I have marked the passages according to the distinction used by the apologist, and we shall see how he makes the application. Where the modest Shakspeare expressed a wish to "be thought our chief," he has not cared to show. But, in order to decide what we ought to believe, in these matters, as things certain, we must look back upon the early management of our theatres. The papers of Henslowe, the wellknown manager of so many companies, throw many flashes of light on this obscure subject. It is apparent, from these manuscripts, that the poets of the days of Elizabeth, and James, supplied the stage with dramas, more for profit than reputation. If we except Ben Jonson, perhaps, there were none of the dramatists, including Shakspeare, specifically, who cared for literary reputation. The managers of the theatres who paid their money for plays, considered these plays as so much their own, that they could either curtail them, or make addycions to them: in fact, they often paid one set of poets, to alter the dramas of another set, without considering the literary reputation of the original author." That none of the dramatists, excepting Jonson, cared for literary reputation, is an error * Supplemental Apology, page 237, Svo. 1799. H abundantly proved by the multitude of plays with dedications by their authors: and the fact, stated by Mr. Chalmers, of their selling their works to the players, is a reason why all but the names of many are lost, more convincing than the alleged oscitancy of the poets. But this is not the object of my present inquiry. To the practice of curtailing and making additions to plays I accede, and from this very circumstance I infer, that the poet-ape of Jonson was any body but Shakspeare. Jonson could not attack Shakspeare as wishing "to be his chief," before the former was introduced to the stage; and the MS. to which Mr. Chalmers refers begins in 1597. Among the alterers and repairers of decayed dramas, we find the names of Dekker, Drayton, Chettle, Anthony Munday, Heywood, and a long et cætera of poets, the memorials of whose lives have, perhaps, undeservedly perished; but among these entries not once does the name of "our beloved Shakspeare" That Shakspeare wrote on subjects already dramatized by inferior authors, is not to Occur. * Vixêre fortes ante Agamemnona Hor. Od. 9, lib. iv. be denied; but that he lived "by the brokage of others' wit," or that he altered plays for his theatre, is not proved in a solitary instance; that he ever did, is barely possible; but that he did not, after Jonson became a retainer to the stage, seems proved by the absence of his name in the MS. of Henslowe. It cannot be too much to require of Mr. Chalmers, who has given us two sisterly octavos crying proof! proof!* something approaching to evidence of the truth of his assertions. 66 That the works of Shakspeare are "e'en the frippery of wit," Mr. Chalmers proves in his Apology," by citing Marston's description of a fopt in his day; who (like many fops of our own) being play-mad, spoke of nothing but plays and * The horse-leech hath two daughters crying give, give. Proverbs, xxx. 15, Luscus, what's play'd to-day? fayth now I know I set my lips abroach, from whence doth flow Nought but pure Juliet and Romeo. Say; who acts best? Drusus or Roscio? H'ath made a common-place-book out of plays, If e're you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes; players, whose conversation was of the newest and most popular tragedy, from which he courted his Lesbia most pathetically, and from which he borrowed all his jests and raillery. In this coxcomb of antiquity Mr. Chalmers recognises the features of Shakspeare, and boasts of his discovery in the following terms: "We now perceive, that Shakspeare's table-talk turned chiefly on his profession; that he ne'er of ought did speak but when of playes or players he did We at length perceive, that Shakspeare treate. He writes, he railes, he jests, he courts, what not; Of well-penn'd plays. Marston's Sat. 10. 1599. In the 34th of Elizabeth's reign, John Marston was chosen reader of the Inner Temple; and among the Oxford verses on the death of that princess, there is a copy signed John Marston ex æde Christi. O. G. "It is a fact, which cannot be disputed, that Marston was, in 1599, very intimately connected with Ben Jonson, who was then at variance with Shakspeare: Marston and Jonson afterwards quarrelled; as such poets could not long be friends: Marston again parodied Shakspeare in his "What you Wish," 1607, wherein he says; "Look yee, I speak play scrapes."Supplemental Apology, 231, note i. Here are five positions in the course of as many lines, some of which are utterly erroneous, and not one of which can Mr. Chalmers prove; unless he has some secret evidence, not yet before the public. I am aware of the notice of Marston in Drummond's conversation with Jonson. had discernment enough to know the value of a common-place-book to a professed writer: he made a common-place-book out of plays: he writes, he rails, he jests, he courts, what not; and all from out his huge long-scraped stock of well-penn'd plays. This is such a delineation of our dramatist as his admirers have never seen before."-No; I'll be sworn! and, as Costard says, "an I had but a penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread," for the discovery. No one before Mr. Chalmers, I am well persuaded, ever contemplated the great poet, of imagination all compact," as the Lazarus of literature; like his own moth living on the alms-basket of words, and, at a great feast of plays, as stealing the scraps: but since this dis-. covery has been made, I am confident that the author of "The Rambler" has satirized Shakspeare under the wit Papilius, subsisting a week upon an expression, of which he, who dropped it, did not know the value.-" Go by, Jeronimo." -If this be the consequence of seeking the ancient mother; if the study of those, who wrote "i' th' olden time," thus brighten the wit, inform the mind, and improve the judgment, let us e'en join chorus with Timotheus Milesius Ουκ αείδω τα παλαία, |