There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. John✩ fon, his friend, affirms, that be bad fmall Latin, and lefs Greek; who, befides that he had no imaginable temptation to falfehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquifitions of Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controversy, unless some teftimony of equal force could be opposed.

Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were drawn from books tranflated in his time; or were fuch easy coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who confider the fame fubjects; or fuch remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in converfation, and are transmitted through the world in proverbial fen

tences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important fentence, Go before, I'll follow, we read a tranflation of, I prae, fequar. I have been told, that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, fays, I cry'd to fleep again, the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other man, the fame wish on the fame occafion.

There are a few paffages which may pass for imi tations, but so few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what

he had, would have used more if he had obtained it.

The

The Comedy of Errors is confeffedly taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have copied more; but that those which were not tranflated were inacceffible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have fome French fcenes proves but little; he might eafily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without affiftance. In the ftory of Romeo and Juliet he is obferved to have followed the English translation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this on the other part proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience.

It is moft likely that he had learned. Latin fufficiently to make him acquainted with conftruction, but that he never advanced to an easy perufal of the Roman authors. Concerning his fkill in modern languages, I can find no fufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then high in efteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than English, and chofe for his fables only such tales as he found translated.

That much knowledge is fcattered over his works is very justly obferved by Pope, but it is often such VOL. I. [C] know

knowledge as books did not fupply. He that will understand Shakespeare, must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning fonetimes among the fports of the field, and fometimes among the manufactures of the fhop.

There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor was our language then fo indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiofity without excurfion into foreign literature. Many of the Roman authors were tranflated, and fome of the Greek; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; moft of the topicks of human difquifition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but fuccefs. This was a stock of knowledge fufficient for a mind fo capable of appropriating and improving it.

But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudenefs; no effays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare may be truly faid to have introduced them both amongst us, and in fome of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unfettled. Rowe is of opinion, that perhaps

we are not to look for his beginning, like those of other writers, in his least perfect works; art had fo little, and nature so large a share in what he did, that for ought Ì know, fays he, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the best. But the power of nature is only the power of using to any certain purpose the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity fupplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by study and experience, can only affift in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he must increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquifition, he, like them, grew wifer as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it more, and inftruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.

There is a vigilance of obfervation and accuracy of diftinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perfpicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverfify them only by the accidental appendages of prefent manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the fame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which fhewed life in its native colours.

1

The conteft about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyse the mind, to trace the paffions to their fources, to unfold the feminal principles of vice and virtue, or found the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All thofe enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made fometimes with nice difcernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was fatisfied, exhibited only the fuperficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted the caufes, and were formed for fuch as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under the neceffity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could in its bufinefs and amusements.

Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiofity, by facilitating his access. Shakespeare had no such advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in ftates of life, that appear very little favourable to thought or to enquiry; fo many, that he who confiders them is inclined to think that he fees enterprize and perfeverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius of Shakespeare was not to be depreffed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow converfation to which men in want are inevitably con

demned;