a compliment which in the books of that age was paid to fo many engravers, that nothing decifive can be inferred from it. It does not appear from what picture this engraving was made but from the drefs, and the fingular difpofition of the hair, &c. it undoubtedly was engraved from a picture, and probably a very ordinary one. There is no other way of accounting for the great difference between this print of Droefhout's, and his fpirited portraits of Fairfax and Bishop Howfon, butby fuppofing that the picture of Shakspeare from which he copied was a very coarfe performancé. The next print in point of time is, according to Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Granger, that executed by J. Payne, a fcholar of Simon Pafs, in 1634: with a laurel branch in the poet's lefthand. A print of Shakspeare by fo excellent an engraver as Payne, would probably exhibit a more perfect reprefentation of him than any other of thofe times: but I much doubt whether any fuch ever exifted. Mr. Granger, I apprehend, has erroneously attributed to Payne the head done by Marshall in 1640, (apparently from Droefhout's larger print,) which is prefixed to a fpurious edition of Shakspeare's Poems published in that year. In Marshall's print the poet has a laurel branch in his left hand. Neither Mr. Walpole, nor any of the other great collectors of prints, are poffeffed of, or ever faw, any print of Shakfpeare by Payne, as far as I can learn. Two other prints only remain to be mentioned; one engraved by Vertue in 1721, for Mr. Pope's edition of our author's plays in quarto; faid to be engraved from an original picture in the poffeffion of the Earl of Oxford; and another, a mezzotinto, by Earlom prefixed to an edition of King Lear, in 1770; faid to be done from an original by Cornelius Janfen, in the collection of Charles Jennens, Efq. but, Mr. Granger juftly obferves, as it is dated in 1610, before Janfen was in England, it is highly probable that it was not painted by him, at least, that he did not paint it as a portrait of Shakspeare." 66 Moft of the other prints of Shakspeare that have appeared, were copied from fome or other of thofe which I have mentioned. MALONE. "The portrait palmed upon Mr. Pope" (I use the words of the late Mr. Oldys, in a Mf. note to his copy of Langbaine,) for an original of Shakspeare, from which he had his fine VOL. I. D plate engraven, is evidently a juvenile portrait of King James I." I am no judge in thefe matters, but only deliver an opinion, which if ill-grounded may be eafily overthrown. The portrait, to me at least, has no traits of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. On his grave-ftone underneath is, Good friend, &c.] This epitaph is expreffed in the following uncouth mixture of fmall and capital letters: Good Frend for Iefus SAKE forbeare STEEVENS. 4 And curft be he that moves my bones. ] It is uncertain whether this epitaph was written by Shakspeare himself, or by one of his friends after his death. The imprecation contained in this laft line, was perhaps fuggefted by an apprehenfion that our authour's remains might share the fame fate with those of the reft of his countrymen, and be added to the immenfe pile of human bones depofited in the charnelhoufe at Stratford. This, however, is mere conjecture; for fimilar execrations are found in many ancient Latin epitaphs. Mr. Steevens has juftly mentioned it as a fingular circumftance, that Shakspeare does not appear to have written any verfes on his contemporaries, either in praise of the living, or in honour of the dead. I once imagined that he had mentioned Spenser with kindness in one of his fonnets; but have lately difcovered that the fonnet to which I allude, was written by Richard Barnefield. If, however, the following epitaphs be genuine, (and indeed the latter is much in Shak fpeare's manner,) he in two inftances overcame that modeft diffidence, which feems to have fuppofed the elogium of his humble mufe of no value. In a Manufcript volume of poems by William Herrick and others, in the hand-writing of the time of Charles I. which is among Rawlinfon's Collections in the Bodleian Library, is the following epitaph, afcribed to our poet. AN EPITAPH. "When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet, "Elias James to nature payd his debt, "And here repofeth; as he liv'd he dyde; "The faying in him ftrongly verefide, "Such life, fuch death: then, the known truth to tell, WM. SHAKSPEARE." There was formerly a family of the furname of James at Stratford. Anne, the wife of Richard James, was buried there on the fame day with our poet's widow; and Margaret, the daughter of John James, died there in April 1616. A monumental infcription "of a better leer," and faid to be written by our author, is preferved in a collection of Epitaphs, at the end of the Vifitation of Salop, taken by Sir William Dugdale in the year 1664, now remaining in the College of arms, C. 35. fol. 20; a tranfcript of which Sir Ifaac Heard, Garter, Principal King at Arms, has obligingly tranfmitted to me. Among the monuments in Tongue Church in the county of Salop, is one erected in remembrance of Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, who died, as I imagine, about the year 1600. In the Vifitation-book it is thus defcribed by Sir William Dugdale: On the north fide of the chancell ftands a very stately tombe, fupported