the

"Millions of yeares this old drivell Cupid lives;
While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove;

Till now at length that Jove an office gives,

(At Juno's suite who much did Argus love)

In this our world a hangman for to be

Of all those fooles that will have all they see.'
B. II. c. 14.

I know it may be objected on the authority of such biographers as Theophilus Cibber, and the writer of the Life of Sir Philip, prefixed to the modern editions; that the Arcadia was not published before 1613, and consequently too late for this imitation: but I have a copy in my own possession printed for W. Ponsonbie, 1590, 4to. which hath escaped the notice of industrious Ames, and the rest of our typographical antiquaries.

Thus likewise every word of antiquity is to be cut down to the classical standard.

In a note on the Prologue to Troilus and Cressida, (which by the way is not met with in the quarto,) Mr. Theobald informs us, that the very names of the gates of Troy, have been barbarously demolished by the editors: and a deal of learned dust he makes in setting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's satisfaction. Indeed the learning is modestly withdrawn from the later editions, and we are quietly instructed to read,

"Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian,
And Antenorides."

But had he looked into the Troy boke of Lydgate, instead of puzzling himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to have been neither the work of Shakspeare nor his editors :

"Thereto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne

Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne :
The first of all | and strengest eke with all,
Largest also and moste pryncypall,
Of mighty byldyng | alone pereless,
Was by the kynge called Dardanydes;
And in storye | like as it is founde,
Tymbria was named the seconde ;

And the thyrde | called Helyas,

The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas;

She fifthe Trojana | the syxth Anthonydes,

Stronge and mighty | both in werre and pes."

Lond. empr. by R. Pynson, 1513, fol. B. II. ch. xi.

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classical superstition, to the want of what is called the advantage of a learned education. This, as well as a vast superiority of genius, hath contributed to lift this astonishing man to the glory of being esteemed the most original thinker and speaker, since the times of Homer." And hence indisputably the amazing variety of style and manner, unknown to all other writers: an argument of itself sufficient to emancipate Shakspeare from the supposition of a classical training. Yet to be honest, one imitation is fastened on our poet; which hath been insisted upon likewise by Mr. Upton and Mr. Whalley. You remember it in the famous speech of Claudio in Measure for Measure.

"Ay, but to die and go we know not where !" &c.

Most certainly the idea of " a spirit bathing in fiery floods," of residing "in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," or of being "imprisoned in the viewless winds," are not original in our author; but I am not sure that they came from the Platonick-hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold hell: "The fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," says an old homily; "the seconde is passing colde, that yf a grete hylle of fyre were casten therin, it sholde torn to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspeare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a soul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a grete brenning heate in his foote: take care you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember Mr. Menage quotes a canon upon us :

Si quis dixerit episcopum podagra laborare, anathema sit.

Another tells us of the soul of a monk fastened to a rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its enormities. Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as you may see in a poem "where the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell," among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive BrotherAntiquary, our Greek Professor, hath observed to me on the authority of Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were certainly very little read either in the poet or the philosopher.

After all, Shakspeare's curiosity might lead him to translations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonick-hell into the "punytion of saulis in purgatory:" and it is observable, that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of his doom there,

"Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature

the expression is very similar to the bishop's. I will give yo his version as concisely as I can : "It is a nedeful thyng t suffer panis and torment-sum in the wyndis, sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir sum: thus the mony vices

• Contrakkit in the corpis be done away

And purgit-"-Sixte Booke of Eneados, fol. p. 191.

It seems, however, "that Shakspeare himself in The Tempest lath translated some expressions of Virgil: witness the O dea cente." I presume, we are here directed to the passage, where Ferdinand says of Miranda after hearing the songs of Ariel,

and so very small Latin is sufficient for this formidable translation, that if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loath to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to a real translator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader; supposing it necessarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst:

"O to thee, fayre virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted?
Thy tongue, thy visage no mertal frayltie resembleth.
-No doubt, a godesse!"- Edit. 1583.

Gabriel Harvey desired only to be " epitaph'd, the inventor of the English hexameter," and for a while every one would be halting on Roman feet; but the ridicule of our fellow-collegian Hall, in one of his Satires, and the reasoning of Daniel, in his Defence of Rhyme against Campion, presently reduced us to our original Gothick.

But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say, if I can show you, that Shakspeare, when, in the favourite phrase, he had a Latin poet in his eye, most assuredly made use of a translation?

Prospero, in the Tempest, begins the address to his attendant spirits,

"Ye elves of hills, of standing lakes, and groves."

This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea in Ovid: and "it proves," says Mr. Holt, "beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these:

Auræque, et venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,.
Diique omnes nemorun, diique omnes noctis adeste

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion
Ty'd all the kingdom. Simony was fair play.
His own opinion was his law: i' th' presence
He would say untruths, and be ever double
Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he now is, nothing.