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"And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, fuppofing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it? "¿gpavos ab ogpvòs-acting in darkness and obfcurity."

Mr. Heath affures us, that the bare mention of fuch an interpretation is a fufficient refutation of it; and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the fame hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's knowledge of the old comedy, and his etymolo. gical learning in the word, Defdemona.

Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with fairies, notwithstanding his laborious ftudy of Spenfer. The laft authentic account of them is from our countryman William Lilly; and it by no means agrees with the learned interpretation: for the angelical creatures appeared in his Hurft wood in a moft illustrious glory," and indeed, (fays the fage,) it is not given to many persons to endure their glorious aspects."

The only use of transcribing these things, is to fhew what abfurdities men for ever run into, when they lay down an hypothefis, and afterward feek for arguments in the support of it. What elfe could induce this man, by no means a bad fcholar, to doubt whether Truepenny might not be derived from Tpútavov; and quote upon us with much parade an old fcholiaft on Aristophanes ?—I will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two or three more expreffions, in which he was pleased to fuppose some learned meaning or other; all which he might have found in every writer of the time, or still more easily in the vulgar tranflation of the Bible, by confulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden.

But whence have we the plot of Timon, except from the Greek of Lucian?-The editors and criticks have been never at a greater lofs than in their inquiries of this

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fort; and the fource of a tale hath been often in vai fought abroad, which might easily have been found at home my good friend, the very ingenious editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, hath fhewn our autho to have been fometimes contented with a legendary ballad.

The story of the misanthrope is told in almost every col lection of the time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakspeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch. Indeed, from a pasfage in an old play, called Jack Drum's Entertainment, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the ftage.

As

Were this a proper place for fuch a difquifition, I could give you many cafes of this kind. We are fent for inftance to Cinthio for the plot of Measure for Measure, and Shakspeare's judgment hath been attacked for fome deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew of the matter was from madam Isabella in the Heptameron of Whetstone. Arifto is continually quoted for the fable of Much ado about nothing; but I fuspect our poet to have been satisfied with the Geneura of Turberville. you like it was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn; which by the way was not printed till a century afterward : when in truth the old bard, who was no hunter of MSS. contented himself solely with Lodge's Rofalynd, or Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The ftory of All's well that ends well, or, as I fuppofe it to have been fometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon. Mr. Langbaine could not conceive, whence the story of Pericles could be taken, "not meeting in history with any such Prince of Tyre ;"

yet

this legend may be found at large in old Gower, under ♦ name of Appolynus.

Pericles is one of the plays omitted in the latter editions, well as the early folios, and not improperly; though was published many years before the death of Shak eare, with his name in the title-page. Aulus Gellius forms us, that fome plays are afcribed absolutely to lautus, which he only re-touched and polished; and this undoubtedly the cafe with our author likewife. The vival of this performance, which Ben Jonfon calls ftale ad mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the draa. I know, that another of these discarded pieces, The orkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called fo; but soft certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor ndeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which tis built, was perpetrated no fooner than 1604: much Do late for fo mean a performance from the hand of hakspeare.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falfhood, which Mr. Theobald was defirous of palming upon the world or a pofthumous one of Shakspeare: and I see it is classed is fuch in the last edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the ftrictures of Scriblerus, in a letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written fince the middle of the last century:

This late example

Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
From each good afpe&t takes away my trust.

And in another place,

You have an aspect, fir, of wondrous wisdom.

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The word afpect, you perceive, is here accented on the first fyllable, which, I am confident, in any sense of it, was never the cafe in the time of Shakspeare; though it may fometimes appear to be fo, when we do not observe a preceding elifion.

Some of the professed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutie: I could point out to you several performances in the respective ftyles of Chaucer, Spenfer, and Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not poffibly have either read or conftrued.

This very accent hath troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be a tone different from the present use. Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatife of Harmony and Numbers, very folemnly informs us, that "this verfe is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III. v. 266:

His words here ended, but his meek afpéct
Silent yet fpake.-

Here (fays he) a fyllable is acuted and long, whereas it fhould be fort and graved!”

And a still more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new version of the Paradise Loft, into BLANK verse, "by which that amazing work is brought fomewhat nearer the summit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, v. $40 :

The setting fun

Slowly descended, and with right aspéct—
Levell'd his evening rays.-

Not fo in the new version :

Meanwhile the fetting fun descending flow→→
Levell'd with afpe&t right his ev'ning rays.

Enough

Enough of fuch commentators. The celebrated Dr. Dee had a fpirit, who would sometimes condefcend to correst him, when peccant in quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little affifted the wights abovementioned. -Milton affected the antique; but it may feem more extraordinary, that the old accent fhould be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, The Double Falfhood is fuperior to Theobald. One paffage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written:

Strike up, my masters ;

But touch the ftrings with a religious softness:

Teach found to languish through the night's dull ear,
Till melancholy start from her lazy couch,

And careleffness grow convert to attention.

Thefe lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not refift the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance.

To whom then shall we afcribe it? Somebody hath told us, who fhould feem to be a noftrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and confequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the contrary, the Irish laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks, (and were it true, it would be certainly decifive) that the plot is borrowed from a novel of Cervantes, not published till

the

year after Shakspeare's death. But unluckily the fame novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.-The fame reasoning however, which exculpated our author from

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