earl of Essex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted, that my lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to; a bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that profuse generosity the present age has shewn to French dancers and Italian singers. What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, I have not been able to learn, more than that every one, who had a true taste of merit, and could distinguish men, had generally a just value and esteem for him. His exceeding candour and goodnature must certainly have inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit obliged the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him. His acquaintance with Ben Jonson began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good nature. Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company; when Shakspeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the publick. Jonson was certainly a very good scholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare; though at the same time, I believe, it must be allowed, that what nature gave the latter was more than a balance for what books had given the former; and the judgment of a great man upon this occasion was, I think, very just and proper. In a conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson; Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonson with some warmth; Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, told them, That if Mr. Shakspeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the same subject, at least as well written, by Shakspeare. The latter part of his life, was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasion, and in that, to his wish; and is said to have spent some years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury it happened, that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare, in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately upon which Shakspeare gave him these four verses : Ten in the hundred lies here engrav❜d, But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it. He died in the 53d year of his age,* and was buried on the north side of the chancel in the great church at Stratford, where a monument, as engraved in the plate, is placed in the wall. On his grave-stone underneath is, Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here : Blest be the man that spares these stones, He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three sons, who all died without children; and Susannah, who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a physician of good reputation in that country. She left one child only, a daughter, who was married, first, to Thomas Nash, Esq. and afterwards to Sir John Bernard of Abington, but died likewise without issue. This is what I could learn of any note, either relating to himself or family: the character of the man is best seen in his writings. But since Ben Jonson has made a sort of an essay towards it in his Discoveries, I will give it in his words : "I remember the players have often mentioned it "as an honour to Shakspeare, that in writing (whatso"ever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My "answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand! "which they thought a malevolent speech. I had "not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who "chose that circumstance to commend their friend "by, wherein he most faulted and to justify mine "own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour "his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. "He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free na * He died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, and had exactly completed his fifty-second year. "ture, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gen"tle expressions; wherein he flowed with that fa"cility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be "stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of "Haterius. His wit was in his own power: would "the rule of it had been so too! Many times he "fell into those things which could not escape laughas when he said in the person of Cæsar, one "speaking to him, "ter; "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong." " He replied, « Cæsar did never wrong, but with just cause ;* "and such like, which were ridiculous. But he re"deemed his vices with his virtues : there was ever "more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." As for the passage which he mentions out of Shakspeare, there is somewhat like it in Julius Cæsar, but without the absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have seen, as quoted by Mr. Jonson. Besides his plays in this edition, there are two or three ascribed to him by Mr.Langbain, which I have never seen, and know nothing of. He writ likewise Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in stanzas, which have been printed in a late collection of poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Jonson, there is a good deal in it: but I believe it may be as well expressed by what Horace says of the first Ro *If ever there was such a line written by Shakspeare, I should fancy it might have its place, vol. 6. Julius Cæsar, act 3, scene 2, thus: -Cæsar has had great wrong. 3 Pleb. Cæsar had never wrong, but with just cause; and very humorously in the character of a Plebeian.-One might believe Ben Jonson's remark was made upon no better credit than some blunder of an actor in speaking that verse near the beginning of the third act :Know, Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied. But the verse, as cited by Ben Johnson, does not connect with will he ba satisfied. Perhaps this play was never printed in Ben Jonson's time, and so he had nothing to judge by but as the actor pleased to speak it. POPE mans who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed translated them) in his epistle to Augustus. -Naturâ sublimis & acer, Nam spirat tragicum satis & feliciter audet, As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a large and complete collection upon Shakspeare's works, so I will only take the liberty, with all due submission to the judgment of others, to observe some of those things I have been pleased with in looking him over. His plays are properly to be distinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Those which are called histories, and even some of his comedies, are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of comedy amongst them. That way of tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age; and is indeed become so agreeable to the English taste, that though the severer crit icks among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleased with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of the Shrew, are all pure comedy; the rest, however they are called, have something of both kinds. It is not very easy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the satire of the present age has taken the liberty to do; yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguished variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a master-piece. The character is always well sustained, though drawn out into the length of three plays and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady, Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry the Fifth, though it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has |