at his native Stratford. His pleasurable wit, and good-nature, engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them it is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury: it happened that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakespeare, in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him; and fince he could not know what might be faid of him when he was dead, he defired it might be done immediately. Upon which Shakespeare gave him these four verses.

Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,

'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd:

If any man afk, Who lyes in this tomb?

Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

But the sharpness of the fatire is said to have ftung the man fo feverely, that he never forgave it.

He died in the 53d year of his age, and was buried on the north fide of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument, as engraved in the plate, is placed in the wall. On his grave-ftone underneath is,

Good friend, for Jefus' fake forbear
To dig the duft inclosed here.

Bleft be the man that spares these stones,
And curft be he that moves my bones.

He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married;
Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom
The had three fons, who all died without children; and Su-

fannah, who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a phyfician of good reputation in that country. She left one child only, a daughter, who was married firft to Thomas Nash, efq; and afterwards to Sir John Bernard of Abbington, but died likewife without iffue.

This is what I could learn of any note, either relating to himself or family: the character of the man is best seen in his writings. But fince Ben Johnson has made a fort of an effay towards it in his Discoveries, I will give it in his words.

"I remember the players have often mentioned it as an <<< honour to Shakespeare, that in writing (whatsoever he "penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath "been, Would he had blotted a thousand! which they "thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity "this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance "to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted: "and to juftifie mine own candour, for I lov'd the man, and "do honour his memory, on this fide idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, honeft, and of an open and free 66 nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle "expreffions; wherein he flow'd with that facility, that "fometimes it was necessary he should be ftopp'd: Suffla«minandus erat, as Auguftus faid of Haterius. His wit "was in his own power, would the rule of it had been fo "too. Many times he fell into those things which could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person of Cæfar, "one speaking to him,

"Cæfar thou doft me wrong.

"He reply'd ;

"Cæfar did never wrong, but with just cause.

"and fuch like, which were ridiculous. But he redeem'd <his vices with his virtues: there was ever more in him to "be prais'd than to be pardon'd."

As for the paffages which he mentions out of Shakespeare, there is fomewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, but without the abfurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have feen, as quoted by Mr. Johnfon. Befides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcribed to him by Mr. Langbain, which I have never feen, and know nothing of. He writ likewife Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in ftanzas, which have been printed in a late collection of poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Johnson, there is a good deal true in it: but I believe it may be as well expreffed by what Horace fays of the first Romans, who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed tranf lated them) in his epiftle to Augustus.

-Naturâ fublimis & acer,

Nam fpirat tragicum fatis & feliciter audet,
Sed turpem putat in chartis metuitque lituram.

As I have not propofed to myself to enter into a large and complete collection of Shakespeare's works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to obferve fome of those things I have been pleased with in looking him over.

His plays are properly to be distinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Thofe which are called histories, and even fome of his comedies, are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of comedy amongst them. That way of tragicomedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become fo agreeable to the English tafte, that though the feverer critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of

our audiences seem to be better pleased with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, the Comedy of Errors, and the Taming of the Shrew, are all pure comedy; the reft, however they are called, have something of both kinds. 'Tis not very easy to determine which way of writing he was moft excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the fatire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleafing and a well-distinguished variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a master-piece; the character is always well fuftained, though drawn out into the length of three plays; and even the account of his death, given by his, old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry V. though it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that though he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in fhort every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almoft too agreeable; and I don't know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded them, been forry to see his friend Hal ufe him fo fcurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of the fecond part of Henry the fourth. Amongst other extravagancies, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, he has made him a deer-stealer, that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Juftice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parfon defcant very pleasantly upon them. The whole play is ad

mirable; the humours are various and well opposed; the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealoufy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth-Night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantaftical fteward Malvolio. The parafite and the vain-glorious Parolles, in All's well that Ends well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus or Terence. Petruchio, in the Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The conversation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much Ado About Nothing, and of Rofalind, in As you like it, have much wit and sprightlinefs all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: and, I believe, Therfites in Troilus and Creffida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allowed to be mafter-pieces of ill-nature, and fatyrical fnarling. To these I might add, that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew in the Merchant of Venice: but though we have seen that play received and acted as a comedy, and the part of the Jew performed by an excellent comedian, yet I cannot but think it was defigned tragically by the author. There appears in it a fo deadly spirit of revenge, fuch a favage fiercenefs and fellnefs, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the ftyle or characters of comedy. The play itself, take it altogether, feems to be one of the most finished of any of Shakespeare's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind of bond given by Antonio, is too much removed from the rules of probability: but taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There is fomething in the friendship of Antonio to Bassanio very great, generous, and tender. The whole fourth act (fuppofing, as I faid,