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intimacy with Mr. John Combe, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury: And upon whom Shakespeare made the following facetious epitaph.

Ten in the bundred lies here ingrav'd,

'Tis a hundred to ten bis foul is not fav'd;
If any man ask who lies in this tomb,

Ob! ob! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

This farcaftical piece of wit was, at the Gentleman's own requeft, thrown out extemporally in his company. And this Mr. John Combe I take to be the fame, who, by Dugdale in his antiquities of Warwickshire, is faid to have dy'd in the year 1614, and for whom at the upper end of the quire, of the guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a ftatue thereon cut in alabafter, and in a gown, with this epitaph. "Here lyeth interr'd the body " of John Combe, efq; who dy'd the 10th of July, 1614. who bequeathed several annual charities to the parish of Stratford, and 100l. to be lent to fifteen poor tradesmen "from three years to three years, changing the parties every "third year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per annum, the increase to be diftributed to the almes-poor there.”The donation has all the air of a rich and fagacious usurer.

Shakespeare himself did not furvive Mr. Combe long, for he dy'd in the year 1616, the 530 of his age. He lies buried on the north fide of the chancel in the great church at Stratford; where a monument, decent enough for the time, is erected to him, and plac'd against the wall. He is reprefented under an arch in a fitting pofture, a cushion fpread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left refted on a ferowl of paper. The Latin diftich, which is placed under the cushion, has been given us by Mr. Pope, or his graver, in this manner.

INGENIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem, Terra tegit, Populus mæret, Olympus babet.

I confefs, I don't conceive the difference between Ingenio and Genio in the firft verfe. They feem to me intirely fynonymous terms; nor was the Pylian Sage Neftor celebrated for his ingenuity, but for an experience and judgment owing to his long age. Dugdale, in his antiquities of Warwickfhire, has copied this distich with a distinction which Mr. Rowe has follow'd, and which certainly reftores us the true meaning of the epitaph.

JUDICIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, &c.

In 1614, the greater part of the town of Stratford was confumed by fire; but our Shakespeare's house, among some others, escap'd the flames. This house was first built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood, who took their name from the manor of Clopton. Sir Hugh was Sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III. and Lord Mayor in the reign of king Henry VII. To this Gentleman the town of Stratford is indebted for the fine ftone-bridge, confifting of fourteen. arches, which at an extraordinary expence he built over the Avon, together with a caufe-way running at the west-end thereof; as alfo for rebuilding the chapel adjoining to his houfe, and the cross-isle in the church there. It is remarkable of him, that, tho' he liv'd and dy'd a bachelor, among the other extenfive charities which he left both to the city of London and town of Stratford, he bequeath'd confiderable legacies for the marrriage of poor maidens of good name and fame both in London and at Stratford. Notwithstanding which large donations in his life, and bequefts at his death,, as he had purchased the manor of Clopton, and all the estate

of the family, fo he left the fame again to his elder brother's fon with a very great addition: (A proof, how well beneficence and economy may walk hand in hand in wife families :) Good part of which eftate is yet in the poffeffion of Edward Clopton, efq; and Sir Hugh Clopton, knt. lineally defcended from the elder brother of the firft Sir Hugh: Who particularly bequeathed to his nephew, by his will, his houfe, by the name of his Great-Houfe in Stratford.

The eftate had now been fold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakespeare became the purchaser: Who, having repair'd and modell'd it to his own mind, chang'd the name to New-place; which the manfion-house, fince erected upon the same spot, at this day retains. The house and lands, which attended it, continued in Shakespeare's defcendants to the time of the Reftoration: When they were repurchased by the Clopton family, and the manfion now belongs to Sir Hugh Clopton, knt. To the favour of this worthy Gentleman I owe the knowledge of one particular, in honour of our poet's once dwelling-house, of which, I prefume, Mr. Rowe never was appriz'd. When the civil war raged in England, and K. Charles the Firft's queen was driven by the neceffity of affairs to make a recess in Warwickshire, the kept her court for three weeks in New-place. We may reasonably suppose it then the best private house in the town; and her Majesty preferr'd it to the College, which was in the poffeffion of the Combe-family, who did not fo ftrongly favour the King's party.

How much our author employ'd himself in poetry, after his retirement from the ftage, does not fo evidently appear: Very few pofthumous sketches of his pen have been recover'd to ascertain that point. We have been told, indeed, in print, but not till very lately that two large ches

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full of this great man's loose papers and manufcripts, in the hands of an ignorant baker of Warwick, (who married one of the defcendants from our Shakespeare) were carelefly scatter'd and thrown about, as garret-lumber, and litter, to the particular knowledge of the late Sir William Bishop, till they were all confumed in the general fire and deftruction of that town. I cannot help being a little apt to diftruft the authority of this tradition; because his wife surviv'd him seven years, and as his favourite daughter Susanna furviv'd her twenty-fix years, 'tis very improbable, they should fuffer such a treasure to be remov'd, and tranflated into a remoter branch of the family, without a fcrutiny first made into the value of it. This, I fay, inclines me to distrust the authority of the relation: But, notwithstanding such an apparent improbabiliry, if we really loft fuch a treasure, by whatever fatality or caprice of fortune they came into fuch ignorant and neglectful hands, I agree with the relater, the misfortune is wholly irreparable.

To these particulars, which regard his person and private life, fome few more are to be glean'd from Mr. Rowe's account of his life and writings: Let us now take á short view of him in his publick capacity, as a writer: And, from thence, the tranfition will be easy to the state in which his writings have been handed down to us.

No age perhaps, can produce an author more various from himself, than Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be. The diverfity in stile, and other parts of compofition, so obvious in him, is as variously to be accounted for. His education, we find, was at best but begun: And he started early into a science from the force of genius, unequally affifted by acquir'd improvements. His fire, fpirit, and exuberance of imagination gave an impetuofity to his pen: His ideas flow'd fro.. him in a stream rapid, but not

turbulent; copious, but not ever over-bearing its fhores. The ease and sweetness of his temper might not a little contribute to his facility in writing: As his employment, as a player, gave him an advantage and habit of fancying himself the very character he meant to delineate. He used the helps of his function in forming himself to create and express that fublime, which other actors can only copy, and throw out, in action and graceful attitude. But Nullum fine Venîâ placuit Ingenium, fays Seneca. The genius, that gives us the 'greatest pleasure, fometimes ftands in need of our indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare I would willingly impute it to a vice of his times. We fee complaifance enough, in our days, paid to a bad tafte. So that his clinches, false wit, and defcending beneath himself, may have proceeded from a deference paid to the then reigning barbarism.

I have not thought it out of my province, whenever occafion offered, to take notice of fome of our poet's grand touches of nature: Some, that do not appear fuperficially fuch; but in which he seems the most deeply inftructed ; and to which, no doubt, he has fo much ow'd that happy prefervation of his characters, for which he is juftly celebrated. Great genius's, like his, naturally unambitious, are fatisfy'd to conceal their art in thefe points. "Tis the foible of your worfer poets to make a parade and oftentation of that little science they have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious colours. And whenever a writer of this class shall attempt to copy thefe artful concealments of our author, and fhall either think them eafy, or practifed by a writer for his ease, he will foon be convinced of his mistake by the difficulty of reaching the imitation of them.

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