But you want my opinion:-and from every mark of ftyle and manner, I make no doubt of afcribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us, that he left fome plays in MS.-These were written about the time of the Refloration, when the accent in queftion was more generally altered. Perhaps the mistake arofe from an abbreviation of the name. Mr. Dodsley knew not that the tragedy of Andromana was Shirley's, from the very fame caufe. Thus a whole ftream of biographers tell us, that Marfton's plays were printed at London, 1633,"by the care of William Shakspeare, the famous comedian."-Here again I fuppofe, in fome transcript, the real publisher's name, William Sheares, was abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakspeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence. Shirley is spoken of with contempt in Mac Flecknoe; but his imagination is fometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a paffage in the fourth book of the Paradife Loft, which hath been fufpeced of imitation, as a prettiness below the genius of Milton: I mean, where Uriel glides backward and forward to heaven on a fun-beam. Dr. Newton informs us, that this might poffibly be hinted by a picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of France's cabinet: but I am apt to believe that Milton had been ftruck with a portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the comedy of The Brothers, 1652, describes Jacinta at vefpers: "Her eye did feem to labour with a tear, "Which fuddenly took birth, but overweigh'd "Which by reflexion of her light, appear'd "As nature meant her forrow for an ornament : You must not think me infected with the fpirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's imitations: Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows 438, &c. "The ancient poets, fays Mr. Richardson, have not hit upon this beauty; fo lavish have they been in their defcriptions of the fwan. Homer calls the fwan long-necked, Sexxodeípov; but how much more pittorefque, if he had arched this length of neck?" For this beauty however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whofe name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings: Like a fhip in her full trim, A fwan, fo white that you may unto him Compare all whiteneffe, but himselfe to none, Glided along, and as he glided watch'd, And with his arched neck this poore fish catch'd. —' Middleton, in an obfcure play called A Game at Cheffe, hath fome very pleasing lines on a fimilar occafion : Upon thofe lips, the fweete fresh buds of youth, Thofe highly finished landscapes, the Seafons, are indeed copied from nature, but Thomson some times recollected the hand of his mafter: 66 The ftately failing swan Gives out his fnowy plumage to the gale; But to return, as we fay on other occafions. Perhaps the advocates for Shakspeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more fuccessful. Mr. Gildon takes the van. "It is plain, that he was acquainted with the fables of antiquity very well: that fome of the arrows of Cupid are pointed with lead, and others with gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido, in Virgil: nor do I know any tranflation of these poets fo ancient as Shakspeare's time." The paffages on which thefe fagacious remarks are made, occur in The MidJummer Night's Dream; and exhibit, we fee, a clear proof of acquaintance with the Latin clafficks. But we are not answerable for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stanyhurft, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of Turberville and Churchyard! but these fables were eafily known without the help of either the originals or the tranflations. The fate of Dido had been fung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marlowe had even already introduced her to the ftage: and Cupid's arrows appear with their characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, in Spenfer, and every fon neteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before in The Romaunt of the Rofe: a work, you may venture to look into, notwithstanding Master Prynne hath so positively affured us, on the word of John Gerfon, that the author is moft certainly damned, if he did not care for a ferious repentance." Mr. Whalley argues in the fame manner, and with the fame fuccefs. He thinks a passage in The Tempest, Great Juno comes; I know her by her gait." a remarkable inftance of Shakspeare's knowledge of ancient poetick ftory; and that the hint was furnished by the divûm incedo regina of Virgil.' You know, honeft John Taylor, the Water-poet, declares that he never learned his Accidence, and that Latin and French were to him Heathen-Greek; yet 6 Had our zealous puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monaftery in France, by the legacy of a great cheft, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than vetches. The friars enraged at the ridicule and difappointment, would not fuffer him to have chriftian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious Obfervations on the Statutes, 4to. 1766, p. 24. From the Annales d'Aquitaine. Par. 1537. Our author had his full fhare in diftreffing the spirit of this reftlefs man. "Some Play-books are grown from Quarto into Folio; which yet bear fo good a price and fale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.-Shackfpeer's Plaies are printed in the beft Crowne-paper, far better than most Bibles!" 7 Others would give up this paffage for the vera inceffu patuit dea; but I am not able to fee any improvement in the matter even fuppofing the poet had been speaking of Juno, and no previous tranflation were extant. by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a learned man, in fpite of every thing, he may fay to the contrary: for thus he makes a gallant addrefs his lady: Most inestimable magazine of beauty — in whom the port and majesty of Juno, the wifdom of Jove's braine-bred girle, and the feature of Cytherea, have their domeftical habitation." 8 In The Merchant of Venice we have an oath "By two-headed Janus ;" and here, fays Dr. Warburton, Shakspeare fhews his knowledge in the antique : and fo again does the Water-poet, who defcribes Fortune, Like a Janus with a double face." But Shakspeare hath fomewhere a Latin motto, quoth Dr. Sewell; and fo hath John Taylor, and a whole poem upon it into the bargain. You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and inde This paffage recalls to my memory a very extraordinary fa&t. A few years ago, at a great court on the continent, a countryman of ours of high rank and character, [Sir C. H. W.] exhibited with many other candidates his complimental epigram on the birth-day, and carried the prize in triumph : O regina orbis prima & pulcherrima: ridens 66 "Es Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens." Literally ftolen from Angerianus, "Tres quondam nudas vidit Priameius heros "Hoc majus; tres uno in corpore: Calia ridens 66 Eft Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens. Delitiæ ital. Poet. by Gruter, under the anagrammatic name of Ranutius Gherus, 1608. V. I. p. 189. Perhaps the latter part of the epigram was met with in a whimfical book, which had its day of fame, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 1652. 6th edit. p. 520. VOL. II. V |