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the Fifth, by a compliment very handsomely turned to the earl of Effex, shows the play to have been written when that lord was general for the queen in Ireland; and his elogy upon queen Elizabeth, and her fucceffor king James, in the latter end of his Henry the Eighth, is a proof of that play's being written after the acceffion of the latter of those two princes to the crown of England. Whatever the particular times ofhis writing were, the people of his age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diversions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to fee a genius arife amongst them of so pleasurable, fo rich a vein, and fo plentifully capable of furnishing their favorite entertainments. Besides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natured man, of great fweetness in his manners, and a most agreeable companion; fo that it is no wonder, if, with so many good qualities, he made himself acquainted with the best conversations of those times. Queen Elizabeth had several of his plays acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favor: it is that maiden princess plainly, whom he intends by

a fair vestal, throned by the west.

A Midsummer-Night's Dream.

and that whole passage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handsomely applied to her. She was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in The Two Parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love. This is faid to be the occafion of his writing The Merry Wives of Windfor. How well she was obeyed, the play itself is an admirable proof. Upon this occafion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of Falstaff is faid to have been written originally under the name of Oldcastle: 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 present offence was indeed avoided; but I do not know whether the author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second choice, fince it is certain that Sir John Falstaff, who was a knight of the garter, and a lieutenant-general, was a name of diftinguished merit in the wars in France in Henry the Fifth's and Henry the Sixth'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 honor to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favor and friendship from the earl of Southampton, famous in the histories 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."

this part of Falstaff is faid to have been written originally under the name of Oldcastle;) See the Epilogue to Henry the Fourth. POPE.

In a note fubjoined to that epilogue, and more fully in Vol. XIII. p. 184, n. 4, the reader will find this notion overturned, and the origin of this vulgar error pointed out. Mr. Rowe was evidently deceived by a passage in Fuller's Worthies misunderstood. MALONE.

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from the earl of Southampton,) Of this amiable nobleman fuch memoirs as I have been able to collect, may be found in the twenty-fourth volume, prefixed to the poem of Venus and Adonis. MALONE.

There is one instance fo fingular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare'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 inserted; 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 almost equal to that profuse generofity the present age has shown 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 taste of merit, and could distinguish men, had generally a just value and esteem for him. His exceeding candour and good-nature must 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 Jonfon began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature; Mr. Jonson, 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 persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-naturedanswer, that it would be of no service to their company; when Shakspeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick.

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to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the publick.)

Jonfon was certainly a very good scholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare; though at

In Mr. Rowe's first edition, after these words was inferted the following passage:

،، After this, they were professed friends; though I do not know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and fincerity. Benwas naturally proud and infolent, and in the days of his reputation did fo far take upon him the fupremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seemed to stand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with fome referve; infinuating his uncorrectness, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgment. The praise of feldom altering or blotting out what he writ, which was given him by the players, who were the first publishers of his works after his death, was what Jonfon could not bear: he thought it impoffible, perhaps, for another man to strike out the greatest thoughts in the finest expression, and to reach those excellencies of poetry with the eafe of a first imagination, which himself with infinite labor and study could but hardly attain to. "

I have preferved this passage because I believe it strictly true, except that in the last line, instead of but hardly, I would read never.

Dryden, we are told by Pope, concurred with Mr. Rowe in thinking Jonfon's posthumous verses on our author sparing and invidious. See alfo Mr. Steevens's note on those verses.

Before Shakspeare's death Ben's envious disposition is mentioned by one of his own friends; it must therefore have been even then notorious, though the writer denies the truth of the charge:

To my well accomplish'd friend, Mr. Ben Jonson.
Thou art found in body; but some say, thy foule
" Envy doth ulcer; yet corrupted hearts
" Such cenfurers must have."

Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies, printed about 1611. The following lines by one of Jonfon's admirers will fufficiently support Mr. Rowe in what he has faid relative to the flowness of that writer in his compofitions:

" Scorn then their censures who gave out, thy wit
" As long upon a comedy did fit

" As elephants bring forth, and that thy blots

" And mendings took more time than FORTUNE-PLOTS;

" That such thy drought was, and so great thy thirst,

" That all thy plays were drawn at the Mermaid first;

the fame time I believe it must be allowed, that what nature gave the latter, was more than a balance

That the king's yearly butt wrote, and his wine

Hath more right than thou to thy Catiline."

The writer does not deny the charge, but vindicates his

friend by faying that, however flow,

<< He that writes well, writes quick. ->>

Verses on B. Jonson, by Jasper Mayne.

So also another of his Panegyrifts :

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Admit his muse was flow, 'tis judgment's fate

« To move like greatest princes, still in state."

In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, Jonson is faid to be fo low an enditer, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying. The fame piece furnishes us with the earliest intimation of the quarrel between him and Shakspeare. ،، Why here's our fellow Shakspeare put them (the university poets) all down, ay, and Ben Jonson too. O, that Ben Jonfon is a peftilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakspeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.,, Fuller, who was a diligent inquirer, and lived near enough the time to be well informed, confirms this account, afferting in his Worthies, 1662, chat ،، many were the wit-combats,, between Jonfon and our poet.

It is a fingular circumstance that old Ben should for near two centuries have stalked on the stilts of an artificial reputation; and that even at this day, of the very few who read his works, scarcely one in ten yet ventures to confefs how little entertainment they afford. Such was the impression made on the publick by the extravagant praises of those who knew more of books than of the drama, that Dryden in his Effay on Dramatick Poefie, written about 1667, does not venture to go further in his elogium on Shakspeare, than by saying, he was at least Jonson's equal, if not his fuperior; " and in the preface to his Mock Aftrologer, 1671, he hardly dares to affert, what, in my opinion, cannot be denied, that ،، all Jonson's pieces, except three or four, are but crambe bis cocta; the fame humours a little varied and written worse.."

Ben however did not trust to the praises of others. One of his admirers honestly confefses,

Of whom I write this, has prevented me,

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he

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And boldly faid so much in his own praise,

" No other pen need any trophy raise."

In vain, however, did he endeavour to bully the town into