master when he was six years old, he might have the continued in this situation whilst he remained in

his single state, has not been told to us, and cannot therefore at this period be known. But in the absence of information, conjecture will be busy; and will soon cover the bare desert with unprofitable vegetation. Whilst Malone surmises that the young Poet passed the interval, till his marriage, or a large portion of it, in the office of an attorney, Aubrey stations him during the same term at the head of a country school. But the surmises of Malone are not universally happy; and to the assertions of Aubrey* I am not disposed to attach more credit than was attached to them by Anthony Wood, who knew the old gossip and was competent to appreciate his character. It is more probable that the necessity, which brought young Shakspeare from his school, retained him with his father's occupation at home, till the acquisition of a wife made it convenient for him to remove to a separate habitation. It is reasonable to conclude that a mind like his, ardent, excursive, and "all compact of imagination," would not be satisfied with entire inactivity; but would obtain knowledge where it could, if not from the stores of the ancients, from those at least which were supplied to him by the writers of his own country.

continued in a state of instruction for seven or even
for eight years; a term sufficiently long for any
boy, not an absolute blockhead, to acquire some
thing more than the mere elements of the classical
languages. We are too ignorant, however, of dates
in these instances to speak with any confidence on
the subject; and we can only assert that seven or
eight of the fourteen years, which intervened be-
tween the birth of our Poet in 1564 and the known
period of his father's diminished fortune in 1578,
might very properly have been given to the advan-
tages of the free-school. But now the important
question is to be asked-What were the attainments
of our young Shakspeare at this seat of youthful
instruction? Did he return to his father's house in
a state of utter ignorance of classic literature? or
was he as far advanced in his school-studies as
boys of his age (which I take to be thirteen or four-
teen) usually are in the common progress of our
public and more reputable schools? That his scho-
lastic attainments did not rise to the point of learn-
ing, seems to have been the general opinion of his
contemporaries; and to this opinion I am willing
to assent. But I cannot persuade myself that he
was entirely unacquainted with the classic tongues;
or that, as Farmer and his followers labour to con-
vince us, he could receive the instructions, even for
three or four years, of a school of any character,
and could then depart without any knowledge be-
yond that of the Latin accidence. The most ac-
complished scholar may read with pleasure the
poetic versions of the classic poets; and the less
advanced proficient may consult his indolence by
applying to the page of a translation of a prose
classic, when accuracy of quotation may not be
required: and on evidences of this nature is sup-
ported the charge which has been brought, and
which is now generally admitted, against our im-
mortal bard, of more than school-boy ignorance.
He might, indeed, from necessity apply to North
for the interpretation of Plutarch; but he read
Golding's Ovid only, as I am satisfied, for the en-
tertainment of its English poetry. Ben Jonson,
who must have been intimately conversant with his
friend's classic acquisitions, tells us expressly that,
"He had small Latin and less Greek." But,
according to the usual plan of instruction in our
schools, he must have traversed a considerable ex-
tent of the language of Rome, before he could
touch even the confines of that of Greece. He
must in short have read Ovid's Metamorphoses,
and a part at least of Virgil, before he could open
the grammar of the more ancient, and copious, and
complex dialect. This I conceive to be a fair state-
ment of the case in the question respecting Shak-
speare's learning. Beyond controversy he was not
a scholar; but he had not profited so little by the
hours, which he had passed in school, as not to be
able to understand the more easy Roman authors
without the assistance of a translation. If he him
self had been asked, on the subject, he might have
parodied his own Falstaff and have answered, "In-
deed I am not a Scaliger or a Budæus, but yet no
blockhead, friend." I believe also that he was not
wholly unacquainted with the popular languages of
France and Italy. He had abundant leisure to ac-
quire them; and the activity and the curiosity of
his mind were sufficiently strong to urge him to
their acquisition. But to discuss this much agita
ted question would lead me beyond the limits which
are prescribed to me; and, contenting myself with
declaring that, in my opinion, both parties are
wrong, both they who contend for our Poet's learn-
ing, and they who place his illiteracy on a level
with that of John Taylor, the celebrated water-
poet, I must resume my humble and most deficient
narrative. The classical studies of William Shak-
speare, whatever progress he may or may not have
made in them, were now suspended; and he was
replaced in his father's house, when he had attained
his thirteenth or fourteenth year, to assist with his
hand in the maintenance of the family. Whether

