[7.] “Life Portraits of William Shakespeare,” by J. Hain Friswell. London, 1864.
[8.] We have, unfortunately, no proof that Joseph Taylor, the player, ever painted portraits. There was a contemporary, however, named John Taylor, who was an artist, and it is possible that these two have been confounded.
Boaden refers the picture to Burbage, “who is known to have handled the pencil.” Op. cit., p. 49.
[9.] Taylor was thirty-three when Shakespeare died in 1616, and survived him thirty-seven years.
[10.] This will, it appears, is not to be found (Wivell, Op. cit., p. 49), but it matters little, if we are assured that Davenant possessed the picture.
[11.] These passages will be found duly criticised in Chapter II.
[12.] In the following passage from The Tempest, Shakespeare, à propos of fish, gives one of many proofs of his knowledge of human nature. Trinculo comes upon the strange form of Caliban lying flat on the sands:—“What have we here? A man, or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of, not of the newest, poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now (as once I was), and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man: any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian!”—Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[13.] The author of “The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, 1496,” makes the following quaint remarks on the superiority of “Fysshynge” over “Huntynge”:—“For huntynge, as to myn entent, is too laboryous, for the hunter must alwaye renne and followe his houndes: traueyllynge and swetynge full sore. He blowyth tyll his lyppes blyster. And when he weenyth it be an hare, full oft it is an hegge hogge. Thus he chasyth and wote not what.”
[14.] The subject of Bird-catching will be fully discussed in a subsequent chapter.
[15.] Letter from Rowland White to Sir Robert Sidney, dated 12th Sept. 1600.