appear fufficient to mislead and deprefs the greateft genius upon earth. Nay, the more modefty with which such a one is endued, the more he is in danger of fubmitting and conforming to others, against his own better judgment.

But as to his want of learning, it may be necessary to fay fome thing more. There is certainly a vaft difference between learning and languages. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at leaft, if they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or from another. Nothing is more evident, than that he had a taste of natural philofophy, mechanics, ancient and modern hiftory, poetical learning and mythology. We find him very knowing in the cuftoms, rites, and manners of antiquity. In Coriolanus and Julius Cæfar, not only the fpirit, but manners of the Romans are exactly drawn; and still a nicer diftinction is fhown, between the manners of the Romans in the time of the former and of the latter. His reading in the ancient hiftorians is no lefs confpicuous, in many references to particular 'paffages: and the fpeeches copied from Plutarch in Coriolanus, may, I think, as well be made an instance of his learning, as thofe copied from Cicero in Cataline of Ben Johnfon's. The manners of other nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, French, &c. are drawn with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature, or branch of fcience, he either fpeaks of or defcribes, it is always with competent, if not extenfive knowledge: his descriptions are still exact; all his metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each fubject. When he treats of ethic or politic, we may conftantly obferve a wonderful juftnefs of distinction, as well as extent of comprehenfion. No one is more a mafter of the poetical ftory, or has more frequent allufions to the various parts of it. Mr Waller (who has been celebrated for this laft particular) has not fhewn more learning this way than Shakespear. We have tranflations from Ovid published in his name, among thofe poems which pafs for his; and for fome of which we have undoubted authority,

being published by himfelf, and dedicated to his Noble patron the Earl of Southampton. He appears alfo to have been converfant in Plautus, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his plays; he follows the Greek authors, and particularly Dares Phrygius, in another : although I will not pretend to fay in what language he read them. The modern Italian writers of novels he was manifeftly acquainted with; and we may conclude him to be no lefs converfant with the ancients of his own country, from the use he has made of Chaucer in Troilus and Greffida, and in the Two Noble kinfmen, if that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was; and indeed it has little resemblance of Fletcher, and more of our author than fome of those which have been received as genuine.

I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the partisans of our author and Ben Johnfon; as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expence of the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Johnfon had much the more learning, it was faid on the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; and because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Johnson wanted both. Becaufe Shakespear borrowed nothing, it was faid that Ben Johnson borrowed every thing. Becaufe Johnfon did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and becaufe Shakespear wrote with eafe and rapidity, they cried, He never once made a blot. Nay, the fpirit of oppofition ran fo high, that whatever thofe of the one fide objected to the other, was taken at the rebound, and turned into praises; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them objections.

Poets are always afraid of envy; but fure they have as much reafon to be afraid of admiration. They are the Scylla and Charybdis of authors; thofe who efcape one, often fall by the other. Peffimum genus inimicorum laudantes, fays Tacitus: and Virgil defires to wear a charm against thofe who praife a poet without rule or reafon.

Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare frontem Cingito, ne vati noceat

But however this contention might be carried on by the partifans on either fide, I cannot help thinking these two great poets were good friends, and lived on amicable terms and in offices of fociety with each other. It is an acknowledged fact, that Ben Johnson was introduced upon the ftage, and his firft works encouraged, by Shakespear. And after his death, that author writes To the memory of his beloved Mr William Shakespear; which fhews as if the friendship had continued through life. I cannot for my own part find any thing invidious or Sparing in thofe verfes, but wonder Mr Dryden was of that opinion. He exalts him not only above all his contemporaries, but above Chaucer and Spencer, whom he will not allow to be great enough to be ranked with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles, Euripides, and Efchilus, nay all Greece and Rome at once, to equal him; and (which is very particular) exprefsly vindicates him from the imputation of wanting Art, not enduring that all his excellencies fhould be attributed to Nature. It is remarkable too, that the praise he gives him in his Difcoveries, feems to proceed from a perfonal kindness he tells us, that he loved the man, as well as honoured his memory; celebrates the honefty, openness, and fraknefs of his temper; and only diftinguithes, as he reasonably ought, between the real merit of the author, and the filly and derogatory applauses of the players. Ben Johnfon might indeed be fparing in his commendations, (though certainly he is not fo in this inftance), partly from his own nature, and partly from judgment. For men of judgment think they do any man more fervice in praifing him juftly, than lavishly. I fay, I would fain believe they were friends, though the violence and ill-breeding of their followers and flatterers were enough to give rife to the contrary report. I would hope that it may be with parties, both in wit and ftate, as with those monsters described by the poets; and that their heads at leaft may have fomething human, though their bodies and tails are wild beafts and ferpents. As I believe that what I have mentioned gave rife to

