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Thus much for metaphor; it is contrary to the ftatute to fly out fo early: but who can tell, whether it may not be demonftrated by fome critick or other, that a deviation from rule is peculiarly happy in an Effay on Shakspeare!

You have long known my opinion concerning the literary acquifitions of our immortal dramatist; and remember how I congratulated myself on my coincidence with the laft and beft of his editors. I told you, however, that his fmall Latin and less Greek would ftill be litigated, and you see very affuredly that I was not miftaken. The trumpet hath been founded against "the darling project of representing Shakspeare as one of the illiterate vulgar;" and indeed to fo good purpose, that I would by all means recommend the performer to the army of the braying faction, recorded by Cervantes. The teftimony of his contemporaries is again difputed; conftant tradition is opposed by flimfy arguments; and nothing is heard, but confufion and nonsense. One could fcarcely imagine this a topick very likely to inflame the paffions: it is afferted by Dryden, that " those who accufe him to have wanted learning, give him the greatest commendation;" yet an attack upon an article of faith hath been usually received with more temper and complacence, than the unfortunate opinion which I am about to defend.

But let us previoufly lament with every lover of

2 This paffage of Ben Jonfon, fo often quoted, is given us in the admirable preface to the late edition, with a various reading, "fmall Latin and no Greek," which hath been held up to the publick for a modern sophistication: yet whether an error or not, it was adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on Cartwright. His eulogy, with more than fifty others, on this now forgotten poet, was prefixed to the edit, 1651.

Shakspeare, that the queftion was not fully difcuffed by Mr. Johnson himself: what he fees intuitively, others must arrive at by a series of proofs; and I have not time to teach with precifion: be contented therefore with a few curfory obfervations, as they may happen to arise from the chaos of papers, you have fo often laughed at, "a ftock fufficient to fet up an editor in form." I am convinced of the ftrength of my caufe, and fuperior to any little advantage from fophiftical arrangements.

General pofitions without proofs will probably have no great weight on either fide, yet it may not feem fair to fupprefs them: take them therefore as their authors occur to me, and we will afterward proceed to particulars.

The teftimony of Ben. ftands foremost; and fome have held it sufficient to decide the controversy: in the warmest panegyrick, that ever was written, he apologizes 3 for what he fuppofed the only defect in his" beloved friend,

Soul of the age!

Th' applaufe! delight! the wonder of our ftage!

whofe memory he honoured almoft to idolatry:" and confcious of the worth of ancient literature, like any other man on the fame occafion, he rather carries his acquirements above, than below the truth. "Jealoufy!" cries Mr. Upton; "people will allow others any qualities, but thofe upon which they highly value themfelves." Yes, where there is a competition, and the competitor formidable: but, I think, this critick himself hath fcarcely fet in oppofition the learning of Shakspeare and Jonfon.

3 "Though thou hadft Small Latin," &c.

When a fuperiority is univerfally granted, it by no means appears a man's literary intereft to deprefs the reputation of his antagonist.

In truth the received opinion of the pride and malignity of Jonson, at least in the earlier part of life, is abfolutely groundless: at this time fcarce a play or a poem appeared without Ben's encomium, from the original Shakspeare to the tranflator of

Du Bartas.

But Jonfon is by no means our only authority. Drayton, the countryman and acquaintance of Shakspeare, determines his excellence to the naturall braine4 only. Digges, a wit of the town, before our poet left the ftage, is very ftrong to the purpose,

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Nature only helpt him, for looke thorow

"This whole book, thou fhalt find he doth not borow,
"One phrase from Greekes, not Latines imitate,
"Nor once from vulgar languages translate.” s

Suckling oppofed his easier ftrain to the sweat of the learned Jonfon. Denham affures us, that all he had was from old mother-wit. His native woodnotes wild, every one remembers to be celebrated by Milton. Dryden obferves prettily enough, that "he wanted not the fpectacles of books to read nature." He came out of her hand, as fome one elfe expreffes it, like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.

* In his Elegie on Poets and Poefie, p. 206. Folio, 1627. 5 From his Poem upon Mafter William Shakspeare, intended to have been prefixed, with the other of his compofition, to the folio of 1623 and afterward printed in feveral mifcellaneous collections particularly the fpurious edition of Shakspeare's Poems, 1640. Some account of him may be met with in Wood's Athena.

:

The ever memorable Hales of Eton, (who, notwithstanding his epithet, is, I fear, almoft forgotten,) had too great a knowledge both of Shakspeare and the ancients to allow much acquaintance between them and urged very juftly on the part of genius in oppofition to pedantry, that "if he had not read the clafficks, he had likewife not stolen from them; and if any topick was produced from a poet of antiquity he would undertake to show somewhat on the fame fubject, at least as well written by Shakspeare.'

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Fuller a diligent and equal fearcher after truth and quibbles, declares pofitively, that "his learning was very little,-nature was all the art used upon him, as he himself, if alive, would confefs." may we not fay, he did confefs it, when he apologized for his untutored lines to his noble patron the Earl of Southampton ?-this lift of witneffes might be easily enlarged; but I flatter myself, I shall stand in no need of fuch evidence.

One of the firft and moft vehement affertors of the learning of Shakspeare, was the editor of his poems, the well-known Mr. Gildon ; and his fteps

Hence perhaps the ill-ftarr'd rage between this critick and his elder brother, John Dennis, fo pathetically lamented in the Dunciad. Whilft the former was perfuaded, that "the man who doubts of the learning of Shakspeare, hath none of his own:" the latter, above regarding the attack in his private capacity, declares with great patriotick vehemence, that "he who allows Shakspeare had learning, and a learning with the ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of Great Britain." Dennis was expelled his college for attempting to stab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this anecdote.*

* See this fact established against the doubts and objections of Dr. Kippis in the Biographia Britannica, in Dr. Farmer's Letter to me, printed in the European Magazine, June 1794, p. 412. REED.

were most punctually taken by a subsequent labourer in the fame department, Dr. Sewell.

Mr. Pope fuppofed, "little ground for the common opinion of his want of learning :" once indeed he made a proper diftinction between learning and languages, as I would be underfood to do in my title-page; but unfortunately he forgot it in the courfe of his difquifition, and endeavoured to perfuade himself that Shakspeare's acquaintance with the ancients might be actually proved by the fame medium as Jonfon's.

Mr. Theobald is "very unwilling to allow him fo poor a scholar, as many have laboured to reprefent him ;" and yet is "cautious of declaring too pofitively on the other fide of the question."

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Dr. Warburton hath expofed the weakness of fome arguments from fufpected imitations; and yet offers others, which, I doubt not, he could as eafily have refuted.

Mr. Upton wonders" with what kind of reafoning any one could be fo far impofed upon, as to imagine that Shakspeare had no learning;" and lashes with much zeal and fatisfaction "the pride and pertnefs of dunces, who, under fuch a name would gladly fhelter their own idleness and ignorance."

He, like the learned knight, at every anomaly in grammar or metre,

"Hath hard words ready to fhow why,

"And tell what rule he did it by."

How would the old bard have been astonished to have found, that he had very fkilfully given the trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, COMMONLY called the ithyphallic measure to the Witches in Macbeth! and that now and then a halting verfe afforded

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