indeed eminently beautifuf; but the whole piece appears to me to furnish abundant proofs of the hand of Shakspeare. The inequalities in different parts of it are not greater than may be found in fome of his other dramas. It should be remembered alfo, that Dryden, who lived near enough the time to be well informed, has pronounced this play to be our author's first performance: "Shakspeare's own Mufe his Pericles first bores "The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor." Let me add, that the contemptuous manner in which Ben Jonfon has mentioned it, is, in my apprehenfion, another proof of its authenticity. In his memorable Ode, written foon after his New Inn had been damned, when he was comparing his own unfuccefsful pieces with the applauded dramas of his contemporaries, he naturally chofe to point at what he efteemed a weak performance of a rival, whom he appears to have envied and hated merely because the fplendor of his genius had eclipfed his own, and had rendered the reception of those tame and disgusting imitations of antiquity, which he boastingly called the only legitimate English dramas, as cold as the performances themselves. That we As the fubje&t is of fome curiofity, I fhall make no apology for laying before the reader a more minute investigation of it.* It is proper, hɔwever, to inform him, that one of the following differtations on the genuineness of this play precedes the other only for a reafon affigned by Dogberry, that where two men ride on a borse, one must ride behind. might catch hints from the ftrictures of each other, and collect what we could mutually advance into a point, Mr. Steevens and I fet forward with an agreement to maintain the propriety of our respective fuppofitions rela tive to this piece, as far as we were able; to fubmit our remarks, as they gradually increased, alternately to each other, and to difpute the oppofite hypothefis, till one of us fhould acquiefce in the opinion of his opponent, or each remain confirmed in his own. The reader is therefore requested to bear in mind, that if the laft feries of arguments be confidered as an answer to the firft, the first was equally written in reply to the last: 46 -unus fefe armat utroque, "Unaque mens animat non diffociabilis ambos." MALONE. The Reader who may have a curiofity to examine this inveftigation will find thefe differtations in the Thirteenth Volume of Mr. Steevens's lat Edition, p. 612, and feqq. NICHOLS. END OF THE SEVENTH VOLUME. |