think like them, without owing any thing to imitation.

Tho' I should be very unwilling to allow Shakespeare so poor a scholar, as many have laboured to reprefent him, yet I fhall be very cautious of declaring too pofitively on the other fide of the queftion: that is, with regard to my opinion of his knowledge in the dead languages. And therefore the paffages, that I occafionally quote from the claffics, fhall not be urged as proofs that he knowingly imitated those originals; but brought to fhew how happily he has expreffed himself upon the fame topicks. A very learned critick of our own nation has declared, that a fameness of thought and fameness of expreffion too, in two Writers of a different age, can hardly happen, without a violent suspicion of the latter copying from his predeceffor. I fhall not therefore run any great risque of a cenfure, tho' I fhould venture to hint, that the refemblance, in thought and expreffion, of our author and an ancient (which we fhould allow to be imitation. in one, whose learning was not questioned) may sometimes take its rife from ftrength of memory, and thofe impreffions which he owed to the school. And if we may allow a poffibility of this, confidering that, when he quitted the school, he gave into his father's profeffion and way of living, and had, 'tis likely, but a flender library of claffical learning and confidering what a number of tranflations, romances, and legends, ftarted about

his time, and a little before; (moft of which, 'tis very evident, he read ;) I think, it may eafily be reconciled, why he rather schemed his plots and characters from these more latter informations, than went back to thofe fountains, for which he might entertain a fincere veneration, but to which he could not have so ready a recourse.

In touching on another part of his learning, as it related to the knowledge of history and books, I shall advance fomething, that, at first fight, will very much wear the appearance of a paradox. For I fhall find it no hard matter to prove, that from the groffeft blunders in history, we are not to infer his real ignorance of it: Nor from a greater use of Latin words, than ever any other English author ufed, muft we infer his knowledge of that language.

A reader of taste may easily observe, that tho' Shakespeare, almost in every scene of his historical plays, commits the groffeft offences against chronology, history, and ancient politicks; yet this was not thro' ignorance, as is generally fuppofed, but thro' the too powerful blaze of his imagination; which, when once raised, made all acquired knowledge vanish and disappear before it. For instance, in his Timon, he turns Athens, which was a perfect Democracy, into an Ariftocracy; while he | ridiculously gives a fenator the power of banishing Alcibiades. On the contrary, in Coriolanus, he makes Rome, which at that time was a perfect Ariftocracy, a Democracy full as ridiculoufly, by

making the people choofe Coriolanus conful: Whereas, in fact, it was not till the time of Manlius Torquatus, that the people had a right of choosing one conful. But this licence in him, as I have faid, muft not be imputed to ignorance: fince as often we may find him, when occafion ferves, reafoning up to the truth of hiftory; and throwing out fentiments as juftly adapted to the circumftances of his fubject, as to the dignity of his characters, or dictates of nature in general.

Then, to come to his knowledge of the Latin tongue, 'tis certain, there is a furprising effufion of Latin words made English, far more than in any one English Author I have feen; but we must be cautious to imagine, this was of his own doing. For the English tongue, in his age, began extremely to fuffer by an inundation of Latin; and to be overlaid, as it were, by its nurse, when it had just began to speak by her before-prudent care and affiftance. And this, to be fure, was occafioned by the pedantry of those two monarchs, Elizabeth and James, both great Latinifts. For it is not to be wondered at, if both the court and fchools, equal flatterers of power, fhould adapt themselves to the royal tafte. This, then, was the condition of the English tongue when Shakefpeare took it up: like a beggar in a rich wardrobe. He found the pure native English too cold and poor to fecond the heat and abundance of his imagination: and therefore was forced to dress it up in the robes, he faw provided for it: rich in

them

themselves, but ill-fhaped; cut out to an air of magnificence, but difproportioned and cumberfome. To the coftlinefs of ornament, he added all the graces and decorum of it. It may be faid, this did not require, or discover a knowledge of the Latin. To the firft, I think, it did not; to the fecond, it is fo far from difcovering it, that, I think, it discovers the contrary. To make this more obvious by a modern inftance: The great MILTON likewife laboured under the like inconvenience; when he first set upon adorning his own tongue, he likewise animated and enriched it with the Latin, but from his own ftock: and fo, rather by bringing in the phrases, than the words: And this was natural; and will, I believe, always be the cafe in the fame circumftances. His language, efpecially his profe, is full of Latin words indeed, but much fuller of Latin phrafes and his maftery in the tongue made this unavoidable. On the contrary, ShakeSpeare, who, perhaps, was not so intimately verfed in the language, abounds in the words of it, but has few or none of its phrafes: Nor, indeed, if what I affirm be true, could he. This I take to be the trueft criterion to determine this long agitated queftion.

It may be mentioned, tho' no certain conclufion can be drawn from it, as a probable argument of his having read the ancients; that he perpetually expreffes the genius of Homer, and other great poets of the old world, in animating all the

parts

parts of his defcriptions; and, by bold and breathing metaphors and images, giving the properties of life and action to inanimate things. He is a copy too of thofe Greek mafters in the infinite ufe of compound and de-compound epithets. I will not, indeed, aver, but that one with Shakespeare's exquifite genius and obfervation might have traced these glaring characteristics of antiquity by reading Homer in Chapman's verfion.

An additional word or two naturally falls in here upon the genius of our author, as compared with that of Johnfon his contemporary. They are confeffedly the greatest writers our nation could ever boaft of in the Drama. The firft, we fay, owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and the other a great deal to his art and learning. This, if attended to, will explain a very remarkable appearance in their writings. Befides thofe wonderful masterpieces of art and genius, which each has given us; they are the authors of other works very unworthy of them: But with this difference; that in Johnfon's bad pieces, we don't difcover one fingle trace of the author of the Fox and Alchemist: but in the wild extravagant notes of Shakespeare, you every now and then encounter ftrains that recognize the divine composer, This difference may be thus accounted for. Johnfon, as we faid before, owing all his excellence to his art, by which he fometimes ftrained himself to an uncommon pitch, when at other times he unbent and played with his fubject, having

nothing