Richard Farmer: an Essay On the Learning of Shakespeare: Addressed to Joseph Cradock, Esq. 1767
Preface to the Second Edition, 1767.
THE AUTHOR of the following ESSAY was solicitous only for the honour of Shakespeare: he hath however, in
his own capacity, little reason to complain of
occasional Criticks, or Criticks
by profession. The very
Few, who have been pleased to controvert any part of his Doctrine, have favoured him with better manners than arguments; and claim his thanks for a further opportunity of demonstrating the futility of
Theoretick reasoning against
Matter of Fact. It is indeed strange that any
real Friends of our immortal POET should be still willing to force him into a situation which is not tenable: treat him as a
learned Man, and what shall excuse the most gross violations of History, Chronology, and Geography?
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} is the Motto of every
Polemick: like his Brethren at the
Amphitheatre, he holds it a merit to
die hard; and will not say,
Enough, though the Battle be decided. "Were it shewn," says some one, "that the old Bard borrowed
all his allusions from
English books then published, our
Essayist might have possibly established his System."--In good time!--This had scarcely been attempted by Peter Burman himself, with the Library of Shakespeare before him.--"Truly," as Mr. Dogberry says, "for
mine own part, if I were as tedious as a King, I could find in my heart to bestow it all on this Subject": but where should I meet with a Reader?--When the main Pillars are taken away, the whole Building falls in course: Nothing hath been, or can be, pointed out, which is not easily removed; or rather, which was not
virtually removed before: a very little
Analogy will do the business. I shall therefore have no occasion to trouble myself any further; and may venture to call my Pamphlet, in the words of a pleasant Declaimer against
Sermons on the thirtieth of January, "an Answer to every thing that shall hereafter be written on the Subject."
But "this method of reasoning will prove any one ignorant of the Languages, who hath written when Translations were extant."--Shade of Burgersdicius!--does it follow, because Shakespeare's early life was incompatible with a course of Education--whose Contemporaries, Friends and Foes, nay, and himself likewise, agree in his want of what is usually called
Literature--whose mistakes from equivocal Translations, and even typographical Errors, cannot possibly be accounted for otherwise,--that Locke, to whom not one of these circumstances is applicable, understood no Greek?--I suspect, Rollin's Opinion of our Philosopher was not founded on this argument.
Shakespeare wanted not the Stilts of Languages to raise him above all other men. The quotation from Lilly in the
Taming of the Shrew, if indeed it be his, strongly proves the extent of his reading: had he known Terence, he would not have quoted erroneously from his
Grammar. Every one hath met with men in common life, who, according to the language of the
Water-poet, "got only from
Possum to
Posset," and yet will throw out a line occasionally from their
Accidence or their
Cato de Moribus with tolerable propriety.--If, however, the old Editions be trusted in this passage, our Author's memory somewhat failed him in point of
Concord.
The rage of
Parallelisms is almost over, and in truth nothing can be more absurd. "THIS was stolen from
one Classick,--THAT from
another";--and had I not stept in to his rescue, poor Shakespeare had been stript as naked of ornament, as when he first
held Horses at the door of the Playhouse.
The late ingenious and modest Mr. Dodsley declared himself
Untutor'd in the lore of Greece or Rome:
Yet let us take a passage at a venture from any of his performances, and a thousand to one, it is stolen. Suppose it be his celebrated Compliment to the
Ladies, in one of his earliest pieces,
The Toy-shop: "A good Wife makes the cares of the World sit easy, and adds a sweetness to its pleasures; she is a Man's best Companion in Prosperity, and his only Friend in Adversity; the carefullest preserver of his Health, and the kindest Attendant in his Sickness; a faithful Adviser in Distress, a Comforter in Affliction, and a prudent Manager in all his domestic Affairs."--
Plainly, from a fragment of Euripides preserved by Stobaeus.
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~}!--
Par. 4to. 1623.
Malvolio in the
Twelfth-Night of Shakespeare hath some expressions very similar to Alnaschar in the
Arabian Tales: which perhaps may be sufficient for
some Criticks to prove his acquaintance with Arabic!
It seems however, at last, that "
Taste should determine the matter." This, as Bardolph expresses it, is a
word of exceeding good command: but I am willing that the Standard itself be somewhat better ascertained before it be opposed to demonstrative Evidence.--Upon the whole, I may consider myself as the
Pioneer of the
Commentators:
I have removed a deal of
learned Rubbish, and pointed out to them Shakespeare's track in the ever-pleasing
Paths of Nature. This was necessarily a previous Inquiry; and I hope I may assume with some confidence, what one of the first Criticks of the Age was pleased to declare on reading the former Edition, that "The Question is
now for ever decided."
An Essay On The Learning Of Shakespeare: Addressed To Joseph Cradock, Esq. "Shakespeare," says a Brother of the
Craft, "is a vast garden of criticism": and certainly no one can be favoured with more weeders
gratis.
But how often, my dear Sir, are weeds and flowers torn up indiscriminately?--the ravaged spot is re-planted in a moment, and a profusion of critical thorns thrown over it for security.
"A prudent man, therefore, would not venture his fingers amongst them."
Be, however, in little pain for your friend, who regards himself sufficiently to be cautious:--yet he asserts with confidence, that no improvement can be expected, whilst the natural soil is mistaken for a hot-bed, and the Natives of the banks of
Avon are scientifically choked with the culture of exoticks.
Thus much for metaphor; it is contrary to the
Statute to fly out so early: but who can tell, whether it may not be demonstrated by some critick or other, that a deviation from rule is peculiarly happy in an Essay on Shakespeare!
You have long known my opinion concerning the literary acquisitions of our immortal Dramatist; and remember how I congratulated myself on my coincidence with the last and best of his Editors. I told you, however, that his
small Latin and less Greek would still be litigated, and you see very assuredly that I was not mistaken. The trumpet hath been sounded against "the darling project of representing Shakespeare as one of the illiterate vulgar"; and indeed to so good purpose, that I would by all means recommend the performer to the army of the
braying Faction, recorded by Cervantes. The testimony of his contemporaries is again disputed; constant tradition is opposed by flimsy arguments; and nothing is heard but confusion and nonsense. One could scarcely imagine this a topick very likely to inflame the passions: it is asserted by Dryden, that "those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greatest commendation"; yet an attack upon an article of faith hath been usually received with more temper and complacence, than the unfortunate opinion which I am about to defend.
But let us previously lament, with every lover of Shakespeare, that the Question was not fully discussed by Mr. Johnson himself: what he sees intuitively, others must arrive at by a series of proofs; and I have not time to
teach with precision: be contented therefore with a few cursory observations, as they may happen to arise from the Chaos of Papers you have so often laughed at, "a stock sufficient to set up an
Editor in form." I am convinced of the strength of my cause, and superior to any little advantage from sophistical arrangements.
General positions without proofs will probably have no great weight on either side, yet it may not seem fair to suppress them: take them therefore as their authors occur to me, and we will afterward proceed to particulars.
The testimony of Ben stands foremost; and some have held it sufficient to decide the controversy: in the warmest Panegyrick that ever was written, he apologizes for what
he supposed the only defect in his "beloved friend,--
----Soul of the age!
Th' applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!--
whose memory he honoured almost to idolatry": and conscious of the worth of ancient literature, like any other man on the same occasion, he rather carries his acquirements
above than
below the truth. "Jealousy!" cries Mr. Upton; "People will allow others any qualities, but those upon which they highly value
themselves." Yes, where there
is a competition, and the competitor formidable: but, I think, this Critick himself hath scarcely set in opposition the learning of Shakespeare and Jonson. When a superiority is universally granted, it by no means appears a man's literary interest to depress the reputation of his Antagonist.
In truth the received opinion of the pride and malignity of Jonson, at least in the earlier part of life, is absolutely groundless: at this time scarce a play or a poem appeared without Ben's encomium, from the original Shakespeare to the translator of Du Bartas.
But Jonson is by no means our only authority. Drayton, the countryman and acquaintance of Shakespeare, determines his excellence to the
naturall Braine only. Digges, a wit of the town before our Poet left the stage, is very strong to the purpose,
----Nature only helpt him, for looke thorow
This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borow
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,
Nor once from vulgar languages translate.
Suckling opposes his
easier strain to the
sweat of learned Jonson. Denham assures us that all he had was from
old Mother-wit.
His native wood-notes wild, every one remembers to be celebrated by Milton. Dryden observes prettily enough, that "he wanted not the spectacles of books to read Nature." He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.
The ever memorable Hales of Eton (who, notwithstanding his Epithet, is, I fear, almost forgotten) had too great a knowledge both of Shakespeare and the Ancients to allow much acquaintance between them: and urged very justly on the part of Genius in opposition to Pedantry, That "if he had not
read the Classicks, he had likewise not
stolen from them; and if any Topick was produced from a Poet of antiquity, he would undertake to shew somewhat on the same subject, at least as well written by Shakespeare."
Fuller, a diligent and equal searcher after truth and quibbles, declares positively that "his learning was very little,--
Nature was all the
Art used upon him, as
he himself, if alive, would confess." And may we not say he did confess it, when he apologized for his
untutored lines to his noble patron the Earl of Southampton?--this list of witnesses might be easily enlarged; but I flatter myself, I shall stand in no need of such evidence.
One of the first and most vehement assertors of the learning of Shakespeare was the Editor of his Poems, the well-known Mr. Gildon; and his steps were most punctually taken by a subsequent labourer in the same department, Dr. Sewel.
Mr. Pope supposed "little ground for the common opinion of his want of learning": once indeed he made a proper distinction between
learning and
languages, as I would be understood to do in my Title-page; but unfortunately he forgot it in the course of his disquisition, and endeavoured to persuade himself that Shakespeare's acquaintance with the Ancients might be actually proved by the same medium as Jonson's.
Mr. Theobald is "very unwilling to allow him so poor a scholar as many have laboured to represent him"; and yet is "cautious of declaring too positively on the other side of the question."
Dr. Warburton hath exposed the weakness of some arguments from
suspected imitations; and yet offers others, which, I doubt not, he could as easily have refuted.
Mr. Upton wonders "with what kind of reasoning any one could be so far imposed upon, as to imagine that Shakespeare had no learning"; and lashes with much zeal and satisfaction "the pride and pertness of dunces, who, under such a name, would gladly shelter their own idleness and ignorance."
He, like the learned Knight, at every anomaly in grammar or metre,
Hath hard words ready to shew why,
And tell what
Rule he did it by.
How would the old Bard have been astonished to have found that he had very skilfully given the
trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, COMMONLY called the
ithyphallic measure, to the Witches in
Macbeth! and that now and then a halting Verse afforded a most beautiful instance of the
Pes proceleusmaticus!
"But," continues Mr. Upton, "it was a learned age; Roger Ascham assures us that Queen Elizabeth read more Greek every day, than some
Dignitaries of the Church did Latin in a whole week." This appears very probable; and a pleasant proof it is of the general learning of the times, and of Shakespeare in particular. I wonder he did not corroborate it with an extract from her injunctions to her Clergy, that "such as were but
mean Readers should peruse over before, once or twice, the Chapters and Homilies, to the intent they might read to the better understanding of the people."
Dr. Grey declares that Shakespeare's knowledge in the Greek and Latin tongues cannot
reasonably be called in question. Dr. Dodd supposes it
proved, that he was not such a novice in learning and antiquity as
some people would pretend. And to close the whole, for I suspect you to be tired of quotation, Mr. Whalley, the ingenious Editor of Jonson, hath written a piece expressly on this side the question: perhaps from a very excusable partiality, he was willing to draw Shakespeare from the field of Nature to classick ground, where alone, he knew, his Author could possibly cope with him.
These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their Author's. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various
Excerpta,
Sententiae, and
Flores, this business may be effected with very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in his Comment on
Chevy-chase, and Wagstaff on
Tom Thumb; and I myself will engage to give you quotations from the elder
English writers (for, to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is now in possession of the
Marks of Imitation.
"Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the
facts and
fables of antiquity." Granted:--and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his acquaintance.
It is notorious that much of his
matter of fact knowledge is deduced from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and corrects accordingly the
Errors of his Copyists by the Greek standard. Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently.
In the third act of
Anthony and Cleopatra, Octavius represents to his Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion,
----Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt, made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus,
Lydia,
Absolute Queen.
Read
Libya, says the critick
authoritatively, as is plain from Plutarch, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}.
This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in
Folio, 1579; and you will at once see the origin of the mistake.
"First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of AEgypt, of Cyprus, of
Lydia, and the lower Syria."
