But whence have we the plot of Timon, except from the Greek of Lucian? - The editors and criticks have been never at a greater lofs than in their enquiries of this fort; and the fource of a tale hath been often in vain fought abroad, which might easily have been found at home: my good friend, the very ingenious editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, hath shewn our author to have been sometimes contented with a legendary ballad.

The story of the misanthrope is told in almost every collection of the time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakspeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch. Indeed from a passage in an old play, called Jack Drum's Entertainment, I conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the stage.

Were this a proper place for fuch a disquisition, I could give you many cafes of this kind. We are fent for instance to Cinthio for the plot of Measure for Meafure, and Shakspeare's judgement hath been attacked for some deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew of the matter was from madam Isabella in the Heptameron of Whetstone. Ariosto is continually quoted for the fable of Much ado about nothing; but I fufpect our poet to have been fatisfied with the Geneura of Turberville. As you like it was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the

Coke's Tale of Gamelyn; which by the way was not printed till a century afterward: when in truth the old bard, who was no hunter of MSS. contented himself folely with Lodge's Rosalynd, or Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been fometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon. Mr. Langbaine could not conceive, whence the story of Pericles could be taken, "not meeting in hiftory with any fuch Prince of Tyre;" yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appolynus."

Pericles is one of the plays omitted in the latter editions, as well as the early folios, and not improperly; though it was published many years before the death of Shakspeare, with his name in the title-page. Aulus Gellius informs us, that fome plays are afcribed absolutely to Plautus, which he

6 See Meres's Wits Treasury, 1598, p. 282.

7 Our ancient poets are under greater obligations to Boccace, than is generally imagined. Who would fufpect, that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the Miller of Trumpington?

Mr. Dryden observes on the epick performance, Palamon and Avcite, a poem little inferior in his opinion to the Iliad or the Eneid, that the name of its author is wholly loft, and Chaucer is now become the original. But he is mistaken: this too was the work of Boccace, and printed at Ferrara in folio, con il commento di Andrea Baffi, 1475. I have seen a copy of it, and a tranflation into modern Greek, in the noble library of the very learned and communicative Dr. Afkew.

It is likewife to be met with in old French, under the title of La Thefeide de Jean Boccace, contenant les belles & chastes amours de deux jeunes Chevaliers Thebains Arcite & Palemon.

• In the first Vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, 4to. 1566.

Confeffio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, fol. 1532, p. 175, &c. only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubtedly the cafe with our author likewife. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonfon calls ftale and mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the drama. I know, that another of these discarded pieces, The Yorkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called fo; but most certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no fooner than 1604: much too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare.

2

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falfhood, which Mr. Theobald was defirous of palming upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakspeare: and I fee it is classed as fuch in the last edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written since the middle of the last century:

This late example

"Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
"From each good aspett takes away my truft."

And in another place,

"You have an aspect, fir, of wondrous wisdom."

The word afpect, you perceive, is here accented on the first fyllable, which, I am confident, in any sense of it, was never the cafe in the time of Shakspeare; though it may sometimes appear to be so, when we do not observe a preceding elifion.

Some of the professed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutiæ: I could point out to you several performances in the respective styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not pofsibly have either read or conftrued.

This very accent hath troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be " a tone different from the present use." Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatise of Harmony and Numbers, very folemnly informs us, that "this verse is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III. v. 266:

• His words here ended, but his meek afpéct
• Silent yet spake.-'

Here (says he) a syllable is acuted and long, whereas it should be short and graved!”

And a still more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new version of the Paradise Lost, into BLANK verse, " by which that amazing work is brought fomewhat nearer the

▲ Thus a line in Hamlet's description of the Player, should be printed as in the old folios:

"Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspéct." agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places.

summit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, v. 540:

The fetting fun

"Slowly defcended, and with right affect

" Levell'd his evening rays. "

Not So in the new version :

" Meanwhile the setting fun defcending flow-
" Level'd with aspett right his ev'ning rays."

Enough of fuch commentators.
The celebrated
Dr. Dee had a Spirit, who would fometimes con-
defcend to correct him, when peccant in quantity:
and it had been kind of him to have a little assisted
the wights abovementioned. --Milton affected the
antique; but it may seem more extraordinary, that
the old accent should be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, The Double Falfhood is fuperior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written:

Strike up, my masters; "But touch the strings with a religious foftness: "Teach found to languish through the night's dull ear, "Till melancholy start from her lazy couch, "And carelessness grow convert to attention."

These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not refift the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance.

To whom then shall we afcribe it? Somebody hath told us, who should feem to be a nostrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and confequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the