with Corinthian columnes. It hath two figures of men in armour, thereon lying, the one below the arches and columnes, and the other above them, and this epitaph upon it. Thomas Stanley, Knight, fecond fon of Edward Earle of Derby, Lord Stanley and Strange, defcended from the famielie of the Stanleys, married Margaret Vernon, one of the daughters and co-heires of Sir George Vernon of NetherHaddon, in the county of Derby, Knight, by whom he had iffue two fons, Henry and Edward. Henry died an infant; Edward furvived, to whom thofe lordships defcended; and married the lady Lucie Percie, fecond daughter of the Earl of Northumberland: by her he had iffue feaven daughters. She and her foure daughters, Arabella, Marie, Alice, and Prifcilla, are interred under a monument in the church of Waltham in the county of Effex. Thomas her fon, died in his infancy, and is buried in the parish church of Winwich in the county of Lancaster. The other three, Petronilla, Frances, and Venefia, are yet living. Thefe following verfes were made by WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, the late famous tragedian. "Written upon the east end of this tombe. "Afke who lyes here, but do not weepe; "He is not dead, he doth but sleepe. He had three daughters,' of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas “This stony register is for his bones, "His fame is more perpetual than these ftones: "Written upon the west end thereof. Not monumental ftone preferves our fame, "Shall out-live marble, and defacers' hands. "When all to time's confumption fhall be given, "Stanley, for whom this ftands, fhall ftand in heaven." The last line of this epitaph, though the worft, bears very ftrong marks of the hand of Shakspeare. The beginning of the first line, "Afke who lyes here," reminds us of that which we have been juft examining: If any man afk, who lies in this tomb," &c. And in the fifth line we find a thought which our poet has alfo introduced in King Henry VIII: "Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be! And, when old time fhall lead him to his grave, This epitaph must have been written after the year 1600, for Venetia Stanley, who afterwards was the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was born in that year. With a view to afcertain its date more precifely, the churches of Great and Little Waltham have been examined for the monument faid to have been erected to Lady Lucy Stanley and her four daughters, but in vain; for no trace of it remains: nor could the time of their refpective deaths be ascertained, the registers of thofe parishes being loft. Sir William Dugdale was born in Warwickshire, was bred at the free-fchool of Coventry, and in the year 1625, purchafed the manor of Blythe in that county, where he then fettled and afterwards fpent a great part of his life: fo that his teftimony refpecting this epitaph is fufficient to afcertain its authenticity. MALONE. He had three daughters,] In this circumflance Mr. Rowe muft have been mif-informed. In the register of Stratford, no mention is made of any daughter of our author's but Sufanna and Judith. He had indeed three children; the two Quiney, by whom fhe had three fons and all died already mentioned, and a fon, named Hamnet, of whom Mr. Rowe takes no notice. He was a twin child, born at the fame time with Judith. Hence probably the miflake. He died in the twelfth year of his age, in 1596. MALONE. 6 -Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, ] This alfo is a mistake. Judith was Shakspeare's youngest daughter. She died at Stratford-upon-Avon a few days after the had completed her feventy-feventh year, and was buried there, Feb. 9, 1661-62. She was married to Mr. Quiney, who was four years younger than herself, on the 10th of February, 1615-16, and not as Mr. Weft fuppofed, in the year 1616-17. He was led into the mistake by the figures 1616 ftanding nearly oppofite to the entry concerning her marriage; but thofe figures relate to the firft entry in the subfequent month of April. The Regifter appears thus: February. 3. Francis Bufhill to Ifabel Whood, 5. Rich, Sandells to Joan Ballamy. 10. Tho. Queeny to Judith Shakspere. April. 1616. 14. Will. Borrowes to Margaret Davies. and the following entries in that and a part of the enfuing page are of 1616; the year then beginning on the 25th of March. Whether the above 10 relates to the month of February or April, Judith was certainly married before her father's death: if it relates to February, fhe was married on February 10, 1615-16; if to April, on the 10th of April 1616. From Shakfpeare's will it appears, that this match was a ftolen one; for he fpeaks of fuch future " husband as She fhall be married to.' It is ftrange that the ceremony fhould have been publickly celebrated in the church of Stratford without his knowledge; and the improbability of fuch a circumftance might lead us to fuppofe that he was married on the 10th of April, about a fortnight after the execution of her father's will. But the entry of the baptifm of her first child, (Nov. 23, 1616,) as well as the entry of the marriage, afcertain it to have taken place in February, Mr. Weft, without intending it, has impeached the character of this lady; for her firft child, according to his reprefentation, muft be fuppofed to have been born fome months before her marriage; fince among the baptifms I find this en |