s then
The Nature of an Insurrection.

Comparing the Mind of a Conspirator to an Anarchy, is just and
beautiful; but the _Interim_ to a _hideous Dream_ has something in
it so wonderfully natural, and lays the human Soul so open, that one
cannot but be surpriz'd, that any Poet, who had not himself been,
some time or other, engaged in a Conspiracy, could ever have given
such Force of Colouring to Truth and Nature.

[Sidenote: The Question on _Shakespeare_'s Learning handled.]

It has been allow'd on all hands, far our Author was indebted to
_Nature_; it is not so well agreed, how much he ow'd to _Languages_
and acquir'd _Learning_. The Decisions on this Subject were
certainly set on Foot by the Hint from _Ben Jonson_, that he had
small _Latin_ and less _Greek_: And from this Tradition, as it were,
Mr. _Rowe_ has thought fit peremptorily to declare, that, "It is
without Controversy, he had no Knowledge of the Writings of the
ancient Poets, for that in his Works we find no Traces of any thing
which looks like an Imitation of the Ancients. For the Delicacy of
his Taste (_continues He_,) and the natural Bent of his own great
Genius (equal, if not superior, to some of the Best of theirs;)
would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much
Pleasure, that some of their fine Images would naturally have
insinuated themselves into, and been mix'd with, his own Writings:
so that his not copying, at least, something from them, may be an
Argument of his never having read them." I shall leave it to the
Determination of my Learned Readers, from the numerous Passages,
which I have occasionally quoted in my Notes, in which our Poet
seems closely to have imitated the Classics, whether Mr. _Rowe_'s
Assertion be so absolutely to be depended on. The Result of the
Controversy must certainly, either way, terminate to our Author's
Honour: how happily he could imitate them, if that Point be allow'd;
or how gloriously he could think like them, without owing any thing
to Imitation.

Tho' I should be very unwilling to allow _Shakespeare_ so poor a
Scholar, as Many have labour'd to represent him, yet I shall be
very cautious of declaring too positively on the other side of the
Question: that is, with regard to my Opinion of his Knowledge in the
dead Languages. And therefore the Passages, that I occasionally
quote from the _Classics_, shall not be urged as Proofs that he
knowingly imitated those Originals; but brought to shew