To the foregoing Accounts of SHAKSPEARE'S LIFE, I have only one Passage to add, which Mr. Pope related, as communicated to him by Mr. Rowe.

IN the time of Elizabeth, coaches being yet uncommon, and hired coaches not at all in use, those who were too proud, too tender, or too idle to walk, went on horseback to any distant business or diverfion. Many came on horseback to the play, and when Shakspeare fled to London from the terror of a criminal prosecution, his first expedient was to wait at the door of the playhouse, and hold the horses of those that had no fervants, that they might be ready again after the performance. In this office he became so confpicuous for

fix; and from her undoubtedly his two daughters, and his granddaughter Lady Barnard, had learned several circumstances of his early history antecedent to the year 1600. MALONE.

This Account of the Life of Shakspeare is printed from Mr. Rowe's second edition, in which it had been abridged and altered by himself after its appearance in 1709. STEEVENS.

3 Many came on horseback to the play,] Plays were at this time performed in the afternoon. "The pollicie of plaies is very neceffary, howsoever some shallow-brained cenfurers (not the deepest searchers into the fecrets of government) mightily oppugne them. For whereas the afternoon being the idlest time of the day wherein men that are their own masters (as gentlemen of the court, the innes of the court, and a number of captains and foldiers about London) do wholly bestow themselves upon pleafure, and that pleasure they divide (how vertuoufly it skills not) either in gaming, following of harlots, drinking, or feeing a play, i's it not better (fince of four extreames all the world cannot keepe them but they will choose one) that they should betake them to the least, which is plaies?" Nath's Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Devil, 1592. STEEVENS.

his care and readiness, that in a short time every man as he alighted called for Will. Shakspeare, and scarcely any other waiter was trusted with a horfe while Will. Shakspeare could be had. This was the firft dawn of better fortune. Shakspeare, finding more horfes put into his hand than he, could hold, hired boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will. Shakspeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves, I am Shakspeare's boy, Sir. In time, Shakspeare found higher employment: but as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held the horfes retained the appellation of, Shakspeare's boys. JOHNSON.

the waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of, Shakspeare's boys.] I cannot dismiss this anecdote without obferving that it feems to want every mark of probability. Though Shakspeare quitted Stratford on account of a juvenile irregularity, we have no reason to suppose that he had forfeited the protection of his father who was engaged in a lucrative bufiness, or the love of his wife who had already brought him two children, and was herself the daughter of a fubftantial yeoman. It is unlikely therefore, when he was beyond the reach of his profecutor, that he should conceal his plan of life, or place of refidence, from those who, if he found himself diftreffed, could not fail to afford him fuch supplies as would have set him above the neceflity of holding horses for fubfiftence. Mr. Malone has remarked in his Attempt to afcertain the Order in which the Plays of Shakspeare were written, that he might have found an easy introduction to the stage; for Thomas Green, a celebrated comedian of that period, was his townfman, and perhaps his relation. The genius of our author prompted him to write poetry; his connection with a player might have given his productions a dramatick turn; or his own fagacity might have taught him that fame was not incompatible with profit, and that the theatre was an avenue to both. That it was once the general custom to ride on horse-back to the play, I am likewife yet to learn. The most popular of the theatres were on the Bankside; and we are told by the fatirical pamphleteers of that time, that the ufual mode of conveyance to these places of amusement, was by water, but

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Mr. Rowe has told us, that he derived the principal anecdotes in his account of Shakspeare, from Betterton the player, whose zeal had induced him to visit Stratford, for the sake of procuring all poffible intelligence concerning a poet to whose works he might justly think himself under the strongest

not a fingle writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the practice of having horses held during the hours of exhibition. Some allusion to this usage, (if it had existed) must, I think, have been discovered in the course of our researches after contemporary fashions. Let it be remembered too, that we receive this tale on no higher authority than that of Cibber's Lives of the Poets, Vol. I. p. 130. "Sir William Davenant told it to Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Rowe," who (according to Dr. Johnson) related it to Mr. Pope. Mr. Rowe (if this intelligence be authentick) seems to have concurred with me in opinion, as he forebore to introduce a circumstance so incredible into his Life of Shakspeare. As to the book which furnishes the anecdote, not the smallest part of it was the composition of Mr. Cibber, being entirely written by a Mr. Shiells, amanuenfis to Dr. Johnson, when his Dictionary was preparing for the press. T. Cibber was in the King's Bench, and accepted of ten guineas from the booksellers for leave to prefix his name to the work; and it was purposely so prefixed as to leave the reader in doubt whether himself or his father was the perfon defigned.

The foregoing anecdote relative to Cibber's Lives, &c. I received from Dr. Johnson. See, however, The Monthly Review, for December, 1781, p. 409. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens in one particular is certainly mistaken. To the theatre in Blackfriars I have no doubt that many gentlemen rode in the time of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. From the Strand, Holborn, Bishopsgate Street, &c. where many of the nobility lived, they could indeed go no other way than on foot, or on horseback, or in coaches; and coaches till after the death of Elizabeth were extremely rare. Many of the gentry, therefore, certainly went to that playhouse on horseback. See the proofs, in the Effay above referred to.

This, however, will not establish the tradition relative to our author's first employment at the playhouse, which stands on a very flender foundation. MALONE.

obligations. Notwithstanding this affertion, in the manuscript papers of the late Mr. Oldys it is faid, that one Bowman (according to Chetwood, p. 143,

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an actor more than half an age on the London theatres") was unwilling to allow that his associate and contemporary Betterton had ever undertaken fuch a journey.5 Be this matter as it will, the following particulars, which I shall give in the words of Oldys, are, for aught we know to the contrary, as well authenticated as any of the anecdotes delivered down to us by Rowe.

Mr. Oldys had covered several quires of paper with laborious collections for a regular life of our author. From these I have made the following extracts, which (however trivial) contain the only

5-it is faid, that one Bowman was unwilling to allow that his affociate and contemporary Betterton had ever undertaken fuch a journey.] This affertion of Mr. Oldys is altogether unworthy of credit. Why any doubt should be entertained concerning Mr. Betterton's having visited Stratford, after Rowe's positive affertion that he did so, it is not easy to conceive. Mr. Rowe did not go there himself; and how could he have collected the few circumstances relative to Shakspeare and his family, which he has told, if he had not obtained information from fome friend who examined the Register of the parish of Stratford, and made personal inquiries on the subject ?

"Bowman," we are told, " was unwilling to believe," &c. But the fact disputed did not require any exercise of his belief. Mr. Bowman was married to the daughter of Sir Francis Watfon, Bart. the gentleman with whom Betterton joined in an adventure to the East Indies, whose name the writer of Betterton's Life in Biographia Britannica has so studioufly concealed. By that unfortunate scheme Betterton loft above 20001. Dr. Ratcliffe 6000l. and Sir Francis Watson his whole fortune. On his death foon after the year 1692, Betterton generoufly took his daughter under his protection, and educated her in his house. Here Bowman married her; from which period he continued to live in the most friendly correspondence with Mr. Betterton, and must have known whether he went to Stratford or not. MALONE.

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circumstances that wear the leaft, appearance of novelty or information; the fong in p. 62 excepted.

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" If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern, in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. John Davenant, (afterwards mayor of that city,) a grave melancholy man; who, as well as his wife, ufed much to o delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their fon young Will. Davenant (afterwards Sir William) was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townfman observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, to see his god-father Shakspeare. There's a good boy, faid the other, but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain. This story Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occafion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's monument then newly erected in Westminster Abbey ;7

of about feven or eight years old,] He was born at Oxford in February 1605-6. MALONE.

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Shakspeare's monument then newly erected in Westmin fter Abbey;] "This monument," says Mr. Granger, was erected in 1741, by the direction of the Earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martyn. Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Rich gave each of thera a benefit towards it, from one of Shakipeare's own plays. It was executed by H. Scheemaker, after a design of Kent.

"On the monument is infcribed-amor publicus pofuit. Dr. Mead objected to amor publicus, as not occurring in old claffical