Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. WIL LIAM SHAKESPEARE. Written by N. RowE, Efq.

IT feems to be a kind of refpect due to the memory

of excellent men, especially of thofe whom their wit and learning have made famous, to deliver fome account of themselves, as well as their works, to pofterity. For this reafon, how fond do we fee fome people of difcover ing any little perfonal ftory of the great men of antiqui ty! Their families, the common accidents of their lives and even their shape, make, and features, have been the fubject of critical enquiries. How trifling foever this cu riofity may seem to be, it is certainly very natural; and we are hardly fatisfied with an account of any remarkable perfon, till we have heard him described even to the very clothes he wears. As for what relates to men of letters, the knowledge of an author may fometimes conduce to the better understanding his book: and though the works of Mr. Shakespeare may feem to many not to want a comment, yet I fancy fome little account of the man himself may not be thought improper to go along with:

them.

He was the fon of Mr. John Shakespeare; and was born at Stratford upon Avon, in Warwickshire, in April, 1564. His family, as appears by the regifter and public writings relating to that town, were of good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His father, who was a confiderable dealer in wool, had fo large a family, ten children in all, that, though he was his eldest fon, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it is true, for fome time at a free school; where it is probable he acquired what Latin he was mafter of: but the narrownefs of his circumftances, and the want of his affiftance at home, forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language. It is without controversy, that in his works we scarce find any traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of the ancients. The delicacy of his tafte, and

the natural bent of his own great genius, (equal, if not fu perior, to fome of the beft of theirs,) would certainly have led him to read and ftudy them with fo much pleafure, that fome of their fine images would naturally have infinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; fo that his not copying at least something from them, may be an argument of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients were a difadvan tage to him or no, may admit of a difpute: for though the knowledge of them might have made him more cor. rect, yet it is not improbable, but that the regularity and deference for them, which would have attended that cor rectness, might have restrained fome of that fire, impetu ofity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakespeare: and I believe we are better pleafed with thofe thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination fupplied him fo abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful paffages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was poffible for a mafter of the English language to deliver them.

Upon his leaving fchool, he feems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him; and, in order to settle in the world after a familymanner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, faid to have been a fubftantial yeoman in the neighbour hood of Stratford. In this kind of fettlement he continued for some time, till an extravagance that he was guil ty of, forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up: and though it seemed at firft to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him; yet it afterwards happily proved the occafion of exerting one of the greateft genuifes that ever was known in dramatic poetry. He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and, amongst them, fome that made a fre quent practice of deer-ftealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot, near Stratford. For this he was profecuted by that gentleman, as he thought fomewhat too feverely; and, in order to revenge that ill ufage,

ufage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be loft, yet it is faid to have been fo very bitter, that it redoubled the profe cution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his bufinefs and family in Warwickshire for fome time, and fhelter himself in London.

It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is faid to have made his first acquaintance in the playhouse. He was received into the company then in being, at firft in a very mean rank; but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, soon diftinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer. His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other players, before fome old plays, but without any particular account of what fort of parts he used to play: and though I have enquired, I could never meet with any further act count of him this way, than that the top of his perform2 ance was the ghoft in his own Hamlet. I fhould have been much more pleased, to have learned from fome certain authority, which was the first play he wrote * It would be without doubt a pleasure to any man, curious in things of this kind, to fee and know what was the firft effay of a fancy like Shakespeare's. Perhaps we are not to look for his beginnings, like thofe of other authors, among their leaft perfect writings; Art had fo little, and Nature fo large a share in what he did, that, for ought I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the moft fire and strength of imagination in 'em, were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was fo loofe and extravagant, as to be independent on the rule and government. of judgment; but that what he thought was commonly io great, fo juftly and rightly conceived in itfelf, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately ap proved by an impartial judgment at the first fight. But though the order of time in which the feveral pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are paffages in fome

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*The highest date of any I can yet find, is Romeo and Juliet in 1597, when the author was thirty-three years old; and Richard II. aud III, in the next year, viz. the thirty-fourth of his age.

fome few of them which feem to fix their dates. So the chorus at the end of the fourth Act of Henry V. by a compliment very haudfomely turned to the Earl of Effex, fhews the play to have been written when that Lord was General for the Queen in Ireland: and his elogy upon Queen Elifabeth, and her fucceffor King James, in the latter end of his Henry VIII. is a proof of that play's. being written after the acceffion of the latter of thofe two princes to the crown of England. Whatever the particular times of his writing were, the people of his age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diverfions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to fee a genius arife among them of fo pleasurable, fo rich a vein, and fo plentifully capable of furnishing their favourite entertainments. Befides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natur'd man, of great sweetness in his manners, and a moft agreeable companion; fo that it is no wonder if, with fo many good qualities, he made himself acquainted with the best converfations of thofe times. Queen Elifabeth had several of his plays acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favour. It is that maiden-princess plainly whom he intends by

-A fair veftal, throned by the weft. vol. i. p. 75. And that whole paffage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handfomely applied to her. She was fo well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry IV. that the commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to fhew him in love. This is faid to be the occafion of his writing The Merry Wives of Windfor. How well the was obeyed, the play itself is an admirable proof. Upon this occafion it may not be improper to obferve, that this part of Falftaff is faid to have been written originally under the name of Oldcaftle*; fome of that family being then remaining, the Queen was pleased to command him to alter it; upon which he made use of Falstaff. The prefent offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know whether the author may not have been somewhat to blame in his fecond choice; fince it is certain, that Sir John Falstaff, who

See the epilogue to Henry IV. part 2. vol. iv. p. 243.

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was a Knight of the Garter, and a Lieutenant-General, was a name of diftinguished merit in the wars in France in Henry V. and Henry VI.'s times. What grace foever the Queen conferred upon him, it was not to her only he owed the fortune which the reputation of his wit made. He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendship from the Earl of Southampton, famous in the hiftories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate Earl of Effex. It was to that Noble Lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one inftance fo fingular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespeare's, that if I had not been affured that the story was handed down by Sir William d'Avenant, who was probably very well. acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inferted, That my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almoft equal to that profufe generofity the prefent age has fhewn to French dancers and Italian fingers.

What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, I have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true tafte of merit, and could diftinguish men, had generally a juft value and efteem for him. His exceeding candour and good-nature, muft certainly have inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit obliged the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him.

His acquaintance with Ben Johnfon began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature. Mr. Johnfon, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the perfons into whofe hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and fuperciliously over, were just upon returning it to him, with an ill-natured anfwer, That it would be of no fervice to their company; when Shakespeare luckily caft his eye upon it, and found fomething fo well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Johnfon and his writings to the public.

Johnfon