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but we find no trace of our author, or of any of his works. Three years afterwards, puttenham printed his Art of English Poefy; and in that work alfo we look in vain for the name of Shakspeare. ' Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetry, prefixed to the Tranflation of Ariofto, (which was entered in the Stationers' books Feb. 26, 1590-1,

“Onion. Shall I requeft your name?

"Ant. My name is Antonio Balladino.

Oni. Balladino! You are not pageant-poet to the city of Milan, fir, are you?

"Ant. I fupply the place, fir, when a worfe cannot be had, fir.-Did you fee the last pageant I fet forth?"

Afterwards Antonio, fpeaking of the plays he had written, fays.

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Let me have good ground, -no matter for the pen; the plot fhall carry it.

Oni. Indeed that's right; you are in print, already for

THE BEST PLOTTER.

"Ant. Ay; I might as well have been put in for a dumb-fhow too."

It is evident, that his poet is here intended to be ridiculed by Ben Jonfon: but he might, notwithstanding, have been defervedly eminent. That malignity which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakspeare, would certainly not fpare inferior writers.

3 The thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham's Art of English Poefy is thus entitled: "Who in any age have been the most commended writers in our English Poesie, and the author's cenfure given upon them."

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After having enumerated feveral authors who were then celebrated for various kinds of compofition, he gives this fuccinct account of thofe who had written for the stage: Of the latter fort I thinke thus ; that for tragedie, the Lord Buckhurst and Maifter Edward Ferrys, for fuch doings as I have fene of theirs, do deferve the hyeft price; the Earl of Oxford and Maifter Edwardes of her Majeflie's Chappell, for comedie and enterlude."

VOL. II.

F

in which year it was published,) takes occafion to fpeak of the theatre, and mentions fome of the celebrated dramas of that time; but fays not a word of Shakspeare, or of his plays. If any of his dramatick compofitions had then appeared, is it imaginable, that Harrington fhould have mentioned the Cambridge Pedantius, and The Play of the Cards, which laft, he tells us was a London [i. e. an English] comedy, and have paffed by, unnoticed, the new prodigy of the dramatick world?

In Spenfer's Tears of the Mufes, firft printed in 1591, the following lines are found in Thalia's complaint on account of the decay of dramatick poetry:

And he the man, whom náture's felf had made
To mock her felfe, and truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under mimick fhade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah, is dead of late;
With whom all joy and jolly merriment
Is alfo deaded, and in dolour drent.

Inftead thereof fcoffing fcurrilitie
And fcornful follie with contempt is
crept,
Rolling in rymes of fhameless ribaudrie,
Without regard or due decorum kept:
Each idle wit at will prefumes to make
And doth the learneds' talk upon him take.
But that fame gentle fpirit, from whofe pen
Large ftreames of honnie and fweet nectar flow,
Scorning the boldness of fuch bafe-born men,
Which dare their follies forth fo rafhlie throwe,
Doth rather choofe to fit in idle cell,
Than fo him felfe to mockerie to fell."

Thefe lines were inferted by Mr. Rowe in his firft edition of The Life of Shakspeare, and he then fuppofed that they related to our poet, and

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alluded to his having withdrawn himfelf for fome time from the publick, and difcontinued writing from a difguft he had taken to the then ill tafle of the town and the mean condition of the flage." But as Mr. Rowe fuppreffed this paffage in his fecond edition, it may be prefumed that he found reafon to change his opinion. Dryden, however, he informs us, always thought that these verses related to Shakspeare: and indeed I do not recollect any dramatick poet of that time, to whom the character which they delineate is applicable, except our author. It is remarkable that the very fame epithet, which Spenfer has employed, "But that fame gentle fpirit," &c. is likewise used by the players in their preface, where they speak of Shakspeare: who as he was a happie imitator of nature, was a moft gentle expreffer of it." On the other hand fome little difficulty arifes from the line "And doth the learneds talk upon him take;" for our poet certainly had no title to that epithet. Spenfer, however, might have used it in an appropriated fense, learned in all the business of the flage; and in this fenfe the epithet is more applicable to Shakspeare than to any poet that ever wrote.

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It fhould however, be remembered, that the name Willy, for fome reafon or other which it is now in vain to feek, appears to have been applied by the poets of Shakspeare's age to perfons who were not chriftened William. Thus, (as Dr. Farmer obferves to me,) in "An Eglogue made long fince on the death of Sir Philip Sydney," which is preferved in Davifon's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602, we find that celebrated writer

lamented in almost every ftanza by the name of Willy:

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"Our flocks and us, in mirth and fhepheard's glee,"&c.

""'Of none but Willie's pipe they made account," &c.

Spenfer's Willy, however, could not have been Sir Philip Sydney, for he was dead fome years before the Tears of the Mufes was published.

If these lines were intended to allude to Our author, then he must have written fome comedies in or before the year 1591; and the date which I have affigned to A Midfummer Night's Dream is erroneous. I cannot expect to influence the deci fion of my reader on a fubject on which I have not been able to form a decided opinion myself; and therefore fhall content myfelf with merely ftating the difficulties on each fide. Suppofing Shakspeare to have written any piece in the year 590, Sir John Harrington's filence concerning him in the following year appears inexplicable. But whatever poet may have been in Spenfer's contemplation, it is certain that Shakspeare had commenced a writer for the ftage, and had even excited the jealousy of his contemporaries, before September 1592. This is now decifively proved by a paffage extracted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Robert Greene's Groatfworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance, in which there is an evident allufion to our author's name, as well as to a line in the Second Part of King Henry VI.

This tract was published at the dying request

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of Robert Greene, a very voluminous writer of that time. The conclufion of it, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has obferved, is "an addrefs to his brother poets to diffuade them from writing for the ftage, on account of the ill treatment which they were used to receive from the players." It begins thus: To thofe gentlemen his quondam acquaintance that Spend their wits in making playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercife, and wifdome to prevent his extremities." His firft addrefs is undoubtedly to Chriñopher Marlowe, the most popular and admired dramatick poet of that age, previous to the appearance of Shakspeare. "Wonder not, (fays Greene,)

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for with thee will I firft begin, thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Greene, (who hath faid with thee, like the foole in his heart, there is no God,) fhould now give glory unto his greatnefs; for penetrating is his power, his hand is heavy upon me; &c. Why fhould thy excellent wit, his gift, be fo blinded, that thou should give no glory to the giver? -The brother [f. breather of this diabolical atheism is dead, and in his life had never the felicitie he aimed at : but as he beganne in craft, lived in feare, and ended in defpair. And wilt thou, my friend, be his difciple? Looke unto me, by him perfuaded to that libertie, and thou fhalt find it an infernal bondage."

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Greene's next addrefs appears to be made to Thomas Lodge. With thee I joyne young Juvenall, that byting fatirift, that laftly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I advife thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words: inveigh againft vaine men,

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