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Si quis dixerit Episcopum podagra laborare, Anathema sit.

Another tells us of the Soul of a Monk fastened to a Rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelve-month, and purge of it's Enormities. Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as you may see in a Poem, “where the Lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of Hell,” among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the Works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive Brother-Antiquary, our Greek Professor, hath observed to me on the authority of Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were certainly very little read either in the Poet or the Philosopher.

After all, Shakespeare's curiosity might lead him to Translations. Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonick Hell into the “punytion of Saulis in Purgatory”: and it is observable that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of his Doom there,

Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature

Are burnt and purg'd away,——

the Expression is very similar to the Bishop's: I will give you his Version as concisely as I can; “It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and torment—Sum in the wyndis, Sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir Sum:—thus the mony Vices—

Contrakkit in the corpis be done away

And purgit.——Sixte Booke of Eneados. Fol. p. 191.

It seems, however, “that Shakespeare himself in the Tempest hath translated some expressions of Virgil: witness the O Dea certe.” I presume we are here directed to the passage where Ferdinand says of Miranda, after hearing the Songs of Ariel,

——Most sure, the Goddess

On whom these airs attend;

and so very small Latin is sufficient for this formidable translation, that if it be thought any honour to our Poet, I am loth to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to a real Translator, and examine whether the Idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader; supposing it necessarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst:

O to thee, fayre Virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted?

Thy tongue, thy visage no mortal frayltie resembleth.

——No doubt, a Godesse!—Edit. 1583.

Gabriel Harvey desired only to be “Epitaph'd, the Inventor of the English Hexameter,” and for a while every one would be halting on Roman feet; but the ridicule of our Fellow-Collegian Hall, in one of his Satires, and the reasoning of Daniel, in his Defence of Rhyme against Campion, presently reduced us to our original Gothic.

But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say if I can shew you that Shakespeare, when, in the favourite phrase, he had a Latin Poet in his Eye, most assuredly made use of a Translation?

Prospero in the Tempest begins the Address to his attendant Spirits,

Ye Elves of Hills, of standing Lakes, and Groves.

This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea in Ovid: and “it proves,” says Mr. Holt, “beyond contradiction, that Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the Sentiments of the Ancients on the Subject of Inchantments.” The original lines are these,

Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,

Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis adeste.

It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur Golding is by no means literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it;

Ye Ayres and Winds; Ye Elves of Hills, of Brookes, of Woods alone,

Of standing Lakes, and of the Night, approche ye everych one.

I think it is unnecessary to pursue this any further; especially as more powerful arguments await us.

In the Merchant of Venice, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to Anthonio, rehearses many Sympathies and Antipathies for which no reason can be rendered,

Some love not a gaping Pig——

And others when a Bagpipe sings i' th' nose

Cannot contain their urine for affection.

This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to be taken from a passage in Scaliger's Exercitations against Cardan, “Narrabo tibi jocosam Sympathiam