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 poetic fiction, as you may see in a poem, "where the lover declare th 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 Brother-Antiquary, 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, Shakespeare's curiosity might lead him to translations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic 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
Are burnt and purg 'd away-

the expression is very similar to the bishop's: I will give you his version as concisely as I can; "It is a nedeful thyng to 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 anay
And purgit.-

Sixte Booke of Eneados, fol. p. 191.

It seems, however, "that Shakespeare himself in the Tempest hath translated some expressions of Virgil: witness the O dea certe." 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 mortal frayltie resembleth.
-No doubt, a godesse!

Edit. 1583.

Gabriel Harvey desired only to be "epitaph'd, the inventor of the English hexameter," and for awhile 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 Gothic.

But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say, if I can shew you, that Shakespeare, 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 Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of enchantments." The original lines are these :

Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,
Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis, adeste.

It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur Golding is by no means literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it.

Ye ayres and winds; ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woods alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night approche ye everych one.

I think it is unnecessary to pursue this any further pecially as more powerful arguments await us.

; es

In The Merchant of Venice, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to Antonio, rehearses many sympathies and antipathies for which no reason can be rendered:

Some love not a gaping pig

And others when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,
Cannot contain their urine for affection.

This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to be taken from a passage in Scaliger's Exercitations against Cardan: "Narrabo tibi jocosam sympathiam Reguli Vasconis equitis: is dum viveret audito phormingis sono, urinam illico facere cogebatur."—" And," proceeds the Doctor, " to make this josular story still more ridiculous, Shakespeare, I suppose, translated phorminx by bagpipes."

Here we seem fairly caught ;-for Scaliger's work was never, as the term goes, done into English. But luckily, in an old translation from the French of Peter le Loier, entitled, A Treatise of Sperters, or straunge Sights, Visions, and Appa, itions appearing sensibly unto Men, we have this identical story from Scaliger: and what is still more, a marginal note gives us in all probability the very fact alluded to, as well as the word of Shakespeare: 66 Another gentleman of this quality liued of late in Deuon neere Excester, who could not endure the playing on a bagpipe.'

We may just add, as some observation hath been made upon it, that affection in the sense of sympathy was formerly technical; and so used by Lord Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and many other writers.

A single word in Queen Catherine's character of Wolsey, in Henry VIII. is brought by the Doctor as another argument for the learning of Shakespeare:

He was a man

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'
présence

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.
Of his own body lie was ill, and gave
The clergy ill example.

"The word suggestion," says the critic, "is here used

with great propriety, and seeming knowledge of the Latin tongue :" and he proceeds to settle the sense of it from the late Roman writers and their glossers. But Shakespeare's knowledge was from Holinshed, whom he follows verbatim:

"This cardinal was of a great stomach, for he compted himself equal with princes, and by craftie suggestion got into his hands innumerable treasure he forced little on simonie, and was not pitifull, and stood affectionate in his own opinion in open presence he would lie and seie untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning: he would promise much and performe little he was vicious of his bodie, and gaue the clergie evil example." Edit. 1587, p. 922.

:

Perhaps, after this quotation, you may not think that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads Tyth'd-instead of-Ty'd all the kingdom, deserves quite so much of Dr. Warburton's severity.-Indisputably the passage, like every other in the speech, is intended to express the meaning of the parallel one in the chronicle: it cannot therefore be credited, that any man, when the original was produced, should still choose to defend a cant acceptation; and inform us, perhaps, seriously, that in gaming language, from I know not what practice, to tye is to equal! A sense of the word, as far as I have yet found, unknown to our old writers; and, if known, would not surely have been used in this place by our author.

But let us turn from conjecture to Shakespeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above description is copied by Holinshed, is very explicit in the demands of the Cardinal: who having insolently told the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, "For sothe I thinke, that halfe your substaunce were to litle," assures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that upon an average the tythe should be sufficient; Sers, speake not to breake that thyng that is concluded, for some shal not paie the tenth parte, and some more."-And again; "Thei saied, the Cardinall by visitacions, makyng of abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his courtes legantines, had made his threasore egall with the kinges." Edit. 1548, p. 138, and 143.

66

Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, gives us, after his rambling manner, a curious character of Wolsey:

By and by

He will drynke us so dry
And sucke us so nye
That men shall scantly
Haue penny or halpennye
God saue lys noble grace
And graunt him a place
Endlesse to dwel

With the deuill of hel
For and he were there
We need neuer feare
Of the feendes blacke
For undertake

He wold so brag and crake
That he wold than make
The deuils to quake

To shudder and to shake
Lyke a fier drake

And with a cole rake

Bruse them on a brake

And binde them to a stake

And set hel on fyre

At his owne desire

He is such a grym syre!

Edit. 1568

Mr. Upton and some other critics have thought it very scholar-like in Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a sword; but this is for ever met with.

Primus of Pierce Plowman :

For instance, in the Passus

Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes,

And did hem swere on her sword to serue truth euer.

And in Hieronymo, the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano,

Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true-
But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,

This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath,
Shall be the worker of thy tragedy!

We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantome to illustrate this ceremony: a gentleman, who will be always allowed the first commentator on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself.

Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from Henry VI. whence he argues it to be very plain, that our author had not only read Cicero's Offices, but even ore critically than many of the editors: