ofity or enmity to the Author, or fome other motive, to write down paffages of the play. There is reason to believe, that some of Shakspeare's dramas underwent this fate; and that fome of the old quartos were published from these imperfect copies.

The ancient cuftom of concluding the play with a prayer for the health and profperity of the King and Queen, if it were acted in the public theatres, probably gave birth to the common addition to the modern play-bills, Vivant Rex & Regina. If the play was acted in private houses, the patrons of it were prayed for. Plays in the time of Shakspeare began at one o'clock in the afternoon and the exhibition was usually finished in two hours. Even in 1667, they commenced at three o'clock. From Goffon's School of Abufe, above quoted, it feems that dramatic entertainments were ufually exhibited on Sundays:afterwards they were performed on that and other days indifcriminately. Withers complains of this profanation of the Lord's Day, fo late as the year 1628, through Prynne is filent about it in his Hiftriomaflix, 1633. May, however, in his Hiftory of the Parliament, &c. 1646, taking a review of the conduct of King Charles and his minifters from 1628 to 1640, obferves, that plays were ufually reprefented at Court on Sundays during that period. It is probable, that they were not publicly performed at that time on the Lord's Day.

Play-bills announcing the title and leading features of the exhibition were given out in Shak fpeare's time to draw an audi̟ence: but the characters of the piece and the names of the actors were not fpecified. This latter practice did not commence till the beginning of the prefent century. It is conjectured by the Editor, that the long and whimsical titles that are prefixed to the quarto copies of our Author's plays, were tranfcribed from the play-bills of the time. It is improbable, that Shakspeare, who was exceedingly modeft, and who has more than once apologised for his untutored lines, fhould in his MSS. have entitled any of his dramas most excellent and pleasant performances. The following is an exact copy of the title-page of The merry Wives of Windfor, as it appears in the old 4to edi

With fundrie variable and pleafing humours of Sir
Hugh, the Welch Knight, Julice Shallow,
And his wife Coufin, Mr. Slender.

With the

Swaggering Vaine of antient Piftoll
And Corporal Nym.

By William Shakspeare.

As it hath been divers Times acted
By the Right Honourable my Lord Chamber-
laine's Servants :

Both before her Majeftie and elsewhere.

1602.

When the æra of benefits for the authors commenced, cannot be exactly ascertained. Mr. Oldys hints at an ancient custom of allotting the profits of the first day to the poet: a regulation (fays Mr. Malone, fomewhat archly) which would have been very favourable to fome of the ephemeral productions of modern times.' In the latter end of Q. Elizabeth's reign, the poet had his benefit on the fecond day. Decker fpeaks of the poet's third day in 1612.

Southerne was the firft dramatic Writer who obtained the emoluments arising from two reprefentations; and to Farquhar, in 1700, the benefit of a third was granted. Mr. Addison was the firft who difcontinued the ancient but humiliating practice of diftributing tickets, and foliciting company to attend at the theatre on the poet's night. By this mean practice of foliciting people to attend, Southerne is faid to have gained 7001. by one play.

The cuftomary price of the copy of a play to the Bookfeller in the time of Shakspeare appears to have been twenty nobles, or 61. 13s. 4d. The ufual present from the patron to whom it was dedicated, was forty fhillings.

Dramatic poets were, in thofe times, as at prefent, admitted gratis into the theatre.

Cat-calling was an ancient mode of cenfure. Decker fpeaks of "mewing at paffionate fpeeches." The common term, as well as practice, of damning plays, is as ancient, at leaft, as the time of Sir William Davenant, 1643. Three pieces of Ben Johnson's, and two of Beaumont and Fletcher's, underwent this

fate.

Actors in Shakspeare's time had not an annual falry. The performers fhared the profits of the ftage, according to a mode of proportion previously agreed on. The utmoft that the fharers of the Globe play-houfe could have received on any one day was about 351. This theatre is fuppofed to have held about thirteen or fourteen hundred perfons. [Each of the modern theatres in Drury-Lane and Covent Garden, Mr. Malone obferves in a note, will contain two thousand three hundred.] In1685, thadwell received by his benefit on the third night,. 1301. which was the greatest receipt that had been ever taken before that time at Drury-Lane.

It appears from the MSS. of Lord Stanhope, Treasurer of the Chambers to King James I. that the customary fum paid to John Heminge and his company, for the performance of a play at court, was 61. 13 s. 4 d. to which his Majefty would occafionally add, by way of bounty, the fum of 31. 6s. 8 d.

Thus fcanty and meagre (fays our ingenious Editor) were the apparatus and accommodations of our ancient theatres, on which thofe dramas were first exhibited that have fince engaged the attention of fo many learned men, and delighted fo many thousand fpectators!"

