[Medea] is quoted by Quintilian as Seneca's, and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is not found there. (Malone.) Ovid's line, cited by Quintilian in his eighth book, as stronger and more impressive than the adage Nocere facile est, prodesse difficile; is—Servare potui. Perdere an possim rogas?
39. 17. Virg. Æn. i. 378; parts of two lines.
41. 10. Pierre Corneille was born at Rouen in 1606, and produced his first play, Mélite, a comedy, in 1625.
42. 28. The Red Bull, in St. John's Street, was one of the meanest of our ancient theatres, and was famous for entertainments adapted to the taste of the lower orders of the people. (Malone.) In Strype's edition of Stow's London there is a plan of the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, on which is marked 'Red Bull Yard,' between St. John's Street and Clerkenwell Green. This must have been the site of the theatre. The ground formerly belonged to the priory of St. John at Jerusalem; and it is not unlikely that, as Shakspeare and his company turned the ruinous buildings of the Blackfriars, near St. Paul's, to account for a theatre, the patrons of the Red Bull made a similar use of the monastic ruins at Clerkenwell. In his Annals of the Stage (iii. 324) Mr. Collier collects a number of notices, more or less interesting, of the Red Bull Theatre. Wither, in his satires, Randolph in his Muses' Looking Glass, and Prynne in the Histriomastix, all make mention of it. It was pulled down not long after the Restoration, and Drury Lane was regarded as having taken its place.
29. Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 185. Horace wrote:—
'Si discordet eques, media inter carmina poscunt
Aut ursum aut pugiles.'
43. 13. Ars Poet. 240.
22. Ib. 151.
28. Dryden here used 'success' in the sense of the Spanish suceso, which means 'event,' or 'issue.'
44. 3. The writers from whom we learn the story of Cyrus
