In Much ado about Nothing, Don Pedro fays of the infenfible Benedict, “He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-ftring, and the little hangman dare not fhoot at him.” This mythology is not recollected in the ancients, and therefore the critick hath no doubt but his author wrote " Henchman,—a page, pufio: and this word feeming too hard for the printer, he tranflated 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: "Millions of yeares this old drivell Cupid lives; "While ftill more wretch, more wicked he doth prove: In this our world a hangman for to be "Of all those fooles that will have all they fee." B. II. c. 14. I know it may be objected on the authority of fuch biographers as Theophilus Cibber, and the writer of the Life of Sir Philip, prefixed to the modern editions; that the Arcadia was not publifhed before 1613, and confequently too late for this imitation: but I have a copy in my own poffeffion, printed for W. Ponfonbie, 1590, 4to. which hath efcaped the notice of the induftrious Ames, and the rest of our typographical antiquaries. Thus likewife every word of antiquity is to be cut down to the claffical ftandard. In a note on the Prologue to Troilus and Creffida, (which, by the way, is not met with in the quarto,) Mr. Theobald informs us, that the very names of the gates of Troy, have been barbarously demolished by the editors: and a deal of learned duft he makes in fetting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's fatisfaction. Indeed the learning is modeftly withdrawn from the later editions, and we are quietly inftructed to read, "Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian, "And Antenorides." But had he looked into the Troy boke of Lydgate, instead of puzzling himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to have been neither the work of Shakspeare nor his edi tors: "Therto his cyte | compaffed enuyrowne Tymbria was named the feconde ; "And the thyrde | called Helyas, "The fourthe gate | hyghte alfo Cetheas; both in werre and pes."4 Lond. empr. by R. Pynfon, 1513, fol. B. II. ch. xi. 4 The Troye Boke was fomewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the beginning of the laft century, under the name of "The Life and Death of Hector-who fought a hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; wherein there were flaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand Fourfcore and Sixe Men." Fol. no date. This work, Dr. Fuller and feveral other criticks have erroneously quoted as the original; and obferve in confequence, that " if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined ftandard for purer language: fo that one might mistake him for a modern writer!" Let me here make an observation for the benefit of the next editor of Chaucer. Mr. Urry, probably misled by his predeceffor, Speght, was determined, Procruftes-like, to force every line in the Canterbury Tales to the fame standard: but a precife number of Our excellent friend Mr. Hurd hath borne a noble testimony on our fide of the question. "Shakspeare," fays this true critick, "owed the felicity of freedom from the bondage of claffical fuperftition, to the want of what is called the advantage of a learned education.—This, as well as a vast fuperiority of genius, hath contributed to lift this aftonishing man to the glory of being efteemed the most original thinker and Speaker, fince the times of Homer." And hence indifputably the amazing variety of style and manner, unknown to all other writers: an argument of itself fufficient to emancipate Shakspeare from the fuppofition of a claffical training. Yet, to be honest, one imitation is fastened on our poet: which hath been infifted upon likewife by Mr. Upton and Mr. Whalley. You remember it in the famous speech of Claudio in Measure for Measure: Ay, but to die and go we know not where!" &c. Moft certainly the ideas of "a fpirit bathing fyllables was not the object of our old poets. Lydgate, after the example of his master, very fairly acknowledges, "Well wot I moche thing is wronge, "Falfely metryd | both of fhort and longe." and Chaucer himself was perfuaded, that the rime might poffibly be Somewhat agreable, 66 "Though fome verfe faile in a fyllable." : In fhort, the attention was directed to the cafural paufe, as the grammarians call it; which is carefully marked in every line of' Lydgate and Gafecigne in his Certayne Notes of Inftruction concerning the making of Verfe, obferves very truly of Chaucer, "Whofoeuer do perufe and well confider his workes, he thall find, that although his lines are not always of one felfe fame number of fyllables, yet beyng redde by one that hath understanding, the longest verfe and that which hath most fyllables in it, will fall to the eare correfpondent unto that which hath feweft fyllables in it: and likewife that whiche hath in it feweft fyllables fhall be found yet to confift of wordes that hath fuche naturall founde, as may feeme equall in length to a verfe which hath many moe fyllables of lighter accents." 4to. 1575. 6 in fiery floods," of refiding " in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," or of being "imprifoned in the viewless winds," are not original in our author; but I am not sure, that they came from the Platonick bell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold hell: "The fyrfte is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," fays an old homily: "—"The feconde is paffyng colde, that yf a grete hylle of fyre were caften therin, it fholde torn to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspeare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a foul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a grete brenning beate in his foot: take care you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember M. Menage quotes a canon upon us: "Si quis dixerit epifcopum PODAGRA laborare, anathema fit." Another tells us of the foul of a monk fastened to a rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its enormities. Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as you may fee in a poem "where the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell," among the many miscellaneous ones fubjoined to the works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquifitive Brother-Antiquary, our Greek Profeffor, hath obferved to me on the authority of Aliæ panduntur inanes Sufpenfæ ad ventos: aliis fub gurgite vasto "Infectum eluitur fcelus, aut exuritur igni." 6 At the ende of the feftyuall, drawen oute of Legenda aurea, 4to. 1508. It was firft printed by Caxton, 1483, "in helpe of fuch clerkes who excufe theym for defaute of bokes, and alfo by fymplenes of connynge." 7 On all foules daye, p. 152. * Mr. afterwards Dr. Lort. 8 Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were certainly very little read either in the poet or the philofopher. After all, Shakspeare's curiosity might lead him to tranflations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonick bell into the " punytion of faulis in purgatory:" and it is obfervable, that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of his doom there, "Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature the expreffion is very fimilar to the bishop's: "I will give you his verfion as concifely as I can; "It is a nedeful thyng to fuffer panis and tormentfum in the wyndis, fum under the watter, and in the fire uthir fum:-thus the mony vices • Contrakkit in the corpis be done away •And purgit. Sixte Booke of Eneados, fol. p. 191. It seems, however, " that Shakspeare himself in the Tempest hath tranflated fome expreffions of Virgil: witnefs the O dea certe." I prefume, we are here directed to the paffage, where Ferdinand fays of Miranda, after hearing the fongs of Ariel, Moft fure, the goddefs "On whom these airs attend." and fo very small Latin is fufficient for this formidable tranflation, that if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loath to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on such a fandy foundation. Let us turn to a real tranflator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader; fuppofing it neceffarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language 8 Islandia Defcript. Ludg. Bat. 1607, p. 46, |