Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,—

A dark enigma to the memory,

For none shall have the power to number them;

A place that I will hallow for your rest;

Where no night-hag shall walk, nor were-wolf tread,

Where Merlin's mother shall be sepulchred."

As this is a satisfactory account of the origin of Stonehenge, we might here conclude; but there is a little more to tell of this marvellous play. Uter, the triumphant king, desires Merlin to

Merlin thus consents:

"show the full event,

That shall both end our reign and chronicle."

"What Heaven decrees, fate hath no power to alter:
The Saxons, sir, will keep the ground they have,
And by supplying numbers still increase,
Till Britain be no more: So please your grace,
I will, in visible apparitions,

[MERLIN strikes.,

Present you prophecies, which shall concern
Succeeding princes, which my art shall raise,
Till men shall call these times the latter days.
Hautboys. Enter a King in armour, his shield quartered
with thirteen crowns. At the other end enter divers Princes,
who present their crowns to him at his feet, and do him
homage; then enters Death, and strikes him; he, growing
sick, crowns CONSTANTINE."

This Merlin explains to represent Uter's son, Arthur, and his successor; at which the prince, much gratified, asserts,

"All future times shall still record this story,

Of Merlin's learned worth, and Arthur's glory."

WE close our imperfect record of the plays ascribed to Shakspere with the performance of a true poet, whoever he may be.

The Merry Deuill of Edmonton: As it hath been sundry times acted by his Maiesties Servants, at the Globe on the Banke-side,' was originally published in 1608. On the 22d October, 1607, there is an entry of the title of the play on the Stationers' registers; but on the 5th April, 1608, we have a more precise entry of "A book called the Lyfe and Deathe of the Merry Devill of Edmonton, with the pleasant pranks of Smugge the Smyth, Sir John, and mine Hoste of the George, about their stealing of venison. By T. B." This was, in all probability, a second Part. Steevens says, "The initial letters at the end of this entry sufficiently free Shakspeare from the charge of having been its author." It has been supposed that these initials represent Tony, or Antony, Brewer,a dramatic writer of the time of James I., high lauded by some of his contemporaries. Kirkman, a bookseller, first affixed Shakspere's name to it in his catalogue. In 'The

Companion to the Playhouse,' published in 1764, it is stated, upon the authority of a laborious antiquary, Thomas Coxeter, who died in 1747, to have been written by Michael Drayton ; and in some posthumous papers of another diligent inquirer into literary history, Oldys, the same assertion is advanced. Charles Lamb, who speaks of this play with a warmth of admiration which is probably carried a little too far—and which, indeed, may in some degree be attributed to his familiarity with the quiet rural scenery of Enfield, Waltham, Cheshunt, and Edmonton, in which places the story is laid-says, "I wish it could be ascertained that Michael Drayton was the author of this piece: it would add a worthy appendage to the renown of that panegyrist of my native earth; who has gone over her soil (in his Polyolbion) with the fidelity of a herald, and the painful love of a son; who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology." The Merry Devil' was undoubtedly a play of great popularity. We find from the account-books of the Revels at Court, that it was acted before the King in the same year, 1618, with Twelfth Night and A Winter's Tale. In 1616, Ben Jonson, in his Prologue to 'The Devil is an Ass,' thus addresses his audience :

"If you'll come

To see new plays, pray you afford us room,

And show this but the same face you have done
Your dear delight, The Devil of Edmonton."

Its popularity seems to have lasted much longer: for it is mentioned by Edmund Gayton, in 1654, in his 'Notes on Don Quixote.' The belief that the play was Shakspere's has never taken any root in England. Some of the German critics, however, adopt it as his without any hesitation. Tieck has translated it; and he says that it undoubtedly is by Shakspere, and must have been written about 1600. It has much of the tone, he thinks, of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and "mine host of the George" and "mine host of the Garter" are alike. It is surprising that Tieck does not see that the one character is, in a great degree, an imitation of the other. Shakspere, in the abundance of his riches, is not a poet who repeats himself. Horn declares that Shakspere's authorship of 'The Merry Devil' is incontestable. Ulrici admits the bare possibility of its being a very youthful work of Shakspere's. The great merit, on the contrary, of the best scenes of this play consists in their perfect finish. There is nothing careless about them; nothing that betrays the very young adventurer; the writer is a master of his art to the extent of his power. But that is not Shakspere's power.

Fuller, in his Worthies,' thus records the merits of Peter Fabel, the hero of this play: "I shall probably offend the gravity of some to insert, and certainly curiosity of others to omit, him. Some make him a friar, others a lay gentleman, all a conceited person, who, with his merry devices, deceived the Devil, who by grace may be resisted, not deceived by wit. If a grave bishop in his sermon, speaking of Brute's coming into this land, said it was but a bruit, I hope I may say without offence that this Fabel was but a fable, supposed to live in the reign of King Henry the Sixth." His fame is more confidingly recorded in the Prologue to 'The Merry Devil :'—

"'T is Peter Fabel, a renowned scholar,

Whose fame hath still been hitherto forgot

By all the writers of this latter age.

In Middlesex his birth and his abode,

Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.

