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 a subftantial 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 seemed at first 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 geniufes 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 deer-ftealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot, 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 this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be loft, yet it is faid to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his bufinefs and family in Warwickshire, for fome time, and fhelter himself in London. It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is faid to have made his firft acquaintance in the play-house. 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 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 enquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the ghoft in his own Hamlet. I should have been much more pleased, to have learned from fome 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 first effay of a fancy like Shakespeare'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 ought I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the more vigorous, and had the moft fire and strength of imagination in them, were the beft. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was fo loose and extravagant, as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment, but that what he thought was commonly so great, fo juftly and rightly conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an universal judgment at the first fight. But though the order of time in which the feveral pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are paffages in fome few of them which feem to fix their dates. So the chorus at the end of the fourth act of Henry V. by a compliment very handsomely turned to the earl of Effex, fhews the play to have been written when that lord was general for the queen in Ireland: and his elogy upon queen *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 lid and Ild, in the next yiar, viz. the 34th of his age. were, Elizabeth, and her fucceffor king James, in the latter end of his Henry VIII. is a proof of that play's being written after the acceffion of the latter of those two princes to the crown of England. Whatever the particular times of his writing the people of his age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diverfions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to see a genius arise amongst them of so pleasurable, so rich a vein, and so plentifully capable of furnishing their favourite entertainments. Befides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natured man, of great sweetness in his manners, and a moft agreeable companion; so that it is no wonder if with so many good qualities he made himself acquainted with the best conversation of those 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 plainly, whom he intends by A fair veftal, throned by the West. Midfummer Night's Dream. And that whole paffagé is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handsomely applied to her. She was fo well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to fhew him in love. This is faid to be the occafion of his writing the The Merry Wives of Windfor. How well fhe was obeyed, the play itself is an admirable proof. Upon this occafion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of Falstaff is said to have been written originally under the name of * Oldcaftle; fome of that family being then remaining, the queen was pleased to command him to alter it; upon which he * See the epilogue to Henry IVth. made ufe of Falstaff. The prefent offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know whether the author may not have been somewhat to blame in his fecond choice; fince it is certain that Sir John Falstaff, who was a knight of the garter, and a lieutenant-general, was a name of diftinguished merit in the wars in France in Henry the fifth's and Henry the fixth's times. What grace foever the queen conferred upon him, it was not to her only he owed the fortune which the reputation of his wit made. He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendfhip from the earl of Southampton, famous in the histories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate earl of Efsex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one inftance fo fingular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespeare's, that if I had not been affured that the ftory was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inferted, that my lord Southampton at one time gave him a thoufand pounds, to enable him to go through a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almoft equal to that profuse generofity the present age has fhewn to French dancers and Italian fingers. What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, I have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true taste of merit, and could diftinguish men, had generally a juft value and esteem for him. His exceeding candour and good-nature must certainly have inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit obliged the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him. : His acquaintance with Ben Johnson began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature; Mr. Johnson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the perfons into whofe hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and fuperciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured anfwer, that it would be of no fervice to their company, when Shakespeare luckily caft his eye, and found something fo well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recom mend Mr. Johnson and his writings to the publick. Johnfon was certainly a very good fcholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakespeare; though at the same time I believe it must be allowed, that what nature gave the latter was more than a balance for what books had given the former; and the judgment of a great man upon this occafion was, I think, very just and proper. In a converfation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eaton, and Ben Johnson; Sir John Suckling, who was a profeffed admirer of Shakespeare, had undertaken his defence against Ben Johnson with some warmth; Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, told them, "That if Mr. Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewife not ftolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to shew fomething upon the subject at least as well written by Shakespeare." The latter part of his life was fpent, as all men of good fenfe will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the converfation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occafion, and, in that, to his wifh and is faid to have spent fome years before his death : |