PART III

“ROUND ABOUT”

What’s here? A scroll; and written round about?

Let’s see.

_Titus Andronicus_, IV. ii. 19.

* * * * *

With his steerage shall your thoughts grow on.

_Pericles_, IV. iv. 19.

* * * * *

_Falstaff._ Of what quality was your love, then?

_Ford._ Like a fair house built on another man’s ground.

_Merry Wives_, II. ii. 223.

“ROUND ABOUT”

MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, 1664

(1624?-1674)

Remember, when we were very young maids, one day we were discoursing

about lovers, and we did enjoin each other to confess who professed to

love us, and whom we loved, and I confessed I was in love with three

dead men, which were dead long before my time, the one was Cæsar, for

his valour, the second Ovid, for his wit, and the third our countryman

Shakespeare, for his comical and tragical humour; but soon after we

both married two worthy men, and I will leave you to your own husband,

for you best know what he is. As for my husband, I know him to have

the valour of Cæsar, the fancy and wit of Ovid, and the tragical,

especially comical art of Shakespeare, in truth, he is as far beyond

Shakespeare for comical humour, as Shakespeare is beyond an ordinary

poet in that way.

Letter CLXII. _CCXI Sociable Letters written by the

Lady Marchioness of Newcastle_, 1664. Letters

CXXIII. and CLXII.

JOSEPH ADDISON, 1711

(1672-1719)

Some years ago I was at the tragedy of “Macbeth,” and unfortunately

placed myself under a woman of quality, that is since dead; who, as I

found by the noise she made, was newly returned from France. A little

before the rising of the curtain, she broke out into a loud soliloquy,

“When will the dear witches enter?” and immediately upon their first

appearance, asked a lady that sat three boxes from her, on her right

hand, if those witches were not charming creatures. A little later, as

Betterton was in one of the finest speeches of the play, she shook her

fan at another lady, who sat as far on her left hand, and told her in

a whisper that might be heard all over the pit, “We must not expect to

see Balloon to-night.” Not long after, calling out to a young baronet

by his name, who sat three seats before me, she asked him whether

Macbeth’s wife was still alive; and before he could give an answer,

fell a-talking of the ghost of Banquo. She had by this time formed a

little audience to herself, and fixed the attention of all about her.

But as I had a mind to hear the play, I got out of the sphere of her

impertinence, and planted myself in one of the remotest corners of the

pit.

_The Spectator_, No. 45, 21 April 1711.

HENRY FIELDING, 1743

(1707-1754)

I then observed Shakespeare standing between Betterton and Booth, and

deciding a difference between these two great actors concerning the

placing an accent in one of his lines: this was disputed on both sides

with a warmth which surprised me in Elysium, till I discovered by

intuition that every soul retained its principal characteristic, being,

indeed, its very essence. The line was that celebrated one in _Othello_—

Put out the light, and then put out the light,

according to Betterton. Mr. Booth contended to have it thus:—

Put out the light, and then put out _the_ light.

I could not help offering my conjecture on this occasion, and suggested

it might perhaps be—

Put out the light, and then put out _thy_ light.

Another hinted a reading very sophisticated in my opinion—

Put out the light, and then put out _thee_, light.

Making light to be the vocative case. Another would have altered the

last word, and read—

Put out thy light, and then put out thy _sight_.

But Betterton said, if the text was to be disturbed, he saw no reason

why a word might not be changed as well as a letter, and instead of

“put out thy light,” you may read “put out thy eyes.” At last it was

agreed on all sides to refer the matter to the decision of Shakespeare

himself, who delivered his sentiments as follows: “Faith, gentlemen,

it is so long since I wrote the line, I have forgot my meaning. This I

know, could I have dreamt so much nonsense would have been talked and

writ about it, I would have blotted it out of my works; for I am sure,

if any of these be my meaning, it doth me very little honour.”

He was then interrogated concerning some other ambiguous passages

in his works; but he declined any satisfactory answer; saying, if

Mr. Theobald had not writ about it sufficiently, there were three or

four more new editions of his plays coming out, which he hoped would

satisfy every one: concluding, “I marvel nothing so much as that men

will gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author.

Certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest

and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in

the least balance our judgments which to prefer, I hold it matter of

unquestionable certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing.”

From his works our conversation turned on his monument; upon which

Shakespeare, shaking his sides, and addressing himself to Milton, cried

out, “On my word, brother Milton, they have brought a noble set of

poets together; they would have been hanged erst have convened such a

company at their tables when alive.” “True, brother,” answered Milton,

“unless we had been as incapable of eating then as we are now.”

“A Journey from this World to the Next,”

Chapter viii. _Miscellanies_, 1743.

THOMAS EDWARDS, 1747

(1699-1757)

CANON I. A Professed Critic has a right to declare that his Author

wrote whatever He thinks he ought to have written, with as much

positiveness as if he had been at his elbow.

CANON II. He has a right to alter any passage which He does not

understand.

CANON III. These alterations He may make in spite of the exactness of

measure.

CANON IV. Where He does not like an expression, and yet cannot mend it,

He may abuse his Author for it.

CANON V. Or He may condemn it as a foolish interpolation.

CANON VI. As every Author is to be corrected into all possible

perfection, the Professed Critic is the sole judge; He may alter any

word or phrase, which does not want amendment, or which _will do_,

provided He can think of anything which He imagines _will do better_.

CANON VII. He may find out obsolete words, or coin new ones, and put

them in the place of such as He does not like, or does not understand.

CANON VIII. He may prove a reading or support an explanation by any

sort of reasons, no matter whether good or bad.

CANON IX. He may interpret his Author so as to make him mean directly

contrary to what he says.

CANON X. He should not allow any poetical licences, which He does not

understand.

CANON XI. He may make foolish amendments or explanations, and refute

them, only to enhance the value of his critical skill.

CANON XII. He may find out a bawdy or immoral meaning in his Author

where there does not appear to be any hint that way.

CANON XIII. He need not attend to the low accuracy of orthography, or

pointing; but may ridicule such trivial criticisms in others.

CANON XIV. Yet, when He pleases to condescend to such work, He may

value himself upon it; and not only restore lost puns, but point out

such quaintnesses where, perhaps, the Author never thought of them.

CANON XV. He may explain a difficult passage by words absolutely

unintelligible.

CANON XVI. He may contradict himself for the sake of showing his

critical skill on both sides of the question.

CANON XVII. It will be necessary for the Professed Critic to have by

him a good number of pedantic and abusive expressions, to throw about

upon proper occasions.

CANON XVIII. He may explain his Author, or any former Editor of him, by

supplying such words, or pieces of words, or marks, as He thinks fit

for that purpose.

CANON XIX. He may use the very same reasons for confirming his own

observations, which he has disallowed in his adversary.

CANON XX. As the design of writing notes is not so much to explain

the Author’s meaning as to display the Critic’s knowledge, it may be

proper, to show his universal learning, that He minutely point out from

whence every metaphor and allusion is taken.

CANON XXI. It will be proper, in order to show his wit, especially if

the Critic be a married man, to take every opportunity of sneering at

the fair sex.

CANON XXII. He may mis-quote himself, or anybody else, in order to make

an occasion of writing notes, when he cannot otherwise find one.

CANON XXIII. The Professed Critic, in order to furnish his quota to the

bookseller, may write notes of nothing; that is to say, notes which

either explain things which do not want explanation, or such as do not

explain matters at all, but merely fill up so much paper.

CANON XXIV. He may dispense with truth, in order to give the world a

higher idea of his parts, or the value of his work.

_The Canons of Criticism_, first published as a

_Supplement to Mr. Warburton’s Edition of

Shakespear. Collected from Notes in that

Celebrated Work, and proper to be bound up

with it._ By the OTHER GENTLEMAN of

_Lincoln’s_ Inn.

Warburton’s edition also elicited _An Attempte to Rescue that

Auncient English Poet and Play-Wrighte, Maister Willaume

Shakespere, from the many Errores faulsely charged on him

by Certaine New-fangled Wittes, by a Gentleman formerly of

Greys-Inn_. 1749. This small treatise dealt with _The Tempest_

in a spirit of genuine zeal, but with less controversial

ability than was displayed by the “Other Gentleman.”

MARK AKENSIDE, 1749

(1721-1770)

“_The Remonstrance of Shakespeare: supposed to have been spoken at the

Theatre Royal, while the French comedians were acting by subscription._

1749.”

If, yet regardful of your native land,

Old Shakespeare’s tongue you deign to understand,

Lo, from the blissful bowers where Heaven rewards

Instructive sages and unblemish’d bards,

I come, the ancient founder of the stage,

Intent to learn, in this discerning age,

What form of wit your fancies have embrac’d,

And whither tends your elegance of taste,

That thus at length our homely toils you spurn,

That thus to foreign scenes you proudly turn,

That from my brow the laurel wreath you claim

To crown the rivals of your country’s fame.

What though the footsteps of my devious Muse

The measur’d walks of Grecian art refuse?

Or though the frankness of my hardy style

Mock the nice touches of the critic’s file?

Yet, what my age and climate held to view,

Impartial I survey’d, and fearless drew.

And say, ye skilful in the human heart,

Who know to prize a poet’s noblest part,

What age, what clime, could e’er an ampler field

For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield?

I saw this England break the shameful bands

Forg’d for the souls of men by sacred hands:

I saw each groaning realm her aid implore;

Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore;

Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard’s bane)

Obey’d through all the circuit of the main.

Then too great Commerce, for a late-found world,

Against your coast her eager sails unfurl’d:

New hopes, new passions, thence to bosom fir’d;

New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspir’d;

Thence every scene, which private fortune knows,

In stronger life, with bolder spirit, rose.

Disgrac’d I this full prospect which I drew?

My colours languid, or my strokes untrue?

Have not your sages, warriors, swains, and kings

Confess’d the living draught of men and things?

What other bard in any clime appears

Alike the master of your smiles and tears?

Yet have I deigned your audience to entice

With wretched bribes to luxury and vice?

Or have my various scenes a purpose known

Which freedom, virtue, glory, might not own?

Such from the first was my dramatic plan,

It should be yours to crown what I began:

And now that England spurns her Gothic chain,

And equal laws and social science reign,

I thought, Now surely shall my zealous eyes

View nobler bards and juster critics rise,

Intent with learned labour to refine

The copious ore of Albion’s native mine,

Our stately Muse more graceful airs to teach,

And form her tongue to more attractive speech,

Till rival nations listen at her feet,

And own her polish’d as they own’d her great.

But do you thus my favourite hopes fulfil?

Is France at last the standard of your skill?

Alas for you! that so betray a mind

Of art unconscious and to beauty blind.

Say; does her language your ambition raise,

Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase,

Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds,

And maims the cadence of poetic sounds?

Say; does your humble admiration choose

The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse,

While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear,

Charg’d to say nought but what the king may hear?

Or rather melt your sympathising hearts,

Won by her tragic scene’s romantic arts,

Where old and young declaim on soft desire,

And heroes never, but for love, expire?

No. Though the charms of novelty, awhile,

Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless smile,

Yet not for you design’d indulgent fate

The modes or manners of the Bourbon state.

