Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and forrow; An eminent calamity, though we had Our with, which side shou'd win. For either thou With manacles thorough our streets; or else I will now give you the old tranflation, which shall effectually confute Mr. Pope: for our author hath done little more, than thrown the very words of North into blank verse: "If we helde our peace (my fonne) and determined not to speake, the state of our poore bodies, and present fight of our rayment, would easely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy felfe, howe much more unfortunately, unfortunately, then all the women liuinge we are come hether, confidering that the fight which should be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made most fearfull to us: making my felfe to fee my fonne, and my daughter here, her husband, befieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that which is the only comfort to all other in their adversitie and miferie, to pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide; is the onely thinge which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas) together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for safety of thy life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy felfe, or the nurse of their natiue countrie. For my felfe (my fonne) I am determined not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this warre. For if I cannot perfuade thee, rather to doe good unto both parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt fee, my fonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no foner marche forward to affault thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that brought thee first into this world." The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it happily wants not the assistance of a comment. But matters may not always be so easily managed:-a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected. The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction The The moon into salt tears. The earth's a thief, " This (fays Dr. Dodd) is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alledged by those, who imagine Shakspeare to have been generally able to think for himfelf, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is different. But for argument's fake, let the parody be granted; and " our author (fays some one) may be puzzled to prove, that there was a Latin tranflation of Anacreon at the time Shakspeare wrote his Timon of Athens." This challenge is peculiarly unhappy: for I do not at present recollect any other claffick, (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them,) that was originally published with two Latin translations. But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, quotes some one of a "reasonable good facilitie in tranflation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well tranflated by Ronsard the French poet-comes our minion, and translates the fame out of French into English:" and his strictures upon him evince the publication. Now this identical ode is to be met with in Ronfard; and as his works are in few hands, I will take the liberty of tranfcribing it : La terre les eaux va boivant, Tout boit foit en haut ou en bas : Suivant ceste reigle commune, Edit. Fol. p. 507. I know not whether an observation or two relative to our author's acquaintance with Homer, be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox observes on a paffage of Troilus and Creffida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakspeare muft here have had the Iliad in view, as "the old story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is absolutely filent with respect to this circumftance." And Mr. Upton is positive that the fweet oblivious antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the nepenthe described in the Odyffey, Νηπειθές τ ̓ ἄχολών τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων. I will not infift upon the translations by Chapman; as the first editions are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of their publication. But the former circumftance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the latter more fully from Spenser, than from Homer himself. "But Shakspeare," perfifts Mr. Upton, " hath fome Greek expreffions." Indeed!" We have one in Coriola Gr. "Εχεις.-and πρὸς τὸν "Εχren, to the baver." This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Matthew of Bobadil, “ a gentleman of his havings!" Thus likewife John Davies in his Pleasant Defcant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612: Do well and have well!-neyther fo still: For fome are good doers, whote havings are ill. and Daniel the historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be fynonymous with behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the sense of poffeffor, is every where met with: though unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα of Sophocles, produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critick in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning. But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, and unyoke?" alluding to the Βελυτὸς of the Greeks: and Homer and his fcholiaft are quoted accordingly! If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrafe might have been taken from husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it from a Dittie of the workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546: My bow is broke, I would unyoke, An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Orphan heirs of fixed Destiny. "And |