the Greek and Roman Poets were adjudg'd to Vail at least
their Glory in that of the English Hero.'

{329a} Milton, _Iconoclastes_, 1690, pp. 9-10.

{329b} Cf. Evelyn's _Diary_, November 26, 1661: 'I saw Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark, played, but now the old plays began to disgust the refined age,
since His Majesty's being so long abroad.'

{330a} _Conquest of Granada_, 1672.

{330b} _Essay on Dramatic Poesie_, 1668. Some interesting, if more
qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an
adaptation of 'Troilus and Cressida' in 1679. In the prologue to his and
D'Avenant's adaptation of 'The Tempest' in 1676, he wrote:

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

{332a} Cf. _Shakspere's Century of Praise_, 1591-1693, New Shakspere
Soc., ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and _Fresh Allusions_, ed.
Furnivall, 1886.

{332b} Cf. W. Sidney Walker, _Critical Examination of the Text of
Shakespeare_, 1859.

{333} See _Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare and other Poets by S. T.
Coleridge_, _now first collected by T. Ashe_, 1883. Coleridge hotly
resented the remark, which he attributed to Wordsworth, that a German
critic first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakespeare.
(Coleridge to Mudford, 1818; cf. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p.
cv.) But there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (see p.
344, note 1).

{334} R. E. Hunter, _Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration_,
1864.

{335} Thomas Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify the
new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom:

For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen
With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT.

{338} _Essays of Elia_, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. 180 et seq.

{340a} _Hamlet_ in 1874-5 and _Macbeth_ in 1888-9 were each performed by
Sir Henry Irving for 200 nights in uninterrupted succession; these are
the longest continuous runs that any of Shakespeare's plays are known to
have enjoyed.

{340b} See p. 346.

{341} Cf. Alfred Roffe, _Shakspere Music_, 1878; _Songs in Shakspere_
. . . _set to Music_, 1884, New Shakspere Soc.

{342} Cf. D. G. Morhoff, _Unterricht von der teutschen Sprache und
Poesie_, Kiel, 1682, p. 250.

{344} In his 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' in the edition of his
_Poems_ of