"Ecce reliquiæ et fragmenta Menandri, Epicharmi, Alexidis, reliquiorumque Græcorum Comicorum. Cum toto Aristophane. Et fortasse senties nova veteribus non esse potiora. Nec usquam prudentiores Gnomas invenies, ne apud Theognidem quidem aut Isocratem.
"Placent etiam Comœdiæ quæ non sunt Comœdiæ; et Tragœdiæ quæ non sunt Tragœdiæ: Ut utriusque generis multæ egregiæ apud Homerum, et Virgilium in Heroicis; Frontinum et Polyænum in Strategematis; Stephanum in Apologia Herodoti: Rabelesium in Heroicis Gargantuæ: Sidneium in novissima Arcadiæ: Domenichum in Facetiis. Quomodo antiquorum unus Græcorum dixit:—Delicatissimos esse Pisces quæ non sunt Pisces, et carnes lautissimas quæ non sunt carnes. Da mihi Fabulas non Fabulas, Apologos non Apologos. Et sensi optima Apophthegmata quæ non sunt Apophthegmata: Optima Adagia quæ non Adagia.
"Inutiliter Tragœdias legit qui nescit philosophicas sententias a Tyrannicis distinguere. Alia scholarum doctrina, alia regnorum disciplina. Politico opus est judicio ad distinguendum prudentissimas sententias à reliquis. Nec semper Tyrannus barbarus: nec semper poeta, aut philosophus sapiens: solertis judiciis fuerit, non quis dicat, set quia dicatur respicere, et undique optima seligere."
"Euripidis Jocastæ apud Gascoignum summa ferè Tragœdiarum omnium."
"No finer or pithier Examples than in ye excellent Comedies and Tragedies following, full of sweet and wise discourse. A notable Dictionarie for the Grammer."
"Ut de hac Terentii tralatione sentirem honorificentius; fecit Aldus exquisita editio."
I thought these notes worth transcribing, not only as showing the attention paid by the learned students of this time to the drama, as well ancient as modern, but more especially for the mention made of the Jocasta of George Gascoigne, and the Antigone of Sophocles, translated, as he says, by Watson, Bishop of Worcester, and not by Thomas Watson, as Warton supposed. It may be doubted whether this translation was into English; but Harvey seems to imply that it was acted, as well as the Jocasta. Bishop Watson was celebrated for his dramatic skill, in his Latin tragedy of Absalon, by Roger Ascham, who says,—