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Richard Farmer: An Essay On The Learning Of Shakespeare
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Langbaine informs us. English Dramatick Poets, p. 475.
Andromana. “This play hath the letters J.S. in the title page, and was printed in the year 1660, but who was its author I have not been able to learn,” Dodsley, Collection of Old Plays, 1744, vol. xi. p. 172. In the second edition (ed. Isaac Reed, 1780) the concluding words are replaced by a reference to the prologue written in 1671, which says that “‘Twas Shirley’s muse that labour’d for its birth.” But there appears to be no further evidence that the play was by Shirley.
Hume. See the account of Shakespeare in his History, reign of James I., ad fin., 1754: “He died in 1617, aged 53 years.” The date of his death, but not his age, was corrected in the edition of 1770.
MacFlecknoe, line 102.
182. Newton informs us, in the note on Paradise Lost, iv. 556 (ed. 1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.
182. Her eye did seem to labour. The Brothers, Act i., Sc. 1. “Middleton, in an obscure play, called A Game at Chesse, hath some very pleasing lines on a similar occasion:
Upon those lips, the sweete fresh buds of youth,
The holy dew of prayer lies like pearle,
Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne
Upon the bashfull Rose” (Farmer).
Lander, William (died 1771), author of An Essay on Milton’s use and imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost, 1750.
Richardson, Jonathan (1665-1745), portrait painter, joint author with his son of Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton’s Paradise Lost, 1734. The quotation is taken from p. 338.
183. The stately sailing Swan. Thomson, Spring, 778-782.
Gildon. See Pope’s Shakespeare, vol. vii., p. 358.
Master Prynne. “Had our zealous Puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monastery in France, by the legacy of a great chest, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than vetches. The friars, enraged at the ridicule and disappointment, would not suffer him to have Christian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington’s very learned and curious Observations on the Statutes, 4to, 1766, p. 24. From the Annales d’Acquytayne, Paris, 1537.–Our author had his full share in distressing the spirit of this restless man. ‘Some Play-books are grown from Quarto into Folio ; which yet bear so good a price and sale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.– Shackspeer’s Plaies are printed in the best Crowne-paper, far better than most Bibles !’ ” (Farmer).
Whalley. Enquiry, pp. 54-5; Tempest, iv. 1. 101; Aeneid, i. 46. Farmer added the following note in the second edition: “Others would give up this passage for the Vera incessu patuit Dea ; but I am not able to see any improvement in the matter: even supposing the poet had been speaking of Juno, and no previous translation were extant.” See the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 52.
184. John Taylor. See notes, pp. 163 and 212.
” Most inestimable Magazine,” etc. From A Whore, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.