nour of his fon, stook out an extract of his family-arms from the herald's office; by which it appears, that he had been officer and bailiff of Stratfond, and that he enjoyed fome hereditary lands and renements, the reward of his great grandfather's faithful and approved fervice to King Henry VI strobju moned

Be this as it will, our Shakespeare, it seems, was bredd for fome time at a 'free-fchool; the very free-school, I prefume, founded at Stratford: where, we are told, he acquired what Latin he was mafter of: but, that his father being obliged, through narrowness of circumstances, to withdraw him too foon from thence, he was fo unhappily prevented from making any proficiency in the dead languages: A point, that will de serve some little difcuffion in the fequel of this differtation.

ד

How long he continued in his father's way of business, either as an affiftant to him, or on his own proper account, no notices are left to inform us: nor have I been able to learn precifely at what period of life he quitted his native Stratford, and began his acquaintance with Londan and the STAGE.

In order to fettle in the world after a familymanner, he thought fit, Mr. Rowe acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is cer tain, he did fo: for by the monument, in Stratford church, erected to the memory of his daugh

ter

*

ter Sufanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that she died on the 2d day of July, in the year 1649, aged 66. So that he was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years 119 old; who was himfelf born in the the year 1504, Nor was the his eldest child, for he had another daughter, Judith, who was born before her, and who was married to one Mr. Thomas Quiney. So that Shakespears must have entred into wedlock by that time he was turned of feventeen years.

Whether the force of inclination merely, or fome concurring circumftances of convenience in the match, prompted him to marry fo early, is not eafy to be determined at this diftance: but it is probable, a view of intereft might partly fway his conduct in this point: for he married the daughter of one Hathaway, a fubftantial yeoman in his neighbourhood, and fhe had the ftart of him in age no lefs than eight years. She furvived him, notwithstanding, feven feafons, and died that very year in which the Players publifhed the firft edition of his works in folio, Anno Dom. 1623, at the age of 67 years, as we likewife learn from her monument in Stratford church.

How long he continued in this kind of fettlement, upon his own native fpot, is not more eafily to be determined. But if the tradition be true, of that extravagance which forced him both to quit his country and way of living; to wit, his being engaged, with a knot of young deer

tealers

fealers, to rob the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot near Stratford; the enterprize favours fo much of youth and levity, we may reasonably fuppofe it was before he could write, full man. Béfides, confidering he has left us fix and thirty plays, which are avowed to be genuine, (to throw out of the question those feven, in which his title is difputed, though I can, beyond all controversy, prove fome touches in every one of them to come from his pen:) and confidering too, that he had retired from the ftage, to spend the latter part of his days at his own native Stratford; the interval of time, neceffarily required for the finishing to many dramatic pieces, obliges us to suppose he threw himself very early upon the play-house, And as he could, probably, contract no acquaint ance with the drama, while he was driving on the affair of wool at home; fome time must be loft, even after he had commenced Player, before he could attain knowledge enough in the science to qualify himself for turning Author.

It has been coferved by Mr. Rowe, that, amongst other Extravagancies which our Author has givea to his Sir John Falstaff, in the Merry Wives of Windfor, he has made him a deer-ftealer; and that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow, he has given him very near the fame coat of arms, which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, defçribes for a family there. There

are two coats, I obferve, in Dugdale, where three filver fifhes borne in the name of Lucy; and

are

the

another coat, to the monument of Thomas Lucy fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quartered in four feveral divifions, twelve little fishes, three in each divifion, probably Luces, This very coat, indeed, feems alluded to in Shallow's giving the dozen white Luces, and in Slender faying, He may quarter. When I confider the exceeding candour and good-nature of our author, (which 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;) and that he fhould throw this humorous piece of fatire at his profecutor, at least twenty years after the provocation given; I am confidently perfuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving rancour on the profecutor's fide: and if this was the cafe, it were pity but the difgrace of fuch an inveteracy fhould remain as a lafting reproach, and Shallow ftand as a mark of ridicule to ftigmatize his malice.

A

It is faid, our author fpent fome years before his death, in cafe, retirement, and the converfation of his friends, at his native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain intelligence, when he relinquifhed the ftage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by fome, that Spenser's Thalia, in his Tears of his Mufes, where the laments the lofs of her Willy in the comic scene, has been applied to our author's quitting the

age.

But

?

But Spenfer himself, 'tis well known, quitted the ftage of life in the year 1598; and, five years after this, we find Shakespeare's name among g the actors in Ben Johnson's Sejanus, which first made its appearance in the year 1603. Nor, furely, could he then have any thoughts of retiring, fince, that very year, a licence under the privy-feal was granted by King James I. to him and Fletcher, Burbage, Phillips, Hemings, Condel, &c. authorizing them to exercise the art of playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as well at their usual houfe called the Globe on the other fide of the water, as in any other parts of the kingdom, during his majefty's pleafure: (a copy of which licence is preferved in Rymer's Fodera.) Again, it is certain, that Shakespeare did not exhibit his Macbeth, till after the union was brought about, and till after King James I. had begun to touch for the evil: for it is plain, he has inferted compliments, on both thofe accounts, upon his royal mafter in that tragedy. Nor, indeed, could the number of the dramatic pieces. be produced, adinit of his retiring near fo early as that period. So that what Spencer there fays, if it relate at all to Shakespeare, must bint at some occafional recefs he made for a time upon a difs gust taken: or the Willy, there mentioned, muft relate to fome other favourite Poet. I believe, we may fafely determine that he had not quitted in the year 1610. For in his Tempest, our au thor makes mention of the Bermuda Ilands,

"