wife and conquerors, under the wisdom and courage of your majefty, to whom God grant long life, to trample your enemies like duft under your feet.

May it please your majefty to know who your fervant is, that raifes his head to fpeak to you, and takes pains to know thefe things, with much labour, for your majefty's fervice, to whom God grant victory. The name of your fervant is Emin, the fon of Jofeph, the fon of Michael, the fon of Gre gory, who is defcended from Emin, who, in the day when Armenia was broke under the battle-axe of Shaw Abbas, was Minbafhy in his country; but he was made captive, with others, and was carried into Perfia, and placed at Hamadan; from him your majefty's fervant is come, and he is called of his name, being born at Hamadan; but our captivity was grievous under the Perfians, who, fince Mahometanifm, which is well known to your majefty, are grown quite barbarians, not being fo civilized as they were in antient times, (according to the hiftories I have read in this bleffed ifland) fo that my father flew from Hamadan, in the time of Shaw Thamas Kouly Kan, into India, to a place called Calcutta, where the English have a fort, and foldiers, and a great trade, though their country is feven months voyage from Bengal; there my father made himself a merchant to this day; and would have made me fuch as himself, but I did not fubmit to him; for I enquired of my fathers from my infancy, the reason why we were perfecuted by Infidels? and why we did refide fo contemptibly amongst lawless nations ? but they VOL. X.

made me no answer, and my heart was grieved, and I had none to comfort me in my griefs; for I faid, the ants that creep upon the earth have a king, and we have not; and the nations of all countries make their laugh upon us, alfo perfecuting, faying to us, that you are mafterlefs; you have no king of your own, and that you refemble the Jews fcattered upon the face of the earth; you have no love for one another; you are without honour; and by the difunity of your nation, all the nations infult you; you are contemptible, and without zeal; and you are as great lovers of money, as the hea thens did love, their gods. I could not bear all these reflections, whilst I grieved, and found one to heal me. I obferved watchfully the Europeans, their wife cuftoms, and their thipping, far better both for failing and for war, than the fhips of the Indians; and above all, the practice of their foldiers, who, if they were thousands of men, by one word of command from their officers, inftantly all together move and act, as if they were one man. Then I thought in my mind, that it was God that had put in my heart, to think on all things. Therefore, I fpoke not to my father, but had hopes in my heart, that if I went to England, I fhould learn the art of war, and I was encouraged, for I then heard a little, and not much, of your majefty's name, until I came here, where I learned that your majefty was established in your kingdom, and had routed a great army of Perfians. See! O my king, what great thing the wisdom is, by which this nation know our country better than we

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do; and that this nation are awake, and we are afleep. On board the fhip I worked like a failor; and afterwards, when I came here, was fo reduced, that I was forced by hunger, to offer myself to fale upon the Exchange, to be fent into the new world. O! my king, do not pity me; no, not even at that time, when you hear, or fee me facrificed in your fervice, but pity thofe fervants of Chrift, who deferve pity; but the omnipotent God faved me by the hands of an Englishman; and the fame God who heard the crying of my heart, did put it into the heart of a generous nobleman, who is one of the pillars of the throne of England, to affift me. He made me right in the counfel of my heart; he made me known to the fon of the king of England; he fent me to

of education, where

learnt the art of war, according to

wisdom.

My ambition is to lay my knowledge at the feet of your majefty, and to ferve you in the best of my ability. For know, O my king, that what is not built on knowledge, though it is very ftrong, and lofty, is as if it were built upon fand; therefore, my purpose is, to go well inftructed into your majefty's fervice, and to carry with me men fkillful in all things, (if you give me encouragement) to trengthen and polish your kingdom, like the kingdoms of Eu rope: for you have a good country, and command over many brave men; and if you could gather the Armenians, a rich and trading people, who are fcattered to the eaft, and the weft, and the north, and the fouth, under the protection of your majefty's arms

From Voltaire's Ignorant Philofopher.

Pythagoras, during his residente

in India, learnt, as all

world knows, at the school of the Gymnofophifts, the language of beafts and that of plants. Walking one day in a field near the fea-fhore, he heard thefe words: How unhappy am I to be born an herb! Scarce have I attained two inches in height, before a devouring monfter, a horrid horrid animal, tramples me under his feet; his jaw is armed with a row of sharp fcythes, with which he cuts me, tears me, and then fwallows me. Man calls this monfter a fheep. I do not think there is in the whole création a more abominable creature.

Pythagoras advanced a few fteps: he met with an oyser that was yawning upon a fmall rock. He had not yet embraced that admirable law by which we are forbidden to eat our own likeness.

He

Pythagoras fhuddered; he felt the enormity of the crime he was going to commit; he weeping afked pardon of the oyfter, and replaced him very fnug upon the rock.

Whilft he was returning to the city, in a profound meditation at this adventure, he obferved fome fpiders that were eating flies, fwallows that were eating spiders, fparrow-hawks that were eating fwallows. None of thefe folks, faid he, are philofophers.

Pythagoras upon his entrance was hurted, bruifed, and thrown down by a multitude of beggars and bunters, who ran in crying, Well done, he deferved it. Who? what faid Pythagoras, getting up; whilft the people continued running and crying, We fhall have high fun in feeing them broil.