Again in the Fourth Act,
----My messenger
He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat,
Caesar to Anthony. Let th' old Ruffian know
I have many other ways to die; mean time
Laugh at his challenge.----
"What a reply is this?" cries Mr. Upton, "'tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,
----Let the old Ruffian know
He hath many other ways to die; mean time
I laugh at his challenge----
we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Caesar in Plutarch."
This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Most indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given so in the modern translations: but Shakespeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one, "Antonius sent again to challenge Caesar to fight him: Caesar answered, That
he had many other ways to die than so."
In the Third Act of
Julius Caesar, Anthony in his well-known harangue to the people, repeats a part of the Emperor's will,
----To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every sev'ral man, seventy-five drachmas----
Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
On
this side Tyber.----
"Our Author certainly wrote," says Mr. Theobald, "On
that side Tyber--
Trans Tiberim--prope Caesaris hortos.
And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently
studied, expressly declares that he left the publick his gardens and walks, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~},
beyond the
Tyber."
This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent Editors; but hear again the old Translation, where Shakespeare's
study lay: "He bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome seventy-five drachmas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on
this side of the river of Tyber." I could furnish you with many more instances, but these are as good as a thousand.
Hence had our author his characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Anthony, upon which much argumentation for his learning hath been founded: and hence
literatim the Epitaph on Timon, which, it was once presumed, he had corrected from the blunders of the Latin version, by his own superior knowledge of the Original.
I cannot, however, omit a passage of Mr. Pope. "The
speeches copy'd from Plutarch in
Coriolanus may, I think, be as well made an instance of the learning of Shakespeare, as those copy'd from Cicero in
Catiline, of Ben. Jonson's." Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a
speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia:
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We've led since thy Exile. Think with thyself,
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His Country's bowels out: and to poor we
Thy enmity's most capital; thou barr'st us
Our prayers to the Gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
Alas! how can we, for our Country pray,
Whereto we're bound, together with thy Victory,
Whereto we're bound? Alack! or we must lose
The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person,
Our comfort in the Country. We must find
An eminent calamity, though we had
Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou
Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led
With manacles thorough our streets; or else
Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin,
And bear the palm, for having bravely shed
Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till
These wars determine: if I can't persuade thee
Rather to shew a noble grace to both parts,
Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy Country, than to tread
(Trust to't, thou shalt not) on thy mother's womb,
That brought thee to this world.
I will now give you the old Translation, which shall effectually confute Mr. Pope: for our Author hath done little more than throw the very words of North into blank verse.
"If we helde our peace (my sonne) and determined not to speake, the state of our poore bodies, and present sight of our rayment, would easely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy selfe, howe much more unfortunately then all the women liuinge we are come hether, considering that the sight which should be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made most fearfull to us: making my selfe to see my sonne, and my daughter here, her husband, besieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that which is the only comfort to all other in their adversitie and miserie, to pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide, is the onely thinge which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas) together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for safety of thy life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy selfe, or the nurse of their natiue contrie. For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this warre. For if I cannot persuade thee, rather to doe good unto both parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt see, my sonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no soner marche forward to assault thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that brought thee first into this world."
The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it happily wants not the assistance of a Comment. But matters may not always be so easily managed:--a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected:
The Sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast Sea. The Moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the Sun.
The Sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The Moon into salt tears. The Earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
From gen'ral excrements: each thing's a thief.
"This," says Dr. Dodd, "is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated
drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alleged by those who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for himself, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is different.--But for argument's sake, let the Parody be granted; and "our Author," says some one, "may be puzzled to prove that there was a Latin translation of Anacreon at the time Shakespeare wrote his
Timon of Athens." This challenge is peculiarly unhappy: for I do not at present recollect any
other Classick (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them) that was
originally published with
two Latin translations.
But this is not all. Puttenham in his
Arte of English Poesie, 1589, quotes some one of a "reasonable good facilitie in translation, who finding
certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard the French poet--comes our Minion, and translates the same out of French into English": and his strictures upon him evince the publication. Now this identical Ode is to be met with in Ronsard! and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of transcribing it:
La terre les eaux va boivant,
L'arbre la boit par sa racine,
La mer salee boit le vent,
Et le Soleil boit la marine.
Le Soleil est beu de la Lune,
Tout boit soit en haut ou en bas:
Suivant ceste reigle commune,
Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas?--Edit. Fol. p. 507.
I know not whether an observation or two relative to our Author's acquaintance with Homer be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox observes on a passage of
Troilus and Cressida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakespeare must
here have had the
Iliad in view, as "the old Story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this circumstance."
And Mr. Upton is positive that the
sweet oblivious Antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the
Nepenthe described in the
Odyssey,
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.
I will not insist upon the Translations by Chapman; as the first Editions are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of their publication. But the
former circumstance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the
latter more fully from Spenser than from Homer himself.
"But Shakespeare," persists Mr. Upton, "hath some
Greek Expressions." Indeed!--"We have one in
Coriolanus,
----It is held
That valour is the chiefest Virtue, and
Most dignifies the
Haver;----
and another in
Macbeth, where Banquo addresses the
Weird-Sisters,
----My noble Partner
You greet with present grace, and great prediction
Of noble
Having.----
Gr. {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~},--and {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, to the
Haver.
This was the common language of Shakespeare's time. "Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Mathew of Bobadil, "a Gentleman of his
Havings!"
Thus likewise John Davies in his
Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his
Scourge of Folly, about 1612:
Do well and have well!--neyther so still:
For some are good
Doers, whose
Havings are ill;
and Daniel the Historian uses it frequently.
Having seems to be synonymous with
Behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers.
Haver, in the sense of
Possessor, is every where met with: tho' unfortunately the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} of Sophocles, produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critick in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning.
But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in
Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, and
unyoke"? alluding to the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} of the Greeks: and Homer and his Scholiast are quoted accordingly!
If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might be taken from Husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it from a
Dittie of the workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holingshed, p. 1546.
My bow is broke, I would
unyoke,
My foot is sore, I can worke no more.
An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended Fairies in the
Merry Wives of Windsor,
----
Orphan Heirs of fixed Destiny;
"and how elegant is this!" quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it, "{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} ab {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}--acting in darkness and obscurity."
Mr. Heath assures us that the bare mention of such an interpretation is a sufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's knowledge of the
Old Comedy, and his etymological learning in the word,
Desdemona.
Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with
Fairies, notwithstanding his laborious study of Spenser. The last authentick 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
Hurst wood in a
most illustrious Glory,--"and indeed," says the Sage, "it is not given to very many persons to endure their
glorious aspects."
The only use of transcribing these things is to shew what absurdities men for ever run into, when they lay down an Hypothesis, and afterward seek for arguments in the support of it. What else could induce this man, by no means a bad scholar, to doubt whether
Truepenny might not be derived from {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}; and quote upon us with much parade an old Scholiast on Aristophanes?--I will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two or three more Expressions, in which he was pleased to suppose some learned meaning or other; all which he might have found in every Writer of the time, or still more easily in the vulgar Translation of the Bible, by consulting 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 loss than in their inquiries of this sort; and the source of a Tale hath been often in vain sought abroad, which might easily have been found at home: My good friend, the very ingenious Editor of the
Reliques of ancient English Poetry, hath shewn our Author to have been sometimes contented with a legendary
Ballad.
The Story of the
Misanthrope is told in almost every Collection of the time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakespeare was intimately acquainted; the
Palace of Pleasure, and the
English Plutarch. Indeed from a passage in an old Play, called
Jack Drum's Entertainment, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the Stage.
Were this a proper place for such a disquisition, I could give you many cases of this kind. We are sent for instance to Cinthio for the Plot of
Measure for Measure, and Shakespeare's judgement hath been attacked for some 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. Ariosto is continually quoted for the Fable of
Much ado about Nothing; but I suspect our Poet to have been satisfied with the
Geneura of Turberville.
As 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
Rosalynd or Euphues'
Golden Legacye. 4to. 1590. The Story of
All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called,
Love's labour wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakespeare 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 his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of
Appolynus.
Pericles is one of the Plays omitted in the later Editions, as well as the early Folios, and not improperly; tho' it was published many years before the death of Shakespeare, with his name in the Title-page. Aulus Gellius informs us that some Plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus, which he only
re-touched and
polished; and this is undoubtedly the case with our Author likewise. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonson calls
stale and
mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the Drama. I know that another of these discarded pieces, the
Yorkshire Tragedy, had been frequently called so; but most certainly it was not written by our Poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The Fact on which it is built was perpetrated no sooner than 1604: much too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakespeare.
Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a Play called the
Double Falshood, which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakespeare: and I see it is classed as such in the last Edition of the Bodleian Catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a Letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written since the middle of the last century:
----This late example
Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
From each good
Aspect takes away my trust.
And in another place,
You have an
Aspect, Sir, of wondrous wisdom.
The word
Aspect, you perceive, is here accented on the
first Syllable, which, I am confident, in
any sense of it, was never the case in the time of Shakespeare; though it may sometimes appear to be so, when we do not observe a preceding
Elision.
Some of the professed Imitators of our old Poets have not attended to this and many other
Minutiae: I could point out to you several performances in the respective Styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, which the
imitated Bard could not possibly have either read or construed.
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
Treatise of Harmony and Numbers, very solemnly informs us that "this Verse is defective both in Accent and Quantity, B. 3. V. 266.
His words here ended, but his meek
Aspect Silent yet spake.----
Here," says he, "a syllable is
acuted and
long, whereas it should be
short and
graved"!
And a still more extraordinary Gentleman, one Green, who published a Specimen of a
new Version of the
Paradise Lost, into BLANK verse, "by which that amazing Work is brought somewhat nearer the Summit of Perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, V. 540:
----The setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right
Aspect--
Levell'd his evening rays.----
Not so in the
New Version:
Meanwhile the setting Sun descending slow--
Level'd with
aspect right his ev'ning rays.
Enough of such Commentators.--The celebrated Dr. Dee had a
Spirit, who would sometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in
Quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little assisted the
Wights above-mentioned.--Milton affected the
Antique; but it may seem more extraordinary that the old Accent should be adopted in
Hudibras.
After all, the
Double Falshood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole Play, he pretended to have written:
----Strike up, my Masters;
But touch the Strings with a religious softness:
Teach sound to languish thro' the Night's dull Ear,
Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch,
And Carelessness grow Convert to Attention.
These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not resist 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 ascribe it?--Somebody hath told us, who should seem to be a
Nostrum-monger by his argument, that, let
Accents be how they will, it is called
an original Play of William Shakespeare in the
Kings Patent, prefixed to Mr. Theobald's Edition, 1728, and consequently there
could be no fraud in the matter. Whilst, on the contrary, the
Irish Laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks (and were it true, it would be certainly decisive) that the Plot is borrowed from a Novel of Cervantes, not published 'till the year after Shakespeare's death. But unluckily the same Novel appears in a part of
Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.--The same reasoning, however, which exculpated our Author from the
Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the present occasion.
But you want
my opinion:--and from every mark of Style and Manner, I make no doubt of ascribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us that he left some Plays in MS.--These were written about the time of the
Restoration, when the
Accent in question was more generally altered.
Perhaps the mistake arose from an
abbreviation of the name. Mr. Dodsley knew not that the Tragedy of
Andromana was Shirley's, from the very same cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tell us that Marston's Plays were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of
William Shakespeare, the famous Comedian."--Here again I suppose, in some Transcript, the real Publisher's name,
William Sheares, was
abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakespeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.
Shirley is spoken of with contempt in
Mac Flecknoe; but his Imagination is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a passage in the fourth book of the
Paradise Lost, which hath been suspected of
Imitation, as a
prettiness below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where
Uriel glides
backward and forward to Heaven on a
Sunbeam. 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 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, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}; 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 same success. He thinks a passage in the
Tempest,
---- 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 braine-bred Girle, and the Feature of Cytherea, have their domestical habitation."
In the
Merchant of Venice, we have an oath "By
two-headed Janus"; 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), 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 setting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's satisfaction. Indeed the learning is modestly withdrawn from the later Editions, and we are quietly instructed to read,
Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scaea, 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 Shakespeare nor his Editors.
Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne
Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne:
The firste of all | and strengest eke with all,
Largest also | and moste pryncypall,
Of myghty byldyng | alone pereless,
Was by the kynge called | Dardanydes;
And in storye | lyke as it is founde,
Tymbria | was named the seconde;
And the thyrde | called Helyas,
The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas;
The fyfthe Trojana, | the syxth Anthonydes,
Stronge and myghty | both in werre and pes.
