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VOL. I.

PROLEGO- P. 76. How little Shakespeare himself was once read, &c.]

ΜΕΝΑ.

Though no author appears to have been more admired in his lifetime than Shakspeare, at no ver y diftant period after his death, his compofitions feem to have been neglected. Jonfon had long endeavoured to depreciate him, but he and his partifans were unsuccessful in their efforts; yet about the year 1640, whether from fome capricious viciffitude in the publick tafte, or from a general inattention to the drama, we find Shirley complaining that no company came to our au thor's performances.

"You fee

"What audience we have; what company

"To Shakespeare comes? whofe mirth did once beguile
"Dull hours, and buskin'd made even forrow fmile;
"So lovely were the wounds, that men would fay
"They could endure the bleeding a whole day;
"He has but few friends lately."

Prologue to The Sifters. After the Reftoration, on the revival of the theatres, the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were efteemed so much fuperior to thofe of our author, that we are told by Dryden,

two of their pieces were acted, through the year, for one of Shakspeare's." If his teftimony needed any corroboration, the following lines in a Satire published in 1680, would afford it:

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Afpatia,

Pompeia,

Rodope,

Saunder.
Sardanepalus.

Aug. Phillips *,
Tho. Pope *.
R. Pallant.
R. Cowley.
T. Goodale.

J. Duke.

R. Gough*.

Ned, (perhaps Edward Alleyn).
Nich. (Nicholas Tooley) *.

+ This name will ferve to confirm Mr. Tyrwhitt's fuppofition in

the note to The Taming of a Shrew. Vol. III. p. 404.

"At

"At every fhop while Shakspeare's lofty ftile

66

Neglected lies, to mice and worms a spoil, "Gilt on the back, just smoking from the prefs, "The Apprentice fhews you D'Urfey's Hudibras, "Crown's Mafk, bound up with Settle's choiceft labours, "And promises some new effay of Babor's."

See alfo the prologue to Shirley's Love Tricks, 1667. "In our old plays the humour, love and paffion, "Like doublet, hose, and cloak, are out of fashion; "That which the world call'd wit in Shakspeare's age, "Is laugh'd at, as improper for our stage.'

From the inftances mentioned by Mr Steevens, he ap pears to have been equally neglected in the time of Queen Anne. During these last fifty years ample compensation has been made to him for the bad tafte and inattention of the periods above mentioned. MALONE.

94. At the end of the tranflations of Ovid, add:

Ovidius Nafo, his Remedie of Love, tranflated and entituled to the youth of England, 4to. Lond. 1600.

167.—and their caution against prophaneneness, is in my opinion, the only thing for which we are indebted to the editors of the folio.]

I doubt whether we are so much indebted to the judgment of the editors of the folio edition, for their caution against prophaneness, as to the ftatute 3 Jac. I. c. 21. which prohibits under fevere penalties the ufe of the facred name in any plays or interludes. This occafioned the playhouse copies to be altered, and they printed from the playhouse copies.

E.

VOL. I.

PROLEGO

177. He was received into the company then in being, at first in a very mean rank.]

MENA.

There is a flage tradition that his firft office in the theatre was that of prompter's attendant; whofe employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the bufinefs of the play requires their appearance on the ftage.

180. Ten in the hundred lies bere engrav'd-]

MALONE.

In The more the Merrier, containing Threefcore and odde headLeffe Epigrams, foot (like the Fooles bolts) amongst you, light where they will. By H. P. Gent. &c. 1608, I find the following

F 2

couplet,

VOL. I. couplet, which is almoft the fame as the two beginning lines of Shakspeare's Epitaph on John a Combe.

PROLEGO-
MENA.

Fæneratoris Epitaphium.
EPIGRAM 24.

"Ten in the hundred lies under this ftone,

"And a hundred to ten to the Devil he's gone."

So in Camden's Remains, 1614:

STEEVENS.

"Here lies ten in the hundred

"In the ground faft ramm'd, "'Tis a hundred to ten

"But his foul is damn'd."

181. And curft be he that moves my bones.]

MALONE.

It is uncertain whether this epitaph was written by Shakfpeare himself, or by one of his friends after his death. The imprecation contained in this laft line, might have been fuggefted by an apprehenfion that our author's remains might Thare the fame fate with thofe of the reft of his countrymen, and be added to the immenfe pile of human bones depofited in the charnel-house at Stratford. This, however, is mere conjecture; for fimilar execrations are found in many ancient Latin epitaphs. MALONE.

204.and this was the reafon he omitted it.]

