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a prettiness below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where
Uriel glides backward and forward to Heaven on a Sun-
beam. Dr. Newton informs us that this might possibly
be hinted by a Picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of
France's Cabinet: but I am apt to believe that Milton had
been struck with a Portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the
Comedy of the Brothers, 1652, describes Jacinta at Vespers :
Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh'd
With it's own swelling, drop'd upon her bosome;
Which, by reflexion of her light, appear'd

As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament:
After, her looks grew chearfull, and I saw
A smile shoot gracefull upward from her eyes,
As if they had gain'd a victory o'er grief,
And with it many beams twisted themselves,
Upon whose golden threads the Angels walk
To and again from Heaven.-

You must not think me infected with the spirit of J Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's Imitations:

The Swan with arched neck

Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows

Her state with oary feet.-B. 7. V. 438, &c.

"The ancient Poets," says Mr. Richardson, "have not hit upon this beauty; so lavish as they have been in their descriptions of the Swan. Homer calls the Swan long-necked, douλixodeípov; but how much more pittoresque, if he had arched this length of neck?"

For this beauty, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whose name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings:

Like a Ship in her full trim,

A Swan, so white that you may unto him

Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none,

Glided along, and as he glided watch'd,

And with his arched neck this poore fish catch'd.

Progresse of the Soul, St. 24.

Those highly finished Landscapes, the Seasons, are

indeed copied from Nature: but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his Master:

The stately-sailing Swan

Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet

Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier Isle,
Protective of his young.-

But to return, as we say on other occasions-Perhaps the Advocates for Shakespeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more successful. Mr. Gildon takes the Van. "It is plain that He was acquainted with the Fables of antiquity very well: that some of the Arrows of Cupid are pointed with Lead, and others with Gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido, in Virgil: nor do I know any translation of these Poets so ancient as Shakespeare's time." The passages on which these sagacious remarks are made occur in the Midsummer Night's Dream; and exhibit, we see, a clear proof of acquaintance with the Latin Classicks. But we are not answerable for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stanyhurst, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of Turberville and Churchyard! but these Fables were easily known without the help of either the originals or the translations. The Fate of Dido had been sung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marloe had even already introduced her to the Stage and Cupid's arrows appear with their characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, in Spenser, and every Sonnetteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before in the Romaunt of the Rose: a work you may venture to look into, notwithstanding Master Prynne hath so positively assured us, on the word of John Gerson, that the Author is most certainly damned, if he did not care for a serious repentance. Mr. Whalley argues in the same manner, and with the He thinks a passage in the Tempest,

same success.

High Queen of State,

Great Juno comes; I know her by her Gait,

a remarkable instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of ancient Poetick story; and that the hint was furnished by the Divum incedo Regina of Virgil.

You know, honest John Taylor, the Water-poet, declares that he never learned his Accidence, and that Latin and French were to him Heathen-Greek; yet, by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a learned Man, in spite of every thing he may say to the contrary: for thus he makes a Gallant address his Lady,

"Most inestimable Magazine of Beauty-in whom the Port and Majesty of Juno, the Wisdom of Jove's brainebred Girle, and the Feature of Cytherea, have their domestical habitation."

In the Merchant of Venice, we have an oath "By twoheaded Fanus"; and here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakespeare shews his knowledge in the Antique : and so again does the Water-poet, who describes Fortune,

Like a Janus with a double-face.

But Shakespeare hath somewhere a Latin Motto, quoth Dr. Sewel; and so hath John Taylor, and a whole Poem upon it into the bargain.

You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and indeterminate such arguments must be for in fact this sweet Swan of Thames, as Mr. Pope calls him, hath more scraps of Latin, and allusions to antiquity, than are any where to be met with in the writings of Shakespeare. I am sorry to trouble you with trifles, yet what must be done, when grave men insist upon them?

It should seem to be the opinion of some modern criticks, that the personages of classick land began only to be known in England in the time of Shakespeare; or rather, that he particularly had the honour of introducing them to the notice of his countrymen.

For instance, Rumour painted full of tongues gives us a Prologue to one of the parts of Henry the fourth; and, says Dr. Dodd, Shakespeare had doubtless a view to either Virgil or Ovid in their description of Fame.

But why so?

Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure, had long before exhibited her in the same

manner,

A goodly Lady envyroned about

With tongues of fyre ;

and so had Sir Thomas More in one of his Pageants,

Fame I am called, mervayle you nothing

Though with tonges I am compassed all rounde;

not to mention her elaborate Portrait by Chaucer, in the Boke of Fame; and by John Higgins, one of the Assistants in the Mirour for Magistrates, in his Legend of King Albanacte.

A very liberal Writer on the Beauties of Poetry, who hath been more conversant in the ancient Literature of other Countries than his own, "cannot but wonder that a Poet, whose classical Images are composed of the finest parts, and breath the very spirit of ancient Mythology, should pass for being illiterate :

See, what a grace was seated on his brow!
Hyperion's curls: the front of Jove himself:
An eye like Mars to threaten and command:
A station like the herald Mercury,
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.

Hamlet."

Illiterate is an ambiguous term: the question is, whether Poetick History could be only known by an Adept in Languages. It is no reflection on this ingenious Gentleman, when I say that I use on this occasion 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 Shakespeare, forget that the Pagan Imagery was familiar to all the Poets of his time; and that abundance of this sort of learning was to be picked up from almost every English book that he could take into his hands." For not to insist 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 Testament 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 necessarily superadd it, when it appears to be wanting because Shakespeare most certainly hath lost it by accident!

In Much ado about Nothing, Don Pedro says of the insensible Benedict, "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little Hangman 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, Pusio: and this word seeming too hard for the Printer, he translated the little Urchin into a Hangman, 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 drivell Cupid lives;
While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove:
Till now at length that Jove an office gives,
(At Juno's suite who much did Argus love)
In this our world a Hangman for to be

Of all those fooles that will have all they see.

B. 2. Ch. 14.

I know it may be objected on the authority of such 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 consequently too late for this imitation: but I have a Copy in my own possession, 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 classical standard.

In a Note on the Prologue to Troilus and Cressida (which, by the way, is not met with in the Quarto),

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