Cathon [Parvus and Magnus] tranfl. &c. by Caxton 1483* Preceptes of Cato, with Annotations of Erafmus, &c. 24mo. Lond. 1560 and 1562 Ames mentions a Difcourfe of Human Nature, tranflated from Hippocrates, p. 428; an Extract from Pliny, tranflated from the French, p. 312; Esopt, &c. by Caxton and others; and there is no doubt, but many Tranflations at prefent unknown, may be gradually recovered, either by Industry or Accident.

* There is an entry of Caton at Stationers' hall in 1591 by —Adams, Eng. and Lat. Again in the year 1591 by Tho. Orwin. Again in 1605, "Four bookes of morall fentences entituled Cato, tranflated out of Latin into English by J. M. Master of Arts."

+"Efop's Fables in Englyfhe" were entered May 7th 1590, on the books of the Stationers' company. Again, O&. 1591. Again Efop's Fables in Meter, Nov. 1598. Some few of them had been paraphrafed by Lydgate, and I believe are still unpub. lifhed. See the Brit. Muf. MSS. Harl. 2251.

It is much to be lamented that Andrew Maunfell, a bookseller in Lothbury, who publifhed two parts of a catalogue of English printed books, fol. 595, did not proceed to his third collection. This, according to his own account of it, would have confifted of "Grammar, Logick, and Rhetoricke, Lawe, Hiftorie, Poetrie, Policie, &c." which, as he tells us, for the moft part concerné matters of delight and pleafure."

To Mr. Colman's Tranflation of Terence, Octavo Edition.

T

HE reverend and ingenious Mr. Farmer, in his curi ous and entertaining Effay on the Learning of Shakefpeare, having done me the honour to animadvert on fome paffages in the preface to this tranflation, I cannot dismiss this edition without declaring how far I coincide with that gentleman; although what I then threw out carelessly on the fubject of his pamphlet was merely incidental, nor did I mean to enter the lifts as a champion to defend either fide of the question. '1

It is most true, as Mr. Farmer takes for granted, that I had never met with the old comedy called The Suppofes, nor has it ever yet fallen into my hands; yet I am willing to grant, on Mr. Farmer's authority, that Shakespeare borrowed part of the plot of The Taming of the Shrew, from that old tranflation of Ariofto's play, by George Gascoign, and had no obligations to Plautus. I will accede alfo to the truth of Dr. Johnson's and Mr. Farmer's obfervation, that the line from Terence, exactly as it ftands in Shakespeare, is extant in Lilly and Udall's Floures for Latin Speaking. Still, however, Shakespeare's total ignorance of the learned languages remains to be proved; for it must be granted, that fuch books are put into the hands of thofe who are learning thofe languages, in which clafs we muft neceffarily rank Shakespeare, or he could not even have quoted Terence from Udall or Lilly; nor is it likely, that fo rapid a genius fhould not have made fome further progrefs. Our author, "(fays Dr. Johnson, as quoted by Mr. Farmer) had this line from Lilly; which I mention, that it may not be brought as an argument of his learning." It is, however, an argument that he read Lilly; and a few pages further it

seems

feems pretty certain, that the author of The Taming of the Shrew, had at leaft read Ovid; from whofe Epiftles we find thefe lines:

Hac ibat Simois; hic eft Sigeia tellus ;

Hic fleterat Priami regia celfa fenis.

And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occafion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer fay on this occafion? Nothing.

In Love's Labour Loft, which, bad as it is, is afcribed by Dr. Johnson himself to Shakespeare, there occurs the word tbrafonical; another argument which feems to fhew that he was not unacquainted with the comedies of Terence; not to mention, that the character of the schoolmaster in the fame play could not poffibly be written by a man who had travelled no further in Latin than bic, hæc, boc.

In Henry the Sixth we meet with a quotation from Vitgil,

Tantæne animis cæleftibus ira?

But this, it seems, proves nothing, any more than the lines from Terence and Ovid, in the Taming of the Shrew; for Mr. Farmer looks on Shakespeare's property in the comedy to be extremely difputable; and he has no doubt but Henry the Sixth had the fame author with Edward the Third, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's Prolufions. If any play in the collection bears internal evidence of Shakespeare's hand, we may fairly give him Timon of Athens. In this play we have a familiar quotation from Horace,

Ira furor brevis eft.

I will not maintain but this hemiftich may be found in Lilly or Udall; or that it is not in the Palace of Pleasure, or the English Plutarch; or that it was not originally foifted in by the players: It ftands, however, in the play of Timon of Athens.

The world in general, and those who purpose to comment on Shakespeare in particular, will owe much to Mr. Farmer, whofe refearches into our old authors throw a luftre on many paffages, the obfcurity of which muft elfe have been impenetrable. No future Upton or Gildon will go further than North's tranflation for Shakespeare's acquaintance with Plutarch, or balance between Dares Phrygius, and the Troye

[G4]

booke

booke of Lydgate. The Hyftorie of Hamblet, in black letter, will for ever fuperfede Saxo Grammaticus; tranflated novels and ballads will, perhaps, be allowed the fources of Romeo, Lear, and the Merchant of Venice; and Shakespeare himfelf, however unlike Bayes in other particulars, will stand convicted of having tranfuerfed the profe of Holing head; and at the fame time, to prove "that his fludies lay in his own language," the tranflations of Ovid are determined to te the production of Heywood.

"That his ftudies were moft demonftratively confined to nature, and his own language," 1 readily allow: but does it hence follow that he was fo deplorably ignorant of every other tongue, living or dead, that he only "remembered, "perhaps, enough of his fchoolboy learning to put the hig,

bag, bog, into the mouth of Sir H. Evans; and might pick

up in the writers of the time, or the course of his conver "fation, a familiar phrafe or two of French or Italian ?" In Shakespeare's plays both these laft languages are plentifully fcattered; but then, we are told, they might be impertinent additions of the players. Undoubtedly they might: but there they are, and, perhaps, few of the players had much more learning than Shakespeare.

Mr. Farmer himself will allow that Shakespeare began to learn Latin: I will allow that his fludies lay in English: but why infift that he neither made any progrefs at fchool; nor improved his acquifitions there? The general encomiums of Suckling, Denham, Milton, &c. on his native genius *, prove nothing; and Ben Jonfon's celebrated charge of Shakespeare's Small Latin, and lejs Greckt, seems abfolutely to decide that he

had

Mr. Farmer clofes thefe general teftimonies of Shakespeare's having been only indebted to nature, by faying, "He came out ❝of her hand, as fome one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove's "head, at full growth and mature." It is whimsical enough, that this fome one elfe, whofe expreffion is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakespeare's want of literature, fhould be no other than myself. Mr. Farmer does not chufe to mention where he met with this expreffion of fome one else; and fome one elfe does not chufe to mention where he dropt it,

In defence of the various reading of this paffage, given in the preface to the last edition of Shakespeare, "finall Latin, and "no Greek," Mr. Farmer tells us, that "it was adopted above "a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on Cartwright."

Surely

had fame knowledge of both; and if we may judge by our own time, a man, who has any Greek, is feldom without a very competent fhare of Latin; and yet fuch a man is very likely to ftudy Plutarch in English, and to read tranflations of Ovid.

See Dr. Farmer's reply to these remarks by Mr. Colman, in a note on LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, Act IV. Sc. ii. p. 435.

Surely, Towers having faid that Cartwright had no Greek, is no proof that Ben Jonfon faid fo of Shakespeare.