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The precife time of this author's birth and death are not recorded, yet from the dates of his first plays he could not have died young.*

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

"William Shakespeare, the glory of the Eng"ifh stage, whofe nativity at Stratford upon "Avon, is the highest honour that town can "boaft of: from an actor of tragedies and co"medies, he became a maker; and fuch a "maker, that though fome others may perhaps "pretend to a more exact decorum and occo"nomie, efpecially in tragedy, never any ex

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preffed a more lofty and tragic height; never any represented nature more purely to the life, and where the polifhments of art are "moft wanting, as probably his learning was

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not extraordinary, he pleafeth with a certain "wild and native elegance; and in all his wri

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tings hath an unvulgar ftyle, as well in his "Venus and Adonis, his Rape of Lucrece, and "other various poems, as in his dramatics."

Cibber's Lives, I. 152. Biog. Dram. I. 120. P. 194.

Theatr. Poet.

of

Of this divine poet, of whofe character and works nobody is ignorant, and of whofe life the circumstances have been explored with fuch perfevering affiduity, that nothing short of an age dedicated to the purfuit, or fome uncommon accident can fupply any thing new; it would be truly fuperfluous for the compiler of this work to fay much. He was born in 1564, and died in his fifty-third year, 23 April, 1616. Mr. Malone fuppofes (if Titus Andronicus, 1589, was not his), that his firft play was Love's Labour Loft, 1591. His twenty-fourth (exclufive of the doubtful ones), Measure for Meafure, 1603; and his laft, Twelfth Night, in 1614. Seven years after his death, his plays were collected and published, in 1623, in folio, by two of his principal friends in the company of comedians, Heminge and Condell: who perhaps likewile corrected a fecond edition in folio, 1632. Though both these were extremely faulty, yet they are much lefs fo than the editions in folio, in 1664 and 1685.*

BENJAMIN JONSON.

"The most learned, judicious, and correct, ,, generally fo accounted, of our English Come

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dians, and the more to be admired for being "fo, for that neither the height of natural parts, "for he was no Shakespeare, nor the cost of "extraordinary education, for he is reported

but a bricklayer's fon, but his own proper "industry and addiction to books advanced him

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to this perfection. In three of his comedies, "namely, The Fox, Alchymift, and Silent Wo"man, he may be compared in the judgment "of learned men, for decorum, language, and "well humouring of the parts, as well with the "chief of the ancient Greek and Latin come

dians, as the prime of modern Italians, who "have been judged the best in Europe for a "happy vein of comedies. Nor is his Bartho"lomew Fair much fhort of them. As for his "other comedies, Cynthia's Revels, Poetafter,

and the reft, let the name of Ben Johnsen pro"tect them against whoever fhall think fit to be "fevere in cenfure against them. The truth ❝is,

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is, his tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, feem "to have in them more of an artificial and in"flate, than of a pathetical and naturally tragic "height. In the reft of his poetry; for he is not wholly dramatic; as his "Underwoods. Epigrams," &c. he is fometimes bold and "ftrenuous, fometimes magifterial, fometimes "lepid, and full enough of conceit, and fome"times a man as other men are."

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BENJAMIN

BENJAMIN JONSON was born at Westminster in 1574, the fon of a clergyman, who is faid to have come from Annandale, in Scotland. But his mother afterwards marrying a bricklayer, Ben was taken from school, where he had been under the tuition of the learned Camden, to work at his father-in-law's trade, which, however, he foon deferted for a military employment in the Low Countries. Thence returning to London, he entered himself of St. John's college, Cambridge, which he quitted for the stage, where he made no figure, but was induced, like Shakefpeare, (whofe affiftance he is faid to have received), to turn his mind to compofition, and produced annually fome piece which was acted till his reputation became established. In 1613, he was in France; and in 1619, by the invitation of Doctor Richard Corbet, spent fome time time at Christ church in Oxford; and in July that year, was created A. M. in a full house of convocation. This year alfo he was made poetlaureat, on the death of Daniel. His firft play was, "Every Man in his Humour, C. 1598,

4to.

His fixth," Part of King James's Entertainment in paffing to his Coronation," 1603, 4to. His forty-ninth, the laft with a date, "Love's Welcome, The King and Queen's entertainment at Bolfover, at the Earl of Newcaftle's, the 30th July, 1634." He died in Au2 R

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guft, 1637, aged 63, and was buried in Weftminster Abbey.

Early in life he is faid to have fought a duel and killed his adverfary, for which he was imprifoned; and being caft for his life, was near execution, at which aweful period a popish priest is reported to have vifited him, and converted him to the Roman Catholic faith, in which he continued twelve years. He once incurrrd the difpleasure of James I, by being concerned with Chapman and Marton, in writing EastwardHoe, wherein they were accused of having reflected on the Scotch nation. Sir James Murray having represented the matter to the king, they were imprifoned and in danger of lofing their ears and nofes. On his release from prifon, Jonfon gave an entertainment to his friends, among whom were Camden and Selden; when his aged mother, like a Roman matron, on drinking to him, fhewed him a paper which she had defigned, if the fentence of punishment had been inflicted, to have mixed with his drink, after she had first taken a potion of it herself.* He was not famous for his economy, and at one time complained of having fickness aggravated by poverty. In his laft illness he often repented of the prophanation of fcripture in his plays.

*Cibber I. 237. See Drummond's Works.

Jonfor

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