Note 39 — SOME ACCOUNT OF MIDDLETON AND HIS WORKS.

Extracts from the Hawthornden Manuscripts, &c., by Mr. D. Laing, p. 86—a very interesting series of papers, which originally appeared in the Archæologia Scotica, vol. iv. Parts i. and ii.

In an address “To the Readers” prefixed to the 4to of Sejanus, 1605, Ben Jonson says, “Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.” On this passage Gifford remarks, “Why might not Chapman or Middleton be intended here? they, like Shakspeare [who, according to the commentators, was the person alluded to], were living in habits of kindness with the poet: they wrote in conjunction with him; they were both men of learning; and no great violation seems offered to language (at least no greater than courtesy would excuse) in terming them happy geniuses.” Gifford, however, concludes that Fletcher was the person actually meant. See B. Jonson’s Works, vol. iii. pp. 6, 7, 8.