In 1582, before he had completed his eighteenth year, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter, as Rowe informs us, of a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. We are unacquainted with the precise period of their marriage, and with the church in which it was solemnized, for in the register of Stratford there is no record of the event; and we are made certain of the year, in which it occurred, only by the baptism of Susanna, the first produce of the union, on the 26th of May, 1583. As young Shakspeare neither increased his fortune by this match, though he probably received some money with his wife, nor raised himself by it in the community, we may conclude that he was induced to it by inclination, and the impulse of love. But the youthful poet's dream of happiness does not seem to have been realized by the result. The bride was eight years older than the bridegroom; and whatever charms she might possess to fascinate the eyes of her boy-lover, she probably was deficient in those powers which are requisite to imposo a durable fetter on the heart, and to hold "in sweet captivity" a mind of the very highest order. No charge is intimated against the lady: but she is left in Stratford by her husband during his long residence in the metropolis; and on his death, she is found to be only slightly, and, as it were, casually remembered in his will. Her second pregnancy, which was productive of twins, (Hamnet and Judith, baptized on the 2d of February, 1584-5,) terminated her pride as a mother; and we know nothing more respecting her than that, surviving her illustrious consort by rather more than seven years, she was buried on the 8th of August, 1623, being, as we are told by the inscription on her tomb, of the age of sixty-seven. Respecting the habits of life, or the occupation of our young Poet by which he obtained his subsistence, or even the place of his residence, subsequently to his marriage, not a floating syllable has been wafted to us by tradition for the gratification of our curiosity; and the history of this great man is a perfect blank till the occurrence of an event, which drove him from his native town, and gave his wonderful intellect to break out in its full lustre on the world. From the frequent allusions in his writings to the elegant sport of falconry, it has been suggested that this, possibly, might be one of his favourite amusements: and nothing can be more probable, from the active season of his life, and his fixed habitation in the country, fant offspring. The world was spread before him, than his strong and eager passion for all the plea- like a dark ocean, in which no fortunate isle could sures of the field. As a sportsman, in his rank of be seen to glitter amid the gloomy and stillen tile. life, he would naturally become a poacher; and But he was blessed with youth and health; Lis then it is highly probable that he would fall into the conscience was unwounded, for the adventure for acquaintance of poachers; and, associating with which he suffered, was regarded, in the estimation them in his idler hours, would occasionally be one of his times, as a mere boy's frolick, of not greater

of their fellow-marauders on the manors of their rich neighbours. In one of these licentious excursions on the grounds of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, in the immediate vicinity of Stratford, for the purpose, as it is said, of stealing his deer, our young bard was detected; and, having farther irritated the knight by afflixing a satirical ballad on him to the gates of Charlecote, he was compelled to fly before the enmity of his powerful adversary, and to seek an asylum in the capital. Malone, who is prone to doubt, wishes to question the truth of this whole narrative, and to ascribe the flight of young Shakspeare from his native country to the embarrassment of his circumstances, and the persecution of his creditors. But the story of the deer-stealing rests upon the uniform tradition of Stratford,

and is confirmed by the character of Sir T. Lucy, who is known to have been a rigid preserver of his game, by the enmity displayed against his memory by Shakspeare in his succeeding life; and by a part of the offensive ballady itself, preserved by a Mr. Jones of Tarbick, a village near to Stratford, who obtained it from those who must have been acquainted with the fact, and who could not be biased by any interest or passion to falsify or misstate it. Besides the objector, in this instance, seems not to be aware that it was easier to escape from the resentment of an offended proprietor of game, than from the avarice of a creditor: that

whilst the former might be satisfied with the re

moval of the delinquent to a situation where he could no longer infest his parks or his warrens, the latter would pursue his debtor wherever bailiffs could find and writs could attach him. On every account, therefore, I believe the tradition, recorded by Rowe, that our Poet retired from Stratford before the exasperated power of Sir T. Lucy, and found a refuge in London, not possibly beyond the reach of the arm, but beyond the hostile purposes of his proThe time of this eventful flight of the great bard of England cannot now be accurately determined: but we may somewhat confidently place it between the years 1585 and 1588; for in the former of these

vincial antagonist.

