To whom then fhall we afcribe it ?-Somebody hath told us, who fhould feem to be a noftrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and confequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the contrary, the Irish laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks, (and were it true, it would certainly be decifive) that the plot is borrowed from a novel of Cervantes, not published till the year after Shakspeare's death. But unluckily the fame novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.-The fame reafoning however, which exculpated our author from The Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the prefent occafion. But you want my opinion :-and from every mark of style and manner, I make no doubt of afcribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us, that he left fome plays in MS.-These were written about the time of the Reftoration, when the accent in queftion was more generally altered. Perhaps the mistake arose from an abbreviation of the name. Mr. Dodfley knew not that the tragedy of Andromana was Shirley's, from the very fame caufe. Thus a whole ftream of Biographers tells us, that Marston's plays were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of William Shakespeare, the famous comedian."-Here again I suppose, in fome transcript, the real publifher's name, William Sheares, was abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakspeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleafed to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence. Shirley is fpoken of with contempt in Mac Flecknoe; but his imagination is fometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a paffage in the fourth Book of the Paradife Loft, which hath been fufpected of imitation, as a prettiness below the genius of Milton: I mean, where Uriel glides backward and forward to heaven on a fun-beam. Dr. Newton informs us, that this might poffibly be hinted by a picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of France's cabinet; but I am apt to believe that Milton had been ftruck with a portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the comedy of The Brothers, 1652, defcribes Jacinta at vefpers: "Her eye did feem to labour with a tear, You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's ini tations : The fwan with arched neck "Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows "Her ftate with oary feet." Book VII. v. 438, &c. * Middleton, in an obfcure play called A Game at Cheffe, hath fome very pleafing lines on a fimilar occafion : Upon thofe lips, the sweete fresh buds of youth, "The holy dewe of prayer lies like pearle, Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne Upon the bashfull rose. "The ancient poets, fays Mr. Richardfon, have not hit upon this beauty; fo lavish have they been in their descriptions of the fwan. Homer calls the fwan long-necked, drλixodeípov; but how much more pittorefque, if he had arched this length of neck?” For this beauty, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whofe name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings: Like a fhip in her full trim, "A fwan, fo white that you may unto him - "And with his arched neck this poore fish catch'd.Progreffe of the Soul, ft. 24. Those highly finished landscapes, the Seafons, are indeed copied from nature, but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his master: "Gives out his fnowy plumage to the gale; " But to return, as we fay on other occafions.Perhaps the advocates for Shakspeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more fuccefsful. Mr. Gildon takes the van. "It is plain, that he was acquainted with the fables of antiquity very well that fome of the arrows of Cupid are pointed with lead, and others with gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido, in Virgil : nor do I know any tranflation of these poets fo ancient as Shakspeare's time." The paffages on which these fagacious remarks are made, occur in A Midfummer-Night's Dream; and exhibit, we fee, a clear proof of acquaintance with the Latin clafficks. But we are not answerable for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stanyhurft, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of Turberville and Churchyard! but these fables were eafily known without the help of either the originals or the tranflations. The fate of Dido had been fung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marlowe had even already introduced her to the stage and Cupid's arrows appear with their characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, in Spenfer, and every fonnetteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before in The Romaunt of the Rofe: a work, you may venture to look into, notwithstanding Mafter Prynne hath fo pofitively affured us, on the word of John Gerfon, that the author is most certainly damned, if he did not care for a serious repentance.3 Mr. Whalley argues in the fame manner, and with the fame fuccefs. He thinks a paffage in The Tempest, 3 Had our zealous puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monaftery in France, by the legacy of a great cheft, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than vetches. The friars enraged at the ridicule and difappointment, would not fuffer him to have chriftian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious Obfervations on the Statutes, 4to. 1766, p. 24. From the Annales d' Aquitaine. Par. 1537. Our author had his full share in diftreffing the spirit of this restless man. "Some Play-books are grown from Quarto into Folio; which yet bear fo good a price and fale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.-Shackfpeer's Plaies are printed in the best Crowne-paper, far better than most Bibles !" cr High queen of state, a remarkable inftance of Shakspeare's knowledge of ancient poetick ftory; and that the hint was furnifhed by the divúm incedo regina of Virgil.4 You know, honeft John Taylor, the Water-poet, declares that he never learned his Accidence, and that Latin and French were to him Heathen-Greek; yet by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a learned man, in fpite of every thing, he may fay to the contrary: for thus he makes a gallant addrefs his lady: "Most ineftimable magazine of beauty-in whom the port and majesty of Juno, the wifdom of Jove's braine-bred girle, and the feature of Cytherea,5 have their domeftical habitation." In The Merchant of Venice, we have an oath " By * Others would give up this paffage for the vera incessu patuit dea; but I am not able to fee any improvement in the matter: even fuppofing the poet had been speaking of Juno, and no previous tranflation were extant. This paffage recalls to my memory a very extraordinary fact. A few years ago, at a great court on the continent, a countryman 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 ftolen from Angerianus: "Tres quondam nudas vidit Priameius heros "Hoc majus; tres uno in corpore: Cælia ridens 6.6 Eft Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens." 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. |