Mr. Oldys might have added, that he was the perfon who fuggefted to Mr. Pope the fingular courfe which he pursued in his edition of Shakspeare. Remember (fays Oldys in a Mf. note to his copy of Langbaine, Article Shakspeare) what I obferved to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's ufe, out of Cowley's preface." The obfervation here alluded to, I believe, is one made by Cowley in his preface, p. 52. edit. 1710. "This has been the cafe with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Johnson, and many others, part of whose poems I fhould take the boldness to prune and lop away, if the care of replanting them in print did belong to me; neither would I make any fcruple to cut off from fome the unneceffary young fuckers, and from others the old withered branches."-Pope adopted this very unwarrantable idea; ftriking out from the text of his author whatever he did not like: and Cowley himfelf has fuffered a fort of poetical punishment for having fuggefted it, the learned bishop of Litchfield having pruned and lopped away his beautiful luxuriances, as Pope, on Cowley's fuggeftion, did those of Shakspeare. MALONE.

Ibid. line 7.1

VOL. I.

I have been favoured with the following obfervations on PROLEGOthe tradition here mentioned, by the learned author of The MENA. Hiftory of English Poetry. MALONE.

Antony Wood is the first and original author of the anecdote that Shakspeare, in his journies from Warwickfhire to London, used to bait at the Crown-inn on the west fide of the corn-market in Oxford. He fays, that Davenant the poet was born in that houfe in 1606. "His fa"ther (he adds) John Davenant, was a fufficient vintner, kept the tavern now known by the fign of the Crown, and "was mayor of the faid city in 1621. His mother was a

very beautiful woman, of a good wit and converfation, in "which he was imitated by none of her children but by "this William [the poet]. The father, who was a very ་ grave and difcreet citizen, (yet an admirer and lover of "plays and play-makers, efpecially Shakespeare, who fre"quented his houfe in his journies between Warwickshire "and London) was of a melancholick difpofition, and was "feldom or never feen to laugh, in which he was imitated 66 by none of his children but by Robert his eldest fon, af"terwards fellow of St. John's college, and a venerable "Doctor of Divinity." Wood Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 292. edit. 1692. I will not fuppofe that Shakspeare could have been the father of a Doctor of Divinity who never laughed : but it was always a conftant tradition in Oxford that Shakfpeare was the father of Davenant the poet. And I have feen this circumftance exprefsly mentioned in fome of Wood's papers. Wood was well qualified to know these particulars; for he was a townfman of Oxford, where he was born in 1632. Wood fays, that Davenant went to fchool in Oxford. Ubi fupr.

As to the Crown- Inn, it ftill remains as an inn, and is an old decayed houfe, but probably was once a principal inn in Oxford. It is directly in the road from Stratford to London. In a large upper room, which feems to have been a fort of Hall for entertaining a large company, or for accommodating (as was the custom) different parties at once, there was a bow window, with three pieces of excellent painted glafs. About eight years ago, I remember vifiting this room, and propofing to purchase of the landlord the painted glafs, which would have been a curiofity as coming from Shakspeare's inn. But going thither foon after, I found it was removed; the inn-keeper having communicated my intended bargain to the owner of the house, who began to

F 3

fufpect

MENA.

VOL. I. fufpect that he was poffeffed of a curiofity too valuable to be PROLEGO- parted with, or to remain in fuch a place: and I never could hear of it afterwards. If I remember right, the painted glafs confifted of three armorial fhields beautifully ftained. I have faid fo much on this fubject, because I think that Shakspeare's old hoftelry at Oxford deferves no less refpećt than Chaucer's Tabarde in Southwark.

T. WARTON. 216. To the Ancient and Modern Commendatory Verses on Shakspeare, add the following:

Upon Mafter WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,
the deceased authour, and his poems.

Poets are born, not made. When I would prove
This truth, the glad remembrance I must love
Of never-dying Shakspeare, who alone
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a poet, none would doubt
That heard the applaufe of what he fees fet out
Imprinted; where thou haft (I will not fay,
Reader, his works, for, to contrive a play,
To him 'twas none) the pattern of all wit,
Art without art, unparallel'd as yet.

Next Nature only help'd him, for look thorough

This whole book*, thou shalt find he doth not borrow

One phrafe from Greeks, nor Latins imitate,

Nor once from vulgar languages tranflate;

Nor plagiary-like from others gleane,
Nor begs he from each witty friend a fcene
To piece his acts with all that he doth write
Is pure his own; plot, language, exquifite.
But what praife more powerful can we give
The dead, than that, by him, the king's men live,
His players, which fhould they but have fhar'd his fate,
(All elfe expir'd within the fhort term's date)

How could The Globe have profper'd, fince through want
Of change, the plays and poems had grown fcant.
But, happy verfe, thou shalt be sung and hear'd,
When hungry quills fhall be fuch honour barr'd.

From this and the following lines it appears that thefe verfes were intended to be prefixed to the folio edition of our author's plays. MALONE.

Then

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