12: Of all styles, Jonson liked best to be named 'Honest;' and he
'hath ane hundred letters so naming him.'--_Conversations with
Drummond_.
13: _Life of Dryden_, p. 265.
14: By Aubrey called 'Jack Young.'
15: As if the whole world had made it a point to conspire against
Jonson, Gifford laboriously exerts himself to defend him against the
numberless attacks of all the previous commentators, critics, and
biographers. The endeavour of Gifford to whitewash him seems to me
as fruitless a beginning as that of the little innocent represented
in a picture as trying to change, with sponge and soap, the African
colour of her nurse's face.
16: Jonson's _Eulogy of Shakspere_ was composed seven years after the
death of the latter. Having most probably been requested by
Heminge and Condell not to withhold his tribute from the departed,
to whom both his contemporaries as well as posterity had done homage,
Jonson may readily have seized the occasion to do amends for the
wrong he had inflicted upon the great poet during his lifetime. A
later opinion of Jonson in regard to Shakspere (_Timber; or
Discoveries made upon Men and Matter_, 1630-37) is of a more moderate
tone, and on some points in contradiction to the words of praise
contained in the published poem.
17: _Poetaster_, Apol. Dialogue.
18: This Prologue is not contained in the first edition (1598), but
only in the second (1616).
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