from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to show something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakespeare. 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 neighborhood. 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 Shakespeare 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 Shakespeare gave him these four verses: "Ten in the hundred lies here engrav'd, "Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd! If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb? Oh! Oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a Combe." But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it.10 'His permanent retirement is placed about 1613. 10 The story is doubtful. Combe left £5 to Shakespeare in his will, and made liberal donations both to his creditors and to the poor. He died in the fifty-third year of his age,11 and was buried on the north side of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed in the wall. On his grave-stone underneath is,— "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust inclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, 99 13 He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder,13 to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three sons, who all died without children; and Susanna, 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 Nashe, Esq., and afterwards to Sir John Barnard 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, 14 I will give it in his words: "I remember the players have often mentioned it is an honour to Shakespeare that in writing (whatsoever 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 "The parish register records his burial April 25, 1616. 12 Not the work of the poet. Author unknown. 13 A mistake. Susanna was the oldest. Vide Note 3, page 8. 14 "Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matters," a farrago of miscellaneous notes and comments unpublished until after Jonson's death. 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 nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, 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 laughter; as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.' He replied: 666 666 Cæsar did never wrong, but with just cause.'" and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed 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 Shakespeare, 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. Langbaine, 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 true in it; but I 15 Know Cæsar doth no wrong; nor without cause will he be satisfied." Julius Cæsar," III. 1. believe it may be as well expressed by what Horace says of the first Romans, who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed translated them), in his epistle to Augustus: "... naturâ sublimis & acer: Nam spirat tragicum satis, et feliciter audet, Sed turpem putat in chartis metuitque lituram.” As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a large and complete criticism upon Shakespeare'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 criticks 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 a 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. 08830 |