You have long known my opinion concerning the literary acquisitions of our immortal Dramatist; and remember how I congratulated myself on my coincidence with the last and best of his Editors. I told you, however, that his small Latin and less Greek would still be litigated, and you see very assuredly that I was not mistaken. The trumpet hath been sounded against “the darling project of representing Shakespeare as one of the illiterate vulgar”; and indeed to so good purpose, that I would by all means recommend the performer to the army of the braying Faction, recorded by Cervantes. The testimony of his contemporaries is again disputed; constant tradition is opposed by flimsy arguments; and nothing is heard but confusion and nonsense. One could scarcely imagine this a topick very likely to inflame the passions: it is asserted by Dryden, that “those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greatest commendation”; yet an attack upon an article of faith hath been usually received with more temper and complacence, than the unfortunate opinion which I am about to defend.

But let us previously lament, with every lover of Shakespeare, that the Question was not fully discussed by Mr. Johnson himself: what he sees intuitively, others must arrive at by a series of proofs; and I have not time to teach with precision: be contented therefore with a few cursory observations, as they may happen to arise from the Chaos of Papers you have so often laughed at, “a stock sufficient to set up an Editor in form.” I am convinced of the strength of my cause, and superior to any little advantage from sophistical arrangements.

General positions without proofs will probably have no great weight on either side, yet it may not seem fair to suppress them: take them therefore as their authors occur to me, and we will afterward proceed to particulars.

whose memory he honoured almost to idolatry”: and conscious of the worth of ancient literature, like any other man on the same occasion, he rather carries his acquirements above than below the truth. “Jealousy!” cries Mr. Upton; “People will allow others any qualities, but those upon which they highly value themselves.” Yes, where there is a competition, and the competitor formidable: but, I think, this Critick himself hath scarcely set in opposition the learning of Shakespeare and Jonson. When a superiority is universally granted, it by no means appears a man's literary interest to depress the reputation of his Antagonist.

In truth the received opinion of the pride and malignity of Jonson, at least in the earlier part of life, is absolutely groundless: at this time scarce a play or a poem appeared without Ben's encomium, from the original Shakespeare to the translator of Du Bartas.

But Jonson is by no means our only authority. Drayton, the countryman and acquaintance of Shakespeare, determines his excellence to the naturall Braine only. Digges, a wit of the town before our Poet left the stage, is very strong to the purpose,

Suckling opposes his easier strain to the sweat of learned Jonson. Denham assures us that all he had was from old Mother-wit. His native wood-notes wild, every one remembers to be celebrated by Milton. Dryden observes prettily enough, that “he wanted not the spectacles of books to read Nature.” He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.

The ever memorable Hales of Eton (who, notwithstanding his Epithet, is, I fear, almost forgotten) had too great a knowledge both of Shakespeare and the Ancients to allow much acquaintance between them: and urged very justly on the part of Genius in opposition to Pedantry, That “if he had not read the Classicks, he had likewise not stolen from them; and if any Topick was produced from a Poet of antiquity, he would undertake to shew somewhat on the same subject, at least as well written by Shakespeare.”

Fuller, a diligent and equal searcher after truth and quibbles, declares positively that “his learning was very little,—Nature was all the Art used upon him, as he himself, if alive, would confess.” And may we not say he did confess it, when he apologized for his untutored lines to his noble patron the Earl of Southampton?—this list of witnesses might be easily enlarged; but I flatter myself, I shall stand in no need of such evidence.

One of the first and most vehement assertors of the learning of Shakespeare was the Editor of his Poems, the well-known Mr. Gildon; and his steps were most punctually taken by a subsequent labourer in the same department, Dr. Sewel.

Mr. Pope supposed “little ground for the common opinion of his want of learning”: once indeed he made a proper distinction between learning and languages, as I would be understood to do in my Title-page; but unfortunately he forgot it in the course of his disquisition, and endeavoured to persuade himself that Shakespeare's acquaintance with the Ancients might be actually proved by the same medium as Jonson's.