we may conclude him to have been present with his family at the baptism of his twins, Hamnet and Judith; and than the latter of them we cannot well

guilt than the robbing of an orchard; and his mind,
rich beyond example in the gold of heaven, could
throw lustre over the black waste before him, and
could people it with a beautiful creation of her own.
We may imagine him, then, departing from his
home, not indeed like the great Roman captive as
he is described by the poet-

Fertur pudice conjugis osculum,
Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor,
Ab se removisse, et virilem

Torvus humi posuisse, vultum, &c.

but touched with some feelings of natural sorrow, yet with an unfaltering step, and with hope vigourous at his heart. It was impossible that he should

despair; and if he indulged in sanguine expecta

tion, the event proved him not to be a visionary. became the associate of wits, the friend of nobles, In the course of a few years, the exile of Stratford the favourite of monarchs; and in a period which still left him not in sight of old age, he returned to

his birth-place in affluence, with honour, and with the plaudits of the judicious and the noble resound

ing in his ears.

stage; to which his access, as it appears, was easy. His immediate refuge in the metropolis was the Stratford was fond of theatrical representations, which it accommodated with its town or guildhall; and had frequently been visited by companies of players when our Poet was of an age, not only to enjoy their performances, but to form an acquain

tance with their members. Thomas Greene, who sidered by some writers as a kinsman of our auwas one of their distinguished actors, has been conthor's; and though he, possibly, may have been confounded by them with another Thomas Greene, with the Shakspeares, he was certainly a fellow a barrister, who was unquestionably connected townsman of our fugitive bard's; whilst Hemingo and Burbage, two of the leaders of the company in mediate neighbourhood. With the door question, belonged either to Stratford or to its imhis own natural bias, (for however in after life he atre thus open to him, and under the impulse of sional actor, it must be concluded that he now felt may have lamented his degradation as a profesful that young Shakspeare should solicit this asylum a strong attachment to the stage,) it is not wonderin his distress; ceived by men who knew him, and sorae of whom

or

of the the

that he should be kindly

re

assign a later date for his arrival in London, since we know that before 1592 he had not only written two long poems, the Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, but had acquired no small degree of celebrity as an actor and as a dramatic writer. were connected, if not with his family, at least with

At this agitating crisis of his life, the situation of young Shakspeare was certainly, in its obvious aspect, severe and even terrific. Without friends to protect or assist him, he was driven, under the frown of exasperated power, from his profession; from his native fields; from the companions of his childhood and his youth; from his wife and his in

* Malone was much addicted to doubt. Knowing, perhaps, that, on all the chief topics of the Grecian chools of philosophy, the great mind of Cicero faltered in doubt, our commentator and critic wished, possibly, to establish his claim to a superiority of intellect by the same academic withholding of assent. He ought, how ever, to have been aware that scepticism, which is sometimes the misfortune of wise men, is generally the

affertation of fools.

The first stanza of this ballad, which is admitted to be genuine, may properly be preserved as a curiosity, But as it is to be found in every life of our author, with the exception of Rowe's, I shall refer my readers, to whom it could not be gratifying, to some other page for it than my own.

