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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
+Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
+
+Author: Nicholas Rowe
+
+Commentator: Samuel H. Monk
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16275]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Louise Pryor and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Extra Series
+No. 1
+
+
+Nicholas Rowe, _Some Account of the Life of
+Mr. William Shakespear_ (1709)
+
+
+With an Introduction by
+Samuel H. Monk
+
+
+The Augustan Reprint Society
+November, 1948
+_Price. One Dollar_
+
+
+
+
+_GENERAL EDITORS_
+
+RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
+EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
+H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
+
+_ASSISTANT EDITOR_
+
+W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
+
+_ADVISORY EDITORS_
+
+EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
+BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
+LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
+CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
+JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
+ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
+SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
+ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
+JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
+
+
+
+
+Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author
+by
+Edwards Brothers, Inc.
+Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
+1948
+
+
+
+
+_INTRODUCTION._
+
+
+The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an important
+event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literary
+criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it is
+the first, "edited" edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuation
+and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the first
+edition to include _dramatis personae_, the first to attempt a
+systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first
+to give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many
+illustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format
+and to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and
+the pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to
+include an extended life and critique of the author.
+
+Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to Rowe
+either as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editors
+accepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that he
+and Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of the
+dramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Malone
+proved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed, spoke
+generously of the edition. In the _Life of Rowe_ he said that as an
+editor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp
+of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored."
+The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much profundity
+or penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare's
+reputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, at
+least as an editor.[1]
+
+The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of
+Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as the
+poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought.
+With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional
+quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a
+place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had
+hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen made
+Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne; Rowe's
+editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him
+comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.
+
+When Rowe's edition appeared twenty-four years had passed since the
+publication of the Fourth Folio. As Allardyce Nicoll has shown, Tonson
+owned certain rights in the publication of the plays, rights derived
+ultimately from the printers of the First Folio. Precisely when he
+decided to publish a revised octavo edition is not known, nor do we know
+when Rowe accepted the commission and began his work. McKerrow has
+plausibly suggested that Tonson may have been anxious to call attention
+to his rights in Shakespeare on the eve of the passage of the copyright
+law which went into effect in April, 1710.[2] Certainly Tonson must have
+felt that he was adding to the prestige which his publishing house had
+gained by the publication of Milton and Dryden's Virgil.
+
+In March 1708/9 Tonson was advertising for materials "serviceable to
+[the] Design" of publishing an edition of Shakespeare's works in six
+volumes octavo, which would be ready "in a Month." There was a delay,
+however, and it was on 2 June that Tonson finally announced: "There is
+this day Publish'd ... the Works of Mr. William Shakespear, in six Vols.
+8vo. adorn'd with Cuts, Revis'd and carefully Corrected: With an Account
+of the Life and Writings of the Author, by N. Rowe, Esq; Price 30s."
+Subscription copies on large paper, some few to be bound in nine
+volumes, were to be had at his shop.[3]
+
+The success of the venture must have been immediately apparent. By 1710
+a second edition, identical in title page and typography with the first,
+but differing in many details, had been printed,[4] followed in 1714 by
+a third in duodecimo. This so-called second edition exists in three
+issues, the first made up of eight volumes, the third of nine. In all
+three editions the spurious plays were collected in the last volume,
+except in the third issue of 1714, in which the ninth volume contains
+the poems.
+
+That other publishers sensed the profits in Shakespeare is evident from
+the activities of Edmund Curll and Bernard Lintot. Curll acted with
+imagination and promptness: within three weeks of the publication of
+Tonson's edition, he advertised as Volume VII of the works of
+Shakespeare his forthcoming volume of the poems. This volume, misdated
+1710 on the title page, seems to have been published in September 1709.
+A reprint with corrections and some emendations of the Cotes-Benson
+Poems _Written By Wil. Shake-speare. Gent._, 1640, it contains Charles
+Gildon's "Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage in _Greece_,
+_Rome_, and _England_," his "Remarks" on the separate plays, his
+"References to Classic Authors," and his glossary. With great shrewdness
+Curll produced a volume uniform in size and format with Rowe's edition
+and equipped with an essay which opens with an attack on Tonson for
+printing doubtful plays and for attempting to disparage the poems
+through envy of their publisher. This attack was certainly provoked by
+the curious final paragraph of Rowe's introduction, in which he refused
+to determine the genuineness of the 1640 poems. Obviously Tonson was
+perturbed when he learned that Curll was publishing the poems as an
+appendix to Rowe's edition.
+
+Once again a Shakespearian publication was successful, and Tonson
+incorporated the Curll volume into the third issue of the 1714 edition,
+having apparently come to some agreement with Curll, since the title
+page of Volume IX states that it was "Printed for J. Tonson, E. Curll,
+J. Pemberton, and K. Sanger." In this edition Gildon omitted his
+offensive remarks about Tonson, as well as the "References to Classic
+Authors," in which he had suggested topics treated by both the ancients
+and Shakespeare. This volume was revised by George Sewell and appeared
+in appropriate format as an addition to Pope's Shakespeare, 1723-25.
+
+Meanwhile, in July, 1709, Lintot had begun to advertise his edition of
+the poems, which was expanded in 1710/11 to include the sonnets in a
+second volume.[5] Thus within a year of the publication of Rowe's
+edition, all of Shakespeare, as well as some spurious works, was on the
+market. With the publication of these volumes, Shakespeare began to pass
+rapidly into the literary consciousness of the race. And formal
+criticism of his writings inevitably followed.
+
+Rowe's "Some Account of the Life, &c. of Mr. William Shakespear,"
+reprinted with a very few trifling typographical changes in 1714,
+survived in all the important eighteenth-century editions, but it was
+never reprinted in its original form. Pope re-arranged the material,
+giving it a more orderly structure and omitting passages that were
+obviously erroneous or that seemed outmoded.[6] It is odd that all later
+eighteenth-century editors seem to have believed that Pope's revision
+was actually Rowe's own re-writing of the _Account_ for the 1714
+edition. Theobald did not reprint the essay, but he used and amplified
+Rowe's material in his biography of Shakespeare; Warburton, of course,
+reprinted Pope's version, as did Johnson, Steevens, and Malone. Both
+Steevens and Malone identified the Pope revision as Rowe's.[7]
+
+Thus it came about that Rowe's preface in its original form was lost
+from sight during the entire eighteenth century. Even in the twentieth,
+Pope's revision has been printed with the statement that it is taken
+"from the second edition (1714), slightly altered from the first edition
+of 1709."[8] Only D. Nichol Smith has republished the original essay in
+his _Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare_, 1903.
+
+The biographical part of Rowe's _Account_ assembled the few facts and
+most of the traditions still current about Shakespeare a century after
+his death. It would be easy for any undergraduate to distinguish fact
+from legend in Rowe's preface; and scholarship since Steevens and Malone
+has demonstrated the unreliability of most of the local traditions that
+Betterton reported from Warwickshire. Antiquarian research has added a
+vast amount of detail about the world in which Shakespeare lived and has
+raised and answered questions that never occurred to Rowe; but it has
+recovered little more of the man himself than Rowe knew.
+
+The critical portions of Rowe's account look backward and forward:
+backward to the Restoration, among whose critical controversies the
+eighteenth-century Shakespeare took shape; and forward to the long
+succession of critical writings that, by the end of the century, had
+secured for Shakespeare his position as the greatest of the English
+poets. Until Dryden and Rymer, criticism of Shakespeare in the
+seventeenth century had been occasional rather than systematic. Dryden,
+by his own acknowledgement, derived his enthusiasm for Shakespeare from
+Davenant, and thus, in a way, spoke for a man who had known the poet.
+Shakespeare was constantly in his mind, and the critical problems that
+the plays raised in the literary milieu of the Restoration constantly
+fascinated him. Rymer's attack served to solidify opinion and to force
+Shakespeare's admirers to examine the grounds of their faith. By 1700 a
+conventional manner of regarding Shakespeare and the plays had been
+achieved.
+
+The growth of Shakespeare's reputation during the century after his
+death is a familiar episode in English criticism. Bentley has
+demonstrated the dominant position of Jonson up to the end of the
+century.[9] But Jonson's reputation and authority worked for Shakespeare
+and helped to shape, a critical attitude toward the plays. His official
+praise in the first Folio had declared Shakespeare at least the equal of
+the ancients and the very poet of nature. He had raised the issue of
+Shakespeare's learning, thus helping to emphasize the idea of
+Shakespeare as a natural genius; and in the _Discoveries_ he had blamed
+his friend for too great facility and for bombast.
+
+In his commendatory sonnet in the Second Folio (1632), Milton took the
+Jonsonian view of Shakespeare, whose "easy numbers" he contrasted with
+"slow-endeavouring Art," and readers of the poems of 1645 found in
+_L'Allegro_ an early formulation of what was to become the stock
+comparison of the two great Jacobean dramatists in the lines about
+Jonson's "learned sock" and Shakespeare, "Fancy's child." This contrast
+became a constant theme in Restoration allusions to the two poets.
+
+Two other early critical ideas were to be elaborated in the last four
+decades of the century. In the first Folio Leonard Digges had spoken of
+Shakespeare's "fire and fancy," and I.M.S. had written in the Second
+Folio of his ability to move the passions. Finally, throughout the last
+half of the century, as Bentley has shown, Shakespeare was admired above
+all English dramatists for his ability to create characters, of whom
+Falstaff was the most frequently mentioned.
+
+All of these opinions were developed in Dryden's frequent critical
+remarks on his favorite dramatist. No one was more clearly aware than
+he of the faults of the "divine Shakespeare" as they appeared in the new
+era of letters that Dryden himself helped to shape. And no man ever
+praised Shakespeare more generously. For Dryden Shakespeare was the
+greatest of original geniuses, who, "taught by none," laid the
+foundations of English drama; he was a poet of bold imagination,
+especially gifted in "magick" or the supernatural, the poet of nature,
+who could dispense with "art," the poet of the passions, of varied
+characters and moods, the poet of large and comprehensive soul. To him,
+as to most of his contemporaries, the contrast between Jonson and
+Shakespeare was important: the one showed what poets ought to do; the
+other what untutored genius can do. When Dryden praised Shakespeare, his
+tone became warmer than when he judicially appraised Jonson.
+
+Like most of his contemporaries Dryden did not heed Jonson's caveat
+that, despite his lack of learning, Shakespeare did have art. He was too
+obsessed with the idea that Shakespeare, ignorant of the health-giving
+art of the ancients, was infected with the faults of his age, faults
+that even Jonson did not always escape. Shakespeare was often incorrect
+in grammar; he frequently sank to flatness or soared into bombast; his
+wit could be coarse and low and too dependent on puns; his plot
+structure was at times faulty, and he lacked the sense for order and
+arrangement that the new taste valued. All this he could and did admit,
+and he was impressed by the learning and critical standards of Rymer's
+attack. But like Samuel Johnson he was not often prone to substitute
+theory for experience, and like most of his contemporaries he felt
+Shakespeare's power to move and to convince. Perhaps the most trenchant
+expression of his final stand in regard to Shakespeare and to the whole
+art of poetry is to be found in his letter to Dennis, dated 3 March,
+1693/4. Shakespeare, he said, had genius, which is "alone a greater
+Virtue ... than all the other Qualifications put together." He admitted
+that all the faults pointed out by Rymer are real enough, but he added a
+question that removed the discussion from theory to immediate
+experience: "Yet who will read Mr. Rym[er] or not read Shakespear?" When
+Dryden died in 1700, the age of Jonson had passed and the age of
+Shakespeare was about to begin.
+
+The Shakespeare of Rowe's _Account_ is in most essentials the
+Shakespeare of Restoration criticism, minus the consideration of his
+faults. As Nichol Smith has observed, Dryden and Rymer were continually
+in Rowe's mind as he wrote. It is likely that Smith is correct in
+suspecting in the _Account_ echoes of Dryden's conversation as well as
+of his published writings;[10] and the respect in which Rymer was then
+held is evident in Rowe's desire not to enter into controversy with that
+redoubtable critic and in his inability to refrain from doing so.
+
+If one reads the _Account_ in Pope's neat and tidy revision and then as
+Rowe published it, one is impressed with its Restoration quality. It
+seems almost deliberately modelled on Dryden's prefaces, for it is
+loosely organized, discursive, intimate, and it even has something of
+Dryden's contagious enthusiasm. Rowe presents to his reader the
+Restoration Shakespeare: the original genius, the antithesis of Jonson,
+the exception to the rule and the instance that diminishes the
+importance of the rules. Shakespeare "lived under a kind of mere light
+of nature," and knowing nothing of the rules should not be judged by
+them. Admitting the poor plot structure and the neglect of the unities,
+except in an occasional play, Rowe concentrates on Shakespeare's
+virtues: his images, "so lively, that the thing he would represent
+stands full before you, and you possess every part of it;" his command
+over the passions, especially terror; his magic; his characters and
+their "manners."
+
+Bentley has demonstrated statistically that the Restoration had little
+appreciation of the romantic comedies. And yet Rowe, so thoroughly
+saturated with Restoration criticism, lists character after character
+from these plays as instances of Shakespeare's ability to depict the
+manners. Have we perhaps here a response to Shakespeare read as opposed
+to Shakespeare seen? Certainly the romantic comedies could not stand the
+test of the critical canons so well as did the _Merry Wives_ or even
+_Othello_; and they were not much liked on the stage. But it seems
+probable that a generation which read French romances would not have
+felt especially hostile to the romantic comedies when read in the
+closet. Rowe's criticism is so little original, so far from
+idiosyncratic, that it is unnecessary to assume that his response to the
+characters in the comedies is unique.
+
+Be that as it may, it was well that at the moment when the reading
+public began rapidly to expand in England, Tonson should have made
+Shakespeare available in an attractive and convenient format; and it was
+a happy choice that brought Rowe to the editorship of these six volumes.
+As poet, playwright, and man of taste, Rowe was admirably fitted to
+introduce Shakespeare to a multitude of new readers. Relatively innocent
+of the technical duties of an editor though he was, he none the less was
+capable of accomplishing what proved to be his historic mission: the
+easy re-statement of a view of Shakespeare which Dryden had earlier
+articulated and the demonstration that the plays could be read and
+admired despite the objections of formal dramatic criticism. He is more
+than a chronological predecessor of Pope, Johnson, and Morgann. The line
+is direct from Shakespeare to Davenant, to Dryden, to Rowe; and he is an
+organic link between this seventeenth-century tradition and the
+increasingly rich Shakespeare scholarship and criticism that flowed
+through the eighteenth century into the romantic era.
+
+
+_Notes_
+
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Jackson, "Rowe's edition of Shakespeare," _Library_
+X (1930), 455-473; Allardyce Nicoll, "The editors of Shakespeare from
+first folio to Malone," _Studies in the first Folio_, London (1924), pp.
+158-161; Ronald B. McKerrow, "The treatment of Shakespeare's text by his
+earlier editors, 1709-1768," _Proceedings of the British Academy_, XIX
+(1933), 89-122; Augustus Ralli, _A history of Shakespearian criticism_,
+London, 1932; Herbert S. Robinson, _English Shakespearian criticism in
+the eighteenth century_, New York, 1932.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Nicoll, _op. cit._, pp. 158-161; McKerrow, _op. cit._, p.
+93.]
+
+[Footnote 3: London _Gazette_, From Monday March 14 to Thursday March
+17, 1708, and From Monday May 30 to Thursday June 2, 1709. For
+descriptions and collations of this edition, see A. Jackson, _op. cit._;
+H.L. Ford, _Shakespeare 1700-1740_, Oxford (1935), pp. 9, 10; _TLS_ 16
+May, 1929, p. 408; Edward Wagenknecht, "The first editor of
+Shakespeare," _Colophon_ VIII, 1931. According to a writer in _The
+Gentleman's Magazine_ (LVII, 1787, p. 76), Rowe was paid thirty-six
+pounds, ten shillings by Tonson.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Identified and described by McKerrow, _TLS_ 8 March, 1934,
+p. 168. See also Ford, _op. cit._, pp. 11, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The best discussion of the Curll and Lintot Poems is that
+of Hyder Rollins in _A new variorum edition of Shakespeare: the poems_,
+Philadelphia and London (1938) pp. 380-382, to which I am obviously
+indebted. See also Raymond M. Alden, "The 1710 and 1714 texts of
+Shakespeare's poems," _MLN_ XXXI (1916), 268-274; and Ford, _op. cit._,
+pp. 37-40.]
+
+[Footnote 6: For example, he dropped out Rowe's opinion that Shakespeare
+had little learning; the reference to Dryden's view as to the date of
+Pericles; the statement that _Venus and Adonis_ is the only work that
+Shakespeare himself published; the identification of Spenser's "pleasant
+Willy" with Shakespeare; the account of Jonson's grudging attitude
+toward Shakespeare; the attack on Rymer and the defence of _Othello_;
+and the discussion of the Davenant-Dryden _Tempest_, together with the
+quotation from Dryden's prologue to that play.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Edmond Malone, _The plays and poems of William
+Shakespeare_, London (1790), I, 154. Difficult as it is to believe that
+so careful a scholar as Malone could have made this error, it is none
+the less true that he observed the omission of the passage on "pleasant
+Willy" and stated that Rowe had obviously altered his opinion by 1714.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Beverley Warner, _Famous introductions to Shakespeare's
+plays_, New York (1906), p. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Gerald E. Bentley, _Shakespeare and Jonson_, Chicago
+(1945). Vol. I.]
+
+[Footnote 10: D. Nichol Smith, _Eighteenth century essays on
+Shakespeare_, Glasgow (1903), pp. xiv-xv.]
+
+
+The writer wishes to express his appreciation of a Research Grant from
+the University of Minnesota for the summer of 1948, during which this
+introduction was written.
+
+--Samuel Holt Monk
+University of Minnesota
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Picture of Shakespeare surrounded by angels]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+WORKS
+
+OF
+
+Mr. _William Shakespear_;
+
+IN
+
+SIX VOLUMES.
+
+
+ADORN'D with CUTS.
+
+
+Revis'd and Corrected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the
+Author.
+
+By _N. ROWE_, Esq;
+
+
+_L O N D O N_:
+
+Printed for _Jacob Tonson_, within _Grays-Inn_ Gate, next _Grays-Inn_
+Lane. MDCCIX.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorative motif]
+
+SOME
+
+ACCOUNT
+
+OF THE
+
+LIFE, _&c._
+
+OF
+
+Mr. _William Shakespear_.
+
+
+It seems to be a kind of Respect due to the Memory of Excellent Men,
+especially of those whom their Wit and Learning have made Famous, to
+deliver some Account of themselves, as well as their Works, to
+Posterity. For this Reason, how fond do we see some People of
+discovering any little Personal Story of the great Men of Antiquity,
+their Families, the common Accidents of their Lives, and even their
+Shape, Make and Features have been the Subject of critical Enquiries.
+How trifling soever this Curiosity may seem to be, it is certainly very
+Natural; and we are hardly satisfy'd with an Account of any remarkable
+Person, 'till we have heard him describ'd even to the very Cloaths he
+wears. As for what relates to Men of Letters, the knowledge of an Author
+may sometimes conduce to the better understanding his Book: And tho' the
+Works of Mr. _Shakespear_ may seem to many not to want a Comment, yet I
+fancy some little Account of the Man himself may not be thought improper
+to go along with them.
+
+He was the Son of Mr. _John Shakespear_, and was Born at _Stratford_
+upon _Avon_, in _Warwickshire_, in _April_ 1564. His Family, as appears
+by the Register and Publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good
+Figure and Fashion there, and are mention'd as Gentlemen. His Father,
+who was a considerable Dealer in Wool, had so large a Family, ten
+Children in all, that tho' he was his eldest Son, he could give him no
+better Education than his own Employment. He had bred him, 'tis true,
+for some time at a Free-School, where 'tis probable he acquir'd that
+little _Latin_ he was Master of: But the narrowness of his
+Circumstances, and the want of his assistance at Home, forc'd his
+Father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further
+Proficiency in that Language. It is without Controversie, that he had no
+knowledge of the Writings of the Antient Poets, not only from this
+Reason, but from his Works themselves, where we find no traces of any
+thing that looks like an Imitation of 'em; the Delicacy of his Taste,
+and the natural Bent of his own Great _Genius_, equal, if not superior
+to some of the best of theirs, would certainly have led him to Read and
+Study 'em with so much Pleasure, that some of their fine Images would
+naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mix'd with his own
+Writings; so that his not copying at least something from them, may be
+an Argument of his never having read 'em. Whether his Ignorance of the
+Antients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a Dispute: For
+tho' the knowledge of 'em might have made him more Correct, yet it is
+not improbable but that the Regularity and Deference for them, which
+would have attended that Correctness, might have restrain'd some of that
+Fire, Impetuosity, and even beautiful Extravagance which we admire in
+_Shakespear_: And I believe we are better pleas'd with those Thoughts,
+altogether New and Uncommon, which his own Imagination supply'd him so
+abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful Passages out
+of the _Greek_ and _Latin_ Poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
+that it was possible for a Master of the _English_ Language to deliver
+'em. Some _Latin_ without question he did know, and one may see up and
+down in his Plays how far his Reading that way went: In _Love's Labour
+lost_, the Pedant comes out with a Verse of _Mantuan_; and in _Titus
+Andronicus_, one of the _Gothick_ Princes, upon reading
+
+    _Integer vitæ scelerisque purus
+    Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu--_
+
+says, _'Tis a Verse in_ Horace, _but he remembers it out of his_
+Grammar: Which, I suppose, was the Author's Case. Whatever _Latin_ he
+had, 'tis certain he understood _French_, as may be observ'd from many
+Words and Sentences scatter'd up and down his Plays in that Language;
+and especially from one Scene in _Henry_ the Fifth written wholly in it.
+Upon his leaving School, he seems to have given intirely into that way
+of Living which his Father propos'd to him; and in order to settle in
+the World after a Family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was
+yet very Young. His Wife was the Daughter of one _Hathaway_, said to
+have been a substantial Yeoman in the Neighbourhood of _Stratford_. In
+this kind of Settlement he continu'd for some time, 'till an
+Extravagance that he was guilty of, forc'd him both out of his Country
+and that way of Living which he had taken up; and tho' it seem'd at
+first to be a Blemish upon his good Manners, and a Misfortune to him,
+yet it afterwards happily prov'd the occasion of exerting one of the
+greatest _Genius's_ that ever was known in Dramatick Poetry. He had, by
+a Misfortune common enough to young Fellows, fallen into ill Company;
+and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing,
+engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to
+Sir _Thomas Lucy_ of _Cherlecot_, near _Stratford_. For this he was
+prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and
+in order to revenge that ill Usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho'
+this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to
+have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the Prosecution against him
+to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his Business and Family in
+_Warwickshire_, for some time, and shelter himself in _London_.
