here thou keep'st
Hourly afflict."

Hanmer (mistaking the meaning) read _do_. Porson objected, on the ground
that it was _thou_ and not _influences_ which governed _dost_. Porson
was certainly right, and we wonder how any one could ever have
understood the passage in any other way. The mediaevals had as much
trouble in reconciling free-will with judicial astrology as we with the
divine foreknowledge. A passage in Dante, it appears to us, throws light
on the meaning of the Duke's speech:--

"Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia;
Non dico tutti; ma posto ch' io 'l dica
Lume v' e dato a bene ed a malizia,
E libero voler che, se fatica
Nelle prime battaglie col ciel dura,
Poi vince tutto se ben si notrica."

_Purg._, Cant. xvi.

_Cielo_ is here used for the influence of the stars, as is clear from a
parallel passage in the "Convito." Accordingly, "Though servile to all
the skyey influences, it is thou, breath as thou art, that dost hourly
afflict thy body with the results of sin." But even if this be not the
meaning, is Mr. White correct in saying that _influence_ had no plural
at that time?[I] Had he forgotten "the sweet _influences_ of Pleiades"?
The word occurs in this form not only in our version of the Bible,
but in that of Cranmer, and in the "Breeches" Bible. So in Chapman's
"Byron's Conspiracy," (Ed. 1608, B. 3,)

"Where the beames of starres have carv'd
Their powerful _influences_."

[Footnote I: Mr. White cites Dr. Richardson, but the Doctor is not
always a safe guide.]

Mr. White repeatedly couples together the translators of the Bible and
Shakspeare, but he seems to have studied their grammar but carelessly.
"_Whom_ therefore ye ignorantly worship, _him_ declare I unto you," is a
case in point, and we ought never to forget our danger from that dusky
personage who goes about "seeking _whom_ he may devour." At a time
when correction of the press was so imperfect, one instance of true
construction should outweigh twenty false, and nothing could be easier
than the mistake of _who_ for _whom_, when the latter was written
_wh[=o]_. A glance at Ben Jonson's English Grammar is worth more than
all theorizing. Mr. White thinks it probable that Shakspeare understood
French, Latin, and Italian, but not--English!

The truth is, that, however forms of spelling varied, (as they must
where both writers and printers spelt phonographically,) the forms of
grammatical construction were as strict then