From Robert Greene's posthumous work, written in 1592, and Chettle's Kind Hart's Dream, published very spon afterwards.

himself, was the Earl of Leicester's or the Queen's; his native town. The company, to which he united which had obtained the royal license in 1574. The place of its performances, when our Poet became enrolled among its members, was the Globe on the Bankside; and its managers subsequently pur chased the theatre of Blackfriars, (the oldest theatre in London,) which they had previously rented first of which was open in the centre for summer for some years; and at these two theatres, the representations, and the last covered for those of winter, were acted all the dramatic productions of Shakspeare. That he was at first received into the company in a very subordinate situation, may be regarded not merely as probable, but as certain: that he ever carried a link to light the frequenters rejected as an absurd tale, fabricated, no doubt, by of the theatre, or over held their horses, must be the lovers of the marvellous, who were solicitous to obtain a contrast in the humility of his first to the pride of his subsequent fortunes. The mean incompatible with his circumstances, even in their and servile occupation, thus assigned to him, was

present afflicted state: and his relations and connec

tions, though far from wealthy, were yet too remote departure from Stratford and his becoming the obfrom absolute poverty, to permit him to act for a mo-ject of Greene's malignant attack, constituted a ment in such a degrading situation. He was certainly, busy and an important period of his life. Within therefore, immediately admitted within the theatre; this term he had conciliated the friendship of the but in what rank or character cannot now be known. young Thomas Wriothesly, the liberal, the high This fact, however, soon became of very little con- souled, the romantic Earl of Southampton: a sequence; for he speedily raised himself into con- friendship which adhered to him throughout his life;

sideration among his new fellows by the exertions
of his pen, if not by his proficiency as an actor.
When he began his career as a dramatic writer;
or to what degree of excellence he attained in his
personation of dramatic characters, are questions
which have been frequently agitated without any
satisfactory result. By two publications, which
appeared toward the end of 1592, we know, or at
least we are induced strongly to infer, that at that
period, either as the corrector of old or as the writer
of original dramas, he had supplied the stage with a
copiousness of materials. We learn also from the
same documents that, in his profession of actor, he
trod the boards not without the acquisition of ap-
plause. The two publications, to which I allude,
are Robert Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit bought
with a Million of Repentance," and Henry Chet-
tle's "Kind Hart's Dream." In the former of
these works, which was published by Chettle sub-
sequently to the unhappy author's decease, the
writer, addressing his fellow dramatists, Marlowe,
Peele, and Lodge, says, "Yes! trust them not,"
(the managers of the theatre;) "for there is an
upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that,
with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide,
supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute
Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only
Shake-scene in a country." As it could not be
doubtful against whom this attack was directed, we
cannot wonder that Shakspeare should be hurt by
it: or that he should expostulate on the occasion
rather warmly with Chettle as the editor of the of-
fensive matter. In consequence, as it is probable,
of this expression of resentment on the part of
Shakspeare, a pamphlet from the pen of Chettle
called" Kind Hart's Dream" issued from the press
before the close of the same year (1592,) which had
witnessed the publication of Greene's posthumous
work. In this pamphlet, Chettle acknowledges his
concern for having edited any thing which had given
pain to Shakspeare, of whose character and accom-
plishments he avows a very favourable opinion.
Marlowe, as well as Shakspeare, appears to have
been offended by some passages in this production
of poor Greene's: and to both of these great drama-
tic poets Chettle refers in the short citation which
we shall now make from his page: "With neither
of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with
one of them" (concluded to be Marlowe, whose
moral character was unhappily not good) "I care
not if I never be. The other," (who must neces-
sarily be Shakspeare,) "whom at that time I did
not so much spare as since I wish I had; for that,
as I have moderated the hate of living authors, and
might have used my own discretion, (especially in
such a case, the author being dead,) that I did not
I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my
fault: because myself have seen his demeanor no
less civil than he is excellent in the quality he pro-
fesses. Besides divers of worship have reported
his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty;
and his facetious grace in writing, that approves
his art." Shakspeare was now twenty-eight years
of age; and this testimony of a contemporary, who
was acquainted with him, and was himself an actor,
in favour of his moral and his professional excel-
lence, must be admitted as of considerable value.
It is evident that he had now written for the stage;
and before he entered upon dramatic composition,
we are certain that he had completed, though he
had not published his two long and laboured poems
of Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece. We
cannot, therefore, date his arrival in the capital
later than 1588, or, perhaps, than 1587; and the
four or five years which interposed between his

and he had risen to that celebrity, as a poet and a dramatist, which placed him with the first wits of the age, and subsequently lifted him to the notice and the favour of Elizabeth and James, as they successively sate upon the throne of England.

