancellor of its exchequer. He could not spell the titles of the plays; yet, in about five years, 160 were his property. He had not less than thirty different authors in his pay.—Collier, iii. 105. [His Diary has been published by the Shakespeare Society under the editorship of Mr. Payne Collier.—Ed.]
[9] Marlow—Nash—Greene—Peele.
[10] When Pope translated Homer, Chapman’s version lay open before him. The same circumstance, as I have witnessed, occurred with the last translator—Mr. Sotheby. Charles Lamb justly appreciated Chapman, when he observed, that “He would have made a great epic poet, if indeed he has not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his Homer is not so properly a translation, as the stories of Achilles and Ulysses rewritten. The earnestness and passion which he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader of more modern translations.”
The striking portrait of Chapman is prefixed to Mr. Singer’s elegant edition of this poet’s version of Homer’s “Battle of the Frogs and the Mice”—and the Hymns. His Iliad, collated with his last corrections and alterations, well deserves to fill a stationary niche in our poetical library. Chapman has, above all our poets, most boldly, or most gracefully, struck out those “words that burn”—compound epithets.
[11] An original leaf of the manuscript of one of Marlow’s plays, in the possession of Mr. J. P. Collier, is a singular literary curiosity. On a collation with the printed copy, the mutilations are not only excessive, but betray a defective judgment. An elaborate speech, designed by the poet to develope the character of the famous Guise, was cut down to four meagre lines.—Annals of the Stage, iii. 134.
[12] Charles Lamb has alluded to this fact; and, in one of his moments of enthusiasm, exclaims—“This was the noble practice of these times.” Would not the usual practice of a man of genius, working his own drama, be “nobler?” We presume the unity of feeling can only emanate from a single mind. In the instance here alluded to we should often deceive ourselves if we supposed, from the combination of names which appear on the old titlepages, that those who are specified were always simultaneously employed in the new direction of the same play. Poets were often called in to alter the old or to supply the new, which has occasioned incongruities which probably were not to be found in the original state.
[13] Green, Nash, Lyly, Peele, and Marston were from the university—Marlow and Chapman were exquisite translators from the Greek.
[14] The term, the Romantic School, is derived from the langue Romans or Romane, under which comprehensive title all the modern languages may be included; formed, as they are, out of the wrecks of the Latin or Roman language. However this may apply to the origin of the languages, the term is not expressive of the genius of the people. In the common sense of the term “Romantic,” the Æneid of Virgil is as much a Romance as that of Arthur and his knights. The term “Romantic School” is therefore not definite. By adopting the term Gothic, in opposition to the Classical, we fix the origin, and indicate the species.
[15] Bouterwek’s Hist. of Spanish Lit. i. 128.
[16] Two of these collections are to be valued.