Something the IDLER's character may be fuppofed to promife. Thofe that are curious after diminutive hiftory, who watch the revolutions of families, and the rife and fall of characters either male or female, will hope to be gratified by this paper; for the IDLER is always inquifitive and feldom retentive, He that delights in obloquy and fatire, and wishes to fee clouds gathering over every reputation that dazzles him with its brighnefs, will fnatch up the IDLER'S effays with a beating heart. The IDLER is naturally cenforious; thofe who attempt nothing themfelves, fuppofe eve. ry thing eafily performed, and confider the unfuccefsful always as criminal.

I think it neceffary to give notice, that I make no contract, nor incur any obligation. If thofe who depend on the IDLER for intelligence and enter tainment, fhould fuffer the difappointment which commonly follows fuch illplaced expectations, they are to lay the blame only on themselves.

Yet hope is not wholly to be caft away. The IDLER, though fluggish, is yet alive, and may fometimes be ftimu. lated to vigour and activity. He may then defcend into profoundness, or tower into fublimity for the diligence of an IDLER is rapid and impetuous; as ponderous bodies forced into velocity move with violence proportionate to their weight.

But thefe violent exertions of intellect cannot be very frequent, and he will therefore gladly receive help from any correfpondent, who fhall enable him to pleafe without his own labour. He excludes no ftyle, he prohibits no fubject: only let him that writes to the IDLER remember, that his letters must not be long; no words ought to be fquandered in declarations of esteem, or confeffions of inability; confcious dulnefs has little right to be prolix, and praife is not fo welcome to the IDLER as quiet. The hiftory of our own language. [149]

Charles I. had, in the improvement of our language, it is proper to mention the common tranflation of the fcriptures, which was undertaken and com- ? pleted by the command of James I. As it was the work of different divines, fo there is a great diverfity in the ftyle of the compofition. It is plain, however, that they owed a great deal to the former tranflations, and in many places they are: almoft literally the fame. Notwithstanding this, if we confider its importance, its difficulty, and, above all, the vast variety of opinions, and contradictory authorities concerning the meaning of the original, the tranflation is, upon the whole, perhaps the beft executed, and most unexceptionable work of the kind, that ever appeared in the world.

It has in fact, for about 150 years paft, been the ftandard by which the ideas affixed to words, have been determined; and it will be found, upon an accurate review, that in a country of fuch licentiousness both in writing and thinking, the confiftency of the English tongue could have been preferved by no other means, than by appealing to a work, where the fluctuation incident to a living language is restrained, by having recourfe to a dead language, where that fluctuation no longer exifts, and which, at least, ought to fix the meaning of the words into which it is tranflated.

I admit, that a more elegant, or rather a more imart tranflation, may now be formed. But neither elegance nor fmartness are the reigning characteristics of holy writ. Plainnefs always is; but it is a plainnefs that often admits the fublime and the pathetic; and where the se are required, our tranflators have fometimes fucceeded to a degree that I had almoft faid does no difcredit to the original.

A review of this tranflation, by authority, has been often thought of, and fometimes propofed. Such a review, with regard to the meaning of the original, may, in a few, and but a very few, paffages be proper; but a review of it only with an intention to ornament the ftyle, if executed, would, I apprehend, go far towards unhinging our language.

The

The bounds of this paper does not admit my giving my reafons for this opinion, with regard to our tranflation of the Bible; but I cannot help thinking that fuch a review may be very proper with regard to the book of Common Prayer. The latter was compiled gradually, and by men, who, many of them, either fecretly favoured Popery, or had great doubts concerning fome controverted points. The greatest part of the liturgy being no other than a tranflation from Popith books of worship, the compilers of which had tinged their Latin with a trong caft of fuperftition and enthufiafm, the fame expreflions were faithfully conveyed in the tranflation; and this is the true caufe of the many exceptionable paffages that, in fome late writings, have been objected to in our liturgy, and which have even ftumbled fome rational well withers to the worship of our church. [xii. 230.]

