Chapter XXIII: Act III: 1

243. _Your hand I’ll kiss._ Act II. 1.

_The lamentation of Cornelia._ Act V. 2.

_The parting scene of Brachiano._ Act V. 3.

245. _The scenes of the madhouse._ Act IV. 2.

_The interview._ Act IV. 1.

_I prythee_, and the three following quotations and note on p. 246.
_The Duchess of Malfy_, Act IV. 2.

246. _The Revenger’s Tragedy._ 1607.

_The dazzling fence._ Cf. the ‘dazzling fence’ of rhetoric, _Comus_,
790–91.

_The appeals of Castiza._ Act II. 1., and Act IV. 4.

247. _Mrs. Siddons has left the stage._ Mrs. Siddons left the stage in
June 1819. See _The Round Table_, vol. I., Note to p. 156.

_On Salisbury-plain._ At Winterslow Hut. See _Memoirs of W. Hazlitt_.
1867, vol. I. p. 259.

_Stern good-night._ _Macbeth_, Act II. 2. ‘The fatal bellman which
gives the stern’st good night.’

_Take mine ease._ _1 Henry IV._ III. 3.

_Cibber’s manager’s coat._ Colley Cibber (1671–1757), actor,
dramatist, and manager. See the _Apology for his Life_ (1740).

_Books, dreams._ _Personal Talk._ [‘Dreams, books, are each a
world.... Two shall be named pre-eminently dear ... by heavenly
lays....’]

IV. ON BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, ETC.

249. _Misuse_ [praise] _the bounteous Pan_. _Comus_, 176–7.

_Like eagles newly baited._ Cf.

‘All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed.’
_1 King Henry IV._, IV. 1.

250. _Cast the diseases of the mind._ Cf.

‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ... cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health?’
_Macbeth_, V. 3.

_Wonder-wounded._ _Hamlet_, V. 1.

_Wanton poets._ Cf. Marlowe’s _Edward II._, Act I. 1., and Beaumont
and Fletcher’s _The Maid’s Tragedy_, II. 2.

251. _The Maid’s Tragedy._ Acted 1609–10, printed 1619.

252. _Do not mock me._ Act IV. 1.

_King and No King._ Licensed 1611, printed 1619.

_When he meets with Panthea._ Act III. 1.

253. _The False One._ 1619.

_Youth that opens._ Act III. 2.

_Like_ [‘I should imagine’] _some celestial sweetness_. Act II. 3.

‘_Tis here_, and the next quotation. Act II. 1. [‘Egyptians, dare ye
think.’]

254. _The Faithful Shepherdess._ Acted 1610.

_A perpetual feast._ _Comus_, 479–80.

_He takes most ease._ _The Faithful Shepherdess_, Act V. 3.

_Her virgin fancies wild._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 296–7.

_Here he woods._ _The Faithful Shepherdess_, Act I. 3.

255. _For her dear sake._ Act V. 3.

_Brightest._ Act IV. 2.

_If you yield._ Act II. 2.

256. _And all my fears._ Act I. 1.

_Sad Shepherd._ 1637.

257. _Tumbled him_ [He tumbled] _down_, and the two following
quotations. _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, Act I. 1.

_We have been soldiers._ Act I. 3.

258. _Tearing our pleasures._ _To his Coy Mistress_, 43 and 44.

_How do you._ _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, Act II. 2. [‘lastly, children
of grief and ignorance.’]

261. _Sing their bondage._ _Cymbeline_, III. 3.

_The Bloody Brother_, 1624; _A Wife for a Month_, 1623; _Bonduca_,
acted _c._ 1619; _Thierry and Theodoret_, 1621; _The Night Walker_,
1625; _The Little French Lawyer_, _c._ 1618; _Monsieur Thomas_, _c._
1619; _The Chances_, _c._ 1620; _The Wild Goose Chase_, acted 1621;
_Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_, 1624.

262. _Philaster._ Acted _c._ 1608.

_Sitting in my window._ Act V. 5.

_Into a lower world._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 283–5.

_His plays were works._ Suckling’s _The Session of the Poets_, ver. 5.

Note, _Euphrasia_. _Philaster_, Act V. 2.

263. _Miraturque._ Virgil, _Georgics_, II. 82.

_The New Inn._ Acted 1630.

_The Fall of Sejanus._ Acted 1603.

_Two of Sejanus’ bloodhounds._ Act III. 1.

_To be a spy._ Act IV. 3.

264. _What are thy arts._ Act IV. 5.

_If this man._ Act I. 2 [‘blood and tyranny.’]

265. _The conversations between Livia._ Act II. 1.

_Catiline’s Conspiracy._ Acted 1611.

_David’s canvas._ Jacques Louis David (1748–1825), historical painter.

_The description of Echo._ Act I. 1. _Cynthia’s Revels_ was acted in
1600 and printed the year after.

_The fine comparison ... the New Inn._ Cf. Act III. 2.

_Massinger and Ford._ Philip Massinger (1583–1640) and John Ford
(1586–? 1656).

_Musical as is Apollo’s lute._ _Comus_, 478.

266. _Reason panders will._ Hamlet, III. 4.

_The true pathos._ Burns, _Epistle to Dr. Blacklock_.

_The Unnatural Combat_, 1639; _The Picture_, licensed 1629; _The Duke
of Milan_, 1623; _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, 1633; _The Bondman_,
1624; _The Virgin Martyr_, 1622.

267. _Felt a stain like a wound._ Burke, _Reflections on the French
Revolution_, ed. Payne, II. 89.

Note. See _A View of the English Stage_, and notes thereto.

