The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 28. Shakespeare and His Forerunners
Shakespeare and his Forerunners contains such surprising pronouncements as that Drummond of Hawthornden is “one of the chief glories of the English tongue.” Yet he could often divine an essential quality, as in his remark on Chaucer’s works as “full of cunning hints and twinkle-eyed suggestions which peep between the lines like the comely faces of country children between the fence-bars as one rides by.”