William Beefton, (fon of Chriftopher Beefton, Shakspeare's fellow-comedian, who was a long time manager of the Cockpit "MR. BENJAMIN JOHNSON, Poet Laureat. "I remember when I was a scholar at Trin. Coll. Oxon. 1646, I heard Mr. Ralph Bathurst [now Dean of Welles] fay, that Ben: Johnfon was a Warwyckfhire man. 'Tis agreed, that his father was a minifter; and by his Epiftle DD of Every Man to Mr. W. Camden, that he was a Westminster fcholar, and that Mr. W. Camden was his fchoolmafter. His mother, after his father's death, married a bricklayer, and 'tis g`rally fayd that he wrought fome time with his father-in-lawe, & pticularly on the garden wall of Lincoln's inne next to Chancery lane; & that a knight, a bencher, walking thro, and hearing him repeat fome Greeke verfes out of Homer, difcourfing with him & finding him to have a witt extraordinary, gave him fome exhibition to maintain him at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he was: then he went into the Lowe countreys, and spent fome time, not very long, in the armie; not to the difgrace of [it], as you may find in his Epigrames. Then he came into England, & acted & wrote at the Green Curtaine, but both ill; a kind of Nursery or obscure play-house somewhere in the fuburbs (I think towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell). Then he undertooke againe to write a play, & did hitt it admirably well, viz. Every Manwhich was his first good one. Sergeant Jo. Hofkins of Herefordfhire was his Father. I remember his fonne (Sir Bennet Hofkins, Baronet, who was fomething poetical in his youth) told me, that when he defired to be adopted his fonne, No, fayd he, 'tis honour enough for me to be your brother: I am your father's fonne : 'twas he that polished me: I doe acknowledge it. He was [or rather had been] of a clear and faire skin. His habit was very plain. I have heard Mr. Lacy the player fay, that he was wont to weare a coate like a coachman's coate, with flitts under the arm-pitts. He would many times exceede in drinke: Canarie was his beloved liquour: then he would tumble home to bed; & when he had thoroughly perfpired, then to ftudie. I have feen his ftudyeing chaire, which was of ftrawe, fuch as old women ufed; & as Aulus Gellius is drawn in. When I was in Oxōn: Bishop Skinner [BP of Oxford] who lay at our coll: was wont to fay, that he understood an author as well as any man in England. He mentions in his Epigrames, a fonne that he had, and his epitaph. Long fince in King James time, I have heard my uncle Davers [Danvers] fay, who knew him, that he lived withoute temple barre at a combe-maker's fhop about the Eleph.ts Caftle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under whiche you pafle, as you goe out of the church-yard into the old palace; where he dyed. He lyes buried in the north aisle, the path of fquare ftones, the reft is lozenge, oppofite to the fcutcheon of Robertus de Ros, with this infcription only on him, in a pavement fquare of blew marble, 14 inches fquare, O RARE BEN: IONSON: which was donne at the charge of Jack Young, afterwards knighted, who Cockpit playhouse in Drury-lane,) fome particulars concerning Spenfer. I mention thefe circumftances only to fhew that Aubrey was a curious and diligent inquirer, at a time when fuch inquiries were likely to be attended with fuccefs. Dr. Farmer in his admirable Efay on the learning of Shakspeare, by which, as Dr. Johnfon juftly observed, "the queftion is for ever decided," has given an extract from Mr. Aubrey's account of our poet, and the part which he has quoted has been printed in a former who walking there, when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteen pence to cutt it." It is obfervable that none of the biographers of the last age, but Aubrey, appear to have known that Jonfon went to the Low Countries, in his younger years; a fact which is confirmed by the converfation that paffed between old Ben and Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, which was not published till eleven years after Mr. Aubrey's death. A long account of Serjeant John Hofkyns, and Skinner, bishop of Oxford, may be found in Wood's Atben. Oxon. I. 614—II. 1156. Not knowing that this poet had a fon who arrived at man's estate, I had no doubt that the reverfionary grant of the office of Mafter of the Revels, which I found in the chapel of the Rolls, was made to old Ben; [fee Vol. I. Part I. p. 400,] but I am now convinced that I was mistaken, and that this grant was made either to his fon, Benjamin Jonfon the younger, who was also a poet, though he has not been noticed by any of our biographical writers, or to fome other perfon of the fame name. A paper which has lately fallen into my hands, pointed out my mistake. It appears that Sir Henry Herbert foon after the Restoration brought an action on the cafe against Mr. Betterton, for the injury Sir Henry fuffered by the performance of plays without the accustomed fees being paid to the Master of the Revels. On the trial it was neceflary for him to establish his title to that office; and as the grant made to him was not to take effect till after either the death, refignation, forfeiture, or furrender of Benjamin Jonfon and Sir John Aftley, it became neceffary to fhew that those two perfons were dead: and accordingly it was proved on the trial that the faid Benjamin Jonfon died, Nov. 20, 1635. The poet-laureat died, Auguft 16, 1637. The younger Jonfon was a dramatick author, having in conjunction with Brome, produced a play called A Fault in Friendship, which was acted at the Curtain by the Prince's company in October, 1623; and in 1672 a collection of his poems was published. To this volume are prefixed verfes addreffed to all the ancient family of the Lucyes," in which the writer defcribes himself as "a little ftream from that clear fpring" a circumftance which adds fupport to Dr. Bathurst's account of his father's birth-place. It should seem that he was not on good terms with his father. "He was not very happy in his children, (fays Fuller in his account of Ben Jonfon,)" and most bappy in thofe which died first, though none lived to furvive him." page: page: