Again, he says that who, as an objective case, “is in accordance with the grammatical usage of Shakspeare’s day,” (Vol.  II. p. 86,) and that, “considering the unsettled state of minor grammatical relations in Shakspeare’s time,” it is possible that he wrote whom as a nominative (Vol.  V. p. 393).  But the most extraordinary instance is where he makes a nominative plural agree with a verb in the second person singular, (Vol.  III. p. 121,) and justifies it by saying that “such disagreements ... are not uncommon in Shakspeare’s writings, and those of his contemporaries.”  The passage reads as follows in Mr. White’s edition:—­

            “A breath thou art,
  Servile to all the skiey influences
  That dost this habitation where thou keep’st
  Hourly afflict.”

Hanmer (mistaking the meaning) read do.  Porson objected, on the ground that it was thou and not influences which governed dost.  Porson was certainly right, and we wonder how any one could ever have understood the passage in any other way.  The mediaevals had as much trouble in reconciling free-will with judicial astrology as we with the divine foreknowledge.  A passage in Dante, it appears to us, throws light on the meaning of the Duke’s speech:—­

  “Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia;
  Non dico tutti; ma posto ch’ io ’l dica
  Lume v’ e dato a bene ed a malizia,
  E libero voler che, se fatica
  Nelle prime battaglie col ciel dura,
  Poi vince tutto se ben si notrica.”

  Purg., Cant. xvi.

Cielo is here used for the influence of the stars, as is clear from a parallel passage in the “Convito.”  Accordingly, “Though servile to all the skyey influences, it is thou, breath as thou art, that dost hourly afflict thy body with the results of sin.”  But even if this be not the meaning, is Mr. White correct in saying that influence had no plural at that time?[I] Had he forgotten “the sweet influences of Pleiades”?  The word occurs in this form not only in our version of the Bible, but in that of Cranmer, and in the “Breeches” Bible.  So in Chapman’s “Byron’s Conspiracy,” (Ed. 1608, B. 3,)

  “Where the beames of starres have carv’d
  Their powerful influences.”

[Footnote I:  Mr. White cites Dr. Richardson, but the Doctor is not always a safe guide.]

Mr. White repeatedly couples together the translators of the Bible and Shakspeare, but he seems to have studied their grammar but carelessly. “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you,” is a case in point, and we ought never to forget our danger from that dusky personage who goes about “seeking whom he may devour.”  At a time when correction of the press was so imperfect, one instance of true construction should outweigh twenty false, and nothing could be easier than the mistake of who for whom, when the latter was written wh[=o].  A glance at Ben Jonson’s English Grammar is worth more than all theorizing.  Mr. White thinks it probable that Shakspeare understood French, Latin, and Italian, but not—­English!