Thus much for the Learning of Shakespeare with respect to the ancient languages: indulge me with an observation or two on his supposed knowledge of the modern ones, and I will promise to release you.
“It is evident” we have been told, “that he was not unacquainted with the Italian”: but let us inquire into the Evidence.
Certainly some Italian words and phrases appear in the Works of Shakespeare; yet if we had nothing else to observe, their Orthography might lead us to suspect them to be not of the Writer's importation. But we can go further, and prove this.
When Pistol “cheers up himself with ends of verse,” he is only a copy of Hanniball Gonsaga, who ranted on yielding himself a Prisoner to an English Captain in the Low Countries, as you may read in an old Collection of Tales, called Wits, Fits, and Fancies,
Si Fortuna me tormenta,
Il speranza me contenta.
And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyage to the South-Sea, 1593, throws out the same jingling Distich on the loss of his Pinnace.
“Master Page, sit; good Master Page, sit; Proface. What you want in meat, we'll have in drink,” says Justice Shallow's Fac totum, Davy, in the 2d Part of Henry the fourth.
Proface, Sir Thomas Hanmer observes to be Italian, from profaccia, much good may it do you. Mr. Johnson rather thinks it a mistake for perforce. Sir Thomas however is right; yet it is no argument for his Author's Italian knowledge.
Old Heywood, the Epigrammatist, addressed his Readers long before,