in this; as it seems, without any other reafon, than their willingness to shorten fome fcenes; thefe men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or ftretching an author, to make him juft fit for their ftage.

This edition is faid to be printed from the original copies; I believe they meant thofe which had lain ever fince the author's days in the playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears, that this edition, as well as the quarto's, was printed (at leaft partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piece-meal parts written out for the ufe of the actors: for in fome places their very names * are thro' careleffness fet down instead of the perfona dramatis; and in others the notes of direction to the property-men for their moveables, and to the players for their entries, are inferted into the text, thro' the ignorance of the transcribers.

The plays not having been before so much as diftinguished by acts and scenes, they are in this edition divided according as they played them; often where there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to make a breach in it, for the fake of music, masks, or monsters.

Sometimes the scenes are tranfpofed, and fhuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwise happen but by their being taken from feparate and piecemeal-written parts.

Many verses are omitted entirely, and others tranfpofed; from whence invincible obfcurities have arifen, paft the guefs of any commentator to clear up, but just where the accidental glimpse of an old edition enlightens

us.

Some characters were confounded and mixed, or two put into one, for want of a competent number of actors. Thus, in the quarto edition of Midfummer-night's dream, act 5. Shakespear introduces a kind of mafter of the revels, called Philoftrate; all whofe part is given to another character (that of Egeus) in the fubfequent editions. So

Much ado about nothing, act 2. Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilfon, instead of Balthafar. And in act 4. Cowley and Kemp conftantly through a whole scene.

Edit. fol. of 1623 and 1632,

alfo in Hamlet and King Lear. This too makes it probable, that the prompter's books were what they called the original copics.

From liberties of this kind, many speeches alfo were put into the mouths of wrong perfons, where the author now feems chargeable with making them speak out of character; or sometimes perhaps for no better reafon, than that a governing player, to have the mouthing of fome favourite speech himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an underling.

Profe from verfe they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for the other throughout the volume.

Having been forced to fay fo much of the players, I think I ought in juftice to remark, that the judgment, as well as condition of that class of people, was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the best playhoufes were inns and taverns, (the Globe, the Hope, the Red Bull, the Fortune, &c.); fo the top of the profeffion were then mere players, not gentlemen of the stage. They were led into the buttery by the steward, not placed at the Lord's table, or Lady's toilette; and confequently were entirely deprived of those advantages they now enjoy, in the familiar converfation of our nobility, and an intimacy (not to fay dearness) with people of the first condition.

From what has been faid, there can be no queftion, but had Shakespear published his works himself, (efpecially in his latter time, and after his retreat from the ftage), we fhould not only be certain which are genuine; but should find in those that are, the errors leffened by fome thoufands. If I may judge from all the diftinguishing marks of his ftyle, and his manner of thinking and writing, I make no doubt to declare, that those wretched plays, Pericles, Locrine, Sir John Oldcastle, Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell, the Puritan, and London Prodigal, cannot be admitted as his. And I fhould conjecture of fome of the others, (particularly Love's. labour's loft, The Winter's Tale, and Titus Andronicus), that only fome characters, fingle fcenes, or perhaps a few particular paffages were of his hand. It is very probable, what occafioned fome plays to be fuppofed

Shakespear's, was only this, that they were pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the theatre while it was under his administration; and no owner claiming them, they were adjudged to him, as they give ftrays to the lord of the manor: a mistake which (one may alfo obferve) it was not for the intereft of the house to remove. Yet the players themselves, Heminges and Condell, afterwards did Shakespear the justice to reject those eight plays in their edition; though they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted with fome applaufe; as we learn from what Ben Johnson fays of Pericles in his ode on the New Inn. That Titus Andronicus is one of this clafs, I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the fame author openly exprefs his contempt of it in the Induction to Bartholomew fair, in the year 1614, when Shakefpear was yet living. And there is no better authority for thefe latter fort, than for the former, which were equally published in his lifetime.

If we give into this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and paffages might no longer reflect upon this great genius, but appear unworthily charged upon him? And even in thofe which are really his, how many faults may have been unjustly laid to his account from arbitrary additions, expunctions, tranfpofitions of fcenes and lines, confufion of characters and perfons, wrong application of fpeeches, corruptions of innumerable paffages by the ignorance, and wrong corrections of them again by the impertinence of his first editors? From one or other of these confiderations, I am verily perfuaded, that the greateft and the groffeft part of what are thought his errors would vanish, and leave his character in a light very different from that disadvantageous one in which it now appears to us.

I will conclude by faying of Shakespear, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison of thofe that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majeftic piece of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat modern building. The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more ftrong and more folemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these there are mateVOL. I.

rials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments ; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth paffages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childith, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR. Written by N. Row E, Efq;

T feems to be a kind of respect due to the memory

of excellent men, especially of those whom their wit and learning have made famous, to deliver fome account of themselves, as well as their works, to pofterity. For this reafon, how fond do we fee fome people of difcovering any little perfonal ftory of the great men of antiquity! Their families, the common accidents of their lives; and even their fhape, make, and features, have been the fubject of critical enquiries. How trifling foever this curiofity may feem to be, it is certainly very natural; and we are hardly fatisfied with an account of any remarkable perfon, till we have heard him defcribed even to the very cloaths he wears. As for what relates to men of letters, the knowledge of an author may fometimes conduce to the better understanding his book and though the works of Mr Shakespear may feem to many not to want a comment, yet I fancy fome little account of the man himself may not be thought improper to go along with them.

He was the fon of Mr John Shakespear; and was born at Stratford upon Avon, in Warwickshire, in April 1564. His family, as appears by the regifter and public writings relating to that town, were of good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His father, who was a confiderable dealer in wool, had fo large a family, ten children in all, that, though he was his cldeft fon, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it

is true, for fome time at a free school; where it is probable he acquired what Latin he was mafter of: but the narrowness of his circumftances, and the want of his affiftance at home, forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language. It is without controverfy, that in his works we fcarce find any traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of the ancients. The delicacy of his taite, and the natural bent of his own breat