"line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted

fon of Thomas Hart, late of Stratford-upon-Avon aforefaid, all that my other meffuage or inn fituate in Stratford-upon-Avon aforefaid, commonly called the Maidenhead, with the appurtenances, and the next houfe thereunto adjoining, with the barn belonging to the fame, now or late in the occupation of Michael Johnfon or his affigns, with all and fingular the appurtenances; to hold to him the faid Thomas Hart the fon, and the heirs of his body; and for default of fuch iffae, I give and devife the fame to George Hart, brother of the faid Thomas Hart, and to the heirs of his body; and for default of fuch iffue to the right heirs of me the faid Elizabeth Barnard for ever.

"Item, I do make, ordain, and appoint my faid loving kinfman Edward Bagley fole executor of this my last will and teftament, hereby revoking all former wills; defiring him to fee a juft performance hereof, according to my true intent and meaning. In witness whereof I the said Elizabeth Barnard have hereunto fet my hand and seal, the nine-and-twentieth day of January, Anno Domini, one thousand fix hundred and fixty-nine.

"ELIZABETH Barnard. Signed, Sealed, published, and declared to be the loft will and teftament of the faid Elizabeth Barnard, in the prefence of "John Howes, Rector de Abington, Francis Wickes.

"Probatum fuit teftamentum fuprafcriptum apud ædes Exonienfes fituat. in le Strand, in comitatu Middx. quarto die menfis Martij, 1669, coram venerabili viro Domino Egidio Sweete, milite et legum doctore, furrogato, c. juramento Edwardi Bagley, unici executor. nominat. cui, &c. de bene, &c. jurat." MALONE.

2 that in writing (whatfoever he penned) he never blotted out a line.] This is not true. They only fay in their preface to his plays, that "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.' On this Mr. Pope obferves, that "there never was a more groundless report, or to the contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences. As, the comedy of The Merry Wives of Windfor, which he entirely new writ; The Hiftory of Henry the Sixth, which was firft publifhed under the title of The Contention of York and Lancafter; and that of Henry V. extremely improved; that of Hamlet enlarged to almoft as much again as at firft, and many others."

thoufand! which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told pofterity this, but for

ing us, the writings.

Surely this is a very strange kind of argument. In the first place this was not a report, (unless by that word we are to underftand relation,) but a pofitive affertion, grounded on the best evidence that the nature of the fubject admitted; namely, ocular proof. The players fay, in fubftance, that Shakspeare had fuch a happiness of expreffion, that, as they collect from his papers, he had feldom occafion to alter the firft words he had fet down; in confequence of which they found fcarce a in And how is this refuted by Mr. Pope? By a great many of his plays were enlarged by their author. Allowing this to be true, which is by no means certain, if he had written twenty plays, each confifting of one thousand lines, and afterwards added to each of them a thousand more, would it therefore follow, that he had not writen the first thousand with faci; lity and correctness, or that those must have been neceffarily expunged, because new matter was added to them? Certainly not. But the truth is, it is by no means clear that our author did enlarge all the plays mentioned by Mr. Pope, if even that would prove the point intended to be established. Mr. Pope was evidently deceived by the quarto copies. From the play of Henry V. being more perfect in the folio edition than in the quarto, nothing follows but that the quarto impreffion of that piece was printed from a mutilated and imperfect copy, stolen from the theatre, or taken down by ear during the reprefentation. What have been called the quarto copies of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. were in fact two old plays written before the time of Shakspeare, and entitled The First Part of the Contention of the two Houfes of Yorke and Lancafter, &c. and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. on which he conftructed two new plays; juft as on the old plays of King John, and The Taming of a Shrew, he formed two other plays with nearly the fame titles. See The Differtation in Vol. XIV. p. 223.

The tragedy of Hamlet in the firft edition, (now extant,) that of 1604, is faid to be " enlarged to almoft as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy." What is to be collected from this, but that there was a former imperfect edition (I believe, in the year 1602)? that the one we are now fpeaking of was enlarged to as much again as it was in the former mutilated impreffion, and that this is the genuine and perfect copy, the other imperfect and spurious?

56

"their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most fault"ed: and to juftify mine own candour, for I loved "the man, and do honour his memory, on this fide idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, ho"neft, and of an open and free nature, had an "excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expref"fions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that "fometimes it was neceflary he fhould be flopped: "Sufflaminandus erat, as Auguftus faid of Haterius. "His wit was in his own power; would the rule of "it had been fo too. Many times he fell into "those things which could not efcape laughter; as "when he said in the perfon of Cæfar, one fpeak"ing to him,

Cæfar, thou doft me wrong.'

