no familiar Acquaintance with the _Graecian_ and
_Roman_ Authors. For if he was familiarly conversant with them, how comes
it to pass that he wants Art? Is it that he studied to know them in other
things, and neglected that only in them, which chiefly tends to the
Advancement of the Art of the Stage? Or is it that he wanted Discernment
to see the Justness, and the Greatness, and the Harmony of their Designs,
and the Reasonableness of those Rules upon which those Designs are
founded? Or how come his Successors to have that Discernment which he
wanted, when they fall so much below him in other things? How comes he to
have been guilty of the grossest Faults in Chronology, and how come we to
find out those Faults? In his Tragedy of _Troylus_ and _Cressida_, he
introduces _Hector_ speaking of _Aristotle_, who was born a thousand Years
after the Death of _Hector_. In the same Play mention is made of _Milo_,
which is another very great Fault in Chronology. _Alexander_ is mention'd
in _Coriolanus_, tho' that Conqueror of the Orient liv'd about two hundred
Years after him. In this last Tragedy he has mistaken the very Names of
his Dramatick Persons, if we give Credit to _Livy_. For the Mother of
_Coriolanus_ in the _Roman_ Historian is _Vetturia_, and the Wife is
_Volumnia_. Whereas in _Shakespear_ the Wife is _Virgilia_, and the Mother
_Volumnia_. And the _Volscian_ General in _Shakespear_ is _Tullus
Aufidius_, and _Tullus Attius_ in _Livy_. How comes it that he takes
_Plutarch_'s Word, who was by Birth a _Graecian_, for the Affairs of
_Rome_, rather than that of the _Roman_ Historian, if so be that he had
read the latter? Or what Reason can be given for his not reading him, when
he wrote upon a _Roman_ Story, but that in _Shakespear_'s time there was a
Translation of _Plutarch_, and there was none of _Livy_? If _Shakespear_
was familiarly conversant with the _Roman_ Authors, how came he to
introduce a Rabble into _Coriolanus_, in which he offended not only
against the Dignity of Tragedy, but the Truth of Fact, the Authority of
all the _Roman_ Writers, the Customs of Ancient _Rome_, and the Majesty of
the _Roman_ People? By introducing a Rabble into _Julius Caesar_, he only
offended against the Dignity of Tragedy. For that part of the People who
ran about the Streets upon great Festivals, or publick Calamities, or
publick Rejoicings, or Revolutions in Government, are certainly the Scum
of the Populace. But the Persons who in the T