guages. 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 subject, all this and much more mythology might as perfectly have been learned from the Teftament of Creseide, 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, must neceffarily fuperadd it, when it appears to be wanting; because Shakspeare most certainly hath loft it by accident! In Much ado about Nothing, Don Pedro fays of the infenfible Benedict, "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-ftring, and the little bangman dare not shoot at him." This mythology is not recollected in the ancients, and therefore the critick hath no doubt but his author wrote“Henchman,—a page, pufio: and this word feeming too hard for the printer, he tranflated the little urchin into a bangman, a character no way belonging to him." But this character was not borrowed from the ancients; -it came from the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney: Millions of yeares this old drivel! Cupid lives; (At Juno's fuite who much did Argus love) In In this our world a hangman for to be Of all those fooles that will have all they fec. I know it may be objected, on the authority of fuch biographers as Theophilus Cibber, and the writer of the Life of Sir Philip, prefixed to the modern editions, that the Arcadia was not published before 1613, and confequently too late for this imitation; but I have a copy in my own poffeffion, printed for W. Ponsonbie, 1590, 4to. which hath escaped the notice of the industrious Ames, and the rest of our typographical antiquaries. Thus likewise every word of antiquity is to be cut down to the claffical standard. In a note on the Prologue to Troilus and Creffida, (which, by the way, is not met with in the quarto,) Mr. Theobald informs us, that the very names of the gates of Troy have been barbarously demolished by the editors: and a deal of learned dust he makes in fetting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's fatisfaction. Indeed the learning is modeftly withdrawn from the later editions, and we are quietly inftructed to read, Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian, And Antenorides. But had he looked into the Troy boke of Lydgate, instead of puzzling himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to have been neither the work of Shakspeare nor his editors: Therto his cyte compaffed enuyrowne Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne : And And in ftorye lyke as it is founde, The fourthe gate | hyghte alfo Cetheas; The fyfthe Trojana, | the syxth Anthonydes, Lond. empr. by R. Pynfon, 1513, fol. B. II. ch. xi. Our excellent friend Mr. Hurd hath borne a noble teftimony on our fide of the question. "Shakspeare," fays this true critick, "owed the felicity of freedom from the bondage of claffical superstition, to the want of what is called the advantage of a learned education.-This, as well as a vast fuperiority of genius, hath contributed to lift this astonishing man to the glory of being esteemed the most original thinker and speaker, fince the times of Homer." And hence indifputably the amazing variety of ftyle and manner, unknown to all other writers: an argument of itself fufficient to emancipate Shakspeare from the fuppofition of a classical training. Yet, to be honest, one imitation is faftened on our poet; which hath been infifted upon likewise by Mr. Upton and Mr. Whalley. You remember it in the famous fpeech of Claudio in Measure for Meafure: Ay, but to die and go we know not where! &c. Most certainly the ideas of "a spirit bathing in fiery floods," of refiding "in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," or of being " imprisoned in the viewless winds," are not original in our author; but I am not sure that they came from the Platonick hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold hell: "The fyrfte is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," fays an old homily:"The feconde is paffyng colde, that yf a grete hylle of fyre were caften therein, it sholde torne to yce.” One One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspeare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a foul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a grete brenning beate in his foot: take care you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember M. Menage quotes a canon upon us: Si quis dixerit epifcopum PODAGRA laborare, anathema fit. Another tells us of the foul of a monk faftened to a rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its enormities. Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as you may see in a poem "where the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell," among the many mifcellaneous ones fubjoined to the works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquifitive Brother-Antiquary, our Greek Profeffor, hath obferved to me on the authority of Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were certainly very little read either in the poet or the philofopher. After all, Shakspeare's curiofity might lead him to tranflations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonick bell into the "punytion of faulis in purgatory:" and it is obfervable, that when the Ghoft informs Hamlet of his doom there, Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature the expreffion is very fimilar to the bishop's: I will give you his verfion as concisely as I can ; "It is a nedeful thyng to fuffer panis and torment-fum in the wyndis, fum under the watter, and in the fire uthir fum:-thus the mony vices Contrakkit It seems, however, that Shakspeare bimfelf in the Tempeft hath tranflated some expreffions of Virgil: witness the O dea certe." I prefume, we are here directed to the paffage, where Ferdinand says of Miranda, after hearing the fongs of Ariel, Moft fure, the goddess On whom these airs attend. and fo very small Latin is fufficient for this formidable translation, that if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loath to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on fuch a fandy foundation. Let us turn to a real translator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader; supposing it neceffarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst: O to thee, fayre virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted? -No doubt, a godeffe! Edit. 1583. epitaph'd, the in Gabriel Harvey defired only to be " ventor of the English bexameter," and for a while every one would be halting on Roman feet; but the ridicule of our fellow-collegian Hall, in one of his Satires, and the reasoning of Daniel, in his Defence of Rhyme against Campion, presently reduced us to our original Gothick. But to come nearer the purpose, what will you fay, if I can fhew you, that Shakspeare, when, in the favourite phrafe, he had a Latin poet in bis eye, moft affuredly made ufe of a tranflation? Profpero, |