gladly recalled whatever he had before mistakingly asserted. That the notion of Jonson's hostility to Shakspeare was of no modern date, it will not require many words to prove. It was not only handed down, as Mr. Gifford states, from Mr. Malone to Mr. Weber, but from Dryden, through almost every intermediate writer, to Mr. Malone. So strong, indeed, according to Mr. Gifford, was the general feeling upon this subject, that in speaking of an idle anecdote, related by Smollet of Ben Jonson, he has this remark: "Smollet knew less of Jonson than even Mr. Malone; he knew enough, however, of the públick to be convinced that in calumniating him, he was on the right side." I admit that this great poet has been wrongfully treated; I lament that Mr. Malone was led by others into an injurious estimation of his character; but when Mr. Gifford proceeds to accuse my friend of wilful misrepresentation, I must show, as I think satisfactorily, that the charge is destitute of proof.

A note written by Mr. Steevens, which was originally appended to Jonson's CommendatoryVerses on Shakspeare, but which in the present edition is placed in juxta-position to the Essay in its confutation, had been referred to by Mr. Malone in a note on Mr. Rowe's Life of the Poet. The following is the remark of Mr. Gifford:

"See also (he says) Mr. Steevens's note on those verses. -With pain I have seen it; and with disgust will the reader learn, that this note of Mr. Steevens' is neither more nor less than the identical letter of Macklin's which Mr. Malone himself had previously employed nearly thirty pages in proving to be a forgery from end to end! The exposure occurs in the first volume, the 'note' at the end of the second; so that Mr. Malone intrepidly hurries past his own refutation in quest of a known falsehood to bolster up a recorded lie.+"

* Gifford's Jonson, vol. viii. p. 453.
†The same, vol. i. p. ccliii.

These are hard words: and Mr. Gifford, I am confident, will regret his having used them, when he shall find that he is altogether mistaken in the fact. He has informed us that all his quotations are taken from the edition in 1793, and this, for purposes of general reference, might have been amply sufficient; but when such language is applied to a note of Mr. Malone's, founded, in a great measure, on the place which it occupies, it might have been wished that Mr. Gifford had cast his eye upon the only edition for which Mr. Malone can be considered as responsible, his own in 1790. He would have there found Mr. Steevens's note, vol. i. p. 202; and in the same volume, one hundred and eighty pages afterwards, he would have seen Mr. Malone's refutation. But this is by no means the only instance in which Mr. Malone has been judged by the acts of another.

In speaking of The Winter's Tale, Mr. Gifford remarks, that Mr. Malone's "text and his notes confound each other." They certainly do so, if we are satisfied to take them as they are exhibited by Mr. Steevens. But how stands the fact? Mr. Malone, in his Essay on the Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays, had ascribed The Winter's Tale to the year 1604; but having afterwards procured an inspection of Sir Henry Herbert's office book, he discovered that he had been in an error before his work had finally issued from the press, and pointed it out in his Emendations. The first and erroneous statement Mr. Steevens retained as the text, and then converted the subsequent correction into a note to the very passage which it was designed to overthrow; and thus, by the gross negligence, if ignorantly done, or if otherwise, by the petty trick of a rival editor, Mr. Malone is exposed to the charge of having written nonsense. Another remark by Mr. Gifford arises from his inattention to dates. He commences with an extract from Mr. Malone.

"The Comedy of Humours, played eleven times between 25th Nov. 1596 and 11th Maye, 1597.'- Perhaps,

says Mr. Malone, (on this extract from Henslowe's memorandum-book,) Every Man in his Humour. It will appear that Ben Jonson had money dealings with Mr. Henslowe, the manager of this theatre, (the Rose,) and that he wrote for him. The play might afterwards have been purchased from this company by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, (Shakspeare, Burbage, Heminge, Condell, &c.) by whom it was acted in 1598.' Shak. vol. ii. p. 457.

"Would the reader believe, on any authority but the writer's own, that the Mr. Malone, who drew up this plain paragraph, could be the same Mr. Malone who, not merely in one, or two, but in a hundred places, has grossly reviled Jonson on the score of ingratitude to Shakspeare for introducing him to the stage, and bringing out this very play!"

