Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 21

"But not so _forward_," says Mr. Theobald, "as our Editors are _indolent_.

This is a stupid corruption of the press, that none of them have dived into. We must read _Baccalare_, as Mr. Warburton acutely observed to me, by which the Italians mean, Thou ignorant, presumptuous Man."-"Properly indeed," adds Mr. Heath, "a _graduated_ Scholar, but ironically and sarcastically a _pretender_ to Scholars.h.i.+p."

This is admitted by the Editors and Criticks of every Denomination. Yet the word is neither wrong, nor Italian: it was an old proverbial one, used frequently by John Heywood; who hath made, what he pleases to call, _Epigrams_ upon it.

Take two of them, such as they are,

_Backare_, quoth Mortimer to his Sow: Went that Sow _backe_ at that biddyng trowe you?

_Backare_, quoth Mortimer to his sow: se Mortimers sow speakth as good _latin_ as he.

Howel takes this from Heywood, in his _Old Sawes and Adages_: and Philpot introduces it into the Proverbs collected by Camden.

We have but few observations concerning Shakespeare's knowledge of the Spanish tongue. Dr. Grey indeed is willing to suppose that the plot of _Romeo and Juliet_ may be borrowed from a COMEDY of Lopes de Vega. But the Spaniard, who was certainly acquainted with Bandello, hath not only changed the Catastrophe, but the names of the Characters. Neither Romeo nor Juliet, neither Montague nor Capulet, appears in this performance: and how came they to the knowledge of Shakespeare?-Nothing is more certain than that he chiefly followed the Translation by Painter from the French of Boisteau, and hence arise the Deviations from Bandello's original Italian. It seems, however, from a pa.s.sage in Ames's _Typographical Antiquities_, that Painter was not the only Translator of this popular Story: and it is possible, therefore, that Shakespeare might have other a.s.sistance.

In the Induction to the _Taming of the Shrew_, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and _consequently_ the Author himself was acquainted with it.

_Paucas pallabris_, let the World slide, _Sessa_.

But this is a burlesque on _Hieronymo_; the piece of Bombast that I have mentioned to you before:

What new device have they devised, trow?

_Pocas pallabras_, &c.--

Mr. Whalley tells us, "the Author of this piece hath the happiness to be at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with himself": Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take this opportunity of informing him that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he will accept the authority of his Contemporary, Heywood.

More hath been said concerning Shakespeare's acquaintance with the French language. In the Play of _Henry the fifth_, we have a whole Scene in it, and in other places it occurs familiarly in the Dialogue.

We may observe in general, that the early Editions have not half the quant.i.ty; and every sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the Author; and it is extremely probable that the French ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly were after he had left the Stage.-Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily believe that he was acquainted with the Scene between Catharine and the old Gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense.

Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson's Edition, hath an ingenious observation to prove that Shakespeare, supposing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the language.

"Est-il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton _Bras_?" says a Frenchman.-"_Bra.s.s_, cur?" replies Pistol.

"Almost any one knows that the French word _Bras_ is p.r.o.nounced _Brau_; and what resemblance of sound does this bear to _Bra.s.s_?"

Mr. Johnson makes a doubt whether the p.r.o.nunciation of the French language may not be changed since Shakespeare's time; "if not," says he, "it may be suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes": but this does not appear to be the case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the Grammarians, or the practice of the Poets. I am certain of the former from the _French Alphabet_ of De la Mothe, and the _Orthoepia Gallica_ of John Eliot; and of the latter from the Rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du Bartas.-Connections of this kind were very common. Shakespeare himself a.s.sisted Ben. Jonson in his _Seja.n.u.s_, as it was originally written; and Fletcher in his _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.

But what if the French scene were occasionally introduced into every Play on this Subject? and perhaps there were more than one before our Poet's.-In _Pierce __ Penilesse his Supplication to the Diuell_, 4to. 1592 (which, it seems, from the Epistle to the Printer, was not the first Edition), the Author, Nash, exclaims, "What a glorious thing it is to have _Henry the fifth_ represented on the Stage leading the French King prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dolphin to sweare fealty!"-And it appears from the Jests of the famous Comedian, Tarlton, 4to. 1611, that he had been particularly celebrated in the Part of the Clown in _Henry the fifth_; but no such Character exists in the Play of Shakespeare.-_Henry the sixth_ hath ever been doubted; and a pa.s.sage in the above-quoted piece of Nash may give us reason to believe it was previous to our Author. "How would it have joyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyen two hundred yeare in his Toomb, he should triumph again on the Stage; and haue his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding."-I have no doubt but _Henry the sixth_ had the same Author with _Edward the third_, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's _Prolusions_.

