generally able to think for himself, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is different. - But for argument's fake, let the parody be granted; and "our author (fays fome one) may be puzzled to prove, that there was a Latin tranflation of Anacreon at the time Shakspeare 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 Latin3 tranflations. But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poefie, 1589, quotes fome one of a " reafonable good facilitie in tranflation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard the French poet-comes our minion, and tranflates 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 Ronfard! and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of tranfcribing it: "La terre les eaux va boivant, Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas?" Edit. Fol. p. 507. 3 By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Par. 1554, 4to. ten years before the birth of Shakspeare. The former verfion hath been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other tranflators appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the ode in question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were foon to be met with in almost every modern language. 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 Shakspeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as "the old story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is abfolutely filent with refpect to this circumstance." And Mr. Upton is positive that the sweet oblivious antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the nepenthe defcribed in the Odyffey, « Νηπενθές τ ̓ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων. I will not insist upon the translations by Chapman; as the first editions are without date, and it may be difficult to afcertain 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 Shakspeare" persists Mr. Upton, "hath • It was originally drawn into Englishe by Caxton under the name of The Recuyel of the Historyes of Troy, from the French of the ryght venerable Person and worshipfull man Raoul le Feure, and fynyshed in the holy citye of Colen, the 19 day of Septembre, the yere of our Lord God, a thousand foure hundred fixty and enlenen. Wynkyn de Worde printed an edit. fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent ones. 5" Who lift thistory of Patroclus to reade," &c. 6 Ship of Fooles, 1570, p. 21. "Nepenthe is a drinck of foueragne grace, Faerie Queene, 1596, Book IV. c. iii. ft. 43. fome Greek expressions." Indeed!" We have one in Coriolanus: It is held • That valour is the chiefest virtue, and and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addresses My noble partner • You greet with present grace, and great prediction Gr. Ἔχεια.-and πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα, to the haver." This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Mathew of Bobadil, " a gentleman of his bavings!" Thus likewife John Davies in his Pleasant Defcant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612: " Do well and have well!-neyther fo ftill: " 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 Douglas1 and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the sense of poffeffor, is every where met with: though unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα of Sophocles produced as an authority for it, is It is very remarkable, that the bishop is called by his country. man, Sir David Lindsey, in his Complaint of our Souerane Lordis Papingo, " In our Inglische rethorick the rofe." And Dunbar hath a fimilar expreffion in his beautiful poem of The Goldin Terge. ! 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 Βαλυτός of the Greeks: and Homer and his scholiaft are quoted accordingly! If it be not fufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrafe might have been 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 Holinshed, p. 1546: "My bow is broke, I would unyoke, "My foot is fore, I can worke no more." An expreffion of my Dame Quickly is next faftened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; the calls fome of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Orphan heirs of fixed Deftiny." "And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, fuppofing the word to be ufed, as a Grecian would • Ariftophanis Comœdiæ undecim. Gr. & Lat. Amft. 1710. Fol. p. 596. 9 Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiefcence 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, and now only dependant on Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenfer will fufficiently illuftrate the passage: "The man whom beauens have ordayn'd to bee "He wonneth in the land of fayeree, " Yet is no fary borne, ne fib at all "To elfes, but fprong of feed terreftriall, "And whilome by false faries stolen away, Edit. 1590, Book III. c. iii. ft. 26. have used it ? " ὀρφανός ab όρφνός-acting in darkness and obfcurity." Mr. Heath assures us, that the bare mention of such an interpretation, is a fufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the fame 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 fage,) it is not given to many perfons to endure their glorious afpects." 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 feek 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 Τρύπανον; and quote upon us with much parade an old scholiaft 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 confulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden. 2 Revifal, p. 75, 323, and 561. 3 History of his Life and Times, p. 102, preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole. |