+
+It is at this Time, and upon this Accident, that he is said to have
+made his first Acquaintance in the Play-house. He was receiv'd into the
+Company then in being, at first in a very mean Rank; But his admirable
+Wit, and the natural Turn of it to the Stage, soon distinguish'd him, if
+not as an extraordinary Actor, yet as an excellent Writer. His Name is
+Printed, as the Custom was in those Times, amongst those of the other
+Players, before some old Plays, but without any particular Account of
+what sort of Parts he us'd to play; and tho' I have inquir'd, I could
+never meet with any further Account of him this way, than that the top
+of his Performance was the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_. I should have been
+much more pleas'd, to have learn'd from some certain Authority, which
+was the first Play he wrote; it would be without doubt a pleasure to any
+Man, curious in Things of this Kind, to see and know what was the first
+Essay of a Fancy like _Shakespear's_. Perhaps we are not to look for his
+Beginnings, like those of other Authors, among their least perfect
+Writings; Art had so little, and Nature so large a Share in what he did,
+that, for ought I know, the Performances of his Youth, as they were the
+most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of Imagination in 'em,
+were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his Fancy
+was so loose and extravagant, as to be Independent on the Rule and
+Government of Judgment; but that what he thought, was commonly so Great,
+so justly and rightly Conceiv'd in it self, that it wanted little or no
+Correction, and was immediately approv'd by an impartial Judgment at the
+first sight. Mr. _Dryden_ seems to think that _Pericles_ is one of his
+first Plays; but there is no judgment to be form'd on that, since there
+is good Reason to believe that the greatest part of that Play was not
+written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of it certainly was,
+particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of Time in which the
+several Pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are
+Passages in some few of them which seem to fix their Dates. So the
+_Chorus_ in the beginning of the fifth Act of _Henry_ V. by a Compliment
+very handsomly turn'd to the Earl of _Essex_, shews the Play to have
+been written when that Lord was General for the Queen in _Ireland_: And
+his Elogy upon Q. _Elizabeth_, and her Successor K. _James_, in the
+latter end of his _Henry_ VII, is a Proof of that Play's being written
+after the Accession of the latter of those two Princes to the Crown of
+_England_. Whatever the particular Times of his Writing were, the People
+of his Age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of Diversions of this
+kind, could not but be highly pleas'd to see a _Genius_ arise amongst
+'em of so pleasurable, so rich a Vein, and so plentifully capable of
+furnishing their favourite Entertainments. Besides the advantages of his
+Wit, he was in himself a good-natur'd Man, of great sweetness in his
+Manners, and a most agreeable Companion; so that it is no wonder if with
+so many good Qualities he made himself acquainted with the best
+Conversations of those Times. Queen _Elizabeth_ had several of his Plays
+Acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious Marks of her
+Favour: It is that Maiden Princess plainly, whom he intends by
+
+    _--A fair Vestal, Throned by the West._
+
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_,
+Vol. 2. p. 480.
+
+And that whole Passage is a Compliment very properly brought in, and
+very handsomly apply'd to her. She was so well pleas'd with that
+admirable Character of _Falstaff_, in the two Parts of _Henry_ the
+Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one Play more, and to
+shew him in Love. This is said to be the Occasion of his Writing _The
+Merry Wives of_ Windsor. How well she was obey'd, the Play it self is an
+admirable Proof. Upon this Occasion it may not be improper to observe,
+that this Part of _Falstaff_ is said to have been written originally
+under the Name of _Oldcastle_; some of that Family being then remaining,
+the Queen was pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use
+of _Falstaff_. The present Offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know
+whether the Author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second
+Choice, since it is certain that Sir _John Falstaff_, who was a Knight
+of the Garter, and a Lieutenant-General, was a Name of distinguish'd
+Merit in the Wars in _France_ in _Henry_ the Fifth's and _Henry_ the
+Sixth's Times. What Grace soever the Queen confer'd upon him, it was not
+to her only he ow'd the Fortune which the Reputation of his Wit made. He
+had the Honour to meet with many great and uncommon Marks of Favour and
+Friendship from the Earl of _Southampton_, famous in the Histories of
+that Time for his Friendship to the unfortunate Earl of _Essex_. It was
+to that Noble Lord that he Dedicated his _Venus_ and _Adonis_, the only
+Piece of his Poetry which he ever publish'd himself, tho' many of his
+Plays were surrepticiously and lamely Printed in his Lifetime. There is
+one Instance so singular in the Magnificence of this Patron of
+_Shakespear_'s, that if I had not been assur'd that the Story was handed
+down by Sir _William D'Avenant_, who was probably very well acquainted
+with his Affairs, I should not have ventur'd to have inserted, that my
+Lord _Southampton_, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable
+him to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A
+Bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that
+profuse Generosity the present Age has shewn to _French_ Dancers and
+_Italian_ Eunuchs.
+
+What particular Habitude or Friendships he contracted with private Men,
+I have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true
+Taste of Merit, and could distinguish Men, had generally a just Value
+and Esteem for him. His exceeding Candor and good Nature must certainly
+have inclin'd all the gentler Part of the World to love him, as the
+power of his Wit oblig'd the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and
+polite Learning to admire him. Amongst these was the incomparable Mr.
+_Edmond Spencer_, who speaks of him in his _Tears of the Muses_, not
+only with the Praises due to a good Poet, but even lamenting his Absence
+with the tenderness of a Friend. The Passage is in _Thalia's_ Complaint
+for the Decay of Dramatick Poetry, and the Contempt the Stage then lay
+under, amongst his Miscellaneous Works, _p._ 147.
+
+      _And he the Man, whom Nature's self had made
+    To mock her self, and Truth to imitate
+    With kindly Counter under mimick Shade,
+    Our pleasant _Willy_, ah! is dead of late:
+    With whom all Joy and jolly Merriment
+    Is also deaded, and in Dolour drent._
+
+      _Instead thereof, scoffing Scurrility
+    And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept,
+    Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry,
+    Without Regard or due _Decorum_ kept;
+    Each idle Wit at will presumes to make,
+    And doth the Learned's Task upon him take._
+
+      _But that same gentle Spirit, from whose Pen
+    Large Streams of Honey and sweet _Nectar_ flow,
+    Scorning the Boldness such base-born Men,
+    Which dare their Follies forth so rashly throw;
+    Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell,
+    Than so himself to Mockery to sell._
+
+I know some People have been of Opinion, that _Shakespear_ is not meant
+by _Willy_ in the first _Stanza_ of these Verses, because _Spencer's_
+Death happen'd twenty Years before _Shakespear's_. But, besides that the
+Character is not applicable to any Man of that time but himself, it is
+plain by the last _Stanza_ that Mr. _Spencer_ does not mean that he was
+then really Dead, but only that he had with-drawn himself from the
+Publick, or at least with-held his Hand from Writing, out of a disgust
+he had taken at the then ill taste of the Town, and the mean Condition
+of the Stage. Mr. _Dryden_ was always of Opinion these Verses were meant
+of _Shakespear_; and 'tis highly probable they were so, since he was
+three and thirty Years old at _Spencer's_ Death; and his Reputation in
+Poetry must have been great enough before that Time to have deserv'd
+what is here said of him. His Acquaintance with _Ben Johnson_ began with
+a remarkable piece of Humanity and good Nature; Mr. _Johnson_, who was
+at that Time altogether unknown to the World, had offer'd one of his
+Plays to the Players, in order to have it Acted; and the Persons into
+whose Hands it was put, after having turn'd it carelessly and
+superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an
+ill-natur'd Answer, that it would be of no service to their Company,
+when _Shakespear_ luckily cast his Eye upon it, and found something so
+well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to
+recommend Mr. _Johnson_ and his Writings to the Publick. After this they
+were profess'd Friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made
+him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. _Ben_ was naturally
+Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take
+upon him the Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil
+Eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in Competition with him. And if at
+times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some
+Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner of Writing,
+and want of Judgment; the Praise of seldom altering or blotting out what
+he writ, which was given him by the Players who were the first
+Publishers of his Works after his Death, was what _Johnson_ could not
+bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another Man to strike out
+the greatest Thoughts in the finest Expression, and to reach those
+Excellencies of Poetry with the Ease of a first Imagination, which
+himself with infinite Labour and Study could but hardly attain to.
+_Johnson_ was certainly a very good Scholar, and in that had the
+advantage of _Shakespear_; tho' at the same time I believe it must be
+allow'd, that what Nature gave the latter, was more than a Ballance for
+what Books had given the former; and the Judgment of a great Man upon
+this occasion was, I think, very just and proper. In a Conversation
+between Sir _John Suckling_, Sir _William D'Avenant_, _Endymion Porter_,
+Mr. _Hales_ of _Eaton_, and _Ben Johnson_; Sir _John Suckling_, who was
+a profess'd Admirer of _Shakespear_, had undertaken his Defence against
+_Ben Johnson_ with some warmth; Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for some
+time, hearing _Ben_ frequently reproaching him with the want of
+Learning, and Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last, _That if Mr.
+_Shakespear_ had not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any
+thing from 'em;_ (a Fault the other made no Confidence of) _and that if
+he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any of them, he would
+undertake to shew something upon the same Subject at least as well
+written by_ Shakespear. _Johnson_ did indeed take a large liberty, even
+to the transcribing and translating of whole Scenes together; and
+sometimes, with all Deference to so great a Name as his, not altogether
+for the advantage of the Authors of whom he borrow'd. And if _Augustus_
+and _Virgil_ were really what he has made _'em_ in a Scene of his
+_Poetaster_, they are as odd an Emperor and a Poet as ever met.
+_Shakespear_, on the other Hand, was beholding to no body farther than
+the Foundation of the Tale, the Incidents were often his own, and the
+Writing intirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, _The Comedy of
+Errors_, in a great measure taken from the _Menoechmi_ of _Plautus_.
+How that happen'd, I cannot easily Divine, since, as I hinted before, I
+do not take him to have been Master of _Latin_ enough to read it in the
+Original, and I know of no Translation of _Plautus_ so Old as his Time.
+
+As I have not propos'd to my self to enter into a Large and Compleat
+Criticism upon Mr. _Shakespear_'s Works, so I suppose it will neither be
+expected that I should take notice of the severe Remarks that have been
+formerly made upon him by Mr. _Rhymer_. I must confess, I can't very
+well see what could be the Reason of his animadverting with so much
+Sharpness, upon the Faults of a Man Excellent on most Occasions, and
+whom all the World ever was and will be inclin'd to have an Esteem and
+Veneration for. If it was to shew his own Knowledge in the Art of
+Poetry, besides that there is a Vanity in making that only his Design, I
+question if there be not many Imperfections as well in those Schemes and
+Precepts he has given for the Direction of others, as well as in that
+Sample of Tragedy which he has written to shew the Excellency of his own
+_Genius_. If he had a Pique against the Man, and wrote on purpose to
+ruin a Reputation so well establish'd, he has had the Mortification to
+fail altogether in his Attempt, and to see the World at least as fond of
+_Shakespear_ as of his Critique. But I won't believe a Gentleman, and a
+good-natur'd Man, capable of the last Intention. Whatever may have been
+his Meaning, finding fault is certainly the easiest Task of Knowledge,
+and commonly those Men of good Judgment, who are likewise of good and
+gentle Dispositions, abandon this ungrateful Province to the Tyranny of
+Pedants. If one would enter into the Beauties of _Shakespear_, there is
+a much larger, as well as a more delightful Field; but as I won't
+prescribe to the Tastes of other People, 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 pleas'd with in looking him over.
+
+His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd 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
+'em. That way of Trage-Comedy was the common Mistake of that Age, and is
+indeed become so agreeable to the _English_ Tast, that tho' the severer
+Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our Audiences
+seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. _The Merry
+Wives of_ Windsor, _The Comedy of Errors_, and _The Taming of the
+Shrew_, are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have
+something of both Kinds. 'Tis not very easie to determine which way of
+Writing he was most Excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of
+Entertainment in his Comical Humours; and tho' they did not then strike
+at all Ranks of People, as the Satyr of the present Age has taken the
+Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd Variety
+in those Characters which he thought fit to meddle with. _Falstaff_ is
+allow'd by every body to be a Master-piece; the Character is always
+well-sustain'd, tho' drawn out into the length of three Plays; and even
+the Account of his Death, given by his Old Landlady Mrs. _Quickly_, in
+the first Act of _Henry_ V. tho' it be extremely Natural, is yet as
+diverting as any Part of his Life. If there be any Fault in the Draught
+he has made of this lewd old Fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a
+Thief, Lying, Cowardly, Vain-glorious, and in short every way Vicious,
+yet he has given him so much Wit as to make him almost too agreeable;
+and I don't know whether some People have not, in remembrance of the
+Diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his Friend
+_Hal_ use him so scurvily, when he comes to the Crown in the End of the
+Second Part of _Henry_ the Fourth. Amongst other Extravagances, in _The
+Merry Wives of_ Windsor, he has made him a Dear-stealer, that he might
+at the same time remember his _Warwickshire_ Prosecutor, under the Name
+of Justice _Shallow_; he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms
+which _Dugdale_, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a
+Family there, and makes the _Welsh_ Parson descant very pleasantly upon
+'em. That whole Play is admirable; the Humours are various and well
+oppos'd; the main Design, which is to cure _Ford_ his unreasonable
+Jealousie, is extremely well conducted. _Falstaff's Billet-doux_, and
+Master _Slender_'s
+
+    _Ah! Sweet_ Ann Page!
+
+are very good Expressions of Love in their Way. In _Twelfth-Night_ there
+is something singularly Ridiculous and Pleasant in the fantastical
+Steward _Malvolio_. The Parasite and the Vain-glorious in _Parolles_, in
+_All's Well that ends Well_ is as good as any thing of that Kind in
+_Plautus_ or _Terence_. _Petruchio_, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, is an
+uncommon Piece of Humour. The Conversation of _Benedick_ and _Beatrice_
+in _Much ado about Nothing_, and of _Rosalind_ in _As you like it_, have
+much Wit and Sprightliness all along. His Clowns, without which
+Character there was hardly any Play writ in that Time, are all very
+entertaining: And, I believe, _Thersites_ in _Troilus_ and _Cressida_,
+and _Apemantus_ in _Timon_, will be allow'd to be Master-Pieces of ill
+Nature, and satyrical Snarling. To these I might add, that incomparable
+Character of _Shylock_ the _Jew_, in _The Merchant of_ Venice; but tho'
+we have seen that Play Receiv'd and Acted as a Comedy, and the Part of
+the _Jew_ perform'd by an Excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it
+was design'd Tragically by the Author. There appears in it such a
+deadly Spirit of Revenge, such a savage Fierceness and Fellness, and
+such a bloody designation of Cruelty and Mischief, as cannot agree
+either with the Stile or Characters of Comedy. The Play it self, take it
+all together, seems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of
+_Shakespear_'s. The Tale indeed, in that Part relating to the Caskets,
+and the extravagant and unusual kind of Bond given by _Antonio_, is a
+little too much remov'd from the Rules of Probability: But taking the
+Fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There
+is something in the Friendship of _Antonio_ to _Bassanio_ very Great,
+Generous and Tender. The whole fourth Act, supposing, as I said, the
+Fact to be probable, is extremely Fine. But there are two Passages that
+deserve a particular Notice. The first is, what _Portia_ says in praise
+of Mercy, _pag. 577_; and the other on the Power of Musick, _pag. 587_.
+The Melancholy of _Jacques_, in _As you like it_, is as singular and odd
+as it is diverting. And if what _Horace_ says
+
+    _Difficile est proprie communia Dicere,_
+
+'Twill be a hard Task for any one to go beyond him in the Description
+of the several Degrees and Ages of Man's Life, tho' the Thought be old,
+and common enough.
+
+      _--All the World's a Stage,
+    And all the Men and Women meerly Players;
+    They have their Exits and their Entrances,
+    And one Man in his time plays many Parts,
+    His Acts being seven Ages. At first the Infant
+    Mewling and puking in the Nurse's Arms:
+    And then, the whining School-boy with his Satchel,
+    And shining Morning-face, creeping like Snail
+    Unwillingly to School. And then the Lover
+    Sighing like Furnace, with a woful Ballad
+    Made to his Mistress' Eye-brow. Then a Soldier
+    Full of strange Oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
+    Jealous in Honour, sudden and quick in Quarrel,
+    Seeking the bubble Reputation
+    Ev'n in the Cannon's Mouth. And then the Justice
+    In fair round Belly, with good Capon lin'd,
+    With Eyes severe, and Beard of formal Cut,
+    Full of wise Saws and modern Instances;
+    And so he plays his Part. The sixth Age shifts
+    Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon,
+    With Spectacles on Nose, and Pouch on Side;
+    His youthful Hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
+    For his shrunk Shank; and his big manly Voice
+    Turning again tow'rd childish treble Pipes,
+    And Whistles in his Sound. Last Scene of all,
+    That ends this strange eventful History,
+    Is second Childishness and meer Oblivion,
+    Sans Teeth, sans Eyes, sans Tast, sans ev'rything._
+
+    p. 625.
+
+His Images are indeed ev'ry where so lively, that the Thing he would
+represent stands full before you, and you possess ev'ry Part of it. I
+will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as strong and as
+uncommon as any thing I ever saw; 'tis an Image of Patience. Speaking of
+a Maid in Love, he says,
+
+      _--She never told her Love,
+    But let Concealment, like a Worm i' th' Bud
+    Feed on her Damask Cheek: She pin'd in Thought,
+    And sate like _Patience_ on a Monument,
+    Smiling at_ Grief.
+
+What an Image is here given! and what a Task would it have been for the
+greatest Masters of _Greece_ and _Rome_ to have express'd the Passions
+design'd by this Sketch of Statuary? The Stile of his Comedy is, in
+general, Natural to the Characters, and easie in it self; and the Wit
+most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he
+runs into Dogrel Rhymes, as in _The Comedy of Errors_, and a Passage or
+two in some other Plays. As for his Jingling sometimes, and playing upon
+Words, it was the common Vice of the Age he liv'd in: And if we find it
+in the Pulpit, made use of as an Ornament to the Sermons of some of the
+Gravest Divines of those Times; perhaps it may not be thought too light
+for the Stage.
+
+But certainly the greatness of this Author's Genius do's no where so
+much appear, as where he gives his Imagination an entire Loose, and
+raises his Fancy to a flight above Mankind and the Limits of the visible
+World. Such are his Attempts in _The Tempest_, _Midsummer-Night's
+Dream_, _Macbeth_ and _Hamlet_. Of these, _The Tempest_, however it
+comes to be plac'd the first by the former Publishers of his Works, can
+never have been the first written by him: It seems to me as perfect in
+its Kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the
+Unities are kept here with an Exactness uncommon to the Liberties of his
+Writing: Tho' that was what, I suppose, he valu'd himself least upon,
+since his Excellencies were all of another Kind. I am very sensible that
+he do's, in this Play, depart too much from that likeness to Truth which
+ought to be observ'd in these sort of Writings; yet he do's it so very
+finely, that one is easily drawn in to have more Faith for his sake,
+than Reason does well allow of. His Magick has something in it very
+Solemn and very Poetical: And that extravagant Character of _Caliban_ is
+mighty well sustain'd, shews a wonderful Invention in the Author, who
+could strike out such a particular wild Image, and is certainly one of
+the finest and most uncommon Grotesques that was ever seen. The
+Observation, which I have been inform'd[A] three very great Men
+concurr'd in making upon this Part, was extremely just. _That
+_Shakespear_ had not only found out a new Character in his _Caliban_, but
+had also devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that
+Character._ Among the particular Beauties of this Piece, I think one may
+be allow'd to point out the Tale of _Prospero_ in the First Act; his
+Speech to _Ferdinand_ in the Fourth, upon the breaking up the Masque of
+_Juno_ and _Ceres_; and that in the Fifth, where he dissolves his
+Charms, and resolves to break his Magick Rod. This Play has been alter'd
+by Sir _William D'Avenant_ and Mr. _Dryden_; and tho' I won't Arraign
+the Judgment of those two great Men, yet I think I may be allow'd to
+say, that there are some things left out by them, that might, and even
+ought to have been kept in. Mr. _Dryden_ was an Admirer of our Author,
+and, indeed, he owed him a great deal, as those who have read them both
+may very easily observe. And, I think, in Justice to 'em both, I should
+not on this Occasion omit what Mr. _Dryden_ has said of him.
+
+      Shakespear, _who, taught by none, did first impart
+    To _Fletcher_ Wit, to lab'ring _Johnson_ Art.
+    He, Monarch-like, gave those his Subjects Law,
+    And is that Nature which they Paint and Draw.
+    _Fletcher_ reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
+    Whilst _Johnson_ crept and gather'd all below:
+    This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest,
+    One imitates him most, the other best.
+    If they have since out-writ all other Men,
+    'Tis with the Drops which fell from _Shakespear_'s Pen.
+    The[B]Storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring Shoar,
+    Was taught by _Shakespear_'s Tempest to roar.
+    That Innocence and Beauty which did smile
+    In _Fletcher_, grew on this _Enchanted Isle_.
+    But _Shakespear_'s Magick could not copied be,
+    Within that Circle none durst walk but he._
+    _I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now
+    That Liberty to vulgar Wits allow,
+    Which works by Magick supernatural things:
+    But _Shakespear_'s Pow'r is Sacred as A King's._
+
+    Prologue to _The Tempest_, as it
+    is alter'd by Mr. _Dryden_.
+
+It is the same Magick that raises the Fairies in _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_, the Witches in _Macbeth_, and the Ghost in _Hamlet_, with
+Thoughts and Language so proper to the Parts they sustain, and so
+peculiar to the Talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these
+Plays I shall have occasion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr.
+_Shakespear_. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by
+those Rules which are establish'd by _Aristotle_, and taken from the
+Model of the _Grecian_ Stage, it would be no very hard Task to find a
+great many Faults: But as _Shakespear_ liv'd under a kind of mere Light
+of Nature, and had never been made acquainted with the Regularity of
+those written Precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a Law he
+knew nothing of. We are to consider him as a Man that liv'd in a State
+of almost universal License and Ignorance: There was no establish'd
+Judge, but every one took the liberty to Write according to the Dictates
+of his own Fancy. When one considers, that there is not one Play before
+him of a Reputation good enough to entitle it to an Appearance on the
+present Stage, it cannot but be a Matter of great Wonder that he should
+advance Dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is
+generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the
+constituent Parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is
+the most Difficult or Beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be
+thought of in the Contrivance and Course of the whole; and with the
+Fable ought to be consider'd, the fit Disposition, Order and Conduct of
+its several Parts. As it is not in this Province of the _Drama_ that the
+Strength and Mastery of _Shakespear_ lay, so I shall not undertake the
+tedious and ill-natur'd Trouble to point out the several Faults he was
+guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather taken either
+from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of
+'em in that Order, with those Incidents, and that extent of Time in
+which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. So _The
+Winter's Tale_, which is taken from an old Book, call'd, _The Delectable
+History of_ Dorastus _and_ Faunia, contains the space of sixteen or
+seventeen Years, and the Scene is sometimes laid in _Bohemia_, and
+sometimes in _Sicily_, according to the original Order of the Story.
+Almost all his Historical Plays comprehend a great length of Time, and
+very different and distinct Places: And in his _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_,
+the Scene travels over the greatest Part of the _Roman_ Empire. But in
+Recompence for his Carelessness in this Point, when he comes to another
+Part of the _Drama_, _The Manners of his Characters, in Acting or
+Speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet_, he
+may be generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended.
+For those Plays which he has taken from the _English_ or _Roman_
+History, let any Man compare 'em, and he will find the Character as
+exact in the Poet as the Historian. He seems indeed so far from
+proposing to himself any one Action for a Subject, that the Title very
+often tells you, 'tis _The Life of King_ John, _King_ Richard, _&c._
+What can be more agreeable to the Idea our Historians give of _Henry_
+the Sixth, than the Picture _Shakespear_ has drawn of him! His Manners
+are every where exactly the same with the Story; one finds him still
+describ'd with Simplicity, passive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness
+of Mind, and easie Submission to the Governance of an imperious Wife,
+or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the same time the Poet do's Justice to
+his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by
+showing him Pious, Disinterested, a Contemner of the Things of this
+World, and wholly resign'd to the severest Dispensations of God's
+Providence. There is a short Scene in the Second Part of _Henry_ VI.
+_Vol. III. pag._ 1504. which I cannot but think admirable in its Kind.
