in 4to. 1581. and dedicated by the author, "To the moft vertuous and learned lady, his moft deare and foveraigne princeffe, Elizabeth; being inforced by her Majeflies late and fingular clemency in pardoning certayne his unduetifull mifdemeanour." And by the modern editors, to the late King; as "a treatife compofed by the most extensive and fertile genius, that ever any age or nation produced."

Here we join iffue with the writers of that excellent though very unequal work, the Biographia Britannica: If," say they, "this piece could be writ

6 I must however correct a remark in the Life of Spenfer, which is impotently levelled at the firft criticks of the age. It is obferved from the correfpondence of Spenfer and Gabriel Harvey, that the plan of The Fairy Queen, was laid, and part of it executed in 1580, three years before the Gierufalemme Liberata was printed: hence appears the impertinence of all the apologies for his choice of Ariofio's manner in preference of Taffo's !”

But the fact is not true with refpect to Taffo. Manfo and Niceron inform us, that his poem was publifhed, though imperfectly, in 1574; and I myfelf can affure the biographer, that I have met with at leaft fix other editions, preceding his date for its first publication. I fufpect, that Baillet is accountable for this miflake: who in the Jugemens des Sçavans, Tom. III. p. 399, mentions no edition previous to the quarto, Venice, 1583.

It is a queftion of long ftanding, whether a part of The Fairy Queen hath been loft, or whether the work was left unfinished which may effectually be anfwered by a fingle quotation. William Browne published fome Poems in fol. 1616. under the name of Britannia's Paftorals, "efteemed then," fays Wood," to be written in a fublime ftrain, and for fubject amorous and very pleasing." In one of which, Book II. Song 1. he thus fpeaks of Spenfer :

He fung th' heroicke knights of faiery land
In lines fo elegant, of fuch command,
That had the Thracian plaid but halfe fo well,
He had not left Eurydice in hell.

ten by our poet, it would be abfolutely decifive in the difpute about his learning; for many quotations appear in it from the Greek and Latin claflicks."

The concurring circumftances of the name, and the misdemeanour, which is fuppofed to be the old ftory of deer-stealing, feem fairly to challenge our poet for the author: but they hesitate.

His claim may appear to be confuted by the date 1581. when Shakspeare was only feventeen, and the long experience, which the writer talks of. But I will not keep you in fufpenfe: the book was not written by Shakspeare.

Styrpe, in his Annals, calls the author. SOME learned man, and this gave me the first fufpicion. I knew very well, that honeft John (to ufe the language of Sir Thomas Bodley) did not waste his time with fuch baggage books as plays and poems; yet I muft fuppofe, that he had heard of the name of Shakspeare. After a while I met with the original edition. Here in the title-page, and at the end of the dedication, appear only the initials, W. S. Gent. and presently I was informed by Anthony Wood,

But e're he ended his melodious fong,

An hoft of angels flew the clouds among,

And rapt this fwan from his attentive mates,
is To make him one of their affociates

In heauens faire quire: where now he fings the praise
Of him that is the first and laft of daies.”

It appears, that Browne was intimate with Drayton, Jonson, and Selden, by their poems prefixed to his book: he had therefore good opportunities of being acquainted with the fact abovementioned. Many of his poems remain in MS. We have in our library at Emmanuel a mafque of his, prefented at the Inner Temple, Jan. 13, 1614. The fubject is the ftory of Ulyffes and Circe.

"

that the book in queftion was written, not by William Shakspeare, but by William Stafford, Gentleman:' which at once accounted for the misdemeanour in the dedication. For Stafford had been concerned at that time, and was indeed afterward, as Camden and the other annalists inform us, with fome of the conspirators against Elizabeth; which he properly, calls his unduetifull behaviour.

I hope by this time, that any one open to conviction may be nearly fatisfied; and I will promise to give you on this head very little more trouble.

The juftly celebrated Mr. Warton hath favoured us, in his Life of Dr. Bathurst, with some hearsay particulars concerning Shakspeare from the papers of Aubrey, which had been in the hands of Wood; and I ought not to suppress them, as the last seems to make against my doctrine. They came originally, I find, on confulting the MS. from one Mr. Beeftón: and I am fure Mr. Warton, whom I have the honour to call my friend, and an affociate in the queftion, will be in no pain about their credit.

"William Shakspeare's father was a butcher, while he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high ftyle, and make a speech. This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess, about eighteen, and was an actor in one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly He began early to make effays in dramatique

well.

7 Fafti, 2d edit. v. 1. 208. It will be feen on turning to the former edition, that the latter part of the paragraph belongs to another Stafford. I have fince obferved, that Wood is not the firft, who hath the pamphlet.

given us the true author of

---

8

poetry. The humour of the Conftable in the
Midfummer Night's Dream he happened to take at
Crendon in Bucks. I think, I have been told,
that he left near three hundred pounds to a fifter.
He underflood Latin pretty well, FOR he had been in
his younger yeares a fchoolmafter in the country."

I will be fhort in my animadverfions; and take them in their order.

The account of the trade of the family is not only contrary to all other tradition, but, as it may feem, to the inftrument from the Herald's Office, fo frequently reprinted. Shakspeare most certainly went to London, and commenced actor through neceffity, not natural inclination. Nor have we any reason to suppose, that he did act exceeding well. Rowe tells us, from the information of Betterton, who was inquifitive into this point, and had very early opportunities of inquiry from Sir W. D'Avenant, that he was no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghoft in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'oeuvre did not please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for ever peftering the town with pamphlets, published in the year 1596, Wits Miferic, and the Worlds Madneffe, difcovering the Devils incarnat of this Age, 4to. One of thefe devils is Hate-virtue, or Sorrow for another man's

8 It was obferved in the former edition, that this place is not met with in Spelman's Villare, or in Adams's Index; nor, it might have been added, in the first and the last performance of this fort, Speed's Tables, and Whatley's Gazetteer: perhaps, however, it may be meant under the name of Crandon; but the inquiry is of no importance. It'fhould, I think, be written Credendon; though better antiquaries thah Aubrey have acquiefced in the vulgar corruption.

1

good fucceffe, who, fays the Doctor, is "a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of the Ghoft, which cried fo miferably at the theatre, like an oifter-wife, Hamlet revenge. Thus you fee Mr. Holt's fuppofed proof, in the Appendix to the late edition, that Hamlet was written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever might be the cafe of the particular passage on which it is founded.

Nor does it appear, that Shakspeare did begin early to make essays in dramatick poetry: The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, which hath fo often been afcribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winftanley, was written by George Peele; and

9 To this obfervation of Dr. Farmer it may be added, that the play of Hamlet was better known by this fcene, than by any other. In Decker's Satiromaftix, 1602, the following paffage occurs:

Afinius.

"Would I were hang'd if I can call you any names but captain, and Tucca."

Тисса.

"No, fye; my name's Hamlet Revenge: thou hast been at Paris-Garden, haft thou not?"

Again, in Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607.

Let thefe hufbands play mad Hamlet, and cry, revenge!"

STEEVENS. Dr. Farmer's obfervation may be further confirmed by the following paffage in an anonymous play, called A Warning for faire Women, 1599. We alfo learn from it the ufual drefs of the ftage ghofts of that time :

66

A filthie whining ghoft,

Lapt in fome foule fheet, or a leather pilch, "Comes fcreaming like a pigge half flickt,

"And cries vindicta

revenge, revenge."

The leathern pilch, I fuppofe, was a theatrical fubftitute for armour. MALONE.

Thefe people, who were the Curls of the laft age, ascribe