Stop which was purchased by Boswell, the following complimentary lines are preserved. originated in the filial piety of his son, appears | conformists; and in a MS. volume of poems, The kindness of Shakspeare was not restricted to his family; and the only letter which remains out of the many he must have received, is one from his townsman, Richard Quiney, requesting in terms that speak him confident of success, the loan of thirty pounds, a sum in those days by no means inconsiderable.+ 6 Pecuniary emolument and literary reputation were not the only reward that our poet received for his labours: the smiles of royalty itself shone upon him. 'Queen Elizabeth,' says Rowe, gave him many gracious marks of her favour;'t and so delighted was she with the character of Falstaff, that she desired our author to continue it in another play, and exhibit him in love. To this command we owe The Merry Wives of Windsor. Dennis adds, that, from the Queen's eagerness to see it acted, 'she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days, and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased with the representation.'§ If Queen Elizabeth was pleased to direct the course of our author's imagination, with her successor he was a distinguished favourite: and James the First, whose talents and judgment have deserved more respect than they have received, wrote him a letter with his own hand, which was long in the possession of Sir W. D'Avenant. || Dr. Farmer supposes this letter to have been written in return for the compliment paid the monarch in Macbeth; but he has overlooked an equally probable occasion. The Tempest was written for the festivities that attended the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Prince Palatine; and was performed at court in the beginning of the year 1613. In the Island Princess, Miranda, Shakspeare undoubtedly designed a poetic representative of the virgin and high-born bride; in the royal and learned Prospero, we may trace a complimentary allusion to the literary character and mysterious studies of her royal father; and it is at all events as likely that the letter of James to Shakspeare should have had reference to The Tempest as to Macbeth. Our author seems to have formed a far more correct estimate of the talents of his sovereign, than that which we have blindly received and adopted on the authority of his political enemies, the Non SHAKSPEARE UPON THE KING. Crownes have their compass, length of dayes their date, Triumphes their tombs, felicity her fate: Thus honoured and applauded by the great, the intercourse of Shakspeare with that bright band and company of gifted spirits, which ennobled the reigns of Elizabeth and James by their writings, must have been a source of the highest intellectual delight. The familiarity with which they seem to have communicated; the constant practice of uniting their powers in the completion of a joint production; the unenvying admiration with which they rejoiced in the triumphs of their literary companions, and introduced the compositions of one another to the world by recommendatory verses, present us with such a picture of kind and gay and intelligent society, as the imagination finds it difficult to entertain an adequate conception of. 'Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a meeting of beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Fridaystreet. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius, perhaps, than ever met together before or since, our author was a member; and here, for many years, he regularly repaired with Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect. Here, in the full flow and confidence of friendship, the lively and interesting "wit combats" took place between Ben Jonson and our author; and hither, in probable allusion to them, Beaumont fondly lets his thoughts wander, in his letter to Jonson, from the country: bates between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. I The intimacy of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson behold them like a Spanish great galleon, and is alluded to in the following letter, written by an English man of war. Master Johnson, like G. Peel, a dramatic poet, to his friend Marle :the former, was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, like 'FRIEND MARLE, the latter, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." Of these encounters of the keenest intellects not a vestige now remains. The memory of Fuller, perhaps, teemed with their sallies; but nothing on which we can depend has descended to us. The few traditionary tales that remain, are without any authority; but such as they are, I present them to the reader as Dr. Drake has collected them.t last night. We were all very merrye at the 'I never longed for thy company more than Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasantely to thy friend Will, that he had stolen his speeche about the qualityes of an actor's excellencye, in Hamlet hys tragedye, from conversations manyfold which had passed betouchinge the subject. Shakspeare did not take tween them, and opinyons given by Alleyn this talke in good sorte; but Jonson put an end to the strife,,wittylie remarking, This affaire Shakspeare was godfather to one of Ben Jon-needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned, son's children; and after the christening, being him act tymes out of number? no doubt; do not marvel: have you not seen in deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and asked him, why he was so melancholy? 'No faith, Ben,' says he, not I; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.' I prithee, what?