written by our poet, it would be absolutely decifive in the dispute about his learning; for many quotations appear in it from the Greek and Latin

clafficks."

The concurring circumstances of the name, and the misdemeanor, which is supposed to be the old story of deer-stealing, seem fairly to challenge our poet for the author: but they hefitate.-His claim may appear to be confuted by the date 1581, when Shakspeare was only feventeen, and the long expe rience, which the writer talks of. But I will not

have met with at least fix other editions, preceding his date for its first publication. I suspect, that Baillet is accountable for this miftake: who in the Jugemens des Scavans, Tom. III. p. 399, mentions no edition previous to the quarto, Venice, 1553.

It is a question of long standing, whether a part of The Fairy Queen hath been loft, or whether the work was left unfinished : which may effectually be answered by a fingle quotation. William Browne published some Poems in fol. 1616, under the name of Britannia's Pastorals, "esteemed then," says Wood, be written in a fublime strain, and for subject amorous and very pleasing."-In one of which, Book II. Song 1, he thus speaks of Spenser:

"He sung th' heroicke knights of faiery land
" In lines so elegant, of such command,
"That had the Thracian plaid but halfe so well,
"He had not left Eurydice in hell.
"But e're he ended his melodious song,
"An hoft of angels flew the clouds among,
" And rapt this swan from his attentive mates,
"To make him one of their associates

to

" In heauens faire quire: where now he fings the praise "Of him that is the first and last of daies."

It appears, that Browne was intimate with Drayton, Jonfon, and Selden, by their poems prefixed to his book: he bad therefore good opportunities of being acquainted with the fact abovementioned. Many of his poems remain in MS. We have in our library at Emmanuel, a masque of his, presented at the Inner Temple, Jan. 13, 1614. The subject is the story of Ulyffes and Circe.

keep you in suspense: the book was not written by Shakspeare.

Strype, in his Annals, calls the author SOME learned man, and this gave me the first suspicion. I knew very well, that honest John (to use the language of Sir Thomas Bodley) did not waste his time with such baggage books as plays and poems; yet I must suppose, that he had heard of the name of Shakspeare. After a while I met with the original edition. Here in the title-page, and at the end of the dedication, appear only the initials, W. S. Gent. and presently I was informed by Anthony Wood, that the book in question was written, not by William Shakspeare, but by William Stafford, Gentleman :3 which at once accounted for the misdemeanour in the dedication. For Stafford had been concerned at that time, and was indeed afterward, as Camden and the other annalists inform us, with some of the conspirators against Elizabeth; which he properly calls his unduetifull behaviour.

I hope by this time, that any one open to conviction may be nearly satisfied; and I will promise to give you on this head very little more trouble.

The justly celebrated Mr. Warton hath favoured us, in his Life of Dr. Bathurst, with some hearsay particulars concerning Shakspeare from the papers of Aubrey, which had been in the hands of Wood; and I ought not to suppress them, as the last seems to make against my doctrine. They came originally, I find, on consulting the MS. from one Mr. Beeston: and I am fure Mr. Warton, whom I have the honour to call my friend, and an affociate in the question, will be in no pain about their credit.

"William Shakspeare's father was a butcher, while he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high style, and make a speech. This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess, about eighteen, and was an actor in one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well. He began early to make essays in dramatique poetry. The humour of the Constable in the Midsummer-Night's Dream he happened to take at Crendon 4 in Bucks. -I think, I have been told, that he left near three hundred pounds to a fifter.He understood Latin pretty well, FOR he had been in his younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the country."

I will be short in my animadverfions; and take them in their order.

The account of the trade of the family is not only contrary to all other tradition, but, as it may seem, to the instrument from the Herald's Office, so frequently reprinted. Shakspeare most certainly went to London, and commenced actor through neceffity, not natural inclination.-Nor have we any reason to suppose, that he did act exceeding well. Rowe tells us, from the information of Betterton, who was inquisitive into this point, and had very early opportunities of inquiry

* It was observed in the former edition, that this place is not met with in Spelman's Villare, or in Adams's Index; nor, it might have been added, in the first and the last performance of this fort, Speed's Tables, and Whatley's Gazetteer: perhaps, however, it may be meant under the name of Crandon;-but the inquiry is of no importance.-It should, I think, be written Credendon; though better antiquaries than Aubrey have acquiesced in the vulgar corruption.

from Sir W. D'Avenant, that he was no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'oeuvre did not please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for ever pestering the town with pamphlets, published in the year 1596, Wits Miferie, and the Worlds Madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this Age, 4to. One of these devils are Hate-virtue, or Sorrow for another man's good fucceffe, who, says the Doctor, is " a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of the Ghost, which cried so miferably at the theatre, like an oister-wife, Hamlet revenge."5 Thus you see Mr. Holt's supposed proof, in the Appendix to the late edition, that Hamlet was written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever

5 To this observation of Dr. Farmer it may be added, that the play of Hamlet was better known by this scene, than by any other. In Decker's Satiromastix, 1602, the following passage

occurs:

" Afinius.

"Would I were hang'd if I can call you any names but captain, and Tucca."

"Тисса.

"No, fye; my name's Hamlet Revenge: thou haft been at Paris-Garden, haft thou not?" Again, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607:

"Let these husbands play mad Hamlet, and cry, revenge!" STEEVENS.

Dr. Farmer's observation may be further confirmed by the following passage in an anonymous play, called A Warning for faire Women, 1599. We also learn from it the usual dress of the stage ghosts of that time:

- A filthie whining ghost,

Lapt in fome foule sheet, or a leather pilch,

"Comes screaming like a pigge half stickt,
"And cries vindicta revenge, revenge."

The leathern pilch, I suppose, was a theatrical substitute for armour. MALONE.

might be the case of the particular passage on which it is founded.

6

Nor does it appear, that Shakspeare did begin early to make essays in dramatick poetry: The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, which hath so often been ascribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winstanley, was written by George Peele; and Shakspeare is not met with, even as an assistant, till at least seven years afterward."-Nafh, in his Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of both Univerfities, prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, 4to. black letter, recommends his friend, Peele, " as the chiefe fupporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of poetrie, and primus verborum artifex: whose first increase, The Arraignment of Paris, might plead to their opinions his pregnant dexteritie of wit, and manifold varietie of inuention."8

• These people, who were the Curls of the last age, ascribe likewise to our author, those miferable performances, Mucidorus, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

7 Mr. Pope afferts, "The troublesome Raigne of King John," in two parts, 1611, to have been written by Shakspeare and Rowley:-which edition is a mere copy of another in black letter, 1591. But I find his assertion is somewhat to be doubted : for the old edition hath no name of author at all; and that of 1611, the initials only, W. Sh. in the title-page.*

• Peele seems to have been taken into the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland about 1593, to whom he dedicates in that year, "The Honour of the Garter, a poem gratulatoriethe firstling confecrated to his noble name." -" He was esteemed," says Anthony Wood, "amoft noted poet, 1579; but when or where he died, I cannot tell, for so it is, and always hath been, that most POETS die poor, and consequently obfcurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their graves. Claruit 1599." Ath. Oxon. Vol. I. p. 300.

We had lately in a periodical pamphlet, called, The Theatrical