'
17: An allusion to Shakspere's unclassical metrics, and his great
success among the public, although in Jonson's opinion he brings
neither regular 'play nor university show.'
18: In Androgyno, whom he brings in.
19: This is Jonson's answer to the question raised in _Twelfth Night_
(act iv. sc. 2), when Malvolio is in prison, in regard to Pythagoras.
20: We can nowhere find any clue to such a personage of antiquity,
and we take it to be a reference to Pyrrhon of Elis, the founder
of the sceptic school.
21: Bacon was a friend of this sport. Mrs. Pott points out some
technical expressions which we find both in Bacon's works and in
Shakspere. Perhaps we might stretch our fancy so far as to assume
that Bacon is Pyrrhus of Delos, and that gentle Shakspere
sometimes went a-fishing with him on the banks of the Thames.
22: 'As itself doth relate it.' Yet the soul does not relate anything,
except that it is said to have spoken, in all the characters it
assumed, 'as in the cobbler's cock.' We must, therefore, probably
look in plays--in Shakspere's dramas--for that which the soul has
spoken in its various stages as a king, as a beggar, and so forth.
23: 'Brock' (badger)--a word which Shakspere only uses once;
viz. in _Twelfth Night_ (act ii. sc. 5). Sir Toby's whole
indignation against Malvolio culminates in the words:--'Marry,
hang thee, brock!' We know of Jonson's unseemly bodily figure,
his 'ambling' gait, which rendered him unfit for the stage.
Pages:
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217