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give her a dozen good Latin (lattent) spoons, and thou shalt translate them.' G. FEEL.' The first appearance of this Letter was in the Annual Register for 1770, whence it was copied into the Biographia Britannica, and in both these works it commences in the following manner: I must desyre that my syster hyr watche, and the cookerie book you promysed, may be sente bye the man. I never longed, &c.' 'Of the four, this is the only anecdote worth preserving; but,' concludes Dr. Drake, 'I apprehend it to be a mere forgery.' The names of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, as friends, and the most successful cultivators of our early dramatic literature, are so intimately connected, that the life of one involves the frequent mention of the other. Indeed, it is reported by Rowe, that Shakspeare was the original means 'He gives it to Mr. Shakspeare to make up, who of introducing the works of Jonson to the stage. presently writte, That, while he liv'd, was a slow thing, This stuff,' adds Mr. Gifford, 'is copied from the Ashmole MS. 38.'§ The next may be said to be rather of a 'better leer.' 'Jonson, altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakspeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to 'Verses by Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, occasioned by the motto to the Globe Theatre-read it through, and afterwards to recommend Totus mundus agit histrionem. JONSON. 'If, but stage actors, all the world displays, Jonson and his writings to the public.'¶-This anecdote is disputed by Mr. Gifford. He proves that in 1598, when Every Man in his Humour, Where shall we find spectators of their plays? the first effort of Jonson's genius which we are acquainted with, was produced, its author was as well known as Shakspeare, and, perhaps, betVery true; but this does not in the least impugn the credibility of Rowe's tradition. It ter.'** GIFFORD'S Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. lxxx. Poetical Characteristics, vol. i. MS. some time in the Harleian Library. ¶ Rowe's Life of Shakspeare. ** Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. xliii. A 2 some time, told them, that, if Mr. Shakspeare had not read the ancients, neither had he stolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topic finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakspeare.' This anecdote was written nearly a hundred years after the death of our author, and more than seventy after the death of Jonson. Even supposing all the circumstances to be correct, it only represents Jonson as maintaining an opinion in con is nownere asserted, that Every Man in his Humour was the play which thus attracted the attention of Shakspeare; all arguments therefore deduced from the situation held by Jonson in the literary world, at the time that comedy was first acted, are perfectly invalid. The performance which recommended him to Shakspeare, was most probably a boyish effort, full of talent and inexperience, which soon passed from the public mind, but not sooner than the author wished it to be forgotten; which he had the good sense to omit in the collection of his works published inversation which he has printed in his Discoveries, 1616, and which, perhaps, he only remembered with pleasure from its having been the means of introducing him to the friendship of his great contemporary. But whatever cause might have originated the mutual kindness which subsisted between these two excellent and distinguished men, it is certain that an intimacy the most sincere and affectionate really did subsist between them. On the part of Jonson, indeed, the memorial of their attachment has been handed down to us in expressions as strong and unequivocal as any which the power of language can combine. He speaks of Chakspeare, not indeed as one blinded to the many defects by which the beauty of his productions was impaired, but with such candour and tenderness, as every reasonable man would desire at the hands of his friends, and in terms which secured a credit to his commendations, by shewing | that they were not the vain effects of a blind and ridiculous partiality. Jonson writes, I love the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.' And it is from his Elegy, To the Memory of his beloved Master William Shakspeare, that we have derived the two most endearing appellations, the Gentle Shakspeare,' and Sweet Swan of Avon;' by which our poet has been known and characterized for nearly two centuries. It must appear extraordinary, that in opposition to such decisive proofs of the kindness entertained by Jonson for our author, his memory should have been persecuted for the last century by the most unfounded calumnies, as if he had been the insidious and persevering enemy of his reputation. The rise and progress of this slander, which has been propagated through every modern edition of Shakspeare's works, is not wholly undeserving of our attention. Rowe, indeed, has the following anecdote, which he relates, perhaps, on the authority of Dryden, that 'in a conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson, Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonson with some warmth; Mr. Hales, who had sat still for • GIFFORD'S Ben Jonson, vol. viii. p. 332, note. that many times Shakspeare fell into those things which could not escape laughter,' and arguing, that a deeper knowledge of the classic writers would have improved his genius, and taught him to lop away all such unseemly exuberances of style. It shews the most learned poet of his time, or, perhaps, of any time, honestly asserting the advantages that a poet may derive from variety of learning; but this is all; and it supposes no undue or unfriendly attempt in Jonson to depreciate the fame of Shakspeare. Indeed no hint of the existence