wait at the door of the playhouse, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, that they might be ready again after the performance. In this office he became so conspicuous for his care and readiness, that, in a short time, every man, as he alighted, called for Will Shakspeare, and scarcely any other waiter was trusted with a horse while Will Shakspeare could be had. This was the firs: dawn of better fortune. Shakspeare, finding more horses put into his hand than he could hold, hired boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will Shakspeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves, I am Shakspeare's boy, sir.' In time, Shakspeare found higher employment: but as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of Shakspeare's boys.'

The authenticity of this tradition appears very questionable. It should be remembered that this anecdote first appeared in Cibber's Lives of the Poets; and that if it were known to Mr. Rowe, it is evident he thought it so little intitled to credit, that he chose not to risk its insertion in his life of our poet. In short, if we reflect for a moment, that Shakspeare, though he fled from Stratford to avoid the severity of a prosecution, could not be destitute of money or friends, as the necessity for that flight was occasioned by an imprudent ebullition of wit,

БУЛК.

and not by any serious delinquency; that the father of his wife was a yeoman both of respectability and property; that his own father, though impoverished, was still in business; and that he had, in all likelihood, a ready admission to the stage through the influence of persons of leading weight in its concerns; we cannot, without doing the utmost violence to probability, conceive that, under these circumstances, and in the 23rd year of his age, he would submit to the degrading employment of either a horse-holder at the door of a theatre, or of a call-boy within its walls.

That Shakspeare had a perfect knowlege of his art is sufficiently proved by the instructions which are given to the player in Hamlet, and by other passages in his works: it is improbable, however, that he was entrusted with first-rate characters. Mr. Rowe has mentioned as the sole result of his inquiries, that he excelled in representing the Ghost in Hamlet; and if the names of the actors prefixed to 'Every Man in his Humor' were arranged in the same order as the persons of the drama, he must have performed the part of Old Knowell in that comedy. A traditionary anecdote relating to our author's dramatic performances, preserved by Mr. Oldys, and communicated to him, as Mr. Malone thinks, by Mr. T. Jones, of Tarbick, imports, (as) corrected by the learned commentator) that a relation of Shakspeare, then in advanced age, but who

in his youth had been in the habit of visiting London for the purpose of seeing him act in some of nis own plays, told Mr. Jones, that he had a faint recollection of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak, and drooping, and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company, who were eating, and one of them sang a song.' That this part was the character of Adam, in As You Like It,' there can be no doubt: and hence, perhaps, we may be warranted in the conclusion, that the representation of aged characters was peculiarly his forte.

We now come to that era in the life of Shakspeare when he began to write his immortal dramas, and to develop those powers which have rendered him the delight and wonder of successive ages. At the time that he became in some degree a public character, we naturally expect to find many anecdotes recorded of his literary history: but by a strange fatality, the same want of authentic record, the same absence of all contemporary anecdote, marks every stage of his life. Even the date at which his first play appeared is unknown, and the greatest uncertainty prevails with respect to the chronological order in which the whole series was exhibited or published, of which 14

only were printed during the life-time of the poet. As this subject was justly considered by Malone to be both curious and interesting, he has appropriated to its examination a long and laborious essay. Chalmers, in his Supplemental Apology,' however endeavors to controvert Malone's dates, and assigns them to other eras. Dr. Drake suggests a new chronological arrangement, and assigns very plausible arguments in support of his opinions: he thinks that the first drama, either wholly, or in great part written by him, was 'Pericles,' which was produced in 1590. Malone says the First Part of Henry VI.' published in 1589, and commonly attributed to Shakspeare, was not written by him, though it might receive some corrections from his pen at a subsequent period, in order to fit it for representation. The Second Part of Henry VI.' this writer contends, ought therefore to be considered as Shakspeare's first dramatic piece; and he thinks that it might be composed about 1591, but certainly not earlier than 1590.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

་

Much has been said by different commentators on certain plays ascribed to Shakspeare, but which are of such a doubtful class, that it is almost impossible to identify their authors; and it is quite impossible to prove them to be, or not to be,' the writings of the bard of Avon. Titus Andronicus' is generally classed with his plays; but all the critics, except