ice, which was brought to cure _a grete brenning heate_ in his
foot: take care you do not interpret this the _Gout_, for I remember M.
Menage quotes a _Canon_ upon us,

Si quis dixerit Episcopum PODAGRA laborare, Anathema sit.

Another tells us of the Soul of a Monk fastened to a Rock, which the winds
were to blow about for a twelve-month, and purge of it's Enormities.
Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as
you may see in a Poem, "where the Lover declareth his pains to exceed far
the pains of Hell," among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the
Works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive Brother-Antiquary,
our Greek Professor, hath observed to me on the authority of Blefkenius,
that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were
certainly very little read either in the _Poet_ or the _Philosopher_.

After all, Shakespeare's curiosity might lead him to _Translations_. Gawin
Douglas really changes the _Platonick Hell_ into the "punytion of Saulis
in Purgatory": and it is observable that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of
his Doom there,

Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature
Are _burnt and purg'd away_,----

the Expression is very similar to the Bishop's: I will give you his
Version as concisely as I can; "It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and
torment--Sum in the wyndis, Sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir
Sum:--thus the mony Vices--

Contrakkit in the corpis be _done away_
_And purgit_.----_Sixte Booke of Eneados._ Fol. p. 191.

It seems, however, "that Shakespeare _himself_ in the _Tempest_ hath
translated some expressions of _Virgil_: witness the _O Dea certe_." I
presume we are here directed to the passage where Ferdinand says of
Miranda, after hearing the Songs of Ariel,

----Most sure, the Goddess
On whom these airs attend;

and so _very small Latin_ is sufficient for this formidable translation,
that if it be thought any honour to our Poet, I am loth to deprive him of
it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to
a _real Translator_, and examine whether the Idea might not be fully
comprehended by an English reader; _supposing_ it necessarily borrowed
from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will
quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst:

O to thee, fayre Virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted?
Thy to