The Papifts themselves were fo fenfi ble of what I have obferved, that in the famous controverfies, immediately before the revolution, between them and the divines of the church of England, which did so much honour to the latter; the expreffions in our liturgy that seemed to favour Popery, were strongly urged in its defence. I recollect one in particular, which I fhall mention, because I don't remember it being made ufe of fince that time, and which evidently turns upon a, perhaps studied, incorrectnefs of language. For the Papifts urged, that tranfubitantiation was believed by our firit reformers; and the ftrong argument they urged for it was, that our churchcatechifm fays, the body and blood of Cbrift is VERILY AND INDEED reeived by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. Next to the tranflation of the Bible and the Common-Prayer Book, the works of Shakespear are undoubtedly the leading criterion of our language. He enriched it with phrafes, and fometimes with words, that are now claffical in England, and have been adopted by all fucceeding writers. If he failed in any thing, it was his introducing fome provincial expreffions, that not being understood in or near the capital, have

occafioned moft of, or all, the fearifications which his editors have committed. A Middlefex or Oxford fhire man, for inftance, does not conceive, that, in Staffordshire, a wretch was a common ex preffion for a young girl or woman; that a card in our northern parts fignifiés a brawling vagabond; and to berry, means to spoil, or to take by might; with a thoufand provincialities of that kind; the true explanation of which would render the very firft edition of Shakespear the most complete by far that has yet appeared.

Shakespear is fo much an original, that it is in vain to attempt to explain his meaning by other printed authorities, and it is dangerous fometimes to do it even by his own. He is the only dramatic writer that gives not only different fentiments, but a different language to different characters. The very idiom in which his English kings and heroes (peak, differs from thofe of Greece and Rome. The ftyle of Othello has not the least resemblance to that of Macbeth, nor the language of Hamlet, to that of Lear. Was this diverfity of ftyle to be examined by an ordinary critic, who knows nothing of Shakespear, he would pronounce his feveral plays to be wrote by feveral authors; but a more difcerning one would fay of his fpeeches, Facies non omnibus una,nec diverfa tamen; though the refemblance can be found out by no other characteristic but that of EXCEL LENCY.

Shakespear had but few predeceffors in the dramatic art to whom he could be beholden; and we find even few of his cotemporaries who can be called even fecond to him. Maflenger is, if any deferve that rank; but he is longo proximus intervallo. Ben. Johnfon, in his tragedies, has not the leaft fpark of a great writer; Maffenger must have beer. efteemed a very great writer, had it not been for Shakespear.

Some parts of Shakespear's comedies are as fine models for proie writing, as his tragedies are for poetry. Several of his comic characters ipeak with a freedom and ease, to which no modern write: has attained; and I am convinced, th Eez

n

had any of his epistolary or literary compofitions defcended to pofterity, we Thould have found him to be as great a profe-writer, as he was a poet.

Some may hink it amazing, that our language was far from owing any im provement to the abilities of Ben. Johnfon, who was a man of learning, and great critical knowledge. But we are to reflect, that his learning was attended by pride, and his knowledge by whim. Confcious of having studied the ancients, and, in fome of his plays, having equal led, if not outdone their moft correct characters of conduct, and imagining that the public paid lefs homage to his learning than they did to Shakefpear's genius, he wrapt himself up in a fullen kind of oddity, and was in fact the very Morofe he defcribes. Difdaining either to speak or to write in the common way, he ftudied phrafes that never can be brought into common ufe; and departing entirely from the character of the English language, he preffed it into the fervice of the ancients Though Plautus feems to have been his favourite, and his model, he even took the whimfical turn of verfifying Cicero, Salluft, and other authors of antiquity, and bringing them upon the ftage with great pomp and gravity; witnefs his tragedy of Ca tiline. But though the fenfe of thofe authors is minutely preferved, the whole is a piece of bufkin'd burlesque, and the audience would have been equally entertained had the speeches been in Latin. Notwithstanding this, Johnfon, till within these fifty years, was a more venerable name in English poetry, than Shake fpear; for, being himself a man both of wit and learning, with a keen turn for fatire, he received great incenfe from the writers of thofe days, partly through efteem, and partly through fear. Hence it is that we know a great many more particulars of him than of Shakespear. Notwithstanding this, the latter was always the favourite of the public; 'for this plain reafon, because they underftood his language.

The plays that go under the name of Beaumont and Fletcher, are of a very, different character from thofe of Johnfon;

and, though not comparable to fome of his in true merit, greatly exceed them in point of language. They imitated Shakefpear, as far as he was imitable, in the turn and ease of his profe dialogue; and by endeavouring to fuit themselves to the genteel part of the audience, their ftyle thereby hit the tafte both of the great and the vulgar. It does not indeed create fuch exquifite fenfation as that of Shakespear, but it has great freedom and pliability, and enters very readily into the current fervice of life. It is furprifing therefore we know fo little as we do, of thefe pair of authors, who must have been men of fashion, and knowledge in business.

