But although Spenser disapproved of this corrupt adulteration of style, so fashionable At the last he doth demand But for to have his owne; Either take your pound of fleshe, qd he, O cruel judge! then quoth the Jewe, And so with griped grieved mind, That ever this heard tell, After which follows a moral exhortation, resulting from the subject. But the whole may be seen in the Connoiseur, vol. i. No. 16, It may be objected, that this ballad might have been written after, and copied from Shakespeare's play. But if that had been the case, it is most likely that the author would have preserved Shakespeare's name of Shylock for the Jew and nothing is more likely than that Shakespeare, in copying from this ballad, should alter the name from Gernutus to one more Jewish; and by the alteration of the name his imitation was 'the better disguised. Another argument, which would have appeared much more convincing, had the whole song been in his age, yet we find him, notwithstanding, frequently introducing words from a foreign tongue, such as visnomie, amenance, arret, mesprise, sovenance, afrap, aguise, amenage, obase, and the like; but these words the fre transcribed, but which perhaps will be allowed from this extract, is, that our ballad has the air of a narrative written before Shakespeare's play; I mean that if it had been written after the play, it would have been much more full and circumstantial: At present, it has too much the nakedness of an original. Besides, the first stanza informs us, that the story was taken from some Italian novel. Thus much therefore is certain, that is, Shakespeare either copied from that Italian novel, or from this ballad: Now we have no translation, I presume, of such a novel into English; if then it be granted that Shakespeare generally took his Italian stories from their English translations, and that the arguments above, concerning the prior antiquity of this ballad, are true, it will follow that Shakespeare copied from this ballad. I shall only add, that it appears from S. Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, printed in 1579, that the character of a cruel and covetous Jew had been exhibited with good applause, before Shakespeare's Shylock appeared. The author is commending some plays, and among the rest, The Jewe and Ptolome shewne at the Bull; the one representing the greedinesse of wordly chusers, and bloudy minds of Usurers, the other, &c." quent return of his rhyme obliged him to introduce, and accordingly they will gene rally be found at the end of his lines. The poverty of our tongue, or rather the unfrequency of it's identical terminations, compelled him likewise, for the sake of rhyme, perpetually to coin new English words, such as damnify'd, unmercify'd, wonderment, warriment, unruliment, habitaunce, hazardrie, &c. &c. To this cause his many Latinisms also may be attributed, which, like all the rest, are substituted to make out the necessary jingle. 66 The censure of Jonson, upon our author's style, is perhaps unreasonable: Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language*." The ground-work and substance of his style is the language of his age. This indeed is seasoned with various expres *Discoveries. sions, adopted from the elder poets; but in such a manner, that the language of his age was rather strengthened and dignified, than debased and disguised, by such a practice. In truth, the affectation of Spenser in his point is by no means so striking and visible as Jonson has insinuated; nor is his phraseology so difficult and obsolete as it is generally supposed to be. For many stanzas together we may frequently read him with as much facility as we can the same number of lines in Shakespeare. But although I cannot subscribe to Jonson's opinión concerning Spenser's language, I must confess that the following sentiments of that critic, concerning the use of old words in poetry, are admirable. " Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of yeares, and out of their intermission do lend a kind of grace-like newnesse. But the eldest of the present, and the newest of the past language is the best *, But Jonson has literally translated the latter part of the paragraph, from Quintilian, without acknowledgment. Ergo ut novorum optima erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime novat." I conclude this Section with a passage from the nervous, poetical, and witty Satires of Bishop Hall; who having censured the petty poets of his age for their various corruptions and licentious abuses of the English language, makes this compliment to Spenser. But lett no rebel satyr dare traduce * Discoveries. † Instit. Or. 1. 1. cap. 6. |