was obliged to leave his family and business in Warwickshire for fome time, and shelter himself in London. Midfummer Night's It was at this time, and upon this accident, that he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the play-house. He was received into the company, at first in a very mean rank; but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, foon diftinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as a very uncommon genius and excellent writer. His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, among those of the other players before fome old plays, but without any particular account of what fort of parts he used to act; and Mr. Rowe says, that though he enquired, he never could meet with any farther account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet. We have no certain authority, which was his first play: there is a "Romeo and Juliet," dated 1597, when he was thirty-three years of age; and a " Richard II and III," the year following. He was highly favored by queen Elizabeth, who had several of his plays acted before her. It is that maiden princess plainly, whom he intends by, "A fair Vestal throned by the "weft;" and that whole passage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handsomely applied to her. She was Dream so well pleased with the character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry IV, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to shew him in love: and this is faid to have been the occafion of his writing " The Merry Wives of "Windfor." Upon this occasion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of Falstaff is said to have been written originally under the name of Oldcastle; but that, fome of that family then remaining, he changed it into Falstaff, at the command of the queen. Mr. Rowe however thinks, that though the first offence was avoided, yet there was something injurious in this second choice; fince, as he observes, it is certain that Sir John Falstaff, a knight of the garter, and a lieutenant general, was a name of diftinguished merit in the wars in France, under the reigns of Henry V and VI. It may farther be observed, that Shakespear, in this play, has made Sir John Falstaff a deer stealer, that he might remember his Warwickshire profecutor; whom he has described under the name of justice Shallow, and to whom he has given very near the same coat of arms, which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, describes for a family of the same name there. And as the queen was a patroness of our poet, so he met also with many great and uncommon marks of favor and friendship from the earl of Southampton: to whom he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is no certain account, when he quitted the stage: but the latter part of his life was spent in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to collect a competency sufficient for convenience, comfort, and dignity; and he spent some years before his death at his native town Stratford. His pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and intitled him to the friendship, of all the gentlemen in the neighbourhood. He died in 1616 in the 53d year of his age, and was buried in the church of Stratford, where a monument is erected for him, and placed against the wall. He is represented under an arch in a fitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left refting on a scroll of paper. Under the cushion is this Latin distich: Judicio Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem And on the grave-stone underneath is, Good friend, for Jesus' fake, forbear In April 1738, his tragedy of Julius Cæfar was acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane; and with the profits arifing from thence a monument was erected for him in Westminfter-Abbey. He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married: Judith the elder to one Mr. Thomas Quincy, by whom she had three fons, who all died without children; and Susanna, who was his favorite, to Dr. John Hall, a phyfician of good reputation in that country. She left one child only, a daughter, who was twice married, but died without issue. His dramatic writings, which are very numerous, were first published together in 1623, folio; and have fince been republished by Mr. Rowe, Mr. Pope, Mr. Lewis Theobald, Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Warburton, the merit of all whose editions is too well known for us to descant upon. Various criticisms have been made upon Shakespear's genius and his writings in innumerable Essays, Remarks, Obfervations, Commentaries, and Notes; but as the substance of them all, expressed in a better manner, is contained in Mr. Pope's Preface to his edition, we will here give it the reader, in as short a compass as we can. " If ever any author deserved the name of an original, says " Mr. Pope, it was Shakespear. Homer himself drew not " his art so immediately from the fountains of nature: it pro"ceeded through Egyptian strainers and channels, and came " to him not without some tincture of the learning, or fome " cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of "Shakespear was inspiration indeed: he is not so much an " imitator, as an instrument of nature; and it is not so just to "say, that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through "him. His characters are so much nature herself, that it is " a fort of injury to call them by so distant a name, as copies "of her. Those of other Poets have a constant resemblance, "which shews that they received them from one another, " and were but multipliers of the same image: each picture "like a mock-rainbow, is