Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 17

After all, the _Double Falshood_ is superior to Theobald. One pa.s.sage, 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 thro' the Night's dull Ear, Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch, And Carelessness grow Convert to Attention.

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.

To whom then shall we ascribe it?-Somebody hath told us, who should seem to be a _Nostrum-monger_ by his argument, that, let _Accents_ be how they will, it is called _an original Play of William Shakespeare_ in the _Kings Patent_, prefixed to Mr. Theobald's Edition, 1728, and consequently there _could_ be no fraud in the matter. Whilst, on the contrary, the _Irish_ Laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks (and were it true, it would be certainly decisive) that the Plot is borrowed from a Novel of Cervantes, not published 'till the year after Shakespeare's death. But unluckily the same Novel appears in a part of _Don Quixote_, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.-The same reasoning, however, which exculpated our Author from the _Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy_, may be applied on the present occasion.

But you want _my_ opinion:-and from every mark of Style and Manner, I make no doubt of ascribing it to s.h.i.+rley. Mr. Langbaine informs us that he left some Plays in MS.-These were written about the time of the _Restoration_, when the _Accent_ in question was more generally altered.

Perhaps the mistake arose from an _abbreviation_ of the name. Mr. Dodsley knew not that the Tragedy of _Andromana_ was s.h.i.+rley's, from the very same cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tell us that Marston's Plays were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of _William Shakespeare_, the famous Comedian."-Here again I suppose, in some Transcript, the real Publisher's name, _William Sheares_, was _abbreviated_. No one hath protracted the life of Shakespeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.

s.h.i.+rley is spoken of with contempt in _Mac Flecknoe_; but his Imagination is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a pa.s.sage in the fourth book of the _Paradise Lost_, which hath been suspected of _Imitation_, as a _prettiness_ below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where _Uriel_ glides _backward and forward_ to Heaven on a _Sunbeam_. Dr. Newton informs us that this might possibly be hinted by a Picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of France's Cabinet: but I am apt to believe that Milton had been struck with a Portrait in s.h.i.+rley. Fernando, in the Comedy of the _Brothers_, 1652, describes Jacinta at _Vespers_:

Her eye did seem to labour with a tear, Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh'd With it's own swelling, drop'd upon her bosome; Which, by reflexion of her light, appear'd As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament: After, her looks grew chearfull, and I saw A smile shoot gracefull upward from her eyes, As if they had gain'd a victory o'er grief, And with it many _beams_ twisted themselves, Upon whose _golden threads_ the _Angels_ walk _To and again from Heaven_.--

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 Her state with oary feet.-B. 7. V. 438, &c.

"The ancient Poets," says Mr. Richardson, "have not hit upon this beauty; so lavish as they have been in their descriptions of the _Swan_. Homer calls the Swan _long-necked_, d??????de????; 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 s.h.i.+p in her full trim, A _Swan_, so white that you may unto him Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none, Glided along, and as he glided watch'd, And with his _arched neck_ this poore fish catch'd.-_Progresse of the Soul_, St. 24.

Those highly finished Landscapes, the _Seasons_, are indeed copied from Nature: but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his Master:

--The stately-sailing Swan Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale; _And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet_ Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier Isle, Protective of his young.--

But _to return_, as we say on other occasions-Perhaps the Advocates for Shakespeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more successful. Mr.

Gildon takes the Van. "It is plain that He was acquainted with the Fables of antiquity very well: that some of the Arrows of Cupid are pointed with Lead, and others with Gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido, in Virgil: nor do I know any translation of these Poets so ancient as Shakespeare's time." The pa.s.sages on which these sagacious remarks are made occur in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_; and exhibit, we see, a clear proof of acquaintance with the Latin Cla.s.sicks. But we are not answerable for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas, of Surrey and Stanyhurst, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of Turberville and Churchyard! but these Fables were easily known without the help of either the originals or the translations. The Fate of Dido had been sung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marloe had even already introduced her to the Stage: and Cupid's arrows appear with their characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, in Spenser, and every Sonnetteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before in the _Romaunt of the Rose_: a work you may venture to look into, notwithstanding Master Prynne hath so positively a.s.sured us, on the word of John Gerson, that the Author is most certainly d.a.m.ned, if he did not care for a serious repentance.

