Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto;"

lines which Nash, in his Foure Letters confuted, 1593, has most happily ridiculed, representing Harvey walking under the "ewe-tree at Trinitie Hall," and addressing it in similar terms, and making "verses of weather cocks on the top of steeples, as he did once of the weather cocke of Allhallows in Cambridge:—

"O thou weathercocke, that stands on the top of All-hallows,

Come thy waies down, if thou dar'st for thy crowne, and take the wall of us!"

Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. xliii.

[459:A] See a copious and interesting account of the controversy between Nash and Harvey, in D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 1. ad 49.

[459:B] The Returne from Parnassus; or the Scourge of Simony, publiquely acted by the Students in St. John's College in Cambridge, 1606.—Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49.

[460:A] Wits Miserie And The Worlds Madnesse. Discovering the Devils incarnate of this Age. 1596.—Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. ii. p. 164, 165.

[462:A] For a further and more minute account of James's "Essayes," I refer the reader to Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, vol. i. p. cxix.; to Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 120; to Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 364; and to Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. i. p. 230.

[463:A] Spenser's Works apud Todd, vol. i. p. 161. See also, vol. i. p. vii. and p. clviii.