"--_Biog. Lit_., vol. ii. p. 82.]
[Footnote 2:
Mr. Coleridge called Shakspeare "_the myriad-minded man_," [Greek: au_az
muzioyous]--" a phrase," said he, "which I have borrowed from a Greek monk,
who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople. I might have said, that I
have _reclaimed_, rather than borrowed, it, for it seems to belong to
Shakspeare _de jure singulari, et ex privilegio naturae." See Biog. Lit.,
vol. ii. p. 13.--ED.]
* * * * *
As for editing Beaumont and Fletcher, the task would be one _immensi
laboris_. The confusion is now so great, the errors so enormous, that the
editor must use a boldness quite unallowable in any other case. All I can
say as to Beaumont and Fletcher is, that I can point out well enough where
something has been lost, and that something so and so was probably in the
original; but the law of Shakspeare's thought and verse is such, that I
feel convinced that not only could I detect the spurious, but supply the
genuine, word.
_March_ 20. 1834.
LORD BYRON AND H. WALPOLE'S "MYSTERIOUS MOTHER."--LEWIS'S "JAMAICA
JOURNAL."
Lord Byron, as quoted by Lord Dover[1], says, that the "Mysterious Mother"
raises Horace Walpole above every author living in his, Lord Byron's, time.
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