[272] Specifically from ‘wanton quick desires’ and ‘lustful heat.’  One is almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been.

[273] In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of La Fida pastora, by ‘FF.  Anglo-Britannus,’ namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page.

[274] As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to court representation.

[275] Randolph’s familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis’ humorous expansion of Corisca’s remark about changing her lovers like her clothes: 

    Other Nymphs
  Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne,
  Nay, every petticote; I have only one,
  The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.)

[276] A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, [Greek:  o)mphe/], a divine voice or prophecy.  He may possibly have associated the word with the Delphic [Greek:  o)mphalo/s].

[277] It is possible that Laurinda’s indecision may owe something to the doppio amore of Celia in the Filli di Sciro.  See especially III. i. of that play.

[278] Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell’s the description of the play as ’one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking of the best properties of Guarini’s and Tasso’s poetry, without being a servile imitation of either.’  He has been misled into supposing that the comments in the Dictionary of Plays are original.  The above first appears in the Biographia Dramatica of 1812, and may therefore be ascribed to Stephen Jones.  All Halliwell did was to omit the further words, ‘its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.’  The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical claptrap.  Halliwell reprinted the ‘fairy’ scenes in his Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Soc., 1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we are not informed.

[279] 1822, p. 61.  This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever better deserved than that administered by the Saturday Review on August 21, 1875.  As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have had recourse to the very correct first edition of the Poems, 1638, checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues.

[280] The sense in the original is defective.

[281] i.e.  Tethys, a very common confusion.