+Cardinal _Beaufort_, who had murder'd the Duke of _Gloucester_, is shewn
+in the last Agonies on his Death-Bed, with the good King praying over
+him. There is so much Terror in one, so much Tenderness and moving Piety
+in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of Fear or
+Pity. In his _Henry_ VIII. that Prince is drawn with that Greatness of
+Mind, and all those good Qualities which are attributed to him in any
+Account of his Reign. If his Faults are not shewn in an equal degree,
+and the Shades in this Picture do not bear a just Proportion to the
+Lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either Colours or Skill in the
+Disposition of 'em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore
+doing it out of regard to Queen _Elizabeth_, since it could have been no
+very great Respect to the Memory of his Mistress, to have expos'd some
+certain Parts of her Father's Life upon the Stage. He has dealt much
+more freely with the Minister of that Great King, and certainly nothing
+was ever more justly written, than the Character of Cardinal _Wolsey_.
+He has shewn him Tyrannical, Cruel, and Insolent in his Prosperity; and
+yet, by a wonderful Address, he makes his Fall and Ruin the Subject of
+general Compassion. The whole Man, with his Vices and Virtues, is finely
+and exactly describ'd in the second Scene of the fourth Act. The
+Distresses likewise of Queen _Katherine_, in this Play, are very
+movingly touch'd: and tho' the Art of the Poet has skreen'd King _Henry_
+from any gross Imputation of Injustice, yet one is inclin'd to wish, the
+Queen had met with a Fortune more worthy of her Birth and Virtue. Nor
+are the Manners, proper to the Persons represented, less justly
+observ'd, in those Characters taken from the _Roman_ History; and of
+this, the Fierceness and Impatience of _Coriolanus_, his Courage and
+Disdain of the common People, the Virtue and Philosophical Temper of
+_Brutus_, and the irregular Greatness of Mind in _M. Antony_, are
+beautiful Proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as
+they are describ'd by _Plutarch_, from whom certainly _Shakespear_
+copy'd 'em. He has indeed follow'd his Original pretty close, and taken
+in several little Incidents that might have been spar'd in a Play. But,
+as I hinted before, his Design seems most commonly rather to describe
+those great Men in the several Fortunes and Accidents of their Lives,
+than to take any single great Action, and form his Work simply upon
+that. However, there are some of his Pieces, where the Fable is founded
+upon one Action only. Such are more especially, _Romeo_ and _Juliet_,
+_Hamlet_, and _Othello_. The Design in _Romeo_ and _Juliet_, is plainly
+the Punishment of their two Families, for the unreasonable Feuds and
+Animosities that had been so long kept up between 'em, and occasion'd
+the Effusion of so much Blood. In the management of this Story, he has
+shewn something wonderfully Tender and Passionate in the Love-part, and
+vary Pitiful in the Distress. _Hamlet_ is founded on much the same Tale
+with the _Electra_ of _Sophocles_. In each of 'em a young Prince is
+engag'd to Revenge the Death of his Father, their Mothers are equally
+Guilty, are both concern'd in the Murder of their Husbands, and are
+afterwards married to the Murderers. There is in the first Part of the
+_Greek_ Trajedy, something very moving in the Grief of _Electra_; but as
+Mr. _D'Acier_ has observ'd, there is something very unnatural and
+shocking in the Manners he has given that Princess and _Orestes_ in the
+latter Part. _Orestes_ embrues his Hands in the Blood of his own Mother;
+and that barbarous Action is perform'd, tho' not immediately upon the
+Stage, yet so near, that the Audience hear _Clytemnestra_ crying out to
+_Æghystus_ for Help, and to her Son for Mercy: While _Electra_, her
+Daughter, and a Princess, both of them Characters that ought to have
+appear'd with more Decency, stands upon the Stage and encourages her
+Brother in the Parricide. What Horror does this not raise!
+_Clytemnestra_ was a wicked Woman, and had deserv'd to Die; nay, in the
+truth of the Story, she was kill'd by her own Son; but to represent an
+Action of this Kind on the Stage, is certainly an Offence against those
+Rules of Manners proper to the Persons that ought to be observ'd there.
+On the contrary, let us only look a little on the Conduct of
+_Shakespear_. _Hamlet_ is represented with the same Piety towards his
+Father, and Resolution to Revenge his Death, as _Orestes_; he has the
+same Abhorrence for his Mother's Guilt, which, to provoke him the more,
+is heighten'd by Incest: But 'tis with wonderful Art and Justness of
+Judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing Violence to his Mother.
+To prevent any thing of that Kind, he makes his Father's Ghost forbid
+that part of his Vengeance.
+
+    _But howsoever thou pursu'st this Act,
+    Taint not thy Mind; nor let thy Soul contrive
+    Against thy Mother ought; leave her to Heav'n,
+    And to those Thorns that in her Bosom lodge,
+    To prick and sting her._      Vol. V. p. 2386.
+
+This is to distinguish rightly between _Horror_ and _Terror_. The latter
+is a proper Passion of Tragedy, but the former ought always to be
+carefully avoided. And certainly no Dramatick Writer ever succeeded
+better in raising _Terror_ in the Minds of an Audience than _Shakespear_
+has done. The whole Tragedy of _Macbeth_, but more especially the Scene
+where the King is murder'd, in the second Act, as well as this Play, is
+a noble Proof of that manly Spirit with which he writ; and both shew how
+powerful he was, in giving the strongest Motions to our Souls that they
+are capable of. I cannot leave _Hamlet_, without taking notice of the
+Advantage with which we have seen this Master-piece of _Shakespear_
+distinguish it self upon the Stage, by Mr. _Betterton_'s fine
+Performance of that Part. A Man, who tho' he had no other good
+Qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his way into the
+Esteem of all Men of Letters, by this only Excellency. No Man is better
+acquainted with _Shakespear_'s manner of Expression, and indeed he has
+study'd him so well, and is so much a Master of him, that whatever Part
+of his he performs he does it as if it had been written on purpose for
+him, and that the Author had exactly conceiv'd it as he plays it. I must
+own a particular Obligation to him, for the most considerable part of
+the Passages relating to his Life, which I have here transmitted to the
+Publick; his Veneration for the Memory of _Shakespear_ having engag'd
+him to make a Journey into _Warwickshire_, on purpose to gather up what
+Remains he could of a Name for which he had so great a Value. Since I
+had at first resolv'd not to enter into any Critical Controversie, I
+won't pretend to enquire into the Justness of Mr. _Rhymer_'s Remarks on
+_Othello_; he has certainly pointed out some Faults very judiciously;
+and indeed they are such as most People will agree, with him, to be
+Faults: But I wish he would likewise have observ'd some of the Beauties
+too; as I think it became an Exact and Equal Critique to do. It seems
+strange that he should allow nothing Good in the whole: If the Fable and
+Incidents are not to his Taste, yet the Thoughts are almost every where
+very Noble, and the Diction manly and proper. These last, indeed, are
+Parts of _Shakespear_'s Praise, which it would be very hard to Dispute
+with him. His Sentiments and Images of Things are Great and Natural; and
+his Expression (tho' perhaps in some Instances a little Irregular) just,
+and rais'd in Proportion to his Subject and Occasion. It would be even
+endless to mention the particular Instances that might be given of this
+Kind: But his Book is in the Possession of the Publick, and 'twill be
+hard to dip into any Part of it, without finding what I have said of him
+made good.
+
+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, engag'd him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to
+the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood. Amongst them, it
+is a Story almost still remember'd in that Country, that he had a
+particular Intimacy with Mr. _Combe_, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts
+for his Wealth and Usury: It happen'd, that in a pleasant Conversation
+amongst their common Friends, Mr. _Combe_ told _Shakespear_ in a
+laughing manner, that he fancy'd, he intended to write his Epitaph, if
+he happen'd to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be
+said of him when he was dead, he desir'd it might be done immediately:
+Upon which _Shakespear_ gave him these four Verses.
+
+    _Ten in the Hundred lies here ingrav'd,
+    'Tis a Hundred to Ten, his Soul is not sav'd:
+    If any Man ask, Who lies in this Tomb?
+    Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my_ John-a-Combe.
+
+But the Sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the Man so
+severely, that he never forgave it.
+
+He Dy'd in the 53d Year of his Age, and was bury'd on the North side of
+the Chancel, in the Great Church at _Stratford_, where a Monument, as
+engrav'd in the Plate, is plac'd 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,
+    And Curst be he that moves my Bones._
+
+He had three Daughters, of which two liv'd to be marry'd; _Judith_, the
+Elder, to one Mr. _Thomas Quiney_, by whom she had three Sons, who all
+dy'd without Children; and _Susannah_, 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 marry'd first to _Thomas Nash_, Esq;
+and afterwards to Sir _John Bernard_ of _Abbington_, but dy'd 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 Johnson_ has made a sort of an Essay towards it in his
+_Discoveries_, tho', as I have before hinted, he was not very Cordial in
+his Friendship, I will venture to give it in his Words.
+
+"I remember the Players have often mention'd it as an Honour to
+_Shakespear_, that in Writing (whatsoever he penn'd) 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 Circumstance to commend their
+Friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine own Candor,
+(for I lov'd 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 flow'd with that Facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should
+be stopp'd: _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 could not escape Laughter; as when he
+said in the Person of _Cæsar_, one speaking to him,
+
+    "Cæsar _thou dost me Wrong_.
+
+"He reply'd:
+
+    "Cæsar _did never Wrong, but with just Cause._
+
+and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeem'd his Vices with
+his Virtues: There was ever more in him to be Prais'd than to be
+Pardon'd."
+
+As for the Passage which he mentions out of _Shakespear_, there is
+somewhat like it _Julius Cæsar_, Vol. V. p. 2260. but without the
+Absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any Edition that I have seen,
+as quoted by Mr. _Johnson_. Besides his Plays in this Edition, there are
+two or three ascrib'd to him by Mr. _Langbain_, which I have never seen,
+and know nothing of. He writ likewise, _Venus_ and _Adonis_, and
+_Tarquin_ and _Lucrece_, in Stanza's, which have been printed in a late
+Collection of Poems. As to the Character given of him by _Ben Johnson_,
+there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well
+express'd by what _Horace_ says of the first _Romans_, who wrote Tragedy
+upon the _Greek_ Models, (or indeed translated 'em) in his Epistle to
+_Augustus_.
+
+      _--Naturâ sublimis & Acer
+    Nam spirat Tragicum satis & fæliciter Audet,
+    Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitq; Lituram._
+
+There is a Book of Poems, publish'd in 1640, under the Name of Mr.
+_William Shakespear_, but as I have but very lately seen it, without an
+Opportunity of making any Judgment upon it, I won't pretend to
+determine, whether it be his or no.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative motif]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: _Ld._ Falkland, _Ld. C.J._ Vaughan, _and Mr._ Selden.]
+
+[Footnote B: Alluding to the Sea-Voyage of _Fletcher_.]
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear, by Nicholas Rowe, Inc..
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
+Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
+
+Author: Nicholas Rowe
+
+Commentator: Samuel H. Monk
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16275]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Louise Pryor and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center bigger"><a name="Page_-15" id="Page_-15"></a>Extra Series</p>
+
+<p class="center big">No. 1</p>
+
+
+<h1 class="center big gap">Nicholas Rowe, <i>Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear</i>
+(1709)</h1>
+
+
+<p class="center little gap">With an Introduction by</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>Samuel H. Monk</b></p>
+
+
+<p class="center little gap">
+The Augustan Reprint Society<br />
+November, 1948<br />
+<i>Price. One Dollar</i><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><a name="Page_-14" id="Page_-14"></a>
+<i>GENERAL EDITORS</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Richard C. Boys</span>, <i>University of Michigan</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Edward Niles Hooker</span>, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">H.t. Swedenberg, Jr.</span>, <i>University of California, Los Angeles</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>ASSISTANT EDITOR</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">W. Earl Britton</span>, <i>University of Michigan</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>ADVISORY EDITORS</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Emmett L. Avery</span>, <i>State College of Washington</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Benjamin Boyce</span>, <i>University of Nebraska</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Louis I. Bredvold</span>, <i>University of Michigan</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Cleanth Brooks</span>, <i>Yale University</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">James L. Clifford</span>, <i>Columbia University</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Arthur Friedman</span>, <i>University of Chicago</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Samuel H. Monk</span>, <i>University of Minnesota</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Ernest Mossner</span>, <i>University of Texas</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">James Sutherland</span>, <i>Queen Mary College, London</i><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="gap little center">
+Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author<br />
+by <br />
+Edwards Brothers, Inc.<br />
+Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.<br />
+1948<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr  />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a><a name="Page_-13" id="Page_-13"></a><i>INTRODUCTION.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an important
+event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literary
+criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it is
+the first, "edited" edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuation
+and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the first
+edition to include <i>dramatis personae</i>, the first to attempt a
+systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first
+to give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many
+illustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format
+and to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and
+the pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to
+include an extended life and critique of the author.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to Rowe
+either as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editors
+accepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that he
+and Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of the
+dramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Malone
+proved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed, spoke
+generously of the edition. In the <i>Life of Rowe</i> he said that as an
+editor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp
+of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored."
+The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much profundity
+or penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare's
+reputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, at
+least as an editor.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of
+Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as <a name="Page_-12" id="Page_-12"></a>well as the
+poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought.
+With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional
+quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a
+place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had
+hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen made
+Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne; Rowe's
+editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him
+comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.</p>
+
+<p>When Rowe's edition appeared twenty-four years had passed since the
+publication of the Fourth Folio. As Allardyce Nicoll has shown, Tonson
+owned certain rights in the publication of the plays, rights derived
+ultimately from the printers of the First Folio. Precisely when he
+decided to publish a revised octavo edition is not known, nor do we know
+when Rowe accepted the commission and began his work. McKerrow has
+plausibly suggested that Tonson may have been anxious to call attention
+to his rights in Shakespeare on the eve of the passage of the copyright
+law which went into effect in April, 1710.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Certainly Tonson must have
+felt that he was adding to the prestige which his publishing house had
+gained by the publication of Milton and Dryden's Virgil.</p>
+
+<p>In March 1708/9 Tonson was advertising for materials "serviceable to
+[the] Design" of publishing an edition of Shakespeare's works in six
+volumes octavo, which would be ready "in a Month." There was a delay,
+however, and it was on 2 June that Tonson finally announced: "There is
+this day Publish'd ... the Works of Mr. William Shakespear, in six Vols.
+8vo. adorn'd with Cuts, Revis'd and carefully Corrected: With an Account
+of the Life and Writings of the Author, by N. Rowe, Esq; Price 30s."
+Subscription copies on large paper, some few to be bound in nine
+volumes, were to be had <a name="Page_-11" id="Page_-11"></a>at his shop.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>The success of the venture must have been immediately apparent. By 1710
+a second edition, identical in title page and typography with the first,
+but differing in many details, had been printed,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> followed in 1714 by
+a third in duodecimo. This so-called second edition exists in three
+issues, the first made up of eight volumes, the third of nine. In all
+three editions the spurious plays were collected in the last volume,
+except in the third issue of 1714, in which the ninth volume contains
+the poems.</p>
+
+<p>That other publishers sensed the profits in Shakespeare is evident from
+the activities of Edmund Curll and Bernard Lintot. Curll acted with
+imagination and promptness: within three weeks of the publication of
+Tonson's edition, he advertised as Volume VII of the works of
+Shakespeare his forthcoming volume of the poems. This volume, misdated
+1710 on the title page, seems to have been published in September 1709.
+A reprint with corrections and some emendations of the Cotes-Benson
+Poems <i>Written By Wil. Shake-speare. Gent.</i>, 1640, it contains Charles
+Gildon's "Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage in <i>Greece</i>,
+<i>Rome</i>, and <i>England</i>," his "Remarks" on the separate plays, his
+"References to Classic Authors," and his glossary. With great shrewdness
+Curll produced a volume uniform in size and format with Rowe's edition
+and equipped with an essay which opens with an attack on Tonson for
+printing doubtful plays and for attempting to disparage the poems
+through envy of their publisher. This attack was certainly provoked by
+the curious final paragraph of Rowe's introduction, in which he refused
+to determine the genuineness of the 1640 poems. Obviously Tonson was
+perturbed when he learned that Curll was publishing the poems as an
+appendix to Rowe's edition.</p>
+
+<p>Once again a Shakespearian publication was successful, <a name="Page_-10" id="Page_-10"></a>and Tonson
+incorporated the Curll volume into the third issue of the 1714 edition,
+having apparently come to some agreement with Curll, since the title
+page of Volume IX states that it was "Printed for J. Tonson, E. Curll,
+J. Pemberton, and K. Sanger." In this edition Gildon omitted his
+offensive remarks about Tonson, as well as the "References to Classic
+Authors," in which he had suggested topics treated by both the ancients
+and Shakespeare. This volume was revised by George Sewell and appeared
+in appropriate format as an addition to Pope's Shakespeare, 1723-25.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in July, 1709, Lintot had begun to advertise his edition of
+the poems, which was expanded in 1710/11 to include the sonnets in a
+second volume.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Thus within a year of the publication of Rowe's
+edition, all of Shakespeare, as well as some spurious works, was on the
+market. With the publication of these volumes, Shakespeare began to pass
+rapidly into the literary consciousness of the race. And formal
+criticism of his writings inevitably followed.</p>
+
+<p>Rowe's "Some Account of the Life, &amp;c. of Mr. William Shakespear,"
+reprinted with a very few trifling typographical changes in 1714,
+survived in all the important eighteenth-century editions, but it was
+never reprinted in its original form. Pope re-arranged the material,
+giving it a more orderly structure and omitting passages that were
+obviously erroneous or that seemed outmoded.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> It is odd that all later
+eighteenth-century editors seem to have believed that Pope's revision
+was actually Rowe's own re-writing of the <i>Account</i> for the 1714
+edition. Theobald did not reprint the essay, but he used and amplified
+Rowe's material in his biography of Shakespeare; Warburton, of course,
+reprinted Pope's version, as did Johnson, Steevens, and Malone. Both
+Steevens and Malone identified the Pope revision as Rowe's.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus it came about that Rowe's preface in its original <a name="Page_-9" id="Page_-9"></a>form was lost
+from sight during the entire eighteenth century. Even in the twentieth,
+Pope's revision has been printed with the statement that it is taken
+"from the second edition (1714), slightly altered from the first edition
+of 1709."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Only D. Nichol Smith has republished the original essay in
+his <i>Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare</i>, 1903.</p>
+
+<p>The biographical part of Rowe's <i>Account</i> assembled the few facts and
+most of the traditions still current about Shakespeare a century after
+his death. It would be easy for any undergraduate to distinguish fact
+from legend in Rowe's preface; and scholarship since Steevens and Malone
+has demonstrated the unreliability of most of the local traditions that
+Betterton reported from Warwickshire. Antiquarian research has added a
+vast amount of detail about the world in which Shakespeare lived and has
+raised and answered questions that never occurred to Rowe; but it has
+recovered little more of the man himself than Rowe knew.</p>
+
+<p>The critical portions of Rowe's account look backward and forward:
+backward to the Restoration, among whose critical controversies the
+eighteenth-century Shakespeare took shape; and forward to the long
+succession of critical writings that, by the end of the century, had
+secured for Shakespeare his position as the greatest of the English
+poets. Until Dryden and Rymer, criticism of Shakespeare in the
+seventeenth century had been occasional rather than systematic. Dryden,
+by his own acknowledgement, derived his enthusiasm for Shakespeare from
+Davenant, and thus, in a way, spoke for a man who had known the poet.
+Shakespeare was constantly in his mind, and the critical problems that
+the plays raised in the literary milieu of the Restoration constantly
+fascinated him. Rymer's attack served to solidify opinion and to force
+Shakespeare's admirers to examine the <a name="Page_-8" id="Page_-8"></a>grounds of their faith. By 1700 a
+conventional manner of regarding Shakespeare and the plays had been
+achieved.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of Shakespeare's reputation during the century after his
+death is a familiar episode in English criticism. Bentley has
+demonstrated the dominant position of Jonson up to the end of the
+century.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> But Jonson's reputation and authority worked for Shakespeare
+and helped to shape, a critical attitude toward the plays. His official
+praise in the first Folio had declared Shakespeare at least the equal of
+the ancients and the very poet of nature. He had raised the issue of
+Shakespeare's learning, thus helping to emphasize the idea of
+Shakespeare as a natural genius; and in the <i>Discoveries</i> he had blamed
+his friend for too great facility and for bombast.</p>
+
+<p>In his commendatory sonnet in the Second Folio (1632), Milton took the
+Jonsonian view of Shakespeare, whose "easy numbers" he contrasted with
+"slow-endeavouring Art," and readers of the poems of 1645 found in
+<i>L'Allegro</i> an early formulation of what was to become the stock
+comparison of the two great Jacobean dramatists in the lines about
+Jonson's "learned sock" and Shakespeare, "Fancy's child." This contrast
+became a constant theme in Restoration allusions to the two poets.</p>
+
+<p>Two other early critical ideas were to be elaborated in the last four
+decades of the century. In the first Folio Leonard Digges had spoken of
+Shakespeare's "fire and fancy," and I.M.S. had written in the Second
+Folio of his ability to move the passions. Finally, throughout the last
+half of the century, as Bentley has shown, Shakespeare was admired above
+all English dramatists for his ability to create characters, of whom
+Falstaff was the most frequently mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>All of these opinions were developed in Dryden's frequent critical
+remarks on his favorite dramatist. No one <a name="Page_-7" id="Page_-7"></a>was more clearly aware than
+he of the faults of the "divine Shakespeare" as they appeared in the new
+era of letters that Dryden himself helped to shape. And no man ever
+praised Shakespeare more generously. For Dryden Shakespeare was the
+greatest of original geniuses, who, "taught by none," laid the
+foundations of English drama; he was a poet of bold imagination,
+especially gifted in "magick" or the supernatural, the poet of nature,
+who could dispense with "art," the poet of the passions, of varied
+characters and moods, the poet of large and comprehensive soul. To him,
+as to most of his contemporaries, the contrast between Jonson and
+Shakespeare was important: the one showed what poets ought to do; the
+other what untutored genius can do. When Dryden praised Shakespeare, his
+tone became warmer than when he judicially appraised Jonson.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of his contemporaries Dryden did not heed Jonson's caveat
+that, despite his lack of learning, Shakespeare did have art. He was too
+obsessed with the idea that Shakespeare, ignorant of the health-giving
+art of the ancients, was infected with the faults of his age, faults
+that even Jonson did not always escape. Shakespeare was often incorrect
+in grammar; he frequently sank to flatness or soared into bombast; his
+wit could be coarse and low and too dependent on puns; his plot
+structure was at times faulty, and he lacked the sense for order and
+arrangement that the new taste valued. All this he could and did admit,
+and he was impressed by the learning and critical standards of Rymer's
+attack. But like Samuel Johnson he was not often prone to substitute
+theory for experience, and like most of his contemporaries he felt
+Shakespeare's power to move and to convince. Perhaps the most trenchant
+expression of his final stand in regard to Shakespeare and to the whole
+art of poetry is to be found in his letter to Dennis, dated 3 March,
+1693/4. Shakespeare, he said, had genius, which is<a name="Page_-6" id="Page_-6"></a> "alone a greater
+Virtue ... than all the other Qualifications put together." He admitted
+that all the faults pointed out by Rymer are real enough, but he added a
+question that removed the discussion from theory to immediate
+experience: "Yet who will read Mr. Rym[er] or not read Shakespear?" When
+Dryden died in 1700, the age of Jonson had passed and the age of
+Shakespeare was about to begin.</p>
+
+<p>The Shakespeare of Rowe's <i>Account</i> is in most essentials the
+Shakespeare of Restoration criticism, minus the consideration of his
+faults. As Nichol Smith has observed, Dryden and Rymer were continually
+in Rowe's mind as he wrote. It is likely that Smith is correct in
+suspecting in the <i>Account</i> echoes of Dryden's conversation as well as
+of his published writings;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and the respect in which Rymer was then
+held is evident in Rowe's desire not to enter into controversy with that
+redoubtable critic and in his inability to refrain from doing so.</p>
+
+<p>If one reads the <i>Account</i> in Pope's neat and tidy revision and then as
+Rowe published it, one is impressed with its Restoration quality. It
+seems almost deliberately modelled on Dryden's prefaces, for it is
+loosely organized, discursive, intimate, and it even has something of
+Dryden's contagious enthusiasm. Rowe presents to his reader the
+Restoration Shakespeare: the original genius, the antithesis of Jonson,
+the exception to the rule and the instance that diminishes the
+importance of the rules. Shakespeare "lived under a kind of mere light
+of nature," and knowing nothing of the rules should not be judged by
+them. Admitting the poor plot structure and the neglect of the unities,
+except in an occasional play, Rowe concentrates on Shakespeare's
+virtues: his images, "so lively, that the thing he would represent
+stands full before you, and you possess <a name="Page_-5" id="Page_-5"></a>every part of it;" his command
+over the passions, especially terror; his magic; his characters and
+their "manners."</p>
+
+<p>Bentley has demonstrated statistically that the Restoration had little
+appreciation of the romantic comedies. And yet Rowe, so thoroughly
+saturated with Restoration criticism, lists character after character
+from these plays as instances of Shakespeare's ability to depict the
+manners. Have we perhaps here a response to Shakespeare read as opposed
+to Shakespeare seen? Certainly the romantic comedies could not stand the
+test of the critical canons so well as did the <i>Merry Wives</i> or even
+<i>Othello</i>; and they were not much liked on the stage. But it seems
+probable that a generation which read French romances would not have
+felt especially hostile to the romantic comedies when read in the
+closet. Rowe's criticism is so little original, so far from
+idiosyncratic, that it is unnecessary to assume that his response to the
+characters in the comedies is unique.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, it was well that at the moment when the reading
+public began rapidly to expand in England, Tonson should have made
+Shakespeare available in an attractive and convenient format; and it was
+a happy choice that brought Rowe to the editorship of these six volumes.
