into the dialogue of The Taming of the Shrew, that I think it puts the question of Shakspeare's having read the Roman comick poets in the original language out of all doubt, • Redime te captum, quam queas, minimo." With refpect to refemblances, I fhall not trouble you any further.--That the Comedy of Errors is founded on the Menæchmi, 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 Shakspeare; though Mr, Upton, and fome other advocates for his learning, have cautiously dropt the mention of it. Befides this, (if indeed it were different,) in the Gefta Grayorum, the Christmas Revels of the GraysInn Gentlemen, 1594, "a Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his Menechmus was played by the Players." And the fame hath been fufpected to be the fubject of the goodlie Comedie of Plautus, acted at "Pace non trovo, & non hò da far guerra, "Et temo, & fpero, & ardo, & fon un ghiaccio, "Et nulla ftringo, & tuttol mondo abbraccio." &c. Sir Thomas Wyat gives a tranflation of this Sonnet, without any notice of the original, under the title of " Defcription of the contrarious paffions in a Louer," amongst the Songes and Sonettes, by the Earle of Surrey, and Others, 1574. • 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 almoft forgotten, yet the old criticks efteemed 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." Greenwich before the King and Queen in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holinfhed :-Riccoboni highly compliments the English on opening their ftage fo well; but unfortunately, Cavendish in his Life of Wolfey, calls it, an excellent Interlude in Latine. About the fame time it was exhibited in German at Nuremburgh, by the celebrated Hanffach, 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 employed: but if he had met with an old comedy, called Supposes, tranflated from Ariofto by George Gafcoigne ; he certainly would not have appealed to Plautus. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, (as well as fome of the phraseology,) though Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young mafter and his man exchange habits and characters, and perfuade a Scenæse, as he is called, to perfonate 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, Shakspeare quotes a line from the Eunuch of Terence by memory too, and what is more, purposely alters it, in order to bring the fenfe : 7 His works were firft collected under the fingular title of "A hundredth fundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poefie. Gathered partly (by translation) in the fyne outlandish gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariofto, and others and partly by inuention, out of our own fruitefull orchardes in Englande: yelding fundrie fweet fauors of tragical, comical, and morall difcourfes, bothe pleafaunt and profitable to the well fmellyng nofes of learned readers." Black letter, 4to. no date. within the compafs of one line."--This remark was previous to Mr. Johnson's; or indifputably it would not have been made at all.- "Our author 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, 66 can you take upon you to say, that he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence ?"8 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 Latin fpeaking, gathered out of Terence, 1560, reduces the paffage to a single line, and fubjoins a tranflation. We have hitherto fuppofed Shakspeare the author of the Taming of a Shrew, but his property in it is extremely difputable. I will give you my opinion, and the reafons on which it is founded. I fuppofe then the prefent play not originally the work of Shakspeare, but reftored by him to the ftage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and fome other occafional 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 fpurious: and without doubt, fuppofing it to have been written by Shakspeare, it must have been one of his earliest productions; yet it is not " W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnson's edit. of Shakspeare, 1765, 8vo. p. 105. mentioned in the lift of his works by Meres in 1598. I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596, (and poffibly there may be an earlier edition,) called, The Metamorphofis of Ajax, where I fufpect an allufion to the old play: "Reade the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us fo perfect, that now every one can rule a fhrew in our countrey, fave he that hath hir."-I am aware, a modern linguift may object, that the word book does not at prefent feem dramatick, but it was once almost technically fo: Goffon, in his Schoole of Abufe, 66 contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jefters, and fuch like Caterpillars of a common-wealth," 1579, mentions "twoo profe bookes plaied at the Belfauage;" 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."9 9 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 perfuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought either. At the end of the fixth volume of Leland's Itinerary, we are favoured by Mr. Hearne with a Macaronick poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the townsmen : on a line of which, Eo "Invadunt aulas bychefon cum forth geminantes," our commentator very wifely and gravely remarks: " Bychefon, id eft, fon of a byche, ut è codice Rawlinfoniano edidi. nempe modo quo et olim whorfon dixerunt pro fon of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui infcribitur: The wife lapped in Morel's Skin: or the Taming of a Shrew, Ubi pag. 36, fic legimus : And in fact, there is fuch an old anonymous play in Mr. Pope's lift. "A pleasant conceited History, called, The Taming of a Shrew-fundry times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his Servants." Which feems to have been republifhed by the remains of that company in 1607, when Shakspeare's copy appeared at the Black-Friars or the Globe.-Nor let this feem 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 fome years after his death: but he merely revived it on his stage as a manager.-Ravenfcroft affures us, that this was really the cafe with Titus Andronicus; which, it may be observed, hath not Shakspeare's name on the title-page of the only edition published in his life-time. Indeed, from every internal mark, I have not the leaft 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: "They wrestled togyther thus they two "So long that the clothes afunder went. "And to the ground he threwe her tho, "That cleane from the backe her fmock he rent. "And layd upon her a right good pace: Et pag. 42: "Come downe now in this feller fo deepe, "And morels fkin there fhall you fee: "And say'd out, horefon, I will fee thy harte blood,” |