and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addresses the weird sis tsrs: My noble partner 'You greet with present grace, and great prediction Gr. Ἔχεια.—and πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα, to the haver.” This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. "Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Mathew of Bobadil, a gentleman of his havings!” Thus likewise John Davies in his Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612: "Do well and have well!-neyther so still: "For some are good doers, whose havings are ill." and Daniel the historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be synonymous with behaviour in Gawin Douglas* and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the sense of possessor, is every where met with: though unfortunately the προς τον Ἔχοντα of Sophocles produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster,† as good a critick in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning. But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, and unyoke ?" alluding to the Burs of the Greeks: and Homer and his scholiast are quoted accordingly! If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might have been taken from husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it from a Dittie of the work-men of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546: "My bow is broke, I would unyoke, "My foot is sore, I can worke no more." An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windsor : Orphant heirs of fixed Destiny." 66 * It is very remarkable, that the bishop is called by his countryman, Sir David Lindsey, in his Complaint of our Souerante Lordis Papingo, "In our Inglische rethorick the rose." And Dunbar hath a similar expression in his beautiful poem of The Goldin Terge. † Aristophanis Comœdiæ undecim. Gr. & Lat. Amst. 1710. Fol p. 596. Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans with respect to their real "And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it? oppavos ab povos-acting in darkness and obscurity." Mr. Heath assures us, that the bare mention of such an interpretation, is a sufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's knowledge of the old comedy, and his etymological learning in the word Desdemona.* Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with fairies, notwithstanding his laborious study of Spenser. The last authentick account of them is from our countryman William Lilly; and it by no means agrees with the learned interpretation: for the angelical creatures appeared in his Hurst wood in a most illustrious glory,—“ and indeed, (says the sage) it is not given to many persons to endure their glorious aspects." The only use of transcribing these things, is to shew what absurdities men for ever run into, when they lay down an hypothesis, and afterward seek for arguments in the support of it. What else could induce this man, by no means a bad scholar, to doubt whether Truepenny might not be derived from Tpúwavov; and quote upon us with much parade an old scholiast on Aristophanes will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two or three more expressions, in which he was pleased to suppose some learned meaning or other; all which he might have found in every writer of the time, or still more easily in the vulgar translation of the Bible, by consulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden. But whence have we the plot of Timon, except from the Greek of Lucian?-The editors and criticks have never been at a greater loss than in their enquiries of this sort; and the source of a tale hath been often in vain sought abroad, which might easily have been found at home: my good friend, the very ingenious cditor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, hath shewn our author to have been sometimes contented with a legendary ballad. parents, and now only dependant on Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser, will sufficiently illustrate the passage: "The man whom heauens have ordayn'd to bee "The spouse of Britomart, is Arthegall: "He wonneth in the land of fayeree, "Yet is no fary borne, ne sib at all "To elfes, but sprong of seed terrestriall, * Revisal, p. 75, 323, and 561. Edit. 1590, Book III, c. iii, st. 26. History of his Life and Times, p. 102, preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole. The story of the misanthrope is told in almost every collection of the time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakspeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch. Indeed from a passage in an old play, called Jack Drum's Entertainment, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the stage. Were this a proper place for such a disquisition, I could give you many cases of this kind. We are sent for instance to Cinthio for the plot of Measure for Measure, and Shakspeare's judgment hath been attacked for some deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew of the matter was from madam Isabella in the Heptameron of Whetstone.* Ariosto is continually quoted for the fable of Much Ado about Nothing; but I suspect our poet to have been satisfied with the Geneura of Turberville.† As you Like it was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn; which by the way was not printed till a century afterward: when in truth the old bard, who was no hunter of MSS. contented himself solely with Lodge's Rosalynd, or Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The story of All's Well that Ends Well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called Love's Labour Wonne,+ is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon. Mr. Langbaine could not conceive, whence the story * Lond. 4to. 1582. She reports in the fourth dayes exercise, the rare Historie of Promos and Cassandra. A marginal note informs us, that Whetstone was the author of the Commedie on that subject; which likewise might have fallen into the hands of Shakspeare. 