Mr. Theobald is “very unwilling to allow him so poor a scholar as many have laboured to represent him”; and yet is “cautious of declaring too positively on the other side of the question.”

Dr. Warburton hath exposed the weakness of some arguments from suspected imitations; and yet offers others, which, I doubt not, he could as easily have refuted.

Mr. Upton wonders “with what kind of reasoning any one could be so far imposed upon, as to imagine that Shakespeare had no learning”; and lashes with much zeal and satisfaction “the pride and pertness of dunces, who, under such a name, would gladly shelter their own idleness and ignorance.”

He, like the learned Knight, at every anomaly in grammar or metre,

How would the old Bard have been astonished to have found that he had very skilfully given the trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, commonly called the ithyphallic measure, to the Witches in Macbeth! and that now and then a halting Verse afforded a most beautiful instance of the Pes proceleusmaticus!

“But,” continues Mr. Upton, “it was a learned age; Roger Ascham assures us that Queen Elizabeth read more Greek every day, than some Dignitaries of the Church did Latin in a whole week.” This appears very probable; and a pleasant proof it is of the general learning of the times, and of Shakespeare in particular. I wonder he did not corroborate it with an extract from her injunctions to her Clergy, that “such as were but mean Readers should peruse over before, once or twice, the Chapters and Homilies, to the intent they might read to the better understanding of the people.”

Dr. Grey declares that Shakespeare's knowledge in the Greek and Latin tongues cannot reasonably be called in question. Dr. Dodd supposes it proved, that he was not such a novice in learning and antiquity as some people would pretend. And to close the whole, for I suspect you to be tired of quotation, Mr. Whalley, the ingenious Editor of Jonson, hath written a piece expressly on this side the question: perhaps from a very excusable partiality, he was willing to draw Shakespeare from the field of Nature to classick ground, where alone, he knew, his Author could possibly cope with him.

These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their Author's. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various Excerpta, Sententiæ, and Flores, this business may be effected with very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in his Comment on Chevy-chase, and Wagstaff on Tom Thumb; and I myself will engage to give you quotations from the elder English writers (for, to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is now in possession of the Marks of Imitation.

“Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the facts and fables of antiquity.” Granted:—and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his acquaintance.

It is notorious that much of his matter of fact knowledge is deduced from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and corrects accordingly the Errors of his Copyists by the Greek standard. Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently.

In the third act of Anthony and Cleopatra, Octavius represents to his Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion,

Read Libya, says the critick authoritatively, as is plain from Plutarch, Πρώτην μὲν ἀπέφηνε Κλεοπάτραν βασίλισσαν Αἰγύπτου καὶ Κύπρου καὶ ΛΙΒΥΗΣ, καὶ κοίλης Συρίας.

This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in Folio, 1579; and you will at once see the origin of the mistake.

“First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of Ægypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria.”

Again in the Fourth Act,

“What a reply is this?” cries Mr. Upton, “'tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,

we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæsar in Plutarch.”

This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Most indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given so in the modern translations: but Shakespeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one, “Antonius sent again to challenge Cæsar to fight him: Cæsar answered, That he had many other ways to die than so.”

In the Third Act of Julius Cæsar, Anthony in his well-known harangue to the people, repeats a part of the Emperor's will,

“Our Author certainly wrote,” says Mr. Theobald, “On that side Tyber—

And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently studied, expressly declares that he left the publick his gardens and walks, πέραν τοῦ Ποταμοῦ, beyond the Tyber.”

This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent Editors; but hear again the old Translation, where Shakespeare's study lay: “He bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome seventy-five drachmas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this side of the river of Tyber.” I could furnish you with many more instances, but these are as good as a thousand.

Hence had our author his characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Anthony, upon which much argumentation for his learning hath been founded: and hence literatim the Epitaph on Timon, which, it was once presumed, he had corrected from the blunders of the Latin version, by his own superior knowledge of the Original.

