make no doubt but that his fine Discernment and the rest of his great Qualities have amply supply’d the Defects which are found in the Character of _Shakespear_’s _Cæsar_. I should here answer an Argument, by which some People pretend to prove, and especially those with whom I lately convers’d, that _Shakespear_ was conversant with the Ancients. But besides that the Post is about to be gone, I am heartily tir’d with what I have already writ, and so doubtless are you; I shall therefore defer the rest to the next opportunity, and remain Your, _&c_. Letter III. _Sir_, Feb. 8. I come now to the main Argument, which some People urge to prove that _Shakespear_ was conversant with the Ancients. For there is, say they, among _Shakespear_’s Plays, one call’d _The Comedy of Errors_, which is undeniably an Imitation of the _Menechmi_ of _Plautus_. Now _Shakespear_, say they, being conversant with _Plautus_, it undeniably follows that he was acquainted with the Ancients; because no _Roman_ Author could be hard to him who had conquer’d _Plautus_. To which I answer, that the Errors which we have mention’d above are to be accounted for no other way but by the want of knowing the Ancients, or by downright want of Capacity. But nothing can be more absurd or more unjust than to impute it to want of Capacity. For the very Sentiments of _Shakespear_ alone are sufficient to shew that he had a great Understanding: And therefore we must account some other way for his Imitation of the _Menechmi_. I remember to have seen, among the Translations of _Ovid_’s Epistles printed by Mr. _Tonson_, an Imitation of that from _Œnone_ to _Paris_, which Mr. _Dryden_ tells us in his Preface to those Epistles was imitated by one of the Fair Sex who understood no _Latin_, but that she had done enough to make those blush who understood it the best. There are at this day several Translators, who, as _Hudibrass_ has it, Translate from Languages of which They understand no part of Speech.