ed by Mr. _Tonson_, an
Imitation of that from _OEnone_ to _Paris_, which Mr. _Dryden_ tells us in
his Preface to those Epistles was imitated by one of the Fair Sex who
understood no _Latin_, but that she had done enough to make those blush
who understood it the best. There are at this day several Translators,
who, as _Hudibrass_ has it,

Translate from Languages of which
They understand no part of Speech.

I will not affirm that of _Shakespear_; I believe he was able to do what
Pedants call construe, but that he was able to read _Plautus_ without Pain
and Difficulty I can never believe. Now I appeal to you, Sir, what time he
had between his Writing and his Acting, to read any thing that could not
be read with Ease and Pleasure. We see that our Adversaries themselves
acknowledge, that if _Shakespear_ was able to read _Plautus_ with Ease,
nothing in Latinity could be hard to him. How comes it to pass then, that
he has given us no Proofs of his familiar Acquaintance with the Ancients,
but this Imitation of the _Menechmi_, and a Version of two Epistles of
_Ovid_? How comes it that he had never read _Horace_, of a superiour Merit
to either, and particularly his Epistle to the _Piso's_, which so much
concern'd his Art? Or if he had read that Epistle, how comes it that in
his _Troylus_ and _Cressida_ [we must observe by the way, that when
_Shakespear_ wrote that Play, _Ben Johnson_ had not as yet translated that
Epistle] he runs counter to the Instructions which _Horace_ has given for
the forming the Character of _Achilles_?

Scriptor: Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem,
Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, Acer,
Jura neget sibi nata.

Where is the _Impiger_, the _Iracundus_, or the _Acer_, in the Character
of _Shakespear_'s _Achilles_? who is nothing but a drolling, lazy,
conceited, overlooking Coxcomb; so far from being the honoured _Achilles_,
the Epithet that _Homer_ and _Horace_ after him give him, that he is
deservedly the Scorn and the Jest of the rest of the Characters, even to
that Buffoon _Thersites_.

Tho' _Shakespear_ succeeded very well in Comedy, yet his principal Talent
and his chief Delight was Tragedy. If then _Shakespear_ was qualify'd to
read _Plautus_ with Ease, he could read with a great deal more Ease the
Translations of _Sophocles_ and _Euripides_. And tho' by these
Translations he would not have been able to have seen the charming
colouring of those great Masters, yet wou