There can be no difficulty in believing it to be the same Mr. Malone who drew up this paragraph, when he had acquired information of which he was not possessed before. He introduces his extracts from the Henslowe MSS. with these words :-"Just as this work was issuing from the press, some curious manuscripts, relative to the stage, were found at Dulwich College, and obligingly transmitted to me from thence." It is evident that these papers could not, without the gift of prophecy, have enabled Mr. Malone to correct what appeared in an early part of his work, if they did not meet his eye till the conclusion. I may add, that their discovery and polite transmission to the historian of the stage, will add little support to Mr. Gifford's terms of "sloth and ignorance,' so harshly applied to the members of that institution. The censures which are passed on Mr. Malone upon slighter matters, will not require me to detain the reader long.

"Mr. Malone had previously employed several pages (vol. i. pp. 611-15,) in proving Twelfth Night to be written in 1614, that is, sixteen years before the appearance of Every Man out of his Humour; he had also positively affirmed (p. cclxxv) that he did not believe

Twelfth Night was meant;' yet he subjoins to the note of Steevens, (who knew that he had been delivering a falsehood,) If the foregoing passage was levelled at Twelfth Night, my speculation falls to the ground.' He has not the integrity to support his own facts, lest he should remove one absurd and wretched calumny from Jonson." I am surprised that one so conversant with the press as Mr. Gifford should so certainly conclude, that what appears first when printed, must have been previously written. The reverse is most frequently the case, and the whole of a work is generally gone through before the composition of the prefatory matter; but in the present instance there is no inconsistency; he tells us that if Mr. Steevens is right, he himself must have been wrong; he does not allow that he was wrong, nor give up his own opinion, but only abstains from giving a gentleman, with whom he was then living on terms of intimacy, a direct and blunt contradiction. My principal object is to defend my late friend's integrity; but I will step out of that course for a moment, to say a word in favour of his logick.

666

Antony Munday is ridiculed here by Ben Jonson; but he might notwithstanding be deservedly eminent; that malignity which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakspeare, would certainly not spare inferior writers.' p. 481. Mr. Malone is no great logician-but let that pass. The passage to which he refers was probably written before Jonson knew Shakspeare; for it occurs in one of his earliest pieces. With respect to the eminence of Antony, it is somewhat scurvily treated by Decker, Chapman, and Middleton; it is not therefore a necessary consequence that the wreath of Shakspeare was endangered by this ridicule."

Mr. Malone's argument seems to me sufficiently clear. It does not follow that Munday was not eminent, because he was ridiculed by Jonson, He who (not at that time, but any time) was capable of attacking Shakspeare, who was unquestionably eminent, would not have scrupled to treat inferior writers with the same injustice: not a word

Mr.

is said of this ridicule endangering Shakspeare. Malone is sometimes accused of self-contradiction, where, I confess, I cannot discover it.

“It is certain' (he is quoting Mr. Malone's words) that not long after the year 1500, (again referring to the Return from Parnassus!) a coldness arose between Shakspeare and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced, on his part,' (what is become of Shakspeare's ballad against Jonson ?') from that time, 1600, to the death of Shakspeare, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm, and many malevolent reflections."" p. 481.

"The critic had already forgotten his unfortunate letter, p. cviii, in which he admits that old Ben's jealousy did not fully display itself till Shakspeare retired from the stage."

Is it inconsistent to say that a man regarded another with jealousy for many years, but that his jealousy did not fully display itself till a certain period?

Mr. Gifford is often in the habit of quoting the commentators generally, without marking out any individual, as if they were a corporate body, or partners in a firm, responsible for the acts of each other; and as Mr. Malone's name is more frequently mentioned than any other, he is apparently loaded with more than belongs to his share; while Mr. Tyrwhitt, Sir William Blackstone, and others, escape under an anonymous censure. As for instance

"The prologue to Henry VIII. it seems, was written by our author to ridicule Shakspeare;' and the whole weight of the commentators' fury is directed against him, and him alone Jonson,' says one of them, in all probability maliciously stole this opportunity to throw in his envious and spiteful invective before the representation of his rival's play.' Henry VIII. p. 348. But what influence had Jonson at the Globe, of which Shakspeare or his 'associates' Heminge, Burbage, and Condell, were, at this time, the sole managers and proprietors? Who em