John Pits, who died in 1616, was a writer, in not inelegant Latin, of the lives of the Roman Catholic authors of England. His work, which was published after his death, at Paris, in 1619, 4to. is usually known and quoted by the title of De illustribus Angliæ scriptoribus. He is a bold plagiarist from Bale, partial from religious bigotry, and often inaccurate with regard to facts and dates.
To this summary of historical literature it will be necessary to add a few remarks on the translations which were made, during the era
in question, from the Greek and Roman historians, as these would necessarily have much influence on the public taste, and would throw open to Shakspeare, and to those of his contemporaries who could not readily appeal to the originals, many sources of imagery and fable. It appears then, that from the year 1550 to the year 1616, all the great historians of Greece and Rome, had been either wholly or in part, familiarized in our language. That the Grecian classics were translated with any large portion of fidelity and spirit, will not easily be admitted, when we find their sense frequently taken from Latin or French versions; but they still served to stimulate curiosity, and to excite emulation. The two first books of Herodotus, 4to. appeared in 1584; Thucydides from the French of Claude de Seyssel, by Thomas Nicolls, folio, in 1550; a great part of Polybius, by Christopher Watson, 8vo. in 1568; Diodorus Siculus, by Thomas Stocker, 4to. in 1569; Appian, 4to. in 1578; Josephus, by Thomas Lodge, folio, in 1602; Ælian, by Abraham Fleming, 4to. in 1576; Herodian, from the Latin version of Politianus, by Nycholas Smyth, 4to. in 1591; and Plutarch's Lives, from the French of Amyot, by Sir Thomas North, folio, in 1579.
The Roman writers were more generally naturalized, without the aid of an intermediate version. Livy and Florus were given to the world by Philemon Holland, folio, in 1600; Tacitus, by Sir Henry Saville and Richard Grenaway, 4to. and folio, in 1591 and 1598; Sallust, by Thomas Paynell, 4to., and by Thomas Heywood, folio, in 1557 and 1608; Suetonius, by Philemon Holland, folio, 1606; Cæsar, by Arthur Golding, 4to., 1565, and by Clement Edmundes, folio, 1600; Justin, by Arthur Golding, 4to., 1564, and by Holland, 1606; Quintus Curtius, by John Brande, 8vo., 1561; Eutropius, by Nic. Haward, 8vo., 1564, and Marcellinus, by P. Holland, folio, 1609.
Such are the chief authors, original and translated, which, in the province of History, general, local, and personal, added liberally to the mass of information and utility which was rapidly accumulating throughout the Shakspearean era.
That our great poet amply availed himself of these stores, more particularly in those dramas which are founded on domestic and foreign history, every attentive reader of his works must have adequate proof. Several, indeed, of the writers that we have enumerated, though exclusively belonging to our period, and throwing much light on the manners, customs, and literature of their age, came rather too late for the poet's purpose; but of those who published sufficiently early, he has made the best use. Traces of his footsteps may be discerned in many of the authors that we have mentioned, but his greatest inroads seem to have been made through the compilations of Holinshed and Hakluyt, and through the version of Plutarch by North. All that was necessary in the minutiæ of fact, was derivable from the labours of the faithful Holinshed; much illustration was to be acquired from the manners-painting pen of Harrison; a knowledge of the globe and its marvels, was attainable in the narratives of Hakluyt; and the character and costume of Greece and Rome were vividly delineated in the delightful, though translated, pages of Plutarch. From these sources, and from a few which existed previous to the commencement of the poet's age, such as the Froissart of Lord Berners, and the Chronicle of Hall, were drawn and coloured those exquisite pictures of manners, history, and individual character, which fix and enrapture attention throughout the dramatic annals of Shakspeare. Indeed, from whatever mine the poet procured his ore, he uniformly purified it into metal of the finest lustre, and it may truly be added, that on the study of the "Histories" of Shakspeare, a more intimate acquaintance with human nature may be founded, than on any other basis.
Whilst on the subject of History, we must deviate in a slight degree from our plan, which excludes the detail of science, to notice two works in Natural History, from which our bard has derived various touches of imagery and description; I mean the Roman and the Gothic Pliny, rendered familiar to our author by the labours of Holland, and Batman; the former having published his Translation of Pliny's immense collection in 1601, folio, and the latter his
Commentary upon Bartholome, under the title of "Batman uppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum," in 1582, folio. "Shakspeare," says Mr. Douce, speaking of Batman's Bartholome, "was extremely well acquainted with this work;" an assertion which he has sufficiently established in the course of his "Illustrations."[485:A] Few, indeed, were the popular books of his day, to which our author had not access, and from which he has not derived some slight fact or hint conducive to his purpose.
We now approach the last branch of our present subject, Miscellaneous Literature; a topic which, were we not restricted by various other demands, might occupy a volume; for in no era of our annals have miscellaneous writers been more abundant than during the reign of Elizabeth.
A set of men at this time infested the town, in a high degree dissipated in their manners, licentious in their morals, and vindictive in their resentments, yet possessing a large share of native and acquired talent. These adventurers, who hung loose upon society, appear to have seized upon the press for the purpose of indulging an unbounded love of ridicule and raillery, sometimes excited by the mere spirit of badinage and frolic, more frequently stimulated by malignity and revenge, and often goaded to the task by the pressure of deserved poverty. The fertility of these writers is astonishing; the public was absolutely deluged with their productions, which proved incidentally useful, however, in their day, by the exposure of folly, and are valuable, at this time, for the illustrations which they have thrown upon the most evanescent portion of our manners and customs.