Shakspeare did not find any thing like this in jesting Lucian. Again, compare the Greek Timon's exclamation on finding the gold, with the parallel passage in Shakspeare, or contrast the visitors sent to each. I have already enumerated those of Lucian-triflers all. To the other Timon come the broken military adventurer, at war with his country; and he is counselled to spare none -not age, sex, youth, infancy, holiness, wretchedness, all being equally infamous and detestable; and that task done, having made Shakspeare found all this in Lucian, just as much as he found it in another of Dr. Farmer's authorities, Jack Drum's Entertainment. There is no need for contrasting the characters any further. I am very much of opinion, from Farmer's suggesting the similarity at all, that whether Shakspeare was indebted to Lucian or not, the doctor had never read the Greek dialogist—at least, with any thing like attention. Such, then, detailed at length, with all its examples, is Dr. Farmer's argument to prove that Shakspeare was ignorant of Greek. Briefly summed up, the whole will amount to this: That some critics, especially Upton, have been overzealous in tracing resemblances of passages or phrases in Greek to what we find in Shakspeare, which certainly is no fault of the "old bard;" that, in constructing his classical plays, instead of reading the Greek of Plutarch,of which there might, perhaps, have been a hundred copies in England, during his life, he consulted the English translation of Sir Thomas North, who, having copied the blunders of Claude Amyot, was thereby the means of transferring a couple of trifling errors to Julius Cæsar and Antony and Cleopatra; that because an invisible poet, named Southern, had translated Ronsard, who had translated Anacreon, Shakspeare could not read even the Latin translation of the Teian odes; that because in the Ship of Fooles is to be found an incident referred to in the Iliad, and in the Faerie Queene, a description of the Nepenthe of the Odyssey, Shakspeare could not have known any thing of Homer; and, finally, that as Lucian had written a light comedy on Timon, those who supposed the deep tragedy on the same subject in English was dictated by the Greek, were very much mistaken. And this is the pamphlet which has, in the opinion of competent critics, "settled the question for ever!" It has settled one question for ever, that the mass of conceited ignorance among the reading public and the ordinary critical rabble of the middle of the last century was profusely abundant. Having dismissed the details of the Greek question, I shall proceed to consider the proofs of Shakspeare's ignorance of other languages. And, first, [Dr. Maginn must stop here for this month.-O. Y.] NOTES. (a) There is one piece of literary imitation or plagiarism, which Hurd would not have remarked, if he had known of its existence. As it is somewhat curious, and as relevant to Shakspeare as at least nine-tenths of the commentaries upon him, I extract a notice of it from a literary paper now extinct [Fraser's Literary Chronicle, p. 265.] "Steevens remarked, that nothing short of an act of parliament could compel any one to read the sonnets of Shakspeare; a declaration highly to the credit of his taste, and quite decisive as to his capability of properly editing the plays. It is certain, however, that the sonnets are not very generally read, and the same fate has befallen the prose works of Milton. Of this I cannot produce a more extraordinary proof than what I find in D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors. He has been speaking of the celebrated controversy between Warburton and Lowth, and subjoins this note : "The correct and elegant taste of Lowth, with great humour, detected the wretched taste in which Warburton's prose style was composed; he did nothing more than print the last sentence of the Inquiry on Prodigies in measured lines, with. out, however, changing the place of a single word, and this produced some of the most turgid blank verse; Lowth describes it as the musa pedestris got on horseback in high prancing style. I shall give a few lines only of the final sentence in this essay : 'Methinks I see her, like the mighty eagle All this will, as many other lines, stand word for word in the original prose of our tasteless writer; but to shew his utter want of even one imagination, his translations in imitation of Milton's style, are precisely like this ridiculous prose.' "We thought that the most famous passage in Milton's most famous English prose work, the Areopagitica, must have been known to all readers of our language: Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance,' &c. &c.; and yet here we find Warburton pillaging without any acknowledgment, as if he were safe in its obscurity; and the correct and elegant' Lowth treating it as wretched, turgid, and inharmonious bombast. Lowth, too, be it remarked, was a grammarian of our language by profession! And to wind up all, here we have Warburton's plagiarism passed unknown, and Lowth's critique adopted with due panegyric, by a painstaking and generally correct explorer of our antiquities and our literary history-whose studies have, moreover, led him to the most careful perusal of the literature and politics of the days of Charles I., to which he has devoted so much historical attention." " (b) In Amyot it was at first probably only a misprint, but I find it is continued even in the editions of An. X. and XI. In Leonard Aretin, from whom he probably translated, the word is correctly Libyæ, as it appears in the edition of Gemusæus, Lugdun. 