This may be fufficient to fhew how, in a modern Book, the fcholiaft has routed the author of his ancient poffeffion. These errors are of the worst kind; they have a refemblance of truth without being the thing itself, and muft neceffarily impose on all, but the true critic, who will be at the trouble of going to the first exemplars. B SECT. XVI. UT there are greater alterations, than any yet mention'd, ftill to be made. For the whole play intitled Titus Andronicus fhould be flung out the lift of Shakespeare's works. What tho' a purple patch might here and there appear, is that fufficient reason to make our poet's name father this, or other anonymous productions of the stage? But Mr. Theobald has put the matter out of all queftion; for he informs us, "that Ben Johnson in the induction to his "Bartlemew-Fair (which made its first appear"ance in the year 1614) couples' Ieronimo and "Andronicus 1 Hieronymo, or the Spanish Tragedy. This play was the conftant object of ridicule in Shakespeare's time. See Mr. Theobald's note, vol. 2. p. 271, 272. B. Jonf. Every Man in his Humour, A& I. fc. 5. What new book ba' you there? What! Go by Hieronymo! Cynthia's Revels, "Andronicus together in reputation, and speaks "of them as plays then of 25 or 30 years stand 86 ing. Confequently Andronicus must have "been on the ftage, before Shakespeare left "Warwickshire to come and refide in London." So that we have all the evidence, both internal and external, to vindicate our poet from this bastard iffue; nor fhould his editors have printed it among his genuine works. There are not fuch strong external reafons for rejecting two other plays, called Love's Labour's loft, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona: but if any proof can be formed from manner and style, then should these be sent packing, and seek for their parent elsewhere. How otherwise does the painter diftinguish copies from originals? And have not authors their peculiar ftyle and manner, from which a true critic can form as unerring a judgment as a painter? External proofs leave no room for doubt. I dare fay there is not any one scholar, that now believes Phalaris' epiftles to be genuine. But what if there had been no external proofs, if the sophist had been a more in the induction. Another prunes his mustaccio, lifps and fwears-That the old Hieronimo (as it was first acted) was the only beft and judiciously pen'd play of Europe. Alchymift, A&t V. Subt. Here's your Hieronymo's cloake and hat. U able 1 Book II. able chronologer, would the work have been more genuine? Hardly, I believe; tho' the scholar of taft had been equally satisfied. The best of critics might be impofed on as to half a dozen verses, or fó, as Scaliger himself was, 2 2 Scaliger's cafe was this; Muretus, having tranflated fome verfes from Philemon, fent them in a jocular vein to Scaliger, telling him at the fame time they were a choice fragment of Trabeas, an acient comic poet and Scaliger in his commentary on Varro (p. 212.) cites them as Trabeas' own, and as found in fome old manufcript. The verfes are ingenious and worth mentioning, Here, fi querelis, ėjulatu, fletibus, : Nunc haec ad minuenda mala non magis valent, Res turbidae confilium, non fletum expetunt. Philemon's verses want fome little correction, and thus, as Εἰ τὰ δάκρυ ̓ ἡμῖν τῶν κακῶν ἦν φάρμακον, but but never as to a whole piece: in this respect the critic and the connoiffeur are upon a level. That Anacreon was deftroyed by the Greek priests we have the teftimony of a learned Grecian, and this poet is mention'd as a loft author by 3 Petrus Alcyonius: fo that we have nothing now remaining of Anacreon's, but fome fragments, quite of a different caft and manner from those modern compofitions, fo much admired by minute scholars. 3 See what is cited from him above, p. 19, n. Several other proofs may be added; as Od. XXXI. Εμαίνει Αλκμαίων τε Χ ̓ ὁ λευκόπες Ορέσης. * Revxómes Ogésns, the white-footed Oreftes: i. e. treading the ftage in white bufkins. The mentioning the name of Oreftes puts the poets in mind of the ftage; fo Virgil, Scenis agitatus Oreftes. If Virgil did not rather write furiis. But it happens very unluckily, that Sophocles had no play acted fo early as Anacreon's writing his odes, and Sophocles was the inventer of the white fhoe; as the compiler of his life informs us. So that here is an additional proof of this ode's not being genuine. I fuppofe Sophocles' white fhoe was what Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act III. calls rayed fhoes: i. e. with rays of fylver, or tinfel. Homer's epithet of Thetis is aglugómica, which Milton hints at in his Mask, By Thetis tinfel-flipper'd feet. Θέλω Imitated, much for the worfe, from the Κηριοκλέπτης of Theocritus. Εἰς ἐρωμένην. Εδωκα τῇ ἐταίρᾳ Λέγων, Φίλαμα τοτο Φιλίας τε καὶ ἔρωίος Δὸς ἄλλο, μὴ λάθωμαι. « A man may rime you fo (as the clown fays "in Shakespeare) eight years together, dinners "and fuppers and fleeping hours excepted: 'tis "the right butterwomen's rank to market." Tho' a few lines may pass often unsuspected, as thofe of Muretus's did with Scaliger; yet when they happen to be inferted into the body of |