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

[630:C] They were also annexed to the third edition of the Translation of "Orlando Furioso," fol. 1634.

[630:D] The popularity of these epigrams, notwithstanding their poetical mediocrity, may be estimated from the opinion of the publisher of the edition of 1625. "If in poetry," he remarks, "heraldry were admitted, he would be found in happiness of wit near allied to the great Sidney: yet but near; for the Apix of the Cœlum Empyrium is not more inaccessible, than is the height of Sidney's poesy, which by imagination we may approach, by imitation never attain to."—Dedication to George Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

A subsequent writer has also gifted them with extraordinary longevity:—

"Still lives the Muse's Apollonian son,

The Phœnix of his age, rare Harington!

Whose Epigrams, when time shall be no more,

May die, perhaps, but never can before."

Beedome's Poems, 1641.

Vide Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. xxiii.

[632:A] Edition of 1800, by Sir Egerton Brydges, p. 197, 198.