Profpero, in the Tempest, begins the addrefs to his attendant fpirits, Ye elves of hills, of standing lakes, and groves. This fpeech, Dr. Warburton rightly obferves to be borrowed from Medea in Ovid: and "it proves," fays Mr. Holt, " beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are thefe : Auræque, & venti, montefque, amnefque, lacufque, It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur Golding is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath closely followed it: Ye ayres and winds; ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woods alone, Of ftanding lakes, and of the night approche ye everych one. I think it is unneceffary to pursue this any further; especially as more powerful arguments await us. In The Merchant of Venice, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to Antonio, rehearses many sympathies and antipathies for which no reason can be rendered: Some love not a gaping pig And others when the bagpipe fings i' th' nofe, This incident Dr. Warburton fuppofes to be taken from a paffage in Scaliger's Exercitations against Cardan: "Narrabo tibi jocofam fympathiam Reguli Vafconis equitis: is dum viveret audito phormingis fono, urinam illico facere cogebatur." -" And," proceeds the Doctor, "to make this jocular story ftill more ridiculous, Shakspeare, I fuppofe, tranflated phorminx by bagpipes." Here we seem fairly caught;-for Scaliger's work was never, as the term goes, done into English. But luckily, in an old translation from the French of Peter le Loier, entitled, A Treatife of Specters, or ftraunge Sights, Vifions, and Apparitions appearing fenfibly unto Men, we have this identical story from Scaliger: and what is ftill more, a marginal note gives us in all probability the very fact alluded to, as well as the word of Shakspeare: "Another gentleman of this quality liued of late in Deuon neere Excefter, who could not endure the playing on a bagpipe." We may just add, as fome obfervation hath been made upon it, that affection in the sense of sympathy was formerly technical; and fo used by Lord Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and many other writers. A fingle word in Queen Catherine's character of Wolfey, in Henry VIII. is brought by the Doctor as another argument for the learning of Shakspeare: He was a man Of an unbounded ftomach, ever ranking His promises were, as he then was, mighty; The clergy ill example. "The word fuggeftion," fays the critick, "is here used with great propriety, and feeming knowledge of the Latin tongue" and he proceeds to fettle the sense of it from the late Roman writers and their gloffers. But Shakspeare's knowledge was from Holinfhed, whom he follows verbatim: "This cardinal was of a great stomach, for he compted himself equal with princes, and by craftie fuggeftion got into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little on fimonie, and was not pitifull, and stood affectionate in his own opinion: in open prefence he would lie and feie untruth, and was double both in fpeech and meaning: he would promise much and performe little: he was vicious of his bodie, and gaue the clergie euil example.” Edit. 1587, p. 922. Perhaps, after this quotation, you may not think that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads Tyth`d-instead of—Ty'd all the kingdom, deserves quite so much of Dr. Warburton's feverity.--Indisputably the paffage, like every other in the speech, is intended to exprefs the meaning of the parallel one in the chronicle: it cannot therefore be credited, that any man, when the original was produced, should ftill choose to defend a cant acceptation; and inform us, perhaps, feriously, that in gaming language, from I know not what practice, to tye is to equal! A fenfe of the word, as far as I have yet found, unknown to our old writers; and, if known, would not furely have been used in this place by our author. But let us turn from conjecture to Shakspeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above defcription is copied by Holinshed, is very explicit in the demands of the Cardinal who having infolently told the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, "For fothe I thinke, that halfe your fubftaunce were to litle," affures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that upon an average the tythe fhould be fufficient ; "Sers, fpeake not to breake that 7 thyng thyng that is concluded, for fome fhal not paie the tenth "Thei faied, the parte, and some more."-And again; Cardinall by visitacions, makyng of abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his courtes legantines, had made his threafore egall with the kinges.” Edit. 1548, p. 138, and 143. Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, gives us, after his rambling manner, a curious character of Wolfey: By and by He will drynke us fo dry That men shall scantly Haue penny or halpennye With the deuill of hel For and he were there We nead neuer fearc Of the feendes blacke He wold fo brag and crake The deuils to quake To fhudder and to fhake Lyke a fier drake And with a cole rake Brufe them on a brake And binde them to a stake And fet hel on fyre At his owne defire He is fuch a grym syre! Edit. 1568. Mr. Upton and some other criticks have thought it very Scholar-like in Hamlet to fwear the Centinels on a f-word: I 2 but but this is for ever met with. For instance, in the Passus Primus of Pierce Plowman: Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes, And did hem fwere on her fword to ferue truth euer. And in Hieronymo, the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, fays Lorenzo to Pedringano, Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true- This very fword, whereon thou took'st thine oath, We have therefore no occafion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantôme to illuftrate this ceremony: a gentleman, who will be always allowed the first commentator on Shakspeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself. Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a paffage from Henry VI. whence he argues it to be very plain, that our author had not only read Cicero's Offices, but even more critically than many of the editors: This villain here, Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more So the wight, he observes with great exultation, is named by Cicero in the editions of Shakspeare's time, "Bargulus Illyrius latro;" though the modern editors have chofen to call him Bardylis :-" and thus I found it in two MSS.". And thus he might have found it in two translations, before Shakspeare was born. Robert Whytinton, 1533, calls him, "Bargulus a pirate upon the see of Illiry;" and Nicholas Grimald, about twenty years afterward, “Bargulus the Illyrian robber." But |