--Lond. empr. by R. Pynson, 1513. Fol. B. 2. Ch. 11.
Our excellent friend Mr. Hurd hath born a noble testimony on our side of the question. "Shakespeare," says this true Critick, "owed the felicity of freedom from the bondage of classical superstition to the
want of what is called the
advantage of a learned Education.--This, as well as a vast superiority of Genius, hath contributed to lift this astonishing man to the glory of being esteemed the most original
thinker and
speaker, since the times of Homer." And hence indisputably the amazing Variety of Style and Manner, unknown to all other Writers: an argument of
itself sufficient to emancipate Shakespeare from the supposition of a
Classical training. Yet, to be honest,
one Imitation is
fastened on our Poet: which hath been insisted upon likewise by Mr. Upton and Mr. Whalley. You remember it in the famous Speech of Claudio in
Measure for Measure:
Ay, but to die and go we know not where! &c.
Most certainly the Ideas of a "Spirit bathing in fiery floods," of residing "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 fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," says an old Homily:--"The seconde is passyng colde, that yf a grete hylle of fyre were casten therin, it sholde torne to yce." One of their Legends, well remembered in the time of Shakespeare, gives us a Dialogue between a Bishop and a Soul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure
a grete brenning heate 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 Episcopum PODAGRA laborare, Anathema sit.
Another tells us of the Soul of a Monk fastened to a Rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelve-month, and purge of it's 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 miscellaneous ones subjoined to the Works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive Brother-Antiquary, our Greek Professor, hath observed 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
Philosopher.
After all, Shakespeare's curiosity might lead him to
Translations. Gawin Douglas really changes the
Platonick Hell into the "punytion of Saulis in Purgatory": and it is observable that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of his Doom there,
Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature
Are
burnt and purg'd away,----
the Expression is very similar to the Bishop's: I will give you his Version as concisely as I can; "It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and torment--Sum in the wyndis, Sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir Sum:--thus the mony Vices--
Contrakkit in the corpis be
done away And purgit.----
Sixte Booke of Eneados. Fol. p. 191.
It seems, however, "that Shakespeare
himself in the
Tempest hath translated some expressions of
Virgil: witness the
O Dea certe." I presume we are here directed to the passage where Ferdinand says of Miranda, after hearing the Songs of Ariel,
----Most sure, the Goddess
On whom these airs attend;
and so
very small Latin is sufficient for this formidable translation, that if it be thought any honour to our Poet, I am loth to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to a
real Translator, and examine whether the Idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader;
supposing it necessarily 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?
Thy tongue, thy visage no mortal frayltie resembleth.
----
No doubt, a Godesse!--Edit. 1583.
Gabriel Harvey desired only to be "
Epitaph'd, the Inventor of the
English Hexameter," 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 Gothic.
But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say if I can shew you that Shakespeare, when, in the favourite phrase, he had a Latin Poet
in his Eye, most assuredly made use of a Translation?
Prospero in the
Tempest begins the Address to his attendant
Spirits,
Ye Elves of Hills, of standing Lakes, and Groves.
This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea in Ovid: and "it proves," says Mr. Holt, "beyond contradiction, that Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the Sentiments of the Ancients on the Subject of Inchantments." The original lines are these,
Auraeque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,
Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis adeste.
It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur Golding is by no means literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it;
Ye Ayres and Winds;
Ye Elves of Hills, of Brookes, of Woods alone,
Of standing Lakes, and of the Night, approche ye everych one.
I think it is unnecessary to pursue this any further; especially as more powerful arguments await us.
In the
Merchant of Venice, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to Anthonio, rehearses many
Sympathies and
Antipathies for which
no reason can be rendered,
Some love not a gaping Pig----
And others when a
Bagpipe sings i' th' nose
Cannot contain their urine for
affection.
This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to be taken from a passage in Scaliger's
Exercitations against Cardan, "Narrabo tibi jocosam Sympathiam Reguli Vasconis Equitis: Is dum viveret, audito
Phormingis sono, urinam illico facere cogebatur." "And," proceeds the Doctor, "to make this jocular story still more ridiculous, Shakespeare, I suppose, translated
Phorminx by
Bagpipes."
Here we seem fairly caught;--for Scaliger's work was never, as the term goes,
done into English. But luckily in an old translation from the French of Peter le Loier, entitled,
A treatise of Specters, or straunge Sights, Visions and Apparitions appearing sensibly unto men, we have this identical Story from Scaliger: and what is still more, a marginal Note gives us in all probability the very fact alluded to, as well as the word of Shakespeare, "Another Gentleman of this quality liued of late in Deuon neere Excester, who could not endure the playing on a
Bagpipe."
We may just add, as some observation hath been made upon it, that
Affection in the sense of
Sympathy was formerly
technical; and so used by Lord Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and many other Writers.
A single word in Queen Catherine's Character of Wolsey, in
Henry the eighth, is brought by the Doctor as another argument for the learning of Shakespeare:
----He was a man
Of an unbounded Stomach, ever ranking
Himself with Princes; one that by
Suggestion Ty'd all the kingdom. Simony was fair play.
His own opinion was his law, i' th' presence
He would say untruths, and be ever double
Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he now is, nothing.
Of his own body he was ill, and gave
The Clergy ill example.
"The word
Suggestion," says the Critick, "is here used with great propriety, and
seeming knowledge of the Latin tongue": and he proceeds to settle the sense of it from
the late Roman writers and their glossers. But Shakespeare'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
Bruse them on a brake
And binde them to a stake
And set hel on fyre
At his own desire
He is such a grym syre!--Edit. 1568.
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 Brantome to illustrate this ceremony: a
Gentleman who will be always allowed the
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.
Archbishop Chichelie, says Holingshed, "did much 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 (quae 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 Weird-Sisters salute Macbeth, "Una Angusiae Thamum, altera Moraviae, 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.
1 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: "Fabulae ansam dedit antiqua de Regia prosapia historiola apud Scoto-Britannos celebrata, quae narrat tres olim Sibyllas occurrisse duobus Scotiae proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, & illum praedixisse Regem futurum, sed Regem nullum geniturum; hunc Regem non futurum, sed Reges geniturum multos. Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus comprobavit. Banchonis enim e stirpe Potentissimus Jacobus oriundus." p. 29.
A stronger argument hath been brought from the Plot of
Hamlet. Dr. Grey and Mr. Whalley assure us that for
this Shakespeare
must have read
Saxo Grammaticus in Latin, for no translation hath been made into any modern Language. But the truth is, he did not take it from
Saxo at all; a Novel called the
Hystorie of Hamblet was his original: a fragment of which, in
black Letter, I have been favoured with by a very curious and intelligent Gentleman, to whom the lovers of Shakespeare will some time or other owe great obligations.
It hath indeed been said that, "IF
such an history exists, it is almost impossible that any poet unacquainted with the Latin language (supposing his perceptive faculties to have been ever so acute) could have caught the characteristical madness of Hamlet, described by
Saxo Grammaticus, so happily as it is delineated by Shakespeare."
Very luckily, our Fragment gives us a part of Hamlet's Speech to his
Mother, which sufficiently replies to this observation:--"It was not without cause, and juste occasion, that my gestures, countenances, and words seeme to proceed from a madman, and that I desire to haue all men esteeme mee wholy depriued of sence and, reasonable understanding, bycause I am well assured that he that hath made no conscience to kill his owne brother (accustomed to murthers, and allured with desire of gouernement without controll in his treasons) will not spare to saue himselfe with the like crueltie, in the blood and flesh of the loyns of his brother, by him massacred: and therefore it is better for me to fayne madnesse then to use my right sences as nature hath bestowed them upon me. The bright shining clearnes therof I am forced to hide vnder this shadow of dissimulation, as the sun doth hir beams vnder some great cloud, when the wether in summer time ouercasteth: the face of a mad man serueth to couer my gallant countenance, and the gestures of a fool are fit for me, to the end that, guiding my self wisely therin, I may preserue my life for the Danes and the memory of my late deceased father, for that the desire of reuenging his death is so ingrauen in my heart, that if I dye not shortly, I hope to take such and so great vengeance, that these Countryes shall for euer speake thereof. Neuerthelesse I must stay the time, meanes, and occasion, lest by making ouer great hast I be now the cause of mine owne sodaine ruine and ouerthrow, and by that meanes end, before I beginne to effect my hearts desire: hee that hath to doe with a wicked, disloyall, cruell, and discourteous man, must vse craft, and politike inuentions, such as a fine witte can best imagine, not to discouer his interprise: for seeing that by force I cannot effect my desire, reason alloweth me by dissimulation, subtiltie, and secret practises to proceed therein."
But to put the matter out of all question, my communicative Friend above-mentioned, Mr. Capell (for why should I not give myself the credit of his name?), hath been fortunate enough to procure from the Collection of the Duke of Newcastle a
complete Copy of the
Hystorie of Hamblet, which proves to be a translation from the French of Belleforest; and he tells me that "all the chief incidents of the Play, and all the capital Characters, are there in
embryo, after a rude and barbarous manner: sentiments indeed there are none that Shakespeare could borrow; nor any expression but
one, which is, where Hamlet kills Polonius behind the arras: in doing which he is made to cry out, as in the Play, '
a rat, a rat!' "--So much for
Saxo Grammaticus!
It is scarcely conceivable how industriously the puritanical Zeal of the last age exerted itself in destroying, amongst better things, the innocent amusements of the former. Numberless
Tales and
Poems are alluded to in old Books, which are now perhaps no where to be found. Mr. Capell informs me (and he is in these matters the most able of all men to give information) that our Author appears to have been beholden to some Novels which he hath yet only seen in French or Italian: but he adds, "to say they are not in some English dress, prosaic or metrical, and perhaps with circumstances nearer to his stories, is what I will not take upon me to do: nor indeed is it what I believe; but rather the contrary, and that time and accident will bring some of them to light, if not all."----
W. Painter, at the conclusion of the second
Tome of his
Palace of Pleasure, 1567,
advertises the Reader, "bicause sodaynly (contrary to expectation) this Volume is risen to greater heape of leaues, I doe omit for this present time
sundry Nouels of mery deuise, reseruing the same to be joyned with the rest of an other part, wherein shall succeede the remnant of Bandello, specially sutch (suffrable) as the learned French man Francois de Belleforrest hath selected, and the choysest done in the Italian. Some also out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabosco, Cynthio, Straparole, Sansouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of Nauarre, and other Authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue and shall come forth."--But I am not able to find that a
third Tome was ever published: and it is very probable that the Interest of his Booksellers, and more especially the prevailing Mode of the time, might lead him afterward to print his
sundry Novels separately. If this were the case, it is no wonder that such
fugitive Pieces are recovered with difficulty; when the
two Tomes, which Tom. Rawlinson would have called
justa Volumina, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after books of this sort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen them when he published his
Typographical Antiquities; as appears from his blunders about them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the same predicament, had I not been favoured with a Copy by my generous Friend, Mr. Lort.
Mr. Colman, in the Preface to his elegant Translation of Terence, hath offered some arguments for the Learning of Shakespeare, which have been retailed with much confidence, since the appearance of Mr. Johnson's Edition.
"Besides the resemblance of particular passages scattered up and down in different plays, it is well known that the
Comedy of Errors is in great measure founded on the
Menaechmi of Plautus; but I do not recollect ever to have seen it observed that the disguise of the
Pedant in the
Taming of the Shrew, and his assuming the name and character of
Vincentio, seem to be evidently taken from the disguise of the
Sycophanta in the
Trinummus of the said Author; and there is a quotation from the
Eunuch of Terence also, so familiarly introduced into the Dialogue of the
Taming of the Shrew, that I think it puts the question of Shakespeare's having read the Roman Comick Poets in the
original language out of all doubt,
Redime te captum, quam queas, minimo."
With respect to
resemblances, I shall not trouble you any further.--That the
Comedy of Errors is founded on the
Menaechmi, it is notorious: nor is it less so, that a Translation of it by W. W., perhaps William Warner, the Author of
Albion's England, was extant in the time of Shakespeare; tho' Mr. Upton, and some other advocates for his learning, have cautiously dropt the mention of it. Besides this (if indeed it were different), in the
Gesta Grayorum, the Christmas Revels of the Gray's-Inn Gentlemen, 1594, "a
Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his
Menechmus was played by the Players." And the same hath been suspected to be the Subject of the
goodlie Comedie of Plautus acted at Greenwich before the King and Queen in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holingshed:--Riccoboni highly compliments the English on opening their stage so well; but unfortunately Cavendish, in his
Life of Wolsey, calls it an
excellent Interlude in Latine. About the same time it was exhibited in German at Nuremburgh, by the celebrated
Hanssach, the
Shoemaker.