268. _Rowe’s Fair Penitent._ 1703. Nicholas Rowe (1673–1718).

_Fatal Dowry._ 1632.

_’Tis Pity She’s a Whore._ 1633.

269. _Annabella and her husband._ Act IV. 3.

_The Broken Heart._ 1633.

270. _Miss Baillie._ See p. 147 and notes thereto.

_Perkin Warbeck._ 1634.

_The Lover’s Melancholy._ 1628.

_Love’s Sacrifice._ 1633.

Note. _Soft peace._ Act IV. 4.

_The concluding one._ Act V. 2 and 3 [‘court new pleasures’.]

272. _Already alluded to._ See p. 230.

273. _Mr. Lamb in his impressive eulogy._ _Specimens_, vol. II. p.
199.

274. _Armida’s enchanted palace._ The sorceress who seduces the
Crusaders. Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_.

_Fairy elves._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 781 _et seq._

‘Like that Pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves.’

_Deaf the praised ear._ Pope’s _Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate
Lady_.

V. ON SINGLE PLAYS, POEMS, ETC.

_The Four P’s._ ? 1530–3.

_John Heywood._ (_c._ 1497–_c._ 1575). He was responsible for various collections of Epigrams, containing six hundred proverbs.

276. _False knaves._ _Much Ado about Nothing_, IV. 2.

277. _Count Fathom._ Chap. XXI.

_Friar John._ Rabelais’ _Gargantua_, I. 27.

278. L. 5 from foot. _Take_ [taste].

279. _Which I was born to introduce._ Swift’s lines _On the Death of Dr. Swift_.

_As a liar of the first magnitude._ Congreve’s _Love for Love_, Act II. 5.

280. _Mighty stream of Tendency._ _The Excursion_, IX. 87.

_Full of wise saws._ _As You Like It_, Act II. 7.

_The Return from Parnassus._ 1606.

_Like the Edinburgh Review._ Only two numbers were published, which were reprinted (8vo) 1818.

_Read the names._ _The Return from Parnassus_, Act I. 2.

282. _Kempe the actor._ William Kempe, fl. _c._ 1600.

_Burbage._ Richard Burbage (_c._ 1567–1618), the builder of the Globe Theatre, and a great actor therein.

_Few_ (_of the University_). Act IV. 3.

283. _Felt them knowingly._ _Cymbeline_, III. 3.

_Philomusus and Studioso._ Act II. 1, Act III. 5.

_Out of our proof we speak._ _Cymbeline_, III. 3.

_I was not train’d._ Charles Lamb’s Sonnet, written at Cambridge, August 15, 1819.

284. _Made desperate._ _The Excursion_, VI. 532–3, quoted from Jeremy Taylor’s _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1, § V.

_A mere scholar._ _Return from Parnassus_, II. 6.

_The examination of Signor Immerito._ Act III. 1.

286. _Gammer Gurton’s Needle._ Printed 1575. John Still (1543–1607), afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, is supposed to be its author.

287. _Gog’s crosse_, and the following quotations. Act I. 5.

289. _Such very poor spelling._ Cf. Lamb’s story of Randal Norris, who once remarked after trying to read a black-letter Chaucer, ‘in those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent spelling.’ See

Lamb’s Letter to H. Crabb Robinson, Jan. 20, 1827; Hone’s _Table
Book_, Feb. 10, 1827; and the first edition of the Last Essays of
Elia, 1833. _A Death-Bed_.

_The Yorkshire Tragedy._ 1604 (attributed to Shakespeare); _Sir John
Oldcastle_, 1600, (? by Munday and Drayton); _The Widow of Watling
Street_, [_The Puritan, or The Widow, etc._], 1607 (? by Wentworth
Smith). See _The Round Table_, vol. I. p. 353, _et seq._, for Schlegel
and Hazlitt on these.

_Green’s Tu Quoque, by George Cook._ Greene’s ‘Tu Quoque,’ 1614, by
Joseph Cooke (fl. _c._ 1600). Greene, the comedian, after whom the
play is called, died 1612.

290. _Suckling’s melancholy hat._ Cf. p. 270 _ante_.

_Microcosmus, by Thomas Nabbes._ 1637. Thomas Nabbes flourished in the
time of Charles I.

291. _What do I see?_ Act IV.

292. _Antony Brewer’s Lingua._ 1607. This play is now said to be by
John Tomkins, Scholar of Trinity, Cambridge (1594–8).

_Mr. Lamb has quoted two passages._ _Specimens_, vol. I. pp. 99–100.

292. _Why, good father._ Act II. 4.

293. _Thou, boy._ Act II. 1.

_The Merry Devil of Edmonton._ 1608. The author is unknown.

_Sound silver sweet._ _Romeo and Juliet_, II. 2.

_The deer-stealing scenes._ _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, Act V. 1,
etc.

294. _Very honest knaveries._ _Merry Wives of Windsor_, IV. 4.

_The way lies right._ _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, Act IV. 1.

_The Pinner of Wakefield._ By Robert Greene (1560–1592). His works
have been edited by Dr. Grosart, and by Mr. Churton Collins.

_Hail-fellow well met._ Cf. Swift’s _My Lady’s Lamentation_.

_Jeronymo._ 1588. _The Spanish Tragedy_ (? 1583–5), licensed and
performed 1592. See Prof. Schick’s edition in ‘The Temple Dramatists.’
Thomas Kyd, baptised November 6, 1558, died before 1601.

_Which have all the melancholy madness of poetry._ Junius: Letter No
7. to Sir W. Draper.

VI. ON MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, Etc.

295. _The False One._ 1619.

_Valentinian._ Produced before 1619. ‘Now the lusty spring is seen,’