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 its 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 "This (says Dr. Dodd) is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alledged by those, who imagine Shakspeare 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 Shakspeare 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 Latin1 translations. 1 By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Par. 1554, 4to. ten years before the birth of Shakspeare. The former version hath But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, quotes some one of a " rea sonable good facilitie in translation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard the French poet-comes our minion, and translates the same out of French into English :" and his strictures upon him evince the publication. Now this identical ode is to be met with in Ronsard! and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of transcribing it: "La terre les eaux va boivant, "Tout boit soit en haut ou en bas : 66 Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas ?" Edit. Fol. p. 507, I know not whether an observation or two relative to our author's acquaintance with Homer, be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox observes on a passage of Troilus and Cressida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakspeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as "the old story, which in many places he been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other translators appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the Ode in question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were soon to be met with in almost every modern language. 2 It was originally drawn into Englishe by Caxton under the name of The Recuyel of the Historyes of Troy, from the French of the ryght venerable Person and worshipfull man Raoul le Feure, and fynyshed in the holy citye of Colen, the 19 day of Septembre, the yere of our Lord God, a thousand foure hundred sixty and enleuen. Wynkyn de Worde printed an edit. fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent ones. 1 hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this circumstance." And Mr. Upton is positive that the sweet oblivious antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the nepenthe described in the Odyssey, 46 Νηπενθές τ' ἄχολόν τε, κακών επίληθον ἁπάντων.” I will not insist upon the translations by Chapman; as the first editions are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of their publication. But the former circumstance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay;3 and the latter more fully from Spenser, than from: Homer himself.. "But Shakspeare" persists Mr. Upton, " hath some Greek expressions." Indeed!" We have one in Coriolanus: It is held That valour is the chiefest virtue, and 'Most dignifies the haver.' and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addresses the weird sisters: My noble partner • You greet with present grace, and great prediction 3 Who list thistory of Patroclus to reade," &c. 4 Ship of Fooles, 1570, p. 21. "Nepenthe is a drinck of soueragne grace, Faerie Queene, 1596, Book IV. c. iii. st. 43. Gr. "ExEd.-and apòs Tov "Exovra, 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 Douglass and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the sense of possessor, is every where met with : though unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Εχοντα 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, that unyoke?" alluding to the BeauTòs 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 It is very remarkable, that the bishop is called by his countryman, Sir David Lindsey, in his Complaint of our Souerane Lordis Papingo, "In our Inglische rethorick the rose." And Dunbar hath a similar expression in his beautiful poem The Goldin Terge. of Aristophanis Comœdiæ undecim. Gr. & Lat. Amst. 1710, Fol. p. 596. may produce it from a Dittie of the workmen 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 Quickley 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: "Orphan heirs of fixed Destiny." "And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it?" oppavòs ab ipprès-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 know 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 parents, and now only dependent on Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate the passage: "The man whom heauens have ordayn'd to bee "He wonneth in the land of fayeree, "Yet is no fary borne, ne sib at all "To elfes, but sprong of seed terrestriall, "Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall," &c. Edit. 1590, Book III. c. iii. st. 26. |