were most punctually taken by a subsequent labourer in the fame department, Dr. Sewell. Mr. Pope fuppofed "little ground for the common opinion of his want of learning:" once indeed he made a proper distinction between learning and languages, as I would be understood to do in my title-page; but unfortunately he forgot it in the course of his difquifition, and endeavoured to perfuade himself that Shakspeare's acquaintance with the ancients might be actually proved by the fame medium as Jonson's. Mr. Theobald is "very unwilling to allow him fo poor a scholar, as many have laboured to reprefent him;" and yet is "cautious of declaring too pofitively on the other fide of the question." Dr. Warburton hath expofed the weakness of fome arguments from fufpected imitations; and yet offers others, which, I doubt not, he could as easily have refuted. Mr. Upton wonders "with what kind of reafone ing any one could be fo far impofed upon, as to imagine that Shakspeare had no no learning;" and lashes with much zeal and fatisfaction" the pride and pertness of dunces, who, under fuch a name would gladly shelter their own idleness and ignorance. He, like the learned knight, at every anomaly in grammar or metre, that he who allows Shakspeare had learning, and a familiar acquaintance with the ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of Great Britain. Dennis was expelled his college for attempting to ftab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this anecdote. Hath hard words ready to fhow why, How would the old bard have been aftonished to have found, that he had very skilfully given the trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, COMMONLY called the ithyphallic measure to the Witches in Macbeth! and that now and then a halting verfe afforded a most beautiful inftance of the pes proceleufmaticus ! But, continues Mr. Upton, it was a learned age; Roger Afcham affures us, that Queen Elizabeth read more Greek every day, than fome digni→ taries of the church did Latin in a whole week." This appears very probable; and a pleafant proof it is of the general learning of the times, and of Shakspeare in particular. I wonder, he did not corroborate it with an extract from her injunctions to her clergy, that "fuch as were but mean readers fhould perufe over before, once or twice, the chapters and homilies, to the intent they might read to the better understanding of the people. Dr. Grey declares, that Shakspeare's knowledge in the Greek and Latin tongues cannot reasonably be called in queftion. Dr. Dodd fuppofes it proved, that he was not such a novice in learning and antiquity as fome people would pretend. And to close the whole, for I suspect you to be tired of quotation, Mr. Whalley, the ingenious editor of Jonfon, hath written a piece expressly on this fide the queftion perhaps from a very excufable partiality, he was willing to draw Shakspeare from the field of nature to claffick ground, where alone; he knew, his author could poffibly cope with him. These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have fuppofed themfelves able to trace Shakspeare in the writings of the ancients; and have fometimes perfuaded us of their own learning, whatever be came of their author's. Plagiarifms have been difcovered in every natural defcription and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind affistance of the various Excerpta, Sententiæ, and Flores, this bufinefs may be effected with very little expence of time or fagacity; as Addifon hath demonftrated in his comment on Chevy-chafe, and Wagstaff on Tom Thumb; and I myself will engage to give you quotations from the elder English writers (for to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect fuch,) which fhall carry with them at leaft an equal degree of fimilarity. But there can be no occafion of wafting any future time in this department: the world is now in poffeffion of the Marks of Imitation. Shakspeare however hath frequent allufions to the facts and fables of antiquity." Granted: - and as Mat. Prior fays, to fave the effufion of more Christian ink, I will endeavour to fhow, how they came to his acquaintance. It is notorious, that much of his matter of fact knowledge is deduced from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his fkill in the original, and corrects accordingly the errors of his copyifts by the Greek ftandard. Take a few inftances, which will elucidate this matter fufficiently. In the third act of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius reprefents to his courtiers the imperial pomp of thofe illuftrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion, έσ Unto her He gave the 'ftablishment of Egypt, made her Abfolute queen.' Read Libya, fays the critick authoratively, as is plain from Plutarch, Πρώτην μὲν ἀπέφηνε Κλεοπάτραν βασίλισσαν Αἰγύπτε καὶ Κύπρο καὶ ΛΙΒΥΗΣ, καὶ κοίλης Συρίας. This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the text: but turn to the tranflation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in folio, 1579,9 and you will at once fee the origin of the mistake. "First of all he did eftablifh Cleopatra queene of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lidya, and the lower Syria." Again, in the fourth act: My meffenger He hath whipt with rods, dares me to perfonal combat, I have many other ways to die; mean time Laugh at his challenge. "What a reply is this?" cries Mr. Upton, "'tis acknowledging he fhould fall under the unequal combat. But if we read, 8 It is extraordinary, that this gentleman fhould attempt fo voluminous a work, as the Revifal of Shakspeare's Text, when, he tells us in his Preface, he was not fo fortunate as to be furnished with either of the folio editions, much less any of the ancient 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: G Let the old ruffian know He hath many other ways to die; mean time we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæfar in Plutarch." This correction was firft made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Moft indifputably it is the fenfe of Plutarch, and given fo in the modern tranflation: but Shakspeare was mifled by the ambiguity of the old one : nius fent again to challenge Cæfar to fight him : Cæfar answered, That he had many other ways to die, than fo." "Anto In the third act of Julius Cæfar, Antony, in his well-known harangue to the people, repeats a part of the emperor's will: 66 To every Roman citizen he gives, To every fev'ral man, feventy-five drachmas. His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, "Our author certainly wrote," fays Mr. Theo"On that fide Tiber bald, And Plutarch, whom Shakspeare very diligently ftudied, exprefsly declares, that he left the publick his gardens and walks, πέραν το Ποταμᾶ, beyond the Tyber." This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the fubfequent editors; but hear again the old translation, where Shakspeare's Study lay: "He be queathed unto every citizen of Rome feventy-five |