And ill your minds my partial judgment reads,

And many an augury my soul misleads,

If the fair maids of yonder blooming train

To their light courtship would an audience deign,

Or those chaste matrons a Parisian wife

Choose for the model of domestic life;

Or if one youth of all that generous band,

The strength and splendour of their native land,

Would yield his portion of his country’s fame,

And quit old freedom’s patrimonial claim,

With lying smiles oppressions pomp to see,

And judge of glory by a king’s decree.

O blest at home with justly-envied laws,

O long the chiefs of Europe’s general cause,

Whom Heaven hath chosen at each dangerous hour

To check the inroads of barbaric power,

The rights of trampled nations to reclaim,

And guard the social world from bonds and shame;

Oh, let not luxury’s fantastic charms

Thus give the lie to your heroic arms:

Nor for the ornaments of life embrace

Dishonest lessons from that vaunting race,

Whom fate’s dread laws (for, in eternal fate

Despotic rule was heir to freedom’s hate,)

Whom in each warlike, each commercial part,

In civil counsel, and in pleasing art,

The judge of earth predestin’d for your foes,

And made it fame and virtue to oppose.

_Odes on Several Subjects._ Book II., ode i.

_Poetical Works._ Aldine edition, 1835,

p. 199.

ROBERT LLOYD, 1751

(1733-1764)

There stood an ancient mount, yclept Parnass,

(The fair domain of sacred poesy,)

Which, with fresh odours ever-blooming, was

Besprinkled with the dew of Castaly;

Which now in soothing murmurs whisp’ring glides

Wat’ring with genial waves the fragrant soil,

Now rolls adown the mountain’s steepy sides,

Teaching the vales full beauteously to smile,

Dame Nature’s handiwork, not form’d by lab’ring toil.

The Muses fair, these peaceful shades among,

With skilful fingers sweep the trembling strings;

The air in silence listens to the song,

And Time forgets to ply his lazy wings;

Pale-visag’d Care, with foul unhallow’d feet,

Attempts the summit of the hill to gain,

Ne can the hag arrive the blissful seat,

Her unavailing strength is spent in vain,

Content sits on the top, and mocks her empty pain.

Oft Phœbus’ self left his divine abode,

And here enshrouded in a shady bow’r,

Regardless of his state, laid by the god,

And own’d sweet music’s more alluring pow’r.

On either side was plac’d a peerless wight,

Whose merit long had fill’d the trump of Fame;

This, Fancy’s darling child, was Spenser hight,

Who pip’d full pleasing on the banks of Tame;

That, no less fam’d than he, and Milton was his name.

. . . . . . .

Next Shakespeare sat, irregularly great,

And in his hand a magic rod did hold,

Which visionary beings did create,

And burn the foulest dross to purest gold:

Whatever spirits rose in earth or air,

Or bad or good, obey his dread command;

To his behests these willingly repair,

Those aw’d by terrors of his magic wand,

The which not all their pow’rs united might withstand.

Beside the bard there stood a beauteous maid,

Whose glittering appearance dimm’d the eyen;

Her thin-wrought vesture various tints display’d,

Fancy her name, ysprong of race divine;

Her mantle wimpled low, her silken hair,

Which loose adown her well-turn’d shoulders stray’d,

She made a net to catch the wanton air,

Whose love-sick breezes all around her play’d,

And seem’d in whispers soft to court the heav’nly maid.

And ever and anon she wav’d in air

A sceptre, fraught with all-creative pow’r:

She wav’d it round: eftsoons there did appear

Spirits and witches, forms unknown before:

Again she lifts her wonder-working wand;

Eftsoons upon the flow’ry plain were seen

The gay inhabitants of Fairy-Land,

And blithe attendants upon Mab their queen

In mystic circles danc’d along th’ enchanted green.

On th’ other side stood Nature, goddess fair;

A matron seem’d she, and of manners staid;

Beauteous her form, majestic was her air,

In loose attire of purest white array’d:

A potent rod she bore, whose pow’r was such

(As from her darling’s works may well be shown,)

That often with its soul-enchanting touch,

She rais’d or joy or caus’d the deep-felt groan,

And each man’s passions made subservient to her own.

_The Progress of Envy_, 1751, Stanzas 2-4 and 7-10.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1765

(1728-1774)

The character of old Falstaff, even with all his faults, gives me more

consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an

agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing me the way to be

young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not so

comical, as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit,

at least as much vivacity?—Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone!—I

give you to the winds. Let’s have t’other bottle: here’s to the memory

of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap.

Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the

Boar’s-head tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire,

in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the

very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes

polluted by his immoral merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the

follies of youth; wished to be young again; but was resolved to make

the best of life while it lasted, and now and then compared past and

present times together.

“A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap.”

_Collected Essays_, 1765.

GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON, 1765

(1709-1773)

“_Boileau—Pope._”

BOILEAU

. . . The office of an _editor_ was below you, and your mind was unfit

for the drudgery it requires. Would anybody think of employing a

Raphael to clean an old picture?

POPE

The principal cause of my undertaking that task was zeal for the honour

of Shakespeare: and if you knew all his beauties as well as I, you

would not wonder at this zeal. No other author had ever so copious,

so bold, so _creative_ an imagination, with so perfect a knowledge of

the passions, the humours, and sentiments of mankind. He painted all

characters, from kings down to peasants, with equal truth and equal

force. If human nature were destroyed, and no monument were left of it

except his works, other beings might know _what man was_ from those

writings.

BOILEAU

You say he painted all characters, from kings down to peasants, with

equal truth and equal force. I cannot deny that he did so; but I wish

he had not jumbled those characters together, in the composition of his

pictures, as he has frequently done.

POPE

The strange mixture of tragedy, comedy, and farce in the same

play, nay, sometimes in the same scene, I acknowledge to be quite

inexcusable. But this was the taste of the times when Shakespeare wrote.

BOILEAU

A great genius ought to guide, not servilely follow, the taste of his

contemporaries.

POPE

Consider from how thick a darkness of barbarism the genius of

Shakespeare broke forth! What were the English, and what (let me

ask you) were the French dramatic performances, in the age when he

flourished? The advances he made towards the highest perfection both of

tragedy and comedy are amazing! In the principal points, in the power

of exciting terror and pity, or raising laughter in an audience, none

yet has excelled him, and very few have equalled.

BOILEAU

Do you think he was equal in comedy to Moliere?

POPE

In _comic force_ I do: but in the fine and delicate strokes of satire,

and what is called _genteel comedy_, he was greatly inferior to

that admirable writer. There is nothing in him to compare with the

_Misanthrope_, the _Ecole des Femmes_, or _Tartuffe_.

BOILEAU

This, Mr. Pope, is a great deal for an Englishman to acknowledge.

A veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of your national

religion, and the only part in which even your men of sense are

fanatics.

POPE

He who can read Shakespeare, and be cool enough for all the accuracy of

sober criticism, has more of reason than taste.

BOILEAU

I join with you in admiring him as a prodigy of genius, though I find

the most shocking absurdities in his plays; absurdities which no critic

of my nation can pardon.

POPE

We will be satisfied with your feeling the excellence of his beauties.

_Dialogues of the Dead_, xiv., 4th edition, 1765.

XIV. _Boileau—Pope_, pp. 125-128.

Three editions of _Dialogues of the Dead_ were published

in 1760. Practically the whole of the passage quoted above

appeared for the first time in the fourth edition in 1765.

LAURENCE STERNE, 1768

(1713-1768)

“_The Passport—Versailles._”

I could not conceive why the Count de B * * * had gone so abruptly

out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the

Shakespeare into his pocket—_Mysteries which must explain themselves,

are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes

up_: it was better to read Shakespeare; so, taking up _Much Ado about

Nothing_, I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to

Messina in Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro and Benedick and

Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the Passport.

Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself

to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their wearied

moments!—long, long since had you numbered out my days, had I not trod

so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground: when my way is too

rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some

smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of

delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened

and refreshed—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat

from them in this world, then I take a new course—I leave it—and as I

have a clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I

force myself, like Æneas, into them—I see him meet the pensive shade

of his forsaken Dido—and wish to recognise it—I see the injured spirit

wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her miseries

and dishonours—I lose the feelings for myself in hers—and in those

affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at

school.

_Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow—nor does man disquiet

himself_ in vain _by it_—he oftener does so in trusting the issue of

his commotions to reason only—I can safely say for myself, I was never

able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively,

as by beating up as fast as I could some kindly and gentle sensation,

to fight it upon its own ground.

When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de B * * *

entered with my passport in his hand. M. Le Duc de C * * *, said the

Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman—_Un homme

qui rit_, said the Duke, _ne sera jamais dangereux_. Had it been for

any one but the King’s jester, added the Count, I could not have got

it these two hours—_Pardonnez moi_, M. Le Compte, said I—I am not the

King’s jester—But you are Yorick?—Yes—_Et vous plaisantez?_—I answered,

Indeed I did jest—but was not paid for it—it was entirely at my own

expense.

We have no jester at court, M. Le Compte, said I—the last we had was

in the licentious reign of Charles II.—since which time our

manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is

so full of patriots, who wish for _nothing_ but the honours and wealth

of their country—and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so

good, so devout—there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of—

_Voila un persiflage!_ cried the Count.

_Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and

Italy_, etc., 1768, vol. ii.

ANONYMOUS, 1769

“_The Dramatic Race. A Catch. By a Lover of the Turf._”

Clear, clear the course—make room—make room, I say!

Now they are off, and _Jonson_ makes the play.

I’ll bet the odds—done, sir, with you, and you;

SHAKESPEARE keeps near him—and he’ll win it too:

Here’s even money—done for a hundred, done—

Now, _Jonson!_ now or never—he has won.

I’ll take my oath, that SHAKESPEARE won the prize,—

Damme! whoever says he lost it, lies.

_Shakespeare’s Garland. Being a Collection of New

Songs, Ballads, Roundelays, Catches, Glees,

Comic Serenatas, etc., performed at the

Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon_, 1769, p. 16.

ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, 1769

(_d._ 1812?)

“_Queen Mab. A Cantata._”

RECITATIVE

Not long ago, ’tis said, a proclamation

Was sent abroad through all the Fairy nation;

Mab to her loving subjects—A decree,

At Shakespeare’s tomb to hold a Jubilee.

ACCOMPANIED

The night was come, and now on Avon’s side

The pigmy race was seen,

Attended by their queen,

On chafers some, and some on crickets ride.

The queen appear’d from far,

Mounted in a nut-shell car;

Six painted lady-birds the carriage drew:

And now the cavalcade,

In order due array’d,

March’d first

Where erst

The sacred Mulb’ry grew,

And there their homage paid.

Next they sought the holy ground,

And while

A thousand glow-worm torches glimmer’d round;

Thus Good Fellow, the herald of his fame,

Did from the alabaster height proclaim

The poet’s titles and his style.

AIR

SHAKESPEARE, heaven’s most favour’d creature,

Truest copier of Nature,

First of the Parnassian train;

Chiefest fav’rite of the Muses,

Which soe’er the poet chooses,

Blest alike in ev’ry strain.

