Upon the Encouragement I have receiv’d from you, I shall proceed to shew under what Disadvantages _Shakespear_ lay for want of being conversant with the Ancients. But because I have lately been in some Conversation, where they would not allow but that he was acquainted with the Ancients, I shall endeavour to make it appear that he was not; and the shewing that in the Method in which I pretend to convince the Reader of it, will sufficiently prove what Inconveniencies he lay under, and what Errors he committed for want of being conversant with them. But here we must distinguish between the several kinds of Acquaintance: A Man may be said to be acquainted with another who never was but twice in his Company; but that is at the best a superficial Acquaintance, from which neither very great Pleasure nor Profit can be deriv’d. Our Business is here to shew that _Shakespear_ had no familiar Acquaintance with the _Græcian_ and _Roman_ Authors. For if he was familiarly conversant with them, how comes it to pass that he wants Art? Is it that he studied to know them in other things, and neglected that only in them, which chiefly tends to the Advancement of the Art of the Stage? Or is it that he wanted Discernment to see the Justness, and the Greatness, and the Harmony of their Designs, and the Reasonableness of those Rules upon which those Designs are founded? Or how come his Successors to have that Discernment which he wanted, when they fall so much below him in other things? How comes he to have been guilty of the grossest Faults in Chronology, and how come we to find out those Faults? In his Tragedy of _Troylus_ and _Cressida_, he introduces _Hector_ speaking of _Aristotle_, who was born a thousand Years after the Death of _Hector_. In the same Play mention is made of _Milo_, which is another very great Fault in Chronology. _Alexander_ is mention’d in _Coriolanus_, tho’ that Conqueror of the Orient liv’d about two hundred Years after him. In this last Tragedy he has mistaken the very Names of his Dramatick Persons, if we give Credit to _Livy_. For the Mother of _Coriolanus_ in the _Roman_ Historian is _Vetturia_, and the Wife is _Volumnia_. Whereas in _Shakespear_ the Wife is _Virgilia_, and the Mother _Volumnia_. And the _Volscian_ General in _Shakespear_ is _Tullus Aufidius_, and _Tullus Attius_ in _Livy_. How comes it that he takes _Plutarch_’s Word, who was by Birth a _Græcian_, for the Affairs of _Rome_, rather than that of the _Roman_ Historian, if so be that he had read the latter? Or what Reason can be given for his not reading him, when he wrote upon a _Roman_ Story, but that in _Shakespear_’s time there was a Translation of _Plutarch_, and there was none of _Livy_? If _Shakespear_ was familiarly conversant with the _Roman_ Authors, how came he to introduce a Rabble into _Coriolanus_, in which he offended not only against the Dignity of Tragedy, but the Truth of Fact, the Authority of