Plautus. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, (as well as fome of the phrafeology,) though Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young mafter and his man exchange habits and characters, and perfuade a Scenæfe, as he is called, to perfonate 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 fenfe within the compafs of one line.'

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งง

-This remark

"Our author

was previous to Mr. Johnson's; or indifputably it 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, 66 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 purpofed alteration. Udall likewife in his Floures for Latin fpeaking,

3

and partly by inuention, out of our own fruitefull orchardes in Englande yelding fundrie fweet fauors of tragical, comical, and morall difcourfes, bothe pleafaunt and profitable to the well fmellyng noses of learned readers." Black letter, 4to. no date.

3 W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnfon's edit. of Shakfpeare, 1755. 8vo. p. 105.

gathered out of Terence, 1560, reduces the passage to a fingle line, and fubjoins a tranflation.

We have hitherto fuppofed Shakspeare the author of the Taming of the Shrew, but his property in it is extremely difputable. I will give you my opinion, and the reafons on which it is founded. I fuppofe then the prefent play not originally the work of Shakspeare, but reftored by him to the ftage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and some other occafional 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 beft manner, and the greater part of the latter in his worst, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be certainly fpurious: and without doubt, supposing it to have been written by Shakspeare, it must have been one of his earliest productions; yet it is not mentioned in the lift of his works by Meres in 1598.

I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596, (and poffibly there may be an earlier edition,) called, The Metamorphofis 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 fo perfect, that now every one can rule a fhrew in our countrey, fave he that hath hir." I am aware, a modern linguift may object, that the word book does not at prefent feem dramatick, but it was once almoft technically fo: Goffon, in his Schoole of Abuse, contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jefters, and fuch like Caterpillars of a common-wealth," 1579. mentions" twoo profe bookes plaied at the Bel

fauage;

and Hearne tells us in a note at the end of William of Worcester, that he had feen "a MS. in the nature ofa play or interlude, intitled, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore."*

And in fact, there is fuch an old anonymous play in Mr. Pope's lift. A pleafant conceited Hiftory,

4 I know indeed, there is extant a very old рост, in black letter, to which it might have been fuppofed Sir John Harrington alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a new one, and recommended it as worthy the notice of his country. men I am perfuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought either. At the end of the fixth 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 townfmen: on a line of which,

"Invadunt aulas bychefon cum forth geminantes," our commentator very wifely and gravely remarks: "Bychefón, id eft, fon of a byche, ut è codice Rawlinfoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo & olim whorfon dixerunt pro fon of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui infcribitur: The Wife lapped in Morel's Skyn or the Taming of a Shrew. Ubi pag. 36, fic legimus:

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They wreftled togyther thus they two

"So long that the clothes afunder went.

And to the ground he threwe her tho,

"That cleane from the backe her fmock he rent.

"In every hand a rod he gate,

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"And layd upon her a right good pace :

Afking of her what game was that,

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And he cried out, Horefon, alas, alas.”

Et pag. 42.

Come downe now in this feller fo deepe, "And morels fkin there fhall you fee : "With many a rod that hath made me to weepe, "When the blood ranne downe faft by my knee. "The mother this beheld, and cryed out, alas : "And ran out of the feller as fhe had been wood. "She came to the table where the company was, "And fayd out, horefon, I will fee thy harte blood."

called, The Taming of a Shrew - fundry times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his Servants." Which feems 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 feem 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 fome years after his death: but he merely revived it on his ftage as a manager. Ravenfcroft affures

us, that this was really the cafe with Titus Andronicus; which, it may be obferved, hath not Shakfpeare's name on the title-page of the only edition published in his life-time. Indeed, from every internal mark, I have not the leaft 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: which likewife from fome affiftance perhaps given to his friend, hath been unjufily and ignorantly charged upon Shakspeare.

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'The

But the fheet-anchor holds faft: Shakspeare himfelf hath left fome tranflations from Ovid. Epiftles," fays one, "of Paris and Helen, give a fufficient proof of his acquaintance with that poet:" "And it may be concluded," fays another," that he was a competent judge of other authors, who wrote in the fame language."

This hath been the univerfal cry, from Mr. Pope himfelf to the criticks of yéflerday. Poffibly, however, the gentlemen will hefitate a moment, if we tell them, that Shakspeare was not the author of these translations. Let them turn to a forgotten book, by Thomas Heywood, called, Britaines Troy, printed by W. Jaggard in 1609. fol. and they will

find these identical Epiftles, "which being fo pertinent to our hiftorie," fays Heywood, "I thought neceffarie to tranflate."-How then came they afcribed to Shakspeare? We will tell them that likewise. The fame voluminous writer published an Apology for Actors, 4to. 1612. and in an Appendix directed to his new printer, Nic. Okes, he accufes his old one, Jaggard, of "taking the two Epiftles of Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lefs volume, and under the name of another: — but he was much offended with Master Jaggard, that altogether unknowne to him, he had presumed to make fo bold with his name."' In the fame work of Heywood are all the other tranflations, which have been printed in the modern editions of the poems of Shakspeare.

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You now hope for land: We have seen through little matters, but what must be done with a whole. book?-In 1751, was reprinted, A compendious or briefe Examination of certayne ordinary Complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in these our Days: which although they are in fome Parte unjust and friuolous, yet are they all by way of Dialogue throughly debated and difcuffed by William Shakspeare, Gentleman." 8vo.

This extraordinary piece was originally published

5 It may feem little matter of wonder, that the name of Shakspeare fhould be borrowed for the benefit of the bookfeller; and by the way, as probably for a play as a poem: but modern criticks may be furprised perhaps at the complaint of John Hall, that certayne chapters of the Proverbes, tranflated by him into English metre, 1550, had before been untruely entituled to be the doyngs of Mayfter Thomas Sternhold.

"