I cannot, however, omit a passage of Mr. Pope. “The speeches copy'd from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, be as well made an instance of the learning of Shakespeare, as those copy'd from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben. Jonson's.” Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia:

I will now give you the old Translation, which shall effectually confute Mr. Pope: for our Author hath done little more than throw the very words of North into blank verse.

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:

“This,” says Dr. Dodd, “is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted.” Yet it may be alleged by those who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for himself, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is different.—But for argument's sake, let the Parody be granted; and “our Author,” says some one, “may be puzzled to prove that there was a Latin translation of Anacreon at the time Shakespeare wrote his Timon of Athens.” This challenge is peculiarly unhappy: for I do not at present recollect any other Classick (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them) that was originally published with two Latin translations.

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 passage of Troilus and Cressida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakespeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as “the old Story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this circumstance.”

And Mr. Upton is positive that the sweet oblivious Antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the Nepenthe described in the Odyssey,

I will not insist 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 circumstance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the latter more fully from Spenser than from Homer himself.

“But Shakespeare,” persists Mr. Upton, “hath some Greek Expressions.” Indeed!—“We have one in Coriolanus,

and another in Macbeth, where Banquo addresses the Weïrd-Sisters,

This was the common language of Shakespeare's time. “Lye in a water-bearer's house!” says Master Mathew of Bobadil, “a Gentleman of his Havings!”

Thus likewise John Davies in his Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612:

and Daniel the Historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be synonymous with Behaviour in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers.

Haver, in the sense of Possessor, is every where met with: tho' 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 Βουλυτὸς of the Greeks: and Homer and his Scholiast are quoted accordingly!

If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might be 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 Holingshed, p. 1546.

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 Windsor,

“and how elegant is this!” quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it, “ὀρφανὸς ab ὀρφνὸς—acting in darkness and obscurity.”

Mr. Heath assures us that the bare mention of such an interpretation is a sufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's knowledge of the Old Comedy, and his etymological learning in the word, Desdemona.

Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with Fairies, notwithstanding his laborious study of Spenser. The last authentick account of them is from our countryman William Lilly; and it by no means agrees with the learned interpretation: for the angelical Creatures appeared in his Hurst wood in a most illustrious Glory,—“and indeed,” says the Sage, “it is not given to very many persons to endure their glorious aspects.”

The only use of transcribing these things is to shew what absurdities men for ever run into, when they lay down an Hypothesis, and afterward seek for arguments in the support of it. What else could induce this man, by no means a bad scholar, to doubt whether Truepenny might not be derived from Τρύπανον; and quote upon us with much parade an old Scholiast on Aristophanes?—I will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two or three more Expressions, in which he was pleased to suppose some learned meaning or other; all which he might have found in every Writer of the time, or still more easily in the vulgar Translation of the Bible, by consulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden.

The Story of the Misanthrope is told in almost every Collection of the time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakespeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch. Indeed from a passage in an old Play, called Jack Drum's Entertainment, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the Stage.

Were this a proper place for such a disquisition, I could give you many cases of this kind. We are sent for instance to Cinthio for the Plot of Measure for Measure, and Shakespeare's judgement hath been attacked for some deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew of the matter was from Madam Isabella in the Heptameron of Whetstone. Ariosto is continually quoted for the Fable of Much ado about Nothing; but I suspect our Poet to have been satisfied with the Geneura of Turberville. As you like it was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn; which by the way was not printed 'till a century afterward: when in truth the old Bard, who was no hunter of MSS., contented himself solely with Lodge's Rosalynd or Euphues' Golden Legacye. 4to. 1590. The Story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, Love's labour wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakespeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon. Mr. Langbaine could not conceive whence the Story of Pericles could be taken, “not meeting in History with any such Prince of Tyre”; yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appolynus.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a Play called the Double Falshood, which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakespeare: and I see it is classed as such in the last Edition of the Bodleian Catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a Letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written since the middle of the last century: