Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne,3 is originally indeed the property of Boccace, 4 but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon.5 Mr. Langbaine could not conceive, whence the story of Pericles could be taken, " not meeting in history with any fuch Prince of Tyre;" yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appolynus.6

Pericles is one of the plays omitted in the latter editions, as well as the early folios, and not improperly; though it was published many years before the death of Shakspeare, with his name in the title-page. Aulus Gellius informs us, that some plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus, which he only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubtedly the cafe with our author likewife. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonson calls ftale and mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the drama. I know, that another of these discarded pieces, The Yorkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called fo; but most certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no sooner than 1604 :7 much too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falfhood, which Mr. Theobald was defirous of palming upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakspeare: ' and I fee it is classed as such in the last edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written fince the middle of the last century:

This late example

"Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
"From each good aspect takes away my truft."

" William Caluerly, of Caluerly in Yorkshire, Esquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne house, then stabde his wife into the body with full intent to have killed her, and then instantlie with like fury went from his house, to have flaine his yongest childe at nurse, but was preuented. Hee was prest to death in Yorke the 5 of August, 1604." Edm. Howes Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo. 1607, p. 574. The story appeared before in a 4to. pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the folio chronicle, 1631.

8 These, however, he affures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot.

And in another place,

"You have an aspect, fir, of wondrous wisdom."

The word aspect, you perceive, is here accented on the first fyllable, which, I am confident, in any sense of it, was never the case in the time of Shakspeare; though it may sometimes appear to be so, when we do not observe a preceding elifion.9

Some of the professed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutiæ ; I could point out to you several performances in the respective styles of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not possibly have either read or construed.

This very accent has troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be " a tone different from the present use." Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatise of Harmony and Numbers, very folemnly informs us, that "this verse is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III. v. 266 :

'His words here ended, but his meek afpeét
Silent yet spake.-'

Here (fays he) a syllable is acuted and long, whereas it fhould be short and graved!"

And a still more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new version of the Paradise Lost, into BLANK verse, "by which

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that amazing work is brought somewhat nearer the summit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth Book, v. 540:

The fetting fun

Slowly defcended, and with right aspéct

" Levell'd his evening rays."

Not So in the new version :

"Meanwhile the setting fun descending flow-
" Level'd with aspect right his ev'ning rays."

Enough of fuch commentators. ' - The celebrated Dr. Dee had a fpirit, who would fometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little affifted the wights abovementioned. --Milton affected the antique; but it may feem more extraordinary, that the old accent should be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, The Double Falfhood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written :

Strike up, my masters;

"But touch the strings with a religious softness:
" Teach found to languish through the night's dull ear,
"Till melancholy start from her lazy couch,

"And carelessness grow convert to attention."

These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not refift the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance.

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See also a wrong accentuation of the word aspect in Mr. Ireland's unmetrical, ungrammatical, harum-scarum Vortigern, which was damned at Drury Lane theatre, April-1796-the performance of a madman without a lucid interval.

To whom then shall we ascribe it? Somebody hath told us, who should seem to be a noftrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and consequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the contrary, the Irish laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks, (and were it true, it would certainly be decisive) that the plot is borrowed from a novel of Cervantes, not published till the year after Shakspeare's death. But unluckily the same novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612. The fame reafoning however, which exculpated our author from The Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the prefent occafion.

But you want my opinion :-and from every mark of style and manner, I make no doubt of afcribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us, that he left some plays in MS.-These were written about the time of the Restoration, when the accent in question was more generally altered.

Perhaps the mistake arose from an abbreviation of the name. Mr. Dodsley knew not that the tragedy of Andromana was Shirley's, from the very same cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tells us, that Marston's plays were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of William Shakespeare, the famous comedian." Here again I suppose, in fome transcript, the real publisher's name, William Sheares, was abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakspeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.

Shirley is spoken of with contempt in Maє