+As poet, playwright, and man of taste, Rowe was admirably fitted to
+introduce Shakespeare to a multitude of new readers. Relatively innocent
+of the technical duties of an editor though he was, he none the less was
+capable of accomplishing what proved to be his historic mission: the
+easy re-statement of a view of Shakespeare which Dryden had earlier
+articulated and the demonstration that the plays could be read and
+admired despite the objections of formal dramatic criticism. He is more
+than a chronological predecessor of Pope, Johnson, and Morgann. The line
+is direct from Shakespeare to Davenant, to Dryden, to Rowe; and he is an
+organic link between this <a name="Page_-4" id="Page_-4"></a>seventeenth-century tradition and the
+increasingly rich Shakespeare scholarship and criticism that flowed
+through the eighteenth century into the romantic era.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center gap"><i>Notes</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Alfred Jackson, "Rowe's edition of Shakespeare," <i>Library</i>
+X (1930), 455-473; Allardyce Nicoll, "The editors of Shakespeare from
+first folio to Malone," <i>Studies in the first Folio</i>, London (1924), pp.
+158-161; Ronald B. McKerrow, "The treatment of Shakespeare's text by his
+earlier editors, 1709-1768," <i>Proceedings of the British Academy</i>, XIX
+(1933), 89-122; Augustus Ralli, <i>A history of Shakespearian criticism</i>,
+London, 1932; Herbert S. Robinson, <i>English Shakespearian criticism in
+the eighteenth century</i>, New York, 1932.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Nicoll, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 158-161; McKerrow, <i>op. cit.</i>, p.
+93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> London <i>Gazette</i>, From Monday March 14 to Thursday March
+17, 1708, and From Monday May 30 to Thursday June 2, 1709. For
+descriptions and collations of this edition, see A. Jackson, <i>op. cit.</i>;
+H.L. Ford, <i>Shakespeare 1700-1740</i>, Oxford (1935), pp. 9, 10; <i>TLS</i> 16
+May, 1929, p. 408; Edward Wagenknecht, "The first editor of
+Shakespeare," <i>Colophon</i> VIII, 1931. According to a writer in <i>The
+Gentleman's Magazine</i> (LVII, 1787, p. 76), Rowe was paid thirty-six
+pounds, ten shillings by Tonson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Identified and described by McKerrow, <i>TLS</i> 8 March, 1934,
+p. 168. See also Ford, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 11, 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The best discussion of the Curll and Lintot Poems is that
+of Hyder Rollins in <i>A new variorum edition of Shakespeare: the poems</i>,
+Philadelphia and London (1938) pp. 380-382, to which I am obviously
+indebted. See also Raymond M. Alden, "The 1710 and 1714 texts of
+Shakespeare's poems," <i>MLN</i> XXXI (1916), 268-274; and Ford, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+pp. 37-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> For example, he dropped out Rowe's opinion that Shakespeare
+had little learning; the reference to Dryden's view as to the date of
+Pericles; the statement that <i>Venus and Adonis</i> is the only work that
+Shakespeare himself published; the identification of Spenser's "pleasant
+Willy" with Shakespeare; the account of Jonson's grudging attitude
+toward Shakespeare; the attack on Rymer and the <a name="Page_-3" id="Page_-3"></a>defence of <i>Othello</i>;
+and the discussion of the Davenant-Dryden <i>Tempest</i>, together with the
+quotation from Dryden's prologue to that play.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Edmond Malone, <i>The plays and poems of William
+Shakespeare</i>, London (1790), I, 154. Difficult as it is to believe that
+so careful a scholar as Malone could have made this error, it is none
+the less true that he observed the omission of the passage on "pleasant
+Willy" and stated that Rowe had obviously altered his opinion by 1714.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Beverley Warner, <i>Famous introductions to Shakespeare's
+plays</i>, New York (1906), p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Gerald E. Bentley, <i>Shakespeare and Jonson</i>, Chicago
+(1945). Vol. I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> D. Nichol Smith, <i>Eighteenth century essays on
+Shakespeare</i>, Glasgow (1903), pp. xiv-xv.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The writer wishes to express his appreciation of a Research Grant from
+the University of Minnesota for the summer of 1948, during which this
+introduction was written.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">
+&mdash;Samuel Holt Monk<br />
+University of Minnesota<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px; margin-top: 100px;">
+<img src="images/between.jpg" width="300" height="508" alt="Shakespeare surrounded by angels" title="Shakespeare surrounded by angels" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center biggap"><a name="Page_-1" id="Page_-1"></a>THE</p>
+
+<p class="biggest center">WORKS</p>
+
+<p class="center">OF</p>
+
+<p class="bigger center">Mr. <i>William Shakespear</i>;</p>
+
+<p class="center">IN</p>
+
+<p class="bigger center">SIX VOLUMES.</p>
+
+
+<hr  style="width:80%; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+<p class="center">ADORN'D with CUTS.</p>
+<hr style="width:80%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-left:10%; margin-right: 10%">Revis'd and Corrected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the
+Author.</p>
+
+<p class="center">By <i>N. ROWE</i>, Esq;</p>
+<hr style="width:80%; margin-top: 1em;" />
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>L&nbsp;O&nbsp;N&nbsp;D&nbsp;O&nbsp;N</i>:</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-left:10%; margin-right: 10%">Printed for <i>Jacob Tonson</i>, within <i>Grays-Inn</i> Gate, next <i>Grays-Inn</i>
+Lane. MDCCIX.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; margin-top: 100px;">
+<img src="images/pageI.png" width="500" height="155" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="Page_0" id="Page_0"></a><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>SOME</p>
+
+<p class="center biggest">ACCOUNT</p>
+
+<p  class="center">OF THE</p>
+
+<p class="center biggest">LIFE, <i>&amp;c.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">OF</p>
+
+<p class="center bigger">Mr. <i>William Shakespear</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>It seems to be a kind of Respect due to the Memory of Excellent Men,
+especially of those whom their Wit and Learning have made Famous, to
+deliver some Account of themselves, as well as their Works, to
+Posterity. For this Reason, how fond do we see some People of
+discovering any little Personal Story of the great Men of Antiquity,
+their Families, the common Accidents of their Lives, and even their
+Shape, Make and Features have <a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>been the Subject of critical Enquiries.
+How trifling soever this Curiosity may seem to be, it is certainly very
+Natural; and we are hardly satisfy'd with an Account of any remarkable
+Person, 'till we have heard him describ'd even to the very Cloaths he
+wears. As for what relates to Men of Letters, the knowledge of an Author
+may sometimes conduce to the better understanding his Book: And tho' the
+Works of Mr. <i>Shakespear</i> may seem to many not to want a Comment, yet I
+fancy some little Account of the Man himself may not be thought improper
+to go along with them.</p>
+
+<p>He was the Son of Mr. <i>John Shakespear</i>, and was Born at <i>Stratford</i>
+upon <i>Avon</i>, in <i>Warwickshire</i>, in <i>April</i> 1564. His Family, as appears
+by the Register and Publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good
+Figure and Fashion there, and are mention'd as Gentlemen. His Father,
+who was a considerable Dealer in Wool, had so large a Family, ten
+Children in all, that tho' he was his eldest Son, he could give him no
+better Education than his own Employment. He had bred him, 'tis true,
+for some time at a Free-School, where 'tis probable he acquir'd that
+little <i>Latin</i> he was Master of: But the narrowness of his
+Circumstances, and the want of his assistance at<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a> Home, forc'd his
+Father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further
+Proficiency in that Language. It is without Controversie, that he had no
+knowledge of the Writings of the Antient Poets, not only from this
+Reason, but from his Works themselves, where we find no traces of any
+thing that looks like an Imitation of 'em; the Delicacy of his Taste,
+and the natural Bent of his own Great <i>Genius</i>, equal, if not superior
+to some of the best of theirs, would certainly have led him to Read and
+Study 'em with so much Pleasure, that some of their fine Images would
+naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mix'd with his own
+Writings; so that his not copying at least something from them, may be
+an Argument of his never having read 'em. Whether his Ignorance of the
+Antients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a Dispute: For
+tho' the knowledge of 'em might have made him more Correct, yet it is
+not improbable but that the Regularity and Deference for them, which
+would have attended that Correctness, might have restrain'd some of that
+Fire, Impetuosity, and even beautiful Extravagance which we admire in
+<i>Shakespear</i>: And I believe we are better pleas'd with those Thoughts,
+altogether New and Uncommon, <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>which his own Imagination supply'd him so
+abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful Passages out
+of the <i>Greek</i> and <i>Latin</i> Poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
+that it was possible for a Master of the <i>English</i> Language to deliver
+'em. Some <i>Latin</i> without question he did know, and one may see up and
+down in his Plays how far his Reading that way went: In <i>Love's Labour
+lost</i>, the Pedant comes out with a Verse of <i>Mantuan</i>; and in <i>Titus
+Andronicus</i>, one of the <i>Gothick</i> Princes, upon reading</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Integer vit&aelig; scelerisque purus</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu</i>&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says, <i>'Tis a Verse in</i> Horace, <i>but he remembers it out of his</i>
+Grammar: Which, I suppose, was the Author's Case. Whatever <i>Latin</i> he
+had, 'tis certain he understood <i>French</i>, as may be observ'd from many
+Words and Sentences scatter'd up and down his Plays in that Language;
+and especially from one Scene in <i>Henry</i> the Fifth written wholly in it.
+Upon his leaving School, he seems to have given intirely into that way
+of Living which his Father propos'd to him; and in order to settle in
+the World after a Family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was
+<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>yet very Young. His Wife was the Daughter of one <i>Hathaway</i>, said to
+have been a substantial Yeoman in the Neighbourhood of <i>Stratford</i>. In
+this kind of Settlement he continu'd for some time, 'till an
+Extravagance that he was guilty of, forc'd him both out of his Country
+and that way of Living which he had taken up; and tho' it seem'd at
+first to be a Blemish upon his good Manners, and a Misfortune to him,
+yet it afterwards happily prov'd the occasion of exerting one of the
+greatest <i>Genius's</i> that ever was known in Dramatick Poetry. He had, by
+a Misfortune common enough to young Fellows, fallen into ill Company;
+and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing,
+engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to
+Sir <i>Thomas Lucy</i> of <i>Cherlecot</i>, near <i>Stratford</i>. For this he was
+prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and
+in order to revenge that ill Usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho'
+this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to
+have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the Prosecution against him
+to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his Business and Family in
+<i>Warwickshire</i>, for some time, and shelter himself in <i>London</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>It is at this Time, and upon this Accident, that he is said to have
+made his first Acquaintance in the Play-house. He was receiv'd into the
+Company then in being, at first in a very mean Rank; But his admirable
+Wit, and the natural Turn of it to the Stage, soon distinguish'd him, if
+not as an extraordinary Actor, yet as an excellent Writer. His Name is
+Printed, as the Custom was in those Times, amongst those of the other
+Players, before some old Plays, but without any particular Account of
+what sort of Parts he us'd to play; and tho' I have inquir'd, I could
+never meet with any further Account of him this way, than that the top
+of his Performance was the Ghost in his own <i>Hamlet</i>. I should have been
+much more pleas'd, to have learn'd from some certain Authority, which
+was the first Play he wrote; it would be without doubt a pleasure to any
+Man, curious in Things of this Kind, to see and know what was the first
+Essay of a Fancy like <i>Shakespear's</i>. Perhaps we are not to look for his
+Beginnings, like those of other Authors, among their least perfect
+Writings; Art had so little, and Nature so large a Share in what he did,
+that, for ought I know, the Performances of his Youth, as <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>they were the
+most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of Imagination in 'em,
+were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his Fancy
+was so loose and extravagant, as to be Independent on the Rule and
+Government of Judgment; but that what he thought, was commonly so Great,
+so justly and rightly Conceiv'd in it self, that it wanted little or no
+Correction, and was immediately approv'd by an impartial Judgment at the
+first sight. Mr. <i>Dryden</i> seems to think that <i>Pericles</i> is one of his
+first Plays; but there is no judgment to be form'd on that, since there
+is good Reason to believe that the greatest part of that Play was not
+written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of it certainly was,
+particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of Time in which the
+several Pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are
+Passages in some few of them which seem to fix their Dates. So the
+<i>Chorus</i> in the beginning of the fifth Act of <i>Henry</i> V. by a Compliment
+very handsomly turn'd to the Earl of <i>Essex</i>, shews the Play to have
+been written when that Lord was General for the Queen in <i>Ireland</i>: And
+his Elogy upon Q. <i>Elizabeth</i>, and her Successor K. <i>James</i>, in the
+latter end of his <i>Henry</i> VII, is a Proof of that Play's being written
+after the Accession <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>of the latter of those two Princes to the Crown of
+<i>England</i>. Whatever the particular Times of his Writing were, the People
+of his Age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of Diversions of this
+kind, could not but be highly pleas'd to see a <i>Genius</i> arise amongst
+'em of so pleasurable, so rich a Vein, and so plentifully capable of
+furnishing their favourite Entertainments. Besides the advantages of his
+Wit, he was in himself a good-natur'd Man, of great sweetness in his
+Manners, and a most agreeable Companion; so that it is no wonder if with
+so many good Qualities he made himself acquainted with the best
+Conversations of those Times. Queen <i>Elizabeth</i> had several of his Plays
+Acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious Marks of her
+Favour: It is that Maiden Princess plainly, whom he intends by</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;<i>A fair Vestal, Throned by the West.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="i8 little" style="margin-top: 0em; margin-left: 20em;"><i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>,<br />
+Vol. 2. p. 480.<br /></p>
+
+<p>And that whole Passage is a Compliment very properly brought in, and
+very handsomly apply'd to her. She was so well pleas'd with that
+admirable Character of <i>Falstaff</i>, in the two Parts of <i>Henry</i> the
+Fourth, that she com<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>manded him to continue it for one Play more, and to
+shew him in Love. This is said to be the Occasion of his Writing <i>The
+Merry Wives of</i> Windsor. How well she was obey'd, the Play it self is an
+admirable Proof. Upon this Occasion it may not be improper to observe,
+that this Part of <i>Falstaff</i> is said to have been written originally
+under the Name of <i>Oldcastle</i>; some of that Family being then remaining,
+the Queen was pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use
+of <i>Falstaff</i>. The present Offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know
+whether the Author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second
+Choice, since it is certain that Sir <i>John Falstaff</i>, who was a Knight
+of the Garter, and a Lieutenant-General, was a Name of distinguish'd
+Merit in the Wars in <i>France</i> in <i>Henry</i> the Fifth's and <i>Henry</i> the
+Sixth's Times. What Grace soever the Queen confer'd upon him, it was not
+to her only he ow'd the Fortune which the Reputation of his Wit made. He
+had the Honour to meet with many great and uncommon Marks of Favour and
+Friendship from the Earl of <i>Southampton</i>, famous in the Histories of
+that Time for his Friendship to the unfortunate Earl of <i>Essex</i>. It was
+to that Noble Lord that he Dedicated his <i>Venus</i> and <i>Adonis</i>, <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>the only
+Piece of his Poetry which he ever publish'd himself, tho' many of his
+Plays were surrepticiously and lamely Printed in his Lifetime. There is
+one Instance so singular in the Magnificence of this Patron of
+<i>Shakespear</i>'s, that if I had not been assur'd that the Story was handed
+down by Sir <i>William D'Avenant</i>, who was probably very well acquainted
+with his Affairs, I should not have ventur'd to have inserted, that my
+Lord <i>Southampton</i>, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable
+him to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A
+Bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that
+profuse Generosity the present Age has shewn to <i>French</i> Dancers and
+<i>Italian</i> Eunuchs.</p>
+
+<p>What particular Habitude or Friendships he contracted with private Men,
+I have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true
+Taste of Merit, and could distinguish Men, had generally a just Value
+and Esteem for him. His exceeding Candor and good Nature must certainly
+have inclin'd all the gentler Part of the World to love him, as the
+power of his Wit oblig'd the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and
+polite Learning to admire him. Amongst these was the incomparable Mr.
+<i>Edmond Spencer</i>, who speaks <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>of him in his <i>Tears of the Muses</i>, not
+only with the Praises due to a good Poet, but even lamenting his Absence
+with the tenderness of a Friend. The Passage is in <i>Thalia's</i> Complaint
+for the Decay of Dramatick Poetry, and the Contempt the Stage then lay
+under, amongst his Miscellaneous Works, <i>p.</i> 147.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>And he the Man, whom Nature's self had made</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To mock her self, and Truth to imitate</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>With kindly Counter under mimick Shade,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Our pleasant </i>Willy<i>, ah! is dead of late:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>With whom all Joy and jolly Merriment</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Is also deaded, and in Dolour drent.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>Instead thereof, scoffing Scurrility</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Without Regard or due </i>Decorum<i> kept;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Each idle Wit at will presumes to make,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And doth the Learned's Task upon him take.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2"><i>But that same gentle Spirit, from whose Pen</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Large Streams of Honey and sweet </i>Nectar<i> flow,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Scorning the Boldness such base-born Men,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Which dare their Follies forth so rashly throw;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Than so himself to Mockery to sell.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>I know some People have been of Opinion, that <i>Shakespear</i> is not meant
+by <i>Willy</i> in the first <i>Stanza</i> of these Verses, because <i>Spencer's</i>
+Death happen'd twenty Years before <i>Shakespear's</i>. But, besides that the
+Character is not applicable to any Man of that time but himself, it is
+plain by the last <i>Stanza</i> that Mr. <i>Spencer</i> does not mean that he was
+then really Dead, but only that he had with-drawn himself from the
+Publick, or at least with-held his Hand from Writing, out of a disgust
+he had taken at the then ill taste of the Town, and the mean Condition
+of the Stage. Mr. <i>Dryden</i> was always of Opinion these Verses were meant
+of <i>Shakespear</i>; and 'tis highly probable they were so, since he was
+three and thirty Years old at <i>Spencer's</i> Death; and his Reputation in
+Poetry must have been great enough before that Time to have deserv'd
+what is here said of him. His Acquaintance with <i>Ben Johnson</i> began with
+a remarkable piece of Humanity and good Nature; Mr. <i>Johnson</i>, who was
+at that Time altogether unknown to the World, had offer'd one of his
+Plays to the Players, in order to have it Acted; and the Persons into
+whose Hands it was put, after having turn'd it carelessly and
+superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an
+ill-natur'd Answer, <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>that it would be of no service to their Company,
+when <i>Shakespear</i> luckily cast his Eye upon it, and found something so
+well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to
+recommend Mr. <i>Johnson</i> and his Writings to the Publick. After this they
+were profess'd Friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made
+him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. <i>Ben</i> was naturally
+Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take
+upon him the Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil
+Eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in Competition with him. And if at
+times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some
+Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner of Writing,
+and want of Judgment; the Praise of seldom altering or blotting out what
+he writ, which was given him by the Players who were the first
+Publishers of his Works after his Death, was what <i>Johnson</i> could not
+bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another Man to strike out
+the greatest Thoughts in the finest Expression, and to reach those
+Excellencies of Poetry with the Ease of a first Imagination, which
+himself with infinite Labour and Study could but hardly attain to.
+<i>Johnson</i> was cer<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>tainly a very good Scholar, and in that had the
+advantage of <i>Shakespear</i>; tho' at the same time I believe it must be
+allow'd, that what Nature gave the latter, was more than a Ballance for
+what Books had given the former; and the Judgment of a great Man upon
+this occasion was, I think, very just and proper. In a Conversation
+between Sir <i>John Suckling</i>, Sir <i>William D'Avenant</i>, <i>Endymion Porter</i>,
+Mr. <i>Hales</i> of <i>Eaton</i>, and <i>Ben Johnson</i>; Sir <i>John Suckling</i>, who was
+a profess'd Admirer of <i>Shakespear</i>, had undertaken his Defence against
+<i>Ben Johnson</i> with some warmth; Mr. <i>Hales</i>, who had sat still for some
+time, hearing <i>Ben</i> frequently reproaching him with the want of
+Learning, and Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last, <i>That if Mr.</i>
+Shakespear <i>had not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any
+thing from 'em</i>; (a Fault the other made no Confidence of) <i>and that if
+he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any of them, he would
+undertake to shew something upon the same Subject at least as well
+written by</i> Shakespear. <i>Johnson</i> did indeed take a large liberty, even
+to the transcribing and translating of whole Scenes together; and
+sometimes, with all Deference to so great a Name as his, not altogether
+for the advantage of the<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a> Authors of whom he borrow'd. And if <i>Augustus</i>
+and <i>Virgil</i> were really what he has made <i>'em</i> in a Scene of his
+<i>Poetaster</i>, they are as odd an Emperor and a Poet as ever met.
+<i>Shakespear</i>, on the other Hand, was beholding to no body farther than
+the Foundation of the Tale, the Incidents were often his own, and the
+Writing intirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, <i>The Comedy of
+Errors</i>, in a great measure taken from the <i>Men[oe]chmi</i> of <i>Plautus</i>.
