Ode on the Poetical Character," 66.

_Garrick_, David (1717-1779), the celebrated actor.

_J. F----_. According to "Literary Remains," Barron Field (1786-1846),
Lamb's friend and correspondent.

_Handel_, George Frederick (1685-1759), the musical composer, German by
birth but naturalized in England.

P. 325. _Wildair_, in Farquhar's comedy "Sir Harry Wildair."

_Abel Drugger_, in Ben Jonson's "Alchemist," was one of Garrick's famous
parts.

P. 326. _author of Mustapha_. Fulke Greville.

_Kit Marlowe_ (1564-1593), the most brilliant writer of tragedy before
Shakespeare. He wrote "Tamburlaine the Great," "The Tragical History of
Dr. Faustus," "The Jew of Malta," and "Edward the Second." In the "Age of
Elizabeth" Hazlitt says of him, "There is a lust of power in his writings,
a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination,
unhallowed by any thing but its own energies."

_Webster_, John, wrote during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century. His chief plays are "The White Devil" and the "Duchess of Malfy."
_Dekker_, Thomas (c. 1570-1641). "The Shoemaker's Holiday," "The Honest
Whore," and "Old Fortunatus" are his best plays. In the third lecture of
the "Age of Elizabeth" Hazlitt thus compares Webster and Dekker: "Webster
would, I think, be a greater dramatic genius than Deckar, if he had the
same originality; and perhaps is so, even without it. His White Devil and
Duchess of Malfy, upon the whole perhaps, come the nearest to Shakspeare
of anything we have upon record; the only drawback to them, the only shade
of imputation that can be thrown upon them, 'by which they lose some
colour,' is, that they are too like Shakspeare, and often direct
imitations of him, both in general conception and individual
expression.... Deckar has, I think, more truth of character, more
instinctive depth of sentiment, more of the unconscious simplicity of
nature; but he does not, out of his own stores, clothe his subject with
the same richness of imagination, or the same glowing colours of language.
Deckar excels in giving expression to certain habitual, deeply-rooted
feelings, which remain pretty much the same in all circumstances, the
simple uncompounded elements of nature and passion:--Webster gives more
scope to their various combinations and changeable aspects, brings them
into dramatic play by contrast and comparison, flings them into a state of
fusion by a kindled fancy, makes them describe a wider arc of