Content:
This scrap can be linked to the article "George Fox and Shakspere" in the section entitled "Elias Hicks" in
November Boughs
, published 1888.
Whitman is referring to a translation of Voltaire's
Philosophical Dictionary
(Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1852), where the passage on pages 197-198 clearly discusses Quakers or "primitives."
Content:
A manuscript for a portion of Whitman's essay "George Fox and Shakspere," which first appeared as the final piece in "November Boughs" (1888) and was later reprinted in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). In the essay, Whitman compares Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, and Shakespeare, noting that both were "born and bred of similar stock, in much the same surroundings and station of life from the same England—and at a similar period."