+How that happen'd, I cannot easily Divine, since, as I hinted before, I
+do not take him to have been Master of <i>Latin</i> enough to read it in the
+Original, and I know of no Translation of <i>Plautus</i> so Old as his Time.</p>
+
+<p>As I have not propos'd to my self to enter into a Large and Compleat
+Criticism upon Mr. <i>Shakespear</i>'s Works, so I suppose it will neither be
+expected that I should take notice of the severe Remarks that have been
+formerly made upon him by Mr. <i>Rhymer</i>. I must confess, I can't very
+well see what could be the Reason of his animadverting with so much
+Sharpness, upon the Faults of a Man Excellent on most Occasions, and
+whom all the World ever was and will be inclin'd to have an Esteem and
+Veneration for. If it was to shew his own<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> Knowledge in the Art of
+Poetry, besides that there is a Vanity in making that only his Design, I
+question if there be not many Imperfections as well in those Schemes and
+Precepts he has given for the Direction of others, as well as in that
+Sample of Tragedy which he has written to shew the Excellency of his own
+<i>Genius</i>. If he had a Pique against the Man, and wrote on purpose to
+ruin a Reputation so well establish'd, he has had the Mortification to
+fail altogether in his Attempt, and to see the World at least as fond of
+<i>Shakespear</i> as of his Critique. But I won't believe a Gentleman, and a
+good-natur'd Man, capable of the last Intention. Whatever may have been
+his Meaning, finding fault is certainly the easiest Task of Knowledge,
+and commonly those Men of good Judgment, who are likewise of good and
+gentle Dispositions, abandon this ungrateful Province to the Tyranny of
+Pedants. If one would enter into the Beauties of <i>Shakespear</i>, there is
+a much larger, as well as a more delightful Field; but as I won't
+prescribe to the Tastes of other People, 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 pleas'd with in looking him over.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd 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
+'em. That way of Trage-Comedy was the common Mistake of that Age, and is
+indeed become so agreeable to the <i>English</i> Tast, that tho' the severer
+Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our Audiences
+seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. <i>The Merry
+Wives of</i> Windsor, <i>The Comedy of Errors</i>, and <i>The Taming of the
+Shrew</i>, are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have
+something of both Kinds. 'Tis not very easie to determine which way of
+Writing he was most Excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of
+Entertainment in his Comical Humours; and tho' they did not then strike
+at all Ranks of People, as the Satyr of the present Age has taken the
+Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd Variety
+in those Characters which he thought fit to meddle with. <i>Falstaff</i> is
+allow'd by every body to be a Master-piece; the Character is always
+well-sustain'd, tho' drawn out into the length of three Plays; and even
+the Account of his Death, given by his Old<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a> Landlady Mrs. <i>Quickly</i>, in
+the first Act of <i>Henry</i> V. tho' it be extremely Natural, is yet as
+diverting as any Part of his Life. If there be any Fault in the Draught
+he has made of this lewd old Fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a
+Thief, Lying, Cowardly, Vain-glorious, and in short every way Vicious,
+yet he has given him so much Wit as to make him almost too agreeable;
+and I don't know whether some People have not, in remembrance of the
+Diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his Friend
+<i>Hal</i> use him so scurvily, when he comes to the Crown in the End of the
+Second Part of <i>Henry</i> the Fourth. Amongst other Extravagances, in <i>The
+Merry Wives of</i> Windsor, he has made him a Dear-stealer, that he might
+at the same time remember his <i>Warwickshire</i> Prosecutor, under the Name
+of Justice <i>Shallow</i>; he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms
+which <i>Dugdale</i>, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a
+Family there, and makes the <i>Welsh</i> Parson descant very pleasantly upon
+'em. That whole Play is admirable; the Humours are various and well
+oppos'd; the main Design, which is to cure <i>Ford</i> his unreasonable
+Jealousie, is extreme<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>ly well conducted. <i>Falstaff's Billet-doux</i>, and
+Master <i>Slender</i>'s</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Ah! Sweet</i> Ann Page!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>are very good Expressions of Love in their Way. In <i>Twelfth-Night</i> there
+is something singularly Ridiculous and Pleasant in the fantastical
+Steward <i>Malvolio</i>. The Parasite and the Vain-glorious in <i>Parolles</i>, in
+<i>All's Well that ends Well</i> is as good as any thing of that Kind in
+<i>Plautus</i> or <i>Terence</i>. <i>Petruchio</i>, in <i>The Taming of the Shrew</i>, is an
+uncommon Piece of Humour. The Conversation of <i>Benedick</i> and <i>Beatrice</i>
+in <i>Much ado about Nothing</i>, and of <i>Rosalind</i> in <i>As you like it</i>, have
+much Wit and Sprightliness all along. His Clowns, without which
+Character there was hardly any Play writ in that Time, are all very
+entertaining: And, I believe, <i>Thersites</i> in <i>Troilus</i> and <i>Cressida</i>,
+and <i>Apemantus</i> in <i>Timon</i>, will be allow'd to be Master-Pieces of ill
+Nature, and satyrical Snarling. To these I might add, that incomparable
+Character of <i>Shylock</i> the <i>Jew</i>, in <i>The Merchant of</i> Venice; but tho'
+we have seen that Play Receiv'd and Acted as a Comedy, and the Part of
+the <i>Jew</i> perform'd by an Excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it
+<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>was design'd Tragically by the Author. There appears in it such a
+deadly Spirit of Revenge, such a savage Fierceness and Fellness, and
+such a bloody designation of Cruelty and Mischief, as cannot agree
+either with the Stile or Characters of Comedy. The Play it self, take it
+all together, seems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of
+<i>Shakespear</i>'s. The Tale indeed, in that Part relating to the Caskets,
+and the extravagant and unusual kind of Bond given by <i>Antonio</i>, is a
+little too much remov'd from the Rules of Probability: But taking the
+Fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There
+is something in the Friendship of <i>Antonio</i> to <i>Bassanio</i> very Great,
+Generous and Tender. The whole fourth Act, supposing, as I said, the
+Fact to be probable, is extremely Fine. But there are two Passages that
+deserve a particular Notice. The first is, what <i>Portia</i> says in praise
+of Mercy, <i>pag. 577</i>; and the other on the Power of Musick, <i>pag. 587</i>.
+The Melancholy of <i>Jacques</i>, in <i>As you like it</i>, is as singular and odd
+as it is diverting. And if what <i>Horace</i> says</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Difficile est proprie communia Dicere,</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>'Twill be a hard Task for any one to go be<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>yond him in the Description
+of the several Degrees and Ages of Man's Life, tho' the Thought be old,
+and common enough.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;<i>All the World's a Stage,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And all the Men and Women meerly Players;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>They have their Exits and their Entrances,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And one Man in his time plays many Parts,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>His Acts being seven Ages. At first the Infant</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Mewling and puking in the Nurse's Arms:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And then, the whining School-boy with his Satchel,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And shining Morning-face, creeping like Snail</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Unwillingly to School. And then the Lover</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sighing like Furnace, with a woful Ballad</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Made to his Mistress' Eye-brow. Then a Soldier</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Full of strange Oaths, and bearded like the Pard,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Jealous in Honour, sudden and quick in Quarrel,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Seeking the bubble Reputation</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Ev'n in the Cannon's Mouth. And then the Justice</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>In fair round Belly, with good Capon lin'd,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>With Eyes severe, and Beard of formal Cut,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Full of wise Saws and modern Instances;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And so he plays his Part. The sixth Age shifts</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>With Spectacles on Nose, and Pouch on Side;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>His youthful Hose, well sav'd, a world too wide</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>For his shrunk Shank; and his big manly Voice</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Turning again tow'rd childish treble Pipes,</i><br /></span><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>
+<span class="i0"><i>And Whistles in his Sound. Last Scene of all,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>That ends this strange eventful History,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Is second Childishness and meer Oblivion,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sans Teeth, sans Eyes, sans Tast, sans ev'rything.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p style="text-align: right; margin-right:10%">p. 625.</p>
+
+<p>His Images are indeed ev'ry where so lively, that the Thing he would
+represent stands full before you, and you possess ev'ry Part of it. I
+will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as strong and as
+uncommon as any thing I ever saw; 'tis an Image of Patience. Speaking of
+a Maid in Love, he says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;<i>She never told her Love,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>But let Concealment, like a Worm i' th' Bud</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Feed on her Damask Cheek: She pin'd in Thought,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And sate like </i>Patience<i> on a Monument,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Smiling at </i>Grief.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What an Image is here given! and what a Task would it have been for the
+greatest Masters of <i>Greece</i> and <i>Rome</i> to have express'd the Passions
+design'd by this Sketch of Statuary? The Stile of his Comedy is, in
+general, Natural to the Characters, and easie in it self; and the Wit
+most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he
+runs into Dogrel Rhymes, as in <i>The Comedy of Errors</i>, <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>and a Passage or
+two in some other Plays. As for his Jingling sometimes, and playing upon
+Words, it was the common Vice of the Age he liv'd in: And if we find it
+in the Pulpit, made use of as an Ornament to the Sermons of some of the
+Gravest Divines of those Times; perhaps it may not be thought too light
+for the Stage.</p>
+
+<p>But certainly the greatness of this Author's Genius do's no where so
+much appear, as where he gives his Imagination an entire Loose, and
+raises his Fancy to a flight above Mankind and the Limits of the visible
+World. Such are his Attempts in <i>The Tempest</i>, <i>Midsummer-Night's
+Dream</i>, <i>Macbeth</i> and <i>Hamlet</i>. Of these, <i>The Tempest</i>, however it
+comes to be plac'd the first by the former Publishers of his Works, can
+never have been the first written by him: It seems to me as perfect in
+its Kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the
+Unities are kept here with an Exactness uncommon to the Liberties of his
+Writing: Tho' that was what, I suppose, he valu'd himself least upon,
+since his Excellencies were all of another Kind. I am very sensible that
+he do's, in this Play, depart too much from that likeness to Truth which
+ought to be observ'd in these sort of Writings; yet <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>he do's it so very
+finely, that one is easily drawn in to have more Faith for his sake,
+than Reason does well allow of. His Magick has something in it very
+Solemn and very Poetical: And that extravagant Character of <i>Caliban</i> is
+mighty well sustain'd, shews a wonderful Invention in the Author, who
+could strike out such a particular wild Image, and is certainly one of
+the finest and most uncommon Grotesques that was ever seen. The
+Observation, which I have been inform'd<a name="FNanchor_A_11" id="FNanchor_A_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_11" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> three very great Men
+concurr'd in making upon this Part, was extremely just. <i>That</i>
+Shakespear <i>had not only found out a new Character in his</i> Caliban, <i>but
+had also devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that
+Character</i>. Among the particular Beauties of this Piece, I think one may
+be allow'd to point out the Tale of <i>Prospero</i> in the First Act; his
+Speech to <i>Ferdinand</i> in the Fourth, upon the breaking up the Masque of
+<i>Juno</i> and <i>Ceres</i>; and that in the Fifth, where he dissolves his
+Charms, and resolves to break his Magick Rod. This Play has been alter'd
+by Sir <i>William D'Avenant</i> and Mr. <i>Dryden</i>; and tho' I won't Arraign
+the Judgment of those two great Men, yet I think I may be allow'd to
+say, that there are some<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a> things left out by them, that might, and even
+ought to have been kept in. Mr. <i>Dryden</i> was an Admirer of our Author,
+and, indeed, he owed him a great deal, as those who have read them both
+may very easily observe. And, I think, in Justice to 'em both, I should
+not on this Occasion omit what Mr. <i>Dryden</i> has said of him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Shakespear, <i>who, taught by none, did first impart</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To </i>Fletcher<i> Wit, to lab'ring </i>Johnson<i> Art.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>He, Monarch-like, gave those his Subjects Law,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And is that Nature which they Paint and Draw.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fletcher<i> reach'd that which on his heights did grow,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Whilst </i>Johnson<i> crept and gather'd all below:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>One imitates him most, the other best.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>If they have since out-writ all other Men,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>'Tis with the Drops which fell from </i>Shakespear<i>'s Pen.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The<a name="FNanchor_B_12" id="FNanchor_B_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_12" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>Storm
+which vanish'd on the neighb'ring Shoar,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Was taught by </i>Shakespear<i>'s Tempest to roar.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>That Innocence and Beauty which did smile</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>In </i>Fletcher<i>, grew on this </i>Enchanted Isle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>But </i>Shakespear<i>'s Magick could not copied be,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Within that Circle none durst walk but he.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>That Liberty to vulgar Wits allow,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Which works by Magick supernatural things:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>But </i>Shakespear<i>'s Pow'r is Sacred as A King's.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="little" style="text-align:right; margin-right:10%">Prologue to <i>The Tempest</i>, as it<br />
+is alter'd by Mr. <i>Dryden</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is the same Magick that raises the Fairies in <i>Midsummer Night's
+Dream</i>, the Witches in <i>Macbeth</i>, and the Ghost in <i>Hamlet</i>, with
+Thoughts and Language so proper to the Parts they sustain, and so
+peculiar to the Talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these
+Plays I shall have occasion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr.
+<i>Shakespear</i>. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by
+those Rules which are establish'd by <i>Aristotle</i>, and taken from the
+Model of the <i>Grecian</i> Stage, it would be no very hard Task to find a
+great many Faults: But as <i>Shakespear</i> liv'd under a kind of mere Light
+of Nature, and had never been made acquainted with the Regularity of
+those written Precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a Law he
+knew nothing of. We are to consider him as a Man that liv'd in a State
+of almost universal License and Ignorance: There was no establish'd
+Judge, but every one took the liberty to Write according to the Dictates
+of his own Fancy.<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a> When one considers, that there is not one Play before
+him of a Reputation good enough to entitle it to an Appearance on the
+present Stage, it cannot but be a Matter of great Wonder that he should
+advance Dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is
+generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the
+constituent Parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is
+the most Difficult or Beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be
+thought of in the Contrivance and Course of the whole; and with the
+Fable ought to be consider'd, the fit Disposition, Order and Conduct of
+its several Parts. As it is not in this Province of the <i>Drama</i> that the
+Strength and Mastery of <i>Shakespear</i> lay, so I shall not undertake the
+tedious and ill-natur'd Trouble to point out the several Faults he was
+guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather taken either
+from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of
+'em in that Order, with those Incidents, and that extent of Time in
+which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. So <i>The
+Winter's Tale</i>, which is taken from an old Book, call'd, <i>The Delectable
+History of </i>Dorastus<i> and </i>Faunia, contains the space of sixteen or
+seventeen Years, and the Scene <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>is sometimes laid in <i>Bohemia</i>, and
+sometimes in <i>Sicily</i>, according to the original Order of the Story.
+Almost all his Historical Plays comprehend a great length of Time, and
+very different and distinct Places: And in his <i>Antony</i> and <i>Cleopatra</i>,
+the Scene travels over the greatest Part of the <i>Roman</i> Empire. But in
+Recompence for his Carelessness in this Point, when he comes to another
+Part of the <i>Drama</i>, <i>The Manners of his Characters, in Acting or
+Speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet</i>, he
+may be generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended.
+For those Plays which he has taken from the <i>English</i> or <i>Roman</i>
+History, let any Man compare 'em, and he will find the Character as
+exact in the Poet as the Historian. He seems indeed so far from
+proposing to himself any one Action for a Subject, that the Title very
+often tells you, 'tis <i>The Life of King</i> John, <i>King</i> Richard, <i>&amp;c.</i>
+What can be more agreeable to the Idea our Historians give of <i>Henry</i>
+the Sixth, than the Picture <i>Shakespear</i> has drawn of him! His Manners
+are every where exactly the same with the Story; one finds him still
+describ'd with Simplicity, passive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness
+of Mind, and easie Submission to the Gover<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>nance of an imperious Wife,
+or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the same time the Poet do's Justice to
+his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by
+showing him Pious, Disinterested, a Contemner of the Things of this
+World, and wholly resign'd to the severest Dispensations of God's
+Providence. There is a short Scene in the Second Part of <i>Henry</i> VI.
+<i>Vol. III. pag.</i> 1504. which I cannot but think admirable in its Kind.
+Cardinal <i>Beaufort</i>, who had murder'd the Duke of <i>Gloucester</i>, is shewn
+in the last Agonies on his Death-Bed, with the good King praying over
+him. There is so much Terror in one, so much Tenderness and moving Piety
+in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of Fear or
+Pity. In his <i>Henry</i> VIII. that Prince is drawn with that Greatness of
+Mind, and all those good Qualities which are attributed to him in any
+Account of his Reign. If his Faults are not shewn in an equal degree,
+and the Shades in this Picture do not bear a just Proportion to the
+Lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either Colours or Skill in the
+Disposition of 'em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore
+doing it out of regard to Queen <i>Elizabeth</i>, since it could have been no
+very great Respect to the Me<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>mory of his Mistress, to have expos'd some
+certain Parts of her Father's Life upon the Stage. He has dealt much
+more freely with the Minister of that Great King, and certainly nothing
+was ever more justly written, than the Character of Cardinal <i>Wolsey</i>.
+He has shewn him Tyrannical, Cruel, and Insolent in his Prosperity; and
+yet, by a wonderful Address, he makes his Fall and Ruin the Subject of
+general Compassion. The whole Man, with his Vices and Virtues, is finely
+and exactly describ'd in the second Scene of the fourth Act. The
+Distresses likewise of Queen <i>Katherine</i>, in this Play, are very
+movingly touch'd: and tho' the Art of the Poet has skreen'd King <i>Henry</i>
+from any gross Imputation of Injustice, yet one is inclin'd to wish, the
+Queen had met with a Fortune more worthy of her Birth and Virtue. Nor
+are the Manners, proper to the Persons represented, less justly
+observ'd, in those Characters taken from the <i>Roman</i> History; and of
+this, the Fierceness and Impatience of <i>Coriolanus</i>, his Courage and
+Disdain of the common People, the Virtue and Philosophical Temper of
+<i>Brutus</i>, and the irregular Greatness of Mind in <i>M. Antony</i>, are
+beautiful Proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as
+they are describ'd by<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a> <i>Plutarch</i>, from whom certainly <i>Shakespear</i>
+copy'd 'em. He has indeed follow'd his Original pretty close, and taken
+in several little Incidents that might have been spar'd in a Play. But,
+as I hinted before, his Design seems most commonly rather to describe
+those great Men in the several Fortunes and Accidents of their Lives,
+than to take any single great Action, and form his Work simply upon
+that. However, there are some of his Pieces, where the Fable is founded
+upon one Action only. Such are more especially, <i>Romeo</i> and <i>Juliet</i>,
+<i>Hamlet</i>, and <i>Othello</i>. The Design in <i>Romeo</i> and <i>Juliet</i>, is plainly
+the Punishment of their two Families, for the unreasonable Feuds and
+Animosities that had been so long kept up between 'em, and occasion'd
+the Effusion of so much Blood. In the management of this Story, he has
+shewn something wonderfully Tender and Passionate in the Love-part, and
+vary Pitiful in the Distress. <i>Hamlet</i> is founded on much the same Tale
+with the <i>Electra</i> of <i>Sophocles</i>. In each of 'em a young Prince is
+engag'd to Revenge the Death of his Father, their Mothers are equally
+Guilty, are both concern'd in the Murder of their Husbands, and are
+afterwards married to the Murderers. There is in the first<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a> Part of the
+<i>Greek</i> Trajedy, something very moving in the Grief of <i>Electra</i>; but as
+Mr. <i>D'Acier</i> has observ'd, there is something very unnatural and
+shocking in the Manners he has given that Princess and <i>Orestes</i> in the
+latter Part. <i>Orestes</i> embrues his Hands in the Blood of his own Mother;
+and that barbarous Action is perform'd, tho' not immediately upon the
+Stage, yet so near, that the Audience hear <i>Clytemnestra</i> crying out to
+<i>&AElig;ghystus</i> for Help, and to her Son for Mercy: While <i>Electra</i>, her
+Daughter, and a Princess, both of them Characters that ought to have
+appear'd with more Decency, stands upon the Stage and encourages her
+Brother in the Parricide. What Horror does this not raise!
+<i>Clytemnestra</i> was a wicked Woman, and had deserv'd to Die; nay, in the
+truth of the Story, she was kill'd by her own Son; but to represent an
+Action of this Kind on the Stage, is certainly an Offence against those
+Rules of Manners proper to the Persons that ought to be observ'd there.
+On the contrary, let us only look a little on the Conduct of
+<i>Shakespear</i>. <i>Hamlet</i> is represented with the same Piety towards his
+Father, and Resolution to Revenge his Death, as <i>Orestes</i>; he has the
+same Abhorrence for his Mother's Guilt, which, to pro<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>voke him the more,
+is heighten'd by Incest: But 'tis with wonderful Art and Justness of
+Judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing Violence to his Mother.
+To prevent any thing of that Kind, he makes his Father's Ghost forbid
+that part of his Vengeance.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>But howsoever thou pursu'st this Act,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Taint not thy Mind; nor let thy Soul contrive</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Against thy Mother ought; leave her to Heav'n,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And to those Thorns that in her Bosom lodge,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To prick and sting her.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Vol. V. p. 2386.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is to distinguish rightly between <i>Horror</i> and <i>Terror</i>. The latter
+is a proper Passion of Tragedy, but the former ought always to be
+carefully avoided. And certainly no Dramatick Writer ever succeeded
+better in raising <i>Terror</i> in the Minds of an Audience than <i>Shakespear</i>
+has done. The whole Tragedy of <i>Macbeth</i>, but more especially the Scene
+where the King is murder'd, in the second Act, as well as this Play, is
+a noble Proof of that manly Spirit with which he writ; and both shew how
+powerful he was, in giving the strongest Motions to our Souls that they
+are capable of. I cannot leave <i>Hamlet</i>, without taking notice of the
+Advantage with which we have seen <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>this Master-piece of <i>Shakespear</i>
+distinguish it self upon the Stage, by Mr. <i>Betterton</i>'s fine
+Performance of that Part. A Man, who tho' he had no other good
+Qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his way into the
+Esteem of all Men of Letters, by this only Excellency. No Man is better
+acquainted with <i>Shakespear</i>'s manner of Expression, and indeed he has
+study'd him so well, and is so much a Master of him, that whatever Part
+of his he performs he does it as if it had been written on purpose for
+him, and that the Author had exactly conceiv'd it as he plays it. I must
+own a particular Obligation to him, for the most considerable part of
+the Passages relating to his Life, which I have here transmitted to the
+Publick; his Veneration for the Memory of <i>Shakespear</i> having engag'd
+him to make a Journey into <i>Warwickshire</i>, on purpose to gather up what
+Remains he could of a Name for which he had so great a Value. Since I
+had at first resolv'd not to enter into any Critical Controversie, I
+won't pretend to enquire into the Justness of Mr. <i>Rhymer</i>'s Remarks on
+<i>Othello</i>; he has certainly pointed out some Faults very judiciously;
+and indeed they are such as most People will agree, with him, to be
+Faults: But I wish he would likewise have observ'd some of the<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a> Beauties
+too; as I think it became an Exact and Equal Critique to do. It seems
+strange that he should allow nothing Good in the whole: If the Fable and
+Incidents are not to his Taste, yet the Thoughts are almost every where
+very Noble, and the Diction manly and proper. These last, indeed, are
+Parts of <i>Shakespear</i>'s Praise, which it would be very hard to Dispute
+with him. His Sentiments and Images of Things are Great and Natural; and
+his Expression (tho' perhaps in some Instances a little Irregular) just,
+and rais'd in Proportion to his Subject and Occasion. It would be even
+endless to mention the particular Instances that might be given of this
+Kind: But his Book is in the Possession of the Publick, and 'twill be
+hard to dip into any Part of it, without finding what I have said of him
+made good.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Stratford</i>. His pleasurable Wit,
+and good Nature, engag'd him in the Acquain<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>tance, and entitled him to
+the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood. Amongst them, it
+is a Story almost still remember'd in that Country, that he had a
+particular Intimacy with Mr. <i>Combe</i>, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts
+for his Wealth and Usury: It happen'd, that in a pleasant Conversation
+amongst their common Friends, Mr. <i>Combe</i> told <i>Shakespear</i> in a
+laughing manner, that he fancy'd, he intended to write his Epitaph, if
+he happen'd to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be
+said of him when he was dead, he desir'd it might be done immediately:
+Upon which <i>Shakespear</i> gave him these four Verses.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Ten in the Hundred lies here ingrav'd,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>'Tis a Hundred to Ten, his Soul is not sav'd:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>If any Man ask, Who lies in this Tomb?</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis</i> my John-a-Combe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the Sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the Man so
+severely, that he never forgave it.</p>
+
+<p>He Dy'd in the 53d Year of his Age, and was bury'd on the North side of
+the Chancel, in the Great Church at <i>Stratford</i>, where <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>a Monument, as
+engrav'd in the Plate, is plac'd in the Wall. On his Grave-Stone
+underneath is,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Good Friend, for Jesus sake, forbear</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To dig the Dust inclosed here.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Blest be the Man that spares these Stones,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And Curst be he that moves my Bones.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He had three Daughters, of which two liv'd to be marry'd; <i>Judith</i>, the
+Elder, to one Mr. <i>Thomas Quiney</i>, by whom she had three Sons, who all
+dy'd without Children; and <i>Susannah</i>, who was his Favourite, to Dr.
