"Master Page, fit; good Master Page, fit; Pro face. What you want in meat, we'll have in drink," fays Justice Shallow's fac totum, Davy, in the Second Part of Henry IV. Proface, Sir Thomas Hanmer observes to be Italian, from profaccia, much good may it do you. Mr. Johnfon rather thinks it a mistake for perforce. Sir Thomas however is right; yet it is no argument for his author's Italian knowledge. Old Heywood, the epigrammatist, addressed his readers long before, " Readers, reade this thus: for preface, proface, Woorkes, Lond. 4to. 1562. And Dekker in his play, If it be not good, the Diuel is in it, (which is certainly true, for it is full of devils,) makes Shackle-foule, in the character of Friar Rush, tempt his brethren with "choice of dishes," "To which proface; with blythe lookes fit yee." Nor hath it escaped the quibbling manner of the Water-poet, in the title of a poem prefixed to his Praise of Hempfeed: "A Preamble, Preatrot, Preagallop, Preapace, or Preface; and Proface, my Masters, if your Stomacks serve." But the editors are not contented without coining Italian. "Rivo, fays the drunkard," is an expression of the madcap Prince of Wales; which Sir Thomas Hanmer corrects to Ribi, drink away, or again, as it should be rather translated. Dr. Warburton accedes to this; and Mr. Johnson hath admitted it into his text; but with an observation, that Rivo might possibly be the cant of English taverns. And so indeed it was: it occurs frequently in Marston. Take a quotation from his comedy of What you will, 1607: "Muficke, tobacco, sacke, and fleepe, "Rivo, drink deep, give care the mate." In Love's Labour Loft, Boyet calls Don Armado, " - A Spaniard that keeps here in court, "A phantasme, a monarcho. " Here too Sir Thomas is willing to palm Italian upon us. We should read, it feems, mammuccio, a mammet, or puppet: Ital. Mammuccia. But the allufion is to a fantastical character of the time."Popular applause," says Meres, "dooth nourish fome, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praife and glorie, as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and MONARCHO that liued about the court." P. 178. I fancy, you will be fatisfied with one more instance. "Baccare, You are marvellous forward," quoth Gremio to Petruchio in the Taming of a Shrew. "But not fo forward," says Mr. Theobald, " as our editors are indolent. This is a stupid corruption of the prefs, 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 farcastically, a pretender to scholarship." 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 fow: "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his fow: fe " Mortimers fow 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 Shakspeare'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 Shakfpeare? Nothing is more certain, than that he chiefly followed the tranflation by Painter, from the French of Boisteau, and hence arife the deviations from Bandello's original Italian. It seems, however, from a passage in Ames's Typographical 6 It is remarked, that "Paris, though in one place called earl, is most commonly stiled the countie in this play. Shakspeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian conte to our count:-perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is faid to have taken his plot."-He certainly did fo: Paris is there first stiled a young earle, and afterward, counte, countee, and county; according to the unfettled orthograpy of the time. The word however is frequently met with in other writers; particularly in Fairfax: Antiquities, that Painter was not the only tranflator of this popular story: and it is possible therefore, that Shakfpeare might have other afsistance. In the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and confequently the author himself was acquainted with it. " Paucus pallabris, let the world slide, sessa." But this is a burlesque on Hieronymo, the piece of bombaft, that I have mentioned to you before: "What new device have they devised, trow? 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 afcribe 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 faid concerning Shakspeare's acquaintance with the French language. In the To bring the piece subjected to his will; Godfrey of Bulloigne, Book VII. ft. 90. "Fairfax," says Mr. Hume, hath tranflated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the fame time with an exactness, which for that age are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correfpondent line in the tranflation." The former part of this character is extremely true; but the latter not quite fo. In the book above quoted Tasso and Fairfax do not even agree in the number of ftanzas. play of Henry V. 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 quantity; and every fentence, or rather every word most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the author; and it is 1 Every writer on Shakspeare hath expressed his aftonishment, that his author was not folicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly fold his works to the Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print, when it was copied by the ear, " for a double fale would bring on a fufpicion of honestie." Shakspeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the first folio; and call the previous publications "stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impoftors." But this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, through convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a fufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called Lenten Stuffe, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to. 1599, where he afssures us, that in a play of his, called The Isle of Dogs, "foure acts, without his confent, or the leaft guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players." "It This however was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epiftle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom. hath a lash at fome" vaine glorious tragedians," and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular; which will ferve for an answer to an obervation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce ever blotted a line:1 belieue the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise by fome." But hear Nash, who was far from praifing: " I leaue all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher. That could Icarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede, yet English Seneca read by candlelight yeelds many good sentences |