"But a character in the
Taming of the Shrew is borrowed from the
Trinummus, and no translation of
that was extant."
Mr. Colman indeed hath been better employ'd: but if he had met with an old Comedy, called
Supposes, translated from Ariosto by George Gascoigne, he certainly would not have appealed to Plautus. Thence Shakespeare borrowed this part of the Plot (as well as some of the phraseology), though Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the quaint name of
Petruchio. My young Master and his Man exchange habits and characters, and persuade a Scenaese, as he is called, to personate the Father, exactly as in the
Taming of the Shrew, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the government.
Still, Shakespeare quotes a line from the
Eunuch of Terence: by memory too, and, what is more, "purposely alters it, in order to bring the sense within the compass of one line."--This remark was previous to Mr. Johnson's; or indisputably it would not have been made at all.--"Our Authour had this line from Lilly; which I mention that it may not be brought as an argument of his learning."
But how, cries an unprovoked Antagonist, can you take upon you to say that he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence? I will answer for Mr. Johnson, who is above answering for himself.--Because it is quoted as it appears in the
Grammarian, and not as it appears in the
Poet.--And thus we have done with the
purposed alteration. Udall likewise in his
Floures for Latine speakyng, gathered oute of Terence, 1560, reduces the passage to a single line, and subjoins a Translation.
We have hitherto supposed Shakespeare the Author of the
Taming of the Shrew, but his property in it is extremely disputable. I will give you my opinion, and the reasons on which it is founded. I suppose then the present Play not
originally the work of Shakespeare, but restored by him to the Stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and some other occasional improvements; especially in the Character of Petruchio. It is very obvious that the
Induction and the
Play were either the works of different hands, or written at a great interval of time: the former is in our Author's
best manner, and the greater part of the
latter in his
worst, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be
certainly spurious: and without doubt,
supposing it to have been written by Shakespeare, it must have been one of his
earliest productions; yet it is not mentioned in the List of his Works by Meres in 1598.
I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596 (and possibly there may be an earlier Edition), called,
The Metamorphosis of Ajax, where I suspect an allusion to the old Play: "Read the
booke of
Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that
now every one can rule a Shrew in our Countrey, save he that hath hir."--I am aware, a
modern Linguist may object that the word
Book does not at present seem
dramatick, but it was once almost
technically so: Gosson in his
Schoole of Abuse, contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Common-wealth, 1579, mentions "twoo prose
Bookes plaied at the Belsauage"; and Hearne tells us, in a Note at the end of
William of Worcester, that he had seen "a MS. in the nature of a
Play or
Interlude, intitled, the
Booke of Sir
Thomas Moore."
And in fact there is such an old
anonymous Play in Mr. Pope's List: "A pleasant conceited History, called,
The Taming of a Shrew--sundry times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his Servants." Which seems to have been republished by the Remains of that Company in 1607, when Shakespeare's copy appeared at the Black-Friars or the Globe.--Nor let this seem derogatory from the character of our Poet. There is no reason to believe that he wanted to claim the Play as his own; it was not even printed 'till some years after his death: but he merely revived it on his Stage as a
Manager.--Ravenscroft assures us that this was really the case with
Titus Andronicus; which, it may be observed, hath not Shakespeare's name on the Title-page of the only Edition published in his life-time. Indeed, from every internal mark, I have not the least doubt but this
horrible Piece was originally written by the Author of the
Lines thrown into the mouth of the
Player in
Hamlet, and of the Tragedy of
Locrine: which likewise, from some assistance perhaps given to his Friend, hath been unjustly and ignorantly charged upon Shakespeare.
But the
sheet-anchor holds fast: Shakespeare himself hath left some Translations from Ovid. The Epistles, says One, of Paris and Helen give a sufficient proof of his acquaintance with
that poet; and it may be concluded, says Another, that he was a competent judge of
other Authors who wrote in the same language.
This hath been the universal cry, from Mr. Pope himself to the Criticks of yesterday. Possibly, however, the Gentlemen will hesitate a moment, if we tell them that Shakespeare was
not the Author of these Translations. Let them turn to a forgotten book, by Thomas Heywood, called
Britaines Troy, printed by W. Jaggard in 1609, Fol. and they will find these identical Epistles, "which being so pertinent to our Historie," says Heywood, "
I thought necessarie to translate."--How then came they ascribed to Shakespeare? We will tell them that likewise. The same voluminous Writer published an
Apology for Actors, 4to. 1612, and in an Appendix directed to his new Printer, Nic. Okes, he accuses his old One, Jaggard, of "taking the two Epistles of
Paris to Helen and
Helen to Paris, and printing them in a less volume and under the name of
Another:--but
he was much offended with Master Jaggard, that, altogether unknowne to him, he had presumed to make so bold with his Name." In the same work of Heywood are all the other Translations which have been printed in the modern Editions of the Poems of Shakespeare.
You now hope for land: We have seen through little matters, but what must be done with a whole book?--In 1751 was reprinted "A compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in these our days: which although they are in some parte unjust and friuolous, yet are they all by way of Dialogue throughly debated and discussed by William Shakespeare, Gentleman." 8vo.
This extraordinary piece was originally published in 4to. 1581, and dedicated by the Author, "To the most vertuous and learned Lady, his most deare and soveraigne Princesse, Elizabeth; being inforced by her Majesties late and singular clemency in pardoning certayne his unduetifull misdemeanour." And by the modern Editors, to the late King; as "a Treatise composed by the most extensive and fertile Genius that ever any age or nation produced."
Here we join issue with the Writers of that excellent tho' very unequal work, the
Biographia Britannica: "If," say they, "this piece could be written by our Poet, it would be absolutely decisive in the dispute about his learning; for many quotations appear in it from the Greek and Latin Classicks."
The concurring circumstances of the
Name and the
Misdemeanor, which is supposed to be the old Story of
Deer-stealing, seem fairly to challenge our Poet for the Author: but they hesitate.--His claim may appear to be confuted by the date 1581, when Shakespeare was only
Seventeen, and the
long experience which the Writer talks of.--But I will not keep you in suspense: the book was
not written by Shakespeare.
Strype, in his
Annals, calls the Author SOME
learned Man, and this gave me the first suspicion. I knew very well that honest John (to use the language of Sir Thomas Bodley) did not waste his time with such
baggage books as
Plays and
Poems; yet I must suppose that he had heard of the name of Shakespeare. After a while I met with the original Edition. Here in the Title-page, and at the end of the Dedication, appear only the Initials, W. S. Gent., and presently I was informed by Anthony Wood, that the book in question was written, not by William Shakespeare, but by William Stafford, Gentleman: which at once accounted for the
Misdemeanour in the Dedication. For Stafford had been concerned at that time, and was indeed afterward, as Camden and the other Annalists inform us, with some of the conspirators against Elizabeth; which he properly calls his
unduetifull behaviour.
I hope by this time that any One open to conviction may be nearly satisfied; and I will promise to give you on this head very little more trouble.
The justly celebrated Mr. Warton hath favoured us, in his
Life of Dr. Bathurst, with some
hearsay particulars concerning Shakespeare from the papers of Aubrey, which had been in the hands of Wood; and I ought not to suppress them, as the
last seems to make against my doctrine. They came originally, I find, on consulting the MS., from one Mr. Beeston: and I am sure Mr. Warton, whom I have the honour to call my Friend, and an Associate in the question, will be in no pain about their credit.
"William Shakespeare's Father was a Butcher,--while he was a Boy he exercised his Father's trade, but when he killed a Calf, he would do it in a high stile, and make a speech. This William being inclined
naturally to Poetry and Acting, came to London, I guess, about
eighteen, and was an Actor in one of the Playhouses, and did act
exceedingly well. He began
early to make Essays in dramatique Poetry.--The humour of the Constable in the
Midsummer Night's Dream he happened to take at Crendon in Bucks.--I think I have been told that he left near three hundred pounds to a
Sister.--
He understood Latin pretty well, FOR he had been in his younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the Country."
I will be short in my animadversions; and take them in their order.
The account of the
Trade of the Family is not only contrary to all other Tradition, but, as it may seem, to the instrument from the Herald's office, so frequently reprinted.--Shakespeare most certainly went to London, and commenced Actor thro' necessity, not natural inclination.--Nor have we any reason to suppose that he did act
exceedingly well. Rowe tells us from the information of Betterton, who was inquisitive into this point, and had very early opportunities of Inquiry from Sir W. Davenant, that he was no
extraordinary Actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own
Hamlet. Yet this
Chef d'Oeuvre did not please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for ever pestering the town with Pamphlets, published in the year 1596
Wits miserie, and the Worlds madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this Age. 4to. One of these Devils is
Hate-virtue, or
Sorrow for another mans good successe, who, says the Doctor, is "
a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the Visard of the Ghost, which cried so miserably at the Theatre, like an Oister-wife,
Hamlet revenge." Thus you see Mr. Holt's supposed
proof, in the Appendix to the late Edition, that
Hamlet was written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever might be the case of the particular passage on which it is founded.
Nor does it appear that Shakespeare did begin
early to make
Essays in Dramatique Poetry: the
Arraignment of Paris, 1584, which hath so often been ascribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winstanley, was written by George Peele; and Shakespeare is not met with, even as an Assistant, 'till at least seven years afterward.--Nash, in his Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of both Universities, prefixed to Greene's
Arcadia, 4to.
black Letter, recommends his Friend, Peele, "as the chiefe supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of Poetrie, and
primus Verborum Artifex: whose first increase, the
Arraignment of Paris, might plead to their opinions his pregnant dexteritie of wit, and manifold varietie of inuention."
In the next place, unfortunately, there is neither such a Character as a Constable in the
Midsummer Night's Dream: nor was the
three hundred pounds Legacy to a Sister, but a Daughter.
And to close the whole, it is not possible, according to Aubrey himself, that Shakespeare could have been some
years a Schoolmaster in the Country: on which circumstance only the supposition of his learning is professedly founded. He was not surely
very young, when he was employed to
kill Calves, and he commenced Player about
Eighteen!--The truth is that he left his Father, for a Wife, a year sooner; and had at least two Children born at Stratford before he retired from thence to London. It is therefore sufficiently clear that poor Anthony had too much reason for his character of Aubrey: You will find it in his own Account of his Life, published by Hearne, which I would earnestly recommend to any Hypochondriack;
"A pretender to Antiquities, roving, magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than crased: and being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many Letters sent to A.W. with
folliries and misinformations." p. 577.
Thus much for the Learning of Shakespeare with respect to the ancient languages: indulge me with an observation or two on his supposed knowledge of the modern ones, and I will promise to release you.
"It is
evident" we have been told, "that he was not unacquainted with the Italian": but let us inquire into the
Evidence.
Certainly some Italian words and phrases appear in the Works of Shakespeare; yet if we had nothing else to observe, their Orthography might lead us to suspect them to be not of the Writer's importation. But we can go further, and prove this.
When Pistol "cheers up himself with ends of verse," he is only a copy of Hanniball Gonsaga, who ranted on yielding himself a Prisoner to an English Captain in the Low Countries, as you may read in an old Collection of Tales, called
Wits, Fits, and Fancies,
Si Fortuna me tormenta,
Il speranza me contenta.
And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyage to the South-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 2d Part of
Henry the fourth.
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 Diuel 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
Water-poet, 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 serve."
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 rather be 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.
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 the Shrew.
"But not so
forward," says Mr. Theobald, "as our 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, by 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 Criticks 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 collected 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.
In the Induction to the
Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and
consequently the Author himself was acquainted with it.
Paucas pallabris, 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 the fifth, 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 at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions 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 Alphabet of De la Mothe, and the
Orthoepia Gallica of John Eliot; and of the latter from the Rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du Bartas.--Connections 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 Diuell, 4to. 1592 (which, it seems, from the Epistle to the Printer, was not 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 sweare 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. "How would it have 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 severall 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.
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.
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 stile the former (in the corrected French of the modern Editions) "Nostre
tres cher filz Henry Roy d'Angleterre; and in Latin,
Praeclarissimus Filius, &c." "What," says Dr. Warburton, "is
tres cher in French
praeclarissimus in Latin! we should read
praecarissimus."--This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came the blunder? It is a typographical one in Holingshed, 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 maner: Nostre
tres chier filz, Henry Roy d'Engleterre--and in Latine in this maner:
Praeclarissimus 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 ridiculously troubled the Criticks.
