[603:E] Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. ii. p. 240.
[603:F] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. pp. 159. 161.
[603:G] Shaw's Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 442. Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 143.
[603:H] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 268. col. 2.
[604:A] Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. vi. p. 58. et seq.
[604:B] It is sufficient praise, however, to remark, that Milton, both in his L'Allegro and his Lycidas, is under many obligations to our author.
[605:A] We are told by Prince, in his "Worthies of Devonshire," that as Browne "had honoured his country with his sweet and elegant Pastorals, so it was expected, and he also entreated a little farther to grace it by his drawing out the line of his poetic ancestors, beginning in Joseph Iscanus, and ending in himself." Had this design been executed, how much more full and curious had our information been with regard to Shakspeare and his contemporaries, and how much is it to be lamented that so noble a scheme was relinquished.
Since these critical notices were written, Sir Egerton Brydges has favoured the world with some hitherto unpublished poems of Browne; productions which not only support the opinions given in the text, but which tend very considerably to heighten our estimation of the genius and imagination of this fine old bard.
[606:A] Muses Library, 1741. p. 315.
[606:B] Bagster's edit. 1808. p. 156. 276.