Et fylvas moveo; jubeoque hemifcere montes, Et mugire folum, manefque exire fepulchris.

But to return to the incidents of his life. Upon his quitting the grammar-fchool, he feems to have entirely devoted himself to that way of living which his father propofed; and, in order to fettle in the world after a family manner, thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hatchway, faid to have been a fubftantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford.

In this kind of domestic obfcurity he continued for fome time, till, by an unhappy inftance of misconduct, he was obliged to quit the place of his nativity, and take shelter in London; which luckily proved the occafion of difplaying one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatic poetry. He had the misfortune to fall into ill company. Among these were fome who made a frequent practice of deer-ftealing, and who engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecot, near Stratford; for which he was profecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, fomewhat too feverely; and, in order to revenge himfelf for this fuppofed ill ufage, he made a ballad upon him; and, though this, probably the firft effay of his poetry, be loft, yet it is faid to have been fo very bitter, that it redoubled the profecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his buf

nefs

nefs and family for fome time, and shelter himfelf in London.

This Sir Thomas Lucy was, it is faid, afterwards ridiculed by Shakespear, under the well known character of Juftice Shallow. It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is faid to have made his firft acquaintance in the playhouse.

Here I cannot forbear relating a story which Sir William Davenant told Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Rowe; Rowe told it Mr. Pope; and Mr. Pope told it to Dr. Newton, the late editor of Milton; and from a gentleman who heard it of him it is here related.

"Concerning Shakespear's first appearance in the play-houfe, when he came to London he was without money and friends; and, being a stranger, he knew not to whom to apply, nor by what means to fupport himself. At that time, coaches not being in ufe, and as gentlemen were accustomed to ride to the play-houfe, Shakespear, driven to the laft neceffity, went to the play-house door, and picked up a little money by taking care of the gentlemen's horfes who came to the play. He became eminent even in that profeffion, and was taken notice of for his diligence and skill in it. He had foon more buliness than he himfelf could manage, and a last hired boys under him, who were known by the name of Shakespear's boys."

B 6

Some

Some of the players accidentally converfeing with him, found him fo acute, and mafter of fo fine a converfation, that, ftruck therewith, they recommended him to the house, in which he was first admitted in a very low station; but he did not long remain fo, for he foon diftinguished himself, if not as an extraordinary actor, at least as a fine writer. His name is printed, as the cuftom was in those times, amongst thofe of the other players, before fome old plays, but without any particular account of what fort of parts he ufed to play; and Mr. Rowe fays, That, though he very carefully enquired, he found the top of his performance was the ghoft in his own Ham

let.

"I fhould have been much more pleased," continues Rowe, "to have learned, from fome certain authority, which was the first play he writ. It would be, without doubt, a pleasure to any man curious in things of this kind, to fee and know what was the firft effay of a fancy like Shakespear's."

The highest date which Rowe has been able to trace, is Romeo and Juliet, in 1597, when the author was thirty-three years old; and Richard II, and III. the next year; viz. the thirty-fourth of his age.

Though the order of time in which his feveral pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are paffages in fome few of them that feem to fix their dates. So the cho

rus

rus at the end of the fourth act of Henry V. by a compliment very handfomely turned to the earl of Effex, fhews the play to have been written when that lord was general to the queen in Ireland; and his eulogium upon queen Elizabeth, and her fucceffor king James, in the latter end of Henry VIII. is a proof of that play's being written after the acceffion of the latter of these two princes to the throne of England.

Whatever the particular times of his writings were, the people of the age he lived in, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diverfions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to see a genius arife amongst them, ef fo pleasurable, fo rich a vein, and fo plentifully capable of furnishing their favourite en

tertainments.

Befides the advantage which Shakespear had over all men in the article of wit, he was of a fweet, gentle, amiable difpofition, and was a moft agreeable companion; fo that he became dear to all that knew him, both as a friend and as a poet; and by that means was introduced into the best company, and held converfation with the fineft characters of his time.

Queen Elizabeth had feveral of his plays acted before her; and that princess was too quick a difcerner, and rewarder of merit, to fuffer that of Shakespear's to be neglected. It is that maiden princess plainly whom he intends by

A

-A fair veftal, throned by the west.
Midfummer Night Dream.

And, in the fame play, he gives us a poetical and lively reprefentation of the queen of Scots, and the fate fhe met with.

Thou rememb’rest,

Since once I fat upon a promontory,,

And heard a fea-maid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering fuch dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude fea grew civil at her fong,
And certain ftars fhot madly from their spheres
To hear the fea-maid's mufic.

Queen Elizabeth was fo well pleafed with the admirable character of Falftaff, in the two parts of Henry IV. that the commanded him to continue in one play more, and to make him in love. This is faid to have been the occafion of his writing the Merry Wives of Windfor. How well he was obeyed, the play itself is a proof. And here I cannot help obferving, That a poet feldom fucceeds in any fubject affigned him, fo well as in that which is his own choice, and where he has the liberty of felecting.

Nothing is more certain, than, that Shakefpear has failed in the Merry Wives of Windfor: and, though that comedy is not without merit, yet it falls fhort of his other plays in which Falstaff is introduced; and that

knight