[Footnote 68: It is difficult to guess who is meant. Certainly the description does not apply to Thomas Randolph, whose pastorals are rather ornate, and duly garnished with classical names; witness a dialogue between Tityrus and Alexis, "occasioned by two doctors disputing on predestination." Still less do I think Robert Randal was the person intended, whom Ritson has introduced among the English poets, in virtue of his "Woeful Song," and his "Woeful and Sorrowful Complaint," licensed two days after the execution of his son and him, at St Thomas-a-Waterings, 21st February, 1593. Probably Dryden, if he filled up this name, was contented to speak at large, from a general recollection, that Thomas Randolph, the adopted son of Ben Jonson, had written pastorals. The corresponding author named by Boileau, is Pierre Ronsard, who, in singing of Henry and Charles of France, degraded them into Henriot and Carlin.] [Footnote 69: These concluding lines are probably Dryden's; being marked with his usual inveteracy against Elkanah Settle, and his peculiar sense of that bard's presumption in prefixing an engraving of his portrait to the "Empress of Morocco"--a circumstance which Dryden took more to heart than was necessary, or becoming: David Logan was the engraver of this offensive plate.] [Footnote 70: These lines in the original, are translated with uncommon spirit and accuracy in his Life of Lopez de Vega: The Spanish bard, who no nice censure fears, In one short day includes a lapse of years; In those rude acts the hero lives so fast, Child in the first, he's grey-beard in the last. ] [Footnote 71: The following concise account of the origin of the mysteries, or religious plays, (still, I believe, acted in some parts of Flanders,) is extracted from a lively and popular miscellany. "It is generally allowed, that pilgrims introduced these devout spectacles. Those who returned from the Holy-Land, or rather consecrated places, composed canticles of their travels, and amused their religious fancies by interweaving scenes, of which Christ, the apostles, and other objects of devotion, served as the themes. Menestrier informs us, that these pilgrims travelled in troops, and stood in the public streets, where they recited their poems, with their staff in hand; while their chaplets and cloaks, covered with shells and images of various colours, formed a picturesque exhibition, which at length excited the piety of the citizens to erect, occasionally, a stage on an extensive spot of ground. These spectacles served as the amusement and instruction of the people. So attractive were these gross exhibitions in the dark ages, that they formed one of the principal ornaments of the reception which was given to princes when they entered towns."--_D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature._]