AN ESSAY ON THE LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE. BY RICHARD FARMER, D. D. Master of EMMANUEL College, CAMBRIDGE, and Principal Librarian of that University. Though our commentaries on the following Plays have been enriched by numerous extracts from this celebrated Essay, the whole of it is here reprinted. I shall hazard no contradiction relative to the value of its contents, when I add -profunt fingula, juncta juvant. STEEVENS. T 1767. HE author of the following Essay was folicitous only for the honour of Shakspeare: he hath however, in his own capacity, little reason to complain of occafional criticks, or criticks by profeffion. The very Few, who have been pleased to controvert any part of his doctrine, have favoured him with better manners, than arguments; and claim his thanks for a further opportunity of demonftrating the futility of theoretick reasoning against matter of fact. It is indeed strange, that any real friends of our immortal POET should be still willing to force him into a situation, which is not tenable: treat him as a learned man, and what shall excuse the most gross violations of hiftory, chronology, and geography? Οὐ πείσεις, ἐδ ̓ ἦν πείσης is the motto of every polemick: like his brethren at the amphitheatre, he holds it a merit to die hard; and will not fay, enough, though the battle be decided. "Were it shewn, (fays fome one) that the old bard borrowed all his allusions from English books then published, our Effayift might have possibly established his system.”— In good time! This had fcarcely been attempted by Peter Burman himself, with the library of ShakSpeare before him." Truly, (as Mr. Dogberry says,) for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all on this subject:" but where should I meet with a reader?--When the main pillars are taken away, the whole building falls in course: Nothing hath been, or can be, pointed out, which is not eafily removed; or rather which was not virtually removed before: a very little analogy will do the business. I shall therefore have no occasion to trouble myself any further; and may venture to call my pamphlet, in the words of a pleasant declaimer against fermons on the thirtieth of January, "an answer to every thing that shall hereafter be written on the subject." " this method of reasoning will prove any one ignorant of the languages, who hath written when tranflations were extant." Shade of Burgerfdicius!-does it follow, because Shakspeare's early life was incompatible with a course of education-whose contemporaries, friends and foes, nay, and himself likewife, agree in his want of what is usually called literature-whose mistakes from equivocal translations, and even typographical errors, cannot poffibly be accounted for otherwise, -that Locke, to whom not one of these circumstances is applicable, understood no Greek?-I suspect, Rollin's opinion of our philosopher was not founded on this argument. But Shakfpeare wanted not the stilts of languages to raife him above all other men. The quotation from Lilly in the Taming of the Shrew, if indeed it be his, strongly proves the extent of his reading: had he known Terence, he would not have quoted erroneoufly from his Grammar. Every one hath met with men in common life, who, according to the language of the Water-poet, "got only from poffum to poffet," and yet will throw out a line occafionally from their Accidence or their Cato de Moribus with tolerable propriety. If, however, the old editions be trufted in this passage, our author's memory fomewhat failed him in point of concord. The rage of parallelisms is almost over, and in truth nothing can be more abfurd. "THIS was stolen from one classick,-THAT from another;"and had I not stept in to his rescue, poor Shakspeare had been stript as naked of ornament, as when he first held horses at the door of the playhouse. The late ingenious and modeft Mr. Dodsley declared himself "Untutor'd in the lore of Greece or Rome :" yet let us take a passage at a venture from any of his performances, and a thousand to one, it is stolen. Suppose it be his celebrated compliment to the ladies, in one of his earliest pieces, The Toy-shop: "A good wife makes the cares of the world fit easy, and adds a sweetness to its pleasures; she is a man's best companion in profperity, and his only friend in adversity; the carefullest preferver of his health, and the kindest attendant in his fickness; a faithful adviser in distress, a comforter in affliction, and a prudent manager in all his domeftick affairs." Plainly, from a fragment of Euripides preferved by " Ψυχὴν μεθισᾶσ!" - Par. 4to. 1623. Malvolio in the Twelfth Night of Shakspeare hath fome expressions very fimilar to Ainafchar tin he |