for them, which would have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that fire, impetuofity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakspeare: and I believe we are better pleased with those thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supplied him so abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful pafssages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was poffible for a master of the English language to deliver them.

Upon his leaving school, he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him; and in order to fettle in the world after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, faid to have been a substantial

4

into that way of living which his father proposed to him ;) I believe, that on leaving school, Shakspeare was placed in the office of some country attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court. See the Effay on the order of his plays, Article, Hamlet. MALONE.

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he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young.) It is certain he did fo; for by the monument in Stratford church erected to the memory of his daughter, Susanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that she died on the 2d of July, 1649, aged 66: so that she was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years old. THEOBALD.

Sufanna, who was our poet's eldest child, was baptized, May 26, 1583. Shakspeare therefore, having been born in April 1564, was nineteen the month preceding her birth. Mr. Theobald was mistaken in supposing that a monument was erected to her in the church of Stratford. There is no memorial there in honor of either our poet's wife or daughter, except flat tomb-stones, by which, however, the time of their respective deaths is afcertained. - His daughter, Susanna, died, not on the fecond, but the eleventh of July, 1649. Theobald was led into this error by Dugdale. MALONE.

6 His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway,) She was eight years older than her husband, and died in 1623, at the age of 67 years. THEOBALD.

yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. In this kind of fettlement he continued for fome time, till an extravagance that he was guilty of forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it seemed at first 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 greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatickpoetry. He had by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote; near Stratford. For this he was profecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too feverely; and in order to revenge that ill usage, 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 so very bitter, that it redoubled

The following is the infcription on her tomb-stone in the church of Stratford:

،، Here lyeth interred the body of ANNE, wife of William Shakspeare, who departed this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares.,,

After this infcription follow fix Latin verses, not worth preferving. MALONE.

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in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him.) Mr. William Oldys, (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the share he had in compiling the Biographia Britannica) among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspeare, observes, that ،، -- there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years fince) who had not only heard, from several old people in that town, of Shakspeare's tranfgreffion, but could remember the first stanza of that bitter ballad, which, repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preserved it in writing; and here it is neither better nor worse, but faithfully transcribed from the copy which his relation very courteously communicated to me."

the profecution against him to that degree, that he

was obliged to leave his business and family in

" A parliamente member, a justice of peace,

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At home a poor scare-crowe, at London an affe,

If lowfie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,

Then Lucy is lowsie whatever befall it :

" He thinks himself greate,

" Yet an affe in his flate

" We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate.
" If Lucy is lowfie, as some volke miscalle it,
" Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it."

Contemptible as this performance must now appear, at the time when it was written it might have had fufficient power to irritate a vain, weak, and vindictive magistrate; efpecially as it was affixed to several of his park-gates, and confequently published among his neighbours. It may be remarked likewife, that the jingle on whichitturns, occurs in the first scene of The Merry Wives of Windfor.

(

I may add, that the veracity of the late Mr. Oldys has never yet been impeached, and it is not very probable that a ballad fhould be forged, from which an undifcovered wag could derive no triumph over antiquarian credulity. STEEVENS.

According to Mr. Capell, this ballad came originally from Mr. Thomas Jones, who lived at Tarbick, a village in Worcestershire, about 18 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, and died in 1703, aged upwards of ninety. ،، He remembered to have heard from several old people at Stratford the story of Shakspeare's robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park; and their account of it agreed with Mr. Rowe's, with this addition, that the ballad written against Sir Thomas Lucy by Shakspeare was stuck upon his park-gate, which exasperated the knight to apply to a lawyer at Warwick to proceed against him. Mr. Jones (it is added) put down in writing the first stanza ofthis ballad, which was all he remembered of it.,, In a note on the tranfcript with which Mr. Capell was furnished, it is faid, that ،، the people of those parts pronounce lowsie like Lucy.,, They do so at this day in Scotland. Mr. Wilkes, grandfon of the gentleman to whom Mr. Jones repeated the stanza, appears to have been the perfon who gave a copy of it to Mr. Oldys, and Mr. Capell.

In a Manufcript History of the Stage, full of forgeries and falfehoods of various kinds, written (I suspect by William Chetwood the prompter) some time between April 1727 and Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter 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 first in a very mean rank, but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the flage, foon 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 some old plays, but without any particular account of what fort of parts he used to play; and though I have inquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghofstin his

October 1730, is the following passage, to which the reader will give just as much credit as he thinks fit:

،، Here we shall observe, that the learned Mr. Joshua Barnes, late Greek Profeffor of the University of Cambridge, baiting about forty years ago at an inn in Stratford, and hearing an old woman finging part of the above-faid fong, fuch was his respect for Mr. Shakspeare's genius, that he gave her a new gown for the two following stanzas in it; and, could she have faid it all, he would (as he often faid in company, when any difcourse has cafually arose about him) have given her ten guineas.

« Sir Thomas was too covetous,
To covet so much deer,

When horns enough upon his head

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Most plainly did appear.

" Had not his worship one deer left?
،، What then? He had a wife

Took pains enough to find him horns

« Should last him during life." MALONE.

* Hewas received into the company - at first in a very mean rank;) There is a stage tradition, that his first office in the theatre was that of Call-boy, or prompter's attendant; whose employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the business of the play requires their appearance on the stage. MALONE.

own Hamlet. I should have been much more pleafed, to have learned from 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 first essay of a fancy like Shakspeare's. Perhaps we are not to look for his beginnings, like those of other authors, among their leaft perfect writings; art had so little, and nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. 3 I would not be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was foloose and extravagant, as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; but that what he thought, was commonly so great, so juftly and rightly conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first fight. But though the order of time in which the several pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are passages in fome few of them which feem to fix their dates. So the Chorus at the end of the fourth act of Henry

9- than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet.) Seesuch notices as I have been able to collect on this subject, in the Lift of old English actors, post. MALONE.

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- to have learned from certain authority, which was the first play he wrote ;) The highest date of any I can yet find, is Romeo and Juliet in 1597, when the author was. 33 years old; and Richard the Second, and Third, in the next year, viz. the 34th of his age. POPE.

Richard II. and III. were both printed in 1597.- On the order of time in which Shakspeare's plays were written, see the Essay in the second volume. MALONE.

3 - for aught I know, the performances of his youth - were the best) See this notion controverted in An Attempt to afcertain the order of Shakspeare's plays. MALONE.