I fuppofe none of my readers will find any difficulty in giving full credit to this part of the account. Mr. Aubrey, I believe, is the only writer, who has particularly mentioned the beauty of our poet's perfon; and there being no contradictory teftimony on the fubject, he may here be fafely relied on. All his contemporaries who have fpoken of him, concur in celebrating the gentleness of his manners, and the readiness of his wit. "As he was a happy imitator of nature, (fay his fellow comedians,) fo was he a moft gentle expreffer of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought he uttered with that eafinefs, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." "My gentle Shakspeare," is the compellation used to him by Ben Jonfon. "He was indeed (fays his old antagonist) honeft, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expreffions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that fometimes it was neceffary he fhould be ftopped. Sufflaminandus erat, as Auguftus faid of Haterius." So alfo in his verfes on our poet:

Look how the father's face

"Lives in his iffue, even fo the race

"Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly fhines
"In his well-torned and true-filed lines."

In like manner he is reprefented by Spenfer (if in The Tears of the Mufes he is alluded to, which, it must be acknowledged, is extremely probable,) under the endearing defcription of "our pleasant Willy," and "that fame gentle Spirit, from whose pen flow copious ftreams of honey and nectar." In a fubfequent page I fhall have occafion to quote another of his contemporaries, who is equally lavish in praifing the uprightnefs of his conduct and the

gentleness and civility of his demeanour. And conformable to all these ancient teftimonies is that of Mr. Rowe, who informs us, from the traditional accounts received from his native town, that our poet's "pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of his neighbourhood at Stratford."

A man, whofe manners were thus engaging, whose wit was thus ready, and whofe mind was stored with such a plenitude of ideas and such a copious affemblage of images as his writings exhibit, could not but have been what he is represented by Mr. Aubrey, a delightful companion.

"The humour of the conftable in A Midfommernight-Dreame he happened to take at Crendon in Bucks, (I think it was Midfomer-night that he happened to be there :) which is the road from London to Stratford; and there was living that constable about 1642, when I came firft to Oxon. Mr. Jof. Howe is of the parish, and knew him.”

It must be acknowledged that there is here a flight mistake, there being no fuch character as a conftable in A Midfummer-Night's Dream. The perfon in contemplation undoubtedly was DOGBERRY in Much Ado about Nothing. But this miftake of a name does not, in my apprehenfion, detract in the smallest degree from the credit of the fact itself; namely, that our poet in his admirable character of a foolish conftable had in view an individual who lived in Crendon or Grendon, (for it is written both ways,) a town in Buckinghamshire, about thirteen miles from Oxford. Leonard Digges, who was Shakspeare's contemporary, has fallen into a fimilar errour; for in his eulogy on our poet, he has fuppofed the character of MALVOLIO,

which is found in Twelfth Night, to be in Much Ado about Nothing.3

As fome account of the perfon from whom Mr. Aubrey derived this anecdote, who was of the fame college with him at Oxford, may tend to establish its credit, I fhall transcribe from Mr. Warton's preface to his Life of Sir Thomas Pope, fuch notices of Mr. Jofias Howe, as he has been able to re

cover.

"He was born at Crendon in Bucks, [about the year 1611] and elected a scholar of Trinity College June 12, 1632; admitted a fellow, being then bachelor of arts, May 26, 1637. By Hearne he is called a great cavalier and loyalift, and a moft ingenious man. He appears to have been a general and accomplished fcholar, and in polite literature one of the ornaments of the univerfity.-In 1644 he preached before King Charles the Firft, at Christ Church cathedral, Oxford. The fermon was printed, and in red letters, by his majesty's fpecial command.-Soon after 1646, he was ejected from his fellowship by the prefbyterians; and restored in 1660. He lived forty-two years, greatly refpected, after his reftitution, and arriving at the age of ninety, died fellow of the college where he conftantly refided, Auguft 28, 1701." Mr. Thomas Howe, the father of this Mr. Jofias Howe, (as I learn from Wood) was minifter of Crendon, and contemporary with Shakspeare; and from him his fon perhaps derived fome information concerning our poet, which he might have communicated to his fellow-collegian, Aubrey. The anecdote relative to the conftable of Crendon, however, does not

3 See Ancient and Modern Commendatory Verfes, at the end of Vol. II.

Rob. Glouc. GLoss. p. 669.

ftand on this ground, for we find that Mr. Jofias Howe perfonally knew him, and that he was living in 1642.

I now proceed to the remaining part of these anecdotes:

"Ben Jonfon and he did gather humours of men wherever they came. One time as he was at the taverne at Stratford, Mr. Combes, an old ufurer, was to be buried; he makes then this extemporary epitaph upon him:

6

• Ten in the hundred the devill allowes,

But Combes will have twelve, he fwears and he vowes:
If any one afke, who lies in this tomb,

• Hoh! quoth the devill, 'tis my John o'Combe."

In a former page I have proved, if I mistake not, from an examination of Mr. Combe's will, and other circumstances, that no credit is due to Mr. Rowe's account of our poet's having fo incenfed him by an epitaph which he made on him in his

pre

5 This cuftom of adding an s to many names, both in fpeaking and writing, was very common in the laft age. Shakespeare's fellow-comedian, John Heminge, was always called Mr. Hemings by his contemporaries, and Lord Clarendon conftantly writes Bishop Earles, instead of Bishop Earle.

"S (fays Camden in his Remaines, 4to. 1605,) alfo is joyned to moft [names] now, as Manors, Knoles, Crofts, Hilles, Combes," &c.

6 Mr. Combe was buried at Stratford, July 12, 1614. The entry in the Register of that parish confirms the observation made above; for, though written by a clergyman, it ftands thus: "July 12, 1614. Mr. John Combes, Gener."

7 This appears to have been in our poet's time a common form in writing epitaphs. In one which he wrote on Sir Thomas Stanley, which has been given in Vol. I. p. 33, we again meet with it:

66 Afk, who lies here," &c.

Again, in Ben Jonfon's epitaph on his fon :

"Reft in foft peace, and afk'd, fay, here doth lie
"Ben Jonfon his beft piece of poetry."

fence, at a tavern in Stratford, that the old gentleman never forgave him. And Mr. Aubrey's account of this matter, which I had not then feen, fully confirms what I fuggefted on the fubject: for here we find, that the epitaph was made after Combe's death. Nor is this fprightly effufion inconfiftent with Shakspeare's having lived in a certain degree of familiarity with that gentleman; whom he might have refpected for fome qualities, though he indulged himself in a fudden and playful cenfure of his inordinate attention to the acquirement of wealth, at a time when that ridicule could not affect him who was the object of it.

Mr. Steevens has juftly obferved, that the verfes exhibited by Mr. Rowe, contain not a jocular epitaph, but a malevolent prediction; and every reader will, I am fure, readily agree with him, that it is extremely improbable that Shakspeare fhould have poisoned the hour of confidence and friendship by producing one of the fevereft cenfures on one of his company, and fo wantonly and publickly exprefs his doubts concerning the falvation of one of his fellow creatures. The foregoing more accurate ftatement entirely vindicates our poet from this imputation.

These extemporary verfes having, I fuppofe, not been fet down in writing by their author, and being inaccurately tranfmitted to London, appear in an intirely different shape in Braithwaite's Remaines, and there we find them affixed to a tomb erected by Mr. Combe in his life-time. I have already fhewn that no fuch tomb was erected by Mr. Combe, and therefore Braithwaite's ftory is as little to be credited as Mr. Rowe's. That fuch various reprefentations fhould be made of verfes of which the author probably never gave a written. copy, and perhaps never thought of after he had