1552, vol. iii. p. 635. There might have been an earlier edition; for Gemusæus says, in his dedication, that he presents Plutarch "civitate Romanâ non quidem nunc primo donatum, sed, Græcorum collatione exemplarium, mendis quæ merant permultæ, et valde graves detersis mirifice restitutum." This was the kind of work which Farmer and critics of his caste seem to have expected from Shakspeare that he was to present North "Græcorum collatione exemplarium - mirifice restitutum." (c) "After all, The Double Falsehood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only, in the whole play, he pretended to have written : 'Strike up my masters; But touch the strings with a religious softness; Teach Sound to languish through the night's dull ear, ut from her lazy couch. These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not resist the opportunity of claiming them; but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance."-FARMER. The poetry appears to me to be as dull as the wit of the doctor. I subjoin Farmer's illustration of Milton from Donne, to shew that if he had pleased to question Milton's learning, he might have done it in the same way that he has questioned Shakspeare's. "You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's imitations: The swan with arched neck Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows "The ancient poets," says Mr. Richardson, "have not hit upon this beauty: so lavish have they been of the beauty of the swan. Homer calls the swan long-necked, doudaodaigov; but how much more pittoresque if he had arched this length of neck." For this beauty, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whose name, I believe, at present, is better known than his writings : "Like a ship in her full trim, A swan, so white that you may unto him And with his arched neck this poore fish catch'd." Progresse of the Soul, st. xxiv. The arching of the neck is unquestionably to be found in Donne, but rowing the eary feet comes from Silius Italicus: "Haud secus Eridani stagnis, ripâve Caystri In the Farmer style of argument it would be easy to prove that Milton had never read Silius, because he might have read Donne. (d) Warburton was dead about a year before Malone ventured on any thing so desperate as publishing the letter, though it had been found several years previously, and then he prefaced it with a whining apology. See the history of the whole affair in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 534; and Nichols's Illustrations of Literary History, vol. ii. p. 195, where will be found a most extended correspondence of Warburton, Theobald and Concanen. The sycophancy of Hurd to Warburton, Lit. Anec. p. 535, on the subject of his former acquaintance with Concanen is sickening. I wish somebody would arrange these books of Nichols's, they are full of the most valuable matter, but presented in a manner so confused, as to render consulting them a work of no small puzzle. (e) The only notice I know of Southern is in the European Magazine for June 1788, where, as the writer, though he must have known of Farmer's pamphlet, says nothing of this translation of Ronsard, or Anacreon, it is probable that it does not exist. A RAMBLE IN ST. JAMES'S BAZAR; OR, COMMENTS ON THE DESIGNS FOR THE NELSON MONUMENT. "BENEATH the azure vault of Nature's vast architrative dome, of colossean form (visible to myriads of lesser breathing mortals, scattered around o'er hill and dale), stands the sculptured representative to unborn ages of the person, the most glorious of the greatest maritime naval heroes, 'NELSON !'" So says, or rather so sings, Mr. Gavey, in the printed description of his design for what he calls a Nelson "Commemorial;" and such is the poetic afflatus, the orgasm manifested in that composition, that, had the contest been a poetical, instead of an architectural one, the first premium would doubtless have been awarded to the author of it. Such not being the case, Mr. Gavey's "colossean muse towers above her sex," like Marcia, and above most persons' comprehension also, to very little purpose, except it be to illustrate the vulgar proverb of "Fair words butter no parsnips;" for, notwithstanding all his magnificent array of language, his pomp of imagery, and his lofty lyrical flights, he shews himself a most unimaginative mortal with his pencil and compasses. He may, to use an expression of his own, be "lion-skin habilimented;" but then the lion's hide conceals what is very much like a donkey. To say the truth, we suspect his big words to be mere bravado, intended to keep up his own courage, and that he himself is perfectly innocent of any thing like a poetical idea. In this latter respect, he has many associates among his fellow-competitors. Nay, monstrous as his own production is, there are several others still more so things that exhibit stronger degree of insanity. Now, a little touch of madness in art may be excusable the freaks of over-excited enthusiasm, of over-heated imagination, may have in them much to excite our admiration, if not to command our praise. Nat Lee was mad, but his madness vented itself in something better than drivelling dulness; Borromini was mad, but there was a certain uusto and grandays in his quitara) lude, and who have been suffered to expose themselves and their works at the St. James's Bazar, are not so much bedlamites as idiots-most confirmed and deplorable ones. We had no idea so many imbeciles could have been found willing to parade themselves in fool's caps before the public; exhibiting wretched scrawls, that chiefly prove them to be worthy of becoming members of St. Luke's-not of the academy, but of the hospital under the patronage of that saint. If it be asked why we bestow any notice at all upon such disgraceful productions and disgraceful they would be to the veriest tyro who had just entered an architect's office-our reply is, that they