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one would zealously embrace every method of information that could contribute to recover them from the injuries with which they have fo long lain overwhelmed.

It is certain, that if we have firft admired the man in his writings, his cafe is fo circumftanced, that we must naturally admire the writings in the man: that if we go back to take a view of his education, and the employment in life which fortune had cut out for him, we fhall retain the ftronger ideas of his extenfive genius.

His father, we are told, was a confiderable dealer in wool; but having no fewer than ten children, of whom our Shakespeare was the eldeft, the best education he could afford him was no better than to qualify him for his own bufinefs and employment. I cannot affirm with any certainty how long his father lived; but I take him to be the fame Mr. John Shakespeare who was living in the year '1599, and who then, in honour of his fon, took out an extract of his family-arms from the herald's office; by which it appears, that he had been oflicer and bailiff of Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire; and that he enjoyed fome hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his great grandfather's faithful and approved fervice to king Henry

VII.

Be this as it will, our Shakespeare, it feems, was bred for fome time at a free-fchool; the very free-fchool, 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 circumftance, to withdraw him too foon from thence, he was thereby unhappily prevented from making any proficiency in the dead languages: a point that will deferve fome little difcuffion in the fequel of this differtation.

How long he continued in his father's way of bufinefs, 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 London and the Stage.

In order to fettle in the world after a family-manner, he thought fit, Mr. Rowe acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is certain, he did fo: for by the monument in Stratford church, erected to the memory of his daughter Sufanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that the died on the 2d of July, in the year 1649,

aged

aged 66. So that fhe was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years old; who was himfelf born in the year 1564. Nor was fhe his eldeft child, for he had another daughter, Judith, who was born before her, and who was married to one Mr. Thomas Quiney. So that Shakespeare must have entered 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 distance: but it is probable, a view of interest 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 less than eight years. She furvived him notwithstanding, seven feafons, and died that very year the players published the first 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 easily 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-ftcalers, 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. Befides, confidering he has left us fix and thirty: plays at leaft, avowed to be genuine; and confidering too, that he had retired from the stage, to fpend the latter part. of his days at his own native Stratford: the interval of time neceffarily required for the finishing fo many dramatick pieces, obliges us to fuppofe he threw himfelf very early upon the play-houfe. And as he could, probably, contract no acquaintance 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 fcience to qualify himfelf for turning author.

17

It has been obferved by Mr. Rowe, that, amongst other

This is a mistake. Sufanna was the poet's eldest daughter. See the extracts from the register-book of the parish of Stratford, in one of the following pages.

STEEVENS.

extravagancies, which our author has given 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, defcribes for a family there. There are two coats, I obferve, in Dugdale, where three filver fifhes are borne in the name of Lucy; and 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 moft delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him); and that he fhould throw this humourous 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.

:

It is faid, our author spent fome years before his death, in eafe, retirement, and the converfation of his friends, at his native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain intelligence, when he relinquished the ftage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by fome, that Spenfer's Thalia, in his Tears of his Mufes, where the laments the loss of her Willy in the comick scene, has been applied to our author's quitting the stage. But Spenfer himfelf, it is well known, quitted the ftage of life in the year 1598; and, five years after this, we find Shakespeare's name among the actors in Ben Jonfon's Sejanus, which firft 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 K. James I. to him and Fletcher, Burbage, Phillippes, Hemings, Condel, &c. authorizing them to exercife the art of playing comedies, tragedies, &c. as well at their ufual houfe called The Globe on the other fide of the water, as in any other parts of the kingdom, during his majefty's pleasure (a copy of which licence is preferved

in Rymer's Foedera). Again, it is certain, that Shakespeare did not exhibit his Macbeth, till after the union was brought about, and till after K. 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 dramatick pieces, he produced, admit of his retiring near fo early as that period. So that what Spenfer there fays, if it relate at all to Shakefpeare, muft hint at fome occafional recefs he made for a time upon a difguft 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 Tempeft, our author makes mention of the Bermuda islands, which were unknown to the English, till, in 1609, Sir John Summers made a voyage to North-America, and difcovered them: and afterwards invited fome of his countrymen to fettle a plantation there. That he became the private gentleman, at leaft three years before his decease, is pretty obvious from another circumftance: I mean, from that remarkable and well-known ftory, which Mr. Rowe has given us of our author's intimacy with Mr. John Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury and upon whom Shakespeare made the following facetious epitaph.

Ten in the hundred lies bere ingrav'd,
'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd;
If any man afk, who lies in this tomb,

Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my folin-a-Combe.

This farcaftical piece of wit was, at the gentleman's own request, thrown out extemporally in his company. And this Mr. John Combe I take to be the fame, who, by Dugdale in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, is faid to have died in the year 1614, and for whom, at the upper end of the quire of the Guild of the Holy Crofs at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a ftatue thercon cut in alabafter, and in a gown, with this epitaph. "Here lieth interred the body

of John Combe, efq; who died the 10th of July, 1614, "who bequeathed feveral annual charities to the parish of "Stratford, and tool. to be lent to fifteen poor tradesmen "from three years to three years, changing the parties every "third year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per annum, the inVOL. I.

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"crease to be distributed to the almes-poor there."-The donation has all the air of a rich and fagacious ufurer.

Shakespeare himself did not survive Mr. Combe long, for he died in the year 1616, the 53d of his age. He lies buried on the north fide of the chancel in the great church at Stratford; where a monument, decent enough for the time, is erected to him, and placed against the wall. He is reprefented under an arch in a fitting pofture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left rested on a fcrowl of paper. The Latin diftich, which is placed under the cushion, has been given us by Mr. Pope, or his graver, in this manner.

INGENIO Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus moret, Olympus habet.

I confefs, I do not conceive the difference betwixt ingenio and genio in the firft verfe. They feem to me intirely fynonymous terms; nor was the Pylian fage Neftor celebrated for his ingenuity, but for an experience and judgment owing to his long age. Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, has copied this diftich with a diftinction which Mr. Rowe has followed, and which certainly restores us the true meaning of the epitaph.

JUDICIO Pylium, genio Socratem*, &c.

In

* The first fyllable in Socratem is here made fhort, which cannot be allowed. Perhaps we fhould read Sophoclem. Shakespeare is then appofitely compared with a dramatic author among the ancients: but ftill it fhould be remembered that the elogium is lef fen'd while the metre is reform'd; and it is well known that some of our early writers of Latin poetry were uncommonly negligent in their profody, especially in proper names. The thought of this diftich, as Mr. Tollet obferves, might have been taken from the Faery Queene of Spenfer, b. ii. c. 9. it. 48, and c. 10. ft. 3.

To this Latin infcription on Shakespeare fhould be added the lines which are found underneath it on his monument.

Stay, paffenger, why doft thou go fo faft?

Read, if thou canft, whom envious death hath plac'd
Within this monument; Shakespeare, with whom
Quick nature dy'd, whofe name doth deck the tomb
Far more than coft; fince all that he hath writ
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.

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