of any difference or unkindness between those celebrated individuals is to be found in any contemporary author. Dryden thought Jonson's Verses to Shakspeare sparing and invidious; but to this opinion Pope very justly recorded his dissent; and wondered that Dryden should have held it. Rowe in the first edition of his Life of Shakspeare, insinuates a doubt of the sincerity of Jonson's friendship; before the publication of his second edition he found cause to reject a suspicion so injurious to the reputation of Jonson, and had the honesty to erase the passage from his work. The words, however, did not escape the vigilance of Malone : they were re-printed, and the sentiment readopted; and, as if it were more valuable to the commentators, from having been condemned by its author, their united labours and ingenuity have been indefatigably employed in inventing and straining evidence to support an insinuation, which was too carelessly disseminated, and too silently withdrawn. Rowe should have made such an explicit recantation of his error, as might have repaired the ill he had occasioned, and guarded the good name of one of our greatest poets against the revival of the calumny: this he unfortunately omitted; and he thus left the cha racter of Jonson bare to the senseless and gratuitous malignity of every puny spirit, that chose to amuse its spleen by insulting the memory of the mighty dead. For years, the friend and eulogist of Shakspeare was aspersed as envious and ungrateful, in almost every second note of every edition of our author's works; and it is only lately that the judicious exertions of Gilchrist and of Gifford have exposed the fallacy of such unwarranted + Which is very doubtful. See GIFFORD's Ben Jonson, vol. i. cclix. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. of future doubt, that Jonson and Shakwere friends and associates, till the latter retired-that no feud, no jealousy, ever bed their connexion-that Shakspeare was d with Jonson, and that Jonson loved and ed Shakspeare." xxiii ations, and demonstrated beyond the possi-, mentioned as a performer. As a writer for the stage, and part proprietor of two principal theatres, he was obliged to be much in London; but he never took root and settled there. His family always resided at Stratford, and thither he once a year repaired to them. In the privacy of his native town all the affections of his heart appear to have been garner'd up;' and there, from his beginning to reap the wages of success, he deposited the emoluments of his labours, and hoped to find a home in his retirement. In 1597 he purchased New Place, a house which he repaired and adorned to his own taste, and which remained in the family till the death of his granddaughter, Lady Barnard; and in the garden of which he planted the celebrated mulberry-tree, which was so long an object of veneration as the flourishing memorial of the poet. To the possession of New Place, Shakspeare successively added in the course of the following eight years, an estate of about one hundred and seven acres of land, and a moiety of the great and small = courted, praised, and rewarded as he was, las, 'tis true I have gone here and there, age, and write for the theatre, he repeats, tithes of Stratford. § my sake, do you with fortune chide ailty goddess of my barmful deeds, did not better for my life provide, public means, which public manners breeds.' this distaste for a course of life, to which ity had originally driven him, it is not exinary to find that he availed himself of the moment of independence, to abandon the nic part of his double profession. This ed so early as 1604. After that time his never appears on the lists of performers were attached to the original editions of d plays. Ben Jonson's Sejanus, which out in 1603, is the last play in which he is FFORD'S Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. ccli. in which the question of Jonson's supposed malignity is atisfactorily discussed and disproved. - Boswell doubts whether we are justified in ng to the Sonnets of Shakspeare, as containy true intimations respecting the life and feelf the author; but I believe very few have into the volume, without conceiving that these poems were flung off at different periods of the life, from his boyhood till his forty-fifth year, he consented to their publication, as they were by circumstances. Boswell defends his poby asserting, that the language of many of the ts is not applicable to what we know of Shak. He instances the 73d, which he says is such, ld scarcely, without violent exaggeration, be able to a man of forty-five."-To me it appears just such a description of that age when the of life is past, and no more remains -but twilight of such day, A after sun-set fadeth in the west.' oet would naturally be inclined to give. But ast not believe that these poems allude to the state of Shakspeare's existence, for they speak 'harmful deeds,' of something from which 'his had received a brand,' and of the 'impression vulgar scandal stampt upon his brow.' But OSWELL'S Shakspeare, vol. xx. 220. It was in one of his periodical journeys from London to Stratford, that one midsummer night' he met at Crendon, in Bucks, with the original of Dogberry. Aubrey says, that the constable was still alive about 1642. He and Ben Jonson did gather humours of men wherever they came;' and as the constable of Crendon sat for the picture of Dogberry, so we are told, on the authority of Bowman the player, that part of Sir John Falstaff's character was drawn from a townsman of Stratford, who either faithlessly broke a contract, or spitefully refused to part with some land for a valuable consideration, adjoining to Shakspeare's house.'