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

[686:B] These pieces, written before 1620, were collected in his Works, folio, 1633, and in his "Remains," 1670. 8vo.

[686:C] Vide Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 109.

[687:A] Warton observes, that "this translation has no other merit than that of being the first appearance of a part of the Iliad in an English dress."—Vol. iii. p. 440.

[687:B] Ritson appears to have confounded these two writers, Sir William, and William Harbert, and classed them as one. The latter speaks of his unripened yeares in 1604.—Vide British Bibliographer, No. IV. p. 300.

[687:C] Beside these Sonnets, amounting to twenty-three, Harvey was the introducer of the miserable attempts to imitate the Latin metres, and boasts in this publication of being the first who exhibited English hexameters.

[687:D] The celebrated sister of Sir Philip Sydney.

[687:E] All that are printed of these, appear in the Paradise of Daintie Devises, of the date annexed. He had previously translated three tragedies from Seneca, and died in 1598.

[688:A] A writer known to greater advantage by his Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, folio, 1635; a work of singular curiosity and much amusement.

[688:B] Higgins termed this the first part, merely in reference to the collection by Baldwin in 1559, which, commencing at a much later period, was afterwards called "the last part." Higgins's publication, in 1575, contains 17 Legends from Albanact to Irenglas; but in 1587 he edited an edition of the Mirrour, including Baldwin's part, and with the addition of 24 Legends of his own composition, which carries forward his department to the death of Caracalla.

[688:C] In the Dedication of this work, the fashionable reading of the times is thus reprobated:—"Novelties in these days delight dainty eares, and fine filed phrases to fit some fantasy's, that no book except it abound with the one or the other, or both of these, is brooked of them. Some read Gascoyne, some Guevasia, some praise the Palace of Pleasure, and the like, whereon they bestow whole days, yea, some whole months and years, that scarce bestow one minute on the Bible, albeit the work of God."