+ Collier's 'Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii. p. 417.

Not full seven miles from this great famous city;
That, for his fame in sleights and magic won,
Was call'd the Merry Fiend of Edmonton.

If any here make doubt of such a name,

In Edmonton, yet fresh unto this day,
Fix'd in the wall of that old ancient church,

His monument remaineth to be seen:

His memory yet in the mouths of men,

That whilst he liv'd he could deceive the devil."

The Prologue goes on to suppose him at Cambridge at the hour when the term of his compact with the fiend is run out. We are not here to look for the terrible solemnity of the similar scene in Marlowe's 'Faustus;' but, nevertheless, that before us is written with great poetical power. Coreb, the spirit, thus addresses the magician :"Coreb. Why, scholar, this is the hour my date expires;

I must depart, and come to claim my due.

Fabel. Hah! what is thy due?

Coreb. Fabel, thyself.

Fabel. O let not darkness hear thee speak that word

Lest that with force it hurry hence amain,

And leave the world to look upon my woe:

Yet overwhelm me with this globe of earth,

And let a little sparrow with her bill
Take but so much as she can bear away,

That, every day thus losing of my load,

I may again, in time, yet hope to rise."

While the fiend sits down in the necromantic chair Fabel thus soliloquizes :

Than man should know !

For this alone God cast the angels down.

The infinity of arts is like a sea,

Into which when man will take in hand to sail

Farther than reason (which should be his pilot)
Hath skill to guide him, losing once his compass,
He falleth to such deep and dangerous whirlpools,
As he doth lose the very sight of heaven:
The more he strives to come to quiet harbour,
The farther still he finds himself from land.

Man, striving still to find the depth of evil,
Seeking to be a God, becomes a devil."

But the magician has tricked the fiend; the chair holds him fast, and the condition of release is a respite for seven years. The supernatural part of the play may be said here to end; for although throughout the latter scenes there are some odd mistakes produced by the devices of Fabel, they are such as might have been accomplished by human agency, and in fact appear to have been so accomplished. Tieck, observes, "It is quite in Shakspere's manner that the magical part becomes nearly superfluous." This, as it appears to us, is not in Shakspere's manner. In Hamlet, in Macbeth, in the MidsummerNight's Dream, in The Tempest, the magical or supernatural part is so intimately allied with the whole action that it impels the entire movement of the piece. Shakspere knew too well the soundness of the Horatian maxim,—

"Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus,"—

to produce a ghost, a witch, or a fairy, without necessity. However, the magical part here finishes; and we are introduced to the society of no equivocal mortal, the host of the George, at Waltham. Sir Arthur Clare, his wife Dorcas, his daughter Millisent, and his son Harry, arrive at the inn, where the host says, "Knights and lords have been drunk in my house, I thank the destinies." This company have arrived at the George to meet Sir Richard Mounchensey, and his son Raymond, to whom Millisent is betrothed ; but old Clare informs his wife that he is resolved to break off the match, to send his daughter for a year to a nunnery, and then to bestow her upon the son of Sir Ralph Jerningham. Old Mounchensey, it seems, has fallen upon evil days :

"Clare. For look you, wife, the riotous old knight

Hath overrun his annual revenue,

In keeping jolly Christmas all the year:

The nostrils of his chimneys are still stuff'd
With smoke more chargeable than cane-tobacco;
His hawks devour his fattest hogs, whilst simple,
His leanest curs eat his hounds' carrion.
Besides, I heard of late his younger brother,
A Turkey-merchant, hath sure suck'd the knight,
By means of some great losses on the sea;
That (you conceive me) before God, all's nought,
His seat is weak; thus, each thing rightly scann'd,
You'll see a flight, wife, shortly of his land."

Fabel, the kind magician, who has been the tutor to Raymond, arrives at the same time with the Mounchensey party. He knows the plots against his young friend, and he is determined to circumvent them :

"Raymond Mounchensey, boy, have thou and I

Thus long at Cambridge read the liberal arts,

The metaphysics, magic, and those parts

Of the most secret deep philosophy?

Have I so many melancholy nights

Watch'd on the top of Peter-house highest tower,

And come we back unto our native home,

For want of skill to lose the wench thou lov'st?
We'll first hang Envil* in such rings of mist
As never rose from any dampish fen;

I'll make the brined sea to rise at Ware,

And drown the marshes unto Stratford-bridge:
I'll drive the deer from Waltham in their walks,
And scatter them, like sheep, in every field.
We may perhaps be cross'd; but if we be,

He shall cross the devil that but crosses me."

Harry Clare, Ralph Jerningham, and Raymond Mounchensey, are strict friends; and there is something exceedingly delightful in the manner in which Raymond throws away all suspicion, and the others resolve to stand by their friend whatever be the intrigues of their parents :

"Jern. Raymond Mounchensey, now I touch thy grief With the true feeling of a zealous friend.

And as for fair and beauteous Millisent,

With my vain breath I will not seek to slubber

Her angel-like perfections: but thou know'st

That Essex hath the saint that I adore :

Where'er did'st meet me, that we two were jovial,
But like a wag thou hast not laugh'd at me,

Envil-Enfield.