Page:An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.djvu/154

134 are Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xenophon. Of these Herodotus, as living nearest to the time, is the most trustworthy. The Cyropaedia of Xenophon is a historical romance, nor does the writer himself pretend that it is anything more. Herodotus makes Cyrus, when advanced in years, invade the country of the Massagetae, whose queen was Tomyris, and lose his life in battle. (Smith's Class. Biogr. Dictionary.)

21. Hor. de Arte Poet. 188.

25. Hesiod, Theog. 27.

45. 15. The Bloody Brother, also called The Tragedy of Rollo Duke of Normandy, by John Fletcher, was first printed in 1639. The plot is taken from the fourth book of Herodian; it is Roman imperial history transferred to new times, places, and persons; Caracalla and Geta become Rollo and Otto. Whatever merit the piece may have in respect of uniformity, the versification and style are both of a low and rude type.

26. Oleo, or oglio, is a corruption of olla in olla podrida, a Spanish dish consisting of a stew of several kinds of meat and vegetables. Oleo, therefore, means a mess or mixture.

47. 3. Dryden appears to have borrowed this word from Corneille, who speaks (Rodog. Exam.) of a 'personage protatique,' i.e. an introductory character; it is from the Greek.

50. 13. Hor. A. P. 180-187. Horace writes 'Ne pueros': a line is omitted after 'trucidet.'

25. The reference is to Act iii, Sc. i. 2, of Jonson's comedy of The Magnetic Lady.

51. 9. The title of this play, the joint work of Beaumont and Fletcher, and first acted in 1611, was A King and no King. In the last act Gobryas, a noble, reveals to Arbaces, king of Illyria, that he is really his son, and not the son of Arane, the queen mother; Arbaces, thus become a subject and 'no King,' marries Panthea, the true heir to the throne, and all ends happily.

52. 2. The Scornful Lady, a joint play, was produced some time between 1609 and 1615. 'The sudden conversion of the usurer Morecraft is imitated from the Adelphi of