the opinion of Shakespear's want of learning; fo what has continued it down to us, may have been the many blunders and illiteracies of the first publishers of his works. In these editions their ignorance fhines in almost every page. Nothing is more common than Actus tertia. Exit emnes. Enter three witches folus. Their French is as bad as their Latin, both in construction and spelling: their very Welch is falfe. Nothing is more likely than that thofe palpable blunders of Hector's quoting Ariftotle, with others of that grofs kind, fprung from the fame root; it not being at all credible, that these could be the errors of any man who had the leaft tincture of a school, or the leaft converfation with fuch as had. Ben Johnfon, (whom they will not think partial to him) allows him at least to have had fome Latin; which is utterly inconfiftent with mistakes like these. Nay, the conftant blunders in proper names of perfons and places, are such as must have proceeded from a man who had not fo much as read any hiftory in any language: fo could not be Shakespear's.

I fhall now lay before the reader fome of thofe almost innumerable errors, which have rifen from one source, the ignorance of the players, both as his actors, and as his editors. When the nature and kinds of these are enumerated and confidered, I dare to fay, that not Shakespear only, but Ariftotle or Cicero, had their works undergone the fame fate, might have appeared to want fenfe, as well as learning.

It is not certain that any one of his plays was published by himself. During the time of his employment in the theatre, several of his pieces were printed feparately in quarto. What makes me think that most of these were not published by him, is the exceffive carelessness of the prefs: every page is fo fcandalously false spelled, and almost all the learned or unufual words fo intolerably mangled, that it is plain there either was no corrector to the prefs at all, or one totally illiterate. any were fupervised by himself, I should fancy the two parts of Henry IV. and Midfummer-night's dream, might have been fo: because I find no other printed with any exactnefs; and (contrary to the reft) there is very little variation in all the fubfequent editions of them. There

If

are extant two prefaces, to the first quarto edition of Troilus and Crefida in 1609, and to that of Othello; by which it appears, that the firft was published without his knowledge or confent, and even before it was acted, fo late as feven or eight years before he died; and that the latter was not printed till after his death. The whole number of genuine plays which we have been able to find printed in his lifetime, amounts but to eleven. And of fome of thefe, we meet with two or more editions by different printers, each of which has whole heaps of trafh different from the other: which I fhould fancy was occafioned by their being taken from different copies, belonging to different playhouses.

The folio edition (in which all the plays we now rẹceive as his, were firft collected) was published by two players, Heminges and Condell, in 1623, seven years after his decease. They declare, that all the other editions were ftoln and furreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other; for in all refpects elfe it is far worse than the quarto's.

For

Firft, because the additions of trifling and bombaft paffages are in this edition far more numerous. whatever had been added, fince thofe quarto's, by the actors, or had ftoln from their mouths into the written parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all stand charged upon the author. He himfelf complained of this ufage in Hamlet, where he wishes, that those who play the clowns, would speak no more than is fet down for them. (Act 3. Sc. 4.) But as a proof that he could not escape it, in the old editions of Romeo and Juliet, there is no hint of a great number of the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there. In others, the low scenes of mobs, plebeians, and clowns, are vastly shorter than at prefent: and I have feen one in particular, (which feems to have belonged to the playhouse, by having the parts divided with lines, and the actors names in the margin), where feveral of those very paffages were added in a written hand, which are fince to be found in the folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful paffages which are extant in the firft fingle editions, are omitted