Gr. "Exa-and wpès rèv "Exovra, to the haver." This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. "Lye in a water-bearer's house!" says Master Mathew of Bobadil, "a gentleman of his havings!" Thus likewise John Davies in his Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs, printed with his Scourge of Folly, about 1612: "Do well and have well!-neyther so still: "For some are good doers, whose havings are ill.” and Daniel the historian uses it frequently. Having seems to be synonymous with behaviour in Gawin Douglas" and the elder Scotch writers. Haver, in the sense of possessor, is every where met with: though unfortunately the πρὸς τὸν Ἔχοντα of Sophocles produced as an authority for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critick in these matters, to have absolutely a different meaning. But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in Hamlet, "Ay, tell me that, that unyoke ?" alluding to the Baλuròs of the Greeks: and Homer and his scholiast are quoted accordingly! If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might have been taken from husbandry, without much depth of reading; we "It is very remarkable, that the bishop is called by his countryman, Sir David Lindsey, in his Complaint of our Souerane Lordis Papingo, "In our Inglische rethorick the rose." And Dunbar hath a similar expression in his beautiful poem of The Goldin Terge. • Aristophanis Comœdiæ undecim. Gr. & Lat. Amst. 1710, Fol. p. 596. may produce it from a Dittie of the workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546: 66 My bow is broke, I would unyoke, "My foot is sore, I can worke no more." An expression of my Dame Quickley is next fastened upon, which you may look for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended fairies in The Merry Wives of Windsor: 86 Orphan' heirs of fixed Destiny." "And how elegant is this," quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used, as a Grecian would have used it?" oppavòs ab opprès-acting in darkness and obscurity." Mr. Heath assures us, that the bare mention of such an interpretation, is a sufficient refutation of it and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's know Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans with respect to their real parents, and now only dependent on Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate the passage: "The man whom heauens have ordayn'd to bee "He wonneth in the land of fayeree, "Yet is no fary borne, ne sib at all "To elfes, but sprong of seed terrestriall, "Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall," &c. Edit. 1590, Book III. c. iii. st. 26. ledge of the old comedy, and his etymological learning in the word, Desdemona.s Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with fairies, notwithstanding his laborious study of Spenser. The last authentick account of them is from our countryman William Lilly; and it by no means agrees with the learned interpretation: for the angelical creatures appeared in his Hurst wood in a most illustrious glory," and indeed, (says the sage,) it is not given to many persons to endure their glorious aspects." The only use of transcribing these things, is to show what absurdities men for ever run into, when they lay down an hypothesis, and afterward seek for arguments in the support of it. What else. could induce this man, by no means a bad scholar, to doubt whether Truepenny might not be derived from Tpúravov; and quote upon us with much parade an old scholiast on Aristophanes ?—I will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two or three more expressions, in which he was pleased to suppose some learned meaning or other; all which he might have found in every writer of the time, or still more easily in the vulgar translation of the Bible, by consulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden. But whence have we the plot of Timon, except from the Greek of Lucian?The editors and criticks have never been at a greater loss than in their enquiries of this sort; and the source of a tale hath been often in vain sought abroad, which might easily have been found at home: my good • Revisal, p. 75, 323, and 561. 9 History of his Life and Times, p. 102. preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole. friend, the very ingenious editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, hath shown 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 such a disquisition, I could give you many cases of this kind. We are sent for instance to Cinthio for the plot of Measure for Measure, and Shakspeare's judgment 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 suspect our poet to have been satisfied 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 solely with Lodge's Rosalynd, or 1 Lond. 4to. 1582. She reports in the fourth dayes exercise, the rare Historie of Promos and Cassandra. A marginal note informs us, that Whetstone was the author of the Commedie on that subject; which likewise might have fallen into the hands of Shakspeare. "The tale is a pretie comicall matter, and hath bin written in English verse some few years past, learnedly and with good grace by M. George Turberuil." Harrington's Ariosto, fol. 1591, p. 39. Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes 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 history with any such Prince of Tyre," yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appoly 6 nus. 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 some plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus, which he only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubt • See Meres's Wits Treasury, 1598, p. 282. Our ancient poets are under greater obligations to Boccace, than is generally imagined. Who would suspect, that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the Miller of Trumpington? Mr. Dryden observes on the epick performance, Palamon and Arcite, a poem little inferior in his opinion to the Iliad or the Eneid, that the name of its author is wholly lost, 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 Bassi, 1475. I have seen a copy of it, and a translation into modern Greek, in the noble library of the very learned and communicative Dr. Askew. It is likewise to be met with in old French, under the title of La Theseide de Jean Boccace, contenant les belles & chastes amours de deux jeunes Chevaliers Thebains Arcite & Pale mon. * In the first Vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, 4to. 1566. • Confessio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, folio, 1532, p. 175, &c. |