Life’s great censor, and inspector,

Fancy’s treasurer, wit’s director,

Artless, to the shame of art;

Master of the various passions,

Leader of all inclinations,

Sov’reign of the human heart.

RECITATIVE

Then did the queen an acorn take,

Fill’d with morn and ev’ning dew,

Brush’d from ev’ry fragrant brake

That round the lawns of Stratford grew.

ACCOMPANIED

“And thus,” said she, “libation do I make

To our friend and father’s shade:

’Twas Shakespeare that the Fairies made;

And men shall give us honour for his sake.”

AIR

O happy bard, whose potent skill

Can give existence where it will!

Let giant wisdom strive to chase

From man’s belief the Fairy race;

Religion stern our pow’r reject,

Philosophy our tales neglect,

Only trusting what ’tis seeing;

Combat us howe’er they list,

In thy scenes we shall exist,

Sure as if Nature gave us being.

_Shakespeare’s Garland. Being a Collection of New

Songs, Ballads, Roundelays, Catches, Glees,

Comic Serenatas, etc., performed at the

Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon_, 1769, p. 21.

This piece was set to music by Dibdin.

ANONYMOUS, 1778

“_Shakespeare’s Bedside, or his Doctors enumerated._”

Old Shakespeare was sick;—for a doctor he sent;—

But ’twas long before any one came:

Yet at length his assistance Nic Rowe did present,

Sure all men have heard of his name.

As he found that the Poet had tumbled his bed,

He smooth’d it as well as he could;

He gave him an anodyne, comb’d out his head,

But did his complaint little good.

Doctor Pope to incision at once did proceed,

And the Bard for the simples he cut;

For his regular practice was always to bleed,

Ere the fees in his pocket he put.

Next Theobald advanc’d, who at best was a quack,

And dealt but in old women’s stuff;

Yet he caus’d the Physician of Twick’nam to pack,

And the patient grew cheerful enough.

Next Hanmer, who fees ne’er descended to crave,

In gloves lily-white did advance;

To the Poet the gentlest of purges he gave,

And, for exercise, taught him to dance.

One Warburton then, though allied to the Church,

Produc’d his alternative stores;

But his med’cines the case so oft left in the lurch,

That Edwards kick’d him out of doors.

Next Johnson arriv’d to the patient’s relief,

And ten years he had him in hand;

But, tir’d of his task, ’tis the general belief,

He left him before he could stand.

Now Capell drew near,—not a Quaker more prim,—

And numbered each hair on his pate;

By styptics, call’d stops, he contracted each limb,

And crippled for ever his gait.

From Gopsall then strutted a formal old goose,

And he’d cure him by inches, he swore;

But when the poor Poet had taken one dose,

He vow’d he would swallow no more.

But Johnson, determin’d to save him, or kill,

A second prescription display’d;

And, that none might find fault with his drop or his pill,

Fresh doctors he call’d to his aid.

First Steevens came loaded with black-letter books,

Of fame more desirous than pelf;

Such reading, observers might read in his looks,

As no one e’er read but himself.

Then Warner, by Plautus and Glossary known,

And Hawkins, historian of sound;

Then Warton and Collins together came on,

For Greek and Potatoes renown’d.

With songs on his pontificalibus pinn’d,

Next Percy the great did appear;

And Farmer, who twice in a pamphlet had sinn’d,

Brought up his empirical rear.

“The cooks the more numerous, the worse is the broth,”

Says a proverb I well can believe;

And yet to condemn them untried I am loth,

So at present shall laugh in my sleeve.

_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1787, vol. lvii. ii. 912.

_Muses’ Mirror_, 1778, i. 90.

“Edwards,”—the author of _Canons of Criticism_, see p. 281.

“Capell ... numbered each hair on his pate,”—Edward Capell (see

p. 107), of whom Dr. Johnson remarked that his abilities “were

just sufficient to enable him to select the black hairs from

the white for the use of periwig makers.” He gave most of his

attention to the production of an accurate text, based on a

careful collation of the old copies, and he did his work very

thoroughly.

“From Gopsall ... a formal old goose,”—Charles Jennens

(1700-1773), who printed some of Shakespeare’s tragedies,

and brought upon himself the unmerciful ridicule of George

Steevens. He lived at Gopsall in Leicestershire.

“Warner,”—Richard Warner (1713?-1775), the botanist and

classical scholar. He made extensive collections for an edition

and for a glossary of Shakespeare. Neither was published.

“Hawkins,”—Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789), who published _The

General History of the Science and Practice of Music_, 1776.

“Warton and Collins,”—Joseph Warton (1722-1800) and William

Collins (1721-1759) were school-fellows at Winchester, and

life-long friends.

“Percy,”—Bishop Percy of _Percy’s Reliques_.

“Farmer,”—Richard Farmer (1735-1797), author of the _Essay on

the Learning of Shakespeare_, 1767.

HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD, 1788

(1717-1797)

My histrionic acquaintance spreads. I supped at Lady Dorothy Hotham’s

with Mrs. Siddons, have visited and been visited by her, and have

seen and liked her much, yes, very much, in the passionate scenes in

“Percy”; but I do not admire her in cool declamation, and find her

voice very hollow and defective. I asked her in which part she would

most wish me to see her? She named Portia in the “Merchant of Venice”;

but I begged to be excused. With all my enthusiasm for Shakespeare, it

is one of his plays that I like the least. The story of the caskets is

silly, and, except the character of Shylock, I see nothing beyond the

attainment of a mortal; Euripides, or Racine, or Voltaire might have

written all the rest.

Letter to the Countess of Ossory, 15 Jan. 1788.

_Letters_, ed. Peter Cunningham, 1859, vol.

ix. p. 124.

PAUL WHITEHEAD, 1790

(1710-1774)

While here to Shakespeare Garrick pays

His tributary thanks and praise;

Invokes the animated stone,

To make the poet’s mind his own;

That he each character may trace

With humour, dignity, and grace;

And mark, unerring mark, to men,

The rich creation of his pen:

Preferr’d the prayer—the marble god

Methinks I see, assenting, nod,

And, pointing to his laurell’d brow,

Cry—“Half this wreath to you I owe:

Lost to the stage, and lost to fame;

Murder’d my scenes, scarce known my name;

Sunk in oblivion and disgrace

Among the common scribbling race,

Unnotic’d long thy Shakespeare lay,

To dulness and to time a prey:

But now I rise, I breathe, I live

In you—my representative!

Again the hero’s breast I fire,

Again the tender sigh inspire;

Each side, again, with laughter shake,

And teach the villain-heart to quake;

All this, my son! again I do—

I?—No, my son!—’Tis I, and you.”

While thus the grateful statue speaks,

A blush o’erspreads the suppliant’s cheeks—

“What!—Half this wreath, wit’s mighty chief?—

O grant,” he cries, “one single leaf;

That far o’erpays his humble merit,

Who’s but the organ of thy spirit.”

Phoebus the generous contest heard—

When thus the god address’d the bard:

“Here, take this laurel from my brow,

On him your mortal wreath bestow;—

Each matchless, each the palm shall bear,

In heav’n the bard, on earth the play’r.”

“Verses dropped in Mr. Garrick’s Temple of

Shakespeare.” _Poems and Miscellaneous

Compositions_, 1790.

Garrick had in his garden at Hampton a temple dedicated to

Shakespeare, containing a statue of the poet by Roubiliac.

WILLIAM COMBE, 1812

(1741-1823)

“_Dr. Syntax in the Pit of Covent Garden Theatre._”

CRITIC.—

“Oh, what a _Falstaff_! Oh, how fine!

Oh, ’tis great acting—’tis divine!”

SYNTAX.—

“His acting’s great—that I can tell ye;

For all the acting’s in his belly.”

CRITIC.—

“But, with due def’rence to your joke,

A truer word I never spoke

Than when I say—you’ve never been

The witness of a finer scene.

Th’ admir’d actor whom you see

Plays the fat knight most charmingly:

’Tis in this part he doth excel;

_Quin_ never played it half so well.”

SYNTAX.—

“You ne’er saw Quin the stage adorn:

He acted ere your sire was born,

And critics, sir, who liv’d before you,

Would have disclos’d a different story.

This play I’ve better acted seen

In country towns where I have been.

I do not hesitate to say—

I’d rather read this very play

By my own parlour fireside,

With my poor judgment for my guide,

Than see the actors of this stage,

Who make me gape at Shakespeare’s page.

When I read Falstaff to myself,

I laugh like any merry elf;

While my mind feels a cheering glow

That Shakespeare only can bestow.

The swaggering words in his defence,

Which scarce are wit and yet are sense;

The ribald jest—the quick conceit—

The boast of many a braggart feat;

The half-grave questions and replies

In his high-wrought soliloquies;

The dubious thought—the pleasant prate,

Which give no time to love or hate,

In such succession do they flow,

From no to yea—from yea to no,

Have not been to my mind convey’d

By this pretender to his trade.

The smile sarcastic, and the leer

That tells the laughing mock’ry near;

The warning look, that ere ’tis spoke

Aptly forbodes the coming joke;

The air so solemn, yet so sly,

Shap’d to conceal the ready lie;

The eyes, with some shrewd meaning bright,

I surely have not seen to-night:

Again, I must beg leave to tell ye,

’Tis nought of Falstaff but his belly.”

CRITIC.—

“All this is fine—and may be true;

But with such truths I’ve nought to do.

I’m sure, sir, I shall say aright,

When I report the great delight

Th’ enraptur’d audience feel to-night;

It is indeed, with no small sorrow,

I cannot your opinions borrow

To fill the columns of to-morrow.

My light critique will be preferr’d,

The public always takes my word;

Nay, the loud plaudits heard around

Must all your far-fetch’d thoughts confound:

I truly wonder when I see

You do not laugh as well as me.”

SYNTAX.—

“My muscles other ways are drawn:

I cannot laugh, sir,—while I yawn.”

CRITIC.—

“But you will own the scenes are fine?”

SYNTAX.—

“Whate’er the acting, they’re divine,

And fit for any pantomime.

Of this it is that I complain;

These are the tricks which I disdain:

The painter’s art the play commends;

On gaudy show success depends:

The clothes are made in just design;

They are well character’d and fine.

The actors now, I think, Heav’n bless ’em,

Must learn their art from those who dress ’em;

But give me actors, give me plays,

On which I could with rapture gaze,

Tho’ coats and scenes were made of baise:

For if the scene were highly wrought;

If actors acted as they ought;

You would not then be pleased to see

This heavy mass of frippery.

Hear Horace, sir, who wrote of plays

In Ancient Rome’s Augustan days:—

‘_Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur, et artes,

Divitiæque peregrinæ: quibus oblitus actor

Cum stetit in scena, concurrit dextera lævæ.

Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo?

Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno._’”

CRITIC.—

“Your pardon, sir, but all around me

There are such noises they confound me:

And though I full attention paid,

I scarcely know a word you said.

To say the truth, I must acknowledge

’Tis long since I have quitted college:

Virgil and Horace are my friends,

I have them at my fingers’ ends.

But Grecian lore, I blush to own,

Is wholly to my mind unknown.

I therefore must your meaning seek:

Oblige me, sir, translate your Greek.

