how happily
he has express'd himself upon the same Topicks. A very learned
Critick of our own Nation has declar'd, that a Sameness of Thought
and Sameness of Expression too, in Two Writers of a different Age,
can hardly happen, without a violent Suspicion of the Latter copying
from his Predecessor. I shall not therefore run any great Risque
of a Censure, tho' I should venture to hint, that the Resemblance,
in Thought and Expression, of our Author and an Ancient (which
we should allow to be Imitation in One, whose Learning was not
question'd) may sometimes take its Rise from Strength of Memory, and
those Impressions which he ow'd to the School. And if we may allow a
Possibility of This, considering that, when he quitted the School,
he gave into his Father's Profession and way of Living, and had,
'tis likely, but a slender Library of Classical Learning; and
considering what a Number of Translations, Romances, and Legends,
started about his Time, and a little before; (most of which,'tis
very evident, he read;) I think, it may easily be reconcil'd, why he
rather schemed his _Plots_ and _Charaters_ from these more latter
Informations, than went back to those Fountains, for which he might
entertain a sincere Veneration, but to which he could not have so
ready a Recourse.

In touching on another Part of his Learning, as it related to the
Knowledge of _History_ and _Books_, I shall advance something, that,
at first sight, will very much wear the Appearance of a Paradox.
For I shall find it no hard Matter to prove, that from the grossest
Blunders in History, we are not to infer his real Ignorance of it:
Nor from a greater Use of _Latin_ Words, than ever any other
_English_ Author used, must we infer his Knowledge of that Language.

A Reader of Taste may easily observe, that tho' _Shakespeare_,
almost in every Scene of his historical Plays, commits the grossest
Offences against Chronology, History, and Antient Politicks; yet
This was not thro' Ignorance, as is generally supposed, but thro'
the too powerful Blaze of his Imagination; which, when once raised,
made all acquired Knowledge vanish and disappear before it. For
Instance, in his _Timon_, he turns _Athens_, which was a perfect
Democracy, into an Aristocracy; while he ridiculously gives a
Senator the Power of banishing _Alcibiades_. On the contrary, in
_Coriolanus_, he makes _Rome_, which at that time was a perfect
Aristocracy, a Democracy full as ridiculously, by making