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though very unequal work, the Biographia Britannica "If," say they, "this piece could be written by our poet, it would be absolutely decisive in the dispute about his learning; for many quotations appear in it from the Greek and Latin classicks."

* I must, however, correct a remark in the Life of Spenser, which is impotently levelled at the first criticks of the age. It is observed from the correspondence of Spenser and Gabriel Haryey, that the plan of The Fairy Queen, was laid, and part of it executed in 1580, three years before the Gierusalemme Liberata was printed: "hence appears the impertinence of all the apologies for his choice of Ariosto's manner in preference of Tasso's""

But the fact is not true with respect to Tasso. Manso and Niceron inform us, that his poem was published, though imperfectly, in 1574; and I myself can assure the biographer, that I have met with at least six other editions, preceding his date for its first publication. I suspect, that Baillet is accountable for this mistake: who, in the Jugemens des Scavans, tom. iii. p. 399, mentions no edition previous to the quarto, Venice, 1583.

It is a question of long standing, whether a part of The Fairy Queen hath been lost, or whether the work was left unfinished: which may effectually be answered by a single quotation. William Browne published some Poems in fol. 1616, under the name of Britannia's Pastorals, "esteemed then," says Wood, "to be written in a sublime strain, and for subject amorous and very pleasing."—In one of which, book ii. song 1, he thus speaks of Spenser:

"He sung th' heroicke knights of faiery land

"In lines so elegant, of such command,

"That had the Thracian plaid but halfe so well,
"He had not left Eurydice in hell.

"But e're he ended his melodious song,

"An host of angels flew the clouds among,

"And rapt this, swan from his attentive mates,

"To make him one of their associates

"In heauens faire quire: where now he sings the praise
"Of him that is the first and last of daies."

It appears, that Browne was intimate with Drayton, Jonson, and Selden, by their poems prefixed to his book: he had therefore good opportunities of being acquainted with the fact abovementioned. Many of his poems remain in MS. We have in our library at Emmanuel, a masque of his, presented at the Inner Temple, Jan. 13, 1611. The subject is the story of Ulysses and Circe.

The concurring circumstances of the name, and the misdemeanor which is supposed to be the old story of deer-stealing, seem fairly to challenge our poet for the author: but they hesitate.-His claim may appear to be confuted by the date 1581, when Shakspeare was only seventeen, and the long experience, which the writer talks of.-But I will not keep you in suspense: the book was not written by Shakspeare.

Strype, in his Annals, calls the author some learned man, and this gave me the first suspicion. I knew very well, that honest John (to use the language of Sir Thomas Bodley) did not waste his time with such baggage books as plays and poems; yet I must suppose, that he had heard of the name of Shakspeare. After a while I met with the original edition. Here in the title-page, and at the end of the dedication, appear only the initials, W. S. Gent. and presently I was informed by Anthony Wood, that the book in question was written, not by William Shakspeare, but by William Stafford, Gentleman*: which at once accounted for the misdemeanour in the dedication. For Stafford had been concerned at that time, and was indeed afterward, as Camden and the other annalists inform us, with some of the conspirators against Elizabeth; which he properly calls his unduetifull behaviour.

I hope by this time, that any one open to conviction may be nearly satisfied; and I will promise to give you on this head very little more trouble.

The justly celebrated Mr. Warton hath favoured us, in his Life of Dr. Bathurst, with some hearsay particulars concerning Shakspeare from the papers of Aubrey, which had been in the hands of Wood; and I ought not to suppress them, as the last seems to make against my doctrine. They came originally, I find, on consulting the MS. from one Mr. Beeston: and I am sure Mr. Warton, whom I have the honour to call my friend, and an associate in the question, will be in no pain about their credit.

"William Shakspeare's father was a butcher,-while he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed

* Fasti, 2d edit. vol. i. 208.-It will be seen on turning to the former edition, that the latter part of the paragraph belongs to another Stafford.-I have since observed, that Wood is not the first who hath given us the true author of the pamphlet.

a calf, he would do it in a high style, and make a speech. This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess, about eighteen, and was an actor in one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well. He began early to make essays in dramatique poetry. The humour of the Constable in the MidsummerNight's Dream he happened to take at Crendon* in Bucks. -I think, I have been told, that he left near three hundred pounds to a sister.-He understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger yeares a schoolmaster in the country."

I will be short in my animadversions; and take them in their order.

