[66] "When Dryden, our first great master of verse and harmony, brought his play of 'Amphitryon' to the stage, I heard him give it his first reading to the actors; in which, though it is true he delivered the plain sense of every period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being believed, when I affirm it."--_Cibber's Apology_, 4to.
[67] [Transcriber's note: "See page 112" in original. This is to be found in Section III.]
[69] "I find (says Gildon) Mr. Bayes, the younger [Rowe], has two qualities, like Mr. Bayes, the elder; his admiration of some odd books, as 'Reynard the Fox,' and the old ballads of 'Jane Shore,' etc."-- _Remarks on Mr. Rome's Plays_. "Reynard the Fox" is also mentioned in "The Town and Country Mouse," as a favourite book of Dryden. And Addison, in the 85th number of the Spectator, informs us, that Dorset and Dryden delighted in perusing the collection of old ballads which the latter possessed.
[73] [The unfavourable accounts of Lady Elizabeth's temper after marriage are not much better founded than those of her maidenly or unmaidenly conduct before it. Dryden's supposed to almost all his contemporaries in _belles-lettres_. There is no sign in his letters of any conjugal unhappiness, and Malone's "respectable authority" is family gossip a century after date.--ED.]
[74] [Transcriber's note: "P. 85" in original. This is to be found in Section II.]
[75] These are--1. Latin verses prefixed to Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse. 2. Latin verses on the Death of Charles II., published in the Cambridge collection of Elegies on that occasion. 3. A poem in the same language, upon Lord Arlington's Gardens, published in the Second Miscellany. 4. A translation of the seventh Satire of Juvenal, mentioned in the text. 5. An English poem, on the Happiness of a Retired Life. 6. A pretty song, printed by Mr. Malone, to which Charles Dryden also composed music.
[76] The prologue was spoken by the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dryden; from which Mr. Malone selects the following curious quotation:--"Mr. Bevil Higgons, the writer of it, _ventured_ to make the representative of our great dramatic poet speak these lines!--