How here he fip'd, how there he plunder'd fnug, 130 There hapless Shakespear, yet of Tibbald fore, REMARK S. 3 VER 131. poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. VER. 132. The Frippery]" When I fitted up an old play, "it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when the "has not better employment," Life, p. 217. Octavo. - * VER. 133. bapless Shakespear, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a fubfcriber to Tibbald's Shakefpear. He was frequently liberal this way; and as he tells us, "fubfcribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure Generofity and Civility; but when Mr. Pope did fo to his Nonjuror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke." Letter to Mr. P. P. 24heobald, published an edition of This Tibbald, or Shakefpear, of which he was fo proud himself as to say, in one of Mift's Journals, June 8, "That to expose any " errors in it was impracticable." And in another, April 27, "That whatever care might for the future be "taken by any other Editor, he would still give above five "hundred Emendations, that ball escape them all. VER. 134. Wish'd be had blotted] It was a ridiculous praife which the players gave to Shakespear," that he never blotted a line." Ben Johnson honeftly wifhed he had blotted a thousand; and Shakespear would certainly have wished the fame, if he had lived to fee thofe altera. tions in his works, which, not the Actors only (and especially the daring Hero of this Poem) have made on the Such with their shelves as due proportion hold, And Quarles is fav'd by Beauties not his own.. 140 Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great; There ftamp'd with arms, Newcastle fhines complete: REMARK S. Stage, but the presumptuous Critics of our days in their Editions. VER. 135. The reft on Out-fide merit, etc.] This Library is divided into three parts; the first confifts of those authors from whom he stole, and whose works he mangled ; the fecond, of such as fitted the fhelves, or were gilded for fhew, or adorned with pictures; the third class our author calls folid learning, old bodies of Divinity, old Commentaries, old English Printers, or old English Tranflations: all very voluminous, and fit to erect altars to Dulness. VER. 141. Ogilby the great ;] John Ogilby was one "who, from a late initiation into literature, made fuch a progrefs as might well ftyle him the prodigy of his "time! fending into the world fo many large Volumes! "His tranflations of Homer and Virgil done to the life, "and with fuch excellent culptures: And (what added "great grace to his works) he printed them all on special good paper, and in a very good letter." WINSTANLY, Lives of Poets. VER, 142. There, ftampt with arms, Newcastle shines complete:] "The Duchefs of Newcastle was one who bufied IMITATIONS. VER. 140. in the former Edd. The page admires new beauties not it's own. Miraturque novas frondes et non fua poma. Virg. Geor. ii. Here all his fuff'ring brotherhood retire, 145 And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire: VARIATIONS. VER. 146. in the first Edit. it was Well-purg'd, and worthy W-y, W-s, and BIAnd in the following alter'd to Withers, Quarles, and Blome, on which was the following note: W It was printed in the furreptitious editions, Wly, , who were perfons eminent for good life; the one writ the Life of Christ in verfe, the other fome valu able pieces in the lyric kind on pious fubjects. The line is here reftor'd according to its original. " 66 George Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest perfonages in power, which brought upon him frequent Correction. The Marfhalfea and Newgate were no itrangers to him." WINSTANLY. Quarles was as dull a writer, but an honefter man. Blome's books are remarkable for their cuts. REMARKS. "herself in the ravishing delights of Poetry; leaving to Pofterity in print three ample Volumes of her ftudious en"deavours." WINSTANLY, ibid. Langbaine reckons up eight Folio's of her Grace's; which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them. VER. 146. Worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The Poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our Hero in his three capacities: 1. Settle was his Brother Laureate; only indeed upon halfpay, for the city inftead of the Court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occa But high above, more folid Learning fhone, The Claffics of an Age that heard of none; There Caxton flept with Wynkyn at his fide, 149 One clafp'd in wood, and one in ftrong cow-hide; REMARKS. fions, fuch as Shows, Birth-days, &c. 2. Banks was his Rival in Tragedy (tho' more fuccefsful) in one of his Tragedies, the Earl of Effex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he drest in a fort of Beggars Velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick Fuftian and thin Profaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Ifidora, Cafar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a ferving man of Ben. Johnfon, who once picked up a Comedy from his Betters, or from some cast scenes of his Mafter, not entirely contemptible. VER. 147. More folid Learning] Some have objected, that books of this fort fuit not fo well the library of our Bays, which they imagined confifted of Novels, Plays, and obfcene books; but they are to confider, that he furnished his fhelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the Dry bodies of Divinity, which, no doubt, were purchased by his Father when he defigned him for the Gown. See the note on ver. 200. VER. 149. Caxton] A Printer in the time of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Hen. VII; Wynkyn de Word, his fucceffor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII. The former tranflated into profe Virgil's neis, as a hiftory; of which he speaks in his proeme, in a very fingular manner, as of a book hardly known. Happened that to my hande came a lytyl book in frenche, whiche late was tranflated out of latyn by fome noble clerke of "fraunce, which booke is named Eneydos (made in latyn "by that noble poete and grete clerk Vyrgyle:) which "book I fawe over and redde therein, How after the ge"nerall deftruccyon of the great Troy, Eneas departed berynge his old fader anchifes upon his fholdres, his There, fav'd by fpice, like Mummies, many a year, Dry bodies of Divinity appear: De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends. Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies, 66 REMARKS. 156 lytyl fon yolas on his hande, his wyfe with moche "other people followynge, and how he shipped and departed; with all thyftorye of his adventures that he had er he came to the atchievement of his conqueft of ytaly, as all alonge shall be shewed in this prefent booke. In "whiche booke I had grete playfyr, by cause of the fayr "and honeft termes and wordes in frenche, which I never "fawe to fore lyke, ne none fo playfant ne fo well or"dered; whiche booke as me femed fhold be much re quyfite to noble men to fee, as well for the eloquence "as the hyftoryes. How wel that many hondred yerys paffed was the fayd booke of Eneydos wyth other "workes made and lerned daily in fcolis, efpecyally in ytaly and other places, which historye the faid Vyrgyle "made in metre." Tibbald quotes a rare paffage from "him in Mift's Journal of March 16, 1728, concerning a frange and mervaylloufe beafte called Sagittayre, which he would have Shakespear to mean rather than Teucer, the Archer celebrated by Homer. VER, 153. Nich. de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vaft folios, were printed in 1472. VER. 154. Philemon Holland, Doctor in Phyfic. "He tranflated so many books, that a man would think he had "done nothing else; infomuch that he might be called Tranflator general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are fufficient to make a Country "Gentleman a complete Library. WINSTANLY. |