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ADDENDA, &c.

VOL. I.

SHAKSPEARE'S LIFE.

P.4. His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool,] It ap pears that he had been an officer and bailiff of Stratford-uponAvon; and that he enjoyed some hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his grandfather's faithful and approved services to King Henry VII. THEOBALD.

The chief Magistrate of the Body Corporate of Stratford, now distinguished by the title of Mayor, was in the early charters called the High Bailiff. This office Mr. John Shakspeare filled in 1569, as appears from the following ex, tracts from the books of the corporation, with which I have been favoured by the Rev. Mr. Davenport, Vicar of Stratfordupon-Avon :

"Jan. 10, in the 6th year of the reign of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, John Shakspeare passed his Chamberlain's

accounts,

"At the Hall holden the eleventh day of September, in the eleventh year of the reign of our sovereign lady Elizabeth, 1569, were present Mr. John Shakspeare, High Bailiff." [Then follow the names of the Aldermen and Burgesses.]

"At the Hall holden Nov. 19th, in the 21st year of the reign of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, it is ordained, that every Alderman shall be taxed to pay weekly 4d. saving John Shakspeare and Robert Bruce, who shall not be taxed to pay any thing; and every burgess to pay 2d."

"At the Hall holden on the 6th of September in the 28th year of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth.

"At this Hall William Smith and Richard Courte are chosen to be Aldermen in the places of John Wheler, and John Shakspeare, for that Mr. Wheler doth desire to be put out of the company, and Mr. Shakspeare doth not come to the halls, when they be warned, nor hath not done of long time.”

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From these extracts it may be collected, (as is observed by the gentlemen above mentioned, to whose obliging attention to my inquiries I am indebted for many particulars relative to our poet's family,) that Mr. John Shakspeare in the former part of his life was in good circumstances, such persons being generally chosen into the corporation; and from his being excused [in 1579] to pay 4d. weekly, and at a subsequent period (1586) put out of the corporation, that he was then reduced in his circumstances.

It appears from a note to W. Dethick's Grant of Arms to him in 1596, now in the College of Arms Vincent, Vol. 157, p. 24, that he was a justice of the peace, and possessed of lands and tenements to the amount of 5001.

Our poet's mother was the daughter and heir of Robert Arden of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who, in the MS. above referred to, is called "a gentleman of worship." The family of Arden is a very ancient one; Robert Arden of Broomwich, being in the list of the gentry of this county, returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of King Henry VI. A. D. 1433. Edward Arden was Sheriff to the county in 1568.--The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern; afterwards softened to Arden. Hence the name.

MALONE.

P.6. He had bred him it is true, for some time, at a free-school,] The free-school, I presume, founded at Stratford.

THEOBALD.

Ibid. -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. MALONE.

Ibid. —he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young] It is certain he did so; for by the monument in Stratford church erected to the memory of his daughter, Susannah, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears that she was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years old. THEOBALD.

Susannah, who was our poet's eldest child, was baptised, 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 honour of either our poet's wife or daughter, except flat tomb-stones, by which, however, the time of their respective deaths is ascertained.-His daughter, Susannah, died, not on the second, but the eleventh of July, 1649. TheoBald was led into this error by Dugdale. MALONE.

P.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.

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

"Here lieth 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 inscription follow six Latin verses not worth preserving. MALONE.

P.7.-in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him.] See the first Note in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Ibid. He was received into the company-at first in a very mean rank] There is a stage tradition, that his first office 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.

P. 9. she commanded him to continue it for one play more] This anecdote was first given to the public by Dennis, in the Epistle Dedicatory to his comedy entitled The Comical Gallant, 4to. 1702, altered from The Merry Wives of Windsor.

MALONE.

P.10. to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public.] In Mr. Rowe's first edition, after these words was inserted 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 sincerity. Ben was naturally proud and insolent, and in the days of his reputation did so far take upon him the supremacy 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 some reserve; insinuating his uncorrectness, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgment. The praise of seldom 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 Jonson could not bear he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another man to strike out the greatest thoughts in the finest expression, and to reach those excellencies of poetry with the ease of a first imagination, which himself with infinite labour and study could but hardly attain to."

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

In The Return from Parnassus, 1606, Jonson is said to be “so slow an enditer, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying." The same 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 Jonson is a pestilent 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, asserting in his Worthies, 1662, that "many were the wit-combats" between Jonson and our poet.

It is a singular 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 confess how little entertainment they afford. Such was the impression made on the public by the extravagant praises of those who knew more of books than of the drama, that Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poesie, written about 1667, does not venture to go further in his eulogium on Shakspeare, than by saying, “he was at least Jonson's equal, if not his superior;" and in the preface to his Mock Astrologer, 1671, he hardly dares to assert, what, in my opinion, cannot be denied, that "all Jonson's pieces, except three or four, are but crambe bis octa; the same humours a little varied, and written worse." MALONE.

P. 11. Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, told them] In Mr. Rowe's first edition this passage runs thus:

"Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, hearing Ben frequently reproach him with the want of learning and ignorance of the antients, told him at last, That if Mr.Shakspeare," &c. By the alteration, the subsequent part of the sentence-" if he would produce," &c. is rendered ungrammatical. MALONE.

Ibid. He would undertake to show something upon the same subject at least as well written by Shakspeare.] I had long endeavoured in vain to find out on what authority this relation was founded; and have very lately discovered that Mr. Rowe probably derived his information from Dryden : for in Gildon's Letters and Essays, published in 1694, fifteen years before this Life appear. ed, the same story is told; and Dryden, to whom an Essay in vindication of Shakspeare is addressed, is appealed to by the writer as his authority. As Gildon tells the story with some slight variations from the account given by Mr. Rowe, and the book in which it is found is now extremely scarce, I shall subjoin the passage in his own words :

"But to give the world some satisfaction that Shakspeare has had as great veneration paid his excellence by men of unquestioned parts, as this I now express for him, I shall give some account of what I have heard from your mouth, sir, about the noble triumph he gained over all the ancients, by the judgment of the ablest criticks of that time.

"The matter of fact, if my memory fail me not, was this. Mr. Hales of Eton affirmed, that he would show all the poets of antiquity out-done by Shakspeare, in all the topics and common-places made use of in poetry. The enemies of Shakspeare would by no means yield him so much excellence; so that it came to a resolution of a trial of skill upon that subject. The place agreed on for the dispute was Mr. Hales' chamber at Eton. A great many books were sent down by the enemies of this poet; and on the appointed day my Lord Falkland, Sir John Suckling, and all the persons of quality that had wit and learning, and interested themselves in the quarrel, met there; and upon a thorough disquisition of the point, the judges chosen by agreement out of the learned and ingenious assembly, unanimously gave the preference to Shakspeare, and the Greek and Roman poets were adjudged to vail at least their glory in that, to the English Hero."

Dryden himself also certainly alludes to this story, which he appears to have related both to Gildon and Rowe, in the following passage of his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 1667; and he as well as Gildon goes somewhat further than Rowe in his panegyric. After giving that fine character of our poet which Dr. Johnson has quoted in his preface, he adds, “The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it MUCH BETTER done by Shakspeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem and in the last king's court [that of Charles I.] when Ben's reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers; set our Shakspeare far above him."

Let ever-memorable Hales,if all his other merits be forgotten, be ever mentioned with honour, for his good taste and admiration of our poet. "He was," says Lord Clarendon, "one of the least men in the kingdom; and one of the greatest scholars in Europe." See a long character of him in Clarendon's Life, Vol. 1. p. 52. MALONE.

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P.11. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasion.] Gildon, without authority, I believe, says, that our

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