NOTES TO THE PREFACE. 1 Aristot. περι Ποιητ. κεφ. 51 2 Hor. de Arte Poëticâ. 3 Some passages in this Preface are taken from a small tract, published some time ago, intitled Critical Reflections on the Old English Dramatick Writers;' which has since been prefixed by the bookseller to Coxeter's edition of Massinger. In that little tract I first mentioned the idea of this translation; and as the nature of the subject then led me to say something concerning the use of measure in Comedy, I thought it better to introduce those passages into this Preface, than to repeat the very same thing in other words. + Hor. Sat. iv. lib. 1. 5 Observations on the Fairy Queen, second edit. p. 155. ⚫ Della Tragedia; Napoli, 1732. p. 61. 7" Illud quoque inter Terentianas virtutes mirabile, quòd ejus fabulæ eo sunt temperamento, ut neque extumescant ad tragicam celsitudinem, neque abjiciantur ad mimicam vilitatem."-EVANTHIUS de Tragedia & Comœdiá. 8 Adventurer, No. 105. • Della Tragedia, p. 59. 10 Inst. Orator. lib. x. cap. 1. 11" Antiqua Comedia cùm sinceram illam sermonis Attici gratiam propè sola retinet, tum facundissimæ libertatis, etsi est in insectandis vitiis præcipua, plurimum tamen virium etiam in cæteris partibus habet. Nam & grandis, & ele gans, gans, & venusta, & nescio an ulla, post Homerum tamen, quem, ut Achillem, semper excipi par est, aut similior sit oratoribus, aut ad oratores faciendos aptior."-Quinctilian. Inst. Orator.lib. x. cap. 1. "Sua cuique proposita lex, suus cuique decor est. Nec comœdia in cothurnos assurgit, nec contrà tragœdia socco ingreditur. Habet tamen omnis eloquentia aliquid commune." Ibid. cap. 2. 12 Hor. Art. Poët. 13 HURD on the Marks of Imitation, p. 19. 14 Ibid. p. 75. 15 It is remarkable that this seems to be a quotation from memory, or that the phrase is purposely altered by Shakspeare, in order to bring the sense within the compass of one line; for the passage here does not run exactly in the words of Terence, which are these: Quid agas? nisi ut te redimas captum quàm queas minimo.-Eunuch. Act. I. Scen. 1. ; 16 Hâc sanè parte [scilicèt vi comicâ] videtur superior Plautus; uti & varietate tum argumentorum, tum dictionis. Nam Plautus semper studet esse novus, suique dissimilis seu rem spectes, seu verba. In Terentio verò magnoperè conveniunt argumenta fabularum : & quando de eâdem re aut simili est sermo, plurimùm nec absimilis est dictio.— Vossius, Inst. Poët. lib. ii. cap. 25. sect. 5. 17 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 18 The ingenious author of a commentary and notes on Horace's Art of Poetry asserts; p. 193. that " some of "Terence's plays are direct translations from Menan❝der." This could proceed from nothing but mere inadvertence, since the slightest reflection must have convinced him, that the prologues of Terence point out some capital variations from the Greek, and the learned critick himself has on other occasions taken notice of those variations. The old commentators have taken notice of many others, as will appear in the notes to this translation. 19 Preface to Moral and Political Dialogues, by the Rev. Mr. Hurd. 20 Preface to Terence, p. 10. 21 Hor. Art. Poët. 22 66 Actores 22 66 Actores Comici-nec ita prorsus, ut nos vulgò loqui. mur, pronuntiant, quod esset sine arte: nec procul tamen à naturâ recedunt, quo vitio periret imitatio: sed morem communis hujus sermonis decore quodam scenico exornant." QUINTIL. Inst. Orat. lib. 11. cap. 10. 23 MONTFAUCON, tome 3me, parte 2de, p. 342. 24 This is the ground of a conceit in one of the Fables of Phædrus on a minstrel's breaking his leg. "Princeps tibicen notior paulò fuit, PHEDRUS. Lib. v. Fab. 7. Here the whole joke consists in sinistra tibia signifying a left-handed flute and the minstrel's left leg. 25 Le Maschere Sceniche e le Figure Comiche d'Antichi Romani, descritte brevemente da Francesco de Ficoroni. -In Roma, 1736. 26 Diverbia partes comœdiarum sunt, in quibus plures personæ versantur; Cantica, in quibus una tantùm." 27 Donatus has left us no explanation of the use of the tibiæ pares and impares. My friend Mr. Burney, a very ingenious master of musick, conjectures, and I think very happily, that the equal flutes were flutes in unison with each other, and the unequal flutes, flutes in octave to each other: the octave resembling unity so much, that an uncultivated ear can scarcely distinguish between them; as is the case where a man and woman sing the same air or melody together, at which time it seems as if they were singing in unison, whereas the male voice moves an octave belew that of the female. Now it is well known in harmonicks, by the division of a monochord, that two musical strings of the same matter, thickness, and tension, one being but half the length of the other, will be in octave. It is the same of two pipes: and the appearance of the equal and unequal flutes in antique representations, seems to confirm the conjecture of their being unisons and octaves to each other. 28 HURD's Notes on the Art of Poetry, p. 150. 29 Mr. Farmer closes these general testimonies of Shakspeare's speare's having been only indebted to nature, by saying, "He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, "like Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and ma. "ture." It is whimsical enough, that this some one else, whose expression is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakspeare's want of literature, should be no other than myself. Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention where he met with this expression of some one else; and some one else does not choose to mention where he dropt it. 30 In defence of the various reading of this passage, given in the preface to the last edition of Shakspeare," small La"tin, and no Greek," Mr. Farmer tells us, that "it was "adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a pane"gyrick on Cartwright." Surely, Towers having said that Cartwright had no Greek, is no proof that Ben Jonson said so of Shakspeare |