_Eaton_, and _Ben Johnson_; Sir _John Suckling_, who was a profess’d admirer of _Shakespear_, had undertaken his defence against _Ben Johnson_ with some warmth; Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for some time, hearing _Ben_ frequently reproaching him with the want of learning, and ignorance of the Antients, told him at last, _That if Mr._ Shakespear _had not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any thing from ’em_ (a fault the other made no conscience of); _and that if he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the same subject at least as well written by_ Shakespear. _Johnson_ did indeed take a large liberty, even to the transcribing and translating of whole scenes together; and sometimes, with all deference to so great a name as his, not altogether for the advantage of the authors of whom he borrow’d. And if _Augustus_ and _Virgil_ were really what he has made ’em in a scene of his _Poetaster_, they are as odd an Emperor and a Poet as ever met. _Shakespear_, on the other hand, was beholding to no body farther than the foundation of the tale, the incidents were often his own, and the writing intirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, _The Comedy of Errors_, in a great measure taken from the _Menæchmi_ of _Plautus_. How that happen’d, I cannot easily divine, since, as I hinted before, I do not take him to have been master of _Latin_ enough to read it in the original, and I know of no translation of _Plautus_ so old as his time.