But see, the farce is now begun,

And you must listen to the fun,

It sure has robb’d you of your bile;

For now, methinks, you deign to smile.”

SYNTAX.—

“The thing is droll, and aptly bent

To raise a vulgar merriment:

But Merry-Andrews, seen as such,

Have often made me laugh as much.

An actor does but play the fool

When he forsakes old Shakespeare’s rule,

And lets his own foul nonsense out,

To please th’ ill-judging rabble rout:

But when he _swears_, to furnish laughter,

The beadle’s whip should follow after.”

_The Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque._

1812, Canto XXIV. ll. 173 _sq._

_Tanto cum strepitu_, etc., Horace, _Epistles_, II. i.

203-7.

CHARLES LAMB, 1826.

(1775-1834)

Your fair critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman who assured me

that he did not see much in Shakespeare. I replied, I dare say _not_.

He felt the equivoke, lookd awkward, and reddish, but soon returnd to

the attack, by saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakespeare:

I said that I had no doubt he was—to a _Scotchman_. We exchangd no more

words that day.

Letter to J. B. Dibdin, June 30, 1826. _Works of

Charles and Mary Lamb._ Ed. E. V. Lucas.

1903-4. Vol. vii.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 1845

(1804-1864)

The human race had now reached a stage of progress so far beyond what

the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever dreamed of, that

it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the earth to be any

longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the literary line.

Accordingly, a thorough and searching investigation had swept the

booksellers’ shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private libraries, and

even the little bookshelf by the country fireside, and had brought the

world’s entire mass of printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell

the already mountain-bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy

folios, containing the labours of lexicographers, commentators, and

encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling among the embers with a

leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes, like rotten wood. The small,

richly-gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of

Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles, and

little jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation

burnt red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of

the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of parti-coloured

fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of brimstone.

The English standard authors made excellent fuel, generally exhibiting

the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s works, in particular, sent

up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal, which promised

to endure longer than almost any other material of the pile. From

Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendour, that men

shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor even when

the works of his own elucidators were flung upon him, did he cease to

flash forth a dazzling radiance beneath the ponderous heap. It is my

belief that he is still blazing as fervidly as ever.

“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he

might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.”

“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do,

or at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be

expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is,

that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps at the

sun or stars.”

_Mosses from an Old Manse_: “Earth’s Holocaust,”

ii. 146-7.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 1846

(1775-1864)

“_Shakespeare and Bacon._”

SOUTHEY.—In so wide and untrodden a creation as that of

Shakespeare’s, can we wonder or complain that sometimes we are

bewildered and entangled in the exuberance of fertility? Dry-brained

men upon the continent, the trifling wits of the theatre, accurate

however and expert calculators, tell us that his beauties are balanced

by his faults. The poetical opposition, puffing for popularity, cry

cheerily against them, _his faults are balanced by his beauties_; when,

in reality, all the faults that ever were committed in poetry would be

but as air to earth, if we could weigh them against one single thought

or image, such as almost every scene exhibits in every drama of this

unrivalled genius. Do you hear me with patience?

PORSON.—With more; although at Cambridge we rather discourse

on Bacon, for we know him better. He was immeasurably a less wise man

than Shakespeare, and not a wiser writer: for he knew his fellow-man

only as he saw him in the street and in the Court, which indeed is but

a dirtier street and a narrower; Shakespeare, who also knew him there,

knew him everywhere else, both as he was and as he might be.

SOUTHEY.—There is as great a difference between Shakespeare

and Bacon as between an American forest and a London timber-yard. In

the timber-yard the materials are sawed and squared and set across; in

the forest we have the natural form of the tree, all its growth, all

its branches, all its leaves, all the mosses that grow about it, all

the birds and insects that inhabit it; now deep shadows absorbing the

whole wilderness; now bright bursting glades, with exuberant grass and

flower and fruitage; now untroubled skies; now terrific thunderstorms;

everywhere multiformity, everywhere immensity.

“Southey and Porson.” _Imaginary Conversations._

_Works_, 1846, i. pp. 12-13.

This is from the enlarged edition of the _Imaginary

Conversations_. It does not appear in the original

Southey-Porson “Conversation” published in 1824.

WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT, 1868

AN UNFORTUNATE LIKENESS

(_b._ 1836)

I’ve painted Shakespeare all my life,

“An Infant” (even then at “play”!)

“A boy” with stage-ambition rife,

Then “married to Ann Hathaway.”

“The bard’s first ticket night” (or “ben.”),

His “First appearance on the stage,”

His “Call before the curtain”—then

“Rejoicings when he came of age.”

The bard play-writing in his room,

The bard a humble lawyer’s clerk,

The bard a lawyer—parson—groom—

The bard deer-stealing, after dark.

The bard a tradesman—and a Jew—

The bard a botanist—a beak—

The bard a skilled musician too—

A sheriff and a surgeon eke!

Yet critics say (a friendly stock)

That, though it’s evident I try,

Yet even _I_ can barely mock

The glimmer of his wondrous eye!

One morning as a work I framed,

There passed a person, walking hard:

“My gracious goodness,” I exclaimed,

“How very like my dear old bard!

“Oh what a model he would make!”

I rushed outside—impulsive me!—

“Forgive the liberty I take,

But you’re so very”—“Stop!” said he.

“You needn’t waste your breath or time,—

I know what you are going to say,—

That you’re an artist, and that I’m

Remarkably like Shakespeare. Eh?

“You wish that I would sit to you?”

I clasped him madly round the waist,

And breathlessly replied, “I do!”

“All right,” said he, “but please make haste.”

I led him by his hallowed sleeve,

And worked away at him apace,

I painted him till dewy eve,—

There never was a nobler face!

“Oh sir,” I said, “a fortune grand

Is yours, by dint of merest chance,—

To sport _his_ brow at second hand,

To wear _his_ cast-off countenance!

“To rub _his_ eyes whene’er they ache—

To wear _his_ baldness ere you’re old—

To clean _his_ teeth when you awake—

To blow _his_ nose when you’ve a cold!”

His eyeballs glistened in his eyes—

I sat and watched and smoked my pipe;

“Bravo!” I said, “I recognise

The phrensy of your prototype!”

His scanty hair he wildly tore:

“That’s right,” said I, “it shows your breed.”

He danced—he stamped—he wildly swore—

“Bless me, that’s very fine indeed!”

“Sir,” said the grand Shakespearean boy

(Continuing to blaze away),

“You think my face a source of joy;

That shows you know not what you say.

“Forgive these yells and cellar-flaps:

I’m always thrown in some such state

When on his face well-meaning chaps

This wretched man congratulate.

“For oh! this face—this pointed chin—

This nose—this brow—these eyeballs too,

Have always been the origin

Of all the woes I ever knew!

“If to the play my way I find,

To see a grand Shakespearean piece,

I have no rest, no ease of mind,

Until the author’s puppets cease.

“Men nudge each other—thus—and say,

‘This certainly is Shakespeare’s son,’

And merry wags (of course in play)

Cry ‘Author,’ when the piece is done.

“In church the people stare at me,

Their soul the sermon never binds;

I catch them looking round to see,

And thoughts of Shakespeare fill their minds.

“And sculptors, fraught with cunning wile,

Who find it difficult to crown

A bust with Brown’s insipid smile

Or Tomkins’s unmannered frown,

“Yet boldly make my face their own,

When (oh, presumption!) they require

To animate a paving-stone

With Shakespeare’s intellectual fire.

“At parties where young ladies gaze,

And I attempt to speak my joy,

‘Hush, pray,’ some lovely creature says,

‘The fond illusion don’t destroy!’

“Whene’er I speak, my soul is wrung

With these or some such whisperings:

‘’Tis pity that a Shakespeare’s tongue

Should say such un-Shakespearean things!’

“I should not thus be criticised

Had I a face of common wont:

Don’t envy me—now, be advised!”

And, now I think of it, I don’t!

Reprinted from _Fun_, 14 Nov. 1868.

“The bard a lawyer”—

“Go with me to a notary: seal me there

Your single bond.”

_Merchant of Venice_, I. iii.

“Parson”—

“And there shall she at friar Laurence’ cell

Be shriv’d, and married.”

_Romeo and Juliet_, II. iv.

“Groom”—

“And give their fasting horses provender.”

_Henry V._, IV. ii.

“A tradesman”—

“Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares.”

_Troilus and Cressida_, I. iii.

“A Jew”—

“Then must the Jew be merciful.”

_Merchant of Venice_, IV. i.

“A botanist”—

“The spring, the summer,

The chiding autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries.”

_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, II. ii.

“A beak”—

“In the county of Gloster, justice of the peace, and coram.”

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, I. i.

“A skilled musician”—

“What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?”

_King John_, V. ii.

“A sheriff”—

“And I’ll provide his executioner.”

_II Henry VI._, III. i.

“A surgeon”—

“The lioness had torn some flesh away,

Which all this while had bled.”

_As You Like It_, IV. iii.

W. S. GILBERT.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1872

(1809-1894)

I wonder if anything like this ever happened:—

Author writing,—

“_To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobl—_”

“William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?”

“Flapjacks an it please thee, Anne, or a pudding for that

matter; or what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt

me and my thought.”

Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door,

and murmurs to the effect: “Ay, marry, ’tis well for thee to

talk as if thou hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must

swink for our masters, while they sit in their arm-chairs,

growing as great in the girth through laziness as that

ill-mannered old fat man, William, hath writ of in his books of

players’ stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which

hath thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his

eyes be rolling in that mad way.”

William—writing once more—after an exclamation in strong

English of the older pattern,—

“Whether ’tis nobler—nobler—nobler—

To do what? O these women! these women! to have puddings or

flapjacks! Oh!

“Whether ’tis nobler—in the mind—to suffer

The slings—and arrows—of—

Oh! Oh! these women! I’ll e’en step over to the parson’s, and

have a cup of sack with his reverence, for methinks Master

Hamlet hath forgot that which was just now on his lips to

speak.”

_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, 1872, pp. 10-11.

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON, 1897

“_Shakespeare’s Friend speaks._”

To sing the nation’s song, or do the deed

That crowns with richer light the motherland,

Or lend her strength of arm in hour of need,

When fangs of foes shine fierce on every hand,

Is joy to him whose joy is working well—

Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame

Should find a thrill of music in his name;

Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn should aim

Her arrows at his soul’s high citadel.

But if the fates withhold the joy from me

To do the deed that widens England’s day,

Or join that song of Freedom’s jubilee

Begun when England started on her way—

Withhold from me the hero’s glorious power

To strike with song or sword for her, the mother,

And give that sacred guerdon to another,

Him will I hail as my more noble brother—

Him will I love for his diviner dower.

Enough for me who have our Shakespeare’s love

To see a poet win the poet’s goal,

For Will is he; enough and far above

All other prizes to make rich my soul.

“Christmas at the Mermaid.” _The Coming of Love,

and Other Poems_, 1898 [1897].

JUDGE WILLIS, 1902

(_b._ 1835)

“_Examination of Edward Blount, one of the printers and publishers of

the Shakespeare folio of 1623._”

Did you never hear that Shakespeare the actor, whom you knew, had

nothing to do with the pieces published under his name?

I never did.

