occurs the word thrasonical; another argument which seems to shew that he was not unacquainted with the comedies of Terence; not to mention, that the character of the School-Master in the same play could not possibly be written by a man who had travelled no further in Latin than hic, hæc, hoc.

In Henry the Sixth we meet with a quotation from Virgil,

Tantæne animis cœlestibus ira?

But this, it seems, proves nothing, any more than the lines from Terence and Ovid, in the Taming of the Shrew; for Mr. Farmer looks on Shakspere's property in the comedy to be extremely disputable; and he has no doubt but Henry the Sixth had the same author with Edward the Third, which had been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's Prolusions.

2

If any play in the collection bears internal evidence of Shakspere's hand, we may fairly give him Timon of Athens. In this play we have a similar quotation

from Horace.

Ira furor brevis est.

I will not maintain but this hemistich may be found in Lilly or Udall; or that it is not in the Palace of Pleasure, or the English Plutarch; or that it was not originally foisted in by the players: it stands, however, in the play of Timon of Athens.

The

The world in general, and those who purpose to comment on Shakspere in particular, will owe much to Mr. Farmer, whose researches into our old authors throw a lustre on many passages, the obscurity of which must else have been impenetrable. No future Upton or Gildon will go further than North's translation for Shakspere's acquaintance with Plutarch, or balance between Dare's Phrygius, and the Troy booke of Lydgate. The historie of Hamblet, in black letter, will for ever supersede Saxo-Grammaticus; translated novels and ballads will, perhaps, be allowed the sources of Romeo, Lear, and the Merchant of Venice; and Shakspere himself, however unlike Bayes in other particulars, will stand convicted of having transversed the prose of Holingshed; and, at the same time, to prove "that his studies lay in his own language," the translations of Ovid are determined to be the production of Heywood.

"That his studies were most demonstratively con"fined to nature, and his own language," I readily allow; but does it hence follow that he was so deplo rably ignorant of every other tongue, living or dead, that he only" remembered, perhaps, enough of his "school-boy learning to put the hig, hag, hog, into the "mouth of Sir H. Evans; and might pick up in the "writers of the time, or the course of his conversa"tion, a familiar phrase or two of French or Italian ?” In Shakspere's plays both these last languages are plentifully scattered; but then, we are told, they might be impertinent additions of the players Undoubtedly

Pp

doubtedly they might: but there they are, and, perhaps, few of the players had much more learning than Shakspere.

Mr. Farmer himself will allow, that Shakspere began to learn Latin: I will allow that his studies lay in English: but why insist that he neither made any progress at school, nor improved his acquisitions there? The general encomiums of Suckling, Denham, Milton, &c. on his native genius*, prove nothing; and Ben Jonson's celebrated charge of Shakspere's

* Mr. Farmer closes these general testimonies of Shakspere's having been only indebted to nature, by saying, "He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, "like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth, and ma"ture." It is whimsical enough, that this some one else, whose expression is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakspere's want of literature, should be no other than myself. Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention where he met with the expression of some one else; and some one else does not choose to mention where he dropt it t.

It will appear still more whimsical that this some one else, whose expression is here quoted, may have his claim to it superseded by that of the late Dr. Young, who in his Conjectures on Original Composition (p. 100, Vol. V. Edit. 1773) has the following sentence. "An adult genius comes out of Na

ture's hands, as Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth, "and mature. Shakspere's genius was of this kind." Where some one else the first may have intermediately dropped the contested expression, I cannot ascertain; but some one else the second, transcribed it from the author already mentioned.

ANON.

small

small Latin, and less Greek*, seems absolutely to decide that he had some knowledge of both; and if we may judge by our own time, a man, who has any Greck, is seldom without a very competent share of Latin; and yet such a man is very likely to study Plutarch in English, and to read translations of Ovid.

See Dr. Farmer's reply to these remarks by Mr. Colman, in a note on LOVE'S LABOUR LOST, A&t IV. Sc. ii. p. 456.

* In defence of the various reading of this passage, given in the preface to the last edition of Shakspere, "small "Latin, and no Greek," Mr. Farmer tells us, that "it ' was adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on Cartwright." Surely, Towers having said that Cartwright had no Greek, is no proof that Ben Jonson said so of Shakspere. STEEVENS.

EXTRACT

FROM

THE REV. DR. FARMER's ESSAY

ON THE

LEARNING of SHAKSPERE.

IN 1751, was reprinted "A compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in these our days: which although they are in some parte unjust and friuolous, yet are they all by way of dialogue thoroughly debated and discussed by William Shakspere, Gentleman." 8vo.

This extraordinary piece was originally published in 4to, 1581, and dedicated by the author, "To the most vertuous and learned Lady, his most deare and soveraigne Princesse, Elizabeth; being inforced by her majesties late and singular clemency in pardoning certayne his unduetiful misdemeanour." And by the modern editors, to the late king; as 66 a treatise composed by the most extensive and fertile genius, that ever any age or nation produced."

Here we join issue with the writers of that excellent, though very unequal work, the Biographia Bri

tannica: