grave characters as Dugdale and Wake. * It was natural, therefore, for Shakspeare, who had been under some obligation to James, to express his sense of it in a similar way, and he has accordingly, through the medium of his Macbeth, which we conceive to have been performed in 1606, represented James as descended from Banquo, a character which, for this purpose, he has drawn, contrary to his historical authorities, noble and blameless. James, as Dr. Farmer† thinks, was so delighted with the line which painted him as carrying "twofold balls and treble sceptres," that it was on this occasion he was induced to acknowledge the compliment by a letter to the bard from his own hand; an anecdote which seems entitled to full credit, as it originated, Oldys tells us, with Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who had it immediately from Sir William D'Avenant, in whose hands the letter long remained. ‡ This year has been also rendered memorable in the biography of our poet by the publication of a drama called "The Return from Parnassus," which had been acted by the students of St. John's College, Cambridge, as early as 1602. To a passage in this very curious production is to be ascribed all the idle tales which have been circulated with so much industry and avidity relative to a supposed quarrel between our author and Ben Jonson, in doing which, though the principal object has been to substantiate a charge of envy and malignancy against the latter, the mode in which the attempt is executed has been such as would, were the premises true, reflect no credit on the former. But the whole is a tissue of the most groundless and indefensible scandal, and we stand aghast at the motives which could induce such persevering hostility against the very man who, more than all others, had been the steady and professed eulogist of the poet whom these commentators sally forth to protect. Wake, in his "Rex Platonicus, sive de potentiis, principis Jacobi regis ad Acad. Oxon. adventu, anno 1605," speaking of the prophecy of the Weird Sisters, says, Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus comprobavit; Banquonis enim e stirpe potentissimus Jacobus oriundus. Ibid. vol. i. p. 130. + Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 300, The passage, however, as equally applicable and important to both these great men, it will be necessary to transcribe. Burbage and Kempe, Shakspeare's fellow-comedians, are introduced conversing about the histrionic powers of the students of Cambridge, the latter ridiculing and the former defending their attempts, by observing, "that a little teaching will mend their faults; and it may be, besides, they will be able to pen a part;" to which Kempe, who seems here an object of irony, replies, Few of the university pen plays well; they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why here's our fellow Shakspeare put them (the University poets) all down, ay, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakspeare has given him a purge that made him bewray his credit. "When an object is placed too near to the eye," observes Mr. Gilchrist, commenting on this quotation, “the vision is strained and impaired, and the object obscured or distorted: if the commentators had viewed this passage as others use,' they would have found in the numerous dramas published anterior to the above passage, the instruments by which he put Ben down; and, in their various excellence, the means by which he threw the claims of his competitor into the shade. The passage has no reference to personal animosity; it was a just testimony to the superior merit of the poet of nature,’ over the writings of more learned candidates for fame;' and the well-merited compliment is very appropriately put into the mouth of Will Kempe, one of Shakspeare's fellows." † It is remarkable, that with the exception of Rowe, who, however, soon retracted the accusation, none of the editors of, and commentators on, Shakspeare had, previous to Steevens, attempted to prove Jonson the libeller of his friend. It remained therefore for his com * Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 64. Act iv. sc. 3. + Gilchrist's Examination, pp. 15, 16. mentators of the last half century to undertake the noble task of heaping a thousand groundless calumnies on the defenceless head of Shakspeare's dearest friend, on him whom he most admired, and by whom he was best beloved! The iteration of these charges, under every form and shape, and connected with a commentary rendered popular by the text to which it was appended, had totally poisoned the public mind, mind, when Mr. Gilchrist, and, still more amply, Mr. Gifford, by hunting these gentlemen through all their windings and doublings, through all the channels to which they had recourse for defamation, have produced a refutation of their charges, and a detection of their practices, more complete, perhaps, than any other instance of the kind on literary record. * One of these refutations, as including a complete detection of the fallacious grounds on which a well-known anecdote relative to Shakspeare and Jonson has been founded, it will be useful as well as entertaining to transcribe. "Hales of Eaton," observes Mr. Gifford," was reported to have said (though the matter was not much in Hales of Eaton's way), that there was no subject of which any person ever writ, but he would produce it much better done by Shakspeare,' p. 16. Shakspeare, vol. i. edit. 1593. This is told by Dryden, 1667. The next version is by Tate, 1680. • Our learned Hales was wont to assert, that since the time of Orpheus. no common place has been touched upon, where Shakspeare has not performed