+<i>John Hall</i>, a Physician of good Reputation in that Country. She left
+one Child only, a Daughter, who was marry'd first to <i>Thomas Nash</i>, Esq;
+and afterwards to Sir <i>John Bernard</i> of <i>Abbington</i>, but dy'd likewise
+without Issue.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>Ben Johnson</i> has made a sort of an Essay towards it in his
+<i>Discoveries</i>, tho', as I have before hinted, he was not very Cordial in
+his Friendship, I will venture to give it in his Words.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>"I remember the Players have often mention'd it as an Honour to
+<i>Shakespear</i>, that in Writing (whatsoever he penn'd) he never blotted
+out a Line. My Answer hath been, <i>Would he had blotted a thousand</i>,
+which they thought a malevolent Speech. I had not told Posterity this,
+but for their Ignorance, who chose that Circumstance to commend their
+Friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine own Candor,
+(for I lov'd 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 flow'd with that Facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should
+be stopp'd: <i>Sufflaminandus erat</i>, as <i>Augustus</i> said of <i>Haterius</i>. His
+Wit was in his own Power, would the Rule of it had been so too. Many
+times he fell into those things could not escape Laughter; as when he
+said in the Person of <i>C&aelig;sar</i>, one speaking to him,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"C&aelig;sar <i>thou dost me Wrong</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"He reply'd:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"C&aelig;sar <i>did never Wrong, but with just Cause.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeem'd his Vices with
+his Virtues: There was ever more in him to be Prais'd than to be
+Pardon'd."</p>
+
+<p>As for the Passage which he mentions out of <i>Shakespear</i>, there is
+somewhat like it <i>Julius C&aelig;sar</i>, Vol. V. p. 2260. but without the
+Absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any Edition that I have seen,
+as quoted by Mr. <i>Johnson</i>. Besides his Plays in this Edition, there are
+two or three ascrib'd to him by Mr. <i>Langbain</i>, which I have never seen,
+and know nothing of. He writ likewise, <i>Venus</i> and <i>Adonis</i>, and
+<i>Tarquin</i> and <i>Lucrece</i>, in Stanza's, which have been printed in a late
+Collection of Poems. As to the Character given of him by <i>Ben Johnson</i>,
+there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well
+express'd by what <i>Horace</i> says of the first <i>Romans</i>, who wrote Tragedy
+upon the <i>Greek</i> Models, (or indeed translated 'em) in his Epistle to
+<i>Augustus</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;<i>Natur&acirc; sublimis &amp; Acer</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Nam spirat Tragicum satis &amp; f&aelig;liciter Audet,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitq; Lituram.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>There is a Book of Poems, publish'd in 1640, under the Name of Mr.
+<i>William Shakespear</i>, but as I have but very lately seen it, without an
+Opportunity of making any Judgment upon it, I won't pretend to
+determine, whether it be his or no.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"
+style="width: 300px; margin-top: 100px; margin-bottom: 100px;">
+<img src="images/pageXL.png" width="300" height="238" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_11" id="Footnote_A_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_11"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> <i>Ld.</i> Falkland, <i>Ld. C.J.</i> Vaughan, <i>and Mr.</i> Selden.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_12" id="Footnote_B_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_12"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Alluding to the Sea-Voyage of <i>Fletcher</i>.</p></div>
+
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+<table cellpadding="5" summary="List of possible publications, by Series">
+<!-- non breaking spaces to force table columns to correct width -->
+<tr><td valign="top">Series&nbsp;IV:&nbsp;</td><td valign="top">Men, Manners, and Critics</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top"></td><td valign="top">Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), <i>The Theatre</i> (1720).</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top"></td><td valign="top">Aaron Hill, Preface to <i>The Creation</i>, and Thomas Brereton, Preface to
+<i>Esther</i>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top"></td><td valign="top">Ned Ward, Selected Tracts.</td></tr>
+<tr><td valign="top"></td><td valign="top">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+
+<tr><td valign="top"></td><td valign="top">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
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+
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+<h2><a name="PUBLICATIONS_FOR_THE_FIRST_YEAR_1946-1947" id="PUBLICATIONS_FOR_THE_FIRST_YEAR_1946-1947"></a><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a><i>PUBLICATIONS FOR THE FIRST YEAR (1946-1947)</i></h2>
+
+<table cellpadding="5" summary="List of publications in 1946-7">
+<tr><td valign="top">MAY, 1946: </td><td valign="top">Series I, No. 1&mdash;Richard Blackmore's <i>Essay upon Wit</i> (1716),
+and Addison's <i>Freeholder</i> No. 45 (1716).</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">JULY, 1946: </td><td valign="top">Series II, No. 1&mdash;Samuel Cobb's <i>Of Poetry</i> and <i>Discourse
+on Criticism</i> (1707).</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">SEPT., 1946: </td><td valign="top">Series III, No. 1&mdash;Anon., <i>Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning
+the Stage</i> (1698), and Richard Willis' <i>Occasional Paper</i> No. IX (1698).</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">NOV., 1946: </td><td valign="top">Series I, No. 2&mdash;Anon., <i>Essay on Wit</i> (1748), together with
+Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph Warton's <i>Adventurer</i> Nos. 127 and
+133.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">JAN., 1947: </td><td valign="top">Series II, No. 2&mdash;Samuel Wesley's <i>Epistle to a Friend
+Concerning Poetry</i> (1700) and <i>Essay on Heroic Poetry</i> (1693).</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">MARCH,&nbsp;1947:&nbsp;</td><td valign="top">Series III, No. 2&mdash;Anon., <i>Representation of the Impiety
+and Immorality of the Stage</i> (1704) and anon., <i>Some Thoughts Concerning
+the Stage</i> (1704).</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="gap"><i>PUBLICATIONS FOR THE SECOND YEAR (1947-1948)</i></p>
+
+<table cellpadding="5" summary="List of publications in 1947-8">
+<tr><td valign="top">MAY, 1947: </td><td valign="top">Series I, No. 3&mdash;John Gay's <i>The Present State of Wit</i>; and a
+section on Wit from <i>The English Theophrastus</i>. With an Introduction by
+Donald Bond.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">JULY, 1947: </td><td valign="top">Series II, No. 3&mdash;Rapin's <i>De Carmine Pastorali</i>, translated
+by Creech. With an Introduction by J.E. Congleton.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">SEPT., 1947: </td><td valign="top">Series III, No. 3&mdash;T. Hanmer's (?) <i>Some Remarks on the
+Tragedy of Hamlet</i>. With an Introduction by Clarence D. Thorpe.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">NOV., 1947: </td><td valign="top">Series I, No. 4&mdash;Corbyn Morris' <i>Essay towards Fixing the
+True Standards of Wit</i>, etc. With an Introduction by James L. Clifford.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">JAN., 1948: </td><td valign="top">Series II, No. 4&mdash;Thomas Purney's <i>Discourse on the
+Pastoral</i>. With an Introduction by Earl Wasserman.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td valign="top">MARCH,&nbsp;1948:&nbsp;</td><td valign="top">Series III, No. 4&mdash;Essays on the Stage, selected, with an
+Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch.</td></tr>
+</table>
+<p><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>The list of publications is subject to modification in response to
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+<pre>
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+
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+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr.
+William Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
+Shakespear (1709), by Nicholas Rowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709)
+
+Author: Nicholas Rowe
+
+Commentator: Samuel H. Monk
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16275]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Louise Pryor and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Extra Series
+No. 1
+
+
+Nicholas Rowe, _Some Account of the Life of
+Mr. William Shakespear_ (1709)
+
+
+With an Introduction by
+Samuel H. Monk
+
+
+The Augustan Reprint Society
+November, 1948
+_Price. One Dollar_
+
+
+
+
+_GENERAL EDITORS_
+
+RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
+EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
+H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
+
+_ASSISTANT EDITOR_
+
+W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
+
+_ADVISORY EDITORS_
+
+EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
+BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
+LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
+CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
+JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
+ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
+SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
+ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
+JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
+
+
+
+
+Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author
+by
+Edwards Brothers, Inc.
+Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
+1948
+
+
+
+
+_INTRODUCTION._
+
+
+The Rowe-Tonson edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709) is an important
+event in the history of both Shakespeare studies and English literary
+criticism. Though based substantially on the Fourth Folio (1685), it is
+the first, "edited" edition: Rowe modernized spelling and punctuation
+and quietly made a number of sensible emendations. It is the first
+edition to include _dramatis personae_, the first to attempt a
+systematic division of all the plays into acts and scenes, and the first
+to give to scenes their distinct locations. It is the first of many
+illustrated editions. It is the first to abandon the clumsy folio format
+and to attempt to bring the plays within reach of the understanding and
+the pocketbooks of the average reader. Finally, it is the first to
+include an extended life and critique of the author.
+
+Shakespeare scholars from Pope to the present have not been kind to Rowe
+either as editor or as critic; but all eighteenth-century editors
+accepted many of his emendations, and the biographical material that he
+and Betterton assembled remained the basis of all accounts of the
+dramatist until the scepticism and scholarship of Steevens and Malone
+proved most of it to be merely dubious tradition. Johnson, indeed, spoke
+generously of the edition. In the _Life of Rowe_ he said that as an
+editor Howe "has done more than he promised; and that, without the pomp
+of notes or the boast of criticism, many passages are happily restored."
+The preface, in his opinion, "cannot be said to discover much profundity
+or penetration." But he acknowledged Rowe's influence on Shakespeare's
+reputation. In our own century, more justice has been done Rowe, at
+least as an editor.[1]
+
+The years 1709-14 were of great importance in the growth of
+Shakespeare's reputation. As we shall see, the plays as well as the
+poems, both authentic and spurious, were frequently printed and bought.
+With the passing of the seventeenth-century folios and the occasional
+quartos of acting versions of single plays, Shakespeare could find a
+place in libraries and could be intimately known by hundreds who had
+hitherto known him only in the theater. Tonson's business acumen made
+Shakespeare available to the general reader in the reign of Anne; Rowe's
+editorial, biographical, and critical work helped to make him
+comprehensible within the framework of contemporary taste.
+
+When Rowe's edition appeared twenty-four years had passed since the
+publication of the Fourth Folio. As Allardyce Nicoll has shown, Tonson
+owned certain rights in the publication of the plays, rights derived
+ultimately from the printers of the First Folio. Precisely when he
+decided to publish a revised octavo edition is not known, nor do we know
+when Rowe accepted the commission and began his work. McKerrow has
+plausibly suggested that Tonson may have been anxious to call attention
+to his rights in Shakespeare on the eve of the passage of the copyright
+law which went into effect in April, 1710.[2] Certainly Tonson must have
+felt that he was adding to the prestige which his publishing house had
+gained by the publication of Milton and Dryden's Virgil.
+
+In March 1708/9 Tonson was advertising for materials "serviceable to
+[the] Design" of publishing an edition of Shakespeare's works in six
+volumes octavo, which would be ready "in a Month." There was a delay,
+however, and it was on 2 June that Tonson finally announced: "There is
+this day Publish'd ... the Works of Mr. William Shakespear, in six Vols.
+8vo. adorn'd with Cuts, Revis'd and carefully Corrected: With an Account
+of the Life and Writings of the Author, by N. Rowe, Esq; Price 30s."
+Subscription copies on large paper, some few to be bound in nine
+volumes, were to be had at his shop.[3]
+
+The success of the venture must have been immediately apparent. By 1710
+a second edition, identical in title page and typography with the first,
+but differing in many details, had been printed,[4] followed in 1714 by
+a third in duodecimo. This so-called second edition exists in three
+issues, the first made up of eight volumes, the third of nine. In all
+three editions the spurious plays were collected in the last volume,
+except in the third issue of 1714, in which the ninth volume contains
+the poems.
+
+That other publishers sensed the profits in Shakespeare is evident from
+the activities of Edmund Curll and Bernard Lintot. Curll acted with
+imagination and promptness: within three weeks of the publication of
+Tonson's edition, he advertised as Volume VII of the works of
+Shakespeare his forthcoming volume of the poems. This volume, misdated
+1710 on the title page, seems to have been published in September 1709.
+A reprint with corrections and some emendations of the Cotes-Benson
+Poems _Written By Wil. Shake-speare. Gent._, 1640, it contains Charles
+Gildon's "Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage in _Greece_,
+_Rome_, and _England_," his "Remarks" on the separate plays, his
+"References to Classic Authors," and his glossary. With great shrewdness
+Curll produced a volume uniform in size and format with Rowe's edition
+and equipped with an essay which opens with an attack on Tonson for
+printing doubtful plays and for attempting to disparage the poems
+through envy of their publisher. This attack was certainly provoked by
+the curious final paragraph of Rowe's introduction, in which he refused
+to determine the genuineness of the 1640 poems. Obviously Tonson was
+perturbed when he learned that Curll was publishing the poems as an
+appendix to Rowe's edition.
+
+Once again a Shakespearian publication was successful, and Tonson
+incorporated the Curll volume into the third issue of the 1714 edition,
+having apparently come to some agreement with Curll, since the title
+page of Volume IX states that it was "Printed for J. Tonson, E. Curll,
+J. Pemberton, and K. Sanger." In this edition Gildon omitted his
+offensive remarks about Tonson, as well as the "References to Classic
+Authors," in which he had suggested topics treated by both the ancients
+and Shakespeare. This volume was revised by George Sewell and appeared
+in appropriate format as an addition to Pope's Shakespeare, 1723-25.
+
+Meanwhile, in July, 1709, Lintot had begun to advertise his edition of
+the poems, which was expanded in 1710/11 to include the sonnets in a
+second volume.[5] Thus within a year of the publication of Rowe's
+edition, all of Shakespeare, as well as some spurious works, was on the
+market. With the publication of these volumes, Shakespeare began to pass
+rapidly into the literary consciousness of the race. And formal
+criticism of his writings inevitably followed.
+
+Rowe's "Some Account of the Life, &c. of Mr. William Shakespear,"
+reprinted with a very few trifling typographical changes in 1714,
+survived in all the important eighteenth-century editions, but it was
+never reprinted in its original form. Pope re-arranged the material,
+giving it a more orderly structure and omitting passages that were
+obviously erroneous or that seemed outmoded.[6] It is odd that all later
+eighteenth-century editors seem to have believed that Pope's revision
+was actually Rowe's own re-writing of the _Account_ for the 1714
+edition. Theobald did not reprint the essay, but he used and amplified
+Rowe's material in his biography of Shakespeare; Warburton, of course,
+reprinted Pope's version, as did Johnson, Steevens, and Malone. Both
+Steevens and Malone identified the Pope revision as Rowe's.[7]
+
+Thus it came about that Rowe's preface in its original form was lost
+from sight during the entire eighteenth century. Even in the twentieth,
+Pope's revision has been printed with the statement that it is taken
+"from the second edition (1714), slightly altered from the first edition
+of 1709."[8] Only D. Nichol Smith has republished the original essay in
+his _Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare_, 1903.
+
+The biographical part of Rowe's _Account_ assembled the few facts and
+most of the traditions still current about Shakespeare a century after
+his death. It would be easy for any undergraduate to distinguish fact
+from legend in Rowe's preface; and scholarship since Steevens and Malone
+has demonstrated the unreliability of most of the local traditions that
+Betterton reported from Warwickshire. Antiquarian research has added a
+vast amount of detail about the world in which Shakespeare lived and has
+raised and answered questions that never occurred to Rowe; but it has
+recovered little more of the man himself than Rowe knew.
+
+The critical portions of Rowe's account look backward and forward:
+backward to the Restoration, among whose critical controversies the
+eighteenth-century Shakespeare took shape; and forward to the long
+succession of critical writings that, by the end of the century, had
+secured for Shakespeare his position as the greatest of the English
+poets. Until Dryden and Rymer, criticism of Shakespeare in the
+seventeenth century had been occasional rather than systematic. Dryden,
+by his own acknowledgement, derived his enthusiasm for Shakespeare from
+Davenant, and thus, in a way, spoke for a man who had known the poet.
+Shakespeare was constantly in his mind, and the critical problems that
+the plays raised in the literary milieu of the Restoration constantly
+fascinated him. Rymer's attack served to solidify opinion and to force
+Shakespeare's admirers to examine the grounds of their faith. By 1700 a
+conventional manner of regarding Shakespeare and the plays had been
+achieved.
+
+The growth of Shakespeare's reputation during the century after his
+death is a familiar episode in English criticism. Bentley has
+demonstrated the dominant position of Jonson up to the end of the
+century.[9] But Jonson's reputation and authority worked for Shakespeare
+and helped to shape, a critical attitude toward the plays. His official
+praise in the first Folio had declared Shakespeare at least the equal of
+the ancients and the very poet of nature. He had raised the issue of
+Shakespeare's learning, thus helping to emphasize the idea of
+Shakespeare as a natural genius; and in the _Discoveries_ he had blamed
+his friend for too great facility and for bombast.
+
+In his commendatory sonnet in the Second Folio (1632), Milton took the
+Jonsonian view of Shakespeare, whose "easy numbers" he contrasted with
+"slow-endeavouring Art," and readers of the poems of 1645 found in
+_L'Allegro_ an early formulation of what was to become the stock
+comparison of the two great Jacobean dramatists in the lines about
+Jonson's "learned sock" and Shakespeare, "Fancy's child." This contrast
+became a constant theme in Restoration allusions to the two poets.
+
+Two other early critical ideas were to be elaborated in the last four
+decades of the century. In the first Folio Leonard Digges had spoken of
+Shakespeare's "fire and fancy," and I.M.S. had written in the Second
+Folio of his ability to move the passions. Finally, throughout the last
+half of the century, as Bentley has shown, Shakespeare was admired above
+all English dramatists for his ability to create characters, of whom
+Falstaff was the most frequently mentioned.
+
+All of these opinions were developed in Dryden's frequent critical
+remarks on his favorite dramatist. No one was more clearly aware than
+he of the faults of the "divine Shakespeare" as they appeared in the new
+era of letters that Dryden himself helped to shape. And no man ever
+praised Shakespeare more generously. For Dryden Shakespeare was the
+greatest of original geniuses, who, "taught by none," laid the
+foundations of English drama; he was a poet of bold imagination,
+especially gifted in "magick" or the supernatural, the poet of nature,
+who could dispense with "art," the poet of the passions, of varied
+characters and moods, the poet of large and comprehensive soul. To him,
+as to most of his contemporaries, the contrast between Jonson and
+Shakespeare was important: the one showed what poets ought to do; the
+other what untutored genius can do. When Dryden praised Shakespeare, his
+tone became warmer than when he judicially appraised Jonson.
+
+Like most of his contemporaries Dryden did not heed Jonson's caveat
+that, despite his lack of learning, Shakespeare did have art. He was too
+obsessed with the idea that Shakespeare, ignorant of the health-giving
+art of the ancients, was infected with the faults of his age, faults
+that even Jonson did not always escape. Shakespeare was often incorrect
+in grammar; he frequently sank to flatness or soared into bombast; his
+wit could be coarse and low and too dependent on puns; his plot
+structure was at times faulty, and he lacked the sense for order and
+arrangement that the new taste valued. All this he could and did admit,
+and he was impressed by the learning and critical standards of Rymer's
+attack. But like Samuel Johnson he was not often prone to substitute
+theory for experience, and like most of his contemporaries he felt
+Shakespeare's power to move and to convince. Perhaps the most trenchant
+expression of his final stand in regard to Shakespeare and to the whole
+art of poetry is to be found in his letter to Dennis, dated 3 March,
+1693/4. Shakespeare, he said, had genius, which is "alone a greater
+Virtue ... than all the other Qualifications put together." He admitted
+that all the faults pointed out by Rymer are real enough, but he added a
+question that removed the discussion from theory to immediate
+experience: "Yet who will read Mr. Rym[er] or not read Shakespear?" When
+Dryden died in 1700, the age of Jonson had passed and the age of
+Shakespeare was about to begin.
+
+The Shakespeare of Rowe's _Account_ is in most essentials the
+Shakespeare of Restoration criticism, minus the consideration of his
+faults. As Nichol Smith has observed, Dryden and Rymer were continually
+in Rowe's mind as he wrote. It is likely that Smith is correct in
+suspecting in the _Account_ echoes of Dryden's conversation as well as
+of his published writings;[10] and the respect in which Rymer was then
+held is evident in Rowe's desire not to enter into controversy with that
+redoubtable critic and in his inability to refrain from doing so.
+
+If one reads the _Account_ in Pope's neat and tidy revision and then as
+Rowe published it, one is impressed with its Restoration quality. It
+seems almost deliberately modelled on Dryden's prefaces, for it is
+loosely organized, discursive, intimate, and it even has something of
+Dryden's contagious enthusiasm. Rowe presents to his reader the
+Restoration Shakespeare: the original genius, the antithesis of Jonson,
+the exception to the rule and the instance that diminishes the
+importance of the rules. Shakespeare "lived under a kind of mere light
+of nature," and knowing nothing of the rules should not be judged by
+them. Admitting the poor plot structure and the neglect of the unities,
+except in an occasional play, Rowe concentrates on Shakespeare's
+virtues: his images, "so lively, that the thing he would represent
+stands full before you, and you possess every part of it;" his command
+over the passions, especially terror; his magic; his characters and
+their "manners."
+
+Bentley has demonstrated statistically that the Restoration had little
+appreciation of the romantic comedies. And yet Rowe, so thoroughly
+saturated with Restoration criticism, lists character after character
+from these plays as instances of Shakespeare's ability to depict the
+manners. Have we perhaps here a response to Shakespeare read as opposed
+to Shakespeare seen? Certainly the romantic comedies could not stand the
+test of the critical canons so well as did the _Merry Wives_ or even
+_Othello_; and they were not much liked on the stage. But it seems
+probable that a generation which read French romances would not have
+felt especially hostile to the romantic comedies when read in the
+closet. Rowe's criticism is so little original, so far from
+idiosyncratic, that it is unnecessary to assume that his response to the
+characters in the comedies is unique.
+
+Be that as it may, it was well that at the moment when the reading
+public began rapidly to expand in England, Tonson should have made
+Shakespeare available in an attractive and convenient format; and it was
+a happy choice that brought Rowe to the editorship of these six volumes.
