_Pageants._ “Amongst ‘the things which Mayster More wrote in his youth for
his pastime’ prefixed to his _Workes_, 1557, Fol.” (Farmer).
_a very liberal Writer._ See Daniel Webb’s _Remarks on the Beauties of
Poetry_, 1762, pp. 120, 121.
This passage, to “classical standard” (foot of p. 186), was added in the
second edition.
_See, what a grace._ _Hamlet_, iii. 4. 55.
_the words of a better Critick._ Hurd, _Marks of Imitation_, 1757, p. 24.
186. _Testament of Creseide._ “Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but
really written by _Robert Henderson_, or _Henryson_, according to other
authorities” (Farmer). It was never _ascribed_ to Chaucer, not even in
Thynne’s edition.
_Fairy Queen._ “It is observable that _Hyperion_ is used by Spenser with
the same error in quantity” (Farmer).
_Upton._ _Critical Observations_, pp. 230, 231. _Much Ado_, iii. 2. 11.
_Theophilus Cibber_ (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the title page
of the _Lives of the Poets_ (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work
of Robert Shiels (died 1753); see Johnson’s _Life of Hammond, ad init._,
and Boswell, ed. Birkbeck Hill, iii. 29-31. For the reference to the
_Arcadia_, see “Cibber’s” _Lives_, i. 83.
_Ames_, Joseph (1689-1759), author of _Typographical Antiquities_, 1749.
187. _Lydgate._ Farmer has a long note here on the versification of
Lydgate and Chaucer. “Let me here,” he says, “make an observation for the
benefit of the next editor of Chaucer. Mr. Urry, probably misled by his
predecessor Speght, was determined, Procrustes-like, to force every line
in the _Canterbury Tales_ to the same standard; but a precise number of
syllables was not the object of our old poets,” etc.
_Hurd._ This quotation, which Farmer added in the second edition, is from
Hurd’s Notes to Horace’s _Epistolae ad Pisones et Augustum_, 1757, vol.
i., p. 214. Cf. also his _Discourse on Poetical Imitation_, pp. 125 and
132, and the _Marks of Imitation_, p. 74. The passage in which the “one
imitation is fastened on our Poet” occurs in the _Marks of Imitation_, pp.
19, 20. Cf. note on p. 170.