with the good king praying over him. There is fo much terror in one, fo much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as muft touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry the Eighth, that prince is drawn with that greatnefs of mind, and all thofe good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not fhewn in an equal degree, and the fhades in this picture do not bear a just proportion to the lights, it is not that the artift wanted either colours or fkill in the difpofition of them; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to queen Elizabeth, fince it could have been no very great refpect to the memory of his mistress, to have expofed fome certain parts of her father's life upon the ftage. He has dealt much more freely with the minifter of that great king, and certainly nothing was ever more juftly written, than the character of Cardinal Wolfey. He has fhewn him infolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful addrefs, he makes his fall and ruin the fubject of general compaffion. The whole man, with his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly defcribed in the fecond scene of the fourth act. The distresses likewise of Queen Catharine, in this play, are very movingly touched; and though the art of the poet has fcreened King Henry from any grofs imputation of injuftice, yet one is inclined to with, the Queen had met with a fortune more worthy of her birth and virtue. Nor are the manners, proper to the perfons reprefented, lefs juftly obferved, in those characters taken from the Roman hiftory; and of this, the fierceness and impatience of Coriolanus, his courage and difdain of the common people, the virtue and philofophical temper of Brutus, and the irregular greatnefs of mind in M. Antony, are beautiful proofs. For the two laft efpecially, you find them exactly as they are defcribed by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespeare copied them. He has indeed followed his original pretty close, and taken in feveral little incidents that might have been spared in a play. But, as I hinted before, his defign feems most commonly rather to defcribe thofe great men in the feveral fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any fingle great action, and form his work fimply upon that. However, there are fome of his pieces, where the fable is founded upon one action onIy. Such are more efpecially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The defign in Romeo and Juliet is plainly the punishment of their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and and animofities that had been fo long kept up between them, and occafioned the effufion of fo much blood. In the management of this ftory, he has fhewn fomething wonderfully tender and paffionate in the love-part, and very pitiful in the diftrefs. Hamlet is founded on much the fame tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of them a young prince is engaged to revenge the death of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concerned in the murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers. There is in the first part of the Greek tragedy fomething very moving in the grief of Electra; but, as Mr. Dacier has obferved, there is fomething very unnatural and shocking in the manners he has given that Princefs and Oreftes in the latter part. Oreftes imbrues his hands in the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is performed, though not immediately upon the ftage, yet fo near, that the audience hear Clytemneftra crying out to Egyfthus for help, and to her fon for mercy: while Electra her daughter, and a Princefs (both of them characters that ought to have appeared with more decency) ftands upon the ftage, and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this not raife! Clytemneftra was a wicked woman, and had deserved to die; nay, in the truth of the story, fhe was killed by her own fon; but to represent an action of this kind on the ftage, is certainly an offence against thofe rules of manners proper to the perfons, that ought to be obferved there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct of Shakespeare. Hamlet is reprefented with the fame piety towards his father, and refolution to revenge his death, as Oreftes; he has the fame abhorrence for his mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is heightened by inceft: but it is with wonderful art and justnefs of judgment, that the poet reftrains him from doing violence to his mother. To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father's Ghoft forbid that part of his vengeance: But bowfoever thou purfu'ft this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy foul contrive This is to distinguish rightly between horror and terror. The latter is a proper paffion of tragedy, but the former ought always to be carefully avoided. And certainly no dramatick writer ever fucceeded better in raising terror in the minds of an audience than Shakespeare has done. The whole tragedy of Macbeth, but more especially the scene where the King is murdered, in the fecond act, as well as this play, is a noble proof of that manly fpirit with which he writ; and both fhew how powerful he was, in giving the strongest motions to our fouls that they are capable of. I cannot leave Hamlet, without taking notice of the advantage with which we have feen this mafter-piece of Shakespeare diftinguish itfelf upon the ftage, by Mr. Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man, who, though he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his way into the esteem of all men of letters, by this only excellency. No man is better acquainted with Shakefpeare's manner of expreffion, and indeed he has studied him fo well, and is fo much a master of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as if it had been written on purpose for him, and that the author had exactly conceived it as he plays it. I must own a particular obligation to him, for the most confiderable part of the paffages relating to this life, which I have here tranfmitted to the publick; his veneration for the memory of Shakespeare having engaged him to make a journey into Warwickshire, on purpofe to gather up what remains he could, of a name for which he had so great a veneration*. This Account of the Life of Shakespeare is printed from Mr. Rowe's fecond edition, in which it had been abridged and altered by himself after its appearance in 1709. STEEVENS. The The following Inftrument was tranfmitted by John Anftis, Efq. Garter King at Arms: It is mark'd G. 13. P. 349. [There is also a Manufcript in the Heralds Office*, mark'd W. 2. p. 276; where Notice is taken of this Coat, and that the Perfon, to whom it was granted, had borne Magiflracy at Stratford upon Avon.] T O all and fingular noble and gentlemen of all eftates and degrees, bearing arms, to whom thefe prefents fhall come; William Dethick, Garter Principal King of Arms of England, and William Camden, alias Clarencieulx, King of Arms for the fouth, eaft, and weft parts of this realm, fend greetings. Know ye, that in all nations and kingdoms the record and remembrance of the valiant facts and virtuous difpofitions of worthy men have been made known and divulged by certain fields of arms and tokens of chivalric; the grant or teftimony whereof appertaineth anto us, by virtue of our offices from the Queen's moft Excellent Majefty, and her Highnefs's most noble and victorious progenitors: wherefore being folicited, and by credible report informed, that John Shakefpeare, now of Stratford upon Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman, whofe great grandfather, for his faithful and approved fervice to the late moft prudent prince, king Henry VII. of famous memory, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements, given to him in those parts of Warwickshire, where they have continued by fome defcents in good reputation and credit; and for that the faid John Shakefpere having married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden of Wellingcote, in the faid county, and alfo produced this his ancient coat of arms, heretofore afligned to him whilst he was her majefty's officer and bailiff of that town. In confideration of the premifes, and for the encouragement of his pofterity, unto whom fuch blazon of arms and atchievements of inheritance from their faid mother, by the ancient cuftom and laws of arms, may lawfully defcend; we the * In the Herald's Office are the first draughts of John Shakefpeare's grant or confirmation of arms, by William Dethick, Garter, Principal King at Arms, 1595. See Vincents Prefs, vol. 157, N° 23, and Ño 24. STEEVENS. faid Garter and Clarencieulx have affigned, granted, and confirmed, and by these prefents exemplified unto the faid John Shakespere, and to his pofterity, that shield and coat of arms, viz. In a field of gold upon a bend fables a Spear of the firft, the point upward, headed argent; and for his creft or cognifance, A falcon, or, with his wings difplayed, ftanding on a wreathe of his colours, fupporting a fpear armed headed, or feeled filver, fixed upon an helmet with mantles and taffels, as more plainly may appear depicted in this margent; and we have likewife impaled the fame with the ancient arms of the faid Arden of Wellingcote; fignifying thereby, that it may and shall be lawful for the faid John Shakefpere, gent. to bear and use the fame fhield of arms, fingle or impaled, as aforefaid, during his natural life; and that it fhall be lawful for his children, iffue, and pofterity, lawfully begotten, to bear, ufe, and quarter, and fhew forth the fame, with their due differences, in all lawful warlike feats and civil ufe or exercises, according to the laws of arms, and custom that to gentlemen belongeth, without let or interruption of any perfon or perfons, for ufe or bearing the fame. In witnefs and teftimony whereof we have fubfcribed our names, and faftened the feals of our offices. Given at the office of arms, London, the in the forty-fecond year of the reign of our most gracious fovereign lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God, queen of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, &c. 1599. day of *It is faid by the modern editor of Arden of Feverfham (first published in 1592 and republished in 1770) that Shakespeare defcended by the female line from the gentleman whose unfortunate end is the fubject of this tragedy. But the affertion appears to want fupport, the true name of the perfon who was murdered at Feverfham being Ardern and not Arden. Ardern might be called Arden in the play for the fake of better found, or might be corrupted in the chronicle of Holingfhed: yet it is unlikely that the true fpelling fhould be overlooked among the Heralds, whose interest it is to recommend by oftentatious accuracy the trifles in which they deal. STEEVENS. 1 The |