Tho’ I should be very unwilling to allow Shakespeare so poor a Scholar, as Many have labour’d to represent him, yet I shall be very cautious of declaring too positively on the other side of the Question: that is, with regard to my Opinion of his Knowledge in the dead Languages. And therefore the Passages, that I occasionally quote from the Classics, shall not be urged as Proofs that he knowingly imitated those Originals; but brought to shew how happily he has express’d himself upon the same Topicks. A very learned Critick of our own Nation has declar’d, that a Sameness of Thought and Sameness of Expression too, in Two Writers of a different Age, can hardly happen, without a violent Suspicion of the Latter copying from his Predecessor. I shall not therefore run any great Risque of a Censure, tho’ I should venture to hint, that the Resemblance, in Thought and Expression, of our Author and an Ancient (which we should allow to be Imitation in One, whose Learning was not question’d) may sometimes take its Rise from Strength of Memory, and those Impressions which he ow’d to the School. And if we may allow a Possibility of This, considering that, when he quitted the School, he gave into his Father’s Profession and way of Living, and had, ’tis likely, but a slender Library of Classical Learning; and considering what a Number of Translations, Romances, and Legends, started about his Time, and a little before; (most of which,’tis very evident, he read;) I think, it may easily be reconcil’d, why he rather schemed his Plots and Charaters from these more latter Informations, than went back to those Fountains, for which he might entertain a sincere Veneration, but to which he could not have so ready a Recourse.
In touching on another Part of his Learning, as it related to the Knowledge of History and Books, I shall advance something, that, at first sight, will very much wear the Appearance of a Paradox. For I shall find it no hard Matter to prove, that from the grossest Blunders in History, we are not to infer his real Ignorance of it: Nor from a greater Use of Latin Words, than ever any other English Author used, must we infer his Knowledge of that Language.
A Reader of Taste may easily observe, that tho’ Shakespeare, almost in every Scene of his historical Plays, commits the grossest Offences against Chronology, History, and Antient Politicks; yet This was not thro’ Ignorance, as is generally supposed, but thro’ the too powerful Blaze of his Imagination; which, when once raised, made all acquired Knowledge vanish and disappear before it. For Instance, in his Timon, he turns Athens, which was a perfect Democracy, into an Aristocracy; while he ridiculously gives a Senator the Power of banishing Alcibiades. On the contrary, in Coriolanus, he makes Rome, which at that time was a perfect Aristocracy, a Democracy full as ridiculously, by making the People choose Coriolanus Consul: Whereas, in Fact, it was not till the Time of Manlius Torquatus, that the People had a Right of choosing one Consul. But this Licence in him, as I have said, must not be imputed to Ignorance: since as often we may find him, when Occasion serves, reasoning up to the Truth of History; and throwing out Sentiments as justly adapted to the Circumstances of his Subject, as to the Dignity of his Characters, or Dictates of Nature in general.
Then, to come to his Knowledge of the Latin Tongue, ’tis certain, there is a surprising Effusion of Latin Words made English, far more than in any one English Author I have seen; but we must be cautious to imagine, this was of his own doing. For the English Tongue, in his Age, began extremely to suffer by an Inundation of Latin; and to be overlaid, as it were, by its Nurse, when it had just began to speak by her before-prudent Care and Assistance. And this, to be sure, was occasion’d by the Pedantry of those two Monarchs, Elizabeth and James, Both great Latinists. For it is not to be wonder’d at, if both the Court and Schools, equal Flatterers of Power, should adapt themselves to the Royal Taste. This, then, was the Condition of the English Tongue when Shakespeare took it up: like a Beggar in a rich Wardrobe. He found the pure native English too cold and poor to second the Heat and Abundance of his Imagination: and therefore was forc’d to dress it up in the Robes, he saw provided for it: rich in themselves, but ill-shaped; cut out to an air of Magnificence, but disproportion’d and cumbersome. To the Costliness of Ornament, he added all the Graces and Decorum of it. It may be said, this did not require, or discover a Knowledge of the Latin. To the first, I think, it did not; to the second, it is so far from discovering it, that, I think, it discovers the contrary. To make This more obvious by a modern Instance: The great Milton likewise labour’d under the like Inconvenience; when he first set upon adorning his own Tongue, he likewise animated and enrich’d it with the Latin, but from his own Stock: and so, rather by bringing in the Phrases, than the Words: And This was natural; and will, I believe, always be the Case in the same Circumstances. His Language, especially his Prose, is full of Latin Words indeed, but much fuller of Latin Phrases: and his Mastery in the Tongue made this unavoidable. On the contrary, Shakespeare, who, perhaps, was not so intimately vers’d in the Language, abounds in the Words of it, but has few or none of its Phrases: Nor, indeed, if what I affirm be true, could He. This I take to be the truest Criterion to determine this long agitated Question.
