[536:C] "See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, vol. iv. p. 325. seq."
[537:A] Milton's "Il Penseroso." Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum, p. v. vi.
[537:B] Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 422.
[537:C] History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 18. vol. iii. p. lxxxiii.
[537:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 229.
[537:E] According to his own assertion, in the MS. catalogue of his works in the British Museum, to which he has given the title of Eupolemia. See Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 423. 425.
[538:A] Ascham's Schole Master, Bennet's edit. 4to. p. 255.
[539:A] A writer, whose work has just fallen into my hands, closes a long and accurate analysis of the Italian Tales, with the following just observations:—"The larger works of fiction," he remarks, "resemble those productions of a country which are consumed within itself, while tales, like the more delicate and precious articles of traffic, which are exported from their native soil, have gladdened and delighted every land. They are the ingredients from which Shakspeare, and other enchanters of his day, have distilled those magical drops which tend so much to sweeten the lot of humanity, by occasionally withdrawing the mind, from the cold and naked realities of life, to visionary scenes and visionary bliss."—Dunlop's History of Fiction, vol. ii. p. 409.
[539:B] "In The London Chaunticleres, 1659, this work, among others," remarks Mr. Steevens, "is cried for sale by a ballad-man; The Seven Wise Men of Gotham; a Hundred merry Tales; Scoggin's Jests," &c.—See Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 42.
[540:A] History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 475.