Mr. Whalley argues in the same manner, and with the same success. He thinks a pa.s.sage in the _Tempest_,

-- High Queen of State, Great Juno comes; I know her by her _Gait_,

a remarkable instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of ancient Poetick story; and that the hint was furnished by the _Divum incedo Regina_ of Virgil.

You know, honest John Taylor, the _Water-poet_, declares that _he never learned his Accidence_, and that _Latin and French_ were to him _Heathen-Greek_; yet, by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a _learned_ Man, in spite of every thing he may say to the contrary: for thus he makes a _Gallant_ address his _Lady_,

"Most inestimable Magazine of Beauty-in whom _the Port and Majesty of Juno_, the Wisdom of Jove's braine-bred Girle, and the Feature of Cytherea, have their domestical habitation."

In the _Merchant of Venice_, we have an oath "By _two-headed Ja.n.u.s_"; and here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakespeare shews his knowledge in the Antique: and so again does the _Water-poet_, who describes Fortune,

Like a _Ja.n.u.s_ with a _double-face_.

But Shakespeare hath somewhere a _Latin Motto_, quoth Dr. Sewel; and so hath John Taylor, and a whole Poem upon it into the bargain.

You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and indeterminate such arguments must be: for in fact this _sweet Swan of Thames_, as Mr. Pope calls him, hath more sc.r.a.ps of Latin, and allusions to antiquity, than are any where to be met with in the writings of Shakespeare. I am sorry to trouble you with trifles, yet what must be done, when grave men insist upon them?

It should seem to be the opinion of some modern criticks, that the personages of cla.s.sick land began only to be known in England in the time of Shakespeare; or rather, that he particularly had the honour of introducing them to the notice of his countrymen.

For instance,-_Rumour painted full of tongues_ gives us a Prologue to one of the parts of _Henry the fourth_; and, says Dr. Dodd, Shakespeare had doubtless a view to either Virgil or Ovid in their description of Fame.

But why so? Stephen Hawes, in his _Pastime of Pleasure_, had long before exhibited her in the same manner,

A goodly Lady envyroned about With _tongues_ of fyre;--

and so had Sir Thomas More in one of his _Pageants_,

_Fame_ I am called, mervayle you nothing Though with _tonges_ I am compa.s.sed all rounde;

not to mention her elaborate Portrait by Chaucer, in the _Boke of Fame_; and by John Higgins, one of the a.s.sistants in the _Mirour for Magistrates_, in his Legend of King Albanacte.

A very liberal Writer on the _Beauties of Poetry_, who hath been more conversant in the ancient Literature of other Countries than his own, "cannot but wonder that a Poet, whose cla.s.sical Images are composed of the finest parts, and breath the very spirit of ancient Mythology, should pa.s.s for being illiterate:

See, what a grace was seated on his brow!

Hyperion's curls: the front of Jove himself: An eye like Mars to threaten and command: A station like the herald Mercury, New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.-_Hamlet._"

_Illiterate_ is an ambiguous term: the question is, whether Poetick History could be only known by an Adept in _Languages_. It is no reflection on this ingenious Gentleman, when I say that I use on this occasion the words of a _better_ Critick, who yet was not willing to carry the _illiteracy_ of our Poet _too far_:-"They who are in such astonishment at the _learning_ of Shakespeare, forget that the Pagan Imagery was familiar to all the Poets of his time; and that abundance of this sort of learning was to be picked up from almost every English book that he could take into his hands." For not to insist upon Stephen Bateman's _Golden booke of the leaden G.o.ddes_, 1577, and several other laborious compilations on the subject, all this and much more Mythology might as perfectly have been learned from the _Testament of Creseide_, and the _Fairy Queen_, as from a regular Pantheon, or Polymetis himself.

Mr. Upton, not contented with _Heathen_ learning, when he finds it in the text, must necessarily superadd it, when it appears to be wanting; because Shakespeare most certainly hath lost it by accident!

In _Much ado about Nothing_, Don Pedro says of the insensible Benedict, "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little _Hangman_ dare not shoot at him."

This mythology is not recollected in the Ancients, and therefore the critick hath no doubt but his Author wrote "_Henchman,-a Page, Pusio_: and _this_ word seeming too hard for the Printer, he translated the little Urchin into a _Hangman_, a character no way belonging to him."

But this character was not borrowed from the Ancients;-it came from the _Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney: