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Though I have as much of the natale folum about me, as any man whatsoever; yet, I own, the primrofe path is ftill more pleafing than the Foffe or the Watling-Street:

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Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale "Its infinite variety.

And when I am fairly rid of the duft of topographical antiquity, which hath continued much longer about me than I expected; you may very probably be troubled again with the ever fruitful fubject of SHAKSPEARE and his COMMENTATORS.

This alludes to an intended publication of the Antiquities of the Town of Leicester. The work was juft begun at the prefs, when the writer was called to the principal tuition of a large college, and was obliged to decline the undertaking. The plates, however, and fome of the materials have been long ago put into the hands of a gentleman, who is every way qualified to make a proper ufe of them.

APPENDIX

то

MR. COLMAN'S TRANSLATION OF

TERENCE,

(OCTAVO EDITION.)

TH This curious HE reverend and ingenious Mr. Farmer, in his curious and entertaining Effay on the Learning of Shakspeare, having done me the honour to animadvert on fome paffages in the preface to this tranflation, I cannot dismiss this edition without declaring how far I coincide with that gentleman; although what I then threw out carelessly on the fubject of this pamphlet was merely incidental, nor did I mean to enter the lifts as a champion to defend either fide of the question.

It is most true, as Mr. Farmer takes for granted, that I had never met with the old comedy called The Suppofes, nor has it ever yet fallen into my hands; yet I am willing to grant, on Mr. Farmer's authority, that Shakspeare borrowed part of the plot of The Taming of the Shrew, from that old tranflation of Ariofto's play by George Gafcoign, and had no obligations to Plautus. I will accede alfo to the truth of Dr. Johnson's and Mr. Farmer's obfervation, that the line from Terence, exactly as it ftands in Shakspeare, is extant in Lilly and Udall's Floures for Latin Speaking. Still, however, Shakfpeare's total ignorance of the learned languages remains to be proved; for it must be granted, that fuch books are put into the hands of those who are

learning thofe languages, in which clafs we must neceffarily rank Shakspeare, or he could not even have quoted Terence from Udall or Lilly; nor is it likely, that fo rapid a genius fhould not have made fome further progrefs. "Our author," fays Dr. Johnfon, as quoted by Mr. Farmer, " had this line from Lilly; which I mention, that it may not be brought as an argument of his learning." It is, however, an argument that he read Lilly; and a few pages further it seems pretty certain, that the author of The Taming of the Shrew had at least read Ovid; from whofe Epiftle we find these lines:

"Hàc ibat Simois; hic eft Sigeïa tellus;

"Hic fteterat Priami regia celfa fenis."

And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occafion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer fay on this occafion? Nothing.

In Love's Labour's Loft, which, bad as it is, is afcribed by Dr. Johnson himself to Shakspeare, there occurs the word thrafonical; another argument which feems to fhew that he was not unacquainted with the comedies of Terence; not to mention, that the character of the schoolmafter in the fame play could not poffibly be written by a man who had travelled no further in Latin than bic, hæc, boc.

In Henry the Sixth we meet with a quotation from Virgil:

"Tantæne animis cœleftibus iræ?"

But this, it feems, proves nothing, any more than the lines from Terence and Ovid, in the Taming of the Shrew; for Mr. Farmer looks on Shakspeare's property in the comedy to be extremely difputable; and he has no doubt but Henry the Sixth had the

fame author with Edward the Third, which had been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's Prolufions.

If any play in the collection bears internal evidence of Shakspeare's hand, we may fairly give him Timon of Athens. In this play we have a familiar quotation from Horace:

"Ira furor brevis eft."

I will not maintain but this hemiftich may be found in Lilly or Udall; or that it is not in the Palace of Pleafure, or the English Plutarch; or that it was not originally foifted in by the players: it ftands, however, in the play of Timon of Athens.

The world in general, and thofe who purpose to comment on Shakspeare in particular, will owe much to Mr. Farmer, whofe researches into our old authors throw a luftre on many passages, the obfcurity of which muft elfe have been impenetrable. No future Upton or Gildon will go further than North's tranflation for Shakspeare's acquaintance with Plutarch, or balance between Dares Phrygius, and The Troye Booke of Lydgate. The Hyftorie of Hamblet, in black letter, will for ever fuperfede Saxo Grammaticus; tranflated novels and ballads will, perhaps, be allowed the fources of Romeo, Lear, and The Merchant of Venice; and Shakspeare himself, however unlike Bayes in other particulars, will ftand convicted of having transverfed the profe of Holinfhed; and, at the fame time, to prove that his fludies lay in his own language," the tranflations of Ovid are determined to be the production of Heywood.

"That his fludies were moft demonftratively confined to nature, and his own language," I readily allow but does it hence follow that he was fo deplorably ignorant of every other tongue, living or

dead, that he only "remembered, perhaps, enough of his School-boy learning to put the big, bag, bog, into the mouth of Sir H. Evans; and might pick up in the writers of the time, or the course of his converfation, a familiar phrafe or two of French or Italian." In Shakspeare's plays both these last languages are plentifully fcattered; but, then we are told, they might be impertinent additions of the players. Undoubtedly they might: but there they are, and, perhaps, few of the players had much more learning than Shakspeare.

Mr. Farmer himself will allow that Shakspeare began to learn Latin: I will allow that his ftudies lay in English: but why infift that he neither made any progrefs at school; nor improved his acquifitions there? The general encomiums of Suckling, Denham, Milton, &c. on his native genius, prove nothing; and Ben Jonfon's celebrated charge of Shakspeare's Small Latin, and lefs Greek, feems

9 Mr. Farmer clofes the general teftimonies of Shak fpeare's having been only indebted to nature, by faying, "He came out of her hand, as fome one elfe expreffes it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.' It is whimfical enough, that this fome one elfe, whofe expreffion is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakspeare's want of literature, fhould be no other than my felf. Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention where he met with the expreffion of fome one else; and fome one else does not choose to mention where he dropt it.*

In defence of the various reading of this paffage, given in the Preface to the laft edition of Shakspeare, finall Latin and no Greek," Mr. Farmer tells us, that "it was adopted above a century

It will appear ftill more whimsical that this fome one elfe whofe expreffion is here quoted, may have his claim to it fuperfeded by that of the late Dr. Young, who in his Conjectures on Original Compofition, (p. 100, Vol. V. edit. 1773,) has the following fentence: "An adult genius comes out of nature's hands, as Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature. Shakspeare's genius was of this kind." Where fome one e efe the firft may have intermediately dropped the contefted expreffion I cannot afcertain, but fome one elfe the fecond tranfcribed it from the author already mentioned. ANON.

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