Note 90 — DIALOGUE IV. ON THE AGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Reading edition
A learned foreigner gives this character of the English at that time: “Angli, ut ADDICTE SERVIUNT, ità evecti ad dignitates priorem humilitatem INSOLENTIA rependunt.” H. Grotii Ann. L. v. p. 95. Amst. 1657. Hence the propriety of those complaints, in our great poet, of,
“The whips and scorns of th’ time, Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The insolence of office;”—
complaints so frequent, and so forcibly expressed by him, that we may believe he painted from his own observation, and perhaps experience, of this insolent misuse of authority. Measure for Measure, A. II. S. vii.