into the dialogue of The Taming of the Shrew, that I think it puts the question of Shakspeare's having read the Roman comick poets in the original language out of all doubt, 'Redime te captum, quam queas minimo." 6 With respect to resemblances, I shall not trouble you any further.-That the Comedy of Errors is founded on the Menæchmi, it is notorious: nor is it less so, that a translation of it by W. W. perhaps William Warner, the author of Albion's England, was extant in the time of Shakspeare; though Mr. Upton, and some other advocates for his learning, have cautiously dropt the mention of it. Besides this, (if indeed it were different) in the Gesta Grayorum, the Christmas Revels of the GraysInn Gentlemen, 1594, " a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus was played by the PlayAnd the same hath been suspected to be the subject of the goodlie Comedie of Plautus, acted at 'ers." ،، Pace non trovo, & non ho da far guerra, Sir Thomas Wyat gives a translation of this Sonnet, without any notice of the original, under the title of "Description of the contrarious passions in a Louer," amongst the Songes and Sonettes, by the Earle of Surrey and Others, 1574. 6 It was published in 4to. 1595. The printer of Langbaine, p. 524, hath accidentally given the date, 1515, which hath been copied implicitly by Gildon, Theobald, Cooke, and several others. Warner is now almost forgotten, yet the old criticks esteemed him one of " our chiefe heroical makers."-Meres informs us, that he had "heard him termed of the best wits of both our Universities, our English Homer.” Greenwich before the King and Queen in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holinshed :-Riccoboni highly compliments the English on opening their stage so well; but unfortunately, Cavendish in his Life of Wolsey, calls it, an excellent Interlude in Latine. About the same time it was exhibited in German at Nurembugrh, by the celebrated Hanssach, the shoemaker. "But a character in The Taming of the Shrew is borrowed from the Trinummus, and no translation of that was extant.' Mr. Colman indeed hath been better employed: but if he had met with an old comedy, called Supposes, translated from Ariosto by George Gascoigne; he certainly would not have appealed to Plautus. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, (as well as some of the phraseology,) though Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young master and his man exchange habits and characters, and persuade a Scenæse, as he is called, to personate the father, exactly as in the Taming of the Shrew, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the government. Still, Shakspeare quotes a line from the Eunuch of Terence: by memory too, and what is more, "purposely alters it, in order to bring the sense ▾ His works were first collected under the singular title of "A hundredth sundrie Flowres bound up in one small Poesie. Gathered partly (by translation) in the fyne outlandish gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others: and partly by inuention, out of our own fruitefull orchardes in Englande: yelding sundrie sweet sauors of tragical, comical, and morall discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned readers." Black letter, 4to. no date. This remark indisputably it "Our author within the compass of one line.". was previous to Mr. Johnson's; or would not have been made at all.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 say, that he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence?" 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 likewise in his Floures for Latin speaking, gathered out of Terence, 1560, reduces the passage to a single line, and subjoins a translation. 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 occasional improvements; especially 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, supposing 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 Metamorphosis 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 so: Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse, contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such 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 seen "a MS. in the nature of a play or interlude,intitled, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore." 66 ⚫ 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 persuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought either. At the end of the sixth 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 bycheson cum forth geminantes," Eo our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: "Bycheson, id est, son of a byche, ut è codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. nempe modo quo et olim whorson dixerunt pro son of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui inscribitur : The wife lapped in Morel's Skyn: or the Taming of a Shrew Ubi pag. 36, sic legimus: And in fact, there is such an old anonymous play in Mr. Pope's list. "A pleasant conceited History, called, The Taming of a Shrew-sundry 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 assures us, that this was really the case 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 : Et "They wrestled togyther thus they two "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, Horeson, alas, alas." pag. 42: "Come downe now in this seller so deepe, “And ran out of the seller as she had been wood. |