knowledge in the Greek and Latin
tongues cannot _reasonably_ be called in question. Dr. Dodd supposes it
_proved_, that he was not such a novice in learning and antiquity as _some
people_ would pretend. And to close the whole, for I suspect you to be
tired of quotation, Mr. Whalley, the ingenious Editor of Jonson, hath
written a piece expressly on this side the question: perhaps from a very
excusable partiality, he was willing to draw Shakespeare from the field of
Nature to classick ground, where alone, he knew, his Author could possibly
cope with him.

These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves
able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have
sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their
Author's. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description
and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various
_Excerpta_, _Sententiae_, and _Flores_, this business may be effected with
very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in
his Comment on _Chevy-chase_, and Wagstaff on _Tom Thumb_; and I myself
will engage to give you quotations from the elder _English_ writers (for,
to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall
carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be
no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is
now in possession of the _Marks of Imitation_.

"Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the _facts_ and _fables_
of antiquity." Granted:--and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of
more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his
acquaintance.

It is notorious that much of his _matter of fact_ knowledge is deduced
from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the
question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and
corrects accordingly the _Errors of his Copyists_ by the Greek standard.
Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently.

In the third act of _Anthony and Cleopatra_, Octavius represents to his
Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the
arrangement of their dominion,

----Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt, made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, _Lydia_,
Absolute Queen.

Read _Libya_, says the critick _authoritatively_, as is plain from
Plutarch, {~GREEK CAPITAL