Sea, 1593, throws out the same jingling distich on the loss of his pinnace.

"Master Page, sit; good Master Page, sit; Proface What you want in meat, we'll have in drink," says Justice Shallow's fac totum, Davy, in the Second Part of Henry IV.

Proface, Sir Thomas Hanmer observes to be Italian, from profaccia, much good may it do you. Mr. Johnson rather thinks it a mistake for perforce. Sir Thomas however is right; yet it is no argument for his author's Italian knowledge.

Old Heywood, the epigrammatist, addressed his readers long before,

Readers, reade this thus: for preface, proface,
Much good do it you, the poore repast here, &c.

Woorkes, Lond. 4to. 1562.

And Dekker in his play, If it be not good, the Devil is in it, (which is certainly true, for it is full of devils,) makes Shackle-soule, in the character of Friar Rush, tempt his brethren with "choice of dishes,"

To which proface; with blythe lookes sit yee.

Nor hath it escaped the quibbling manner of the Waterpoet, in the title of a poem prefixed to his Praise of Hempseed: "A Preamble, Preatrot, Preagallop, Preapace, or Preface; and Proface, my Masters, if your Stomacks

But the editors are not contented without coining Italian. "Rivo, says the drunkard," is an expression of the madcap Prince of Wales; which Sir Thomas Hanmer corrects to Ribi, drink away, or again, as it should be rather translated. Dr. Warburton accedes to this; and Mr. Johnson hath admitted it into his text; but with an observation, that Rivo might possibly be the cant of English taverns. And so indeed it was: it occurs frequently in Marston. Take a quotation from his comedy of What you will, 1607:

Musicke, tobacco, sacke, and sleepe,
The tide of sorrow backward keep :
If thou art sad at others fate,
Rivo, drink deep, give care the mate.

VOL. I.

E 2

In Love's Labour Lost, Boyet calls Don Armado,

A Spaniard that keeps here in court,

A phantasme, a monarcho.

Here too Sir Thomas is willing to palm Italian upon us. We should read, it seems, mammuccio, a mammet, or puppet: Ital. Mammuccia. But the allusion is to a fantastical character of the time." Popular applause," says Meres, "dooth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praise and glorie, as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and MONARCHO that liued about the court." P. 178.

I fancy, you will be satisfied with one more instance. "Baccare! you are marvellous forward," quoth Gremio to Petruchio in the Taming of a Shrew.

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as our

by

"But not so forward," says Mr. Theobald, editors are indolent. This is a stupid corruption of the press, that none of them have dived into. We must read Baccalare, as Mr. Warburton acutely observed to me, which the Italians mean, Thou ignorant, presumptuous man. .”—“ Properly, indeed," adds Mr. Heath, "a graduated scholar, but ironically and sarcastically, a pretender to scholarship."

This is admitted by the editors and critics of every denomination. Yet the word is neither wrong, nor Italian : it was an old proverbial one, used frequently by John Heywood; who hath made, what he pleases to call, epigrams upon it.

Take two of them, such as they are:

Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow:

Went that sow backe at that biddyng trowe you?

Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow:"se

Mortimers sow speakth as good latin as he.

Howel takes this from Heywood, in his Old Sawes and Adages: and Philpot introduces it into the Proverbs collect ed by Camden.

We have but few observations concerning Shakespeare's knowledge of the Spanish tongue. Dr. Grey indeed is willing to suppose, that the plot of Romeo and Juliet may be borrowed from a COMEDY of Lopes de Vega. But the Spaniard, who was certainly acquainted with Bandello,

hath not only changed the catastrophe, but the names of the characters. Neither Romeo nor Juliet ; neither Montague nor Capulet, appears in this performance: and how came they to the knowledge of Shakespeare ?-Nothing is more certain, than that he chiefly followed the translation by Painter, from the French of Boisteau, and hence arise the deviations from Bandello's original Italian. It seems, however, from a passage in Ames's Typographical Antiquities, that Painter was not the only translator of this popular story and it is possible, therefore, that Shakespeare might have other assistance.

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In the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish and consequently the author himself was acquainted with it.

Paucus pallebris, let the world slide, sessa.

