"Compare all whiteneffe, but himselfe to none, "Glided along, and as he glided watch'd, "And with his arched neck this poore fish catch'd.-" Progreffe of the Soul, st. 24. Those highly finished landscapes, the Seafons, are indeed copied from nature, but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his master: The ftately failing fwan "Gives out his fnowy plumage to the gale; "And arching proud his neck with oary feet, " But to return, as we fay on other occafions.Perhaps the advocates for Shakspeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more fuccessful. Mr. Gildon takes the van. "It is plain, that he was acquainted with the fables of antiquity very well: that fome of the arrows of Cupid are pointed with lead, and others with gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido, in Virgil: nor do I know any tranflation of these poets fo ancient as Shakspeare's time." The paffages on which these fagacious remarks are made, occur in The Midfummer Night's Dream; and exhibit, we fee, a clear proof of acquaintance with the Latin clafficks. But we are not answerable for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stany hurft, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of Turberville and Churchyard! but thefe fables were easily known without the help of either the originals or the translations. The fate of Dido had been fung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marlowe had even already introduced her to the stage: and Cupid's arrows appear with their characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, VOL. II. D in Spenfer, and every fonnetteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before in The Romaunt of the Rofe: a work, you may venture to look into, notwithstanding Mafter Prynne hath fo pofitively affured us, on the word of John Gerfon, that the author is most certainly damned, if he did not care for a serious repentance." Mr. Whalley argues in the fame manner, and with the fame fuccefs. He thinks a paffage in The Tempest, High queen of flate, "Great Juno comes; I know her by her gait." a remarkable inftance of Shakspeare's knowledge of ancient poetick story; and that the hint was furnished by the divûm incedo regina of Virgil.' You know, honeft John Taylor, the Water-poet, declares that he never learned his Accidence, and that Latin and French were to him Heathen-Greek; yet by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a learned man, in spite of every thing, Had our zealous puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monaftery in France, by the legacy of a great cheft, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than vetches. The friars enraged at the ridicule and difappointment, would not fuffer him to have chriftian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious Obfervations on the Statutes, 4to. 1766, p. 24. From the Annales d'Aquitaine. Par. 1537. Our author had his full fhare in diftreffing the fpirit of this restless man. "Some Play-books are grown from Quarto into Folio; which yet bear fo good a price and fale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.-Shackfpeer's Plaies are printed in the best Crowne-paper, far better than most Bibles!" 7 Others would give up this paffage for the vera incessu patuit dea; but I am not able to fee any improvement in the matter: even fuppofing the poet had been fpeaking of Juno, and no previous tranflation were extant. he may fay to the contrary: for thus he makes a gallant addrefs his lady: "Most ineftimable magazine of beauty-in whom the port and majesty of Juno, the wisdom of Jove's braine-bred girle, and the feature of Cytherea,* have their domeftical habitation." In The Merchant of Venice we have an oath "By two-headed Janus ;" and here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakspeare fhews his knowledge in the antique: and fo again does the Water-poet, who defcribes Fortune, "Like a Janus with a double face." But Shakspeare hath fomewhere a Latin motto, quoth Dr. Sewell; and fo hath John Taylor, and a whole poem upon it into the bargain. You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and indeterminate fuch arguments must be: for in fact this Sweet fwan of Thames, as Mr. Pope calls him, hath more scraps of Latin, and allufions to antiquity than are any where to be met with in the writings of 8 This paffage recalls to my memory a very extraordinary fact. A few years ago, at a great court on the continent, a countryman of ours of high rank and character, [Sir C. H. W.] exhibited with many other candidates his complimental epigram on the birth-day, and carried the prize in triumph: "O Regina orbis prima & pulcherrima: ridens Literally ftolen from Angerianus, "Tres quondam nudas vidit Priameius heros "Hoc majus; tres uno in corpore: Calia ridens Delitiæ Ital. Poet. by Gruter, under the anagrammatic name of Ranutius Gherus, 1608, V. I. p. 189. Perhaps the latter part of the epigram was met with in a whimfical book, which had its day of fame, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 1652, 6th edit. p. 520. Shakspeare. I am forry to trouble you with trifles, yet what must be done, when grave men infift upon them? It should seem to be the opinion of some modern criticks, that the perfonages of claffick land began only to be known in England in the time of Shakspeare; or rather, that he particularly had the honour of introducing them to the notice of his countrymen. For inftance,-Rumour painted full of tongues, gives us a prologue to one of the parts of Henry the Fourth; and, fays Dr. Dodd, Shakspeare had doubtlefs a view to either Virgil or Ovid in their description of Fame. But why fo? Stephen Hawes, in his Paftime of Pleafure had long before exhibited her in the fame and fo had Sir Thomas More in one of his Pageants:" "Fame I am called, mervayle you nothing Though with tonges I am compaffed all rounde." not to mention her elaborate portrait by Chaucer, in The Boke of Fame; and by John Higgins, one of the affiftants in The Mirrour for Magiflrates, in his Legend of King Albanacte. А A very liberal writer on the Beauties of Poetry, who had been more converfant in the ancient literature of other countries, than his own, "cannot but wonder, that a poet, whofe claffical images are composed of the finest parts, and breath the very 8 Cap. 1. 4to. 1555. 9 Amongst the things, which Mayfter More wrote in his youth for his paftime," prefixed to his Workes, 1557, Fol. spirit of ancient mythology, fhould pafs for being illiterate : 66 "See, what a grace was feated on this brow! "New lighted on a heaven-kiffing hill." Hamlet. Illiterate is an ambiguous term: the queftion is, whether poetick hiftory could be only known by an adept in languages. It is no reflection on this ingenious gentleman, when I fay, that I use on this occafion the words of a better critick, who yet was not willing to carry the illiteracy of our poet too far:-" They who are in such astonishment at the learning of Shakspeare, forget that the pagan imagery was familiar to all the poets of his time; and that abundance of this fort of learning was to be picked up from almost every English book, that he could take into his hands." For not to infift upon Stephen Bateman's Golden Booke of the Leaden Goddes, 1577, and several other laborious compilations on the fubject, all this and much more mythology might as perfectly have been learned from the Teftament of Crefeide, and the Fairy Queen,' as from a regular Pantheon or Polymetis himself. Mr. Upton, not contented with heathen learning, when he finds it in the text, muft neceffarily fuperadd it, when it appears to be wanting; because Shakspeare most certainly hath loft it by accident! * Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but really written by Robert Henderfon, or Henryfon, according to other authorities. 3 It is obfervable that Hyperion is ufed by Spenfer with the fame error in quantity. |