from profaccia, much good may it do you.' Mr. Johnson rather thinks it a mistake for perforce. Sir Thomas however is right; yet it is no argument for his author's Italian knowledge. Old Heywood, the epigrammatist, addressed his readers long before, "Readers, reade this thus: for preface, proface, And Dekker in his play, If it be not good, the Diuel is in it, (which is certainly true, for it is full of devils,) makes Shackle-soule, in the character of Friar Rush, tempt his brethren with "choice of dishes," "To which proface; with blythe lookes sit yee." Nor hath it escaped the quibbling manner of the Waterpoet, in the title of a poem prefixed to his Praise of Hempseed: "A Preamble, Preatrot, Preagallop, Preapace, or Preface; and Proface, my Masters, if your Stomacks serve." But the editors are not contented without coining Italian. "Rivo, says the drunkard," is an expression of the madcap Prince of Wales; which Sir Thomas Hanmer corrects to Ribi, drink away or again, as it should be rather translated. Dr. Warburton accedes to this; and Mr. Johnson hath admitted it into his text; but with an observation, that Rivo might possibly be the cant of English taverns. And so indeed it was: it occurs frequently in Marston. Take a quotation from this comedy of What you will, 1607: "Musicke, tobacco, sacke, and sleepe, "The tide of sorrow backward keep : "Rivo, drink deep, give care the mate." In Love's Labour's Lost, Boyet calls Don Armado, "A Spaniard that keeps here in court, Here too Sir Thomas is willing to palm Italian upon us, We should read, it seems, mammuccio, a mammet, or puppet: Ital. Mammuccia. But the allusion is to a fantastical character of the time." Popular applause," says Meres," dooth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praise and glorie,-as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and Monarcho that liued about the court." P. 178. I fancy, you will be satisfied with one more instance. Baccare, You are marvellous forward," quoth Gremio to Petruchio in the Taming of a Shrew. "But not so forward," says Mr. Theobald, "as our editors are indolent. This is a stupid corruption of the press, that none of them have dived into. We must read Baccalare, as Mr. Warburton acutely observed to me, by which the Italians mean, Thou ignorant, presumptuous man."-" Properly, indeed," adds Mr. Heath, "a graduated scholar, but ironically and sarcastically, a pretender to scholarship." This is admitted by the editors and criticks of every denomination. Yet the word is neither wrong, nor Italian: it was an old proverbial one, used frequently by John Heywood; who hath made, what he pleases to call, epigrams upon it. Take two of them, such as they are: "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow: "Went that sow backe at that biddyng trowe you?" "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow: se "Mortimers sow speakth as good latin as he.” Howel takes this from Heywood in his Old Sawes and Adages and Philpot introduces it into the Proverbs collected by Camden. We have but few observations concerning Shakspeare's knowledge of the Spanish tongue. Dr. Grey indeed is willing to suppose, that the plot of Romeo and Juliet may be borrowed from a comedy of Lopes de Vega. But the Spaniard, who was certainly acquainted with Bandello, hath not only changed the catastrophe, but the names of the characters. Neither Romeo nor Juliet; neither Montague nor Capulet, appears in this performance: and how came they to the knowledge of Shakspeare?-Nothing more certain, than that he chiefly followed the translation by Painter, from the French of Boisteau, and hence arise the deviations from Bandello's original Italian*. It seems, It is remarked, that "Paris, though in one place called earl, is most commonly styled the countie in this play. Shakspeare however, from a passage in Ames's Typographical Antiquities, that Painter was not the only translator of this popular story: and it is possible therefore, that Shakspeare might have other assistance. In the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and consequently the author himself was acquainted with it. "Paucus pallabris, let the world slide, sessa.” But this is a burlesqne on Hieronymo; the piece of bombast, that I have mentioned to you before: "What new device hath they devised, trow? Mr. Whalley tells us, the author of this piece hath the happiness to be at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with himself: Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take this opportunity of informing him, that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he will accept the authority of his contemporary, Heywood. More hath been said concerning Shakspeare's acquaint seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian conte to our count :-perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot."-He certainly did so: Paris is there first styled a young earle, and afterward, counte, countee, and countie; according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers; particularly in Fairfax: "As when a captaine doth besiege some hold, "And trieth waies and wiles a thousand fold, "So far'd the countie with the pagan bold." &c. Godfrey of Bulloigne, book vii. st. 90. "Fairfax," says Mr. Hume," hath translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which for that age are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation." The former part of this character is extremely true; but the latter not quite so. In the book above quoted Tasso and Fairfax do not even agree in the number of stanzas. ance with the French language. In the play of Henry V. we have a whole scene in it, and in other places it occurs familiarly in the dialogue. We may observe in general, that the early editions have not half the quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the author *; * Every writer on Shakspeare hath expressed his astonishment, that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his works to the Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print, when it was copied by the ear, " for a double sale would bring on a suspicion of honestie." Shakspeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the first folio; and call the previous publications "stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors." But this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, through convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to. 1599, where he assures us, that in a play of his, called The Isle of Dogs, "foure acts, without his consent, or the leaste guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players." This, however, was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some "vaine glorious tragedians," and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular; which will serve for an answer to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: "It was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce ever blotted a line:-I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise by some."-But hear Nash, who was far from praising: "I leaue all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher.-That could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede, yet English Seneca read by candle-light yeelds many good sentences---hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches." and it is extremely probable, that the French ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly were after he had left the stage.-Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily believe, that he was acquainted with the scene between Catharine and the old gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense. Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson's edition, hath an ingenious observation to prove, that Shakspeare, supposing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the language. "Est-il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton bras?" says a Frenchman.-" Brass, cur?" replies Pistol. "Almost any one knows, that the French word bras is pronounced brau; and what resemblance of sound does. this bear to brass?" Mr. Johnson makes a doubt, whether the pronunciation of the French language may not be changed, since Shakspeare's time, "if not," says he, "it may be suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes: " but this does not appear to be the case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the grammarians, or the practice of -I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done: and it may be observed, that the oldest copy now extant is said to be " enlarged to almost as much againe as it was." Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592, Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene: in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied, in Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse. And Nash again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Halter-maker, 1596. Dr. Lodge calls Nash our true English Aretine: and John Taylor in his Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang, even makes an oath "by sweet satyricke Nashe his urne.”—He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy, called The Return from Parnassus. |