Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
_Songs and Rimes of Shakspeare._--I find in Mr. J. P. Collier's _History of
Dramatic Poetry_ (a work replete with dramatic lore and anecdote) the
following note in p. 275., vol. iii.:
"The Mitre and the Mermaid were celebrated taverns, which the poets,
wits, and gallants were accustomed to visit. Mr. Thorpe, the
enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street, is in possession of a
manuscript full of songs and poems, in the handwriting of a person of
the name of Richard Jackson, all copied prior to the year 1631, and
including many unpublished pieces, by a variety of celebrated poets.
One of the most curious is a song in five seven-line stanzas, thus
headed: 'Shakespeare's Rime, which he made at the Mytre in Fleete
Streete.' It begins: 'From the rich Lavinian shore;' and some few of
the lines were published by Playford, and set as a catch. Another
shorter piece is called in the margin,--
'SHAKESPEARE'S RIME.
Give me a cup of rich Canary wine,
Which was the Mitres (drink) and now is mine;
Of which had Horace and Anacreon tasted,
Their lives as well as lines till now had lasted.'
"I have little doubt," adds Mr. Collier, "that the lines are genuine,
as well as many other songs and poems attributed to Ben Jonson, Sir W.
Raleigh, H. Constable, Dr. Donne, J. Sylvester, and others."
Who was the purchaser of this precious MS.? In this age of Shakspearian
research, when every newly discovered relic is hailed with intense delight,
may I inquire of some of your numerous readers, who seem to take as much
delight as myself in whatever concerns our great dramatist and his
writings, whether they can throw any light upon the subject?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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