Did you never hear that the name “Shakespeare,” that is, with the “e”

after the “k,” was assumed to cover and conceal the writings of a very

great, distinguished man?

I never did.

Would you be surprised to hear that Lord Bacon—

The reporter says that as soon as this word escaped from Counsel’s

lips, the whole Court was convulsed with laughter, in which the jury

joined.

To save appearances, the learned Judge retired into his private room,

as he said, in order to fetch his copy of “Venus and Adonis.” His

laughter was heard in the hall.

“We noticed,” says the reporter, “that Mr. Jonson never smiled. He

seemed deeply moved, and exclaimed, ‘What next? And next?’”

On the return of the Judge, the laughter had not quite subsided, and

the usher cried “Order, Order.”

The Judge, on again taking his seat, said to the Counsel for the

defence, “I am sorry, sir, your question should have been so received,

but you must remember the spectators are human, and that the jury and

myself are not free from infirmity. We are, however, quite impartial.”

The Counsel resumed.

Now that this indecent laughter is over, tell me, sir, do you not know

that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays contained in the folio

volume?

I do not know it, and never until now have I heard a doubt cast upon

the authorship of Shakespeare.

Did you never have any communication from Lord Bacon in respect of the

publishing the folio volume?

Never. I never received a paper of any kind from him, nor did I

communicate any portion of the manuscript to him.

Did not Mr. Benjamin Jonson bring you the manuscripts, or some of them,

from which you printed?

“My lord, my lord!” said Jonson.

“Pray be quiet, Mr. Jonson, you will have your turn directly,” said the

Judge.

He did not, nor did he touch any sheet of them. As I have told you, I

never communicated with him until I spoke to him about writing some

lines for the portrait.

Did not Mr. Jonson write the Dedication or Preface?

He wrote neither. Heminge and Condell wrote the Dedication, and the

Address to the Readers they composed in consultation with myself.

Did you not receive money from some one in order to induce you to print

the folio?

I did not. I looked to the sale, and the sale only, to recoup myself

and my co-adventurers.

_Re-examined._—I myself never touched the manuscripts, nor added a line

to them. After they were in my possession, Heminge and Condell never,

to my knowledge, altered the manuscripts, nor did any one else.

I could, if necessary, have written a Dedication and the Address to the

Readers. I wrote a work entitled “A Hospital for Incurable Fools.” I

hope some day such hospital will be founded.

_The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy; A Report of

The Trial of an Issue in Westminster Hall,

20 June 1627. Read in the Inner Temple

Hall, Thursday, May the 29th, 1902_, by

William Willis, Treasurer of the Honourable

Society of the Inner Temple, pp. 15-16.

This extract is taken from an account of an imaginary suit in

connection with the administration of Shakespeare’s estate,

to determine whether the testator was the author of the plays

published under the name of William Shakespeare in the folio

volume of 1623.

* * * * *

The _Dictionary of National Biography_ states that Edward

Blount (_fl._ 1588-1632), the stationer, has been credited

on doubtful grounds with the authorship of the very curious

_Hospitall of Incvrable Fooles: Erected in English, as neer the

first Italian Modell and platforme as the vnskilful hand of an

ignorant Architect could deuise. Printed by Edm. Bollifant for

Edward Blount_, 1600.

_TO MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE_

_It’s not because I know that you

Are really what the World has found you,

That I collect and tell anew

The tributes that have gathered round you.

Not moved to tread the lofty ways

Of those great souls who turned their powers,

As duty-bounden, to your praise,

Weave I this little wreath of flowers._

_You have, I know, a “myriad mind,”

A “honey tongue” to tell a story;

You left poor “panting Time” behind,

(See Johnson) in the race for glory—

’Tis true. But when all’s said and done,

With thought and rhetoric impassioned,

You’ve been, and are, a Friend to one

Whose mind is not supremely fashioned._

INDEX

Addison, Joseph. _Cato_, 18, 23.

Compared with Shakespeare, 18.

His contemporary fame, 22.

_Lines_ to. By William Somervile, and by John Hughes, 23.

_The Spectator_ (No. 45), 278;

(No. 592), 84.

Voltaire’s opinion of, 18.

Akenside, Mark. _An Inscription_, 105.

_The Remonstrance of Shakespeare_, 284.

_Among My Books._ By James Russell Lowell, 174, 266.

_Appreciations, with an Essay on Style._ By Walter Pater, 193.

_Argalus and Parthenia._ By Francis Quarles. Possible allusion

to Shakespeare in, 5 _n._

Armstrong, John. _Of the Versification of English Tragedy_, 100.

_Of the Dramatic Unities_, 100.

Arnold, Matthew. _Essays in Criticism_, 195.

_Heine’s Grave_, 265.

His Sonnet on Shakespeare, 29, 169.

His edition of Wordsworth’s _Poems_, 195.

_Art of English Poetry._ By Edward Bysshe, 26 _n._

_At the Mermaid._ By Robert Browning, 31.

_Autumn Vision, An._ By A. C. Swinburne, 201.

B., A. _Covent Garden Drollery_, 69.

_Bab Ballads._ By W. S. Gilbert, 318.

Bacon, Francis, Lord Verulam, 145.

Compared with Shakespeare, 168, 316.

His supposed authorship of Shakespeare’s _Works_, v, 326.

Bancroft, Thomas. _To Shakespeare_, from _Two Bookes of

Epigrammes and Epitaphs_, 57.

Barnfield, Richard. _A Remembrance of some English Poets_, from

_Poems in Divers Humors_, 36.

Basse, William. _On Mr. William Shakespeare_, 40.

_Battaile of Agincourt, The._ By Michael Drayton, 48.

Baynes, Thomas Spencer. Article on “Shakespeare” in

_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 207.

Beaumont, Francis, 40, 42, 80.

Beddoes, T. L. _Lines written in Switzerland_, 258.

Betterton, Thomas, seen by Samuel Pepys as Macbeth, 63.

Bickerstaff, Isaac. _Queen Mab_, 299.

_Biographia Literaria._ By S. T. Coleridge, 130, 232.

Blackmore, Sir Richard. His _Creation_, Johnson’s criticism of, 21.

Blind, Mathilde. _Shakespeare_, from _Shakespeare Sonnets_, 213.

Blount, Edward, 326-8.

_Blue-stocking Revels._ By Leigh Hunt, 247.

Boileau and Pope, 292.

Boston, Shakespeare Jubilee at, 1824. Prize Ode by Charles Sprague,

142.

Boswell, James, the elder. _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 94, 107.

Boswell, James, the younger. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_,

20.

Bowle, John. _Miscellaneous Pieces of Ancient English Poetry_, 26

_n._

Bowles, William Lisle. _Monody on the Death of Dr. Warton_, 228.

_On Shakespeare_, from _Sonnets, with other Poems_, 124.

Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, 148.

Braybrooke, Lord. Samuel Pepys’ _Diary and Correspondence_, 62.

Brooke, Stopford A. _Life and Letters of Frederick William

Robertson_, 164.

Browne, Felicia Dorothea, afterwards Mrs. Hemans. _England and

Spain_, 229.

_Shakespeare_, 128.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. _A Vision of Poets_, 252.

Browning, Robert. _At the Mermaid_, 31.

_Christmas Eve and Christmas Day_, 255.

_The Names_, 204.

Burlington, Lord, 225.

Butler, Samuel. _The Court Burlesqu’d._ Possible allusion to

Shakespeare in, 5.

Byron, Lord. Letter to Murray, 239.

Bysshe, Edward. _Art of English Poetry_, 26 _n._

_Caius Marius, a Tragedy._ Otway’s _Prologue_ to, 72.

_Canons of Criticism._ By Thomas Edwards, 281, 303, 304 _n._

Capell, Edward. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20, 107, 303,

304 _n._

Johnson’s criticism of, 304 _n._

_Caractacus._ By William Mason, 101.

Carlyle, Thomas. _Chartism_, 249.

_Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, 242, 249.

_Essay on Corn Law Rhymes_ in _Edinburgh Review_, 158.

_Goethe_, 242.

_The Hero as Poet_, from _On Heroes and Hero Worship_, 157.

_Shooting Niagara: and After?_ 264.

_Catalogue of Printed Books collected by Frederick Locker-Lampson_,

198.

_Characteristics of English Poets._ By William Minto, 189.

_Charge to the Poets, A._ By William Whitehead, 109.

Charles I. His influence on literature, 12.

His knowledge of Shakespeare, 7.

Charles II. His influence on literature, 12.

_Chartism._ By Thomas Carlyle, 249.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 40, 42.

_Christmas at the Mermaid._ By Theodore Watts-Dunton, 325.

_Christmas Eve and Christmas Day._ By Robert Browning, 255.

Churchill, Charles. _The Rosciad_, 108.

_Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare._ By W. S. Landor,

30.

Coleridge, Hartley. _To Shakespeare_, 148.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ix.

His achievement as an æsthetic critic, 28.

_Biographia Literaria_, 130, 232.

His general dislike of “Selections,” 131.

His influence on the poetry of the nineteenth century, 27.

_Letters_, 246.

_Literary Remains_, 28, 131.

His notes on _The Tempest_, 132 _n._

_Outline of an Introductory Lecture on Shakespeare_, 232.

_Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton_, 232.

_Table Talk_, 240, 243, 246.

Collier, John Payne, 162.

Collins, William. _Verses_ addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 92.

Colman, George, 224.

_Prose on several Occasions_, 224.

His translation of Terence, 224.

Combe, William. _The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the

Picturesque_, 308.

_Coming of Love, The._ By Theodore Watts-Dunton, 325.

Condell, Henrie, and John Heminge. _To the Great Variety of

Readers_, from the Shakespeare First Folio, 46.

_Conduct of Life._ By Ralph Waldo Emerson, 251.

Congreve, William, 12, 114.

_Conjectures on Original Composition._ By Edward Young, 104, 224.

_Connoisseur, The._ Its attitude towards Shakespeare, 21.

Cook, A. S. Leigh Hunt’s _Imagination and Fancy_, 250.

_Court Burlesqu’d, The._ By Samuel Butler. Possible allusion to

Shakespeare in, 5 _n._

_Covent Garden Drollery._ Collected by A. B., 69.

Covent Garden Theatre, Dr. Syntax in the pit of, 308.

_Creation, The._ By Sir Richard Blackmore, 21.

Crowne, John. _Prologue_ to _Henry the Sixth_, 220.

Cunningham, Peter. _Letters_ of Horace Walpole, 99, 226, 305.

_Cymbeline_, 148.

Daniel, George. _Vindication of Poesie_, 58.

D’Avenant, Sir William, 53.

His adaptations of Shakespeare’s Plays, 10.

_Ode. In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare_, from

_Madagascar_, 54.

His version of _The Tempest_, 67.

Davies, John. “_To our English Terence, Mr. Will Shakespeare_,” from

_The Scourge of Folly_, 38.

Dennis, John. _An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare_,

82.

De Quincey, Thomas. His article on “Pope” in the _Encyclopædia

Britannica_, 248.

His article on “Shakespeare” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,

150, 248.

His criticism of Pope’s _Preface_, 87 _n._

His misinterpretation of the allusion to Shakespeare in Milton’s

_Eikonoklastes_, 8.

