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been written originally under the name of Oldcastle; fome of that family being then remaining, the queen was pleafed to command him to alter it; upon which he made ufe of Falstaff. The prefent offence was, indeed, avoided; but I don't know whether the author may not have been fomewhat to blame in his fecond choice, fince it is certain that fir 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 soever 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 friendship from the earl of Southampton, famous in the histories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate earl of Effex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one instance so fingular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespear's, that if I had not been affured that the flory was handed down by fir William. D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I fhould not have ventured to have inferted, that my lord. Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with 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 profufe generofity the prefent age has shown 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 distinguish men, had generally a just value and esteem for him. His exceeding candor and good-nature muft 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. Jonfon began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature: Mr, Jonson, who was at that

See the epilogue to Henry 4th.

time

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 carelefly and fupercilioufly over, were juft upon returning it to him with an ill-natur'd anfwer, that it would be of no fervice to their company; when Shakespear luckily caft his eye upon it, and found fomething so well in it as to engage him first 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 Shakespear; 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 juit and proper. In a converfation between fir John Suckling, fir William D'Avenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eaton, and Ben. Fonfon; fir John Suckling, who was a profefsed admirer of Shakespear, had undertaken his defence against Ben. Jonson with fome warmth; Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, told them, That if Mr. Shakespear had not read the ancients, he had likewife not stolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any of them, he would undertake to show fomething upon the fame fubject at least as well written by Shakespear.

THE latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good fenfe will with theirs may be, in eafe, retirement, and the converfation 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 pleafurable wit, and good-nature,engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a ftory almost fillremembered 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 Shakespear in a laughing

manner

manner, that he fancy'd he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive 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 Shakespear gave him these four verses, Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,

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

O! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

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

He dyed in the 53d year of his age, and was bury'd 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 grave-stone underneath is,

Good friend, for Jesus' fake, forbear
To dig the dust inclofed here.

Bleft be the man that spares thefe ftones,
And curft be be that moves my bones.

He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three fons, who all dyed without children; and Sufannah, who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a phyfician of good reputation in that country. She left one child only, a daughter, who was married first to Thomas Nash, efq; and afterwards to fir John Bernard of Abbington, but dyed likewife without iffue.

THIS is what I could learn of any note, either relating to himself or family: the character of the man is best seen in his writings. But fince Ben. Jonfon has made a fort of an effay towards it in his Discoveries, I will give it in his words:

"I REMEMBER

"I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honour "to Shakespear, that in writing (whatfoever he penn'd) he never "blotted out a line. My anfwer hath been, 'Would, he had "blotted a thousand! which they thought a malevolent speech. "I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose "that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most "faulted: and to justify mine own candor, (for I loved the man, "and do honour his memory, on this fide idolatry, as much as "any.) He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, "had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expreflions; "wherein he flowed with that facility, that fometimes it was “necessary he should be stopped: sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus "faid of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; 'would, the "rule of it had been fo too! Many times he fell into those things "which could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person "of Cæfar, one fpeaking to him,

"Cæfar thou doft me wrong.

"He reply'd:

"Cæfar did never wrong, but with just cause.

"and fuch like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed 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 Shakespear, there is fomewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, but without the abfurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have feen, 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 seen, and know nothing of. He writ likewife Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in ftanzas, which

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have been printed in a late collection of poems. As to the character given of him by Ben. Jonson, there is a good deal true in it: but, I 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 fatis & feliciter audet,

Sed turpem putat in chartis metuitque lituram.

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

His plays are properly to be diftinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Thofe which are called hiftories, 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 audience feem to be better pleafed 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 rest, however they are called, have fomething of both kinds. 'Tis not very cafy to determine which way of writing he was moft excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then ftrike 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-diftinguifhed variety in thofe characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falftaff is allowed by every body to be a masterpiece; the character is always well fuftained, though drawn

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