The earliest (1591) of these is Sir John Harington, in the prefatory matter[258] of his translation of the _Orlando_, which contains the gibe at Puttenham above referred to. [Sidenote: _Minors: Harington, Meres, Webster, Bolton, &c._] It is otherwise much indebted to Sidney, from whom, however, Harington differs in allowing more scope to allegorical interpretation. Then comes Francis Meres, whose _Palladis Tamia_[259] (1598) is to be eternally mentioned with gratitude, because it gives us our one real document about the order of Shakespeare’s plays, but is quite childish in the critical characterisation which it not uninterestingly attempts. Webster’s equally famous, and universally known, epitheting of the work of Shakespeare and others in the Preface to _The White Devil_ (1612) adds yet another instance of the short sight of contemporaries; but tempting as it may be to comment on these, it would not become a Historian of Criticism to do so in this context. Sir W. Vaughan in _The Golden Grove_ (1600) had earlier dealt, and Bolton[260] in his _Hypercritica_ (1616), and Peacham in his _Complete Gentleman_ (1622), were later to deal, with Poetry, but in terms adding nothing to, and probably borrowed from, the utterances of Sidney, Webbe, and Puttenham. Their contributions are “sma’ sums,” as Bailie Nicol Jarvie says, and we must neglect them. ----- Footnote 258: Reprinted by Haslewood. Whetstone’s Preface to _Promos and Cassandra_ (1578) and A. Fraunce’s _Arcadian Rhetoric_ (1588) are earlier still. The former anticipates Sidney in objecting to the irregularity of English plays: the latter is a strong partisan of classical metres, his practice in which is sufficiently roughly treated by Ben Jonson in his _Conversations_, _v. infra_, p. 199. Footnote 259: Reprinted (in its critical section) by Mr Arber, _English Garner_, ii. 94 _sq._ Footnote 260: Bolton’s criticism of his contemporaries is extracted in Warton (iv. 204 _sq._, ed. Hazlitt). The writer, who is dealing with History, and speaking directly of language, disallows most of Spenser (excepting the _Hymns_) and all Chaucer, Lydgate, Langland, and Skelton, can “endure” Gascoigne, praises Elizabeth and James (of course), Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, Constable, Southwell, Sackville, Surrey, Wyatt, Raleigh, Donne, and Greville, but gives the palm for “vital, judicious, and practicable” language to Jonson. -----