"He replied:

⚫ Cæfar did never wrong, but with juft caufe.".

"and fuch like, which were ridiculous. But he

The Merry Wives of Windfor, indeed, and Romeo and Juliet, and perhaps Love's Labour's Loft, our author appears to have altered and amplified; and to King Richard II. what is called the parliament-fcene, feems to have been added; (though this laft is by no means certain ;) but neither will these augmentations and new-modellings difprove what has been afferted by Shakspeare's fellow-comedians concerning the facility of his writing, and the exquifite felicity of his first expreffions.

The hafty sketch of The Merry Wives of Windfor, which he is faid to have composed in a fortnight, he might have written without a blot; and three or four years afterwards, when he chose to dilate his plan, he might have compofed the additional scenes without a blot likewife. In a word, fuppofing even that Nature had not endowed him with that rich vein which he unquestionably poffeffed, he who in little more than twenty years produces thirty-four or thirty-five pieces for the stage, has certainly not much time for expunging. MALONE.

"redeemed his vices with his virtues ; there was "ever more in him to be praised than to be "doned."

par

As for the paffage which he mentions out of Shakspeare, there is fomewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, but without the abfurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have feen as quoted by Mr. Jonfon.3 Jom davno sci

Befides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcribed to him by Mr. Langbaine, which

3 nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have feen, as quoted by Mr. Jonfon.] See Mr. Tyrwhitt's hote on Julius Caefar, Act III. fc. i. Vol. XVI. MALONE.

4 Befides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcribed to him by Mr. Langbaine,] The Birth of Merlin, 1662, written by W. Rowley; the old play of King John, in two parts, 1591, on which Shakspeare formed his King John; and The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, written by George Peele.

The editor of the folio 1664, fubjoined to the 36 dramas publifhed in 1623, feven plays, four of which had appeared in Shak fpeare's life-time with his name in the title-page, viz. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609, Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, The London Prodigal, 1605, and The Yorkshire Tragedy, 1608; the three others which they inferted, Locrine, 1595, Lord Cromwell, 1602, and The Puritan, 1607, having been printed with the initials W. S. in the title-page, the editor chofe to interpret those letters to mean William Shakspeare, and ascribed them alfo to our poet. I published an edition of these seven pieces fome years ago, freed in fome measure from the grofs errors with which they had been exhibited in ancient copies, that the publick might fee what they contained; and do not hesitate to declare my firm perfuafion that of Locrine, Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, The London Prodigal, and The Puritan, Shakspeare did not write a fingle line.

How little the bookfellers of former times fcrupled to affix the names of celebrated writers to the productions of others, even in the life-time of fuch celebrated authors, may be collected from Heywood's tranflations from Ovid, which in 1612, while Shakspeare was yet living, were afcribed to him. See Vol. X. p. 321, n. 1.* With the dead they would certainly

* Mr. Malone's edition of our author's works, 1790.

I have never seen, and know nothing of. He writ likewife Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Laicrece, in ftanzas, which have been printed in a late collection of poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Jonson, there is a good deal true in it? but I believe it may be as well expreffed by what Horace fays of the firft Romans, who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed tranflated them,) in his epiftle to Auguftus:mi

"

naturâ fublimis & acer :

Nam fpirat tragicum fatis, et feliciter audet, 05 Sed turpem patat in chartis metuitque lituram."

3

As I have not propofed to myself to enter into a large and complete criticifm upon Shakspeare's works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to obferve fome of those things I have been pleafed with in looking him over.

His plays are properly to be diftinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Thofe which are called hiftories, and even fome of his comedies, are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of come

make ftill more free. "This book (fays Anthony Wood, speaking of a work to which the name of Sir Philip Sydney was prefixed) coming out fo late, it is to be inquired whether Sir Philip Sydney's name is not fet to it for fale-fake, being a ufual thing in these days to fet a great name to a book or books, by fharking bookfellers, or fnivelling writers, to get bread." Athen. Oxon. Vol. 1. p. 20 MALONE.

p.

in a late collection of poems.] In the fourth volume of State Poems, printed in 1707. Mr. Rowe did not go beyond A Late Collection of Poems, and does not seem to have known that Shakspeare alfo wrote 154 Sonnets, and a poem entitled A Lover's Complaint. MALONE.