These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their Author’s. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various _Excerpta_, _Sententiæ_, and _Flores_, this business may be effected with very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in his Comment on _Chevy-chase_, and Wagstaff on _Tom Thumb_; and I myself will engage to give you quotations from the elder _English_ writers (for, to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is now in possession of the _Marks of Imitation_. “Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the _facts_ and _fables_ of antiquity.” Granted:—and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his acquaintance. It is notorious that much of his _matter of fact_ knowledge is deduced from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and corrects accordingly the _Errors of his Copyists_ by the Greek standard. Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently. In the third act of _Anthony and Cleopatra_, Octavius represents to his Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the arrangement of their dominion, ——Unto her He gave the ’stablishment of Egypt, made her Of lower Syria, Cyprus, _Lydia_, Absolute Queen. Read _Libya_, says the critick _authoritatively_, as is plain from Plutarch, Πρώτην μὲν ἀπέφηνε Κλεοπάτραν βασίλισσαν Αἰγύπτου καὶ Κύπρου καὶ ΛΙΒΥΗΣ, καὶ κοίλης Συρίας. This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in _Folio_, 1579; and you will at once see the origin of the mistake. “First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of Ægypt, of Cyprus, of _Lydia_, and the lower Syria.” Again in the Fourth Act, ——My messenger He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat, Cæsar to Anthony. Let th’ old Ruffian know I have many other ways to die; mean time Laugh at his challenge.—— “What a reply is this?” cries Mr. Upton, “’tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read, ——Let the old Ruffian know _He_ hath many other ways to die; mean time _I_ laugh at his challenge—— we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæsar in Plutarch.”