+As poet, playwright, and man of taste, Rowe was admirably fitted to
+introduce Shakespeare to a multitude of new readers. Relatively innocent
+of the technical duties of an editor though he was, he none the less was
+capable of accomplishing what proved to be his historic mission: the
+easy re-statement of a view of Shakespeare which Dryden had earlier
+articulated and the demonstration that the plays could be read and
+admired despite the objections of formal dramatic criticism. He is more
+than a chronological predecessor of Pope, Johnson, and Morgann. The line
+is direct from Shakespeare to Davenant, to Dryden, to Rowe; and he is an
+organic link between this seventeenth-century tradition and the
+increasingly rich Shakespeare scholarship and criticism that flowed
+through the eighteenth century into the romantic era.
+
+
+_Notes_
+
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Jackson, "Rowe's edition of Shakespeare," _Library_
+X (1930), 455-473; Allardyce Nicoll, "The editors of Shakespeare from
+first folio to Malone," _Studies in the first Folio_, London (1924), pp.
+158-161; Ronald B. McKerrow, "The treatment of Shakespeare's text by his
+earlier editors, 1709-1768," _Proceedings of the British Academy_, XIX
+(1933), 89-122; Augustus Ralli, _A history of Shakespearian criticism_,
+London, 1932; Herbert S. Robinson, _English Shakespearian criticism in
+the eighteenth century_, New York, 1932.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Nicoll, _op. cit._, pp. 158-161; McKerrow, _op. cit._, p.
+93.]
+
+[Footnote 3: London _Gazette_, From Monday March 14 to Thursday March
+17, 1708, and From Monday May 30 to Thursday June 2, 1709. For
+descriptions and collations of this edition, see A. Jackson, _op. cit._;
+H.L. Ford, _Shakespeare 1700-1740_, Oxford (1935), pp. 9, 10; _TLS_ 16
+May, 1929, p. 408; Edward Wagenknecht, "The first editor of
+Shakespeare," _Colophon_ VIII, 1931. According to a writer in _The
+Gentleman's Magazine_ (LVII, 1787, p. 76), Rowe was paid thirty-six
+pounds, ten shillings by Tonson.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Identified and described by McKerrow, _TLS_ 8 March, 1934,
+p. 168. See also Ford, _op. cit._, pp. 11, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The best discussion of the Curll and Lintot Poems is that
+of Hyder Rollins in _A new variorum edition of Shakespeare: the poems_,
+Philadelphia and London (1938) pp. 380-382, to which I am obviously
+indebted. See also Raymond M. Alden, "The 1710 and 1714 texts of
+Shakespeare's poems," _MLN_ XXXI (1916), 268-274; and Ford, _op. cit._,
+pp. 37-40.]
+
+[Footnote 6: For example, he dropped out Rowe's opinion that Shakespeare
+had little learning; the reference to Dryden's view as to the date of
+Pericles; the statement that _Venus and Adonis_ is the only work that
+Shakespeare himself published; the identification of Spenser's "pleasant
+Willy" with Shakespeare; the account of Jonson's grudging attitude
+toward Shakespeare; the attack on Rymer and the defence of _Othello_;
+and the discussion of the Davenant-Dryden _Tempest_, together with the
+quotation from Dryden's prologue to that play.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Edmond Malone, _The plays and poems of William
+Shakespeare_, London (1790), I, 154. Difficult as it is to believe that
+so careful a scholar as Malone could have made this error, it is none
+the less true that he observed the omission of the passage on "pleasant
+Willy" and stated that Rowe had obviously altered his opinion by 1714.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Beverley Warner, _Famous introductions to Shakespeare's
+plays_, New York (1906), p. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Gerald E. Bentley, _Shakespeare and Jonson_, Chicago
+(1945). Vol. I.]
+
+[Footnote 10: D. Nichol Smith, _Eighteenth century essays on
+Shakespeare_, Glasgow (1903), pp. xiv-xv.]
+
+
+The writer wishes to express his appreciation of a Research Grant from
+the University of Minnesota for the summer of 1948, during which this
+introduction was written.
+
+--Samuel Holt Monk
+University of Minnesota
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Picture of Shakespeare surrounded by angels]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+WORKS
+
+OF
+
+Mr. _William Shakespear_;
+
+IN
+
+SIX VOLUMES.
+
+
+ADORN'D with CUTS.
+
+
+Revis'd and Corrected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the
+Author.
+
+By _N. ROWE_, Esq;
+
+
+_L O N D O N_:
+
+Printed for _Jacob Tonson_, within _Grays-Inn_ Gate, next _Grays-Inn_
+Lane. MDCCIX.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorative motif]
+
+SOME
+
+ACCOUNT
+
+OF THE
+
+LIFE, _&c._
+
+OF
+
+Mr. _William Shakespear_.
+
+
+It seems to be a kind of Respect due to the Memory of Excellent Men,
+especially of those whom their Wit and Learning have made Famous, to
+deliver some Account of themselves, as well as their Works, to
+Posterity. For this Reason, how fond do we see some People of
+discovering any little Personal Story of the great Men of Antiquity,
+their Families, the common Accidents of their Lives, and even their
+Shape, Make and Features have been the Subject of critical Enquiries.
+How trifling soever this Curiosity may seem to be, it is certainly very
+Natural; and we are hardly satisfy'd with an Account of any remarkable
+Person, 'till we have heard him describ'd even to the very Cloaths he
+wears. As for what relates to Men of Letters, the knowledge of an Author
+may sometimes conduce to the better understanding his Book: And tho' the
+Works of Mr. _Shakespear_ may seem to many not to want a Comment, yet I
+fancy some little Account of the Man himself may not be thought improper
+to go along with them.
+
+He was the Son of Mr. _John Shakespear_, and was Born at _Stratford_
+upon _Avon_, in _Warwickshire_, in _April_ 1564. His Family, as appears
+by the Register and Publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good
+Figure and Fashion there, and are mention'd as Gentlemen. His Father,
+who was a considerable Dealer in Wool, had so large a Family, ten
+Children in all, that tho' he was his eldest Son, he could give him no
+better Education than his own Employment. He had bred him, 'tis true,
+for some time at a Free-School, where 'tis probable he acquir'd that
+little _Latin_ he was Master of: But the narrowness of his
+Circumstances, and the want of his assistance at Home, forc'd his
+Father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further
+Proficiency in that Language. It is without Controversie, that he had no
+knowledge of the Writings of the Antient Poets, not only from this
+Reason, but from his Works themselves, where we find no traces of any
+thing that looks like an Imitation of 'em; the Delicacy of his Taste,
+and the natural Bent of his own Great _Genius_, equal, if not superior
+to some of the best of theirs, would certainly have led him to Read and
+Study 'em with so much Pleasure, that some of their fine Images would
+naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mix'd with his own
+Writings; so that his not copying at least something from them, may be
+an Argument of his never having read 'em. Whether his Ignorance of the
+Antients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a Dispute: For
+tho' the knowledge of 'em might have made him more Correct, yet it is
+not improbable but that the Regularity and Deference for them, which
+would have attended that Correctness, might have restrain'd some of that
+Fire, Impetuosity, and even beautiful Extravagance which we admire in
+_Shakespear_: And I believe we are better pleas'd with those Thoughts,
+altogether New and Uncommon, which his own Imagination supply'd him so
+abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful Passages out
+of the _Greek_ and _Latin_ Poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
+that it was possible for a Master of the _English_ Language to deliver
+'em. Some _Latin_ without question he did know, and one may see up and
+down in his Plays how far his Reading that way went: In _Love's Labour
+lost_, the Pedant comes out with a Verse of _Mantuan_; and in _Titus
+Andronicus_, one of the _Gothick_ Princes, upon reading
+
+    _Integer vitae scelerisque purus
+    Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu--_
+
+says, _'Tis a Verse in_ Horace, _but he remembers it out of his_
+Grammar: Which, I suppose, was the Author's Case. Whatever _Latin_ he
+had, 'tis certain he understood _French_, as may be observ'd from many
+Words and Sentences scatter'd up and down his Plays in that Language;
+and especially from one Scene in _Henry_ the Fifth written wholly in it.
+Upon his leaving School, he seems to have given intirely into that way
+of Living which his Father propos'd to him; and in order to settle in
+the World after a Family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was
+yet very Young. His Wife was the Daughter of one _Hathaway_, said to
+have been a substantial Yeoman in the Neighbourhood of _Stratford_. In
+this kind of Settlement he continu'd for some time, 'till an
+Extravagance that he was guilty of, forc'd him both out of his Country
+and that way of Living which he had taken up; and tho' it seem'd at
+first to be a Blemish upon his good Manners, and a Misfortune to him,
+yet it afterwards happily prov'd the occasion of exerting one of the
+greatest _Genius's_ that ever was known in Dramatick Poetry. He had, by
+a Misfortune common enough to young Fellows, fallen into ill Company;
+and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing,
+engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to
+Sir _Thomas Lucy_ of _Cherlecot_, near _Stratford_. For this he was
+prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and
+in order to revenge that ill Usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho'
+this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to
+have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the Prosecution against him
+to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his Business and Family in
+_Warwickshire_, for some time, and shelter himself in _London_.
+
+It is at this Time, and upon this Accident, that he is said to have
+made his first Acquaintance in the Play-house. He was receiv'd into the
+Company then in being, at first in a very mean Rank; But his admirable
+Wit, and the natural Turn of it to the Stage, soon distinguish'd him, if
+not as an extraordinary Actor, yet as an excellent Writer. His Name is
+Printed, as the Custom was in those Times, amongst those of the other
+Players, before some old Plays, but without any particular Account of
+what sort of Parts he us'd to play; and tho' I have inquir'd, I could
+never meet with any further Account of him this way, than that the top
+of his Performance was the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_. I should have been
+much more pleas'd, to have learn'd from some certain Authority, which
+was the first Play he wrote; it would be without doubt a pleasure to any
+Man, curious in Things of this Kind, to see and know what was the first
+Essay of a Fancy like _Shakespear's_. Perhaps we are not to look for his
+Beginnings, like those of other Authors, among their least perfect
+Writings; Art had so little, and Nature so large a Share in what he did,
+that, for ought I know, the Performances of his Youth, as they were the
+most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of Imagination in 'em,
+were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his Fancy
+was so loose and extravagant, as to be Independent on the Rule and
+Government of Judgment; but that what he thought, was commonly so Great,
+so justly and rightly Conceiv'd in it self, that it wanted little or no
+Correction, and was immediately approv'd by an impartial Judgment at the
+first sight. Mr. _Dryden_ seems to think that _Pericles_ is one of his
+first Plays; but there is no judgment to be form'd on that, since there
+is good Reason to believe that the greatest part of that Play was not
+written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of it certainly was,
+particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of Time in which the
+several Pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are
+Passages in some few of them which seem to fix their Dates. So the
+_Chorus_ in the beginning of the fifth Act of _Henry_ V. by a Compliment
+very handsomly turn'd to the Earl of _Essex_, shews the Play to have
+been written when that Lord was General for the Queen in _Ireland_: And
+his Elogy upon Q. _Elizabeth_, and her Successor K. _James_, in the
+latter end of his _Henry_ VII, is a Proof of that Play's being written
+after the Accession of the latter of those two Princes to the Crown of
+_England_. Whatever the particular Times of his Writing were, the People
+of his Age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of Diversions of this
+kind, could not but be highly pleas'd to see a _Genius_ arise amongst
+'em of so pleasurable, so rich a Vein, and so plentifully capable of
+furnishing their favourite Entertainments. Besides the advantages of his
+Wit, he was in himself a good-natur'd Man, of great sweetness in his
+Manners, and a most agreeable Companion; so that it is no wonder if with
+so many good Qualities he made himself acquainted with the best
+Conversations of those Times. Queen _Elizabeth_ had several of his Plays
+Acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious Marks of her
+Favour: It is that Maiden Princess plainly, whom he intends by
+
+    _--A fair Vestal, Throned by the West._
+
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_,
+Vol. 2. p. 480.
+
+And that whole Passage is a Compliment very properly brought in, and
+very handsomly apply'd to her. She was so well pleas'd with that
+admirable Character of _Falstaff_, in the two Parts of _Henry_ the
+Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one Play more, and to
+shew him in Love. This is said to be the Occasion of his Writing _The
+Merry Wives of_ Windsor. How well she was obey'd, the Play it self is an
+admirable Proof. Upon this Occasion it may not be improper to observe,
+that this Part of _Falstaff_ is said to have been written originally
+under the Name of _Oldcastle_; some of that Family being then remaining,
+the Queen was pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use
+of _Falstaff_. The present Offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know
+whether the Author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second
+Choice, since it is certain that Sir _John Falstaff_, who was a Knight
+of the Garter, and a Lieutenant-General, was a Name of distinguish'd
+Merit in the Wars in _France_ in _Henry_ the Fifth's and _Henry_ the
+Sixth's Times. What Grace soever the Queen confer'd upon him, it was not
+to her only he ow'd the Fortune which the Reputation of his Wit made. He
+had the Honour to meet with many great and uncommon Marks of Favour and
+Friendship from the Earl of _Southampton_, famous in the Histories of
+that Time for his Friendship to the unfortunate Earl of _Essex_. It was
+to that Noble Lord that he Dedicated his _Venus_ and _Adonis_, the only
+Piece of his Poetry which he ever publish'd himself, tho' many of his
+Plays were surrepticiously and lamely Printed in his Lifetime. There is
+one Instance so singular in the Magnificence of this Patron of
+_Shakespear_'s, that if I had not been assur'd that the Story was handed
+down by Sir _William D'Avenant_, who was probably very well acquainted
+with his Affairs, I should not have ventur'd to have inserted, that my
+Lord _Southampton_, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable
+him to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A
+Bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that
+profuse Generosity the present Age has shewn to _French_ Dancers and
+_Italian_ Eunuchs.
+
+What particular Habitude or Friendships he contracted with private Men,
+I have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true
+Taste of Merit, and could distinguish Men, had generally a just Value
+and Esteem for him. His exceeding Candor and good Nature must certainly
+have inclin'd all the gentler Part of the World to love him, as the
+power of his Wit oblig'd the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and
+polite Learning to admire him. Amongst these was the incomparable Mr.
+_Edmond Spencer_, who speaks of him in his _Tears of the Muses_, not
+only with the Praises due to a good Poet, but even lamenting his Absence
+with the tenderness of a Friend. The Passage is in _Thalia's_ Complaint
+for the Decay of Dramatick Poetry, and the Contempt the Stage then lay
+under, amongst his Miscellaneous Works, _p._ 147.
+
+      _And he the Man, whom Nature's self had made
+    To mock her self, and Truth to imitate
+    With kindly Counter under mimick Shade,
+    Our pleasant _Willy_, ah! is dead of late:
+    With whom all Joy and jolly Merriment
+    Is also deaded, and in Dolour drent._
+
+      _Instead thereof, scoffing Scurrility
+    And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept,
+    Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry,
+    Without Regard or due _Decorum_ kept;
+    Each idle Wit at will presumes to make,
+    And doth the Learned's Task upon him take._
+
+      _But that same gentle Spirit, from whose Pen
+    Large Streams of Honey and sweet _Nectar_ flow,
+    Scorning the Boldness such base-born Men,
+    Which dare their Follies forth so rashly throw;
+    Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell,
+    Than so himself to Mockery to sell._
+
+I know some People have been of Opinion, that _Shakespear_ is not meant
+by _Willy_ in the first _Stanza_ of these Verses, because _Spencer's_
+Death happen'd twenty Years before _Shakespear's_. But, besides that the
+Character is not applicable to any Man of that time but himself, it is
+plain by the last _Stanza_ that Mr. _Spencer_ does not mean that he was
+then really Dead, but only that he had with-drawn himself from the
+Publick, or at least with-held his Hand from Writing, out of a disgust
+he had taken at the then ill taste of the Town, and the mean Condition
+of the Stage. Mr. _Dryden_ was always of Opinion these Verses were meant
+of _Shakespear_; and 'tis highly probable they were so, since he was
+three and thirty Years old at _Spencer's_ Death; and his Reputation in
+Poetry must have been great enough before that Time to have deserv'd
+what is here said of him. His Acquaintance with _Ben Johnson_ began with
+a remarkable piece of Humanity and good Nature; Mr. _Johnson_, who was
+at that Time altogether unknown to the World, had offer'd one of his
+Plays to the Players, in order to have it Acted; and the Persons into
+whose Hands it was put, after having turn'd it carelessly and
+superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an
+ill-natur'd Answer, that it would be of no service to their Company,
+when _Shakespear_ luckily cast his Eye upon it, and found something so
+well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to
+recommend Mr. _Johnson_ and his Writings to the Publick. After this they
+were profess'd Friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made
+him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. _Ben_ was naturally
+Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take
+upon him the Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil
+Eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in Competition with him. And if at
+times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some
+Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner of Writing,
+and want of Judgment; the Praise of seldom altering or blotting out what
+he writ, which was given him by the Players who were the first
+Publishers of his Works after his Death, was what _Johnson_ could not
+bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another Man to strike out
+the greatest Thoughts in the finest Expression, and to reach those
+Excellencies of Poetry with the Ease of a first Imagination, which
+himself with infinite Labour and Study could but hardly attain to.
+_Johnson_ was certainly a very good Scholar, and in that had the
+advantage of _Shakespear_; tho' at the same time I believe it must be
+allow'd, that what Nature gave the latter, was more than a Ballance for
+what Books had given the former; and the Judgment of a great Man upon
+this occasion was, I think, very just and proper. In a Conversation
+between Sir _John Suckling_, Sir _William D'Avenant_, _Endymion Porter_,
+Mr. _Hales_ of _Eaton_, and _Ben Johnson_; Sir _John Suckling_, who was
+a profess'd Admirer of _Shakespear_, had undertaken his Defence against
+_Ben Johnson_ with some warmth; Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for some
+time, hearing _Ben_ frequently reproaching him with the want of
+Learning, and Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last, _That if Mr.
+_Shakespear_ had not read the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any
+thing from 'em;_ (a Fault the other made no Confidence of) _and that if
+he would produce any one Topick finely treated by any of them, he would
+undertake to shew something upon the same Subject at least as well
+written by_ Shakespear. _Johnson_ did indeed take a large liberty, even
+to the transcribing and translating of whole Scenes together; and
+sometimes, with all Deference to so great a Name as his, not altogether
+for the advantage of the Authors of whom he borrow'd. And if _Augustus_
+and _Virgil_ were really what he has made _'em_ in a Scene of his
+_Poetaster_, they are as odd an Emperor and a Poet as ever met.
+_Shakespear_, on the other Hand, was beholding to no body farther than
+the Foundation of the Tale, the Incidents were often his own, and the
+Writing intirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, _The Comedy of
+Errors_, in a great measure taken from the _Menoechmi_ of _Plautus_.
+How that happen'd, I cannot easily Divine, since, as I hinted before, I
+do not take him to have been Master of _Latin_ enough to read it in the
+Original, and I know of no Translation of _Plautus_ so Old as his Time.
+
+As I have not propos'd to my self to enter into a Large and Compleat
+Criticism upon Mr. _Shakespear_'s Works, so I suppose it will neither be
+expected that I should take notice of the severe Remarks that have been
+formerly made upon him by Mr. _Rhymer_. I must confess, I can't very
+well see what could be the Reason of his animadverting with so much
+Sharpness, upon the Faults of a Man Excellent on most Occasions, and
+whom all the World ever was and will be inclin'd to have an Esteem and
+Veneration for. If it was to shew his own Knowledge in the Art of
+Poetry, besides that there is a Vanity in making that only his Design, I
+question if there be not many Imperfections as well in those Schemes and
+Precepts he has given for the Direction of others, as well as in that
+Sample of Tragedy which he has written to shew the Excellency of his own
+_Genius_. If he had a Pique against the Man, and wrote on purpose to
+ruin a Reputation so well establish'd, he has had the Mortification to
+fail altogether in his Attempt, and to see the World at least as fond of
+_Shakespear_ as of his Critique. But I won't believe a Gentleman, and a
+good-natur'd Man, capable of the last Intention. Whatever may have been
+his Meaning, finding fault is certainly the easiest Task of Knowledge,
+and commonly those Men of good Judgment, who are likewise of good and
+gentle Dispositions, abandon this ungrateful Province to the Tyranny of
+Pedants. If one would enter into the Beauties of _Shakespear_, there is
+a much larger, as well as a more delightful Field; but as I won't
+prescribe to the Tastes of other People, 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 pleas'd with in looking him over.
+
+His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd 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
+'em. That way of Trage-Comedy was the common Mistake of that Age, and is
+indeed become so agreeable to the _English_ Tast, that tho' the severer
+Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our Audiences
+seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. _The Merry
+Wives of_ Windsor, _The Comedy of Errors_, and _The Taming of the
+Shrew_, are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have
+something of both Kinds. 'Tis not very easie to determine which way of
+Writing he was most Excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of
+Entertainment in his Comical Humours; and tho' they did not then strike
+at all Ranks of People, as the Satyr of the present Age has taken the
+Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd Variety
+in those Characters which he thought fit to meddle with. _Falstaff_ is
+allow'd by every body to be a Master-piece; the Character is always
+well-sustain'd, tho' drawn out into the length of three Plays; and even
+the Account of his Death, given by his Old Landlady Mrs. _Quickly_, in
+the first Act of _Henry_ V. tho' it be extremely Natural, is yet as
+diverting as any Part of his Life. If there be any Fault in the Draught
+he has made of this lewd old Fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a
+Thief, Lying, Cowardly, Vain-glorious, and in short every way Vicious,
+yet he has given him so much Wit as to make him almost too agreeable;
+and I don't know whether some People have not, in remembrance of the
+Diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his Friend
+_Hal_ use him so scurvily, when he comes to the Crown in the End of the
+Second Part of _Henry_ the Fourth. Amongst other Extravagances, in _The
+Merry Wives of_ Windsor, he has made him a Dear-stealer, that he might
+at the same time remember his _Warwickshire_ Prosecutor, under the Name
+of Justice _Shallow_; he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms
+which _Dugdale_, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a
+Family there, and makes the _Welsh_ Parson descant very pleasantly upon
+'em. That whole Play is admirable; the Humours are various and well
+oppos'd; the main Design, which is to cure _Ford_ his unreasonable
+Jealousie, is extremely well conducted. _Falstaff's Billet-doux_, and
+Master _Slender_'s
+
+    _Ah! Sweet_ Ann Page!
+
+are very good Expressions of Love in their Way. In _Twelfth-Night_ there
+is something singularly Ridiculous and Pleasant in the fantastical
+Steward _Malvolio_. The Parasite and the Vain-glorious in _Parolles_, in
+_All's Well that ends Well_ is as good as any thing of that Kind in
+_Plautus_ or _Terence_. _Petruchio_, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, is an
+uncommon Piece of Humour. The Conversation of _Benedick_ and _Beatrice_
+in _Much ado about Nothing_, and of _Rosalind_ in _As you like it_, have
+much Wit and Sprightliness all along. His Clowns, without which
+Character there was hardly any Play writ in that Time, are all very
+entertaining: And, I believe, _Thersites_ in _Troilus_ and _Cressida_,
+and _Apemantus_ in _Timon_, will be allow'd to be Master-Pieces of ill
+Nature, and satyrical Snarling. To these I might add, that incomparable
+Character of _Shylock_ the _Jew_, in _The Merchant of_ Venice; but tho'
+we have seen that Play Receiv'd and Acted as a Comedy, and the Part of
+the _Jew_ perform'd by an Excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it
+was design'd Tragically by the Author. There appears in it such a
+deadly Spirit of Revenge, such a savage Fierceness and Fellness, and
+such a bloody designation of Cruelty and Mischief, as cannot agree
+either with the Stile or Characters of Comedy. The Play it self, take it
+all together, seems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of
+_Shakespear_'s. The Tale indeed, in that Part relating to the Caskets,
+and the extravagant and unusual kind of Bond given by _Antonio_, is a
+little too much remov'd from the Rules of Probability: But taking the
+Fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There
+is something in the Friendship of _Antonio_ to _Bassanio_ very Great,
+Generous and Tender. The whole fourth Act, supposing, as I said, the
+Fact to be probable, is extremely Fine. But there are two Passages that
+deserve a particular Notice. The first is, what _Portia_ says in praise
+of Mercy, _pag. 577_; and the other on the Power of Musick, _pag. 587_.