but the reflexion of a reflexion. "But every single character in Shakespear is as much an indi"vidual, as those in life itself: it is as impossible to find any "two alike; and such, as from their relation or affinity in 66 any respect appear most to be twins, will upon comparifon " be found remarkably diftinct." Mr. Pope then takes notice of his prodigious and extensive power over the passions; that he was more a master of the great, than of the ridiculous in human nature; and that he not only excelled in the paffions, but also in the coolness of reflection and reasoning: and in his sentiments, which are full as admirable. All which, says he, " is perfectly amazing from a man of no education or " experience in those great and public scenes of life, which are " usually the subject of his thoughts: so that he seems to " have known the world by intuition, to have looked thro' : ) " human nature at one glance, and to be the only author " that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the philoso"pher, and even the man of the world, may be born, as well " as the poet. In the mean time Mr. Pope was not so struck with Shakespear's excellencies, as to be insensible to his defects; but owns, that as he has certainly written better, so he has perhaps written worse, than any other. He endeavours to account for these defects from several causes and accidents, arifing partly from the situation he was in as a player, and partly from the manner in which his plays were published. As a player, he would be obliged in a great measure to form himfelf upon the judgments of that body of men, of which he was a member; who, regardless of the principles and laws of dramatic writing, know no rule but that of pleasing the present humor, and complying with the wit in fashion. " By " these men, says Mr. Pope, it was thought a praise to Shake"spear, that he scarce ever blotted a line; and this they in" dustriously propagated, as appears from what we are told " by Ben Johnson in his Discoveries, and from the preface to "the first folio edition. But in reality, however it has pre"vailed, there never was a more groundless report, or to the " contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences: as "the comedy of the Merry Wives of Windsor, which he in" tirely new writ; the history of Henry VI, which was first " published under the title of the Contention of York and "Lancaster; that of Henry V, extremely improved; that of "Hamlet, enlarged to almost as much again as at first; and " many others. I believe, the common opinion of his want " of learning proceeded from no better ground: concerning " which it may be necessary to say something more. There " is certainly a vast difference between learning and lan"guages; how far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot de "termine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if they " will not call it learning: nor is it any great matter, if a man " has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or " from another. Nothing is more evident, than that he had "a taste of natural philosophy, mechanics, ancient and mo" dern history, poetical learning and mythology. We find " him very knowing in the customs, rites, and manners of an"tiquity." 1 1 " antiquity," of which Mr. Pope gives several instances; " in " modern Italian writers of novels; and in the ancients of his " own country. I am inclined to think, this opinion pro" ceeded originally from the zeal of the partizans of our au"thor and Ben Johnson; as they endeavoured to exalt the " one at the expence of the other. It is ever the nature of " parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as "that because Ben Johnson had much the more learning, "it was faid on the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; "and because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, "it was retorted on the other, that Johnson wanted both. "Because Shakespear borrowed nothing, it was faid that "Johnfon borrowed every thing: because Johnson did not "write extempore, he was reproached with being a year a“bout every piece; and because Shakespear wrote with ease " and rapidity, they cried, he never once made a blot. - But "however this contention might be carried on by the parti 66 66 ১. د ১১ د. ১১ zans on either fide, I cannot help thinking these two great poets were good friends, and lived on amicable terms and in " offices of society with each other. It is an acknowledged "fact, that Ben Johnfon was introduced upon the stage, and " his first works encouraged, by Shakespear: and after his "death, that author writes, To the memory of his beloved Mr. "William Shakespear, which shews as if the friendship had " continued through life. I cannot for my own part find 66 T any thing invidious or sparing in those verses, but wonder " Mr. Dryden was of that opinion. He exalts him not only "above all his contemporaries, but above Chaucer, and Spen 66 cer, whom he will not allow to be great enough to be " ranked with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles, "Euripides, and Æschylus, nay, all Greece and Rome at "once, to equal him: and, which is very particular, ex" pressly vindicates him from the imputation of wanting art, " not enduring that all his excellencies should be attributed to "Nature. It is remarkable too, that the praise he gives him “ in his Discoveries seems to proceed from a personal kind"ness: he tells us, that he loved the man, as well as ho"noured his memory; celebrates the honesty, openness, and " frankness of his temper; and only diftinguishes, as he rea"sonably ought, between the real merit of the author, and 'the 24 !い |