gularity and deference for them, which would have attended that correctnefs, might have reftrained fome of that fire, impetuofity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakfpeare: and I believe we are better pleafed with those thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination fupplied him fo abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful paffages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was poffible for a master of the English language to deliver them. Upon his leaving fchool, he feems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father propofed to him; and in order to fettle in the world after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway," faid to have been 4 into that way of living which his father propofed to him ;] I believe, that on leaving fchool Shakspeare was placed in the office of fome country attorney, or the fenefchal of fome manor court. See the Effay on the order of his plays, Article, Hamlet. MALONE. 5 he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young.] It is certain he did fo; for by the monument in Stratford church erected to the memory of his daughter, Sufanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that he died on the 2d of July, 1649, aged 66 fo that he was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years old. THEOBALD. Sufanna, who was our poet's eldeft child, was baptized, May 26, 1583. Shakspeare therefore, having been born in April 1564, was nineteen the month preceding her birth. Mr. Theobald was miftaken in fuppofing that a monument was erected to her in the church of Stratford. There is no memorial there in honour of either our poet's wife or daughter, except flat tomb-ftones, by which, however, the time of their refpective deaths is afcertained.-His daughter, Sufanna, died, not on the fecond, but the eleventh of July, 1649. Theobald was led into this error by Dugdale. MALONE. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway,] She was eight years older than her husband, and died in 1623, at the age of 67 years. THEOBALD. a fubftantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. In this kind of fettlement he continued for fome time, till an extravagance that he was guilty of forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it feemed at firft to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him, yet it afterwards happily proved the occafion of exerting one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatick poetry. He had by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and amongst them, fome that made a frequent practice of deerftealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was profecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, fomewhat too feverely; and in order to revenge that ill ufage, he made a ballad upon him.' And though The following is the infcription on her tomb-ftone in the church of Stratford : "Here lyeth interred the body of ANNE, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of Auguft, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares." After this infcription follow fix Latin verfes, not worth preferving. MALONE. 7 in order to revenge that ill ufage, he made a ballad upon him.] Mr. William Oldys, (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the fhare he had in compiling the Biographia Britannica) among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspeare, obferves, that "there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years fince) who had not only heard, from feveral old people in that town, of Shakspeare's tranfgreffion, but could remember the first stanza of that bitter ballad, which, repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preferved it in writing; and here it is neither better nor worse, but faithfully tranfcribed from the copy which his relation very courteously communicated to me." this, probably the firft effay of his poetry, be loft, yet it is faid to have been fo very bitter, that it A parliemente member, a juftice of peace, "Yet an affe in his flate "We allowe by his ears but with affes to mate. Sing lowfie Lucy, whatever befall it." Contemptible as this performance must now appear, at the time when it was written it might have had fufficient power to irritate a vain, weak, and vindictive magiftrate; efpecially as it was affixed to feveral of his park-gates, and confequently published among his neighbours. It may be remarked likewife, that the jingle on which it turns, occurs in the firft fcene of The Merry Wives of Windfor. I may add, that the veracity of the late Mr. Oldys has never yet been impeached; and it is not very probable that a ballad fhould be forged, from which an undifcovered wag could derive no triumph over antiquarian credulity. STEEVENS. According to Mr. Capell, this ballad came originally from Mr. Thomas Jones, who lived at Tarbick, a village in Worcestershire, about 18 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, and died in 1703, aged upwards of ninety. He remembered to have heard from feveral old people at Stratford the ftory of Shakspeare's robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park; and their account of it agreed with Mr. Rowe's, with this addition, that the ballad written againft Sir Thomas Lucy by Shakspeare was tuck upon his park-gate, which exafperated the knight to apply to a lawyer at Warwick to proceed against him. Mr. Jones (it is added) put down in writing the firft ftanza of this ballad, which was all he remembered of it." In a note on the tranfcript with which Mr. Capell was furnished, it is faid, that "the people of thofe parts pronounce lowfie like Lucy." They do fo at this day in Scotland. Mr. Wilkes, grandfon of the gentleman to whom Mr. Jones repeated the ftanza, appears to have been the person who gave a copy of it to Mr. Oldys, and Mr. Capell. In a Manufcript Hiftory of the Stage, full of forgeries and falfehoods of various kinds, written (I fufpect by William Chetwood the prompter) fome time between April 1727 and October 1730, is 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 himfelf 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 first in a very mean rank, but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the ftage, foon diftinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer. His name is printed, as the custom was in thofe 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 Univerfity of Cambridge, baiting about forty years ago at an inn in Stratford, and hearing an old woman finging part of the above-faid fong, 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 he have faid it all, he would (as he often faid in company, when any difcourfe has cafually arofe 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 worthip one deer left? "Took pains enough to find him horns "Should last him during life." MALONE. 8 He was received into the company-at firft in a very mean rank ;] There is a stage 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 pleasure 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 ftrength 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 justly and rightly conceived in itfelf, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the firft 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 own Hamlet.] See fuch notices as I have been able to collect on this fubject, in the Lift of old English actors, poff. MALONE. 2 to have learned from certain authority, which was the first play he wrote;] The higheft 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. РОРЕ. Richard II. and III. were both printed in 1597.-On the order of time in which Shakspeare's plays were written, fee the Eifay 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 |