The account of the trade of the family is not only contrary to all other tradition, but, as it may seem, to the instrument from the Herald's Office, so frequently reprinted. -Shakspeare most certainly went to London, and commenced actor through necessity, not natural inclination. -Nor have we any reason to suppose, that he did act exceeding well. Rowe tells us, from the information of Betterton, who was inquisitive into this point, and had very early opportunities of inquiry from Sir W. D'Avenant, that he was no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'œuvre did not please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for ever pestering the town with pamphlets, published in the year 1596, "Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this Age," 4to. One of these devils are" Hate-virtue, or Sorrow for another man's good successe," who, says the Doctor, is "a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of the Ghost, which cried so miserably at the theatre, like an oister-wife, Hamlet revenget." Thus you see Mr. Holt's supposed proof, in the

* It was observed in the former edition, that this place is not met with in Spelman's Villare, or in Adams's Index; nor, it might have been added, in the first and the last performance of this sort, Speed's Tables, and Whatley's Gazetteer: perhaps, however, it may be meant under the name of Crandon; but the inquiry is of no importance.-It should, I think, be written Credendon; though better antiquaries than Aubrey have acquiesced in the vulgar corruption.

To this observation of Dr. Farmer it may be added, that the play of Hamlet was better known by this scene, than by any

Appendix to the late edition, that Hamlet was written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever might be the case of the particular passage on

which it is founded.

Nor does it appear, that Shakspeare did begin early to make essays in dramatick poetry: The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, which hath so often been ascribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winstanley*, was written by George Peele; and Shakspeare is not met with, even as an assistant, till at least seven years afterward+.—Nash, in his Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of both Universi

other. In Decker's Satiromastix, 1602, the following passage

occurs:

"Asinius.

"Would I were hang'd if I can call you any names but captain, and Tucca."

"Tucca.

"No, fye; my name's Hamlet Revenge: thou hast been at Paris-Garden, hast thou not?”,

Again, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "Let these husbands play mad Hamlet, and cry, revenge!" STEEVENS

Dr. Farmer's observation may be further confirmed by the following passage in an anonymous play, called A Warning for faire Women, 1599. We also learn from it the usual dress of the stage ghosts of that time:

"A filthie whining ghost,

66

Lapt in some foule sheet, or a leather pilch,
"Comes screaming like a pigge half stickt,
"And cries vindicta-revenge, revenge."

The leathern pitch, I suppose, was a theatrical substitute for armour. MALONE.

* These people, who were the Curls of the last age, ascribe likewise to our author, those miserable performances, Mucidorus, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

+ Mr. Pope asserts, "The troublesome Raigne of King John," in two parts, 1611, to have been written by Shakspeare and Rowley-which edition is a mere copy of another in black letter, 1591. But I find his assertion is somewhat to be doubted: for the old edition hath no name of author at all; and that of 1611, the initials only, W. Sh. in the title-page‡.

See the Essay on the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Article, King John. MALONE.

ties, prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, 4to. black letter, recommends his friend, Peele, "as the chiefe supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of Poetrie, and primus verborum artifex: whose first increase, The Arraignment of Paris, might plead to their opinions his pregnant dexteritie of wit, and manifold varietie of inuention*."

In the next place, unfortunately, there is neither such a character as a Constable in the Midsummer-Night's Dream: nor was the three hundred pounds legacy to a sister, but a daughter.

And to close the whole, it is not possible, according to Aubrey himself, that Shakspeare could have been some years a schoolmaster in the country; on which circumstance only the supposition of his learning is professedly founded. He was not surely very young, when he was employed to kill calves, and commenced player about eighteen! The truth is, that he left his father, for a wife,

Peele seems to have been taken into the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland about 1593, to whom he dedicates in that year, "The Honour of the Garter, a poem gratulatoriethe firstling consecrated to his noble name." "He was esteemed," says Anthony Wood, "a most noted poet, 1579; but when or where he died, I cannot tell, for so it is, and always hath been, that most POETS die poor, and consequently obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their graves. Claruit 1599." Ath. Oxon. vol. i. p. 300.

We had lately in a periodical pamphlet, called, The Theatrical Review, a very curious letter under the name of George Peele, to one Master Henrie Marle; relative to a dispute between Shakspeare and Alleyn, which was compromised by Ben Jonson." I never longed for thy companye more than last night; we were all verie merrie at the Globe, when Net Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasauntly to thy friende Will, that he had stolen hys speeche about the excellencie of acting in Hamlet hys tragedye, from conversaytions manifold, whych had passed between them, and opinions gyven by Alleyn touching that subject. Shakspeare did not take this talk in good sorte; but Jonson did put an end to the stryfe wyth wittielie saying, thys affaire needeth no contentione: you stole it from Ned no doubte: do not marvel: haue you not seene hym acte tymes out of number?"-This is pretended to be printed from the original MS. dated 1600; which agrees well enough with Wood's Claruit: but unluckily, Peele was dead at least two years before. "As Anacreon died by the pot, says Meres, so George Peele by the por." Wit's Treasury, 1598, p. 236.

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