Richard the third harangues his army before the Battle of Bosworth:
Remember whom ye are to cope withal,
A sort of vagabonds, of rascals, runaways--
And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
Long kept in
Britaine at
our Mother's cost,
A milksop, &c.--
"
Our Mother," Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong, and Henry was somewhere secreted on the
Continent: he reads therefore, and all the Editors after him,
Long kept in Bretagne at his mother's cost.
But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holingshed, and you will find at once that Shakespeare had been there before me:--"Ye see further, how a companie of traitors, theeves, outlaws, and runnagates be aiders and partakers of his feat and enterprise.--And to begin with the erle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milksop--brought up by
my Moother's meanes and mine, like a captive in a close cage, in the court of Francis duke of
Britaine." p. 756.
Holingshed copies this
verbatim from his brother chronicler Hall, Edit. 1548, fol. 54; but his Printer hath given us by accident the word
Moother instead of
Brother; as it is in the Original, and ought to be in Shakespeare.
I hope, my good Friend, you have by this time acquitted our great Poet of all piratical depredations on the Ancients, and are ready to receive my
Conclusion.--He remembered perhaps enough of his
school-boy learning to put the
Hig,
hag,
hog, into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans; and might pick up in the Writers of the time, or the course of his conversation, a familiar phrase or two of French or Italian: but his
Studies were most demonstratively confined to
Nature and
his own Language.
In the course of this disquisition, you have often smiled at "all such reading as was never read": and possibly I may have indulged it too far: but it is the reading necessary for a Comment on Shakespeare. Those who apply solely to the Ancients for this purpose, may with equal wisdom study the TALMUD for an Exposition of TRISTRAM SHANDY. Nothing but an intimate acquaintance with the Writers of the time, who are frequently of no other value, can point out his allusions, and ascertain his Phraseology. The Reformers of his Text are for ever equally positive, and equally wrong. The Cant of the Age, a provincial Expression, an obscure Proverb, an obsolete Custom, a Hint at a Person or a Fact no longer remembered, hath continually defeated the best of our
Guessers: You must not suppose me to speak at random, when I assure you that, from some forgotten book or other, I can demonstrate this to you in many hundred Places; and I almost wish that I had not been persuaded into a different Employment.
Tho' I have as much of the
Natale Solum about me as any man whatsoever; yet, I own, the
Primrose Path is still more pleasing than the
Fosse or the
Watling Street:
Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale
It's infinite variety.----
And when I am fairly rid of the Dust of topographical Antiquity, which hath continued much longer about me than I expected, you may very probably be troubled again with the ever fruitful Subject of SHAKESPEARE and his COMMENTATORS.
NOTES:
Joseph Cradock (1742-1826) had been a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He left the University without a degree, but in 1765 was granted the honorary degree of M.A. by the Chancellor, the Duke of Newcastle. His
Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs appeared in 1828.
162. "
Were it shewn"
says some one. See the review of Farmer's
Essay in the
Critical Review of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50).
163.
Peter Burman (1668-1741), Professor at Utrecht and at Leyden; editor of Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Quintilian, and other Latin classics.
"
Truly,"
as Mr. Dogberry says. Much Ado, iii. 5. 22.
Burgersdicius,--Franco Burgersdijck (1590-1629), Dutch logician, Professor at Leyden. His
Institutionum logicarum libri duo was for long a standard text-book. Cf. Goldsmith,
Life of Parnell, ad init.: "His progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but little splendour; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius." See also the
Dunciad, iv. 198.
Locke. This paragraph is a reply to an argument in the
Critical Review (xxiii., pp. 47, 48).
Quotation from Lilly. See p. 201.
the Water-poet, John Taylor (1580-1653); cf. Farmer's note, p. 212.
The quotation is from
Taylor's Motto (Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 217):--
I was well entred (forty Winters since)
As far as
possum in my
Accidence;
And reading but from
possum to
posset,
There I was mir'd, and could no further get.
In his
Thiefe he says "all my schollership is schullership" (
id., p. 282).
164.
held horses at the door of the playhouse. This anecdote was given in Theophilus Cibber's
Lives of the Poets, 1753, i., p. 130. Johnson appended it, in his edition, to Rowe's
Account of Shakespeare (ed. 1765, p. clii), and it was printed in the same year in the
Gentleman's Magazine (xxxv., p. 475). The story was told to Pope by Rowe, who got it from Betterton, who in turn had heard it from Davenant; but Rowe wisely doubted its authenticity and did not insert it in his
Account (see the Variorum edition of 1803, i., pp. 120-122).--Farmer makes fun of it here,--and uses it to vary the
Critical reviewer's description--"as naked with respect to all literary merit as he was when he first went under the ferula" (
Crit. Rev. xxiii., p. 50).
Dodsley, Robert (1703-1764), publisher and author, declared himself "Untutored by the love of Greece or Rome" in his blank verse poem
Agriculture, 1753, canto ii., line 319. His
Toy-Shop, a Dramatick Satire, was acted and printed in 1735. The quotation is not verbally accurate; see the
New British Theatre, 1787, xvii., p. 48.
A word of exceeding good command. 2 Henry IV., iii. 2. 84.
165.
learned Rubbish. Cf. Pope,
Essay on Criticism, line 613.
Paths of Nature. Cf. Prior,
Charity, line 25.
one of the first criticks of the age. Dr. Johnson: see Introduction, p. xxvii.
a brother of the craft. "Mr. Seward, in his Preface to
Beaumont and Fletcher, 10 vols. 8vo., 1750" (Farmer). Cf. Theobald, Introduction to
Shakespeare Restored: "Shakespeare's works have always appear'd to me like what he makes his Hamlet compare the world to, an
unweeded Garden grown to Seed."
contrary to the statute. See Horace,
Ars Poetica, 136, etc.
166.
Small Latin and less Greek. "This passage of Ben. Jonson, so often quoted, is given us in the admirable preface to the late edition, with a various reading, 'Small Latin and
no Greek'; which hath been held up to the publick as a modern sophistication: yet whether an error or not, it was adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on Cartwright. His eulogy, with more than fifty others, on this now forgotten poet, was prefixed to the edit. 1651" (Farmer). Johnson corrected the error in subsequent editions. See note, p. 135.
"
darling project," etc. Kenrick,
Review of Dr. Johnson's New Edition of Shakespeare, 1765, p. 106: "Your darling project ... of invidiously representing him as a
varlet, one of the illiterate vulgar."
166.
braying faction. See
Don Quixote, ii. 25 and 27.
those who accuse him, etc. Dryden,
Essay of Dramatic Poesy.
160. "Greatest commendation" should read "greater commendation."
editor in form. See Warburton, p. 97.
sufficient to decide the controversy. See Johnson, p. 135.
167.
whose memory he honoured. Farmer has added to the quotation from Jonson's Poem "To the Memory of my Beloved Mr. William Shakespeare" a phrase from the passage "De Shakespeare Nostrati" in Jonson's
Discoveries: "I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any."
"Jealousy," cries Mr. Upton. In his
Critical Observations, 1748, p. 5.
Drayton, "In his Elegie on Poets and Poesie, p. 206. Fol., 1627" (Farmer).
Digges, Leonard (1588-1635). "From his Poem 'upon Mister William Shakespeare,' intended to have been prefixed, with the other of his composition, to the folio of 1623: and afterward printed in several miscellaneous collections: particularly the spurious edition of Shakespeare's Poems, 1640. Some account of him may be met with in Wood's
Athenae" (Farmer).
Suckling. Fragmenta Aurea, 1646, p. 35:
The sweat of learned
Johnson's brain
And gentle
Shakespear's easier strain.
Denham "On Mr. Abraham Cowley,"
Poems, 1671, p. 90:
Old Mother Wit and Nature gave
Shakespear and
Fletcher all they have.
Milton. L'Allegro, 134.
Dryden. Essay of Dramatic Poesy: see p. 160.
some one else. Edward Young, the author of
Night Thoughts, in his
Conjectures on Original Composition, 1759, p. 31.
168.
Hales of Eton. See p. 8.
Fuller,--
Worthies of England, 1662, "Warwickshire," p. 126: "Indeed his Learning was very little, so that as
Cornish diamonds are not polished by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the Earth, so
nature it self was all the
art which was used upon him." The concluding phrase of Farmer's quotation is taken from an earlier portion of Fuller's description: "William Shakespeare ... in whom three eminent Poets may seem in some sort to be compounded, 1.
Martial ... 2.
Ovid ... 3.
Plautus, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar, as our
Shakespeare (if alive) would confess himself."
untutored lines. Dedication of the
Rape of Lucrece.
Mr. Glldon. "Hence perhaps the
ill-starr'd rage between this critick and his elder brother, John Dennis, so pathetically lamented in the
Dunciad. Whilst the former was persuaded that 'the man who doubts of the learning of Shakespeare hath none of his own,' the latter, above regarding the attack in his
private capacity, declares with great patriotick vehemence that 'he who allows Shakespeare had learning, and a familiar acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of Great Britain.' Dennis was expelled his college for attempting to stab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this anecdote" (Farmer). Farmer supplied the details in a letter to Isaac Reed dated Jan. 28, 1794: see the
European Magazine, June, 1794, pp. 412-3.
Sewell, in the preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespear, 1725.
Pope. See p. 52.
Theobald. See p. 75.
Warburton, in his notes to Shakespeare,
passim.
169.
Upton, in his
Critical Observations, 1748, pp. 3 and 5.
"
Hath hard words," etc.
Hudibras, 1. i. 85-6.
trochaic dimeter, etc. See Upton,
Critical Observations, p. 366, etc.
"
it was a learned age," etc.
Id., p. 5. Cf. Hurd's
Marks of Imitation, 1757, p. 24.
Grey, in his
Notes on Shakespeare, 1754, vol. i., p. vii.
Dodd, William (1729-1777), the forger, editor of the
Beauties of Shakespeare, 1752.
Whalley. Farmer is here unfair to Whalley. The
Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare shows plainly that Whalley preferred Shakespeare to Jonson. Further, his
Enquiry was earlier than his edition of Jonson. In it Whalley expresses the hope "that some Gentleman of Learning would oblige the Public with a correct Edition" (p. 23).
170.
Addison ... Chevy Chase. See the
Spectator, Nos. 70 and 74 (May, 1711).
Wagstaffe, William (1685-1725), ridiculed Addison's papers on
Chevy Chase in
A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb, 1711.
Marks of Imitation. Hurd's
Letter to Mr. Mason, on the Marks of Imitation was printed in 1757. It was added to his edition of Horace's Epistles to the Pisos and Augustus.
as Mat. Prior says,--
Alma, i. 241: "And save much Christian ink's effusion."
Read Libya. Upton,
Critical Observations, p. 255.
171.
Heath. "It is extraordinary that this Gentleman should attempt so voluminous a work as the
Revisal of Shakespeare's Text, when, he tells us in his Preface, 'he was not so fortunate as to be furnished with either of the Folio editions, much less any of the ancient Quartos': and even 'Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Mr. Warburton's representation' " (Farmer).
171.
Thomas North. "I find the character of this work pretty early delineated:
"'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made,
That Latin French, that French to English straid:
Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France." (Farmer).
"
What a reply is this? " Upton,
Critical Observations, p. 249.
"
Our author certainly wrote," etc. Theobald, ed. 1733, vi., p. 178.
172.
Epitaph on Timon. "See Theobald's Preface to
K. Richard 2d. 8vo. 1720" (Farmer).
I cannot however omit, etc. The following passage, down to "from Homer himself" (foot of p. 175) was added in the second edition.
"
The speeches copy'd from Plutarch," etc. See Pope's Preface, p. 53.
Should we be silent. Coriolanus, v. 3. 94, etc.
174.
The Sun's a thief. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 439, etc.
Dodd. See the
Beauties of Shakespeare, 1752, iii. 285, n. The remark was omitted in the edition of 1780.
"our Author," says some one. This quotation is from the criticism of Farmer's
Essay in the
Critical Review of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50; cf. vol. xxi., p. 21).
Mynheer De Pauw. See
Anacreontis Odae et Fragmenta, Graece et Latine ... cum notis Joannis Cornelii de Pauw, Utrecht, 1732.
two Latin translations. "By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Paris, 1554, 4to, ten years before the birth of Shakespeare. The former version hath been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other translators appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the Ode in question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were soon to be met with in almost every modern language" (Farmer).
Puttenham. Arte of English Poesie, iii., ch. xxii. (Arber, p. 259;
Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, ii., p. 171). The "some one of a reasonable good facilitie in translation" is John Southern, whose
Musyque of the Beautie of his Mistresse Diana, containing translations from Ronsard, appeared in 1584.
