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

"Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,

When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid;"

the first line referring to the celebrated ballad of Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly, and the second to King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid; popular pieces which are again the objects of allusion in Much Ado about Nothing, act i.; and in the Second Part of Henry IV. act v. sc. 3.—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 77.; and Percy's Reliques, vol. i. pp. 154. 198.

The same play will afford us three or four additional references; Mercutio, ridiculing the old Nurse, gives us a ludicrous fragment commencing "An old hare hoar," vol. xx. p. 116.; and Peter, after calling for two songs called Heart's ease, and My heart is full of woe, attempts to puzzle the musicians by asking for an explanation of the epithet silver in the first stanza of A Song to the Lute in Musicke, written by Richard Edwards, in the "Paradise of Daintie Devises," and commencing,

"Where griping griefs the hart would wounde."

Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 220. 222.
and Percy's Reliques, vol. i. p. 196.

[584:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. pp. 353-355. Act iv. sc. 3.

[584:B] Ibid. p. 403. Act v. sc. 2.

[585:A] Reliques, vol. i. p. 214.

[585:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 78.