In The Merchant of Venice we have an oath "By two-headed Janus;" and here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakspeare shews his knowledge in the antique: and so again does the Water-poet, who describes Fortune, "Like a Janus with a double face." But Shakspeare hath somewhere a Latin motto, quoth Dr. Sewell; 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 Shakspeare. 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 Shakspeare; 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, Shakspeare 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 Moore in one of his pageants:† of ours of high rank and character, [Sir C. H. W.] exhibited. with many other candidates his complimental epigram on the birth-day, and carried the prize in triumph: "O Regina orbis prima & pulcherrima: ridens Literally stolen from Angerianus : "Tres quondam nudas vidit Priameius heros Delitiæ Ital. Poet. by Gruter, under the anagrammatic name of Ranutius Gherus, 1608, V. I, p. 189. Perhaps the latter part of the epigram was met with in a whimsical book, which had its day of fame, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 1652, 6th edit. p. 520. Cap. 1, 4to. 1555. Amongst "the things, which Mayster More wrote in his youth for his pastime," prefixed to his Workes, 1557, Fol. "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 Mirrour for Magistrates, in his Legend of king Albanacte. A very liberal writer on the Beauties of Poetry, who had 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 breathe the very spirit of ancient mythology, should pass for being illite rate: "See what a grace was seated on his brow! "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 Shakspeare, forgot 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 Shakspeare 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 cha. racter no way belonging to him." *Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but really written by Robert Henderson, or Henryson, according to other authori ties. It is observable that Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity. 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; "Of all those fooles that will have all they see.” B. II, c. 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, Scæa, 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 Shakspeare nor his editors: "Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne Tymbria | was named the seconde; "And the thyrde | called Helyas, "The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas; "The fyfthe Trojana, the syxth Anthonydes, Lond. empr. by R. Pynson, 1513, fol. B. II, ch. xi, *The Troye Boke was somewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the beginning of the last century, under the name of "The Life and Death of Hector-who fought a hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; Our excellent friend Mr. Hurd hath borne a noble testimony on our side of the question. "Shakspeare," 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 Shakspeare 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,” wherein there were slaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand Fourscore and Sixe Men." Fol. no date. This work, Dr. Fuller and several other criticks, have erroneously quoted as the original; and observe in consequence, that "if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined standard for purer language: so that one might mistake him for a modern writer!" Let me here 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. Lydgate, after the example of his master, very fairly acknowledges, "Well wot I moche thing is wronge, "Falsely metryd | both of short and longe." and Chaucer himself was persuaded, that the rime might possibly be Somewhat agreable, "Though some verse faile in a syllable." In short, the attention was directed to the casural pause, as the grammarians call it; which is carefully marked in every line of Lydgate: and Gascoigne in his Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse, observes very truly of Chaucer, "Whosoeuer do peruse and well consider his workes, he shall find, that although his lines are not always of one selfe same number of syllables, yet beyng redde by one that hath understanding, the longest verse and that which hath most syllables in it, will fall to the eare correspondent unto that which hath fewest syllables in it: and likewise that whiche hath in it fewest syllables shall be found yet to consist of wordes that hath suche naturall sounde, as may seeme equall in length to a verse which hath many moe syllables of lighter accents." 4to. 1575. 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 therein, it sholde torn to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspeare, 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 Mr. Menage quotes a canon upon us: "Si quis dixerit episcopum PODAGRA laborare, anathe-ma sit." Another tells us of the soul of a monk fastened to a rock,. which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its 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, Shakspeare'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 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 pains 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 "Sixte Booke of Eneados, fol. p. 191. Aliæ panduntur inanes "Suspensæ ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto † 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." On all soules daye, p. 152. $ Mr. afterwards Dr. Lort. Islandia Descript. Ludg. Bat. 1607, p. 46. |