175.
Mrs. Lennox, Charlotte Ramsay or Lennox (1720-1804), author of
Shakespear Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories on which the Plays of Shakespear are founded, collected and translated from the original Authors, with critical Remarks, 3 vols., 1753, 54. She is better known by her
Female Quixote, 1752.
the old story. "It was originally
drawn into Englishe by Caxton under the name of the
Recuyel of the Historyes of Troye, etc.... Wynken de Worde printed an edit. Fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent ones" (Farmer).
sweet oblivious antidote. Upton, p. 42, n.
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}.
Odyssey, iv. 221.
Chapman's seven books of the
Iliad appeared in 1598. The translation of the
Iliad was completed in 1611 and that of the
Odyssey in 1614.
Barclay. "Who list thistory of Patroclus to reade, etc.
Ship of Fooles, 1570, p. 21" (Farmer).
Spenser. Farmer quotes in a note from the
Faerie Queene, iv. iii. 43.
Greek expressions. Upton, p. 321.
176. "
Lye in a water-bearer's house,"
Every Man in his Humour, Act i., Sc. 3.
176.
Daniel the Historian,
i.e. Samuel Daniel the poet (1562-1619), whose
Collection of the Historie of England appeared in 1612 and 1617. Cf. p. 190.
Kuster. See note on p. 108. "Aristophanis Comoediae undecim. Gr. and Lat. Amst. 1710. Fol., p. 596" (Farmer).
unyoke (
Hamlet, v. 1. 59). See Upton, pp. 321, 322.
Orphan heirs (
Merry Wives, v. 5. 43),
id., p. 322. "Dr. Warburton corrects
orphan to
ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word
ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the
Troop, as Mortals by birth, but adopted by the Fairies:
Orphans with respect to their
real Parents, but now only dependant on
Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate the passage" (Farmer). Farmer then quotes from the
Faerie Queene, 111. iii. 26.
177.
Heath. "
Revisal, pp. 75, 323, and 561" (Farmer).
Upton. His edition of the
Faerie Queene appeared in 1758.
William Lilly (1602-1681), astrologer. "
History of his Life and Times, p. 102, preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole" (Farmer).
Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), who bequeathed his museum and library to the University of Oxford.
Truepenny. Upton, p. 26.
178.
a legendary ballad. The reference is to
King Lear. But the ballad to
King Leire and his Three Daughters is of later date than the play. This error in Percy's
Reliques was for long repeated by editors and critics.
The Palace of Pleasure, "beautified, adorned, and well furnished with pleasaunt Histories and excellent Nouelles, selected out of diuers good and commendable authors by William Painter, Clarke of the Ordinaunce and Armarie," appeared in two volumes in 1566-67; reprinted by Haslewood in 1813 and by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1890.
English Plutarch. See above.
Jacke Drum's Entertainment: or, the Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine, 4to, London, 1601; reprinted 1616 and 1618.
178.
We are sent to Cinthio, in Mrs. Lennox's
Shakespear Illustrated, 1753, vol. i., pp. 21-37.
Heptameron of Whetstone. "Lond., 4to, 1582. She
reports, in the fourth dayes exercise, the rare Historie of
Promos and Cassandra. A marginal note informs us that Whetstone was the author of the
Commedie on that subject; which likewise might have fallen into the hands of Shakespeare" (Farmer).
Genevra of Turberville. " 'The tale is a pretie comicall matter, and hath bin written in English verse some few years past, learnedly and with good grace, by M. George Turberuil.' Harrington's
Ariosto, Fol. 1591, p. 39" (Farmer).
Coke's Tale of Gamelyn. Cf. Johnson's Preface, p. 133.
Love's Labour Wonne. "See Meres's
Wits Treasury, 1598, p. 282" (Farmer). Cf. the allusion to it in Tyrwhitt's
Observations and Conjectures, 1766, p. 16.
Love's Labour Wonne has been identified also with the
Taming of the Shrew,
Much Ado,
Midsummer Night's Dream, the
Tempest, and
Love's Labour's Lost.
Boccace. "Our ancient poets are under greater obligation to Boccace than is generally imagined. Who would suspect that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the
Miller of Trumpington?" etc. (Farmer).
Painter's Giletta of Narbon. "In the first vol. of the
Palace of Pleasure, 4to, 1566" (Farmer).
Langbaine. Account of the English Dramatick Poets, 1691, p. 462.
Appolynus. "
Confessio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, Fol. 1532, p. 175, etc." (Farmer). See G. C. Macaulay's edition of Gower, Oxford, 1901, iii. 396 (Bk. VIII., ll. 375, etc.).
Pericles. On Farmer's suggestion, Malone included
Pericles in his edition of Shakespeare, and it has appeared in all subsequent editions except Keightley's. See
Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. ix., p. ix.
Aulus Gellius,
Noct. Attic. iii. 3. 6.
179.
Ben. Jonson. "Ode on the
New Inn," stanza 3.
The Yorkshire Tragedy. " 'William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire, Esquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne house, then stabde his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then instantlie with like fury went from his house to haue slaine his yongest childe at nurse, but was preuented. Hee was prest to death in Yorke the 5 of August, 1604.'
Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo, 1607, p. 574. The story appeared before in a 4to pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the Folio chronicle, 1631" (Farmer).
the strictures of Scriblerus. "These, however, he assures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot" (Farmer). See Pope's
Works, ed. Elwin & Courthope, x., p. 53.
This late example. Double Falshood, ii. 4. 6-8.
You have an aspect. Id., iv. 1. 46.
a preceding elision. "Thus a line in Hamlet's description of the Player should be printed as in the old Folios:
"Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,"
agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places" (Farmer).
This very accent, etc. This passage, down to the end of the quotation from Thomson (top of p. 183), was added in the second edition.
Bentley. Preface to his edition of
Paradise Lost, 1732.
180.
Manwaring, Edward. See his treatise
Of Harmony and Numbers in Latin and English Prose, and in English Poetry (1744), p. 49.
Green. May this "extraordinary gentleman" be George Smith Green, the Oxford watchmaker, author of a prose rendering of Milton's
Paradise Lost, 1745; or Edward Burnaby Greene, author of
Poetical Essays, 1772, and of translations from the classics? There is no copy of the "Specimen of a new Version of the
Paradise Lost into blank verse" in the Library of the British Museum, nor in any public collection which the present editor has consulted.
Dee, John (1527-1608), astrologer.
Strike up, my masters. Double Falshood, Act i., Sc. 3.
181.
Victor, Benjamin (died 1778), was made Poet Laureate of Ireland in 1755. He produced in 1761, in two volumes, the
History of the Theatres of London and Dublin, from the year 1730 to the present time. A third volume brought the history of the theatre down to 1771. Farmer refers to vol. ii., p. 107: "
Double Falshood, a Tragedy, by Mr.
Theobald, said by him to be written by
Shakespear, which no one credited; and on Enquiry, the following Contradiction appeared; the Story of the
Double Falshood is taken from the
Spanish of
Cervantes, who printed it in the year after
Shakespear died. This Play was performed twelve Nights."
Langbaine informs us. English Dramatick Poets, p. 475.
Andromana. "This play hath the letters J.S. in the title page, and was printed in the year 1660, but who was its author I have not been able to learn," Dodsley,
Collection of Old Plays, 1744, vol. xi. p. 172. In the second edition (ed. Isaac Reed, 1780) the concluding words are replaced by a reference to the prologue written in 1671, which says that "'Twas Shirley's muse that labour'd for its birth." But there appears to be no further evidence that the play was by Shirley.
Hume. See the account of Shakespeare in his
History, reign of James I.,
ad fin., 1754: "He died in 1617, aged 53 years." The date of his death, but not his age, was corrected in the edition of 1770.
MacFlecknoe, line 102.
182.
Newton informs us, in the note on
Paradise Lost, iv. 556 (ed. 1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.
182.
Her eye did seem to labour. The Brothers, Act i., Sc. 1. "Middleton, in an obscure play, called
A Game at Chesse, hath some very pleasing lines on a similar occasion:
Upon those lips, the sweete fresh buds of youth,
The holy dew of prayer lies like pearle,
Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne
Upon the bashfull Rose" (Farmer).
Lander, William (died 1771), author of
An Essay on Milton's use and imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost, 1750.
Richardson, Jonathan (1665-1745), portrait painter, joint author with his son of
Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost, 1734. The quotation is taken from p. 338.
183.
The stately sailing Swan. Thomson,
Spring, 778-782.
Gildon. See Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., p. 358.
Master Prynne. "Had our zealous Puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monastery in France, by the legacy of a great chest, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than
vetches. The friars, enraged at the ridicule and disappointment, would not suffer him to have Christian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious
Observations on the Statutes, 4to, 1766, p. 24. From the
Annales d'Acquytayne, Paris, 1537.--Our author had his full share in distressing the spirit of this restless man. 'Some Play-books are grown from
Quarto into
Folio; which yet bear so good a price and sale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.--
Shackspeer's Plaies are printed in the best Crowne-paper, far better than most
Bibles!' " (Farmer).
Whalley. Enquiry, pp. 54-5;
Tempest, iv. 1. 101;
Aeneid, i. 46. Farmer added the following note in the second edition: "Others would give up this passage for the
Vera incessu patuit Dea; but I am not able to see any improvement in the matter: even supposing the poet had been speaking of Juno, and no previous translation were extant." See the
Critical Review, xxiii., p. 52.
184.
John Taylor. See notes, pp. 163 and 212.
"
Most inestimable Magazine," etc. From
A Whore, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.
By two-headed Janus. Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 50.
Like a Janus with a double-face--
Taylor's Motto, Spenser Soc. Reprint, p. 206.
Sewel. Apparently a mistake for "Gildon," whose
Essay on the Stage is preceded immediately, in the edition of 1725, by Sewell's preface. "His motto to
Venus and Adonis is another proof," says Gildon, p. iv.
Taylor ... a whole Poem,--
Taylor's Motto, "Et habeo, et careo, et curo," Spenser Soc. Reprint, pp. 204, etc.
sweet Swan of Thames. Pope,
Dunciad, iii. 20:
Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar
(Once Swan of Thames, tho' now he sings no more).
Dodd. Beauties of Shakespeare, iii., p. 18 (ed. 1780).
185.
Pastime of Pleasure. "Cap. i., 4to, 1555" (Farmer).
Pageants. "Amongst 'the things which Mayster More wrote in his youth for his pastime' prefixed to his
Workes, 1557, Fol." (Farmer).
a very liberal Writer. See Daniel Webb's
Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, 1762, pp. 120, 121.
This passage, to "classical standard" (foot of p. 186), was added in the second edition.
See, what a grace. Hamlet, iii. 4. 55.
the words of a better Critick. Hurd,
Marks of Imitation, 1757, p. 24.
186.
Testament of Creseide. "Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but really written by
Robert Henderson, or
Henryson, according to other authorities" (Farmer). It was never
ascribed to Chaucer, not even in Thynne's edition.
Fairy Queen. "It is observable that
Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity" (Farmer).
Upton. Critical Observations, pp. 230, 231.
Much Ado, iii. 2. 11.
Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the title page of the
Lives of the Poets (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work of Robert Shiels (died 1753); see Johnson's
Life of Hammond, ad init., and Boswell, ed. Birkbeck Hill, iii. 29-31. For the reference to the
Arcadia, see "Cibber's"
Lives, i. 83.
Ames, Joseph (1689-1759), author of
Typographical Antiquities, 1749.
187.
Lydgate. Farmer has a long note here on the versification of Lydgate and Chaucer. "Let me here," he says, "make an observation for the benefit of the next editor of Chaucer. Mr. Urry, probably misled by his predecessor Speght, was determined, Procrustes-like, to force every line in the
Canterbury Tales to the same standard; but a precise number of syllables was not the object of our old poets," etc.
Hurd. This quotation, which Farmer added in the second edition, is from Hurd's Notes to Horace's
Epistolae ad Pisones et Augustum, 1757, vol. i., p. 214. Cf. also his
Discourse on Poetical Imitation, pp. 125 and 132, and the
Marks of Imitation, p. 74. The passage in which the "one imitation is fastened on our Poet" occurs in the
Marks of Imitation, pp. 19, 20. Cf. note on p. 170.
188.
Upton. Critical Observations, p. 217.
Whalley. Enquiry, pp. 55, 56.
Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 118.
Platonick Hell of Virgil. Farmer quotes in a note
Aeneid, vi. 740-742.
