It seems, however, "that Shakspeare 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, 66 Most sure, the goddess 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 any 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. 66 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 Gothick. But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say, if I can shew you, that Shakspeare, 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,* "be. yond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these: Auræque, & 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 Shakspeare hath closely followed it: * In some remarks on The Tempest, published under the quaint title of An Attempt to rescue that aunciente English Poet and Playwrighte, Maister Williaume Shakespeare, from the many Errours, faulsely charged upon him by certaine new-fangled Wittes. Lond. 8vo. 1749, p. 81. + His work is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester in a long epis tle in verse, from Berwick, April 20, 1567. "Ye ayres and winds; ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woods alone, "Of standing lakes, and of the night approche ye everych 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 Antonio, rehearses many sympathies and antipathies for which no reason can be rendered: "Some love not a gaping pig "And others when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose, 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, Shakspeare, 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 Shakspeare: "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 VIII, is brought by the Doctor as another argument for the learning of Shakspeare: He was a man "Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking * 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 Shakspeare. 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. "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.” Dr. Farmer's MSS. Reed. "Himself with princes; 'one that by suggestion "His promises were, as he then was, mighty; "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 Shakspeare's knowledge was from Holinshed, 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 seie 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 choose 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 Shakspeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above description is copied by Holinshed, 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 avèrage the tythe should be sufficient; "Sers, speake not to breake that thyng that is concluded, for some shall not paie the tenth parte, and some more."-And again: "Thei saied, the Cardinanall 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 kinges." Edit 1548, p. 138, and 143. Skelton,* in his Why come ye not to Court, gives us, after kis ambling manner, a curious character of Wolsey: "And sucke us so nye "With the deuill of hel *His poems are printed with the title of "Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton Poet Laureate.”. But," says Mr. Cibber, after several other writers, "how or by what interest he was made Laureat, or whether it was by a title he assumed to himself, cannot be determined." This is an error pretty generally received, and it may be worth our while to remove it. A facetious author says somewhere, that a poet laureat, in the modern idea, is a gentleman, who hath an annual stipend for reminding us of the New Year, and the Birth-day: but formerly a Poet Laureat was a real university graduate. "Skelton wore the laurell wreath, "And past in schoels ye knoe." says Churchyarde in a poem prefixed to his works. And Master Caxton in his Preface to The Boke of Eneydos, 1490, hath a passage, which well deserves to be quoted without abridgement: "I praye mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the universite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correcte thys sayd booke, and taddresse and expowne whereas shall be founde faulte, to theym that shall requyre it; for hym I knowe for suffycyent to expowne and Englyshe every dyfficulte that is therein; for he hath late translated the epystles of Tulle, and the book of Dyodorus Syculus, and diverse other workes out of Latyn into Englyshe, not in rude and old language, but in polyshed and ornate termes, craftely, as he that hath redde Vyrgyle, Ouyde, Tullye, and all the other noble poets and oratours, to me unknowen: and also he hath redde the ix muses, and understands their musicalle scyences, and to whom of them eche scyence is appropred: I suppose he hath dronken of Elycons well!" I find, from Mr. Baker's MSS. that our laureat was admitted ad eundem at Cambridge: " An. Dom. 1493, & Hen. 7, nono. Conceditur Johi Skelton Poete in partibus transmarinis atque Oxon. Laureâ ornato, ut apud nos eâdem decoraretur." And afterward, "An. 1504-5 Conceditur Johi Skelton, Poetæ Laureat, quod possit stare eodem gradu hic, quo stetit Oxoniis, & quod possit uti habitu sibi concesso à Principe." See likewise Dr. Knight's Life of Colet, p. 122. And Recherches sur les Poetes couronnez, par M. l'Abbé du Resnel, in the M moires de Litterature, Vol. X, Paris, 4to. 1736. "Of the feendes blacke "He wold so brag and crake "And with a cole rake "Bruse them on a brake "And binde them to a stake "At his owne desire "He is such a grym syre!" Edit. 1568. Mr. Upton and some other criticks have thought it very sche lar-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- "This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath, We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantôme to illustrate this ceremony;* a gentle. man, who will be always allowed the first commentator on Shakspeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself. Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from Henry VI, 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: 66 66 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 Shakspeare's time, "Bargulus Illyrius latro;" though 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 Shakspeare 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."t *Mr. Johnson's edit. Vol. VIII, p. 171. 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, print |