were dramatick writers; but we find no trace of our author, or of any of his works. Three years afterwards, Puttenham printed his Art of English Poesy; and in that work also we look in vain for the name of Shakspere *. Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetry, Ant. I supply the place, Sir, when a worse cannot be had, Sir. Did you see the last pageant I set forth?" Afterwards Antonio, speaking of the plays he had writtten, says, "Let me have good ground-no matter for the pen; the plot shall carry it. Oni. Indeed that's right; you are in print, already, for THE BEST PLOTTER. Ant. Ay; I might as well have been put in for a dumb shew too." It is evident, that this poet is here intended to be ridiculed by Ben Jonson; but he might, notwithstanding, have been deservedly eminent. That malignity, which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakspere, would cer tainly not spare inferior writers. *The thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham's Art of English Poesy is thus entitled: "Who in any age have bene the most commended writers in our English Poesie, and the author's censure given upon them." After having enumerated several authors who were then celebrated for various kinds of composition, he gives this succinct account of those who had written for the stage: "Of the latter sort I thinke thus ;-that for tragedie, the Lord Buckhurst Poetry, prefixed to the Translation of Ariosto (which was entered in the Stationers' books, February 26, 1590-1, in which year, it was printed), takes occasion to speak of the theatre, and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time; but says not a word of Shakspere, of any of his plays. If even Love's Labour Lost had then appeared, which was probably his first dramatick composition, is it imaginable, that Harrington should have mentioned the Cambridge Pedantius, and The Play of the Cards (which last, he tells us was a London comedy), and have passed by, unnoticed, the new prodigy of the dramatick world. That Shakspere had commenced a writer for the stag,and had even excited the jealousy of his contemporaries, before September 1592, is now decisively prove by a passage * extracted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Robert Buckhurst and Maister Edward Ferrys, for such doings as I have sene of theirs, do deserve the hyest price; the Earl of Oxford and Maister Edwardes of her Majestie's Chappell, for comedie and enterlude." * See Vol. VI. p. ult. where the passage is given at large. The paragraph which immediately follows that quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt, though obscure, is worth transcribing, as it seems to allude to Shakspere's country edu cation, and to intimate, that he had not removed to London long before the year 1592.—After having mentioned a person who had newly appeared in the double capacity of actor and author, "one who is in his owne conceit the only Shak Robert Greene's Groatsworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance*, in which there is an evident allusion to our author's name, as well as to one of his plays. At what time soever he became acquainted with the theatre, we may presume that he had not composed his first play long before it was acted; for being early incumbered with a young family, and not in very affluent circumstances, it is improbable that he should have suffered it to lie in his closet, without endeavouring to derive some profit from it; and in the miserable state of the drama in those days, the meanest of his genuine plays must have been a valuable acquisition, and would hardly have been refused by any of the managers of our ancient theatres. Titus Andronicus appears to have been acted before any other play attributed to Shakspere; and therefore, as Shake-scene in a country," and exhorted his brother poets to seek better maisters than the players, Greene proceeds thus: In this I might insert two more, that both have written against these buckram gentlemen [the players:] but let their owne worke serve to witnesse against their own wickednesse, if they persever to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new-commers, I leave them to the mercie of these painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise them, &c." Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, &c. Sig. E. 4. *This tract has no date, but was published after the au thor's death, agreeably to his dying request. It appears to have as it has been admitted into all the editions of his works, whoever might have been the writer of it, it is entitled to the first place in this general list of his dramas. From Ben Jonson's induction to Bartholomew-Fair, 1614, we learn that Andronicus had been exhibited twenty-five or thirty years before, that is, at the lowest computation, in 1589: or, taking a middle period (which is perhaps more just), in 1587. In our author's dedication of his Venus and Adonis to lord Southampton, in 1593, he tells us, as Mr. Steevens has observed, that that poem was "the first heir of his invention:" and if we were sure that it was published immediately, or soon, after it was written, it would at once prove Titus Andronicus not to be the production of Shakspere, and nearly ascertain the time when he commenced a dramatick writer. do not know what interval might have elapsed between the composition and the publication of that poem. There is, indeed, a passage in the dedication already mentioned, which, if there were not such decisive evidence on the other side, might induce us to think that he had not written, in 1593, any piece of more dignity than a love-poem, or at least any on which he But we have been written not long before his death; for near the conclusion he says, "Albeit weakness will scarce suffer me to write, yet to my fellow schollers about this citie will I direct these few insuing lines." He died, according to Dr. Gabriel Harvey's account, on the third of September 1592. Additions by Oldys to Winstanley's Lives of the Poets, MS. himself himself set a value. your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour." "If, says he to his noble patron, "A booke, entitled a Noble Roman History of Titus Andronicus," (without any author's name) was entered at Stationers-Hall, February 9, 1593-4. This I suppose to have been the play, as it was printed in that year, and acted (according to Langbaine, who alone appears to have seen the first edition) by the servants of the earls of Pembroke, Derby, and Essex. Mr. Pope thought that Titus Andronicus was not written by Shaksperé, because Ben Jonson spoke slightingly of it while Shakspere was yet living. This argument will not, perhaps, bear a very strict examination. If it were allowed to have any validity, many of our author's genuine productions must be excluded from his works: for Ben Jonson has ridiculed several of his dramas, in the same piece in which he has mentioned Andronicus with contempt. It has been said that Francis Meres, who in 1598 enumerated this among our author's plays, might have been misled by a title-page; but we may presume that he was informed or deceived by some other means; for Shakspere's name is not in the title-page of the edition printed in 1611, and therefore, we may conclude, was not in the title-page of that in 1594, of which the other was probably a re-impression. However (notwithstanding the authority of Meres), the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Sta |