Thefe obfervations on the ancient ftate of the English theatre are followed with fome account of the original performers in the dramas of Shakespear :-this account indeed is very flender, but it is the utmoft that could be procured; and, though flender, is another proof of the great induftry of Mr. Malone. To this is subjoined a transcript of a curious MS. lately difcovered in the library of Dulwich College, entitled, The Platt of the fecound Parte of the Seaven deadlie Sinns. This platt (i. e. plat-form or outline of the performance, enumerating the different characters, with the names of the performers) ferves in fome measure to mark the various degrees of confequence of feveral of these old actors. In this platt, Shakspeare, who is fimply called Will, is fuppofed to be the person who acted the part of Itys. Thus alfo, Edward Alleyne, who afterwards founded Dulwich College, is called Ned; and Henry Condell, whom Shakspeare mentions in his will as one of his fellows, and who joined with Heminge in the folio edition of his plays, is called Harry. Burbage (the alter Rofcius of Camden) appears in two characters in this platt. It is difficult to form a juft idea of the nature and defign of the piece itself, from this rude sketch of it. It feems to have been an attempt to unite the seriousness and piety of the ancient moralities with the gayer and more infinuating graces of the more regular and improved drama. The neceflity (fays Mr. Steevens) of half indulging and half repreffing a grofs and vicious tafte, might have given rife to fuch pieces of dramatic patch-work as this. Even the most rigid Puritans might have been content to behold exhibitions in which Pagan hiftories were rendered fubfervient to Christian purposes. The dulnefs of the intervening homilift would have half abfolved the deadly fin of the poet. A fainted audience would have been tempted to think the representation of Othello laudable, provided the piece were at once heightened and moralifed by choruses spoken in the characters of Ireton and Cromwell!' We by no means fubfcribe to this opinion. The old Puritans objected to every fpecies of dramatic entertainment; and looked on every attempt to unite the church and the ftage as an impious profanation of the former. Their rigidnefs yielded not to the charms.

of

of poetry; and their horror was the more increased when Christianity was blended with the fictions of Paganism, and Religion in her fober fuit was forced into company with the gayer characters of a mixed drama.

6

The Prolegomena is fuccceded by Supplemental Obfervations' on the feveral plays of Shakspeare, which have occurred fince the publication of the laft edition. Some of them are of very little confequence, and only ferve to enlarge the catalogue of parallel paffages, already fufficiently numerous in the preceding volumes. Mr. Tyrwhytt's Remarks on Dr. Warburton's Dif fertation on Chivalry and Romance are learned and ingenious, and fufficiently confute that great man's hypothefis. But it is too long to be tranfcribed and we will not do it the injustice to abridge it.

The original letter from Warburton to Concanen, which, from a note on Dr. Akenfide's Ode to Mr. Edwards, had long excited the curiofity of the public, is here printed at full length. It was written in the year 1726, and is dated from Newarke; at which place, if we have been rightly informed, Dr. Warburton was at that time a practifing attorney. Matthew Con canen, to whom the letter was fent, was then a member of a club, in which Theobald, and others of the fame class, were engaged in a literary war with Pope and his fellow-wits of an oppofite fociety. Pope's genius had excited their envy; and the feverity of ridicule had mortified their pride. At one of their meetings, the Attorney of Newark had the honour of being introduced by this Concanen. Having been little in the world, he looked on himself as highly diftinguished by this introduction; and, in the letter now published, acknowledges the obligation with much thankfulness. The moft curious part of the letter is that which relates to Mr. Pope; who is directly charged with plagiarifm for want of genius:'-the very Mr. Pope, whofe genius he afterwards exalted by all the extravagance of praife; and on whofe Dunciad, where his old friends, Concanen and Theobald, were hung up to public fcorn, he wrote notes to render its fatire intelligible, and pointed out beauties to make its merit confpicuous!

The letter contains remarks on Addison's Cato, and on that fublime paffage in our British Homer' (as he calls Shakspeare) "Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, &c."

It appears from the letter, that he had objections to Shakfpeare's acquaintance with the ancients-that in his view they were of great weight-that it was neceffary that Mr. Theobald fhould be apprifed of them, in order to obviate any difficulty that might occur on that head-and that he would communicate them fome other opportunity.

Dr.

Dr. Warburton, indeed, in the Preface to his edition of Shakspeare, acknowledges, that he had formerly the "ill fortune to have fome accidental connections with Theobald :"but the merit of this acknowledgment is in fome degree rendered questionable by a paffage which fucceeds it. He was recommended to me as a poor man." Hence one might be apt to think, that all Dr. Warburton's attention to this poor man was the mere effect of difinterested charity. But whatever his benevolence might have been, at the time when this accidental connection began, we apprehend an attorney of fmall practice in a country town (as Warburton at that time was) was a very unlikely perfon for a poor author to be recommended to for patronage and fupport. In fhort, Dr. Warburton, when he had tafted fome of the fweets of high life, and when the notice taken of him by the greater wits had expanded his ambition, began to grow ashamed of his former connections, and ufed every art to pailiate and glofs over what it was impoffible for him to deny, or difprove. Hence, he calls that accidental which he himself appears to have fought and cultivated and what he puts down to the fcore of charity, had been before an object of his ambition!

This curious letter was difcovered by chance in the year 1750, by Dr. Gawin Knight, Firft Librarian to the British Mufeum, in fitting up a houfe which he had taken in Crane-Court, Fleet-ftreet. It was many years in the poffeffion of Dr. Akenfide. The note on the Doctor's Ode to Mr. Edwards concludes with this expreffion, "Of the truth of thefe affertions (viz. Dr. Warburton's contemptuous treatment of Mr. Pope in his intercourfe with Theobald, &c.) his lordship can have no doubt, if he recollects his own correfpondence with Concanen; a part of which is ftill in being, and will probably be remembered as long as any of this prelate's writings."

This valuable Supplement contains a correct edition of Shakspeare's poems, viz Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, One hundred and fifty-four Sonnets, The paffionate Pilgrim, and The Lover's Complaint. Thefe poems were publifed feparately, with the Author's name, in his lifetime; and were afterwards collected and published in one volume. Shakfpeare calls his Venus and Adonis,' in the Dedication of this poem to his great patron, the Earl of Southampton, the first heir of his invention.' It was entered on the books of the Stationers Company in April 1593. The Rape of Lucrece' was first printed in 4to, in 1594: the Sonnets, in 16c9; though thefe laft were known in the private circle of his friends fo early as the year 1598, having been mentioned in a publication of that year by Meres, in his Wit's Treafury, under the quaint character