MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS}

authoritatively, as is plain from Plutarch.

This is very true: but turn to the tranilation, from the French df. Amyot, by Thomas North, 1579, and you will at once fee the origin of the mifiake.

“ Firfi of all he did efiablifh Cleopatra queene of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria. _

Again in the fourth a&:

“ My melTenger

He hath whipt with rods, dares

me to perfonal combat,

Caefar to Anthony. Let the old

ruflian know

I have many ways to die; mean

time,

Laugh at his challenge.”

“ What a reply is this, cries Mr. Upton: ’tis acknowledging he ihould fall under the unequal com- bat. But if we read,

He hath many otherways to die; mean time

l laugh at his challenge.” We have the poignancy and the very teparteeofCaafar in Plutarch.”

Molt indifputably it is the fenfe of Plutarch, and given f0 in the modern tranflations: But Shake- fpeare was riiifled by the ambi- guity of the old one, “ Antonius fent again to challenge Caefar to fight him. _, Cxfar anfwered thathe

had many other ways to die than f0.1),

In the third AG of Iulius Caefar, Anthony, in his well-known ha- rangue to the people, repeats a part ofthe emperor’s will :

“ To every Roman citia zen he gives

To every fev’ral man, feventy. live drachmasa- '

fizrir barter.

“ Let the old rufiian know g

Moreover he hath left you all his walks,

,His private arbours-, and new planted orchards,

On this fide Tyber.” “ Our author certainly wrote, fays Mr. Theobald, on that fide TyberF-Tran: Tiéerinr-qorope Cre- And Plutarch, whom Shakefpeare very diligently lludied, exprefsly declares, that he left the public his gardens and walks be-

’ yond the Tyber.”

But hear again the old tranila- tion, where Shakefpeare’s iludy lay: “ he bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome, feventy- five drachrnas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this ficle of the river Tyber.” '

Mr. Farmer proceeds to (how, that Shakefpeare took many of the fubjeéts for his plays from Eng- lifh authors or tranilators, and not from books in the learned tongue.

But to come nearer to the pur- pole, what will you fay, (iays he) ifl can {how you, that Shakefpeare, when in the favourite phrafe, he had a Latin claflic in his eye, moft aflhredly made ufe ofa tranilation.

Profpero in the tempeit begins the addrefs to his fpirits,

“ Ye elves of hills, of llanding

lakes and groves.”

This fpeech Dr. Warburton rightly obierves to be borrowed from Medea’s in Ovid: And it proves, fays Mr. Holt, beyond cone ttadifiion, that Shakefpeare was perfectly acquainted with the fen. timents of the ancients on the {ub- jeét of enchantments. The origi. nal lines are thefe, '

“ Aurwyue, £9’ wenti, nzanteflue,

am g/gue Iaruf M, P 3 n i g a Diigue

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