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that Greene’s Arcadia was publiſhed:) for ſuppoſing this to have been a ſneer at Shakſpeare, it might have been inſerted in ſome new edition of this tract after 1596; it being a frequent practice of Naſhe and Greene, to make additions to their pamphlets at every re-impreſſion.

But it is by no means clear, that Shakſpeare was the perſon whom Naſhe had here in contemplation. He ſeems to point at ſome dramatick writer of that time, who had been originally a ſcrivener or attorney:

“ A clerk foredoom’d his father’s ſoul to croſs,
Who pen’d a ſtanza when he ſhould engroſs”—

who, inſtead of tranſcribing deeds and pleadings, choſe to imitate Seneca’s plays, of which a tranſlation had been publiſhed not many years before.—“ The trade of Noverint” is the trade of an attorney or notary^[1]. Shakſpeare was not bred to the law, at leaſt we have no ſuch tradition; nor, however freely he may have borrowed from North’s Plutarch and Holinſhed’s Chronicle, does he appear to be at all indebted to the tranſlation of Seneca.

Of all the writers of the age of queen Elizabeth, Naſhe is the moſt licentious in his language; perpetually diſtorting words from their primitive ſignification, in a manner often puerile and ridiculous, but more frequently incomprehenſible and abſurd. His proſe works, it they were collected together, would perhaps exhibit a greater farrago of unintelligible jargon, than is to be found in the productions of any author ancient or modern. An argument that reſts on a term uſed by ſuch a writer, has but a weak foundation.

The phraſe—“ whole hamlets of tragical ſpeeches”—is certainly intelligible, without ſuppoſing an alluſion to the play; and might have only meant a large quantity.—We meet a ſimilar expreſſion in our author’s Cymbeline.

“ I’d let a pariſh of ſuch Clotens blood.”—

Arcadia was printed in 1589. If he is right, it is ſtill leſs probable that this paſſage ſhould have related to our author’s Hamlet.

1. “ The Country Lawyers too jog down apace,
   Each with his noverint univerſi face.”
   Ravenſcroft’s Prologue prefixed to Titus Andronicus. Our ancient deeds were written in Latin, and frequently began with the words, Noverint Univerſi. The form is ſtill retained. Know all men, &c.

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