Poetaster, Issues 27-28

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H. Holt, 1905 - Poets, Latin - 282 pages

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Page cii - Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage ; wherein a second pen had good share...
Page 223 - Jonson) is a great lover and praiser of himself ; a contemner and scorner of others ; given rather to lose a friend than a jest ; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth...
Page 216 - ... it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit, and language, and humour, also in some measure, we had before him ; but something of art was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions ; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he 'knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height.
Page xci - O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow ; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill ; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge, that made him bewray his credit.
Page xxv - He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him,' wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage, in his youth given to vénerie.
Page 143 - Slid, the boy takes me for a piece of perspective, I hold my life, or some silk curtain, come to hang the stage here ! Sir crack, I am none of your fresh pictures, that use to beautify the decayed dead arras in a public theatre.
Page xc - It is said of the incomparable Virgil, that he brought forth his verses like a bear, and after formed them with licking.
Page 236 - There is still another place, built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears; they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens that they are killed upon the spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired.
Page 160 - Roger, thou know'st the length of my foot; as it is none of the biggest, so I thank God, it is handsome enough; prithee, let me have a pair of shoes made, cork, good Roger, wooden heel too.
Page 152 - Why, man, all their drippingpans ... are pure gold ; and all the chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold ; all the prisoners they take are fettered in gold ; and for rubies and diamonds they go forth on holidays and gather 'em by the seashore to hang on their children's coats, and stick in their children's caps, as commonly as our children wear saffron-gilt brooches and groats with holes in 'em.

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