—— High Queen of State,
Great Juno comes; I know her by her Gait,
a remarkable instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of ancient Poetick story; and that the hint was furnished by the Divum incedo Regina of Virgil.
You know, honest John Taylor, the Water-poet, declares that he never learned his Accidence, and that Latin and French were to him Heathen-Greek; yet, by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove him a learned Man, in spite of every thing he may say to the contrary: for thus he makes a Gallant address his Lady,
“Most inestimable Magazine of Beauty—in whom the Port and Majesty of Juno, the Wisdom of Jove's braine-bred Girle, and the Feature of Cytherea, have their domestical habitation.”
In the Merchant of Venice, we have an oath “By two-headed Janus”; and here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakespeare shews his knowledge in the Antique: and so again does the Water-poet, who describes Fortune,
Like a Janus with a double-face.
But Shakespeare hath somewhere a Latin Motto, quoth Dr. Sewel; and so hath John Taylor, and a whole Poem upon it into the bargain.
You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and indeterminate such arguments must be: for in fact this sweet Swan of Thames, as Mr. Pope calls him, hath more scraps of Latin, and allusions to antiquity, than are any where to be met with in the writings of Shakespeare. I am sorry to trouble you with trifles, yet what must be done, when grave men insist upon them?
It should seem to be the opinion of some modern criticks, that the personages of classick land began only to be known in England in the time of Shakespeare; or rather, that he particularly had the honour of introducing them to the notice of his countrymen.