La mer salee boit le vent,
Et le Soleil boit la marine.
Le Soleil est beu de la Lune,
Tout boit soit en haut ou en bas:
Suivant ceste reigle commune,
Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas?—Edit. Fol. p. 507.
I know not whether an observation or two relative to our Author's acquaintance with Homer be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs. Lenox observes on a passage of Troilus and Cressida, where Achilles is roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakespeare must here have had the Iliad in view, as “the old Story, which in many places he hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this circumstance.”
And Mr. Upton is positive that the sweet oblivious Antidote, inquired after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the Nepenthe described in the Odyssey,
Νηπενθές τ᾽ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων.
I will not insist upon the Translations by Chapman; as the first Editions are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of their publication. But the former circumstance might have been learned from Alexander Barclay; and the latter more fully from Spenser than from Homer himself.