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In the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, the Tinker attempts to talk Spanish: and consequently the Author himself was acquainted with it.

Paucas pallabris
, let the World slide,
Sessa
.

But this is a burlesque on Hieronymo ; the piece of Bombast that I have mentioned to you before:

What new device have they devised, trow?
Pocas pallabras, &c.—-;

Mr. Whalley tells us, “the Author of this piece hath the happiness to be at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with himself”: Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take this opportunity of informing him that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he will accept the authority of his Contemporary, Heywood.

More hath been said concerning Shakespeare’s acquaintance with the French language. In the Play of Henry the fifth, we have a whole Scene in it, and in other places it occurs familiarly in the Dialogue.

We may observe in general, that the early Editions have not half the quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the Author; and it is extremely probable that the French ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly were after he had left the Stage.–Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily believe that he was acquainted with the Scene between Catharine and the old Gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense.

Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson’s Edition, hath an ingenious observation to prove that Shakespeare, supposing the French to be his, had very little knowledge of the language.

“Est-il impossible d’eschapper la force de ton Bras ?” says a Frenchman.–” Brass, cur?” replies Pistol.

“Almost any one knows that the French word Bras is pronounced Brau ; and what resemblance of sound does this bear to Brass ?”

Mr. Johnson makes a doubt whether the pronunciation of the French language may not be changed since Shakespeare’s time; “if not,” says he, “it may be suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes”: but this does not appear to be the case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the Grammarians, or the practice of the Poets. I am certain of the former from the French Alphabet of De la Mothe, and the Orthoepia Gallica of John Eliot; and of the latter from the Rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du Bartas.–Connections of this kind were very common. Shakespeare himself assisted Ben. Jonson in his Sejanus, as it was originally written; and Fletcher in his Two noble Kinsmen.

But what if the French scene were occasionally introduced into every Play on this Subject? and perhaps there were more than one before our Poet’s.–In Pierce
Penilesse his Supplication to the Diuell
, 4to. 1592 (which, it seems, from the Epistle to the Printer, was not the first Edition), the Author, Nash, exclaims, “What a glorious thing it is to have Henry the fifth represented on the Stage leading the French King prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dolphin to sweare fealty!”–And it appears from the Jests of the famous Comedian, Tarlton, 4to. 1611, that he had been particularly celebrated in the Part of the Clown in Henry the fifth ; but no such Character exists in the Play of Shakespeare.– Henry the sixth hath ever been doubted; and a passage in the above-quoted piece of Nash may give us reason to believe it was previous to our Author. “How would it have joyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyen two hundred yeare in his Toomb, he should triumph again on the Stage; and haue his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding.”–I have no doubt but Henry the sixth had the same Author with Edward the third, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell’s Prolusions.