_the Bishop of Aleria._ Giovanni Antonio Andrea (Joannes Andreas), 1417-c.
1480, successively bishop of Accia and Aleria, librarian and secretary to
Pope Sixtus IV., and editor of Herodotus, Livy, Lucan, Ovid, Quintilian,
etc.
160. _Dryden_, in the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_. In the _Life of Dryden_
Johnson refers to this passage as a “perpetual model of encomiastic
criticism,” adding that the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all
their emulation of reverence, cannot “boast of much more than of having
diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence.”
_should want a commentary._ Contrast Rowe, Account, _ad init._ In the
editions of 1773 and 1778 Johnson ended the preface with the following
paragraph: “Of what has been performed in this revisal, an account is
given in the following pages by Mr. Steevens, who might have spoken both
of his own diligence and sagacity, in terms of greater self-approbation,
without deviating from modesty or truth.”
Richard Farmer.
_Joseph Cradock_ (1742-1826) had been a student at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge. He left the University without a degree, but in 1765 was
granted the honorary degree of M.A. by the Chancellor, the Duke of
Newcastle. His _Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs_ appeared in 1828.
162. “_Were it shewn_” _says some one._ See the review of Farmer’s _Essay_
in the _Critical Review_ of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50).
163. _Peter Burman_ (1668-1741), Professor at Utrecht and at Leyden;
editor of Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Quintilian, and other Latin classics.
“_Truly_,” _as Mr. Dogberry says._ _Much Ado_, iii. 5. 22.
_Burgersdicius_,—Franco Burgersdijck (1590-1629), Dutch logician,
Professor at Leyden. His _Institutionum logicarum libri duo_ was for long
a standard text-book. Cf. Goldsmith, _Life of Parnell, ad init._: “His
progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but
little splendour; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the
cold logic of Burgersdicius.” See also the _Dunciad_, iv. 198.
_Locke._ This paragraph is a reply to an argument in the _Critical Review_
(xxiii., pp. 47, 48).
_Quotation from Lilly._ See p. 201.
_the Water-poet_, John Taylor (1580-1653); cf. Farmer’s note, p. 212.
The quotation is from _Taylor’s Motto_ (Spenser Society Reprint of Folio
of 1630, p. 217):—
I was well entred (forty Winters since)
As far as _possum_ in my _Accidence_;
And reading but from _possum_ to _posset_,
There I was mir’d, and could no further get.
In his _Thiefe_ he says “all my schollership is schullership” (_id._, p.
282).
164. _held horses at the door of the playhouse._ This anecdote was given
in Theophilus Cibber’s _Lives of the Poets_, 1753, i., p. 130. Johnson
appended it, in his edition, to Rowe’s _Account of Shakespeare_ (ed. 1765,
p. clii), and it was printed in the same year in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ (xxxv., p. 475). The story was told to Pope by Rowe, who got it
from Betterton, who in turn had heard it from Davenant; but Rowe wisely
doubted its authenticity and did not insert it in his _Account_ (see the
Variorum edition of 1803, i., pp. 120-122).—Farmer makes fun of it
here,—and uses it to vary the _Critical_ reviewer’s description—“as naked
with respect to all literary merit as he was when he first went under the
ferula” (_Crit. Rev._ xxiii., p. 50).
_Dodsley_, Robert (1703-1764), publisher and author, declared himself
“Untutored by the love of Greece or Rome” in his blank verse poem
_Agriculture_, 1753, canto ii., line 319. His _Toy-Shop, a Dramatick
Satire,_ was acted and printed in 1735. The quotation is not verbally
accurate; see the _New British Theatre_, 1787, xvii., p. 48.
_A word of exceeding good command._ _2 Henry IV._, iii. 2. 84.