redoubled the profecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his bufinefs and family in Warwickshire, for fome time, and shelter himself in London. It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is faid to have made his firft acquaintance in the playhouse. He was received into the company then in being, at firft in a very mean rank, but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, foon diftinguifhed him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer. His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst thofe of the other players, before fome old plays, but without any particular account of what fort of parts he used to play; and though I have inquired, I could never meet with any further account of the following paffage, to which the reader will give just as much credit as he thinks fit: "Here we fhall obferve, that the learned Mr. Joshua Barnes, late Greek Profeffor of the University of Cambridge, baiting about forty years ago at an inn in Stratford, and hearing an old woman finging part of the above-faid song, fuch was his refpect for Mr. Shakspeare's genius, that he gave her a new gown for the two following ftanzas in it; and, could fhe have faid it all, he would (as he often faid in company, when any difcourfe has cafually arose about him) have given her ten guineas: "Sir Thomas was too covetous, "To covet fo much deer, "When horns enough upon his head "Had not his worship one deer left? "Should laft him during life." MALONE. 8 He was received into the company-at firft in a very mean rank ;] There is a ftage tradition, that his firt office in the theatre was that of Call-boy, or prompter's attendant; whofe employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the bufinefs of the play requires their appearance on the ftage. MALONE. . him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghoft in his own Hamlet I fhould have been much more pleased, to have learned from certain authority, which was the first play he wrote;' it would be without doubt a pleafure to any man, curious in things of this kind, to fee and know what was the firft effay of a fancy like Shakspeare's. Perhaps we are not to look for his beginnings, like thofe of other authors, among their leaft perfect writings; art had fo little, and nature fo large a fhare in what he did, that, for aught I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the beft.' I would not be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was fo loofe and extravagant, as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; but that what he thought, was commonly fo great, fo juftly and rightly conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first fight. But though the order of time in which the feveral pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are paf than that the top of his performance was the Ghaft in his orn Hamlet.] See fuch notices as I have been able to collect on this fubject, in the Lift of old English actors, poft. MALONE. 2 to have learned from certain authority, which was the first play he wrote;] The highest date of any I can yet find, is Romeo and Juliet in 1597, when the author was 33 years old; and Richard the Second, and Third, in the next year, viz. the 34th of his age. POPE. Richard II. and III. were both printed in 1597.-On the order of time in which Shakspeare's plays were written, fee the Effay in this volume. MALONE. 3 - for aught I know, the performances of his youth-were the beft.] See this notion controverted in An Attempt to afcertain the order of Shakspeare's plays. MALONE fages in fome few of them which feem to fix their dates. So the Chorus at the end of the fourth act of Henry the Fifth, by a compliment very handfomely turned to the earl of Effex, fhows the play to have been written when that lord was general for the queen in Ireland; and his elogy upon queen Elizabeth, and her fucceffor king James, in the latter end of his Henry the Eighth, is a proof of that play's being written after the acceffion of the latter of thofe 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 diverfions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to fee a genius arise amongst them of fo pleasurable, fo rich a vein, and fo plentifully capable of furnishing their favourite entertainments. Besides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natured man, of great fweetnefs in his manners, and a moft agreeable companion; fo that it is no wonder, if, with fo many good qualities, he made himself acquainted with the beft converfations of thofe times. Queen Elizabeth had feveral of his plays acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favour: it is that maiden princefs plainly, whom he intends by a fair veftal, throned by the weft. A Midfummer-Night's Dream. and that whole paffage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handfomely applied to her. She was fo well pleafed with that admirable character of Falftaff, in The Two Parts of Henry the Fourth, that fhe commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to fhow him in love. This found fomething fo well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick. to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick.] In Mr. Rowe's first edition, after these words was inferted the following paffage : "After this, they were profeffed friends; though I do not know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and fincerity. Ben was naturally proud and infolent, and in the days of his reputation did fo far take upon him the fupremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seemed to ftand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him,, it has always been with fome referve; infinuating his uncorrectness, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgement. The praife of feldom 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 Jonfon could not bear he thought it impoffible, perhaps, for another man to strike out the greatest thoughts in the fineft expreffion, and to reach thofe excellencies of poetry with the eafe of a firft imagination, which himself with infinite labour and ftudy could but hardly attain to.” I have preferved this paffage becaufe I believe it ftrictly true, except that in the last line, inftead of but hardly, I would read never. Dryden, we are told by Pope, concurred with Mr. Rowe in thinking Jonfon's pofthumous verfes on our author sparing and invidious. See alfo Mr. Steevens's note on thofe verfes. Before Shakspeare's death Ben's envious difpofition is mentioned by one of his own friends; it must therefore have been even then notorious, though the writer denies the truth of the charge: "To my well accomplish'd friend, Mr. Ben. Jonfon. "Such cenfurers must have.' Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies, printed about 1611. The following lines by one of Jonfon's admirers will fufficiently fupport Mr. Rowe in what he has faid relative to the flowness of that writer in his compofitions: "Scorn then their cenfures who gave out, thy wit "As long upon a comedy did fit "As elephants bring forth, and that thy blots "And mendings took more time than FORTUNE-PLOTS; "That fuch thy drought was, and fo great thy thirft, Jonfon was certainly a very good fcholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare; though at "That the king's yearly butt wrote, and his wine The writer does not deny the charge, but vindicates his friend by faying that, however flow, "He that writes well, writes quick.-" Verfes on B. Jonfon, by Jafper Mayne. So alfo another of his Panegyrifts: "Admit his mufe was flow, 'tis judgment's fate "To move like greatest princes, ftill in ftate." In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, Jonfon is faid to be" fo flow an enditer, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying." The fame piece furnishes us with the earliest intimation of the quarrel between him and Shakspeare. “Why here's our fellow Shakspeare put them [the univerfity poets] all down, ay, and Ben Jonfon too. O, that Ben Jonfon is a peftilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakfpeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Fuller, who was a diligent inquirer, and lived near enough the time to be well informed, confirms this account, afferting in his Worthies, 1662, that "many were the wit-combats" between Jonfon and our poet. It is a fingular circumftance that old Ben fhould or near two centuries have stalked on the ftilts of an artificial reputation; and that even at this day, of the very few who read his works, scarcely one in ten yet ventures to confefs how little entertainment they afford. Such was the impreffion made on the publick by the extravagant praifes of thofe who knew more of books than of the drama, that Dryden in his Efay mn Dramatick Poefie, written about 1667, does not venture to go further in his elogium on Shakspeare, than by faying," he was at leaft Fonfon's equal, if not his fuperior ;" and in the preface to his Mock Aftrologer, 1671, he hardly dares to affert, what, in my opinion, cannot be denied, that "all Jonfon's pieces, except three or four, are but crambe bis cocta; the fame humours a little varied and written worse." Ben however did not truft to the praifes of others. One of his admirers honeftly confeffes, 66 he "Of whom I write this, has prevented me, "And boldly faid fo much in his own praife, In vain, however, did he endeavour to bully the town into ap |