188.
an old Homily. "At the ende of the
Festyuall, drawen oute of
Legenda aurea, 4to, 1508. It was first printed by Caxton, 1483, 'in helpe of such Clerkes who excuse theym for defaute of bokes, and also by symplenes of connynge' " (Farmer).
brenning heate. "On all soules daye, p. 152" (Farmer).
Menage. Cf. p. 109.
our Greek Professor. Michael Lort (1725-1790), Regius Professor in Cambridge University from 1759 to 1771.
Blefkenius,--Dithmar Blefken, who visited Iceland in 1563 and wrote the first account of the island. "
Islandiae Descript. Lugd. Bat. 1607, p. 46" (Farmer).
After all, Shakespeare's curiosity, etc....
original Gothic (top of p. 190), added in second edition.
Douglas. Farmer has used the 1710 Folio of Gavin Douglas's
Aeneid.
189.
Till the foul crimes. Hamlet, i. 5. 12.
"
Shakespeare himself in the Tempest." Quoted from the
Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50; cf. also xix., p. 165.
Most sure, the Goddess. Tempest, i. 2. 421.
Epitaphed, the inventor of the English hexameter. Gabriel Harvey's
Four Letters (Third Letter). See
Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, ii. 230.
halting on Roman feet. Pope,
Epistle to Augustus, 98: "And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet."
Hall. Satire i. 6.
190. Daniel's
Defence of Rhyme, in answer to Campion's
Observations on the Art of English Poesie, appeared in 1602.
in his eye. Cf. Theobald, Preface to
Richard II., p. 5, and Whalley,
Enquiry, p. 54.
Ye elves of hills. Tempest, v. 1. 33.
Holt. "In some remarks on the
Tempest, published under the quaint title of
An Attempte to rescue that aunciente English Poet and Play-wrighte, Maister Williaume Shakespeare, from the many Errours faulsely charged upon him by certaine new-fangled Wittes. Lond. 8vo, 1749, p. 81" (Farmer). On the title page Holt signs himself "a gentleman formerly of Gray's Inn." He issued proposals in 1750 for an edition of Shakespeare. Cf. p. 206.
Auraeque, etc. Ovid,
Met. vii. 197-8.
Golding. "His work is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester in a long epistle in verse, from Berwicke, April 20, 1567" (Farmer). The translation of the first four books had appeared in 1565.
Some love not a gaping Pig. Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 47.
191.
Peter le Loier. "M. Bayle hath delineated the singular character of our
fantastical author. His work was originally translated by one Zacharie Jones. My edit. is in 4to, 1605, with an anonymous Dedication to the King: the Devonshire story was therefore well known in the time of Shakespeare.--The passage from Scaliger is likewise to be met with in
The Optick Glasse of Humors, written, I believe, by T. Wombwell; and in several other places" (Farmer). Reed quotes a manuscript note by Farmer on the statement that it was written by Wombwell: "So I imagined from a note of Mr. Baker's, but I have since seen a copy in the library of Canterbury Cathedral, printed 1607, and ascribed to T. Walkington of St. John's, Cambridge."
He was a man, etc.
Henry VIII., iv. 2. 33.
192.
Holingshed. Farmer's quotations from Holinshed are not
literatim.
Indisputably the passage, etc. (to the end of the quotation from Skelton),--added in the second edition.
Hall's
Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) was freely used by Holinshed, but there is a passage in
Henry VIII. which shows that the dramatist knew Hall's chronicle at first hand.
193.
Skelton. "His Poems are printed with the title of
Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate," etc. Farmer then explains with his usual learning Skelton's title of "poet laureate."
Upton. Critical Observations, p. 47, n.
Pierce Plowman. This reference was added in the second edition. On the other hand, the following reference, which was given in the first edition after the quotation from
Hieronymo, was omitted: "And in Dekker's
Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the humourous Poet, Sir Rees ap Vaughan swears in the same manner."
Hieronymo, ii. 2. 87, 91-93 (
Works of Thomas Kyd, ed. Boas, p. 24).
Garrick. "Mr. Johnson's edit., vol. viii., p. 171" (Farmer). The following three pages, from "
a Gentleman" (foot of p. 193) to the end of the Latin quotation at the top of p. 197, were added in the second edition.
194.
Upton. Critical Observations, p. 300.
This villain here. 2 Henry VI., iv. 1. 106.
Grimald's "Three Bookes of Duties, tourned out of Latin into English" appeared in 1555. "I have met with a writer who tells us that a translation of the
Offices was printed by Caxton in the year 1481: but such a book never existed. It is a mistake for
Tullius of Old Age, printed with the
Boke of Frendshipe, by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. I believe the former was translated by William Wyrcestre,
alias Botoner" (Farmer).
There is no bar. Henry V., i. 2. 35.
195.
It hath lately been repeated, etc. In the
Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50; cf. p. xxi, p. 21.
Guthrie, William (1708-1770), whose reports to the
Gentleman's Magazine were revised by Johnson. He wrote histories of
England (4 vols., 1744, etc.), the
World (12 vols., 1764, etc.), and
Scotland (10 vols., 1767). His
Essay upon English Tragedy had appeared in 1747. See note, p. 101.
196.
All hail, Macbeth. 1. iii. 48-50.
Macbeth. The probable date of
Macbeth is 1606.
Wake, Sir Isaac (1580-1632). The
Rex Platonicus, celebrating the visit of James I. to Oxford in 1605, appeared in 1607.
197.
Grey. Notes on Shakespeare, p. vii.; cf. vol. ii., p. 289, etc.
Whalley. Enquiry, p. v.
a very curious and intelligent gentleman. Capell: see below.
It hath indeed been said, etc. In the
Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50. Accordingly the following passage (to "Mr. Lort," foot of p. 199) was added in the second edition.
Saxo Grammaticus. " 'Falsitatis enim (Hamlethus) alienus haberi cupidus, ita astutiam veriloquio permiscebat, ut nec dictis veracitas deesset, nec acuminis modus verorum judicio proderetur.' This is quoted, as it had been before, in Mr. Guthrie's
Essay on Tragedy, with a
small variation from the
Original. See edit. fol. 1644, p. 50" (Farmer). The quotation was given in the
Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50.
198.
The Hystorie of Hamblet. It is now known that Shakespeare's "original" was the early play of
Hamlet, which was probably written by Thomas Kyd, towards the end of 1587. See
Works of Kyd, ed. Boas, Introduction, iv.
Though Farmer disproves Shakespeare's use of
Saxo Grammaticus, he errs in the importance he gives to the
Hystorie of Hamblet. No English "translation from the French of Belleforest" appears to have been issued before 1608.
Duke of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles (1693-1768), first Lord of the Treasury, 1754, Lord Privy Seal, 1765-66, Chancellor of Cambridge University from 1748.
199.
Painter. See above, p. 178.
Tom Rawlinson (1681-1725), satirised as "Tom Folio" by Addison in the
Tatler, No. 158.
Colman, George, the elder (1732-1794), brought out the
Comedies of Terence translated into familiar blank verse in 1765. He replied to Farmer's
Essay, the merit of which he admitted, in the appendix to a later edition. Farmer's answer is given in the letter which Steevens printed as an appendix to his edition of Johnson's Shakespeare, 1773, viii., App. ii., note on
Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. In a long footnote in the
Essay, Farmer replies also to an argument advanced by Bonnell Thornton (1724-1768), Colman's associate in the
Connoisseur, in his translation of the
Trinummus, 1767.
200.
Redime te captum. Eunuchus, i. 1. 29;
Taming of the Shrew, i. 1. 167.
translation of the Menaechmi. "It was published in 4to, 1595. The printer of Langbaine, p. 524, hath accidentally given the date 1515, which hath been copied implicitly by Gildon, Theobald, Cooke, and several others. Warner is now almost forgotten, yet the old criticks esteemed him one of 'our chiefe heroical
makers.' Meres informs us that he had 'heard him termed of the best wits of both our Universities, our
English Homer' " (Farmer). See note on p. 9.
Riccoboni, Luigi (1674-1753). See his
Reflexions historiques sur les differens theatres de l'Europe, 1738, English translation, 1741, p. 163: "If really that good comedy Plautus was the first that appeared, we must yield to the English the merit of having opened their stage with a good prophane piece, whilst the other nations in Europe began theirs with the most wretched farces."
Hanssach, Hans Sachs (1494-1576).
201.
Gascoigne. "His works were first collected under the singular title of 'A hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered partly (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of
Euripides,
Ouid,
Petrarke,
Ariosto, and others: and partly by inuention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: yelding sundrie sweete sauours of tragical, comical, and morall discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers.'
Black letter, 4to, no date" (Farmer).
"
Our authour had this line from Lilly." Johnson, edition of 1765, vol. iii., p. 20.
an unprovoked antagonist. "W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnson's edit. of Shakespeare, 1765, 8vo, p. 105" (Farmer).
We have hitherto supposed. The next three paragraphs were added in the second edition.
202.
Gosson. See Arber's reprint, p. 40.
Hearne, Thomas (1678-1735) edited William of Worcester's
Annales Rerum Anglicarum in 1728. "I know indeed there is extant a very old poem, in
black letter, to which it might have been supposed Sir John Harrington alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a
new one, and recommended it as worthy the notice of his countrymen: I am persuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought
either. At the end of the sixth volume of Leland's
Itinerary, we are
favoured by Mr. Hearne with a Macaronic poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the townsmen: on a line of which, 'Invadunt aulas
bycheson cum forth geminantes,' our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: '
Bycheson, id est,
son of a
byche, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo et olim
whorson dixerunt pro
son of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui inscribitur:
The Wife lapped in Morel's Skin: or the Taming of a Shrew' " (Farmer). Farmer then gives Hearne's quotation of two verses from it, pp. 36 and 42.
202.
Pope's list. At the end of vol. vi. of his edition.
Ravenscroft, Edward, in his
Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia, 1687, "To the Reader"; see Ingleby's
Centurie of Prayse, p. 404.
203.
The Epistles, says one, of Paris and Helen. Sewell, Preface to Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., 1725, p. 10.
It may be concluded, says another. Whalley,
Enquiry, p. 79.
Jaggard. "It may seem little matter of wonder that the name of Shakespeare should be borrowed for the benefit of the bookseller; and by the way, as probably for a
play as a
poem: but modern criticks may be surprised perhaps at the complaint of John Hall, that 'certayne chapters of the
Proverbes, translated by him into English metre, 1550, had before been untruely
entituled to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold' " (Farmer).
204.
Biographica Britannica, 1763, vol. vi. Farmer has a note at this passage correcting a remark in the life of Spenser and showing by a quotation from Browne's
Britannia's Pastorals, that the
Faerie Queene was left unfinished,--not that part of it had been lost.
205.
Anthony Wood. "
Fasti, 2d. Edit., v. 1. 208.--It will be seen on turning to the former edition, that the latter part of the paragraph belongs to another
Stafford. I have since observed that Wood is not the first who hath given us the true author of the pamphlet" (Fanner).
Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 378. But Stafford's authorship of this pamphlet has now been disproved: see the
English Historical Review, vi. 284-305.
Warton, Thomas.
Life of Ralph Bathurst, 2 vols., 1761.
Aubrey. See
Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark, 1898, vol. ii., pp. 225-227. For
Beeston, see vol. i., pp. 96-7.
Crendon. "It was observed in the former edition that this place is not met with in Spelman's
Villare, or in Adams's
Index; nor, it might have been added, in the
first and the
last performance of this sort, Speed's
Tables and Whatley's
Gazetteer: perhaps, however, it may be meant under the name of
Crandon; but the inquiry is of no importance. It should, I think, be written
Credendon; tho' better antiquaries than Aubrey have acquiesced in the vulgar corruption" (Farmer). But
Crendon is only a misprint for
Grendon.
206.
Rowe tells us. See p. 4.
Hamlet revenge. Steevens and Malone "confirm" Farmer's observation by references to Dekker's
Satiromastix, 1602, and an anonymous play called
A Warning for Faire Women, 1599. Farmer is again out in his chronology.
Holt. See above, p. 190. Johnson's edition of Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on viii. 194.
Kirkman, Francis, bookseller, published his
Exact Catalogue of all the English Stage Plays in 1671.
Winstanley, William (1628-1698), compiler of
Lives of the most famous English Poets, 1687. "These people, who were the Curls of the last age, ascribe likewise to our author those miserable performances
Mucidorous and the
Merry Devil of Edmonton" (Farmer).
seven years afterward. "Mr. Pope asserts 'The troublesome Raigne of
King John,' in two parts, 1611, to have been written by Shakespeare and Rowley: which edition is a mere copy of another in black letter, 1591. But I find his assertion is somewhat to be doubted: for the old edition hath no name of
author at all; and that of 1611, the initials only,
W. Sh., in the title-page" (Farmer).
Nash. This reference was added in the second edition. See Arber's reprint of Greene's
Menaphon, p. 17, or Gregory Smith,
Elizabethan Critical Essays, i. 307, etc.