7 "The tale is a pretie comicall matter, and hath bin written in English verse some few years past, learnedly and with good grace, by M. George Turberuil." Harrington's Ariosto, fol. 1591, P. 39. + See Meres's Wits Treasury, 1598, p. 282. § Our ancient poets are under greater obligations to Boccace, than is generally imagined. Who would suspect, that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the Miller of Trumpington? Mr. Dryden observes on the epick performance, Palamon and Arcite, a poem little inferior in his opinion to the Iliad or the Eneid, that the name of its author is wholly lost, and Chaucer is now become the original. But he is mistaken: this too was the work of Boccace, and printed at Ferrara in folio, con il commento di Andrea Bassi, 1475. I have seen a copy of it, and a translation into modern Greek, in the noble library of the very learned and communicative Dr. Askew. It is likewise to be met with in old French, under the title of La Theseide de Jean Boccace, contenant les belles & chastes amours de deux jeunes Chevaliers Thebains Arcite & Palemon. of Pericles could be taken, "not meeting in history with any such Prince of Tyre," yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appolynus.* Pericles is one of the plays omitted in the latter editions, as well as the early folios, and not improperly; though it was published many years before the death of Shakspeare, with his name in the title-page. Aulus Gellius informs us, that some plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus, which he only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubtedly the case with our author likewise. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonson calls stale and mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the drama. I know, that another of these discarded pieces, The Yorkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called so; but most certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no sooner than 1604:† much too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare. Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falshood, which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakspeare: and I see it is classed as such in the last edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written since the middle of the last century: This late example "Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now, And in another place, "You have an áspect, sir, of wondrous wisdom." The word aspect, you perceive, is here accented on the first syllable, which, I am confident, in any sense of it, was never the case in the time of Shakspeare; though it may sometimes appear to be so, when we do not observe a preceding elision.§ * In the first Vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, 4to. 1566. Confessio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, folio, 1532, p. 175, &c. "William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire, Esquire, mur. dered two of his owne children in his owne house, then stabde his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then instantlie with like fury went from his house, to haue slaine his yongest childe at nurse, but was preuented. Hee was prest to death in Yorke the 5 of August, 1604." Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo. 1607, p. 574. The story appeared before in a 4to. pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the folio chronicle, 1631. These, however, he assures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot. Some of the professed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutiæ: I could point out to you several performances in the respective styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not possibly have either read or construed. This very accent has troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be "a tone different from the present use." Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatise of Harmony and Numbers, very solemnly informs us, that "this verse is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III, v. 266: "His words here ended, but his meek aspect 'Silent yet spake. Here (says he) a syllable is acuted and long, whereas it should be short and graved!" And a still more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new version of the Paradise Lost, into BLANK verse, by which that amazing work is brought somewhat nearer the summit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth Book, v. 540: 66 The setting sun Slowly descended, and with right aspect"Levell'd his evening rays. Not so in the new version: "Meanwhile the setting sun descending slow- Enough of such commentators.*—The celebrated Dr. Dee had a spirit, who would sometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little assisted the wights above-mentioned.-Milton affected the antique; but it may seem more extraordinary, that the old accent should be adopted in Hudibras. After all, The Double Falshood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written: "But touch the strings with a religious softness: "Teach sound to languish through the night's dull ear, "Till melancholy start from her lazy couch, "And carelessness grow convert to attention." § Thus a line in Hamlet's description of the Player, should be printed as in the old folios: "Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect." agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places. *See also a wrong accentuation of the word aspect in Mr. Ireland's unmetrical, ungrammatical, harum-scarum Vortigern, which was damned at Drury Lane theatre, April -1796-the performance of a madman without a lucid interval. |