On the knocking at the gate in _Macbeth_, 30, 152 _n._

_Schlosser’s Literary History_, 254.

_Dialogues of the Dead._ By Lord Lyttelton, 292.

_Diary and Correspondence_ of Samuel Pepys, 62.

Dibdin, J. B. Letter to, from Charles Lamb, 313.

Digges, Leonard. _To the Memory of the deceased Author, Maister W.

Shakespeare_: from the Shakespeare First Folio, 47.

Dodsley, J. His _Collection of Poems by Several Hands_, 26 _n._,

123.

Dowden, Edward. _Shakespeare, his Mind and Art_, 28, 190, 267.

_Dramatic Poesie, An Essay._ By John Dryden, 67.

_Dramatic Poetry, An Essay on._ By a Person of Honour, 74.

_Dramatic Race, The_, 298.

_Dramatic Unities, Of the._ By John Armstrong, 100.

Drayton, Michael. _To my most dearly-beloved friend Henery

Reynolds_, from _The Battaile of Agincourt_, 48.

Dryden, John, 3, 10, 114.

His contemporary fame, 22.

_Defence of the Epilogue_, 68.

The first skilled critic of Shakespeare, 11.

His influence on eighteenth century literature, 13.

_Of Dramatic Poesie_, 66.

_Prologue_ to _The Tempest_, 66.

_Prologue_ to _Troilus and Cressida_, 67.

Dyce, Alexander, 162.

Dyer, George. _Poetics_, 231.

_Earth’s Holocaust._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 314.

_Edinburgh Review._ Article by Carlyle in, 158.

Articles by Jeffrey in, 133, 230.

Articles by Macaulay in, 160, 245.

Edwards, Thomas, 303, 304 _n._

_Canons of Criticism_, 281.

_Edwin and Emma._ By David Mallet, 24.

_Eikonoklastes._ By John Milton. Allusion to Shakespeare in, 7.

_Elegie on the Death of the famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William

Shakespeare_, from Shakespeare’s _Poems_, 55.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. _Conduct of Life_, 262.

_Representative Men_, 162, 251.

_Shakespeare, or the Poet_, 162.

_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 150, 208, 248.

_England and Spain._ By Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 229.

_Enthusiast, The._ By Joseph Warton, 91.

_Epigrammes and Epitaphs._ By Thomas Bancroft, 57.

_Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion._ By John Weever,

37.

_Epigrams._ By Samuel Sheppard, 59.

_Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature._ By William Watson, 270.

_Epitaph_ on a Tombstone of Shakespeare, 223.

_Essays, Critical and Imaginative._ By John Wilson, 140.

_Essays in Criticism._ By Matthew Arnold, 195.

_Euphrosyne._ By Richard Graves, 225.

Falstaff, 308.

Farmer, Richard, 304 and _n._

_Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, 224.

_Fennell’s Shakespeare Repository_, 40.

Fenton, Elijah. _An Epistle to Mr. Southerne_, 80.

_Ferney: An Epistle to Monsr. De Voltaire._ By George Keate, 112.

Fielding, Henry. _A Journey from this World to the Next_, 279.

First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 6, 42, 45, 46, 47.

_Five Books of Song._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.

Fletcher, John, compared with Shakespeare, 66, 80, 92.

His “solecism of speech,” 68.

Forman, H. Buxton. _Works_ of John Keats, 138.

_Fors Clavigera._ By John Ruskin, 273.

Freeman, Thomas. _To Master W. Shakespeare_, from _Runne, and a

Great Caste_, 39.

Froude, James Anthony. _Short Studies on Great Subjects_, 167.

Fuller, Thomas. _The History of the Worthies of England_, 61.

Furnivall, Dr. Frederick James. _The Leopold Shakspere_, 192.

_Some 300 Fresh Allusions to Shakspere from 1594 to 1694_, viii,

5.

Fuseli, John Henry, 148.

_Garden Inscriptions._ By William Thomson, 110.

Garrick, David, 144.

His criticism of Johnson’s praise of Shakespeare, 94.

_Epistle_ to. By Robert Lloyd, 106.

Shakespeare’s debt to, 106.

His connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon,

25.

His Shakespeare temple at Hampton, 26, 306-7.

Verses addressed to, 25.

_Warwickshire: A Song_, from _Shakespeare’s Garland_, 113.

Gastrell, Rev. Dr. F., and Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, 10, 185.

_Genius and Writings on Shakespeare, An Essay on the._ By John

Dennis, 82.

_Genius of Shakespeare, To the._ By James Hogg, 146.

_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 223, 301.

Gilbert, William Schwenck. _An Unfortunate Likeness_, from _More Bab

Ballads_, 318.

Gilder, Richard Watson. _The Twenty-third of April_, from _Five

Books of Song_, 212.

Goethe, Carlyle’s Essay on, 242.

Compared with Shakespeare, 158, 159.

_Goethe reviewed after Sixty Years._ By J. R. Seeley, 272.

Goldsmith, Oliver. _A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Inn_, 291.

Graves, Richard. _On Erecting a Monument to Shakespeare_, from

_Euphrosyne_, 225.

Gray, Thomas. _The Progress of Poesy_, 102.

_Guardian, The._ Its attitude towards Shakespeare, 20.

_Guesses at Truth._ By Julius Charles Hare, 145.

Hales, John. Quoted in Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 53.

Hallam, Henry. _Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the

Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries_, 155.

Hamilton, William. _A Soliloquy in Imitation of Hamlet_, 24.

_Hamlet_, 323.

Early æsthetic criticism of, 27.

Hanmer, Sir Thomas. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 16, 93.

Verses addressed to. By William Collins, 92.

Hare, Julius Charles. _Guesses at Truth_, 145.

Hawkins, Sir John, 303, 304 _n._

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. _Earth’s Holocaust_, from _Mosses from an Old

Manse_, 314.

_Our Old Home_, 175.

On visiting Shakespeare’s house, 175.

Hayley, William. _A Poetical Epistle to an Eminent Painter_ [_George

Romney_], 120.

Hazlitt, William, ix, 28.

_Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays_, Jeffrey’s review of, 134.

_On Dryden and Pope_, 136.

_Lectures on the English Poets_, 135-7, 189, 234.

_Round Table, The_, 137.

_On Shakespeare and Milton_, 135, 234.

_Table Talk_, 237.

Headley, Henry. _Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry_, 26 _n._

_Heine’s Grave._ By Matthew Arnold, 265.

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea. _England and Spain_, 229.

_Shakespeare_, 128.

Heminge, John, and Henrie Condell. _To the great Variety of

Readers_, from the Shakespeare First Folio, 46.

_Henry V._ Performance of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62.

_Henry VI., part I._ John Crowne’s adaptation of, 220.

_Heroes and Hero Worship, On._ By Thomas Carlyle, 157.

Higden, Henry. _The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat_, 75.

_History of England._ By David Hume, 97.

Hogg, James. _To the Genius of Shakespeare_, from _Songs by the

Ettrick Shepherd_, 146.

Holland, Hugh. _Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenick Poet,

Master William Shakespeare_, from the Shakespeare First Folio,

45.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. _The Poet at the Breakfast Table_, 323.

_Shakespeare Tercentennial Celebration_, from _Songs of Many

Seasons_, 177.

Hood, Thomas. _The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, 241.

_Hospitall of Incurable Fooles_, 328 and _n._

Hughes, John. _Verses to Mr. Addison_, 23.

Hugo, Victor. _Shakespeare_, 10, 28.

On Shakespeare’s posthumous fame, 10.

Hume, David. _History of England_, 97.

Hunt, Leigh. _Associations with Shakespeare_ from _Table Talk_, 166.

_Blue-Stocking Revels_, 247.

_Thoughts on the Avon_, 233.

_What is Poetry?_ from _Imagination and Fancy_, 250.

_Hymn to the Moon._ By D. M. Moir, 257.

_Hymn to the Nymph of Bristol._ By William Whitehead, 24.

_Idea of a University, The._ By John Henry Newman, 171.

_Idea of Comedy, On the._ By George Meredith, 191.

_Imaginary Conversations._ By Walter Savage Landor, 253, 316.

_Imagination and Fancy._ By Leigh Hunt, 247.

_Imitations of Horace._ By Alexander Pope, 221.

_Immortal Memory of Shakespeare, To the_, 116.

I. M. S. _On Worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems_, from the

Shakespeare Second Folio, 50.

Coleridge’s conjecture as to the identity of, 7, 52 _n._

Ingleby, Dr. _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse_, vii, 4.

_Inscription, An._ By Mark Akenside, 105.

_In Shakespeare’s Walk._ By William Thompson, 110.

_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth,

Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries._ _By Henry Hallam_, 155.

James I. His influence on literature, 12, 13.

Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, 230.

His article on Hazlitt’s _Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays_ in

the _Edinburgh Review_, 133.

Jennens, Charles, 303, 304 _n._

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his attitude towards Shakespeare, 16.

His criticism of Capell’s _Preface_, 107.

His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 17-18, 111.

His edition of _British Poets_, 21-22.

The effect of his judgment on contemporary thought, 19-20.

His indictment and defence of Shakespeare, 17-18.

His connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon,

25.

His _Life_. By James Boswell, 94, 107.

His position as a literary censor, 14.

His _Prologue_ at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747, 94.

_The Rambler_, 111.

Jonson, Ben, 74.

Compared with Shakespeare, 15, 53, 66, 69, 80, 92, 98, 104.

_To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author_, from the Shakespeare

First Folio, 42.

Johnstone, ——. _The Table Talker_, 156.

_Journey from this World to the Next, A._ By Henry Fielding, 279.

Keate, George, _Ferney: an Epistle to Monsr. De Voltaire_, 112.

Keats, John. Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, 236.

_Notes on Troilus and Cressida_, 138.

_Sonnet on sitting down to read “King Lear” once again_, 138.

Kemble, Frances Anne. _To Shakespeare_, 183.

Kid, Thomas, 43.

_King Lear_, 145, 148, 214.

Nahum Tate’s “borrowings” from, 10.

Sonnet on sitting down to read it once again. By John Keats, 138.

Knight, Charles. His history of opinion respecting Shakespeare, vii.

_Studies of Shakespeare_, vii.

Lamb, Charles, ix.

Epilogue to an amateur performance of “Richard II.,” 144.

Letter to J. B. Dibdin, 313.

Letter to Samuel Rogers on portraits of Shakespeare, 148.

_Works._ Edited by E. V. Lucas, 144, 148, 313.

Landor, Walter Savage.

_Citation and Examination_ of William Shakespeare, 30.

_Imaginary Conversations_, 253, 316.

_On Shakespeare_, 253.

Comparison between Shakespeare and Bacon, 316.

_Shakespeare and Milton_, from _The lost Fruit off an old Tree_,

170.

Lansdowne, Lord, _Epistle_ to. By Edward Young, 83.

_Learning of Shakespeare, Essay on the._ By Richard Farmer, 224.

_Lectures on the English Poets._ By William Hazlitt, 135-7.

Lee, Sidney, and the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, v.

_Life of William Shakespeare_, 215.