It hath been observed that the Giant of Rabelais is sometimes alluded to by Shakespeare: and in _his_ time no translation was extant.-But the Story was in every one's hand.

In a Letter by one Laneham, or Langham, for the name is written differently, concerning the Entertainment at Killingwoorth Castle, printed 1575, we have a list of the vulgar Romances of the age, "King Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, Friar Rous, Howlegla.s.s, and GARGANTUA." Meres mentions him as equally hurtful to young minds with the _Four Sons of Aymon_, and the _Seven Champions_. And John Taylor hath him likewise in his catalogue of _Authors_, prefixed to Sir _Gregory Nonsence_.

But to come to a conclusion, I will give you an irrefragable argument that Shakespeare did _not_ understand _two_ very common words in the French and Latin languages.

According to the Articles of agreement between the Conqueror Henry and the King of France, the latter was to stile the former (in the corrected French of the modern Editions) "Nostre _tres cher_ filz Henry Roy d'Angleterre; and in Latin, _Praeclarissimus_ Filius, &c." "What," says Dr.

Warburton, "is _tres cher_ in French _praeclarissimus_ in Latin! we should read _praecarissimus_."-This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came the blunder? It is a typographical one in Holingshed, which Shakespeare copied; but must indisputably have corrected, had he been acquainted with the languages.-"Our said Father, during his life, shall name, call, and write us in French in this maner: Nostre _tres chier_ filz, Henry Roy d'Engleterre-and in Latine in this maner: _Praeclarissimus_ filius noster."

Edit. 1587, p. 574.

To corroborate this instance, let me observe to you, though it be nothing further to the purpose, that another error of the same kind hath been the source of a mistake in an historical pa.s.sage of our Author; which hath ridiculously troubled the Criticks.

Richard the third harangues his army before the Battle of Bosworth:

Remember whom ye are to cope withal, A sort of vagabonds, of rascals, runaways- And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow, Long kept in _Britaine_ at _our Mother's_ cost, A milksop, &c.-

"_Our_ Mother," Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong, and Henry was somewhere secreted on the _Continent_: he reads therefore, and all the Editors after him,

Long kept in _Bretagne_ at _his_ mother's cost.

But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holingshed, and you will find at once that Shakespeare had been there before me:-"Ye see further, how a companie of traitors, theeves, outlaws, and runnagates be aiders and partakers of his feat and enterprise.-And to begin with the erle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milksop-brought up by _my Moother's_ meanes and mine, like a captive in a close cage, in the court of Francis duke of _Britaine_." p. 756.

Holingshed copies this _verbatim_ from his brother chronicler Hall, Edit.

1548, fol. 54; but his Printer hath given us by accident the word _Moother_ instead of _Brother_; as it is in the Original, and ought to be in Shakespeare.

I hope, my good Friend, you have by this time acquitted our great Poet of all piratical depredations on the Ancients, and are ready to receive my _Conclusion_.-He remembered perhaps enough of his _school-boy_ learning to put the _Hig_, _hag_, _hog_, into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans; and might pick up in the Writers of the time, or the course of his conversation, a familiar phrase or two of French or Italian: but his _Studies_ were most demonstratively confined to _Nature_ and _his own Language_.

In the course of this disquisition, you have often smiled at "all such reading as was never read": and possibly I may have indulged it too far: but it is the reading necessary for a Comment on Shakespeare. Those who apply solely to the Ancients for this purpose, may with equal wisdom study the TALMUD for an Exposition of TRISTRAM SHANDY. Nothing but an intimate acquaintance with the Writers of the time, who are frequently of no other value, can point out his allusions, and ascertain his Phraseology. The Reformers of his Text are for ever equally positive, and equally wrong.

The Cant of the Age, a provincial Expression, an obscure Proverb, an obsolete Custom, a Hint at a Person or a Fact no longer remembered, hath continually defeated the best of our _Guessers_: You must not suppose me to speak at random, when I a.s.sure you that, from some forgotten book or other, I can demonstrate this to you in many hundred Places; and I almost wish that I had not been persuaded into a different Employment.

Tho' I have as much of the _Natale Solum_ about me as any man whatsoever; yet, I own, the _Primrose Path_ is still more pleasing than the _Fosse_ or the _Watling Street_:

Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale It's infinite variety.--

And when I am fairly rid of the Dust of topographical Antiquity, which hath continued much longer about me than I expected, you may very probably be troubled again with the ever fruitful Subject of SHAKESPEARE and his COMMENTATORS.

MAURICE MORGANN: AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.

1777.

Preface.