Mr. THE OBAL D's

PREFACE.

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HE attempt to write on Shakespeare is like going into a large, a spacious, and a splendid dome thro' the conveyance of a narrow and obscure entry. A glare of light fuddenly breaks upon you beyond what the avenue at first promis'd: and a thousand beauties of genius and character, like fo many gaudy apartments pouring at once upon the eye, diffuse and throw themselves out to the mind. The prospect is too wide to come within the compass of a fingle view: 'Tis a gay confusion of pleafing objects, too various to be enjoyed but in a general admiration; and they must be separated, and ey'd diftinctly, in order to give the proper entertainment.

And as in great piles of building, some parts are often finish'd up to hit the taste of the Connoiffeur; others more negligently put together, to ftrike the fancy of a common and unlearned beholder: Some parts are made stupendously magnificent and grand, to furprize with the vast design and execution of the architect; others are contracted, to amuse you with his neatness and elegance in little. So, in Shakefpeare, we may find traits that will stand the teft of the feverest judgment; and strokes as carelesly hit off, to the level of the more ordinary capacities: Some descriptions rais'd to that pitch of grandeur, as to aftonish you with the compass and elevation of his thought: and others copying nature

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his family-arms from the herald's office; by which it ap pears, that he had been officer and Bailiff of Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire; and that he enjoy'd some hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his great grandfather's faithful and approved service to king Henry VII.

Be this as it will, our Sheakspeare, it seems, was bred for fome time at a Free-school; the very Free-school, I prefume, founded at› Stratford : Where, we are told, he acquired what Latin he was mafter of: But, that his father being oblig'd, thro' narrowness of circumstance, to withdraw him too foon from thence, he was thereby unhappily prevented from making any proficiency in the dead languages: A point, that will deserve some little difcuffion in the fequef of this differtation.

How long he continued in his father's way of business, either as an affiftant to him, or on his own proper account, no notices are left to inform us : Nor have I been able to learn precisely at what period of life he quitted his native Stratford, and began his acquaintance with London and the ftage.

In order to fettle in the world after a family-manner, he thought fit, Mr. Rowe acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is certain, he did fo: For by the monu ment, in Stratford church, erected to the memory of his daughter Sufanna, the wife of John Hall, Gentleman, it appears, that fhe died on the 2d day of July, in the year 1649, aged 66. So that she was born in 1583, when her father could not be full '19 years old; who was himfelf born in the year 1564. Nor was the his eldeft child, for he had another daughter, Judith, who was born before her, and who was married to one Mr. Thomas Quiney. So that Shakefpeare must have entred into wedlock by that time he was turn'd of feventeen years.

Whether the force of inclination merely, or fome concurring circumstances of convenience in the match, prompted 'him to marry fo early, is not easy to be determin'd at this distance: But 'tis probable, a view of interest might partly fway his conduct in this point: For he married the daughter of one Hathaway, a substantial yoeman in his neighbourhood, and she had the start of him in age no less than eight years. She furviv'd him notwithstanding, seven seasons, and dy'd that very year in which the players publish'd the first edition of his works in folio, anno dom. 1623, at the age of 67 years, as we likewife learn from her monument in Stratford-church.

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How long he continued in this kind of settlement upon his own native spot, is not more easily to be determin'd. But if the tradition be true, of that extravagance which forc'd him both to quit his country and way of living; to wit, his being engag'd, with a knot of young deer-stealers, to rob the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot near Stratford: The enterprize favours so much of youth and levity, we may reafonably suppose it was before he could write full man. Befides, confidering he has left us fix and thirty plays, at leaft, avow'd to be genuine; and confidering too, that he had retir'd from the ftage, to spend the latter part of his days at his own native Stratford ; the interval of time, neceffarily required for the finishing so many dramatic pieces, obliges us to fuppofe he threw himself very early upon the play-house. And as he could, probably, contract no acquaintance with the drama, while he was driving on the affair of wool at home; fome time must be loft, even after he had commenc'd player, before he could attain knowledge enough in the fcience to qualify himself for turning author,

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It has been obferv'd by Mr. Rowe, that, amongst other extravagancies which our author has given to his Sir John Falstaffe, in the Merry Wives of Windfor, he has made him a deer-stealer ; and that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow, he has given him very near the same coat of arms, which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, describes for a family there. There are two coats, I observe, in Dugdale, where three filver fifhes are borne in the name of Lucy; and another coat, to the monument of Thomas Lucy, fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quarter'd in four several divifions, twelve little fishes, three in each. divifion, probably Luces. This very coat, indeed, feems alluded to in Shallow's giving the dozen white Luces, and in Slender faying be may quarter. When I confider the exceeding candour and good-nature of our author, (which inclin'd all the gentler part of the world to love him; as the power of his wit obliged the men of the moft delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him ;) and that he should th ow this humorous piece of fatire at his profecutor, at least twenty years after the provocation given; I am confidently per fuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving rancour on the profecutor's fide: And if this was the cafe, it were pity but the disgrace of fuch an inveteracy should remain as a lasting reproach, and Shallow ftand as a mark of ridicule to ftigmatize his malice.

It is faid our author spent some years before his death, in eafe, retirement, and the conversation of his friends, at his native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain intelligence, when he relinquish'd the stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by fome, that Spenfer's Thalia, in his sears of his Mufes, where the laments the lofs of her Willy in the comic scene, has been apply'd to our author's quitting

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the ftage. But Spencer himself, 'tis well known, quitted the stage of life in the year 1598; and, five years after this, we find Shakespeare's name among the actors in Ben Johnfon's Sejanus, which first made its appearance in the year 1603. Nor, furely, could he then have any thoughts of retiring, fince, that very year, a licence under the privyfeal was granted by K. James I. to him and Fletcher, Burbage, Phillippes, Hemings, Condel, &c. authorizing them to exercise the art of playing comedies, tragedies, &c. as well at their ufual house called the Globe on the other fide of the water, as in any other parts of the kingdom, during his Majesty's pleasure: (A copy of which licence is preferv'd in Rymer's Fœdera.) Again, 'tis certain, that Shakespeare did not exhibit his Macbeth, till after the union was brought about, and till after K. James I. had begun to touch for the Evil: For 'tis plain, he has inferted compliments, on both those accounts, upon his royal master in that tragedy. Nor, indeed, could the number of the dramatic pieces, he produced, admit of his retiring near fo early as that period. So that what Spenfer there says, if it relate at all to Shakespeare, must hint at some occafional recefs he made for a time upon a difguft taken: Or the Willy, there mention'd, must relate to some other favourite poet. I believe, we may fafely determine that he had not quitted in the year 1610. For in his Tempest, our author makes mention of the Bermuda islands, which were unknown to the English, till, in 1609, Sir John Summers made a voyage to North-America, and discover'd them: And afterwards invited fome of his countrymen to fettle a plantation there. That he became the private Gentleman, at least three years before his decease, is pretty obvious from another circumftance: I mean, from that remarkable and wellknown ftory, which Mr. Rowe has given us of our author's