are of a kind of demerit which it is impossible not to take notice of, or to refrain from expressing our astonishment at. Who would not be startled at seeing a beggar, a coalheaver, or a chimney-sweep, in a room filled with well-dressed people? Would not the appearance of such a figure, in such a place, unavoidably excite a buzz of astonishment and inquiry among all present? Most undoubtedly. Nor do we see wherefore it should be quietly regarded as a matter of course, when we meet with such execrably vile scratchings and scrawlings, received and hung up, as we here do, on an occasion demanding the exertion of the highest talent. If this circumstance be not a moral phenomenon, we know not what is, for it is one that we should have pronounced beforehand to be an utter impossibility. We did anticipate a good deal of decent dulness, of clever commonplace, of hackneyed allegorical conceit, of enigmatical allusions in sculpture, of puerile whim, and of wild extravagance, nor have we been disappointed; but for such abominations, as are some dozen of the things that have been sent in, we were altogether unprepared. It is true they proceed from persons wholly unknown; and who are not only unpractised in design, but utterly destitute of the slightest notion of what it is; not only ignorant of the very first principles of manual drawing, but so profoundly jamanns both of the- tent of their own incapacity. We will not say that this proves any thing against the state of art in this country, as far as artists themselves are concerned; yet it does, in our opinion, prove a good deal as to the very low ebb of the acquaintance with, and appreciation of, art on the part of the public-unless we choose to imagine that the parties who have come forward as volunteers on this occasion are very many degrees behind the public generally. Such may possibly be the case: yet, supposing to be so, it rather increases our wonder than the contrary; for we think that no parallel instance of sheer fatuity could by any possibility occur on any other occasion. Quackery, effrontery, humbug, we can understand and can understand how mediocrity, or even absurdity, may be cried up and puffed off as talent or as genius: but, in the present instance, we must confess ourselves to be altogether puzzled; for, in the things alluded to, we perceive nothing but palpable, unsophisticated, barefaced imbecility. in out of joke, and might therefore very fairly have been rejected without ceremony, as mauvaises plaisanteries, if not insults. The committee would have been justified in doing so; and to suppose that they could not discern their detestable vileness at a glance, is nothing less than presuming that they are utterly unqualified for their office, and unworthy to be allowed to make any choice at all. Still, the dismissing them would have been an act of mercy towards the offenders; the exposure of whose egregious silliness is perhaps the best and most wholesome chastisement that could be inflicted upon them. Nevertheless, although we do not regret that such "scarecrow" performances should be hung up in terrorem, in order to make others shy for the future of risking the chance of cutting a similar figure on a similar occasion, we cannot at the same time help feeling that it tends to throw a sort of disagreeable ridicule upon the whole affair. Should any foreigners happen to have visited the exhibition of the models and drawings, what would be their impression when they beheld things of that description seriously sent in, and seriously received, as designs upon such an important occasion? The most charitable construction they could put upon it would be that It is true the competition was a perfectly open one-every body that pleased might send in a design: still it was no more than reasonable to suppose that no one would do so without some kind of pretension. In all other matters, that Sort of instinct called generally prevents people from making fools of themselves common sense for the nonce more A man who has neither any notion of singing nor any voice, or one who, not having made the experiment, does not know whether he has either, is not likely to volunteer a song for the amusement of a company. He who never took pen in hand before, would hardly think of doing so in a competition for a prize poem or essay, especially if also ignorant of spelling and the commonest rules of grammar; neither would a man in his senses think of sending a half-starved donkey to a show of prize cattle, except it were out of joke. possible, indeed, barely possible, yet exceedingly improbable-that the miserable drawings hung up over the stairs at the east end of the room in St. James's may have been sent Bazar It is "Fools rush in where artists fear to tread." And it must be acknowledged that comparatively few of our more distinguished artists-at least, among the architectural ones-entered the lists. Indeed, with the exception of Sidney Smirke, Robinson, Fowler, and one or two others, there is scarcely a name of any note among all the competitors of this class; which, however strange it may appear to others, does not cause us any very great surprise. The truth is, although the subject appears at first to be one which allows great scope to invention and design, it is one attended with unusual difficulties: nor were they diminished by every one being left to follow his own ideas, without any limitation at all-consequently, without any guidance as to general form, size, or any thing else, beyond them, except by saying that, in comparison with them, a penny valentine is a chef In themselves, they admit of no description; nor can any idea be conveyed of d'œuvre of execution, and King's Cross a classical monument of architecture and sculpture. |