But this is a burlesque on Hieronymo; the piece of bombast, that I have mentioned to you before :

What new device have they devised, trow?

Pocas pallabras, &c.

Mr. Whalley tells us, "the author of this piece hath the happiness to be at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with himself:" Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take this opportunity of informing him, that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he will accept the authority of his contemporary, Heywood.

More hath been said concerning Shakespeare's acquaintance with the French language. In the play of Henry V. we have a whole scene in it, and in other places it occurs familiarly in the dialogue.

We may observe in general, that the early editions have not half the quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the author; and it is extremely probable, that the French ribaldry was as the many additions at first inserted by a different hand, most certainly were after he had left the stage.-Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily believe, that he was acquainted with the scene between Catharine and the

old gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense.

Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson's edition, hath an ingenious observation to prove that Shakespeare, supposing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the language.

"Est-il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton bras ?" says a Frenchman.-" Brass, cur?" replies Pistol.

"Almost any one knows, that the French word bras is pronounced brau; and what resemblance of sound does this bear to brass ?"

Mr. Johnson makes a doubt, whether the pronunciation of the French language may not be changed since Shakespeare's time; "if not," says he, "it may be suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes:" but this does not appear to be the case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the grammarians, or the practice of the poets. I am certain of the former from the French Alphabeth of De la Mothe, and the Orthoepia Gallica of John Eliot; and of the latter from the rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du Bartas.-Connexions of this kind were very common. Shakespeare himself assisted Ben Jonson in his Sejanus, as it was originally written; and Fletcher in his Two Noble Kinsmen.

But what if the French scene were occasionally introduced into every play on this subject? and perhaps there were more than one before our poet's-In Pierce Penilesse, his Supplication to the Deuill, 4to. 1592, (which, it seems, from the Epistle to the Printer, was not in the first edition,) the author, Nash, exclaims, "What a glorious thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on the stage leading the French King prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dolphin to swear fealty!"-And it appears from the Jests of the famous comedian, Tarlton, 4to. 1611, that he had been particularly celebrated in the part of the Clown, in Henry the Fifth ; but no such character exists in the play of Shakespeare. Henry the Sixth hath ever been doubted; and a passage in the above-quoted piece of Nash may give us reason to believe it was previous to our author. "Howe would it haue joyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyen two hundred yeare in his toomb, he should triumph again on the stage; and haue his bones new embalmed with the

teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at seuerall times) who in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding."-I have no doubt but Henry the Sixth had the same author with Edward the Third, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's Prolusions.

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It hath been observed, that the Giant of Rabelais is sometimes alluded to by Shakespeare and in his time no translation was extant.-But the story was in every one's hand.

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In a letter by one Laneham, or Langham, for the name is written differently, concerning the entertainment at Killingwoorth Castle, printed 1575, we have a list of the vulgar romances of the age: King Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, Friar Rous, Howleglass, and GARGANTUA." Meres mentions him as equally hurtful to young minds with the Four Sons of Aymon, and the Seven Champions. And John Taylor hath him likewise in his catalogue of authors, prefixed to Sir Gregory Nonsence.

But to come to a conclusion. I will give you an irrefragable argument, that Shakespeare did not understand two very common words in the French and Latin languages.

According to the articles of agreement between the conqueror Henry and the king of France, the latter was to style the former, (in the corrected French of the modern editions,) "Nostre tres chier filz Henry roy d'Angleterre ;" and in Latin, “Præclarissimus filius," &c. "What," says Dr. Warburton, "is tres cher in French, præclarissimus in Latin! we should read præcarissimus."-This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came the blunder? it is a typographical one in Holinshed, which Shakespeare copied ; but must indisputably have corrected, had he been acquainted with the languages." Our said father, during his life, shall name, call, and write us in French in this manner :-Nostre tres chier filz, Henry roy d'Engleterreand in Latine in this manner, Præclarissimus filius noster." Edit. 1587, p. 574.

To corroborate this instance, let me observe to you, though it be nothing further to the purpose, that another error of the same kind hath been the source of a mistake in an historical passage of our author; which hath ridicu lously troubled the critics.