Pythagoras imagined they were fpeaking of lentiles, or fome other kind of vegetable-but he was quite miftaken they meant two poor Indians. Oh! faid Pythagoras, thefe are doubtless two great philofophers, who are tired of their lives; they are defirous of regene rating under another form; there is a pleasure in changing the place of one's abode, though one may be badly lodged there is no dif puting tafle.

He went on with the mob as far as the public fquare, where he faw the great pile of wood lighted, and oppofite to it a bench, which was called a tribunal; upon this bench judges were feated, each of whom held a cow's tail in his hand, and they had caps upon their heads, which greatly refembled the two ears of that animal which formerly carried Silenus, when he came into the country with Bacchus, after having croffed the Ery threan fea dry-footed, and flopped the courfe of the fun and moon, as it is very faithfully re lated in the Orphics.

There was amongit thefe judges an honeft man well known to Pythagoras. The fage of India explained to the fage of Samos the nature of the feftival the Indian people were going to affift at.

The two Indians, faid he, are not at all defirous of being burnt ; my grave brethren have condemned them to that punishment, one for having faid that the fubftance of - Xaca is not the fubftance of Brama; and the other for having fufpected that we please the Supreme Being by virtue, without holding, at the point of death, a cow by the tail, becaufe, faid he, we may be virtuous at all times, and because one cannot always meet with a cow just as one may have occafion for her. The good women of the city were fo terrified with two fuch heretical propofitions, that they would not leave the judges in peace, till fuch time as they ordered the execution of these two unfortunate men.

Pythagoras judged that from the herb up to man there were many caufes of uneafinefs. He, however, made the judges and even

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TH

HE queftion, whether Shakespeare had any confiderable knowledge of the learned languages? has been long agitated among the critics. Mr. Farmer is of opinion with thofe, who imagine that he had not; for which he brings feveral arguments.

The teftimony of Ben Johfon (fays our author) ftands foremost ; and many have held it fufficient to decide the controversy. In the warmeft panegyric that ever was written, he apologizes for what he fuppofed the only defect in his "beloved friend :"

"Soul of the age! Th' applaufe, delight, and wonder of our ftage *." But Johnfon is by no means our only authority. Drayton, the countryman and acquaintance of Shakespeare, determines his excellence to the natural brain only. Digges, a wit of the town before Shakespeare left the ftage, is very ftrong to the purpose:

Nature only helpt him, for look thorough

This whole book, thou fhalt find
he doth not borrow

One phrafe from Greeks, nor
Latines imitate,

Nor once from vulgar languages
tranflate."

Suckling oppofes his easier strain to the fweets of learned Johnson. Denham affures us, that all he had was from old mother-wit. His native wood-notes wild, every onc remembers to be celebrated by Milton.

Fuller, a diligent and equal fearcher after truth and quibbles, declares pofitively, that "his learning was very little,- that nature was all the art ufed upon him, as he himself, if alive, would confefs it, when he apologized for his untutored lines to his noble patron the earl of Southampton.

"Shakespeare however hath frequent allufions to the facts and fables of antiquity."—I will endeavour to fhew how they came to his acquaintance.

It is notorious, that much of his matter of fact knowledge is deduced frum Plutarch; but in what language he read him, has yet been the question. Take a few inftances, which will elucidate this matter fufficiently.

In the third act of Anthony and Cleopatra, Qatavius repréfents to his courtiers the imperial pomp of thofe illuftrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion, "Unto her

He gave the 'stablishment of
Egypt, made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
Abfolute queen."
Read Libya, fays Mr. Upton,

ago, by a panegyrift on Cartwright.

autho

I have many ways to die; mean time,

Laugh at his challenge." "What a reply is this, cries Mr. Upton: 'tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,

"Let the old ruffian know He hath many other ways to die; mean time

I laugh at his challenge." We have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæfar in Plutarch." Moft indifputably it is the fenfe of Plutarch, and given fo in the modern tranflations: But Shakespeare was mifled by the ambiguity of the old one," Antonius fent again to challenge Cæfar to fight him. Cæfar anfwered that he had many other ways to die than fo."

In the third Act of Julius Cæfar, Anthony, in his well-known ha rangue to the people, repeats a part of the emperor's will:

"To every Roman citizen he gives To every fev'ral man, feventy. five drachmas.

His private arbours, and new
planted orchards,

On this fide Tyber."

"Our author certainly wrote, fays Mr. Theobald, on that fide Tyber.-Trans Tiberim-prope Car faris bortos. And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently ftudied, exprefsly declares, that he left the public his gardens and walks beyond the Tyber."

But hear again the old tranflation, where Shakespeare's ftudy lay: "he bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome, feventy-five drachmas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this fide of the river Tyber."

Mr. Farmer proceeds to fhow, that Shakespeare took many of the fubjects for his plays from Eng lish authors or tranflators, and not from books in the learned tongue.

But to come nearer to the purpofe, what will you fay, (fays he) if I can fhow you, that Shakespeare, when in the favourite phrafe, he had a Latin claffic in his eye, moft affuredly made use of a tranflation.

Profpero in the tempeft begins the addrefs to his fpirits, "Ye elves of, hills, of ftanding/ lakes and groves.

This speech Dr. Warburton rightly obferves to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: And it proves, fays Mr. Holt, beyond contradiction, that Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the sub. ject of enchantments. The origi nal lines are these,

"Auraque, & venti, montefque,
amnefque, lacufque,
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Diique