At the point of time which our narrative has now reached, we cannot accurately determine what dramatic pieces had been composed by him: but we are assured that they were of sufficient excellence to excite the envy and the consequent hostility of those who, before his rising, had been the luminaries of the stage. It would be gratifying to curiosity if the feat were possible, to adjust with any precision the order in which his wonderful productions issued from his brain. But the attempt has more than once been made, and never yet with entire success. We know only that his connection with the stage continued for about twenty years, (though the duration even of this term cannot be settled with precision,) and that, within this period he composed either partially, as working on the ground of others, or educing them altogether from his own fertility, thirty-five or (if that wretched thing, Pericles, in consequence of Dryden's testimony in favour of its authenticity, and of a few touches of THE GOLDEN FEN being discoverable in its last scenes, must be added to the number) thirty-six dramas; and that of these it is probable that such as were founded on the works of preceding authors were the first essays of his dramatic talent; and such as were more perfectly his own, and are of the first sparkle of excellence, were among the last. While I should not hesitate, therefore, to station "Pericles," the three parts of "Henry VI.," (for I cannot see any reason for throwing the first of these parts from the protection of our author's name,) "Love's Labour Lost," "The Comedy of Errors," "The Taming of the Shrew," "King John," and "Richard II.," among his earliest productions, I should, with equal confidence, arrange "Macheth," "Lear," "Othello," "Twelfth Night," and "The Tempest," with his latest, assigning them to that season of his life, when his mind exulted in the conscious plenitude of power. Whatever might be the order of succession in which this illustrious family of genius sprang into existence, they soon attracted notice, and speedily compelled the homage of respect from those who were the most eminent for their learning, their talents, or their rank. Jonson, Selden, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Donne, were the associates and the intimates of our Poet: the Earl of Southampton was his especial friend: the Earls of Pembroke and of Montgomery were avowedly his admirers and patrons: Queen Elizabeth distinguished him with her favour; and her successor, James, with his own hand, honoured the great dramatist with a letter of thanks for the compliment paid in Macbeth to the royal family of the Stuarts.* The circumstance which first brought the two lords of the stage, Shakspeare and Jonson, into that embrace of friendship which continued indissoluble, as there is reason to believe, during the permission of mortality, is reported to have been the kind assistance given by the former to the latter, when he was offering one of his plays (Every Man in his Humour) for the benefit of representation. The manuscript, as it is said, was on the point of being rejected and returned with a rude answer, when Shakspeare, fortunately glancing his eye over its pages, immediately discovered its

* The existence of this royal letter of thanks is asserted on the authority of Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, who saw it in the possession of Davenant. The cause of the thanks is assigned on the most probable conjecture.

merit; and, with his influence, obtained its intro- | land to a mere actor, of ten times the nominal and

