act iii. sc. 3 of _The Malcontent_, where Marston sneers at the scene

in act iv. of _King Richard the Second_ when Richard says:--

Now is this golden crown like a deep well, That owes two buckets filling one another.

50: Is it imaginable that Shakspere could have allowed his own most beautiful productions to be thus leered at, and mocked, in his own theatre? Our feeling rebels against the thought.

Beniamini Jonsonio Poetae Elegantissimo Gravissimo Amico Suo Candido et Cordato Johannes Marston, Musarum Alumnus, Asperam Hanc Suam Thaliam DD.

51: Who else can be meant by the 'Frenchman's Helicon' than Montaigne? He is satirically called 'Helicon,' as he is taken down from his height in 'Hamlet.'

52: In meaning alike to Jonson's: 'Counting all old doctrine heresie.'

53: Act i. sc.2.

54: Act iv. sc. 5.

55: Act i. sc. 4.

56: Act i. sc. 7.

57: Act i. sc. 6.

58: Act iii. sc. 2.

59: Act ii. sc. 5.

60: Act i. Sc. 5 in _Hamlet_; _Malcontent_, act iii. sc. 3.

61: Perhaps an allusion to the conclusion of _Hamlet_, when the State falls into the hands of a soldier (Fortinbras). --Soldaten-Religion, keine Religion ('a soldier's religion, no religion'), as the old German saying is.

62: Rochelle-Churchman--that is, Huguenot.

63: See Bacon's Essay, _Of Atheism_: 'All that impugn a received religion or superstition are by the adverse part branded with the name of Atheists.'

64: Sonnet lxvi. lxxxv.

65: xc. xci. xcii.

66: In _Eastward Hoe_, his most delicate poetical production, Ophelia, is most abominably parodied--'rudely strumpeted.'