_Shakespeare in Oral Tradition_, 5.

_Leopold Shakspere, The._ Edited by F. J. Furnivall, 192.

_Library of Old Authors._ By James Russell Lowell, 173.

Lily, William, 43.

Lincoln, Abraham, 261.

_Lines written among the Euganean Hills._ By P. B. Shelley, 235.

_Lines written in Switzerland._ By T. L. Beddoes, 258.

_Literary Amusements._ By Daniel Webb, 227.

Lloyd, David. _State Worthies_, 13.

Lloyd, Robert. _The Progress of Envy_, 288.

_Shakespeare, an Epistle to Mr. Garrick_, 25, 106.

Locker-Lampson, Frederick. His copy of the 1602 Quarto of _The Merry

Wives of Windsor_, 198.

_London Cuckolds, The._ By Edward Ravenscroft. A performance of,

criticised by Steele, 76.

_Lost Fruit off an old Tree, The._ By Walter Savage Landor, 170.

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, 194.

Dryden’s criticism of, 68.

Lowell, James Russell. _Among My Books_, 174, 266.

_Library of Old Authors_, 173.

On Shakespeare’s “artistic discretion” and the “impersonality” of

his writings, 174.

Lucas, E. V. _Works of Charles and Mary Lamb_, 144, 148, 313.

_Lusiad, The._ By William Julius Mickle, 119.

_Lyrical Ballads._ By Wordsworth and Coleridge, 27.

Lyttelton, George, Lord. _Dialogues of the Dead_, 292.

Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord. _The Souls of Books_, 259.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, 295.

Essay on _The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay_ in the

_Edinburgh Review_, 160.

_Macbeth_, 145.

D’Avenant’s adaptation of, 10.

De Quincey on the knocking at the gate in, 30.

Performance of, described by Addison, 278.

Performances of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62, 63.

Mackay, Charles. _Mist_, from _Under Green Leaves_, 260.

_Madagascar._ By Sir William D’Avenant, 54.

Malone, Edmund. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.

Mallet, David. _Edwin and Emma_, 24.

_Of Verbal Criticism_, 103.

Mann, Sir Horace. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 226.

Marlowe, Christopher, 43.

Mason, William. _Caractacus_, 101.

Massey, Gerald. _The Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets_, 209.

Masson, David. _Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays_, 168.

_Merchant of Venice, The._ The _Connoisseur’s_ criticism of, 20.

Meredith, George. _On the Idea of Comedy_, 191.

_The Spirit of Shakespeare_, from _Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of

Earth_, 202.

Meres, Francis. _Palladis Tamia_, 35.

_Merry Wives of Windsor._ Manuscript note in 1602 Quarto of, 189.

Mickle, William Julius. _The Lusiad_, 119.

_Midsummer Night’s Dream._ Performance of, witnessed by Samuel

Pepys, 62.

_Mighty Makers, The._ By William Wetmore Story, 205.

Milnes, Richard Monckton. _Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of

John Keats_, 138.

Milton, John, 127.

Compared with Shakespeare, 131, 170.

Credited with authorship of verses signed I. M. S., 52.

_Eikonoklastes_, 7, 9.

_An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare_, from

the Shakespeare Second Folio, 49.

_L’Allegro_, 9.

Mistaken conception of his attitude towards Shakespeare, 7-10.

His tributes to Shakespeare, 9-10.

Minto, William. _Characteristics of English Poets_, 189.

_Miscellaneous Pieces of Ancient English Poetry._ Collected by John

Bowle, 26 _n._

Moir, D. M. _Hymn to the Moon_, 257.

_Stanzas on an Infant_, 257.

_Monody written near Stratford-upon-Avon._ By Thomas Warton, 121.

Montagu, George. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 99.

Moore, Thomas. _Life of Byron_, 239.

_Mosses from an Old Manse._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 314.

Moulton, G. _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_, 271.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, 295.

_Mystery of Life and its Arts, The._ By John Ruskin, 184.

_Names, The._ By Robert Browning, 204.

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of. _CCXI Sociable Letters_,

64, 277.

Newman, John Henry. _The Idea of a University_, 171.

_New Shakspere Society_, 4.

Northcote, James, 148.

Opie, John, 148.

Ossory, Countess of. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 305.

_Othello_, Disputed line in, 279.

Christopher Smart’s _Prologue_ to, 96.

Otway, Thomas, 114.

_Prologue_ to _The History and Fall of Caius Marius_, 72.

_Our Old Home._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 175.

Palgrave, Francis Turner. _Songs and Sonnets of William

Shakespeare_, 181.

_Palladis Tamia._ By Francis Meres, 35.

Pater, Walter Horatio. _Appreciations, with an Essay on Style_, 193.

Pattison, William. His verses _To Mr. John Saunders_, 23.

Pearch, G. His _Supplement_ to Dodsley’s _Collection of Poems by

Several Hands_, 26 _n._

Pepys, Samuel. _Diary and Correspondence_, edited by Lord

Braybrooke, 62.

Percy, Bishop, 304 and _n._

_Pericles._ Dryden’s criticism of, 68.

Phillips, Edward. _Theatrum Poetarum_, 10, 71.

_Philosophical Analysis of some of Shakespeare’s Remarkable

Characters._ By William Richardson, 117.

_Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, The._ By Thomas Hood, 241.

_Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth._ By George Meredith, 202.

_Poems by Several Hands._ Collected by J. Dodsley, 26 _n._

Pearch’s _Supplement_ to, 26 _n._

_Poems Collected and Arranged anew._ By Archbishop Trench, 180.

_Poems in Divers Humors._ By Richard Barnfield, 36.

_Poems on Various Subjects._ Collected by Thomas Tomkins, 26 _n._

_Poet at the Breakfast Table, The._ By Oliver Wendell Holmes, 323.

_Poetical Portraits._ By “A Modern Pythagorean,” 244.

_Poetics._ By George Dyer, 231.

Pope, Alexander, 225.

And Boileau, 292.

His contemporary fame, 22.

His criticism and defence of Shakespeare, 14-16.

De Quincey’s criticism of, 87 _n._

His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 15, 16, 85, 292.

_Imitations of Horace_, 221.

On Shakespeare’s learning, 15.

Porson, Richard, and Robert Southey. Imaginary conversation. By

W. S. Landor, 316.

Porter, Endymion, 53.

_Progress of Envy, The._ By Robert Lloyd, 288.

_Progress of Poesy, The._ By Thomas Gray, 102.

_Prose on Several Occasions._ By George Colman, 224.

Quarles, Francis. _Argalus and Parthenia_, 5 _n._

_Queen Mab._ By Isaac Bickerstaff, 299.

Quin, James, 308.

_Rambler, The._ By Dr. Johnson, 111.

_Rape of Lucrece._ Edward Phillips’ criticism of, 71.

Raphael. His picture, _The Transfiguration_, 112.

Ravenscroft, Edward. _The London Cuckolds_, A performance of,

criticised by Steele, 76.

_Reflector, The_, 231.

_Remonstrance of Shakespeare, The._ By Mark Akenside, 284.

_Representative Men._ By Ralph Waldo Emerson, 162, 251.

Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, 10-12.

_Reverie at the Boar’s Head Inn, A._ By Oliver Goldsmith, 291.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 148.

Richardson, William. _A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of

some of Shakespeare’s remarkable characters_, 117.

Robertson, Frederick William. _Life and Letters_, edited by Stopford

A. Brooke, 164.

Rogers, Samuel. Letter to, from Charles Lamb, 148.

_Romeo and Juliet_, 145, 148.

Performance of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62.

Romney, George, 148.

_Poetical Epistle_ to. By William Hayley, 120.

_Rosciad, The._ By Charles Churchill, 108.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. _On the Site of a Mulberry Tree planted by

W. Shakespeare_, 185.

Rossetti, W. M. _Collected Works_ of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 185.

Roubiliac. His statue of Shakespeare, 26, 307.

_Round Table, The._ By William Hazlitt, 137.

Rowe, Nicholas. _Some Account of the life of William Shakespeare_,

78.

On Shakespeare’s knowledge of the ancients, 78.

Shakespeare’s first editor, 16.

His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 53, 78.

Rowfant Library Catalogue, 198.

_Runne, and a Great Caste._ By Thomas Freeman, 39.

Rupert, Prince. His knowledge of Shakespeare, 7.

Ruskin, John. _Fors Clavigera_, 273.

_The Mystery of Life and its Arts_, 184.

Saunders, John. William Pattison’s verses to, 23.

Schlosser’s _Literary History_. De Quincey’s article on, 254.

_Schoolmistress, The._ By William Shenstone, 24.

Scott, Dr. Edward J. L. His discovery of allusions to Shakespeare in

the Sloane Manuscripts, 5.

Scott, Sir Walter. His article on “Drama” in the _Encyclopædia

Britannica_, 129.

_Scourge of Folly, The._ By John Davies, 38.

_Seasons, The._ By James Thomson, 88.

Second Folio edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 7, 10, 49, 50.

_Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The._ By Gerald Massey, 209.

Sedley, Sir Charles. _Prologue_ to _The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy

Parrat_, by Henry Higden, 75.

Seeley, J. R. _Goethe reviewed after Sixty Years_, 217.

_Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry._ Collected by Henry

Headley, 26 _n._

Seward, Anna. _On Shakespeare’s Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon_,

123.

Shaftesbury, Lord. His estimate of Shakespeare, 10.

Shakespeare, William. His “artistic discretion,” 174.

His knowledge and use of the Bible, 176.

Compared with Addison, 18, 91.

Compared with Bacon, 168, 316.

Compared with Fletcher, 92.

Compared with Goethe, 158, 159.

Compared with Homer, 82.

Compared with Ben Jonson, 15, 53, 61, 69, 80, 92, 98, 104, 114.

Compared with Milton, 131, 170.

His creation of the fairy world, 83.

Debased by interpolations, 15, 103.

The effect of his genius on the taste of the nation, 129.

His epitaph in Stratford-on-Avon Church, viii, 41.

First Folio edition of his _Works_, 6, 42, 45, 46, 47.

History of opinion of, its division into periods, 3.

The “impersonality” of his writings, 155, 174.

Influence of eighteenth century research on his reputation, ix.

Jubilee celebration at Boston, 1824, 142.

His learning, 79, 224.

_Life._ By Sidney Lee, 216.

_Life._ By Nicholas Rowe, 78.

His monument in Westminster Abbey, 225.

As a “philosophical aristocrat,” 132 _n._

Presentation of his plays on the stage, 10-12.

His _Poems_, 55.

Popular fallacies relating to his reputation, 6-12.

Was he influenced by posthumous fame? 137.

His use of prose, 195.

His reputation in the seventeenth century, 4-12;

in the eighteenth century, 12-26;

in the nineteenth century, 27-30.

Second Folio edition of his _Works_, 7, 10, 49, 50.

The “Shakespearean Show,” 1884, 204 _n._

His “solecism of speech,” 68.

His statue in Central Park, New York, 186.

The Stratford-on-Avon Jubilee, 25.

Tercentennial celebration, 177.

His time compared with that of Augustus, 72.

His neglect of the unities, 17, 18.

