Note 269 — Chapter V · ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Take as one of a hundred, and from the less read pieces, that interesting passage in the masque of The New World Discovered in the Moon, which Gifford has made more interesting by a further discovery in Theobald’s copy:—
Chro. Is he a man’s poet or a woman’s poet, I pray you?you?
2nd Her. Is there any such difference?
Fact. Many, as betwixt your man’s tailor and your woman’s tailor.
1st Her. How, may we beseech you?
Fact. I’ll show you: your man’s poet may break out strong and deep i' the mouth, ... but your woman’s poet must flow, and stroke the ear, and as one of them said of himself sweetly—
“Must write a verse as smooth and calm as cream,
In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.”
Whereon the injured “Tibbalds”: “Woman’s Poet, his soft versification—Mr P——.”
The Induction to Every Man out of His Humour, a very large part of Cynthia’s Revels, with its principal character of Crites, and its audacious self-praise in the Epilogue, not a little of The Silent Woman, and scores of other places in play and poem, might be added.