The truth is, towards the end of James I.'s reign, many perfons of rank who were men of sense, began to be secretly difgufted with the pedantry and affectation which then distorted our language, and, in their private correfpondences, cultivated a freedom, and indeed a gracefulness, of ftyle, which, had it been made public, would have done them little fervice in their preferment either in church or ftate. This vitiated tafte was not entirely owing to James. Elifabeth herself, in her more advanced years, had failing that is often incident to a great genius, that of affecting a character in which he was greatly flattered, but did not in reality poffels; I mean, that of learning; though it mult be owned, fhe poffeffed as much, if not more, than was neceffary for a queen. This affectation, however, fo much infected her ftyle, after she was forty years of age, that it is interjected with Latinifms, Græcifms, and foreign idioms, and in fome places becomes almoft oracular, and, like Shakespear's justice, full of wife faws, and beard of formal cut.

I do not here prefume to throw out this obfervation upon fo great a name by way of cenfure. Her writing in that manner, confidering the parties fhe had to deal with, gave her an air of import ance, and was often of vast service to her affairs and perfonal reputation, as learning and wifdom in that age were always held to go together. But I am obliged to take notice of it for the confe

quences

quences it had. For the manner that in her had an air of majefty and prudence, when adopted (as all her man ners were) by her divines and courtiers, and from them by others, became perplexed and pedantic. I cannot, how ever, help introducing here an anecdote of her reign, which is by no means foreign to the fubject I now treat on. One Mr Wilson, after receiving a uiverfity-education, coming up to London to push his fortune, attached himfelf to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, whom be perfecuted with letters (fome of which are in Strype's collection) in the moft bject strain that venality could dictate. And Burleigh, who had a profeffed infenfibility either of wit or want, took no notice of his fupplicant for a long time. But the Queen happening to be then in the very height of war with Philip of Spain, and wanting to animate her fubjects in her quarrel, one day afked Burleigh, whether he could recommend to her, any one who was capable of tranflating the Philippics of Demoftheses. Burleigh requiring a day or two confider, sent for Wilfon, whom he found to be a fhrewd fenfible man, and well qualified for the undertaking the Queen required. In short, he was empoyed, the tranflation (which is now ve fcarce) was published, and proved fo pirited a one, that it more than answered the Queen's ends, which were, to infufe into her own fubjects the fame a verfion to Philip of Spain, that Demothenes wanted to infufe into the Athetians against Philip of Macedon. Elifabeth, who understood Greek fo well as to be able to tranflate fome part of Xenophon, (a part of which I have feen in her own hand writing), was fo well pleafed with this, and the tranflator's abilites, that foon after she made Dr Wilfon One of her principal fecretaries of ftate.

Having mentioned tranflators, I cannot help mentioning Philemon Holland, who lived at this time, and was the most voluminous tranflator that ever exifted. It is true, he understood no language but English and French; and his ftyle is exceffively poor, as well as his perform ance unfaithful: but it is inconceivable

of what fervice his performances were to the English language. It gave his readers the fenfe and fentiments of the ancients; and though I am far from thinking Shakespear was destitute of a competent knowledge of the learned languages, yet it is impoffible he could have acquired the amazing knowledge he discovers of the hiftory and manners of antiquity, without the medium of tranflations.

But befides Philemon Holland, great numbers of other translators from all languages appeared under Elifabeth and James. And nothing can furnish us with a stronger proof of the excellency of the ancients, than by reflecting, that, defpicable (and nothing could be more fo) as most of those translations were, they were bought up and read by the public with the greatest avidity. They began gradually to perceive, that fim plicity of narrative or reasoning was the character of the ancients; and this led them to dislike the style and manner of their own learned men, who afpired at preferment by deviating from nature.

James I. who in the church, the univerfities, and the law, was the rewarder, patron, and protector, of all quibbling, punning, and abfurdity of language, and who feems to have made them his criterions of judging of all kind of literary merit, in his parliamentary fpeeches, and fome of his theological treatifes, discovered great proficiency in the fame arts. Notwithstanding this, when James had a mind to lay afide that pedantry which he thought was infeparable to the character of a wife king, no man in his dominions had a more free, nervous, or even pathetic manner of writing; and for this I can appeal to any perfon who, without prejudice, reads his Bafilicon Doron, or, Advice to his fon.

But it happened fortunately for the English language, that the want of learning was one of the qualities that James required in his favourites at court. And the reign of Charles I. with regard to the fubject I am now treating of, was like one of thofe Norwegian fummers, where the verdure immediately fucceeds the fnow. The public dispatches, the

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