[541] Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this French word?
[542] Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were built up by a number of poets.
[543] Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.
[544] Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's Henry VIII. iii, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of Henry VIII.
[545] Scene with Cromwell. See Henry VIII. iii, 2. Thomas Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.
[546] Account of the coronation. See Henry VIII. iv, 1.
[547] Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See Henry VIII. v, 5.
[548] Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.
[549] Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.
[550] Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship of the two greatest Greek poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey; he is said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.