"Peele seems to have been taken into the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland about 1593, to whom he dedicates in that year, '
The Honour of the Garter, a poem gratulatorie--the
firstling consecrated to his noble name.'--'He was esteemed,' says Anthony Wood, 'a most noted poet, 1579; but when or where he died, I cannot tell, for
so it is, and always
always hath been, that most Poets die
poor, and consequently obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their graves.
Claruit, 1599.'
Ath. Oxon., vol. i., p. 300.--We had lately in a periodical pamphlet, called
The Theatrical Review, a very
curious letter, under the name of George Peele, to one Master Henrie Marle, relative to a dispute between Shakespeare and Alleyn, which was compromised by Ben. Jonson.--'I never longed for thy companye more than last night; we were all verie merrie at the Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasauntly to thy friende Will, that he had stolen hys speeche about the excellencie of acting in
Hamlet hys tragedye, from conversaytions manifold, whych had passed between them, and opinions gyven by Alleyn touchyng that subjecte. Shakespeare did not take this talk in good sorte; but Jonson did put an end to the stryfe wyth wittielie saying, thys affaire needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned no doubte: do not marvel: haue you not seene hym acte tymes out of number?'--This is pretended to be printed from the original MS. dated 1600; which agrees well enough with Wood's
Claruit: but unluckily Peele was dead at least two years before. 'As Anacreon died by the
pot,' says Meres, 'so George Peele by the
pox,'
Wit's Treasury, 1598, p. 286" (Farmer).
Constable in Midsummer Night's Dream. Apparently a mistake for
Much Ado.
207.
two children. Susannah, Judith, and Hamnet were all born at Stratford. Judith and Hamnet were twins. Cf. p. 21 and note.
"
cheers up himself with ends of verse." Butler,
Hudibras, i. 3. 1011.
Wits, Fits, and Fancies. "By one Anthony Copley, 4to, black letter; it seems to have had many editions: perhaps the last was in 1614.--The first piece of this sort that I have met with was printed by T. Berthelet, tho' not mentioned by Ames, called 'Tales, and quicke answeres very mery and pleasant to rede.' 4to, no date." (Farmer).
208.
Master Page, sit. 2 Henry IV., v. 3. 30.
Heywood. In the "To the Reader" prefixed to his
Sixt Hundred of Epigrammes (Spenser Society reprint, 1867, p. 198).
Dekker. Vol. iii., p. 281 (ed. 1873).
Water-poet. See the Spenser Society reprint of the folio of 1630, p. 545.
Rivo, says the Drunkard. 1 Henry IV., ii. 4. 124.
209.
What you will. Act ii., Sc. 1 (vol. i., p. 224, ed. 1856).
Love's Labour Lost, iv. 1. 100. This paragraph was added in the second edition.
Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1. 73.
Heath. Revisal of Shakespear's Text, p. 159. This quotation was added in the second edition.
Heywood. Epigrammes upon prouerbes, 194 (Spenser Soc. reprint, p. 158).
210.
Howell, James (1594-1666), Historiographer, author of the
Epistolae Ho-Elianae. Proverbs or old sayed Saws and Adages in English or the Saxon Tongue formed an appendix to his
Lexicon Tetraglotton (1659-60). The allusion to Howell was added in the second edition.
Philpot, John (1589-1645). See Camden's
Remains concerning Britain, 1674, "Much amended, with many rare Antiquities never before Imprinted, by the industry and care of John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and W. D. Gent": 1870 reprint, p. 319.
Grey. Notes on Shakespeare, ii., p. 249.
Romeo. "It is remarked that 'Paris, tho' in one place called
Earl, is most commonly stiled the
Countie in this play. Shakespeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian
Conte to our
Count:--perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot.'--He certainly did so: Paris is there first stiled
a young Earle, and afterward
Counte,
Countee, and
County, according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers, particularly in Fairfax," etc. (Farmer).
Painter, vol. ii. 1567, 25th novel. Arthur Broke's verse rendering, founded on Boaistuau's (or Boisteau's) French version of Bandello, appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's
Originals and Analogues, Part I. (New Shakspere Society, 1875).
Taming of the Shrew. Induction, i. 5.
Hieronymo, iii. 14, 117, 118 (ed. Boas, p. 78); cf. p. 193.
Whalley. Enquiry. p. 48.
Philips,--Edward Phillips (1630-1696), Milton's nephew. See his
Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets, 1675, ii. p. 195. Cf. also Winstanley's
English Poets, p. 218.
Heywood, in the
Apology for Actors, 1612, alluded to above; see Hawkins's
Origin of the English Drama, 1773, ii., p. 3, and Boas's
Works of Kyd, 1901, pp. xiii, civ, and 411. Mr. Boas gives Hawkins the credit of discovering the authorship of
The Spanish Tragedy "some time before 1773," but the credit is Farmer's. Hawkins was undoubtedly indebted to Farmer's
Essay.
211.
Henry the fifth, Act iii., Sc. 4.
not published by the author. "Every writer on Shakespeare hath expressed his astonishment that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his works to the
Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print when it was copied
by the ear, 'for a double sale would bring on a suspicion of honestie.' Shakespeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the
first Folio, and call the previous publications 'stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors.' But
this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, thro' convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called
Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to, 1599, where he assures us that in a play of his, called the
Isle of Dogs, '
foure acts, without his consent, or the least guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players.'--This, however, was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's
Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some 'vaine glorious tragedians,' and very plainly at Shakespeare in particular; which will serve for an answer to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: 'It was thought a praise to Shakespeare that he scarce ever blotted a line. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This, too, might be thought a praise by some.' But hear Nash, who was far from
praising: 'I leaue all these to the mercy of their
mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the
translator's trencher,--that could scarcely
Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede; yet
English Seneca, read by candle-light, yeelds many good sentences--hee will affoord you whole
Hamlets, I should say,
handfuls of tragicall speeches.' I cannot determine exactly when this
Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original
Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done; and it may be observed that the oldest copy now extant is said to be 'enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592
Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene: in one of which his
Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the
Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied in
Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie
to victual the Low Countries, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in
Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse; and Nash again, in
Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Halter-maker, 1596.--Dr. Lodge calls Nash our
true English Aretine: and John Taylor, in his
Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang, even makes an oath 'by sweet satyricke Nash his urne.'--He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called
The Return from Parnassus" (Farmer). See Gregory Smith,
Elizabethan Critical Essays, especially i. 424-5.
211.
Hawkins. Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on iv., p. 454. The quotation from Johnson, and the references to Eliot and Du Bartas, were added in the second edition.
Est-il impossible. Henry V., iv. 4. 17.
French Alphabet of De la Mothe. "Lond., 1592, 8vo." (Farmer).
Orthoepia of John Eliot. "Lond., 1593, 4to. Eliot is almost the only
witty grammarian that I have had the fortune to meet with. In his Epistle prefatory to the
Gentle Doctors of Gaule, he cries out for persecution, very like Jack in that most poignant of all Satires, the
Tale of a Tub, 'I pray you be readie quicklie to cauill at my booke, I beseech you heartily calumniate my doings with speede, I request you humbly controll my method as soone as you may, I earnestly entreat you hisse at my inventions,' " etc. (Farmer).
Sejanus. See Jonson's "To the Readers": "Lastly, I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." Jonson is supposed to refer here to Shakespeare.
But what if ... Capell's Prolusions, added in the second edition.
Pierce Penilesse, ed. J. P. Collier (Shakespeare Society, 1842), p. 60.
212.
Tarlton, Richard (d. 1588),--
Jests, drawn into three parts, ed. Halliwell (Shakespeare Society, 1844), pp. 24, 25:
Old English Jest Books, ed. W. C. Hazlitt (1864), pp. 218, 219.
Capell. Cf. pp. 197 and 198. He describes
Edward III. on the title page of his
Prolusions or Select Pieces of Antient Poetry, 1760, as "thought to be writ by Shakespeare."
Laneham, Robert, who appears in Scott's
Kenilworth. The letter has been reprinted by the Ballad Society (1871), and the New Shakspere Society (1890). Referring to the spelling of the name, Farmer says in a note, "It is indeed of no importance, but I suspect the former to be right, as I find it corrupted afterward to
Lanam and
Lanum."
Meres. "This author by a pleasant mistake in some sensible
Conjectures on Shakespeare, lately printed at Oxford, is quoted by the name of
Maister. Perhaps the title-page was imperfect; it runs thus: 'Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury. Being the second part of Wits Commonwealth, By
Francis Meres Maister of Artes of both Universities.' I am glad out of gratitude to this man, who hath been of frequent service to me, that I am enabled to perfect Wood's account of him; from the assistance of our
Master's very accurate list of graduates (which it would do honour to the university to print at the publick expense) and the kind information of a friend from the register of his parish:--He was originally of Pembroke-Hall, B.A. in 1587, and M.A. 1591. About 1602 he became rector of Wing in Rutland; and died there, 1646, in the 81st year of his age" (Farmer). See Ingleby's
Shakspere Allusion-Books or Gregory Smith's
Elizabethan Critical Essays. The reference at the beginning of Farmer's note is to Tyrwhitt's
Observations and Conjectures upon some passages of Shakespeare, 1766.
the Giant of Rabelais. See
As You Like It, iii. 2. 238, and
King Lear, iii. 6. 7, 8.
John Taylor. See note, p. 163. "I have quoted many pieces of John Taylor, but it was impossible to give their original dates. He may be traced as an author for more than half a century. His works were collected in folio, 1630, but many were printed afterward," etc. (Farmer). The reference to Gargantua will be found on p. 160 of the Spenser Society Reprint of the Folio. Taylor refers to Rabelais also in his
Dogge of Warre,
id., p. 364.
213.
Richard the third. "Some inquiry hath been made for the first performers of the capital characters in Shakespeare. We learn that Burbage, the
alter Roscius of Camden, was the original Richard, from a passage in the poems of Bishop Corbet; who introduces his host at Bosworth describing the battle:
"But when he would have said King Richard died,
And call'd
a horse,
a horse, he
Burbage cried."
The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his
Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for Shakespeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge, and acted at St. John's in our University, some years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original performers.
It is evident from a passage in Camden's
Annals that there was an old play likewise on the subject of
Richard the Second; but I know not in what language. Sir Gelley Merrick, who was concerned in the hare-brained business of the Earl of Essex, and was hanged for it with the ingenious Cuffe in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, "quod
exoletam Tragoediam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis data pecunia agi curasset" (Farmer).
213.
Remember whom ye are, etc.
Richard III., v. 3. 315.
Holingshed. "I cannot take my leave of Holingshed without clearing up a difficulty which hath puzzled his biographers. Nicholson and others have
supposed him a
clergyman. Tanner goes further and tells us that he was educated at Cambridge and actually took the degree of M.A. in 1544.--Yet it appears by his will, printed by Hearne, that at the end of life he was only a
steward, or a
servant in some capacity or other, to Thomas Burdett, Esq. of Bromcote, in Warwickshire.--These things Dr. Campbell could not reconcile. The truth is we have no claim to the education of the
Chronicler: the M.A. in 1544 was not
Raphael, but one
Ottiwell Holingshed, who was afterward named by the founder one of the first Fellows of Trinity College" (Farmer).
214.
Hig, hag, hog. Merry Wives, iv. 1. 44.
writers of the time. "Ascham, in the Epistle prefixed to his
Toxophilus, 1571, observes of them that 'Manye Englishe writers, usinge straunge wordes, as
Lattine,
Frenche, and
Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde,' " etc. (Farmer).
all such reading as was never read. Dunciad, i., line 156, first edition (see Introduction, p. xliv.; iv., line 250, edition of 1742).
Natale solum. "This alludes to an intended publication of the
Antiquities of the Town of Leicester. The work was just begun at the press, when the writer was called to the principal tuition of a large college, and was obliged to decline the undertaking. The plates, however, and some of the materials have been long ago put into the hands of a gentleman who is every way qualified to make a proper use of them" (Farmer). This gentleman was John Nichols, the printer, whose
History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester appeared from 1795 to 1815.
215.
primrose path. Hamlet, i. 3. 50; cf.
Macbeth, ii. 3. 21.
Age cannot wither. Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2. 240.
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David Nichol Smith's essay: Richard Farmer: An Essay On The Learning Of Shakespeare