correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the text: but turn to the tranflation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in folio, 1579,8 and you will at once fee the origin of the mistake.

"First of all he did establish Cleopatra queene of Ægypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria."

Again, in the fourth Act:

"

My messenger

"He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat, "Cæfar to Antony. Let th' old ruffian know

" I have many other ways to die; mean time

Laugh at his challenge."

"What a reply is this?" cries Mr. Upton, "'tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,

Let the old ruffian know

He hath many other ways to die; mean time
I laugh at his challenge.'

we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæfar in Plutarch."

This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Moft indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given

he tells tus in his Preface, "he was not fo fortunate as to be furnished with either of the folio editions, much less any of the an- cient quartos:" and even Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Mr. Warburton's representation.

* I find the character of this work pretty early delineated:
"'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made,
"That Latin, French; that French to English straid:
"Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
"Than i'th' same Englishman return'd from France."

so in the modern translation: but Shakspeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one : "Antonius fent again to challenge Cæfar to fight him: Cæfar answered, That he had many other ways to die, than so."

In the third Act of Julius Cæfar, Antony, in his well-known harangue to the people, repeats a part of the emperor's will :

-To every Roman citizen he gives,

"To every sev'ral man, seventy-five drachmas.-
"Moreover he hath left you all his walks,

"His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,

"On this fide Tiber--.".

" Our author certainly wrote," says Mr. Theobald, -"On that fide Tiber

• Trans Tiberim-prope Cæfaris hortos.'

And Plutarch, whom Shakspeare very diligently studied, expressly declares, that he left the publick his gardens and walks, πέραν τῦ Ποταμỡ, beyond the Tyber."

This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent editors; but hear again the old tranflation, where Shakspeare's study lay : "He bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome seventy-five drachmas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this fide of the river of Tyber." I could furnish you with many more instances, but these are as good as a thousand.

Hence had our author his characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Antony, upon which much argumentation for his learning hath been founded: and hence literatim the epitaph on Timon, which it was once presumed, he had corrected from the

blunders of the Latin version, by his own fuperior knowledge of the original.9

I cannot, however, omit a passage from Mr. Pope: "The Speeches copied from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, be as well made an instance of the learning of Shakspeare, as those copy'd from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben Jonson's." Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia :

"Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no fooner
" March to affault thy country, than to tread

(Trust to't, thou shalt not,) on thy mother's womb, "That brought thee to this world."

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 verse.

" If we helde our peace (my sonne) and determined not to speake, the state of our poore bodies, and present fight of our rayment, would easely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, fince thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy selfe, howe much more unfortunately, then all the women liuinge we are come hether, confidering that the fight which should be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made most fearfull to us: making my selfe to see my sonne, 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 adversitie and miserie, to pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide; is the onely thinge which plongeth us into most 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 curses, yea more than any mortall enemie can heappe uppon us, are forciby wrapt up in our prayers. For the bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy felfe, or the nurse of their natiue contrie. 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 see, my fonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no foner marche forward to affault thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that brought thee first into this world."

The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it happily wants not the afsistance of a comment. But matters may not always be fo easily managed :-a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected:

"The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
"Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief,
" And her pale fire she snatches from the fun.
"The fea's a thief, whose liquid furge refolves
"The moon into falt tears. The earth's a thief,
"That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
"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 inserted." Yet it may be alledged by those, who imagine Shakspeare to have been 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 Latin' tranflations.

I

By Henry Stephens and Alias Andreas, Par. 1554, 4to. ten years before the birth of Shakspeare. The former version hath