within the compass of one line." This remark was previous to Mr. Johnson's; or indisputably it 'would not have been made at all. "Our author had this line from Lilly; which I mention that it may not be brought as an argument of his learning."

"But how," cries an unprovoked antagonist, " can you take upon you to fay, that he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence ?"8 I will answer for Mr. Johnson, who is above answering for himself. -Because it is quoted as it appears in the grammarian, and not as it appears in the poet.-And thus we have done with the purposed alteration. Udall likewife in his Floures for Latin Speaking, gathered out of Terence, 1560, reduces the passage to a fingle line, and subjoins a tranflation.

We have hitherto supposed Shakspeare the author of the Taming of a Shrew, but his property in it is extremely disputable. I will give you my opinion, and the reasons on which it is founded. I suppose then the present play not originally the work of Shakspeare, but restored by him to the stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and some other occafional improvements; efpecially in the character of Petruchio. It is very obvious, that the induction and the play were either the works of different hands, or written at a great interval of time: the former is in our author's best manner, and the greater part of the latter in his worst, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be certainly spurious: and without doubt, fuppofing it to have been written by Shakspeare, it must have been one of his earliest productions; yet it is not

* W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnson's edit. of Shakspeare, 1765, 8vo. p. 105.

mentioned in the list of his works by Meres in 1598.

I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596, (and possibly there may be an earlier edition,) called, The Metamorphops of Ajax, where I suspect an allusion to the old play : "Reade the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that now every one can rule a shrew in our countrey, save he that hath hir."-I am aware, a modern linguist may object, that the word book does not at present seem dramatick, but it was once almost technically fo: Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse,

contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and fuch like Caterpillars of a common-wealth," 1579, mentions "twoo prose bookes plaied at the Belsauage;" and Hearne tells us in a note at the end of William of Worcester, that he had feen " a MS. in the nature of a play or interlude, intitled, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore."

9 I know indeed, there is extant a very old poem, in black letter, to which it might have been supposed Sir John Harrington alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a new one, and recommended it as worthy the notice of his countrymen: I am perfuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought either. At the end of the fixth volume of Leland's Itinerary, we are favoured by Mr. Hearne with a Macaronick poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the townsmen: on a line of which,

" Invadunt aulas bychefon cum forth geminantes," our commentator very wifely and gravely remarks : Bychefon, id est, son of a byche, ut è codice Rawlinfoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo et olim whorson dixerunt pro fon of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui infcribitur: The wife lapped in Morel's Skin: or the Taming of a Shrew. Ubi pag. 36, fic legimus:

And in fact, there is such an old anonymous play in Mr. Pope's lift. "A pleasant conceited History, called, The Taming of a Shrew-fundry times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his Servants." Which seems to have been republished by the remains of that company in 1607, when Shakspeare's copy appeared at the Black-Friars or the Globe. -Nor let this seem derogatory from the character of our poet. There is no reason to believe, that he wanted to claim the play as his own; it was not even printed till some years after his death: but he merely revived it on his stage as a manager.-Ravenscroft affures us, that this was really the cafe with Titus Andronicus; which, it may be observed, hath not Shakspeare's name on the title-page of the only edition published in his life-time. Indeed, from every internal mark, I have not the least doubt but this horrible piece was originally written by the author of the lines thrown into the mouth of the player in Hamlet, and of the tragedy of Locrine :

"They wrestled togyther thus they two
"So long that the clothes asunder went.
"And to the ground he threwe her tho,
"That cleane from the backe her smock he rent.

" In every hand a rod he gate,

"And layd upon her a right good pace : " Asking of her what game was that,

"And she cried out, Horefon, alas, alas."

Et pag. 42:

"Come downe now in this feller so deepe,
" And morels skin there shall you fee:
"With many a rod that hath made me to weepe,
"When the blood ranne downe fast by my knee.
"The mother this beheld, and cryed out, álas:
"And ran out of the feller as she had been wood.

"She came to the table where the company was,
" And say'd out, horeson, I will fee thy harte blood."

which likewise from some assistance perhaps given to his friend, hath been unjustly and ignorantly charged upon Shakfpeare.

"The

But the sheet-anchor holds fast: Shakspeare himself hath left some translations from Ovid. Epistles," says one, " of Paris and Helen, give a fufficient proof of his acquaintance with that poet:" " And it may be concluded," says another, "that he was a competent judge of other authors, who wrote in the fame language."

This hath been the universal cry, from Mr. Pope himself to the criticks of yesterday. Possibly, however, the gentlemen will hefitate a moment, if we tell them, that Shakspeare was not the author of these tranflations. Let them turn to a forgotten book, by Thromas Heywood, called, Britaines Troy, printed by W. Jaggard in 1609, fol. and they will find these identical Epistles, " which being so pertinent to our historie," says Heywood, " I thought necessarie to tranflate." - How then came they afcribed to Shakspeare? We will tell them that likewise. The same voluminous writer published an Apology for Actors, 4to. 1612, and in an Appendix directed to his new printer, Nic. Okes, he accuses his old one, Jaggard, of " taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a less volume, and under the name of another: _but he was much offended with Master Jaggard, that altogether unknowne to him, he had prefumed to make fo bold with his name.""

It may seem little matter of wonder, that the name of Shakspeare should be borrowed for the benefit of the bookseller; and by the way, as probably for a play as a poem: but modern criticks may be surprised perhaps at the complaint of John Hall, that " certayne chapters of the Proverbes, translated by him into VOL. II.

F

In the same work of Heywood are all the other translations, which have been printed in the modern editions of the poems of Shakspeare.

You now hope for land: We have seen through little matters, but what must be done with a whole book?-In 1751, was reprinted, "A compendious or briefe Examination of certayne ordinary Complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in these our Days: which although they are in some Parte unjust and friuolous, yet are they all by way of Dialogue, throughly debated and discussed by William Shakspeare, Gentleman." 8vo.

This extraordinary piece was originally published in 4to. 1581, and dedicated by the author, "To the most vertuous and learned lady, his most deare and foveraigne princesse, Elizabeth; being inforced by her Majesties late and fingular clemency in pardoning certayne his unduetifull mifdemeanour." And by the modern editors, to the late King; as a treatise composed by the most extensive and fertile genius, that ever any age or nation produced."

66

Here we join issue with the writers of that excellent though very unequal work, the Biographia Britannica: "If," say they, " this piece could be

English metre, 1550, had before been untruely entituled to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold.

2 I must, however, correct a remark in the Life of Spenser, which is impotently levelled at the first criticks of the age. It is observed from the correspondence of Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, that the plan of The Fairy Queen, was laid, and part of it executed in 1580, three years before the Gierufalemme Liberata was printed: "hence appears the impertinence of all the apologies for his choice of Ariosto's manner in preference of Taffo's!"

But the fact is not true with respect to Tasso. Manso and Niceron inform us, that his poem was published, though imperfectly in 1574; and I myself can affure the biographer, that I

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