Conftrains them weep, and thake with fear and forrow; The fou, the husband, and the father tearing Our with, which fide fhou'd win. For either thou With manacles thorough our streets; or else These wars determine: if I can't perfuade thee Than feck the end of one; thou shalt no fooner March to affault thy country, than to tread (Truft to't, thou shalt not,) on thy mother's womb, I will now give you the old tranflation, which shall effectually confute Mr. Pope: for our author hath done little more, than thrown the very words of North into blank verfe: "If we helde our peace (my fonne) and determined not to fpeake, the ftate of our poore bodies, and prefent fight of our rayment, would eafely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, fince thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy felfe, howe much more unfortunately, unfortunately, then all the women liuinge we are come hether, confidering that the fight which fhould be molt pleafaunt to all other to beholde, fpitefull fortune hath made most fearfull to us: making my felfe to fee my fonne, and my daughter here, her husband, befieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that which is the only comfort to all other in their adverfitie and miferie, to pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide; is the onely thinge which plongeth us into molt deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas) together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for fafety of thy life also: but a worlde of grievous curfes, yea more than any mortall enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the bitter foppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to foregoe the one of the two either to lofe the perfone of thy feife, or the nurse of their natiue countrie. For my felfe (my fonne) I am determined not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this warre. For if I cannot perfuade thee, rather to doe good unto both parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt fee, my fonne, and truft unto it, thou shalt no foner marche forward to affault thy countrie, but thy foote fhall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that brought thee first into this world." : The length of this quotation will be excufed for its curiofity; and it happily wants not the affiftance of a comment. But matters may not always be fo eafily managed::-a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected. The fun's a thief, and with his great attraction And her pale fire the fnatches from the fun. The The moon into falt tears. The earth's a thief, From gen'ral excrement: each thing's a thief. "This (fays Dr. Dodd) is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inferted." Yet it may be alledged by thofe, who imagine Shakspeare to have been generally able to think for himfelf, 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 translation 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 claffick, (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them,) that was originally published with two Latin tranflations. But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poefie,1589, quotes fome one of a " reasonable good facilitie in translation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well tranflated by Ronfard the French poet-comes our minion, and tranflates the fame out of French into English" and his ftrictures 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, Tout boit foit en haut ou en bas : Suivant cefte reigle commune, Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas ? Edit. Fol. p. 507. I know not whether an observation or two relative to our author's acquaintance with Homer, be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox obferves on a paffage of Troilus and Creffiuda, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakspeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as "the old ftory, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is abfolutely filent with refpect to this circumstance." And Mr. Upton is positive that the fweet oblivious antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the nepenthe defcribed in the Odyssey, Νηπενθές τ' ἄχαλόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθων ἁπάντων. I will not infift upon the tranflations by Chapman; as the first editions are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of their publication. But the former circumftance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the latter more fully from Spenfer, than from Homer himself. "But Shakspeare," perfifts Mr. Upton, «hath fome Greek expreffions." Indeed!- "We have one in Ceriola nus: -It is held That walour is the chiefeft virtue, and Mott dignifies the harver. and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addreffes the weird fifters: My noble partner You greet with prefent grace, and great prediction Gr. "Exe-and eps to "Fyre, to the baver.” This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. "Lye in a water-bearer's houfe!" fays Mafter Matthew of Bobadil," a gentleman of his havings !" Thus likewife John Davies in his Pleafant Defcant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612: Do well and have well!-neyther fo till: For fome are good doers, whote kavings are ill. and Daniel the hiftorian uses it frequently. Having seems to be fynonymous with behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the fense of possessor, is every where met with: though unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα of Sophocles, produced as an authority for it, is fufpected by Kufter, as good a critick in these matters, to have abfolutely a different meaning. But what shall we fay to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, and unyoke ?" alluding to the Beλurs of the Greeks: and Homer and his fcholiaft are quoted accordingly! If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might have been taken from husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it from a Dittie of the workmen of Dover, preferved in the additions to Holinfbed, 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 fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; fhe calls fome of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Orphan heirs of fixed Destiny. "And |