circumstance is mentioned, lest such accidental coincidences of opinion, as may be discovered hereafter, should be interpreted into plagiarifm.

It may occasionally happen, that some of the remarks long ago produced by others may have been offered again as recent discoveries. It is likewise absolutely impoffible to pronounce with any degree of certainty, whence all the hints, which furnish matter for a commentary, have been collected, as they lie scattered in many books and papers, which were probably never read but once, or the particulars which they contain received only in the course of common conversation; nay, what is called plagiarism, is often no more than the result of having thought alike with others on the same subject.

The dispute about the learning of Shakespeare being now finally settled, a catalogue is added of those tranflated authors, whom Mr. Pope has thought proper to call

The claffics of an age that heard of none.

The reader may not be displeased to have the Greek and Roman poets, orators, &c. who had been rendered accessible to our author, exposed at one view; especially as the lift has received the advantage of being corrected and amplified by the Reverend Mr. Farmer, the substance of whose very decifive pamphlet is interspersed through the notes which are added in this revisal of Dr. Johnson's Shakespeare.

To

To those who have advanced the reputation of our Poet, it has been endeavoured, by Dr. Johnson, in the foregoing preface, impartially to allot their dividend of fame; and it is with great regret that we now add to the catalogue, another, the consequence of whofe death will perhaps affect not only the works of Shakefpeare, but of many other writers. Soon after the first appearance of this edition, a disease, rapid in its progress, deprived the world of Mr. JACOB TONSON; a man, whose zeal for the improvement of English literature, and whose liberality to men of learning, gave him a just title to all the honours which men of learning can bestow. To suppose that a man employed in an extensive trade, lived in a state of indifference to loss and gain, would be to conceive a character incredible and romantic; but it may be justly faid of Mr. TON Son, that he had enlarged his mind beyond folicitude about petty losses, and refined it from the defire of unreasonable profit. He was willing to admit those with whom he contracted, to the juft advantage of their own labours; and had never learned to confider the author as an under agent to the bookseller. The wealth which he inherited or acquired, he enjoyed like a man confcious of the dignity of a profession subfervient to learning. His domestic life was elegant, and his charity was liberal. His manners were soft, and his conversation delicate: nor is, perhaps, any quality in him more to be cenfured, than that referve which confined his acquaintance to a small number, and made his example less useful, as it was less extensive. He was the last commercial name of a family which will be long remembered; and if Horace

thought

thought it not improper to convey the Sosi to posterity; if rhetoric fuffered no dishonour from Quintilian's dedication to TRYPHO; let it not be thought that we difgrace Shakespeare, by joining to his works the name of TONSON.

ANCIENT

:

ANCIENT TRANSLATIONS

FROM

CLASSIC AUTHORS.

T

HOMER.

EN Bookes of the Iliades into English out of French, by A. H. Lond. by Ralph New

berie, 4to.

1581

The Shield of Achilles from the 18th Book of Homer, by Geo. Chapman, 4to. Lond. 1596

Seven Books of the Iliades, by ditto, 4to. Lond. 1596

Do.

1598

Fifteen Books of ditto, thin folio

1600

The whole Works of Homer, by do. printed for Nath.

Butter

no date

The Crowne of all Homer's Workes, Batrachomyomachia, &c. thin fol. printed by John Bill no date

MUSÆU S.

Marloe's Hero and Leander, with the first Book of

1600

Lucan, 4to. There must have been a former Edition, as a second Part was published by Henry Petowe 1598 Musæus's Poem of Hero and Leander, imitated by Chriftopher Marlow, and finished by Geo. Chapman, 8vo. Lond.

EURIPIDES.

Jocasta, a Tragedy, from the Phœnissa of Euripides,

by Geo. Gascoigne, and Mr. Francis Kinwel

mershe, 4to. Lond.

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS.

1556

The Hiftorie of Jafon; touching the Conqueste of the Golden Fleece.-Printed by Caxton. This Work (like Caxton's Buke of Eneydos) was translated from the French of Raoul Le Feure *.

PLATO.

Axiochus, a Dialogue, attributed to Plato, by. Edm.

Spenser, 4to.

DEMOSTHENES.TO

1593

The Three Orations of Demofthenes, chiefe Orator among the Grecians, in Favour of the Olynthians, with those his fower against Philip of Macedon, &c. by Tho. Wylfon, Doctor of the Civil Lawes,

Hocrates's sage Admonition to Demonicus, by R. NutrSi hall, 8vo. Lond. 11557, 12mo. and 1585 Ifocrates's Doctrinal of Princes, by Syr Tho. Elliot,

1534

Ifocrates's Orat. intitled Evagoras, by Jer. Wolfe, 8vo.

Y

Ι..

1581

Three Orations of moral Instructions, one to Demonicus, and two to Nicocles, King of Salamis, translated from Ifocrates, by Tho. Forrest, 4to. 1580

*Not having feen this Book, I am by no means certain that it is an absolute Translation of the Greek Author.

LUCIAN,