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207. two children. Susannah, Judith, and Hamnet were all born at Stratford. Judith and Hamnet were twins. Cf. p. 21 and note. "cheers up himself with ends of verse." Butler, Hudibras, i. 3. 1011. Wits, Fits, and Fancies. "By one Anthony Copley, 4to, black letter; it seems to have had many editions: perhaps the last was in 1614. The first piece of this sort that I have met with was printed by T. Berthelet, tho' not mentioned by Ames, called "Tales, and quicke answeres very mery and pleasant to rede.' 4to, no date." (Farmer).

208. Master Page, sit. 2 Henry IV., v. 3. 30.

Heywood. In the To the Reader' prefixed to his Sixt Hundred of Epigrammes (Spenser Society reprint, 1867, p. 198).

Dekker. Vol. iii., p. 281 (ed. 1873).

Water-poet. See the Spenser Society reprint of the folio of 1630,

P. 545.

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209. What you will. Act ii., Sc. 1 (vol. i., p. 224, ed. 1856). Love's Labour Lost, iv. 1. 100. This paragraph was added in the second edition.

Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1. 73.

Heath. Revisal of Shakespear's Text, p. 159. This quotation was added in the second edition.

Heywood. Epigrammes upon prouerbes, 194 (Spenser Soc. reprint, P. 158).

210. Howell, James (1594-1666), Historiographer, author of the Epistolae Ho-Elianae. Proverbs or old sayed Saws and Adages in English or the Saxon Tongue formed an appendix to his Lexicon Tetraglotton (1659-60). The allusion to Howell was added in the second edition.

Philpot, John (1589-1645). See Camden's Remains concerning Britain, 1674, "Much amended, with many rare Antiquities never before Imprinted, by the industry and care of John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and W. D. Gent": 1870 reprint, p. 319.

Grey. Notes on Shakespeare, ii., p. 249.

Romeo. "It is remarked that 'Paris, tho' in one place called Earl, is most commonly stiled the Countie in this play. Shakespeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian Conte to our Count-perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot.'-He certainly did so : Paris is there first stiled a young Earle, and afterward Counte, Countee, and County, according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers, particularly in Fairfax," etc. (Farmer).

Painter, vol. ii. 1567, 25th novel. Arthur Broke's verse rendering, founded on Boaistuau's (or Boisteau's) French version of Bandello,

appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's Originals and Analogues, Part I. (New Shakspere Society, 1875).

Taming of the Shrew. Induction, i. 5.

Hieronymo, iii. 14, 117, 118 (ed. Boas, p. 78); cf. p. 193.

Whalley. Enquiry, p. 48.

Philips,-Edward Phillips (1630-1696), Milton's nephew. See his Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets, 1675, ii. p. 195. Cf. also Winstanley's English Poets, p. 218.

Heywood, in the Apology for Actors, 1612, alluded to above; see Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, 1773, ii., p. 3, and Boas's Works of Kyd, 1901, pp. xiii, civ, and 411. Mr. Boas gives Hawkins the credit of discovering the authorship of The Spanish Tragedy "some time before 1773," but the credit is Farmer's. Hawkins was undoubtedly indebted. to Farmer's Essay.

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211. Henry the fifth, Act iii., Sc. 4. not published by the author. Every writer on Shakespeare hath expressed his astonishment that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his works to the Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print when it was copied by the ear, 'for a double sale would bring on a suspicion of honestie.' Shakespeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the first Folio, and call the previous publications 'stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors.' But this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, thro' convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to, 1599, where he assures us that in a play of his, called the Isle of Dogs, foure acts, without his consent, or the least guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players.' This, however, was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some 'vaine glorious tragedians,' and very plainly at Shakespeare in particular; which will serve for an answer to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: "It was thought a praise to Shakespeare that he scarce ever blotted a line. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This, too, might be thought a praise by some.' But hear

Nash, who was far from praising: 'I leaue all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher, that could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, yeelds many good sentences-hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches.' I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done; and it may be observed that the oldest copy now extant is said to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592 Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied in Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse; and Nash again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Halter-maker, 1596.-Dr. Lodge calls Nash our true English Aretine : and John Taylor, in his Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang, even makes an oath by sweet satyricke Nash his urne.'-He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called The Return from Parnassus” (Farmer). See Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, especially i. 424-5.

211. Hawkins. Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on iv., P. 454. The quotation from Johnson, and the references to Eliot and Du Bartas, were added in the second edition.

Est-il impossible. Henry V., iv. 4. 17.

French Alphabet of De la Mothe. "Lond., 1592, 8vo" (Farmer).

Orthoepia of John Eliot. "Lond., 1593, 4to. Eliot is almost the only witty grammarian that I have had the fortune to meet with. In his Epistle prefatory to the Gentle Doctors of Gaule, he cries out for persecution, very like Jack in that most poignant of all Satires, the Tale of a Tub, ‘I pray you be readie quicklie to cauill at my booke, I beseech you heartily calumniate my doings with speede, I request you humbly controll my method as soone as you may, I earnestly entreat you hisse at my inventions," etc. (Farmer).