+The Melancholy of _Jacques_, in _As you like it_, is as singular and odd
+as it is diverting. And if what _Horace_ says
+
+    _Difficile est proprie communia Dicere,_
+
+'Twill be a hard Task for any one to go beyond him in the Description
+of the several Degrees and Ages of Man's Life, tho' the Thought be old,
+and common enough.
+
+      _--All the World's a Stage,
+    And all the Men and Women meerly Players;
+    They have their Exits and their Entrances,
+    And one Man in his time plays many Parts,
+    His Acts being seven Ages. At first the Infant
+    Mewling and puking in the Nurse's Arms:
+    And then, the whining School-boy with his Satchel,
+    And shining Morning-face, creeping like Snail
+    Unwillingly to School. And then the Lover
+    Sighing like Furnace, with a woful Ballad
+    Made to his Mistress' Eye-brow. Then a Soldier
+    Full of strange Oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
+    Jealous in Honour, sudden and quick in Quarrel,
+    Seeking the bubble Reputation
+    Ev'n in the Cannon's Mouth. And then the Justice
+    In fair round Belly, with good Capon lin'd,
+    With Eyes severe, and Beard of formal Cut,
+    Full of wise Saws and modern Instances;
+    And so he plays his Part. The sixth Age shifts
+    Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon,
+    With Spectacles on Nose, and Pouch on Side;
+    His youthful Hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
+    For his shrunk Shank; and his big manly Voice
+    Turning again tow'rd childish treble Pipes,
+    And Whistles in his Sound. Last Scene of all,
+    That ends this strange eventful History,
+    Is second Childishness and meer Oblivion,
+    Sans Teeth, sans Eyes, sans Tast, sans ev'rything._
+
+    p. 625.
+
+His Images are indeed ev'ry where so lively, that the Thing he would
+represent stands full before you, and you possess ev'ry Part of it. I
+will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as strong and as
+uncommon as any thing I ever saw; 'tis an Image of Patience. Speaking of
+a Maid in Love, he says,
+
+      _--She never told her Love,
+    But let Concealment, like a Worm i' th' Bud
+    Feed on her Damask Cheek: She pin'd in Thought,
+    And sate like _Patience_ on a Monument,
+    Smiling at_ Grief.
+
+What an Image is here given! and what a Task would it have been for the
+greatest Masters of _Greece_ and _Rome_ to have express'd the Passions
+design'd by this Sketch of Statuary? The Stile of his Comedy is, in
+general, Natural to the Characters, and easie in it self; and the Wit
+most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he
+runs into Dogrel Rhymes, as in _The Comedy of Errors_, and a Passage or
+two in some other Plays. As for his Jingling sometimes, and playing upon
+Words, it was the common Vice of the Age he liv'd in: And if we find it
+in the Pulpit, made use of as an Ornament to the Sermons of some of the
+Gravest Divines of those Times; perhaps it may not be thought too light
+for the Stage.
+
+But certainly the greatness of this Author's Genius do's no where so
+much appear, as where he gives his Imagination an entire Loose, and
+raises his Fancy to a flight above Mankind and the Limits of the visible
+World. Such are his Attempts in _The Tempest_, _Midsummer-Night's
+Dream_, _Macbeth_ and _Hamlet_. Of these, _The Tempest_, however it
+comes to be plac'd the first by the former Publishers of his Works, can
+never have been the first written by him: It seems to me as perfect in
+its Kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the
+Unities are kept here with an Exactness uncommon to the Liberties of his
+Writing: Tho' that was what, I suppose, he valu'd himself least upon,
+since his Excellencies were all of another Kind. I am very sensible that
+he do's, in this Play, depart too much from that likeness to Truth which
+ought to be observ'd in these sort of Writings; yet he do's it so very
+finely, that one is easily drawn in to have more Faith for his sake,
+than Reason does well allow of. His Magick has something in it very
+Solemn and very Poetical: And that extravagant Character of _Caliban_ is
+mighty well sustain'd, shews a wonderful Invention in the Author, who
+could strike out such a particular wild Image, and is certainly one of
+the finest and most uncommon Grotesques that was ever seen. The
+Observation, which I have been inform'd[A] three very great Men
+concurr'd in making upon this Part, was extremely just. _That
+_Shakespear_ had not only found out a new Character in his _Caliban_, but
+had also devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that
+Character._ Among the particular Beauties of this Piece, I think one may
+be allow'd to point out the Tale of _Prospero_ in the First Act; his
+Speech to _Ferdinand_ in the Fourth, upon the breaking up the Masque of
+_Juno_ and _Ceres_; and that in the Fifth, where he dissolves his
+Charms, and resolves to break his Magick Rod. This Play has been alter'd
+by Sir _William D'Avenant_ and Mr. _Dryden_; and tho' I won't Arraign
+the Judgment of those two great Men, yet I think I may be allow'd to
+say, that there are some things left out by them, that might, and even
+ought to have been kept in. Mr. _Dryden_ was an Admirer of our Author,
+and, indeed, he owed him a great deal, as those who have read them both
+may very easily observe. And, I think, in Justice to 'em both, I should
+not on this Occasion omit what Mr. _Dryden_ has said of him.
+
+      Shakespear, _who, taught by none, did first impart
+    To _Fletcher_ Wit, to lab'ring _Johnson_ Art.
+    He, Monarch-like, gave those his Subjects Law,
+    And is that Nature which they Paint and Draw.
+    _Fletcher_ reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
+    Whilst _Johnson_ crept and gather'd all below:
+    This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest,
+    One imitates him most, the other best.
+    If they have since out-writ all other Men,
+    'Tis with the Drops which fell from _Shakespear_'s Pen.
+    The[B]Storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring Shoar,
+    Was taught by _Shakespear_'s Tempest to roar.
+    That Innocence and Beauty which did smile
+    In _Fletcher_, grew on this _Enchanted Isle_.
+    But _Shakespear_'s Magick could not copied be,
+    Within that Circle none durst walk but he._
+    _I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now
+    That Liberty to vulgar Wits allow,
+    Which works by Magick supernatural things:
+    But _Shakespear_'s Pow'r is Sacred as A King's._
+
+    Prologue to _The Tempest_, as it
+    is alter'd by Mr. _Dryden_.
+
+It is the same Magick that raises the Fairies in _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_, the Witches in _Macbeth_, and the Ghost in _Hamlet_, with
+Thoughts and Language so proper to the Parts they sustain, and so
+peculiar to the Talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these
+Plays I shall have occasion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr.
+_Shakespear_. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by
+those Rules which are establish'd by _Aristotle_, and taken from the
+Model of the _Grecian_ Stage, it would be no very hard Task to find a
+great many Faults: But as _Shakespear_ liv'd under a kind of mere Light
+of Nature, and had never been made acquainted with the Regularity of
+those written Precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a Law he
+knew nothing of. We are to consider him as a Man that liv'd in a State
+of almost universal License and Ignorance: There was no establish'd
+Judge, but every one took the liberty to Write according to the Dictates
+of his own Fancy. When one considers, that there is not one Play before
+him of a Reputation good enough to entitle it to an Appearance on the
+present Stage, it cannot but be a Matter of great Wonder that he should
+advance Dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is
+generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the
+constituent Parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is
+the most Difficult or Beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be
+thought of in the Contrivance and Course of the whole; and with the
+Fable ought to be consider'd, the fit Disposition, Order and Conduct of
+its several Parts. As it is not in this Province of the _Drama_ that the
+Strength and Mastery of _Shakespear_ lay, so I shall not undertake the
+tedious and ill-natur'd Trouble to point out the several Faults he was
+guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather taken either
+from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of
+'em in that Order, with those Incidents, and that extent of Time in
+which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. So _The
+Winter's Tale_, which is taken from an old Book, call'd, _The Delectable
+History of_ Dorastus _and_ Faunia, contains the space of sixteen or
+seventeen Years, and the Scene is sometimes laid in _Bohemia_, and
+sometimes in _Sicily_, according to the original Order of the Story.
+Almost all his Historical Plays comprehend a great length of Time, and
+very different and distinct Places: And in his _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_,
+the Scene travels over the greatest Part of the _Roman_ Empire. But in
+Recompence for his Carelessness in this Point, when he comes to another
+Part of the _Drama_, _The Manners of his Characters, in Acting or
+Speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet_, he
+may be generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended.
+For those Plays which he has taken from the _English_ or _Roman_
+History, let any Man compare 'em, and he will find the Character as
+exact in the Poet as the Historian. He seems indeed so far from
+proposing to himself any one Action for a Subject, that the Title very
+often tells you, 'tis _The Life of King_ John, _King_ Richard, _&c._
+What can be more agreeable to the Idea our Historians give of _Henry_
+the Sixth, than the Picture _Shakespear_ has drawn of him! His Manners
+are every where exactly the same with the Story; one finds him still
+describ'd with Simplicity, passive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness
+of Mind, and easie Submission to the Governance of an imperious Wife,
+or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the same time the Poet do's Justice to
+his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by
+showing him Pious, Disinterested, a Contemner of the Things of this
+World, and wholly resign'd to the severest Dispensations of God's
+Providence. There is a short Scene in the Second Part of _Henry_ VI.
+_Vol. III. pag._ 1504. which I cannot but think admirable in its Kind.
+Cardinal _Beaufort_, who had murder'd the Duke of _Gloucester_, is shewn
+in the last Agonies on his Death-Bed, with the good King praying over
+him. There is so much Terror in one, so much Tenderness and moving Piety
+in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of Fear or
+Pity. In his _Henry_ VIII. that Prince is drawn with that Greatness of
+Mind, and all those good Qualities which are attributed to him in any
+Account of his Reign. If his Faults are not shewn in an equal degree,
+and the Shades in this Picture do not bear a just Proportion to the
+Lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either Colours or Skill in the
+Disposition of 'em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore
+doing it out of regard to Queen _Elizabeth_, since it could have been no
+very great Respect to the Memory of his Mistress, to have expos'd some
+certain Parts of her Father's Life upon the Stage. He has dealt much
+more freely with the Minister of that Great King, and certainly nothing
+was ever more justly written, than the Character of Cardinal _Wolsey_.
+He has shewn him Tyrannical, Cruel, and Insolent in his Prosperity; and
+yet, by a wonderful Address, he makes his Fall and Ruin the Subject of
+general Compassion. The whole Man, with his Vices and Virtues, is finely
+and exactly describ'd in the second Scene of the fourth Act. The
+Distresses likewise of Queen _Katherine_, in this Play, are very
+movingly touch'd: and tho' the Art of the Poet has skreen'd King _Henry_
+from any gross Imputation of Injustice, yet one is inclin'd to wish, the
+Queen had met with a Fortune more worthy of her Birth and Virtue. Nor
+are the Manners, proper to the Persons represented, less justly
+observ'd, in those Characters taken from the _Roman_ History; and of
+this, the Fierceness and Impatience of _Coriolanus_, his Courage and
+Disdain of the common People, the Virtue and Philosophical Temper of
+_Brutus_, and the irregular Greatness of Mind in _M. Antony_, are
+beautiful Proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as
+they are describ'd by _Plutarch_, from whom certainly _Shakespear_
+copy'd 'em. He has indeed follow'd his Original pretty close, and taken
+in several little Incidents that might have been spar'd in a Play. But,
+as I hinted before, his Design seems most commonly rather to describe
+those great Men in the several Fortunes and Accidents of their Lives,
+than to take any single great Action, and form his Work simply upon
+that. However, there are some of his Pieces, where the Fable is founded
+upon one Action only. Such are more especially, _Romeo_ and _Juliet_,
+_Hamlet_, and _Othello_. The Design in _Romeo_ and _Juliet_, is plainly
+the Punishment of their two Families, for the unreasonable Feuds and
+Animosities that had been so long kept up between 'em, and occasion'd
+the Effusion of so much Blood. In the management of this Story, he has
+shewn something wonderfully Tender and Passionate in the Love-part, and
+vary Pitiful in the Distress. _Hamlet_ is founded on much the same Tale
+with the _Electra_ of _Sophocles_. In each of 'em a young Prince is
+engag'd to Revenge the Death of his Father, their Mothers are equally
+Guilty, are both concern'd in the Murder of their Husbands, and are
+afterwards married to the Murderers. There is in the first Part of the
+_Greek_ Trajedy, something very moving in the Grief of _Electra_; but as
+Mr. _D'Acier_ has observ'd, there is something very unnatural and
+shocking in the Manners he has given that Princess and _Orestes_ in the
+latter Part. _Orestes_ embrues his Hands in the Blood of his own Mother;
+and that barbarous Action is perform'd, tho' not immediately upon the
+Stage, yet so near, that the Audience hear _Clytemnestra_ crying out to
+_AEghystus_ for Help, and to her Son for Mercy: While _Electra_, her
+Daughter, and a Princess, both of them Characters that ought to have
+appear'd with more Decency, stands upon the Stage and encourages her
+Brother in the Parricide. What Horror does this not raise!
+_Clytemnestra_ was a wicked Woman, and had deserv'd to Die; nay, in the
+truth of the Story, she was kill'd by her own Son; but to represent an
+Action of this Kind on the Stage, is certainly an Offence against those
+Rules of Manners proper to the Persons that ought to be observ'd there.
+On the contrary, let us only look a little on the Conduct of
+_Shakespear_. _Hamlet_ is represented with the same Piety towards his
+Father, and Resolution to Revenge his Death, as _Orestes_; he has the
+same Abhorrence for his Mother's Guilt, which, to provoke him the more,
+is heighten'd by Incest: But 'tis with wonderful Art and Justness of
+Judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing Violence to his Mother.
+To prevent any thing of that Kind, he makes his Father's Ghost forbid
+that part of his Vengeance.
+
+    _But howsoever thou pursu'st this Act,
+    Taint not thy Mind; nor let thy Soul contrive
+    Against thy Mother ought; leave her to Heav'n,
+    And to those Thorns that in her Bosom lodge,
+    To prick and sting her._      Vol. V. p. 2386.
+
+This is to distinguish rightly between _Horror_ and _Terror_. The latter
+is a proper Passion of Tragedy, but the former ought always to be
+carefully avoided. And certainly no Dramatick Writer ever succeeded
+better in raising _Terror_ in the Minds of an Audience than _Shakespear_
+has done. The whole Tragedy of _Macbeth_, but more especially the Scene
+where the King is murder'd, in the second Act, as well as this Play, is
+a noble Proof of that manly Spirit with which he writ; and both shew how
+powerful he was, in giving the strongest Motions to our Souls that they
+are capable of. I cannot leave _Hamlet_, without taking notice of the
+Advantage with which we have seen this Master-piece of _Shakespear_
+distinguish it self upon the Stage, by Mr. _Betterton_'s fine
+Performance of that Part. A Man, who tho' he had no other good
+Qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his way into the
+Esteem of all Men of Letters, by this only Excellency. No Man is better
+acquainted with _Shakespear_'s manner of Expression, and indeed he has
+study'd him so well, and is so much a Master of him, that whatever Part
+of his he performs he does it as if it had been written on purpose for
+him, and that the Author had exactly conceiv'd it as he plays it. I must
+own a particular Obligation to him, for the most considerable part of
+the Passages relating to his Life, which I have here transmitted to the
+Publick; his Veneration for the Memory of _Shakespear_ having engag'd
+him to make a Journey into _Warwickshire_, on purpose to gather up what
+Remains he could of a Name for which he had so great a Value. Since I
+had at first resolv'd not to enter into any Critical Controversie, I
+won't pretend to enquire into the Justness of Mr. _Rhymer_'s Remarks on
+_Othello_; he has certainly pointed out some Faults very judiciously;
+and indeed they are such as most People will agree, with him, to be
+Faults: But I wish he would likewise have observ'd some of the Beauties
+too; as I think it became an Exact and Equal Critique to do. It seems
+strange that he should allow nothing Good in the whole: If the Fable and
+Incidents are not to his Taste, yet the Thoughts are almost every where
+very Noble, and the Diction manly and proper. These last, indeed, are
+Parts of _Shakespear_'s Praise, which it would be very hard to Dispute
+with him. His Sentiments and Images of Things are Great and Natural; and
+his Expression (tho' perhaps in some Instances a little Irregular) just,
+and rais'd in Proportion to his Subject and Occasion. It would be even
+endless to mention the particular Instances that might be given of this
+Kind: But his Book is in the Possession of the Publick, and 'twill be
+hard to dip into any Part of it, without finding what I have said of him
+made good.
+
+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, engag'd him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to
+the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood. Amongst them, it
+is a Story almost still remember'd in that Country, that he had a
+particular Intimacy with Mr. _Combe_, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts
+for his Wealth and Usury: It happen'd, that in a pleasant Conversation
+amongst their common Friends, Mr. _Combe_ told _Shakespear_ in a
+laughing manner, that he fancy'd, he intended to write his Epitaph, if
+he happen'd to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be
+said of him when he was dead, he desir'd it might be done immediately:
+Upon which _Shakespear_ gave him these four Verses.
+
+    _Ten in the Hundred lies here ingrav'd,
+    'Tis a Hundred to Ten, his Soul is not sav'd:
+    If any Man ask, Who lies in this Tomb?
+    Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my_ John-a-Combe.
+
+But the Sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the Man so
+severely, that he never forgave it.
+
+He Dy'd in the 53d Year of his Age, and was bury'd on the North side of
+the Chancel, in the Great Church at _Stratford_, where a Monument, as
+engrav'd in the Plate, is plac'd 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,
+    And Curst be he that moves my Bones._
+
+He had three Daughters, of which two liv'd to be marry'd; _Judith_, the
+Elder, to one Mr. _Thomas Quiney_, by whom she had three Sons, who all
+dy'd without Children; and _Susannah_, 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 marry'd first to _Thomas Nash_, Esq;
+and afterwards to Sir _John Bernard_ of _Abbington_, but dy'd 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 Johnson_ has made a sort of an Essay towards it in his
+_Discoveries_, tho', as I have before hinted, he was not very Cordial in
+his Friendship, I will venture to give it in his Words.
+
+"I remember the Players have often mention'd it as an Honour to
+_Shakespear_, that in Writing (whatsoever he penn'd) 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 Circumstance to commend their
+Friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine own Candor,
+(for I lov'd 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 flow'd with that Facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should
+be stopp'd: _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 could not escape Laughter; as when he
+said in the Person of _Caesar_, one speaking to him,
+
+    "Caesar _thou dost me Wrong_.
+
+"He reply'd:
+
+    "Caesar _did never Wrong, but with just Cause._
+
+and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeem'd his Vices with
+his Virtues: There was ever more in him to be Prais'd than to be
+Pardon'd."
+
+As for the Passage which he mentions out of _Shakespear_, there is
+somewhat like it _Julius Caesar_, Vol. V. p. 2260. but without the
+Absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any Edition that I have seen,
+as quoted by Mr. _Johnson_. Besides his Plays in this Edition, there are
+two or three ascrib'd to him by Mr. _Langbain_, which I have never seen,
+and know nothing of. He writ likewise, _Venus_ and _Adonis_, and
+_Tarquin_ and _Lucrece_, in Stanza's, which have been printed in a late
+Collection of Poems. As to the Character given of him by _Ben Johnson_,
+there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well
+express'd by what _Horace_ says of the first _Romans_, who wrote Tragedy
+upon the _Greek_ Models, (or indeed translated 'em) in his Epistle to
+_Augustus_.
+
+      _--Natura sublimis & Acer
+    Nam spirat Tragicum satis & faeliciter Audet,
+    Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitq; Lituram._
+
+There is a Book of Poems, publish'd in 1640, under the Name of Mr.
+_William Shakespear_, but as I have but very lately seen it, without an
+Opportunity of making any Judgment upon it, I won't pretend to
+determine, whether it be his or no.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative motif]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: _Ld._ Falkland, _Ld. C.J._ Vaughan, _and Mr._ Selden.]
+
+[Footnote B: Alluding to the Sea-Voyage of _Fletcher_.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY_
+ANNOUNCES ITS
+_Publications for the Third Year (1948-1949)_
+
+
+_At least two_ items will be printed from each of the _three_ following
+groups.
+
+
+Series IV: Men, Manners, and Critics
+
+     Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720).
+
+     Aaron Hill, Preface to _The Creation_, and Thomas Brereton, Preface
+     to _Esther_.
+
+     Ned Ward, Selected Tracts.
+
+
+Series V: Drama
+
+     Edward Moore, _The Gamester_ (1753).
+
+     Nevil Payne, _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673).
+
+     Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709).
+
+     Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781).
+
+
+Series VI: Poetry and Language
+
+     John Oldmixon, _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_
+     (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring, _The British Academy_ (1712).
+
+     Pierre Nicole, _De Epigrammate_.
+
+     Andre Dacier, Essay on Lyric Poetry.
+
+
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+ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
+
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+philology will find the publications valuable. _The Johnsonian News
+Letter_ has said of them: "Excellent facsimiles, and cheap in price,
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+
+
+
+
+_PUBLICATIONS FOR THE FIRST YEAR (1946-1947)_
+
+MAY, 1946: Series I, No. 1--Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716),
+           and Addison's _Freeholder_ No. 45 (1716).
+
+JULY, 1946: Series II, No. 1--Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry_ and _Discourse
+            on Criticism_ (1707).
+
+SEPT., 1946: Series III, No. 1--Anon., _Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning
+             the Stage_ (1698), and Richard Willis' _Occasional Paper_
+             No. IX (1698).
+
+NOV., 1946: Series I, No. 2--Anon., _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with
+            Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph Warton's _Adventurer_
+            Nos. 127 and 133.
+
+JAN., 1947: Series II, No. 2--Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend
+            Concerning Poetry_ (1700) and _Essay on Heroic Poetry_
+            (1693).
+
+MARCH, 1947: Series III, No. 2--Anon., _Representation of the Impiety
+             and Immorality of the Stage_ (1704) and anon., _Some Thoughts
+             Concerning the Stage_ (1704).
+
+
+_PUBLICATIONS FOR THE SECOND YEAR (1947-1948)_
+
+MAY, 1947: Series I, No. 3--John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_; and a
+           section on Wit from _The English Theophrastus_. With an
+           Introduction by Donald Bond.
+
+JULY, 1947: Series II, No. 3--Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated
+            by Creech. With an Introduction by J.E. Congleton.
+
+SEPT., 1947: Series III, No. 3--T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the
+             Tragedy of Hamlet_. With an Introduction by Clarence D.
+             Thorpe.
+
+NOV., 1947: Series I, No. 4--Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the
+            True Standards of Wit_, etc. With an Introduction by James L.
+            Clifford.
+
+JAN., 1948: Series II, No. 4--Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the
+            Pastoral_. With an Introduction by Earl Wasserman.
+
+MARCH, 1948: Series III, No. 4--Essays on the Stage, selected, with an
+             Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch.
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