with great propriety, and seeming knowledge of the Latin tongue" and he proceeds to settle the sense of it from the late Roman writers and their glossers. But Shakespeare's knowledge was from Holinshed, whom he follows verbatim : "This cardinal was of a great stomach, for he compted himself equal with princes, and by craftie suggestion got into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little on simonie, and was not pitifull, and stood affectionate in his own opinion in open presence he would lie and seie untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning: he would promise much and performe little he was vicious of his bodie, and gaue the clergie evil example.” Edit. 1587, p. 922. : Perhaps, after this quotation, you may not think that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads Tyth'd-instead of-Ty'd all the kingdom, deserves quite so much of Dr. Warburton's severity.-Indisputably the passage, like every other in the speech, is intended to express the meaning of the parallel one in the chronicle: it cannot therefore be credited, that any man, when the original was produced, should still choose to defend a cant acceptation; and inform us, perhaps, seriously, that in gaming language, from I know not what practice, to tye is to equal! A sense of the word, as far as I have yet found, unknown to our old writers; and, if known, would not surely have been used in this place by our author. But let us turn from conjecture to Shakespeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above description is copied by Holinshed, is very explicit in the demands of the Cardinal who having insolently told the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, "For sothe I thinke, that halfe your substaunce were to litle," assures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that upon an average the tythe should be sufficient; "Sers, speake not to breake that thyng that is concluded, for some shal not paie the tenth parte, and some more."—And again; "Thei saied, the Cardinall by visitacions, makyng of abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his courtes legantines, had made his threasore egall with the kinges." Edit. 1548, p. 138, and 143. Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, gives us, after his rambling manner, a curious character of Wolsey: L By and by He will drynke us so dry With the deuill of hel We need neuer feare Of the feendes blacke For I undertake He wold so brag and crake To shudder and to shake Lyke a fier drake And with a cole rake Bruse them on a brake And binde them to a stake And set hel on fyre At his owne desire He is such a grym syre! Edit. 156% Mr. Upton and some other critics have thought it very scholar-like in Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a sword. but this is for ever met with. For instance, in the Passus Primus of Pierce Plowman: Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes, And did hem swere on her sword to serue truth euer. And in Hieronymo, the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano, Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true- This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath, We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantome to illustrate this ceremony: a gentleman, who will be always allowed the first commentator on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself. Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from Henry VI. whence he argues it to be very plain, that our author had not only read Cicero's Offices, but even more critically than many of the editors: This villain here, Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more So the wight, he observes with great exultation, is named by Cicero in the editions of Shakespeare's time, "Bargulus Illyrius latro ;" though the modern editors have chosen to call him Bardylis :-" and thus I found it in two MSS."And thus he might have found it in two translations, before Shakespeare was born. Robert Whytinton, 1533, calls him, "Bargulus, a pirate upon the see of Illiry;" and Nicholas Grimald, about twenty years afterward, "Bargulus the Illyrian robber." But it had been easy to have checked Mr. Upton's exultation, by observing, that Bargulus does not appear in the quarto.-Which also is the case with some fragments of Latin verses, in the different parts of this doubtful performance. It is scarcely worth mentioning, that two or three more Latin passages, which are met with in our author, are immediately transcribed from the story or chronicle before him. Thus, in Henry V. whose right to the kingdom of France is copiously demonstrated by the Archbishop: There is no bar To make against your highness' claim to France, The founder of this law and female bar. Archbishop Chichelie, says Holinshed, "did much inueie. against the surmised and false fained law Salike, which the Frenchmen alledge euer against the kings of England in barre of their just title to the crowne of France. The very words of that supposed law are these, In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant, that is to saie, Into the Salike land let not women succeed; which the French glossers expound to be the realm of France, and that this law was made by king Pharamond: whereas yet their owne authors affirme, that the land Salike is in Germanie, betweene the rivers of Elbe and Sala," &c. p. 545. It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's Essay upon English Tragedy, that the portrait of Macbeth's wife is copied from Buchanan, "whose spirit, as well as words, is translated into the play of Shakespeare: and it had sig nified nothing to have pored only on Holinshed for facts." -" Animus etiam, per se ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quæ omnium consiliorum ei erat conscia) stimulabatur." This is the whole, that Buchanan says of the lady; and truly I see no more spirit in the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. "The wordes of the three weird sisters also greatly encouraged him, [to the murder of Duncan] but specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queene. Edit. 1577, p. 244. This part of Holinshed is an abridgment of Johne Bellenden's translation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the passage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all wemen are) specially quhare they ar desirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to pursew the thrid weird, that sche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris, sen he durst not assailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit sindry otheris hes assailziet sic thinges afore with maist terriby! jeopardyis, quhen they had not sic sickerness to succeid in the end of thair lauboris as he had." P. 173. But we can demonstrate, that Shakespeare had not the story from Buchanan. According to him, the weird-sisters salute Macbeth, "Una Angusia Thamum, altera Moraviæ, tertia regem.". -Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c. but according to Holinshed, immediately from Bellenden, as it stands in Shakespeare: "The first of them spake and sayde, All hayle Makbeth, thane of Glammis,-the second of them said, Hayle, Makbeth, thane of Cawder; but the third sayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereafter shall be king of Scotland." P. 243. 1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! Here too our poet found the equivocal predictions, on which his hero so fatally depended. "He had learned of certain wysards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe; and surely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch whom he had in great trust, had tolde, that he should neuer be slain with man born of any woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castell of Dunsinane." P. 244. And the scene between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almost literally taken from the Chronicle. Macbeth was certainly one of Shakespeare's latest productions, and it might possibly have been suggested to him by a little performance on the same subject at Oxford, before king James, 1605. I will transcribe my notice of it from Wake's Rex Platonicus: "Fabulæ ansam dedit antiqua de Regiâ prosapiâ historiola apud ScotoBritannos celebrata, quæ narrat tres olim Sibyllas occurrisse duobus Scotia proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, & illum prædixisse Regem futurum, sed Regem nullum geniturum; hunc Regem non futurum, sed Reges geniturum multos. Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus comprobavit. Banchonis enim è stirpe potentissimus Jacobus oriundus." P. 29. A stronger argument hath been brought from the plot of Hamlet. Dr. Grey and Mr. Whalley assure us, that for this, Shakespeare must have read Saxo Grammaticus in Latin, for no translation hath been made into any modern language. But the truth is, he did not take it from Saxo at all; a novel called The Hystorie of Hamblet, was his original a fragment of which, in black letter, I have been favoured with by a very curious and intelligent gentleman, to whom the lovers of Shakespeare will some time or other owe great obligations. : It hath indeed been said, that "If such an history exists, it is almost impossible that any poet unacquainted with the Latin language (supposing his perceptive faculties to have been ever so acute,) could have caught the characteristical madness of Hamlet,described by Saxo Grammaticus, so happily as it is delineated by Shakespeare." Very luckily, our fragment gives us a part of Hamlet's speech to his mother, which sufficiently replies to this observation:" It was not without cause, and juste occasion, that my gestures, countenances and words seeme to proceed from a madman, and that I desire to haue all men esteeme mee wholly depriued of sence and reasonable un |