It may be mention’d, tho’ no certain Conclusion can be drawn from it, as a probable Argument of his having read the Antients; that He perpetually expresses the Genius of Homer, and other great Poets of the Old World, in animating all the Parts of his Descriptions; and, by bold and breathing Metaphors and Images, giving the Properties of Life and Action to inanimate Things. He is a Copy too of those Greek Masters in the infinite use of compound and de-compound Epithets. I will not, indeed, aver, but that One with Shakespeare’s exquisite Genius and Observation might have traced these glaring Characteristics of Antiquity by reading Homer in Chapman’s Version.
B. Jonson and Shakespeare compar’d. An additional Word or two naturally falls in here upon the Genius of our Author, as compared with that of Jonson his Contemporary. They are confessedly the greatest Writers our Nation could ever boast of in the Drama. The first, we say, owed all to his prodigious natural Genius; and the other a great deal to his Art and Learning. This, if attended to, will explain a very remarkable Appearance in their Writings. Besides those wonderful Masterpieces of Art and Genius, which each has given Us; They are the Authors of other Works very unworthy of them: But with this Difference; that in Jonson’s bad Pieces we don’t discover one single Trace of the Author of the Fox and Alchemist: but in the wild extravagant Notes of Shakespeare, you every now and then encounter Strains that recognize the divine Composer. This Difference may be thus accounted for. Jonson, as we said before, owing all his Excellence to his Art, by which he sometimes strain’d himself to an uncommon Pitch, when at other times he unbent and play’d with his Subject, having nothing then to support him, it is no wonder he wrote so far beneath himself. But Sbakespeare, indebted more largely to Nature, than the Other to acquired Talents, in his most negligent Hours could never so totally divest himself of his Genius, but that it would frequently break out with astonishing Force and Splendor.
His Reputation under Disadvantages. As I have never propos’d to dilate farther on the Character of my Author, than was necessary to explain the Nature and Use of this Edition, I shall proceed to consider him as a Genius in Possession of an Everlasting Name. And how great that Merit must be, which could gain it against all the Disadvantages of the horrid Condition in which he has hitherto appear’d! Had Homer, or any other admir’d Author, first started into Publick so, maim’d and deform’d, we cannot determine whether they had not sunk for ever under the Ignominy of such an ill Appearance. The mangled Condition of Shakespeare has been acknowledg’d by Mr. Rowe, who publish’d him indeed, but neither corrected his Text, nor collated the old Copies. This Gentleman had Abilities, and a sufficient Knowledge of his Author, had but his Industry been equal to his Talents. The same mangled Condition has been acknowledg’d too by Mr. Pope, who publish’d him likewise, pretended to have collated the old Copies, and yet seldom has corrected the Text but to its Injury. I congratulate with the Manes of our Poet, that this Gentleman has been sparing in indulging his private Sense; for He, who tampers with an Author whom he does not understand, must do it at the Expence of his Subject. I have made it evident throughout my Remarks, that he has frequently inflicted a Wound where he intended a Cure. He has acted with regard to our Author, as an Editor, whom Lipsius mentions, did with regard to Martial; Inventus est nescio quis Popa, qui non vitia ejus, sed ipsum, excîdit. He has attack’d him like an unhandy Slaughterman; and not lopp’d off the Errors, but the Poet.
Praise sometimes an Injury. When this is found to be the Fact, how absurd must appear the Praises of such an Editor? It seems a moot Point, whether Mr. Pope has done most Injury to Shakespeare as his Editor and Encomiast; or Mr. Rymer done him Service as his Rival and Censurer. Were it every where the true Text, which That Editor in his late pompous Edition gave us, the Poet deserv’d not the large Encomiums bestow’d by him: nor, in that Case, is Rymer’s Censure of the Barbarity of his Thoughts, and the Impropriety of his Expressions, groundless. They have Both shewn themselves in an equal Impuissance of suspecting or amending the corrupted Passages: and tho’ it be neither Prudence to censure, or commend, what one does not understand; yet if a Man must do one when he plays the Critick, the latter is the more ridiculous Office. And by That Shakespeare suffers most. For the natural Veneration, which we have for him, makes us apt to swallow whatever is given us as his, and let off with Encomiums; and hence we quit all Suspicions of Depravity: On the contrary, the Censure of so divine an Author sets us upon his Defence; and this produces an exact Scrutiny and Examination, which ends in finding out and discriminating the true from the spurious.
It is not with any secret Pleasure, that I so frequently animadvert on Mr. Pope as a Critick; but there are Provocations, which a Man can never quite forget. His Libels have been thrown out with so much Inveteracy, that, not to dispute whether they should come from a Christian, they leave it a Question whether they could come from a Man. I should be loth to doubt, as Quintus Serenus did in a like Case,
Sive homo, seu similis turpissima bestia nobis,
Vulnera dente dedit.