A GLOSSARY; OR, COLLECTION OF WORDS, PHRASES, NAMES, AND ALLUSIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN THOUGHT TO REQUIRE ILLUSTRATION, IN THE WORKS OF ENGLISH AUTHORS, PARTICULARLY SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. BY ROBERT NARES, A.M., F.R.S., F.A.S., ARCHDEACON OF STAFFORD, &c. THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., &c. PREFACE OF THE EDITORS. ROBERT NARES, the author of the following Glossary, was during his whole life an active man of letters, though the great mass of his labours have not left any very permanent mark on the literature of his day. He was born at York on the 9th of June, 1753, and was the son of Dr. James Nares, the celebrated composer and teacher of music, and organist to George II and George III. The Doctor's brother, and the uncle of Robert Nares, was sir George Nares, who sat during fifteen years on the bench of Common Pleas. Robert Nares received his first education in Westminster School, where, in 1767, at the early age of fourteen, he was at the head of his election as king's scholar. In 1771, he was elected to a studentship of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1775, and his master's degree in 1778, and entered holy orders. From 1779 to 1783, he held the situation of tutor to the two Wynns (sir Watkin and Charles Williams), residing with them at Wynnstay, and during the season in London. During this period he wrote prologues, epilogues, and light pieces, for the private dramatic fêtes at Wynnstay, as well as a considerable number of essays on various subjects for periodicals. In 1782, Christ Church presented him with the small living of Easton Mawdit in Northamptonshire, and soon afterwards he received that of Doddington from the lord Chancellor. In 1784, Nares published his first philological work, the Elements of Orthoëpy.' The same year he married Elizabeth Bayley, the youngest daughter of Thomas Bayley, of Chelmsford, who died in child-bed in 1785. He resumed his connection with the Wynns from 1786 to 1788, while his pupils were at Westminster School, and he acted as assistant-preacher at Berkeley Chapel. In 1787, he was appointed chaplain to the duke of York, and in the year following he was chosen assistant-preacher to the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn, a post which he held during fifteen years. He had now become the centre of a large circle of friends and acquaintances, by whom he was respected not only as a gentleman and scholar but as a sound divine and sincere Christian, and to whom he was endeared by many social qualities; and he produced a considerable number of political as well as other essays and pamphlets. This literary activity led, in 1793, to his starting that well-known periodical, the British Critic,' in b |