in Marston. Take a quotation from his comedy of What you will, 1607: "Musicke, tobacco, sacke, and sleepe, "Rivo, drink deep, give care the mate." In Love's Labour's Lost, Boyet calls Don Armado, 66 A Spaniard that keeps here in court, "A phantasme, a monarcho.— Here too Sir Thomas is willing to palm Italian upon us. We should read, it seems, mammuccio, a mammet, or puppet: Ital. Mammuccia. But the allusion is to a fantastical character of the time."Popular applause," says Meres, "dooth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praise and glorie,-as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and MONARCHO that liued about the court." P. 178. I fancy, you will be satisfied with one more in stance. "Baccare, You are marvellous forward," quoth Gremio to Petruchio in the Taming of a Shrew. "But not so forward," says Mr. Theobald, “as our editors are indolent. This is a stupid corruption of the press, that none of them have dived into.. We must read Baccalare, as Mr. Warburton acutely observed to me, by which the Italians mean, Thou ignorant, presumptuous man."-" Properly, indeed," adds Mr. Heath, " a graduated scholar, but ironically and sarcastically, a pretender to scholarship.' This is admitted by the editors and criticks of every denomination. Yet the word is neither wrong, nor Italian: it was an old proverbial one, used fre quently by John Heywood; who hath made, what he pleases to call, epigrams upon it. Take two of them, such as they are: "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow: "Went that sow backe at that biddyng trowe you?" "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow: se Howel takes this from Heywood in his Old Sawes and Adages: and Philpot introduces it into the Proverbs collected by Camden. We have but few observations concerning Shakspeare's knowledge of the Spanish tongue. Dr. Grey indeed is willing to suppose, that the plot of Romeo and Juliet may be borrowed from a COMEDY of Lopes de Vega. But the Spaniard, who was certainly acquainted with Bandello, hath not only changed the catastrophe, but the names of the characters. Neither Romeo nor Juliet; neither Montague nor Capulet, appears in this performance: and how came they to the knowledge of Shakspeare?-Nothing is more certain, than that he chiefly followed the translation by Painter, from the French of Boisteau, and hence arise the deviations from Bandello's original Italian.' It seems, It is remarked, that "Paris, though in one place called earl, is most commonly styled the countie in this play. Shakspeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian conte to our count:-perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot."-He certainly did so: Paris is there first styled a young earle, and afterward, counte, countee, and countie; according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers; particularly in Fairfax: however, from a passage in Ames's Typographical Antiquities, that Painter was not the only translator of this popular story: and it is possible therefore, that Shakspeare might have other assistance. In the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and consequently the author himself was acquainted with it. "Paucas pallabris, let the world slide, sessa." But this is a burlesque on Hieronymo; the piece of bombast, that I have mentioned to you before: "What new device hath they devised, trow? Mr. Whalley tells us, the author of this piece hath the happiness to be at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with himself: Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take this opportunity of informing him, that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he will accept the authority of his contemporary, Heywood. More hath been said concerning Shakspeare's "As when a captaine doth besiege some hold, "And trieth waies and wiles a thousand fold, Godfrey of Bulloigne, Book VII. st. 90. "Fairfax," says Mr. Hume, "hath translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which for that age are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation." The former part of this character is extremely true; but the latter not quite $0. In the book above quoted Tasso and Fairfax do not even agree in the number of stanzas, acquaintance with the French language. In the play of Henry V. we have a whole scene in it, and in other places it occurs familiarly in the dialogue. We may observe in general, that the early editions have not half the quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the author; and it is 2 2 Every writer on Shakspeare hath expressed his astonishment, that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his works to the Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print, when it was copied by the ear, "for a double sale would bring on a suspicion of honestie." Shakspeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of the author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the first folio; and call the previous publications "stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors." But this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, through convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to. 1599, where he assures us, that in a play of his, called The Isle of Dogs, "foure acts, without his consent, or the leaste guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players." This, however, was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some "vaine glorious tragedians," and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular; which will serve for an answer to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: "It was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce ever blotted a line:-I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise by some."-But hear Nash, who was far from praising: "I leaue all these to the mercy of their mother extremely probable, that the French ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly were after he had left the stage. Indeed, every friend to his memory will. not easily believe, that he was acquainted with the scene between Catharine and the old gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense. Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson's edition, hath an ingenious observation to prove, that Shakspeare, supposing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the language. "Est-il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher.-That could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede, yet English Seneca read by candle-light yeelds many good sentences-hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches."I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done: and it may be observed, that the oldest copy now extant is said to be "enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592, Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene: in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel, Nash replied, in Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse. And Nash again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Haltermaker, 1596. Dr. Lodge calls Nash our true English Aretine: and John Taylor in his Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang, even makes an oath "by sweet satyricke Nashe his urne."-He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy, called The Return from Parnassus. |