speare's knowledge was from Holingshed, 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 saie 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 euil 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 chuse 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 Holingshed, 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 kynges." 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:

By and by

He will drynke us so dry
And sucke us so nye

That men shall scantly
Haue penny or halpennye
God saue hys noble grace
And graunt him a place
Endlesse to dwel

With the deuill of hel
For and he were there
We nead neuer feare
Of the feendes blacke
For I undertake

He wold so brag and crake
That he wold than make
The deuils to quake

To shudder and to shake

Lyke a fier drake

And with a cole rake

Mr. Upton and some other Criticks 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

But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,

This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath,
Shall be the worker of thy Tragedy!

We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantôme to illustrate this ceremony: a Gentleman who will be always allowed the

N

first Commentator on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself.

Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from Henry the sixth, 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
Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian Pirate.

So the Wight, he observes with great exultation, is named by Cicero in the Editions of Shakespeare's time, “Bargulus Illyrius latro"; tho' 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 the fifth, 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,
But this which they produce from Pharamond:
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant;
No Woman shall succeed in Salike land:
Which Salike land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salike lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elve, &c.

"did much

Archbishop Chichelie, says Holingshed, "did 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, between 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 signified nothing to have pored only on Holingshed 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 Holingshed 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 assailzeit sic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they had not sic sickernes to succeid in the end of thair laubouris as he had." p. 173.

But we can demonstrate that Shakespeare had not the Story from Buchanan. According to him, the WeirdSisters salute Macbeth, "Una Angusia Thamum, altera Moraviæ, tertia Regem."-Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c., but according to Holingshed, 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.

I Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis ! 2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! 3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter !

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 borne 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 Regia prosapia historiola apud Scoto-Britannos celebrata, quæ narrat tres olim Sibyllas occurrisse duobus Scotia proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, & illum prædixisse Regem futurum, sed Regem nullum geniturum;