_Shakespeare, an Epistle to Mr. Garrick._ By Robert Lloyd, 25.

_Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist._ By G. Moulton, 271.

_Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy, The._ By Judge Willis, 326.

_Shakespeare in oral Tradition._ By Sidney Lee, 5.

_Shakespeare’s Bedside_, 301.

_Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse._ By Dr. Ingleby, vii, 4.

Edited by L. Toulmin Smith, viii, 5.

_Shakespeare’s Garland_, 113, 116, 298, 299, 301.

_Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of the Bible._ By Bishop Charles

Wordsworth, 176.

_Shakespeare Sonnets._ By Mathilde Blind, 213.

_Shakspere: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art._ By Edward Dowden,

28, 190, 267.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. _Lines written among the Euganean Hills_,

235.

Shenstone, William. _The Schoolmistress_, 24.

Sheppard, Samuel. _In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare_, from

_Epigrams_, 59.

_Shooting Niagara: and After?_ By Thomas Carlyle, 264.

_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ By James Anthony Froude, 167.

Sloane Manuscripts, Allusions to Shakespeare in, 5.

Smart, Christopher. _Prologue to Othello_, 96.

Smith, L. Toulmin. Her edition of Ingleby’s _Shakespeare’s Centurie

of Prayse_, viii, 5.

_Sociable Letters. By the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle_, 64, 277.

_Soliloquy in Imitation of Hamlet._ By William Hamilton, 24.

_Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, 27.

Somervile, William. _Lines to Mr. Addison_, 23.

_Some 300 Fresh Allusions to Shakspere from 1594 to 1694._ Edited by

Dr. Furnivall, viii, 5.

_Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare._ Edited by Francis Turner

Palgrave, 181.

_Songs of many Seasons._ By Oliver Wendell Holmes, 177.

Sonnets. By Matthew Arnold, 29, 169.

By Mathilde Blind, 213.

By Robert Browning, 204.

By Hartley Coleridge, 148.

By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.

By Thomas Freeman, 39.

By Hugh Holland, 45.

By John Keats, 138.

By George Meredith, 202.

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 185.

By Algernon Charles Swinburne, 29, 201.

By Archbishop Trench, 180.

By John Weever, 37.

By William Wordsworth, 127.

_Sonnets, with other Poems._ By William Lisle Bowles, 124.

_Sonnets dedicated to Liberty._ By William Wordsworth, 127.

_Souls of Books, The._ By Lord Lytton, 259.

_Southerne, Mr., An Epistle to._ By Elijah Fenton, 80.

Southey, Robert, and Richard Porson. Imaginary conversation. By

W. S. Landor, 316.

_A Vision of Judgment_, 238.

_Spectator, The_, No. 45. By Joseph Addison, 278.

No. 592. By Joseph Addison, 84.

Spenser, Edmund, 40, 42.

Sprague, Charles. Prize Ode recited at the representation of the

Shakespeare Jubilee at Boston, 1824, 142.

_Spirit of Shakespeare, The._ By George Meredith, 202.

_Stanzas on an Infant._ By D. M. Moir, 257.

_State Worthies._ By David Lloyd, 13.

Steele, Sir Richard. _The Tatler_, No. 8, 76.

Steevens, George. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.

Sterling, John. _Shakespeare_, 153.

Sterne, Laurence. _Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and

Italy_, 295.

Story, William Wetmore. _The Mighty Makers_, 205.

Stratford-on-Avon. Lines _on Shakespeare’s Monument_ at. By Anna

Seward, 123.

_Monody_ written near. By Thomas Warton, 121.

Shakespeare’s epitaph in the church at, viii, 41.

_Study of Shakespeare, A._ By A. C. Swinburne, 28, 199, 201.

Suckling, Sir John, 53.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. _An Autumn Vision_, 201 _n._

_A Study of Shakespeare_, 28, 199, 201.

_William Shakespeare_, from _Tristram of Lyonesse and other

Poems_, 29, 201.

Symons, Arthur. _Poetical Works_ of Mathilde Blind, 213.

_Table Talk._ By S. T. Coleridge, 240, 243, 246.

_Table Talk._ By William Hazlitt, 237.

_Table Talk._ By Leigh Hunt, 166.

_Table Talker, The._ By —— Johnstone, 156.

_Tancred and Sigismunda._ James Thomson’s _Prologue_ to, 222.

Tate, Nahum. His “borrowings” from _King Lear_, 10.

_Tatler, The_, No. 8. By Richard Steele, 76.

Taylor, Bayard. _Shakespeare’s Statue, Central Park, New York_, 186.

_Tempest, The_, 145.

Coleridge’s _Note_ on, 132 _n._

Dryden’s _Prologue_ to, 66.

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, on _King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and

Cymbeline_, 214.

_Life and Works._ Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson, 214.

Tennyson, Hallam, Lord. _Life and Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_,

214.

Terence, George Colman’s translation of, 224.

_Theatrum Poetarum._ By Edward Phillips, 10, 71.

Theobald, Lewis. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 16, 89.

Thomson, James. _Prologue to Tancred and Sigismunda_, 222.

_The Seasons_, 88.

Thomson, William. _In Shakespeare’s Walk_, from _Garden

Inscriptions_, 110.

_Thoughts on the Avon._ By Leigh Hunt, 233.

Tomkins, Thomas. _Poems on Various Subjects_, 26 _n._

_Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, The._ By William

Combe, 308.

Trench, Archbishop Richard Chevenix. _Poems Collected and Arranged

anew_, 180.

_Tristram of Lyonesse and other Poems._ By A. C. Swinburne, 201.

_Troilus and Cressida_, Dryden’s _Prologue_ to, 67.

_Twenty-third of April, The._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.

_Two Worlds, The._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.

_Under Green Leaves._ By Charles Mackay, 260.

_Unfortunate Likeness, An._ By W. S. Gilbert, 318.

“Variorum” editions of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.

_Venus and Adonis._ Edward Phillips’ criticism of, 71.

_Verbal Criticism, Of._ By David Mallet, 103.

_Versification of English Tragedy, Of the._ By John Armstrong, 100.

_Vindication of Poesie._ By George Daniel, 58.

_Vision of Judgment, A._ By Robert Southey, 238.

_Vision of Poets, A._ By Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 252.

Voltaire. His comparison of Shakespeare with Addison, 18.

_An Epistle to._ By George Keate, 112.

Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford, 13.

_Letters_, 99, 226, 305.

Warburton, Bishop William. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 95,

283.

On Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Ancients, 79.

Warner, Richard, 303, 304 _n._

Warton, Joseph, 303, 304 _n._

_The Enthusiast_, 91.

_Monody_ on the Death of. By W. L. Bowles, 228.

Warton, Thomas. His misinterpretation of the Shakespeare allusion in

Milton’s _Eikonoklastes_, 8.

_Monody written near Stratford-upon-Avon_, 121.

_Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat, The._ By Henry Higden, 75.

Sir Charles Sedley’s _Prologue_ to, 75.

Watson, William. _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_, 270.

Watts-Dunton, Theodore. _Christmas at the Mermaid_, from _The Coming

of Love_, 325.

Webb, Daniel. _Literary Amusements_, 227.

Weever, John. _Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare_, from _Epigrammes in the

Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion_, 37.

West, Benjamin, 148.

Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare’s Monument in, 225.

Whitehead, Paul. _Verses dropped in Mr. Garrick’s Temple of

Shakespeare_, 30.

Whitehead, William. His Appreciation of Shakespeare, 24.

_A Charge to the Poets_, 109.

_An Hymn to the Nymph of Bristol_, 24.

Whitman, Walt. On Shakespeare’s unacceptability to America and

Democracy, 210.

_Poetry to-day in America_, 211.

Willis, Judge William. _The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy_, 326.

Wilson, John. _A Few Words on Shakespeare_, from _Essays, Critical

and Imaginative_, 140.

_Winter’s Tale, The_, 145, 214.

Dryden’s criticism of, 68.

Wiseman, Cardinal. _William Shakespeare_, 179, 263.

_Witt’s Recreations_, 219.

Wordsworth, Bishop Charles. _On Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of

the Bible_, 176.

Wordsworth, Christopher. _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, 159, 256.

Wordsworth, William. His influence on the poetry of the nineteenth

century, 27.

_Memoirs._ By Christopher Wordsworth, 159, 256.

_Poems._ Edited by Matthew Arnold, 196.

On Shakespeare and Goethe, 159.

His Sonnet, “It is not to be thought of,” 29, 127.

_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays._ By David Masson,

168.

_Worthies of England._ By Thomas Fuller, 61.

Wycherley, William, 12.

Young, Edward. _Conjectures on Original Composition_, 104, 224.

_Epistle to Lord Lansdowne_, 83.

_Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and Italy._ By Laurence

Sterne, 295.

_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The following corrections have been made to the original text:

Page vii: but he pays scant attention[original has “attentien”]

to the nineteenth

Page 25: his paper kite to fly.”[quotation mark missing in

original]

Page 36: RICHARD BARNFIELD[original has “BARNFEILD”], 1598

Page 78: p. iii.[period missing in original] prefixed to _Works

of Shakespeare_

Page 105: Which his own genius only could acquire.”[quotation

mark missing in original]

Page 109: dead letter Shakespeare’s noblest scene.[original has

a comma]

Page 112: adulatory verses written on the same

occasion.[letters “sion.” missing in original]—KEATE.

Page 117: He ceases to be Euripides; he is Medea[original has

“Meda”]

Page 123: “[original has a single quote]The British Eagle,”

_i.e._ Milton.

Page 129: mistaken the form for the essence[original has

“esssence”]

Page 129: as comprehensive and versatile,[comma missing in

original] as intense

Page 151: the emblazonries upon Shakespeare’s[original has

“Shakepeare’s”] shield.

Page 151: seems the mere rebound of the previous[original has

“precious”] speech

Page 206: _Poems._ 1886, vol. ii. pp. 273-4.[period missing in

original]

Page 218: _Henry V._[original has “v.”] V. prol. 23.

Page 300: And men shall give us honour for his sake.”[quotation

mark missing in original]

Page 321: Should say such un-Shakespearean things!’[quotation

mark missing in original]

Page 331: _Art of English Poetry._[original has a comma] By

Edward Bysshe

Page 331: Barnfield[original has “Barnfeild”], Richard.

Page 331: Bowle, John.[original has a comma] _Miscellaneous

Pieces of Ancient English Poetry_

Page 333: under “Dodsley,” 26 _n._[period missing in original],

123.

Page 333: Elegie[original has “Elgie”] on the Death of the

famous Writer

Page 334: Hanmer[original has “Hamner”], Sir Thomas.

Page 335: under “Headley, Henry,” 26 _n._[italics added to

match pattern of Index entries]

Page 336: Johnstone, ——.[period missing in original] _The Table

Talker_, 156.

Page 336: performance of “Richard II.,”[comma missing

in original] 144

Page 338: _Poems in Divers Humors._ By Richard

Barnfield[original has “Barnfeild”], 36.

Page 340: _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse._ By Dr. Ingleby,

vii,[original has a period] 4.

Page 341: under “Stratford-on-Avon,” _Monody_ written near. By

Thomas Warton, 121.[original has a period after “Warton” and

“121.” is missing]