Introducing Shakespeare: A Graphic Guide - Nick Groom, Piero 2013
Hony-tongued
Shakespeare was writing on average two plays a year. By 1598, Francis Meres could write in his contemporary compendium Palladis Tamia that “the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c”. Meres goes on …
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, his Loue labors wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King lohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet.