fages in fome few of them which feem to fix their dates. So the Chorus at the end of the fourth act of Henry the Fifth, by a compliment very handfomely turned to the earl of Effex, fhows the play to have been written when that lord was general for the queen in Ireland; and his elogy upon queen Elizabeth, and her fucceffor king James, in the latter end of his Henry the Eighth, is a proof of that play's being written after the acceffion of the latter of thofe two princes to the crown of England. Whatever the particular times of his writing were, the people of his age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diverfions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased to see a genius arise amongst them of fo pleasurable, fo rich a vein, and fo plentifully capable of furnishing their favourite entertainments. Besides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natured man, of great fweetnefs in his manners, and a moft agreeable companion; fo that it is no wonder, if, with fo many good qualities, he made himself acquainted with the beft converfations of thofe times. Queen Elizabeth had feveral of his plays acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favour: it is that maiden princefs plainly, whom he intends by a fair veftal, throned by the weft. A Midfummer-Night's Dream. and that whole paffage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handfomely applied to her. She was fo well pleafed with that admirable character of Falstaff, in The Two Parts of Henry the Fourth, that fhe commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to fhow him in love. This found fomething fo well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick.s to recommend Mr. Jonfon and his writings to the publick.] In Mr. Rowe's first edition, after thefe words was inferted the following paffage : "After this, they were profeffed friends; though I do not know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and fincerity. Ben was naturally proud and infolent, and in the days of his reputation did fo far take upon him the fupremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seemed to ftand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him,, it has always been with fome referve; infinuating his uncorrectness, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgeThe praife of feldom 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 Jonfon could not bear he thought it impoffible, perhaps, for another man to ftrike out the greatest thoughts in the fineft expreffion, and to reach those excellencies of poetry with the ease of a firft imagination, which himself with infinite labour and ftudy could but hardly attain to." ment. I have preferved this paffage becaufe I believe it strictly true, except that in the laft line, inftead of but hardly, I would read— never. Dryden, we are told by Pope, concurred with Mr. Rowe in thinking Jonfon's pofthumous verfes on our author /paring and invidious. See alfo Mr. Steevens's note on thofe verfes. Before Shakspeare's death Ben's envious difpofition is mentioned by one of his own friends; it must therefore have been even then notorious, though the writer denies the truth of the charge: To my well accomplith'd friend, Mr. Ben. Jonfon. "Such cenfurers must have.' Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies, printed about 1611. The following lines by one of Jonfon's admirers will fufficiently fupport Mr. Rowe in what he has faid relative to the flowness of that writer in his compofitions: "Scorn then their cenfures who gave out, thy wit "As long upon a comedy did fit "As elephants bring forth, and that thy blots "And mendings took more time than FORTUNE-PLOTS; "That fuch thy drought was, and fo great thy thirft, Jonfon was certainly a very good fcholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare; though at "That the king's yearly butt wrote, and his wine The writer does not deny the charge, but vindicates his friend by faying that, however flow, "He that writes well, writes quick.-" Verfes on B. Jonfon, by Jafper Mayne. So alfo another of his Panegyrifts: "Admit his mufe was flow, 'tis judgment's fate "To move like greateft princes, ftill in ftate." In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, Jonfon is faid to be" fo flow an enditer, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying." The fame piece furnishes us with the earliest intimation of the quarrel between him and Shakspeare. "Why here's our fellow Shakspeare put them [the univerfity poets] all down, ay, and Ben Jonfon too. O, that Ben Jonfon is a peftilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakfpeare 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, afferting in his Worthies, 1662, that " many were the wit-combats" between Jonfon and our poet. It is a fingular circumftance that old Ben fhould or near two centuries have talked on the ftilts of an artificial reputation; and that even at this day, of the very few who read his works, fcarcely one in ten yet ventures to confefs how little entertainment they afford. Such was the impreffion made on the publick by the extravagant praifes of thofe who knew more of books than of the drama, that Dryden in his Effay m Dramatick Poefie, written about 1667, does not venture to go further in his elogium on Shakspeare, than by faying," he was at leaft Fonfon's equal, if not his fuperior ;" and in the preface to his Mock Aftrologer, 1671, he hardly dares to affert, what, in my opinion, cannot be denied, that "all Jonfon's pieces, except three or four, are but crambe bis colta; the fame humours a little varied and written worse." Ben however did not truft to the praifes of others. One of his admirers honeftly confeffes, 66 he "Of whom I write this, has prevented me, "And boldly faid fo much in his own praife, In vain, however, did he endeavour to bully the town into ap the fame time I believe it must be allowed, that what nature gave the latter, was more than a balance like't, you may;" and by pouring out against those who preferred our poet to him, a torrent of illiberal abufe; which, as Mr. Walpole juftly obferves, fome of his contemporaries were willing to think wit, because they were afraid of it: for, notwithstanding all his arrogant boafts, notwithstanding all the clamour of his partizans both in his own life-time and for fixty years after his death, the truth is, that his pieces, when firft performed, were fo far from being applauded by the people, that they were fcarcely endured; and many of them were actually damned. 66 the fine plush and velvets of the age "Did oft for fixpence damn thee from the stage," fays one of his eulogifts in Janfonius Virbius, 4to. 1638. Jonfon himself owns that Sejanus was damned. "It is a poem," fays he, in his dedication to lord Aubigny, "that, if I well remember, in your lordship's fight fuffered no lefs violence from our people here, than the fubject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome.' His friend E. B. (probably Edmund Bolton,) fpeaking of the fame performance, fays, "But when I view'd the people's beaftly rage, "Bent to confound thy grave and learned toil, Again, in his dedication of Catiline to the earl of Pembroke, the author fays," Pofterity may pay your benefit the honour and thanks, when it fhall know that you dare in thefe jig-given times to countenance a legitimate poem. I must call it fo, against all noife of opinion, from whofe crude and ayrie reports I appeal to that great and fingular facultie of judgment in your lordship." See alfo the Epilogue to Every man in his humour, by lord Buckhurft, quoted below in the Account of our old English Theatres, ad finem. To his teftimony and that of Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, (there alfo mentioned,) may be added that of Leonard Digges in his Verses on Shakspeare, and of Sir Robert Howard, who fays in the preface to his Plays, folio, 1665, (not thirty years after Ben's death,) "When I confider how fevere the former age has been to fome of the best of Mr. Jonfon's never-to-be-equall'd come. dies, I cannot but wonder, why any poet fhould fpeak of former times." The truth is, that however extravagant the elogiums were that a few scholars gave him in their clofets, he was not only not admired in his own time by the generality, but not even unsterstood. His friend Beaumont affures himn in a copy of verfes, that "his fenfe is fo deep that he will not be understood for three ages to come." MALONE. for what books had given the former; and the judgment of a great man upon this occafion was, I think, very juft and proper. In a converfation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avevenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonfon, Sir John Suckling, who was a profeffed admirer of Shakspeare, had undertaken his defence againft Ben Jonfon with fome warmth; Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, told them, That if Mr. Shakspeare bad not read the ancients, he had likewife not stolen any thing from them; and that if he would produce any one topick finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to shew Jomething upon the fame fubject at least as well written by Shakspeare. • Mr. Hales, who had fat fill for fome time, told them,] In Mr. Rowe's first edition this paffage runs thus: "Mr. Hales, who had fat ftill for fome time, hearing Ben frequently reproach him with the want of learning and ignorance of the antients, told him at laft, That if Mr. Shakspeare," &c. By the alteration, the fubfequent part of the fentence "if he would produce," &c. is rendered ungrammatical. MALONE. 2 he would undertake to few fomething upon the fame fubject 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 difcovered that Mr. Rowe probably derived his information from Dryden: for in Gildon's Letters and Effays, publifhed in 1694, fifteen years before this Life appeared, the fame ftory is told; and Dryden, to whom an Effay in vindication of Shakspeare is addreffed, is appealed to by the writer as his authority. As Gildon tells the ftory with fome flight variations from the account given by Mr. Rowe, and the book in which it is found is now extremely fcarce, I fhall fubjoin the paffage in his own words: "But to give the world fome fatisfaction that Shakspeare has had as great veneration paid his excellence by men of unqueftioned parts, as this I now exprefs for him, I thall give fome account of what I have heard from your mouth, fir, about the noble triumph he gained over all the ancients, by the judgment of the ableft criticks of that |