'
6: In spite of Gifford's protest we do not hesitate to maintain
that Jonson's Epigram LVI. (_On Poet-Ape_) is directed against
Shakspere, and that the poet whom Jonson--in the Epistle XII.
(_Forest_) to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland--abuses, is
also none else than Shakspere.
7: Montaigne died in 1592.
8: We can only quote the most striking points, and must leave it to
the reader who takes a deeper interest in the subject, to give his
own closer attention to the dramas concerning the controversy.
9: _Gentlemen of Verona_; _Comedy of Errors_; _Love's Labour Lost_;
_Love's Labour Won_ (probably _All's Well that Ends Well_); _Midsummer
Night's Dream_; _Merchant of Venice_. Of Tragedies: _Richard the
Second_; _Richard the Third_; _Henry the Fourth_; _King John_; _Titus
Andronicus_; _Romeo and Juliet_.
10: As the words that follow seem to contain an allusion to
Shakspere's _Hamlet_, it is to be supposed that by the
'melting heir' Jonson points to some protector of the great poet.
Whether this be William Herbert, or the Earl of Southampton, we
must leave undecided.
11: Act i. sc. 4.
12: Jonson probably calls Shakspere an hermaphrodite because,
having a wife, he cultivated an intimate friendship at the same time
with William Herbert, the later Earl of Pembroke. Jonson's _Epicoene,
or The Silent Woman_ (1609) satirises this connection.
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