wood-notes wild." *** * Amenities of Authors--Shakespeare," p. 210. ** Ibid., p. 211. *** Dr. Maginn, in his Shakespearean papers ("Learning of Shakespeare"), endeavors to explain what Milton meant by "native wood-notes wild." Surely if there is any thing in letters that is not "native wood-notes," it is the stately Shakespearean verse, full of camps and courts, but very rarely of woodlands and {021}pastures; besides, whatever Milton might say of the book called "Shakespeare" in poetry--like Ben Jon-son--he showed unmitigated contempt for its writer in prose: about the worst thing he could say about his king in "The Iconoclast," was that Charles I. kept an edition of Shakespeare for his closet companion. * "Other stuff of this sort," cries the blind poet, "may be read throughout the whole tragedy, wherein the poet used much license in departing from the truth of history." ** In 1681, one Nahum Tate, supposed to be a poet (a delusion so widespread that he was actually created "poet laureate") stumbled upon "a thing called Lear," assigned to one William Shakespeare, and, after much labor, congratulated himself upon having "been able to make a play out of it." *** * "Amenities of Authors--Shakespeare," vol. ii, p. 208. Ibid., p. 209, note. ** It is fair to say that "stuff" may only have meant "matter," but it is indisputable that the passage was meant as a slur on one who would read "Shakespeare." *** The "play" he did make out of it is to be found in W. H. Smith's "Bacon and Shakespeare," p. 129. {022}so meanly written that the comedy neither caused your mirth nor the serious part your concernment....