1 irregular greatnefs of mind in M. Antony, are beautiful proofs. For the two laft efpecially, you find them exactly as they are defcribed by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakspeare copied them. He has indeed followed his original pretty clofe, and taken in feveral little incidents that might have been spared in a play. But, as I hinted before, his defign feems most commonly rather to defcribe thofe great men in the feveral fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any fingle great action, and form his work fimply upon that. However, there are fome of his pieces, where the fable is founded upon one action only. Such are more efpecially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The defign in Romeo and Juliet is plainly the punishment of their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and animofities that had been fo long kept up between them, and occafioned the effufion of fo much blood. In the management of this story, he has shown something wonderfully tender and paffionate in the love-part, and very pitiful in the diftrefs. Hamlet is founded on much the fame tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of them a young prince is engaged to revenge the death of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concerned in the murder of their hufbands, I and are afterwards married to the murderers. There is in the first part of the Greek tragedy fomething very moving in the grief of Electra; but, as Mr. Dacier has obferved, there is fomething very unnatural and shocking in the manners he has given that princess and Oreftes in the latter part. Orestes ·are both concerned in the murder of their husbands,] It does not appear that Hamlet's mother was concerned in the death of her husband. Malone, imbrues his hands in the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is performed, though not immediately upon the ftage, yet so near, that the audience hear Clytemneftra crying out to Ægyfthus for help, and to her fon for mercy: while Electra her daughter, and a princefs, (both of them characters that ought to have appeared with more decency,) ftands upon the ftage, and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this not raife! Clytemneftra was a wicked woman, and had deferved to die; nay, in the truth of the ftory, fhe was killed by her own fon; but to repre, fent an action of this kind on the ftage, is certainly an offence against thofe rules of manners proper to the perfons, that ought to be obferved there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct of Shakspeare. Hamlet is represented with the fame piety towards his father, and resolution to revenge his death, as Oreftes; he has the fame abhorrence for his mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is heightened by inceft: but it is with wonderful art and juftness of judgment, that the poet restrains him from doing violence to his mother. To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father's Ghoft forbid that part of his yengeance: "But howfoever thou purfu'ft this act, "Taint not thy mind, nor let thy foul contrive This is to diftinguifh rightly between horror and terror. The latter is a proper paffion of tragedy, but the former ought always to be carefully avoided. And certainly no dramatick writer ever fucceeded better in raifing terror in the minds of an audience than Shakspeare has done. The whole tragedy of Macbeth, but more efpecially the scene where the King is murdered, in the second Act, as well as this play, is a noble proof of that manly fpirit with which he and both fhow how powerful he was, in giving the ftrongeft motions to our fouls that they are capable of. I cannot leave Hamlet, without taking notice of the advantage `with which we have seen this mafter-piece of Shakfpeare diftinguifh itfelf upon the ftage, by Mr. Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man, who, though he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, muft have made his way into the esteem of all men of letters, by this only excellency, No man is better acquainted with Shakspeare's 'manner of expreffion, and indeed he has ftudied him fo well, and is fo much a mafter of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as if it had been written on purpose for him, and that the author had exactly conceived it as he plays it.. I must own a particular obligation to him, for the moft confiderable part of the paffages relating to this life, which I have here tranfmitted to the publick; his veneration for the memory of Shakspeare. into Warwickshire on purpofe to gather up what remains he could, of a name for which he had fo great a veneration.* having engaged him to make a journe akspeare 2 of a name for which he had fo great a veneration.] Mr. Betterton was born in 1635, and had many opportunities of collecting information relative to Shakspeare, but unfortunately the age in which he lived was not an age of curiofity. Had either he or Dryden or Sir William D'Avenant taken the trouble to vifit our poet's youngest daughter, who lived till 1662, or his grand-daughter, who did not die till 1670, many particulars might have been preferved which are now irrecoverably loft. Shakspeare's fifter, Joan Hart, who was only five years younger than him, died at Stratford in Nov. 1646, at the age of feventy 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 N the time of Elizabeth, coaches being yet uncommon, and hired coaches not at all in ufe, those who were too proud, too tender, or too idle to walk, went on horseback to any distant business or diverfion. Many came on horfeback to the play,3 and when Shakspeare fled to London from the terror of a criminal profecution, his firft 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 fo confpicuous for fix; and from her undoubtedly his two daughters, and his grand, daughter Lady Barnard, had learned feveral circumftances of his early history antecedent to the year 1600. MALONE. This Account of the Life of Shakspeare is printed from Mr. Rowe's fecond 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 fome fhallow-brained cenfurers (not the deepest fearchers into the fecrets of government) mightily oppugne them. For whereas the afternoon being the idleft time of the day wherein men that are their own mafters (as gentlemen of the court, the innes of the court, and a number of captains and foldiers about London) do wholly beftow themselves upon pleafure, and that pleasure they divide (how vertuoufly it skills not) either in gaming, following of harlots, drinking, or feeing a play, is 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 leaft, which is plaies?" Nash's Pierce Pennileffe his Supplication to the Devil, 1592, STEEVENS. his care and readiness, that in a fhort time every man as he alighted called for Will. Shakspeare, and fcarcely any other waiter was trufted 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 infpection, who, when Will. Shakspeare was fummoned, were immediately to present themfelves, I am Shakspeare's boy, Sir. In time, Shakspeare found higher ployment: but as long as the practice of riding to the playhoufe continued, the waiters that held the horfes retained the appellation of, Shakspeare's boys. JOHNSON. em -the waiters that held the harfes retained the appellation of Shakspeare's boys.] I cannot difmifs 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 reafon to fuppofe that he had forfeited the protection of his father who was engaged in a lucrative bufinefs, or the love of his wife who had already brought him two children, and was herself the daughter of a subftantial 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 fupplies as would have fet him above the neceffity of holding horfes for fubfiftence. Mr. Malone bas remarked in his Attempt to ascertain the Order in which the Plays of Shahfpeare were written, that he might have found an eafy introduction to the ftage; 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 cuftom to ride on horfe-back to the play, I am likewife yet to learn. The moft popular of the theatres were on the Bankfide; and we are told by the fatirical pamphleteers of that time, that the ufual mode of conveyance to thefe places of amufement, was by water, but |