FullReads

Some of the professed Imitators of our old Poets have not attended to this and many other Minutiae : I could point out to you several performances in the respective Styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, which the imitated Bard could not possibly have either read or construed.

This very accent hath troubled the Annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be “a tone different from the present use.” Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatise of Harmony and Numbers, very solemnly informs us that “this Verse is defective both in Accent and Quantity, B. 3. V. 266.

His words here ended, but his meek Aspect
Silent yet spake.—-

Here,” says he, “a syllable is acuted and long, whereas it should be short and graved “!

And a still more extraordinary Gentleman, one Green, who published a Specimen of a new Version of the Paradise Lost, into BLANK verse, “by which that amazing Work is brought somewhat nearer the Summit of Perfection,” begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, V. 540:

—-The setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right Aspect —
Levell’d his evening rays.—-

Not so in the New Version :

Meanwhile the setting Sun descending slow–
Level’d with aspect right his ev’ning rays.

Enough of such Commentators.–The celebrated Dr. Dee had a Spirit, who would sometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in Quantity : and it had been kind of him to have a little assisted the Wights above-mentioned.–Milton affected the Antique ; but it may seem more extraordinary that the old Accent should be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, the Double Falshood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole Play, he pretended to have written:

—-Strike up, my Masters;
But touch the Strings with a religious softness:
Teach sound to languish thro’ the Night’s dull Ear,
Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch,
And Carelessness grow Convert to Attention.

These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not resist the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance.

To whom then shall we ascribe it?–Somebody hath told us, who should seem to be a Nostrum-monger by his argument, that, let Accents be how they will, it is called an original Play of William Shakespeare in the Kings Patent, prefixed to Mr. Theobald’s Edition, 1728, and consequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilst, on the contrary, the Irish Laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks (and were it true, it would be certainly decisive) that the Plot is borrowed from a Novel of Cervantes, not published ’till the year after Shakespeare’s death. But unluckily the same Novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.–The same reasoning, however, which exculpated our Author from the Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the present occasion.

But you want my opinion:–and from every mark of Style and Manner, I make no doubt of ascribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us that he left some Plays in MS.–These were written about the time of the Restoration, when the Accent in question was more generally altered.

Perhaps the mistake arose from an abbreviation of the name. Mr. Dodsley knew not that the Tragedy of Andromana was Shirley’s, from the very same cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tell us that Marston’s Plays were printed at London, 1633, “by the care of William Shakespeare, the famous Comedian.”–Here again I suppose, in some Transcript, the real Publisher’s name, William Sheares, was abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakespeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.