ones fortune in fome meafare depends upon exterior comelinefs +. But Shirley, who was refolute to be in orders, left that univerfity foon after, went to Cambridge, there took the degrees in arts, and became a minister near St. Alban's in Hertfordshire; but never having examined the authority, and purity of the Proteftant Church, and being deluded by the fophiftry of fome Romish priests, he changed his religion for theirs, quitted his living, and taught a grammar fchool in the town of St. Alban's; which employment he finding an intolerable drudgery, and being of a fickle unsteady temper, he relinquished it, came up to London, and took lodgings in Gray's Inn, where he commenced a writer for the ftage with tolerable fuccefs. He had the good fortune to gain feveral wealthy and beneficent patrons, efpecially Henrietta Maria the Queen Confort, who made him her fervant.

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When the civil war broke out, he was driven from London, and attended upon his Royal Mistress, while his wife and family were left in a deplorable condition behind him. time after that, when the Queen of England was forced, by the fury of oppofition, to follicit fuccours from France, in order to reinitate her husband; our author could no longer wait upon her, and was received into the fervice of William Cavendish, marquis of Newcastle, to take his fortune with him in the wars. That noble fpirited patron had given him fuch diftinguifhing marks of his liberality, as Shirley thought himself happy in his fervice, especially as by thefe means he could at the same time ferve the King.

Having mentioned Henrietta Maria, Shirley's Royal Mistress, the reader will pardon a digreffion, which flows from tenderness, and is no more than an expreflion of humanity. Her life-time in Eng† Athen. Oxon. p. 376.◄ || Wood, ubi fupra.

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land was embittered with a continued perfecution; fhe lived to see the unhappy death of her Lord; fhe witnessed her exiled fons, not only oppreffed with want, but obliged to quit France, at the remonftrance of Cromwel's ambaffador; fhe herself was loaded with poverty, and as Voltaire observes, 66 was driven to the most calamitous fituation that ever poor lady was exposed to; she was obliged "to follicit Cromwel to pay her an allowance, "as Queen Dowager of England, which, no "doubt, she had a right to demand; but to de"mand it, nay worse, to be obliged to beg it of a man who shed her Hufband's blood upon a "fcaffold, is an affliction, fo exceffively height"ened, that few of the human race ever bore one "fo fevere.".

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After an active fervice under the marquis of Newcastle, and the King's caufe declining beyond hope of recovery, Shirley came again to London, and in order to fupport himself and family, refumed his former occupation of teaching a school, in White Fryars, in which he was pretty fuccefsful, and, as Wood fays, educated many ingenious youths, who, afterwards in various faculties, became eminent.' After the Restoration, fome of the plays our author had written in his leisure moments, were reprefented with fuccefs, but there is no account whether that giddy Monarch ever rewarded him for his loyalty, and indeed it is more probable he did not, as he purfued the duke of Lauderdale's maxim too clofely, of making friends of his enemies, and fuffering his friends to shift for themselves, which infamous maxim drew down difhonour on the adminiftration and government of Charles II. Wood further remarks, that Shirley much affifted his patron, the duke of Newcaftle, in the compofition of his plays, which the duke afterwards publifhed, and was a drudge to John Ogilby in his tranflation of Homer's Iliad

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and Odyffeys, by writing annotations on them. At length, after Mr. Shirley had lived to the age of 72, in various conditions, having been much agitated in the world, he, with his fecond wife, was driven by the difmal conflagration that happened in London, Anno 1666, from his habitation in Fleet-ftreet, to another in St. Giles's in the Fields. Where, being overcome with miseries occafioned by the fire, and bending beneath the weight of years, they both died in one day, and their bodies were buried in one grave, in the churchyard of St. Giles's, on October 29, 1666.

The works of this author

1. Changes, or Love in a Maze, a Comedy, acted at a private houfe in Salisbury Court, 1632. 2. Contention for Honour and Riches, a Masque, 1633.

3. Honoria and Mammon, a Comedy; this Play is grounded on the abovementioned Masque. 4. The Witty Fair One, a Com ly, acted in Drury Lane, 1633.

5. The Traitor, a Tragedy, acted by her Majefty's fervants, 1635. This Play was originally written by Mr. Rivers, a jefuit, but altered by Shirley.

6. The Young Admiral, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private houfe in Drury Lane, 1637.

7. The Example, a Tragi-Comedy, acted in Drury Lane by her Majefty's fervants, 1637.

8. Hyde Park, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1637.

9. The Gamefter, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1637; the plot is taken from Queen Margate's Novels, and the Unlucky Citizen.

10. The Royal Mafter, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at the Theatre in Dublin, 1638. 11. The

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11. The Duke's Mistress, a Tragi-Comedy, act-. ed by her Majefty's fervants, 1638.

12. The Lady of Pleasure, a Comedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, 1638.

13. The Maid's Revenge, a Tragedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, with applause, 1639. 13. Chabot, Admiral of France, a Tragedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1639; Mr. Chapman joined. in this play; the ftory may be found in the hiftories of the reign of Francis I.

15. The Ball, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1639; Mr. Chapman likewise affifted in this Comedy.

16. Arcadia, a Dramatic Paftoral, performed at the Phænix in Drury Lane by the Queen's fervants, 1649.

7. St. Patrick for Ireland, an Hiftorical Play, 1640; for the plot fee Bedes's Life of St. Patrick, &c.

18. The Humorous Courtier, a Comedy, prefented at a private houfe in Drury Lane, 1640. 19. Love's ruelty, a Tragedy, acted by the Queen's fervan, 1640.

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20. The Triumph of Beauty, a Masque, 1646; part of this piece feems to be taken from Shake fpear's Midfummer's Night's Dream, and Lucian's Dialogues.

21. The Sifters, a Comedy, acted at a private houfe in Black Fryars, 1652.

22. The Brothers, a Comedy, 1652.

23. The Doubtful Heir, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at Black Fryars, 1652.

24. The Court Secret, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars, 1653, dedicated to the Earl of Strafford; this play was printed before it was acted.

25. The Impoftor, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars, 1653. 26. The

26. The Politician, a Tragedy, acted in Salisbury Court, 1655; part of the plot is taken from the Countess of Montgomery's Urania.

27. The Grateful Servant, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, 1655.

28. The Gentleman of Venice, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Salisbury Court. Plot taken from Gayton's Notes on Don Quixote.

29. The Contention of Ajax and Ulyffes for Achilles's Armour, a Mafque, 1658. It is taken 'from Ovid's Metamorphofis, b. xiii.

30. Cupid and Death, a Masque, 1658.

30. Love Tricks, or the School of Compliments, a Comedy, acted by the Duke of York's fervants in little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1667.

31. The Conftant Maid, or Love will find out the Way, a Comedy, acted at the New House called the Nurfery, in Hatton Garden, 1667.

33. The Opportunity, a Comedy, acted at the private house in Drury Lane by her Majefty's fervants; part of this play is taken from Shakespear's Measure for Measure.

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34. The Wedding, a Comedy, acted at the Phenix in Drury Lane.

35. A Bird in a Cage, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane.

36. The Coronation, a Comedy. This play is printed with Beaumont's and Fletcher's.

37. The Cardinal, a Tragedy, acted at a pri vate house in Black Fryars.

38. The Triumph of Peace, a Mafque, prefented before the King and Queen at Whitehall, 1633, by the Gentlemen of the Four Inns of Court.

We shall present the reader with a quotation taken from a comedy of his, published in Dodfley's collection of old plays, called A Bird in a Cage, p. 234. Jupiter is introduced thus fpeaking,