¶ Oldys has where is the man who has not offences to repent of! Why are we to suppose Shakspeare alone immaculate? And would it not be continually urged as a reproach by the calumnious voice of Envy against the favoured friend of Southampton, that he had been obliged to fly his country in poverty and disgrace? Motley, i. e. a fool, a buffoon. The house at Stratford that Shakspeare had consecrated by his residence, exists no longer. New Place descended from his daughter Susanna, to his grand-daughter, Mrs. Nash, afterwards Lady Barnard; and there, during the civil wars, that lady and her husband, in 1643, received Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First, who sojourned with them for three weeks. After passing through the hands of several intervening proprietors, it fell into the possession of Sir Hugh Clopton, who pulled down the ancient house, and built one more elegant on the same spot. This was in its turn destroyed by the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, because he conceived himself assessed too highly; and it was by the same barbarous hands, that the celebrated mulberry-tree, which Shakspeare himself had planted, was cut down, because he found himself inconvenienced by the visi tors, who were drawn by admiration of the poet, to visit the classic ground on which it stood. AUBREY. MS. Mus. Ashmol. REED's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 130. should be omitted in this edition, than from any regard for their intrinsic value. A story, preserved by the tradition of Stratford, and which, according to Malone, 'was re by a person upwards of eighty years of age, whose father was contemporary with Shakspeare,' may not improperly be attributed to this portion of his life. It is said, that as Shakspeare was leaning over the hatch of a mercer's door at Stratford, a drunken blacksmith, with a carbuncled face, reeled up to him and demanded, Now, Mr. Shakspeare, tell me if you can, The difference between a youth and a young man'? to which our poet instantly rejoined: 'Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple, The same difference as between a scalded and coddled apple.' recorded in his MS. another anecdote connected with these journeys of our poet to Stratford, which I shall give in his own words.—' If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern in Oxford, in his jour-lated fifty years ago to a gentleman of that place, ney to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. John Davenant (afterwards mayor of that city), a grave, melancholy man ; who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Davenant (afterwards Sir William), was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day, an old townsman observing the boy running homeward, almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, to see his god-father Shakspeare. There's a good boy, said the other, but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain. This story Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's monument, then newly erected in Westminster Abbey; and he quoted Mr. Betterton, the player, for his authority."" This tale is also mentioned by Anthony Wood; and certain it is, that the traditionary scandal of Oxford, has always spoken of Shakspeare as the father of D'Avenant but it imputes a crime to our author, of which we may, without much stretch of charity, acquit him. It originated in the wicked vanity of D'Avenant himself, who disdaining his honest but mean descent from the vintner, had the shameless impiety to deny his father, and reproach the memory of his mother, by claiming consanguinity with Shakspeare. A part of the wit,' says Dr. Drake, 'turns upon the comparison between the blacksmith's face, and a species of maple, the bark of which is uncommonly rough, and the grain undulated and crisped into a variety of curls.'§ Rowe relates, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury: it happened, that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare, in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately; 'upon which Shak speare gave him these four verses: Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd; 'But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave says, that one time as Shakspeare was at the Aubrey narrates the story differently, and tavern at Stratford, Mr. Coombes, an old usurer, was to be buried, he makes there this extempore epitaph upon him: We are informed by a constant tradition, that few years previous to his death, our author retired from the theatre, and spent his time at Stratford, 'in ease, retirement, and the conversa-it.' tion of his friends. This event appears to have taken place about the close of 1613. He had his wife and family about him; he was surrounded by familiar scenes and faces; and he was in possession of a property of about 3001. a-year, equal to much more than 1000l. at present; and which must have been fully adequate to his modest views of happiness. The anecdotes that are in circulation respecting this portion of his life, are few, trivial, and very probably unfounded in fact; but, such as they are, I have collected them, rather that nothing connected with the name of Shakspeare • REED's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 124, 125. I take Gildon's estimate of his fortune rather than Malone's, as it agrees with Aubrey's. Ten in the hundred the devil allows, VOWS; Dr. Drake considers Aubrey's version of the event as the most probable. In some of its circumstances Rowe's account is contradicted; for it is certain, that Shakspeare and Combe continued friends till the death of the latter; who § DRAKE'S Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i.p. 68. REED'S Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 77-80. |