APPENDIX TO THE SECOND EDITION OF. THE TRANSLATION OF THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. THE reverend and ingenious Mr. Farmer, in his curious and entertaining Efay on the Learning of Shakespeare, having done me the honour to animadvert on fome paffages in the preface to this tranflation, I cannot difmifs this edition without declaring how far I coincide with that gentleman; although what I then threw out carelessly on the subject of his pamphlet was merely incidental, nor did I mean to enter the lifts as a champion to defend either fide of the question. It is most true, as Mr. Farmer takes for granted, that I had never met with the old comedy called The Suppofes, nor has it even yet fallen into my hands; hands; yet I am willing to grant, on Mr. Farmer's authority, that Shakespeare borrowed part of the plot of The Taming of the Shrew, from that old tranflation of Ariofto's play, by George Gascoign, and had no obligations to Plautus. I will accede alfo to the truth of Dr. Johnfon's and Mr. Farmer's obfervation, that the line from Terence, exactly as it ftands in Shakespeare, is extant in Lilly and Udall's Floures for Latin Speaking. Still, however, Shakespeare's total ignorance of the learned languages remains to be proved; for it must be granted, that fuch books are put into the hands of those who are learning those languages, in which clafs we must neceffarily rank Shakefpeare, or he could not even have quoted Terence from Udall or Lilly; nor is it likely, that fo rapid a genius fhould not have made fome further progrefs. "Our author (fays Dr. Johnson, as quoted by "Mr. Farmer) had this line from Lilly; which I "mention, that it may not be brought as an argu"ment of his learning." It is, however, an argument that he read Lilly; and a few pages further it feems pretty certain, that the author of The Taming of the Shrew, had at leaft read Ovid; from whofe epiftles we find thefe lines: Hac Hac ibat Simois; hic eft Sigeia tellus; And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occafion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer fay on this occafion? Nothing. In Love's Labour's Loft, which, bad as it is, is afcribed by Dr. Johnfon himself to Shakespeare, there occurs the word thrafonical; another argument which feems to fhew that he was not unacquainted with the comedies of Terence; not to mention, that the character of the Schoolmafter in the fame play could not poffibly be written by a man who had travelled no further in Latin than hic, hæc, hoc. In Henry the Sixth we meet with a quotation from Virgil, Tantane animis cæleftibus ira? But this, it seems, proves nothing, any more than the lines from Terence and Ovid, in the Taming of the Shrew; for Mr. Farmer looks on Shakefpeare's property in the comedy to be extremely dif putable; and he has no doubt but Henry the Sixth had the fame author with Edward the Third, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's Prolufions. VOL. II. N If If any play in the collection bears internal evidence of Shakespeare's hand, we may fairly give him Timon of Athens. In this play we have a familiar quotation from Horace, Ira furor brevis eft. I will not maintain but this hemiftich may be found in Lilly or Udall; or that it is not in the Palace of Pleafure, or the English Plutarch; or that it was not originally foifted in by the players: It ftands, however, in the play of Timon of Athens. The world in general, and those who purpose to comment on Shakespeare in particular, will. owe much to Mr. Farmer, whofe refearches into our old authors throw a luftre on many passages, the obfcurity of which muft else have been impenetrable. No future Upton or Gildon will go further than North's tranflation for Shakespeare's acquaintance with Plutarch, or balance between Dares Phrygius, and the Troye booke of Lydgate. The Hyftorie of Hamblet, in black letter, will for ever fuperfede Saxo Grammaticus; tranflated novels and ballads will, perhaps, be allowed the fources of Romeo, Lear, and the Merchant of Venice; and Shakespeare himself, however unlike Bayes in other particulars, will ftand tand convicted of having tranfverfed the profe of Holingfhead; and at the fame time, to prove " that "his ftudies lay in his own language," the tranflations of Ovid are determined to be the production of Heywood. "That his studies were most demonstratively con"fined to nature, and his own language," I readily allow but does it hence follow that he was fo deplorably ignorant of every other tongue, living or dead, that he only "remembered, perhaps, enough "of his schoolboy learning to put the hig, hag, hog, ❝into the mouth of Sir H. Evans; and might pick 66 up in the writers of the time, or the course of "his converfation, a familiar phrafe or two of "French or Italian ?" In Shakespeare's plays both thefe laft languages are plentifully fcattered: but then, we are told, they might be impertinent additions of the players. Undoubtedly they might: but there they are, and, perhaps, few of the players had much more learning than Shakespeare. Mr. Farmer himfelf will allow that Shakespeare began to learn Latin: I will allow that his ftudies lay in English: but why infift that he neither made any progress at school; nor improved his acquifitions there? The general encomiums of Suckling, Denham, N 2 |