These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their Author's. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various Excerpta, Sententiæ, and Flores, this business may be effected with very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in his Comment on Chevy-chase, and Wagstaff on Tom Thumb; and I myself will engage to give you quotations from the elder English writers (for, to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is now in possession of the Marks of Imitation.

"Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the facts and fables of antiquity." Granted :—and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his acquaintance.

It is notorious that much of his matter of fact knowledge is deduced from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and corrects accordingly the Errors of his Copyists by the Greek standard. Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently.

In the third act of Anthony and Cleopatra, Octavius represents to his Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion,

Unto her

He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt, made her

Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,

Absolute Queen.

Read Libya, says the critick authoritatively, as is plain from Plutarch, Πρώτην μὲν ἀπέφηνε Κλεοπάτραν βασίλισσαν Αἰγύπτου καὶ Κύπρου καὶ ΛΙΒΥΗΣ, καὶ κοίλης Συρίας.

This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in Folio, 1579; and you will at once see the origin of the mistake.

"First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of Ægypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria."

Again in the Fourth Act,

My messenger

He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat,

Cæsar to Anthony. Let th' old Ruffian know

I have many other ways to die; mean time

Laugh at his challenge.

"What a reply is this?" cries Mr. Upton, "'tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,

Let the old Ruffian know

He hath many other ways to die ; mean time

I laugh at his challenge

we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæsar in Plutarch."

This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Most indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given so in the modern translations: 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, Anthony in his wellknown harangue to the people, repeats a part of the Emperor's will,

To every Roman citizen he gives,

To every sev'ral man, seventy-five drachmas-
Moreover he hath left you all his walks,

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

"Our Author certainly wrote," says Mr. Theobald,

"On that side Tyber

Trans Tiberim-prope Cæsaris hortos.

And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently studied, expressly declares that he left the publick his gardens and walks, Tépar tou Horauou, 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 characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Anthony, 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 of Mr. Pope. "The speeches copy'd from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, be as well made an instance of the learning of Shakespeare, as those copy'd from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben. Jonson's." Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia:

Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We've led since thy Exile. Think with thyself,
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 shou'd 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 shew 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 effectually 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 easely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy selfe, howe 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 contrie. 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 it's 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 excrements: 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 Yet it may be alleged by those who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for himself, that the topicks 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 Classick (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