moft delicate knowledge and polite learning to ad mire him.

His acquaintance with Ben Jonfon began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature. Mr. Jonfon, 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 Shakspere luckily caft his eye upon it, and found fomething fo well in it, as to engage him firft to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick. Jonfon was certainly a very good fcholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakfpere; though at the fame 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 Eton, and Ben Jonfon; Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakfpere, had undertaken his defence against Ben Jonfon with fome warmth; Mr. Hales, who had fat still for some time, told them, That if Mr. ShakSpere 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 fhew fomething upon the fame fubject, at least as well written, by Shakspere.

The latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good fenfe will wifh theirs may be, in eafe, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an eftate equal to his occafion, and in that, to his wifh; and is faid to

have spent fome years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendfhip of the gentlemen of the neighbour. hood. Amongst them, it is a story almoft ftill remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury: it happened, that in a pleasant converfation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakfpere, in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him; and fince he could not know what might be faid of him when he was dead, he defired it might be done immediately: upon which Shakfpere gave him thefe four verfes :

Ten in the hundred lies here engrav'd,

"Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd: If any man afk, Who lies in this tomb?

Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

But the fharpnefs of the fatire is faid to have ftung the man fo feverely, that he never forgave it.

He died in the 53d year of his age,* and was buried on the north fide of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument, as engraved in the plate, is placed in the wall. On his graveftone underneath is,

Good friend, for Jefus' fake forbear
To dig the duft inclofed here :

Bleft be the man that fpares these ftones,
And curft be he that moves my bones.

He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas

*He died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, and had exactly completed his fifty-second year.

Quiney, by whom the had three fons, who without children; and Sufannah, who was ourite, to Dr. John Hall, a phyfician of goo tation in that country. She left one child daughter, who was married, first, to Thomas Efq. and afterwards to Sir John Bernardf Ab bington, but died likewife without iffue.

This is what I could learn of any note, eithes e lating to himfelf or family: the character of the 13. is beft feen in his writings. But fince Ben has made a fort of an effay towards it in his/ eries, I will give it in his words:

"I remember the players have often men net "it as an honour to Shakfpere, that in orig "(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted cur "line. My anfwer hath been, Would he had i 1991 "thoufand! which they thought a malevolent "I had not told pofterity this, but for their igne "rance, who chose that circumstance to corriere "their friend by, wherein he most faulted: ❝ justify mine own candour, for I loved the ma An 1 "do honour his memory, on this fide idolatry, is "much as any. He was, indeed, honeft, and or ar

open and free nature, had an excellent fancy ba "notions, and gentle expreffions; wherein he now"ed with that facility, that fometimes it was necefs "fary he fhould be ftopped: Sufflaminandas erat As

Auguftus faid of Haterius. His wit was in his "own power: would the rule of it had been foto "Many times he fell into thofe things which cre "not escape laughter; as when he faid in thr "fon of Cæfar, one fpeaking to him,

"Cæfar thou doft me wrong."

"He replied,

"Cæfar did never wrong, but with juft caufe

* If ever there was fuch a line written by Shakipo 1

t

fuch like, which were ridiculous. But he reHemed his vices with his virtues: there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."

As for the paffage which he mentions out of Shakfpere, there is fomewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, bwithout the abfurdity; nor did I ever meet with it any edition, that I have seen, as quoted by Mr. Jonfon. Befides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcribed to him by Mr. Langbain, which I have never feen, and know nothing of. He

likewife Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lu- . ore, in ftanzas, which have been printed in a late Jection of poems. As to the character given of em by Ben Jonson, there is a good deal in it: it believe it may be as well expreffed by what Horace fays of the firft, Romans, who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed tranflated them) in his epiftle to Auguftus.

-Natura fublimis & acer,

Nam fpirat tragicum & feliciter audet,

Sed turpem putat in chartis metuitque, lituram..

ad fancy it might have its place, vol.6. Julius Cæfar, 246, fcene 2, thus:

-Cæfar has had great wrong.

Pleb. Cæfar had never wrong, but with just cause ; and very humorously in the character of a Plebeian.- Ce might believe Ben Jonfon's remark was made upon Etter credit than fome blunder of an actor in speaking that verse near the beginning of the third act :—.

Enow, Cæfar doth not wrong; nor without cause
Will he be fatisfied.

But the verfe, as cited by Ben Jonfon, does not connect
We will he be fatisfied. Perhaps this play was never
puted in Ben Jonfon's time, and fo he had nothing to,
jag by but as the actor pleafed to speak it.. PAPE..

n
сис

As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a farge and complete collection upon Shakfpere's works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to obferve fome of those things I have been pleased with in looking him over.

His plays are properly to be distinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Those which are called histories, and even fome of his comedies, are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of comedy amongst them. That way of tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age; and is indeed become fo agreeable to the English tafte, that though the feverer critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feem to be better pleased with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of the Shrew, are all pure comedy; the reft, however they are called, have fomething of both kinds. It is not very eafy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the fatire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do; yet there is a pleafing and a well-diftinguished variety in thofe characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a master-piece. The character is always well fuftained, though drawn out into the length of three plays and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady, Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry the Fifth, though it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that though he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in fhort every way vicious, yet he has given him fo much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I do not know b vol. 1.