duction on the stage. To this story some specious objections have been raised; and there cannot be any necessity for contending for it, as no lucky accident can be required to account for the inducement of amity between two men of high genius, each treading the same broad path to fame and fortune, yet each with a character so peculiarly his own, that he might attain his object without wounding the pride or invading the interests of the other. It has been generally believed that the intellectual superiority of Shakspeare excited the envy and the consequent enmity of Jonson. It is well that of these asserted facts no evidences can be adduced. The friendship of these great men seems to have been unbroken during the life of Shakspeare; and, on his death, Jonson made an offering to his memory of high, just, and appropriate panegyric. He places him above not only the modern but the Greek dramatists; and he professes for him admiration short only of idolatry. They who can discover any penuriousness of praise in the surviving poet must be gifted with a very peculiar vision of mind. With the flowers, which he strewed upon the grave of his friend, there certainly was not blended one poisonous or bitter leaf. If, therefore, he was, as he is represented to have been by an impartial and able judge, (Drummond of Hawthornden,) "a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; jealous of every word and action of those about him," &c. &c., how can we otherwise account for the uninterrupted harmony of his intercourse with our bard than by supposing that the frailties of his nature were overruled by that pre-eminence of mental power in his friend which precluded competition; and by his friend's sweetness of temper and gentleness of manners, which repressed every feeling of hostility. Between Shakspeare and Thomas Wriothesly, the munificent and the noble Earl of Southampton, distinguished in history by his inviolable attachment to the rash and the unfortunate Essex, the friendship was permanent and ardent. At its commencement, in 1593, when Shakspeare was twenty-nine years of age, Southampton was not more than nineteen; and, with the love of general literature, he was particularly attached to the exhibitions of the theatre. His attention was first drawn to Shakspeare by the poet's dedication to him of the "Venus and Adonis," that "first heir," as the dedicator calls it, "of his invention;" and the acquaintance, once begun between characters and hearts like theirs, would soon mature into intimacy and friendship. In the following year (1594) Shakspeare's second poem, "The Rape of Lucrece,"

was addressed by

him to his noble patron in a strain of less distant timidity; and we may infer from it that the poet had then obtained a portion of the favour which he sought. That his fortunes were essentially promoted by the munificent patronage of Southampton cannot reasonably be doubted. We are told by Sir William Davenant, who surely possessed the means of knowing the fact, that the peer gave at one time to his favoured dramatist the magnificent present of a thousand pounds. This is rejected by Malone as an extravagant exaggeration; and because the donation is said to have been made for the purpose of enabling the poet to complete a purchase which he had then in contemplation; and because no purchase of an adequate magnitude seems to have been accomplished by him, the critic treats the whole story with contempt; and is desirous of substituting a dedication fee of one hundred pounds for the more princely liberality which is attested by Davenant. But surely a purchase might be within the view of Shakspeare, and eventually not be effected; and then of course the thousand pounds in question would be added to his personal property; where it would just complete the income on which he is reported to have retired from the stage. As to the incredibility of the gift in consequence of its value, have we not witnessed a gift, made in the present day, by a noble of the

twice the effective value of this proud bounty of the great Earl of Southampton's* to one of the master spirits of the human race? ↑

Of the degree of patronage and kindness extended to Shakspeare by the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, we are altogether ignorant: but we know, from the dedication of his works to them by Heminge and Condell, that they had distinguished themselves as his admirers and friends. That he numbered many more of the nobility of his day among the homagers of his transcendent genius, we may consider as a specious probability. But we must not indulge in conjectures, when we can gratify ourselves with the reports of tradition, approaching very nearly to certainties. Elizabeth, as it is confidently said, honoured our illustrious dramatist with her especial notice and regard. She was unquestionably fond of theatric exhibitions; and, with her literary mind and her discriminating eye, it is impossible that she should overlook; and that, not overlooking, she should not appreciate the man, whose genius formed the prime glory of her reign. It is affirmed that, delighted with the character of Falstaff as drawn in the two parts of Henry IV., she expressed a wish to see the gross and dissolute knight under the influence of love; and that the result of our Poet's compliance, with the desire of his royal mistress, was "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Favoured, however, as our seems to have been by Elizabeth, and notwithPoet standing the fine incense which he offered to her vanity, it does not appear that he profited in any degree by her bounty. She could distinguish and could smile upon genius: but unless it were immediately serviceable to her personal or her political interests, she had not the soul to reward it. However inferior to her in the arts of government and in some of the great characters of mind might be her Scottish successor, he resembled her in his love of letters, and in his own cultivation of learning. He was a scholar, and even a poet: his attachment to the general cause of literature was strong; and his love of the drama and the theatre was particularly warm. Before his accession to the English throne he had written, as we have before noticed, a letter, with his own hand, to Shakspeare,

Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, is entitled to our es-
* As the patron and the friend of Shakspeare, Thomas
pecial attention and respect. But I cannot admit his
eventful history into the text, without breaking the uni-
ty of my biographical narrative; and to speak of him
to inform my

within the compass of a note will be only
readers, that he was born on the 6th of October, 1573:
the Earl of Essex, against the government of Eliza-
that he was engaged in the mad attempts of his friend,
beth: that, in consequence, he was confined during her
life by that Queen, who was so lenient as to be satisfied
with the blood of one of the friends: that, immediately
disposed to adopt the enmities of the murderess of his
death, he was liberated by her successor, not
mother: that he was promoted to honours by the new
sovereign; and that, finally, being sent with a military
command to the Low Countries, he caught a fever from
his son, Lord Wriothesly; and, surviving him only five
days, concluded his active and honourable career of life
at Bergen-op-zoom, on the 10th of November, 1624. It
may be added, that, impoverished by his liberalities, he

assistance of the crown.
left his widow in such circumstances as to cali for the

† The late Duke of Northumberland made a present

to John Kemble of 10,000l.

Animated as this comedy is with much distinct delineation of character, it cannot be pronounced to be unworthy of its great author. But it evinces the difficulty of writing upon a prescribed subject, and of workhe sported in the scenes of Henry IV., Falstaff was ining with effect under the control of another mind. As susceptible of love: and the egregious dupe of Windsor, ducked and cudgelled as he was, cannot be the wit of Eastcheap, or the guest of Shallow, or the military commander on the field of Shrewsbury. But even the He did what he could to revive his own Falstaff: but the life which he reinfused into his creature was not the vigorous vitality of Nature; and he placed him in a scene where he could not subsist.

acknowledging, as it is supposed, the compliment paid to him in the noble scenes of Macbeth; and scarcely had the crown of England fallen upon his head, when he granted his royal patent to our Poet and his company of the Globe; and thus raised them from being the Lord Chamberlain's servants to be the servants of the King. The patent is dated on the 19th of May, 1603, and the name of William Shakspeare stands second on the list of the patentees. As the demise of Elizabeth had occurred on the 24th of the preceding March, this early attention of James to the company of the Globe may be regarded as highly complimentary to Shakspeare's theatre, and as strongly demonstrative of the new sov ereign's partiality for the drama. But James' patronage of our Poet was not in any other way beneficial to his fortunes. If Elizabeth were too parsimonious for an effective patron, by his profusion on his pleasures and his favourites, James soon became too needy to possess the means of bounty for the reward of talents and of learning. Honour, in short, was all that Shakspeare gained by the favour of two successive sovereigns, each of them versed in literature, each of them fond of the drama, and each of them capable of appreciating the transcendency of his genius.

rell, a clergyman, into whose worse than Gothic hands New Place had most unfortunately fallen.

As we are not told the precise time, when Shakspeare retired from the stage and the metropons to enjoy the tranquillity of life in his native town, we cannot pretend to determine it. As he is said, however, to have passed some years in his establishment at New Place, we may conclude that his removal took place either in 1612 or in 1613, when he was yet in the vigour of life, being not more than forty-eight or forty-nine years old. He bad ceased, as it is probable, to tread the stage as an actor at an earlier period; for in the list of actors, prefixed to the Volpone of B. Jonson, performed at the Globe theatre, and published in 1605, the name of William Shakspeare is not to be found. However versed he might be in the science of acting, (and that he was versed in it we are assured by his directions to the players in Hamlet,) and, however well he might acquit himself in some of the subordinate characters of the drama, it does not appear that he ever rose to the higher honours of his profession. But if they were above his attainment, they seem not to have been the objects of his ambition; for by one of his sonnets* we find that he lamented the fortune which had devoted him to the stage, and that he considered himself as degraded by such a public exhibition. The time was not yet come when actors were to be the companions of princes: when their lives, as of illustrious men, were to be written; and when statues were to be erected to them by public contribution!

