tion but Shakespeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one: "Antonius sent again to challenge Cæsar to fight him: Cæsar answered, That he had many other ways to die, than so."

In the third act of Julius Cæsar, Antony, in his wellknown harangue to the people, repeats a part of the emperor's will:

. To every Roman citizen he gives,

To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.
Moreover he hath left you all his walks,

His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber.

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

Trans Tiberim-prope Cæsaris hortos.

And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently studied, expressly declares, that he left the public his gardens and walks, Téρav Ts Пoraps, beyond the Tyber."

This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent editors; but hear again the old translation, where Shakespeare'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 side 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 characteristic 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 superior knowledge of the original.

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 Shakespeare, as those copied from Cicero in Cataline, of Ben Jonson's." Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia :

How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child to see

The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His country's bowels out: and to poor we
Thy enmity's most capital; thou barr'st us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
Alas! how can we, for our country pray,
Whereto we're bound, together with thy victory,
Whereto we're bound! Alack! or we must lose,
The country, our dear nurse; or else thy person,
Our comfort in the country. We must find
An eminent calamity, though we had

Our wish, which side should win. For either thou
Must, as a foreign recreant, be led

With manacles thorough our streets; or else
Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,
And bear the palm, for having bravely shed,
Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on fortune, till

These wars determine: if I can't persuade thee
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts,

Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no sooner
March to assault 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 translation, which shall ef fectually confute Mr. Pope: for our author hath done little more, than throw 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 sight of our rayment, would easily bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy selfe, how much more unfortunately, then all the women liuinge we are come hether, considering that the sight 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, besieging 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 safety of thy life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall enemie can

heappe uppon us, are forcibly 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 selfe, or the nurse of their natiue countrie. For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this warre. For if I cannot persuade 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 sonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no soner marche forward to assault 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 assistance of a comment. But matters may not always be so 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 sun.
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt 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 (says Dr. Dodd) is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alleged by those, who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for himself, that the topics are obvious, and their application is different.-But for argument's sake, let the parody be granted; and " our author (says some one) may be puzzled to prove, that there was a Latin translation of Anacreon at the time Shakespeare wrote his Timon of Athens." This challenge is peculiarly unhappy; for I do not at present recollect any other classic, (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer de Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them,) that was originally published with two Latin translations.

But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, quotes some one of a "reasonable good facilitie in translation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard, the French poetcomes our minion, and translates the same out of French

into English," and his strictures upon him evince the publication. Now this identical ode is to be met with in Ronsard; and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of transcribing it:

I know not whether an observation or two relative to our author's acquaintance with Homer, be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox observes on a passage of Troilus and Cressida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakespeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as "the old story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this circumstance."

And Mr. Upton is positive that the sweet oblivious antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the nepenthe described in the Odyssey.

Νηπενθές τ' ἄχογὄν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον &ῶἁνίων.

I will not insist upon the translations 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 circumstance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the latter more fully from Spenser, than from Homer himself.

"But Shakespeare," persists, Mr. Upton, "hath some Greek expressions." Indeed!-"We have one in Coriolanus:

It is held

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and
Most dignifies the haver.

and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addresses the weird sisters.

My noble partner

You greet with present grace, and great prediction.
Of noble having.

Gr. "Exca.—and æpès rdv "Exovra, to the haver."

This was the common language of Shakespeare's time. Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Matthew of Bobadil," a gentleman of his havings!"

Thus likewise John Davies in his Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about

1612:

Do well and have well !---neyther so still :

For some are good doers, whose havings are ill.

and Daniel the historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be synonymous with behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers.

Haver, in the sense of possessor, is every where met with though unfortunately the pòs Tov "Exorta of Sophocles, produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critic in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning.

But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, and unyoke!" alluding to the Bravos of the Greeks: and Homer and his scholiast 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, preserved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546:

My bow is broke, I would unyɔke,

My foot is sore, I can worke no more.

An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windsor,

Orphan heirs of fixed Destiny.

"And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used as a Grecian would have used it! gròs ab gròs-acting in darkness and obscurity."

Mr. Heath assures us, that the bare mention of such an interpretation is a sufficient refutation of it; and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in