Chapter XL: Act III: Scene 2

291. _Parolles and his drum._ _All’s Well that Ends Well._

_Another friend of mine._ Lamb.

_Even Lord Byron_, _etc._ Byron was said to have written puffs of
Warren’s Blacking. See W. F. Deacon’s volume of parodies,
_Warreniana_ (1824).

‘_Deathless date._’ Cf. ‘Short is my date, but deathless my
renown.’ Pope, Homer’s _Iliad_, IX. 535.

292. _When I formerly_, _etc._ For the matters referred to in this and
the two succeeding paragraphs, cf. the volume containing
Hazlitt’s dramatic criticisms.

_Poor Perry._ James Perry (1756–1821), editor and proprietor of
_The Morning Chronicle_. See Hazlitt’s _A View of the English
Stage_ for his article on Miss Stephens as Polly.

_Mrs. Billington._ Elizabeth Billington (1768–1818), the great
singer.

‘_Life knows no return of spring._’ The song (Act II. Scene 1)
begins ‘Let us drink and sport to-day.’

‘_My final hopes_,’ _etc._ A characteristic reference to the fall
of Napoleon.

293. ‘_Hope, thou nurse_,’ _etc._ Bickerstaffe’s _Love in a Village_,