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The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person,

Our comfort in the Country. We must find

An eminent calamity, though we had

Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou

Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led

With manacles thorough our streets; or else

Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin,

And bear the palm, for having bravely shed

Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,

I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till

These wars determine: if I can't persuade thee

Rather to shew a noble grace to both parts,

Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no sooner

March to assault thy Country, than to tread

(Trust to't, thou shalt not) on thy mother's womb,

That brought thee to this world.

I will now give you the old Translation, which shall effectually confute Mr. Pope: for our Author hath done little more than throw the very words of North into blank verse.

“If we helde our peace (my sonne) and determined not to speake, the state of our poore bodies, and present sight of our rayment, would easely bewray to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad. But thinke now with thy selfe, howe much more unfortunately then all the women liuinge we are come hether, considering that the sight which should be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made most fearfull to us: making my selfe to see my sonne, and my daughter here, her husband, besieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that which is the only comfort to all other in their adversitie and miserie, to pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide, is the onely thinge which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas) together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for safety of thy life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy selfe, or the nurse of their natiue contrie. For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this warre. For if I cannot persuade thee, rather to doe good unto both parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt see, my sonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no soner marche forward to assault thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that brought thee first into this world.”

The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it happily wants not the assistance of a Comment. But matters may not always be so easily managed:—a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected:

The Sun's a thief, and with his great attraction

Robs the vast Sea. The Moon's an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the Sun.

The Sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves

The Moon into salt tears. The Earth's a thief,

That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n

From gen'ral excrements: each thing's a thief.

“This,” says Dr. Dodd, “is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated drinking Ode, too well known to be inserted.” Yet it may be alleged by those who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for himself, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is different.—But for argument's sake, let the Parody be granted; and “our Author,” says some one, “may be puzzled to prove that there was a Latin translation of Anacreon at the time Shakespeare wrote his Timon of Athens.” This challenge is peculiarly unhappy: for I do not at present recollect any other Classick (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them) that was originally published with two Latin translations.

But this is not all. Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, quotes some one of a “reasonable good facilitie in translation, who finding certaine of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard the French poet—comes our