It would be especially gratifying to us to exhibit to our readers some portion at least of the personal history of this illustrious man during his long residence in the capital; -to announce the names and characters of his associates, a few of which only we can obtain from Fuller; to delineate his habits of life; to record his convivial wit; to commemorate the books which he read; and to number his compositions as they dropped in succession from his pen. But no power of this nature is indulged to us. All that active and efficient portion of his mortal existence, which constituted conside- real property from authentic documents, assigns a

The amount of the fortune, on which Shakspeare retired from the busy world, has been the subject of some discussion. By Gildon, who forbears to state his authority, this fortune is valued at 300l. a year; and by Malone, who, calculating our Poet's random value to his personal, it is reduced to 2001. and intelligent researches. It may be regarded by we conceive that Gildon's approaches the more us as a kind of central Africa, which our reason nearly to the truth: for if to Malone's conjectural assures us to be glowing with fertility and alive with estimate of the personal property, of which he propopulation; but which is abandoned in our maps, fosses to be wholly ignorant, be added the thousand from the ignorance of our geographers, to the death pounds, given by Southampton, (an act of munifiof barrenness, and the silence of sandy desolation. cence of which we entertain not a doubt,) the preBy the Stratford register we can ascertain that his cise total, as money then bore an interest of To only son, Hamnet, was buried, in the twelfth year per cent., of the three hundred pounds a year will of his age, on the 11th of August, 1596; and that, be made up. On the smallest of these incomes, after an interval of nearly eleven years, his eldest however, when money was at least five tinies its daughter, Susanna, was married to John Hall, present value, might our Poet possess the comforts a physician, on the 5th of June, 1607. With the ex- and the liberalities of life and in the society of ception of two or three purchases made by him at his family, and of the neighbouring gentry, conciliaStratford, one of them being that of New Place, ted by the amiableness of his manners and the which he repaired and ornamented for his future re- pleasantness of his conversation, he seems to have sidence, the two entries which we have now ex- passed his few remaining days in the enjoyment of tracted from the register, are positively all that we tranquillity and respect. So exquisite, indeed, apcan relate with confidence of our great poet and his pears to have been his relish of the quiet, which family, during the long term of his connection with was his portion within the walls of New Place, that the theatre and the metropolis. We may fairly it induced a complete oblivion of all that had enconclude, indeed, that he was present at each of the gaged his attention, and had aggrandized his name domestic events, recorded by the register: that he in the preceding scenes of his life. Without any attended his son to the grave, and his daughter to regard to his literary fame, either present or to the altar. We may believe also, from its great come, he saw with perfect unconcern some of his probability, even to the testimony of Aubrey, that immortal works brought, mutilated and deformed, he paid an annual visit to his native town; whence in surreptitious copies, before the world; and others his family were never removed, and which he seems of them, with an equal indifference to their fate, always to have contemplated as the resting place he permitted to remain in their unrevised or interof his declining age. He probably had nothing more polated MSS. in the hands of the theatric prompthan a lodging in London, and this he might occa-ter. There is not, probably, in the whole compass sionally change but in 1596 he is said to have of literary history, such another instance of a proud lived somewhere near to the Bear-Garden, in South- superiority to what has been called by a rival genius,

rably more than a third part of it, is an unknown region, not to be penetrated by our most zealous of these two valuations of Shakspeare's property,

wark.

In 1606, James procured from the continent a large importation of mulberry trees, with a view to the establishment of the silk manufactory in his dominions; and, either in this year or in the following, Shakspeare enriched his garden at New Place with one of these exotic, and at that time, very rare trees. This plant of his hand took root, and flourished till the year 1752, when it was destroyed by the barbarous axe of one Francis Gast-1

"The last infirmity of noble minds,"

as that which was now exhibited by our illustrious dramatist and poet. He seemed

"As if he could not or he would not find,

How much his worth transcended all his kind."

See Sonnet cxi.

† Epitaph on a Fair Maiden Lady, by Dryden

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