Sejanus. See Jonson's 'To the Readers' "Lastly, I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." Jonson is supposed to refer here to Shakespeare.

But what if. Capell's Prolusions, added in the second edition.

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Pierce Penilesse, ed. J. P. Collier (Shakespeare Society, 1842), P. 60.

212. Tarlton, Richard (d. 1588),—Jests, drawn into three parts, ed. Halliwell (Shakespeare Society, 1844), pp. 24, 25: Old English Jest Books, ed. W. C. Hazlitt (1864), pp. 218, 219.

Capell. Cf. pp. 197 and 198. He describes Edward III. on the title page of his Prolusions or Select Pieces of Antient Poetry, 1760, as "thought to be writ by Shakespeare.'

Laneham, Robert, who appears in Scott's Kenilworth. The letter has been reprinted by the Ballad Society (1871), and the New Shakspere Society (1890). Referring to the spelling of the name, Farmer says in a note, "It is indeed of no importance, but I suspect the former to be right, as I find it corrupted afterward to Lanam and Lanum."

Meres. "This author by a pleasant mistake in some sensible Conjectures on Shakespeare, lately printed at Oxford, is quoted by the name of Maister. Perhaps the title-page was imperfect; it runs thus: 'Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury. Being the second part of Wits Commonwealth, By Francis Meres Maister of Artes of both Universities.' I am glad out of gratitude to this man, who hath been of frequent service to me, that I am enabled to perfect Wood's account of him; from the assistance of our Master's very accurate list of graduates (which it would do honour to the university to print at the publick expense) and the kind information of a friend from the register of his parish :-He was originally of Pembroke-Hall, B.A. in 1587, and M.A. 1591. About 1602 he became rector of Wing in Rutland; and died there, 1646, in the 81st year of his age" (Farmer). See Ingleby's Shakspere Allusion-Books or Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays. The reference at the beginning of Farmer's note is to Tyrwhitt's Observations and Conjectures upon some passages of Shakespeare, 1766.

the Giant of Rabelais. See As You Like It, iii. 2. 238, and King Lear, iii. 6. 7, 8.

John Taylor. See note, p. 163. "I have quoted many pieces of John Taylor, but it was impossible to give their original dates. He may be traced as an author for more than half a century. His works were collected in folio, 1630, but many were printed afterward," etc. (Farmer). The reference to Gargantua will be found on p. 160 of the Spenser Society Reprint of the Folio. Taylor refers to Rabelais also in his Dogge of Warre, id., p. 364.

213. Richard the third. "Some inquiry hath been made for the first performers of the capital characters in Shakespeare. We learn that Burbage, the alter Roscius of Camden, was the original Richard, from a passage in the poems of Bishop Corbet; who introduces his host at Bosworth describing the battle:

"But when he would have said King Richard died,
And call'd a horse, a horse, he Burbage cried."

The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for Shakespeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge, and acted at St. John's in our University, some years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original performers.

It is evident from a passage in Camden's Annals that there was an old play likewise on the subject of Richard the Second; but I know not in what language. Sir Gelley Merrick, who was concerned in the harebrained business of the Earl of Essex, and was hanged for it with the ingenious Cuffe in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, 'quod exoletam Tragoediam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis data pecunia agi curasset (Farmer).

213. Remember whom ye are, etc. Richard III., v. 3. 315.

Holingshed. "I cannot take my leave of Holingshed without clearing up a difficulty which hath puzzled his biographers. Nicholson and others have supposed him a clergyman. Tanner goes further and tells us that he was educated at Cambridge and actually took the degree of M.A. in 1544.-Yet it appears by his will, printed by Hearne, that at the end of life he was only a steward, or a servant in some capacity or other, to Thomas Burdett, Esq. of Bromcote, in Warwickshire.-These things Dr. Campbell could not reconcile. The truth is we have no claim to the education of the Chronicler: the M.A. in 1544 was not Raphael, but one Ottiwell Holingshed, who was afterward named by the founder one of the first Fellows of Trinity College" (Farmer).

214. Hig, hag, hog. Merry Wives, iv. 1. 44.

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writers of the time. "Ascham, in the Epistle prefixed to his Toxophilus, 1571, observes of them that Manye Englishe writers, usinge straunge wordes, as Lattine, Frenche, and Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde,'" etc. (Farmer).

all such reading as was never read. Dunciad, i., line 156, first edition (see Introduction, p. xliv.; iv., line 250, edition of 1742).

Natale solum. "This alludes to an intended publication of the Antiquities of the Town of Leicester. The work was just begun at the press, when the writer was called to the principal tuition of a large college, and was obliged to decline the undertaking. The plates, however, and some of the materials have been long ago put into the hands of a gentleman who is every way qualified to make a proper use of them" (Farmer). This gentleman was John Nichols, the printer, whose History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester appeared from 1795 to 1815.

215. primrose path. Hamlet, i. 3. 50; cf. Macbeth, ii. 3. 21. Age cannot wither. Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2. 240.

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