but as the manufcript memoir is more copious, and the account given by Aubrey of our poet's verfes on John o'Combe, (which has never been published) is materially different from that tranfmitted by Mr. Rowe, I fhall give an exact tranícript of the whole article relative to Shakspeare, from the original. MS. Aubrey. Mus. ASHMOL. Oxon. Lives, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. "William Shakespeare's father was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore by fome of the neighbours, that when he was a boy, he exercised his father's trade; but when he killed a calfe, he would do it in a high Style, and make a fpeech. This William, being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I gueffe about 18, and was an actor at one of the playhoufes, and did act exceedingly well. Now Ben Johnson was never a good actor, but an excellent inftructor. He began early to make effays in dramatique poetry, which at that time was very lowe, and his plays took well. He was a handsome well fhaped man; verie good company, and of a very ready, and pleafant, and smooth witt. The humour of the conftable in A Midfommernight Dreame he happened to take at Crendon in Bucks, (I think it was Midfommer-night that he happened to be there;) which is the road from London to Stratford; and there was living that conftable about 1642, when I came first to Oxon. Mr. Jof. Howe is of the parish, and knew him. Ben Johnfon and he did gather humours of men, wherever they came. One time as he was at the taverne at Stratford, Mr. Combes, an old ufurer, was to be buryed; he makes then this extemporary epitaph upon him: "Ten in the hundred the Devill allowes, "But Combes will have twelve, he fweares and he vowes: "If any one atke who lies in this tomb, "Hoh! quoth the Devill, 'tis my John o'Comb. 6 Part I. p. 166. Dr. Farmer fuppofed that Aubrey's anecdotes of Shakspeare came originally from Mr. Beefton, but this is a mistake. Mr. Beeflon is quoted by Aubrey only for fome particulars relative to Spenfer. "He ! He was wont to go to his native country once a yeare, I think I have been told that he left near 300l. to a fifter. He understood latin pretty well; for he had been in his younger yeares a fcool-mafter in the country." Let us now proceed to examine the feveral parts of this account. The first affertion, that our poet's father was a butcher, has been thought unworthy of credit, becaufe "not only contrary to all other tradition, but, as it may feem, to the inftrument in the heralds-office," which may be found in a former page. But for my own part, I think, this affertion, (which it fhould be obferved is pofitively affirmed on the information of his neighbours, procured probably at an early period,) and the received account of his having been a wool-ftapler, by no means inconfiftent. Dr. Farmer has illuftrated a paffage in Hamlet from information derived from a perfon who was at once a wool-man and butcher; and, I believe, few occupations can be named, which are more naturally connected with each other. Mr. Rowe first mentioned the tradition that our poet's father was a dealer in wool, and his account is corroborated by a circumstance which I have just now learned. In one of the windows of a building in Stratford which belonged to the Shakspeare family, are the arms of the merchants of the staple ;Nebule, on a chief gules, a lion paffant, or; and the fame arms, I am told, may be obferved in the church at Stratford, in the fret-work over the arch which covers the tomb of John de Clopton, who was a merchant of the ftaple, and father of Sir Hugh Clopton, lord-mayor of London, by whom the bridge over the Avon was built. But it fhould feem from the records of Stratford that John Shakspeare, about the year 1579, at which time our poet was fifteen years old, was by no means in affluent circumstances; and why may we not suppose that at that period he endeavoured to fupport his numerous family by adding the trade of a butcher to that of 7 Vol. I. Part I. p. 103, n. I. his principal business; though at a fubfequent period he was enabled, perhaps by his fon's bounty, to discontinue the lefs refpectable of thefe occupations? I do not, however, think it at all probable, that a person who had been once bailiff of Stratford should have fuffered any of his children to have been employed in the fervile office of killing calves. Mr. Aubrey proceeds to tell us, that William Shakfpeare came to London and began his theatrical career, according to his conjecture, when he was about eighteen years old; but as his merit as an actor is the principal object of our prefent difquifition, I fhall postpone my obfervations on this paragraph, till the remaining part of thefe anecdotes has been confidered. We are next told, that "he began early to make effays in dramatique poetry, which at that time was very lowe, and his playes took well." On these points, I imagine, there cannot be much variety of opinion. Mr. Aubrey was undoubtedly miftaken in his conjecture, (for he gives it only as conjecture,) that our poet came to London at eighteen; for as he had three children born at Stratford in 1583 and 1584, it is very improbable that he should have left his native town before the latter year. I think it moft probable that he did not come to London before the year 1586, when he was twenty-two years old. When he produced his firft play, has not been afcertained; but if Spenfer alludes to him in his Tears of the Mufes, Shakfpeare must have exhibited fome piece in or before 1590, at which time he was twenty fix years old; and though many have written for the publick before they had attained that time of life, any theatrical performance produced at that age, would, I think, fufficiently justi. fy, Mr. Aubrey in faying that he began early to make ellays in dramatick poetry. In a word, we have no proof that he did not woo the dramatick Mufe, even fo early as in the year 1587 or 1588; in the first of which years he was but twenty three; and therefore till fuch proof fhall be produced, Mr. Aubrey's affertion, founded apparently on the information of those who lived very near the time, is entitled to fome weight. |