as well.' Next comes the illustrious Gildon (of Dunciad memory), and he models the story thus, from Dryden, as he says, with a salvo for the accuracy of his recollection! Mr. Hales of Eaton affirmed, that he would shew all the poets of antiquity outdone by Shakspeare.The enemies of Shakspeare would by no means yield to this; so that it came to a trial of skill. The place agreed on for the dispute was Mr. Hales's chamber at Eton. A great many books were sent down by the enemies of this poet, and on the appointed day my lord Falkland, sir John Suckling, and all the persons of quality that had wit and learning, met there, and upon a thorough disquisition of the point, the judges chosen out of this assembly unanimously gave the preference to Shakspeare, and the Greek and Roman poets were adjudged to vail at least their glory in that to the English poet.' P. 17. "The story now reached Rowe; and as it was discovered about this time, that the praise of Shakspeare was worth nothing unless coupled with the abuse of Jonson, it puts on this form. Mr. Hales, who had sate still some time, hearing Ben reproach Shakspeare with the want of learning, and ignorance of the antients, told him, at last,' &c. Thus it stood. in the first edition: but Mr. Rowe was an honest man, and having found occasion to change his mind before the appearance of the second edition, he struck the passage out, and inserted in its stead, sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, had undertaken, with some warmth, his defence against Ben Jonson, when Mr. Hales,' &c. &c. Truly delightful must it be to every lover of Shakspeare and of human nature, to find that the affectionate confidence of our bard was not thrown away, was not placed on a man worthless and insensible of the gift, but was returned by honest Ben, however occasionally rough in his manner and temper, with an attachment amounting to enthusiasm, with a steadiness which neither years nor infirmities could shake. * On the last day of the year 1607, our poet buried at the church of St. Saviour's, Southwark, his brother Edmond, who, with singular precision, is entered in the register of that parish as "Edmond Shakspeare, a player," so that, as Mr. Chalmers has observed, "there were two Shakspeares on the stage during the same period." † He had likewise married, on the fifth of June of this year, his favourite daughter Susanna, to Dr. John Hall, a physician of considerable skill and reputation in his profession, which he exercised at Stratford, residing during his father-in-law's life-time in the old "Thus we have the Fable of the Three Black Crows! and thus a simple observation of Mr. Hales (which in all probability he never made), is dramatised, at length, into a scene of obloquy against our author! A tissue of mere dotage scarcely deserves unravelling; but it may be just observed, that when Jonson was seized with his last illness, (after which he certainly never went to Mr. Hales's chamber, at Eton,' or elsewhere), the two grave judges, Suckling and Falkland, who sat on the merits of all the Greek and Roman poets, and decided with such convincing effect, were, the first in the twelfth, and the second in the fifteenth year of their ages! But the chief mistake lies with Dryden, whose memory was always subservient to the passion of the day; the words which he has put into the mouth of Mr. Hales being, in fact, the property of Jonson. Long before Suckling and Falkland were out of leading-strings, he had told the world, that Shakspeare surpassed not only all his contemporary poets, but even those of Greece and Rome:-and if Mr. Hales used these words, without giving the credit of them to Jonson, he was, to say the least of it, a bold plagiarist.”—Vol. i. p. cclxii. * "It is my fixed persuasion," says Mr. Gifford," (not lightly adopted, but deduced from a wide examination of the subject,) that they (Jonson and Shakspeare) were friends and associates till the latter finally retired that no feud, no jealousy ever disturbed their connection that Shakspeare was pleased with Jonson, and that Jonson loved and admired Shakspeare."-Vol. i. p. ccli. This fact, relative to Edmond Shakspeare, has been mentioned before, at some length; but the chronological form of the present detail required its brief re-admission here. town, but, on his death, removing to New Place, which, with the chief part of his property, had been left by the poet to Mrs. Hall. Susanna was, on her nuptials with Dr. Hall, twenty-five years of age, and there can be little doubt but that her father was present at the celebration of an event so materially affecting the happiness of his child. * It is highly probable, that, independent of his regular annual visit, family-occurrences frequently drew Shakspeare from London to the purer atmosphere of his native fields; for, in the year succeeding the marriage of his daughter, two events of this kind took place, of which one required his personal attendance. On the 21st of February, 1608, his grandaughter Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Hall, was baptized; and, on the 16th of the October following, he stood godfather for William Walker, the son of Henry Walker of Stratford, remembering the child in his will, with twenty shillings in gold, under the title of his godson William Walker.” 66 The year 1609 is sufficiently commemorated by the general opinion, that, at this period, Shakspeare planted the Mulberry Tree, whose premature fate has been recorded in a preceding note. The "That Shakspeare planted this tree," observes Mr. Malone, "is as well authenticated as any thing of that nature can be. Rev. Mr. Davenport informs me, that Mr. Hugh Taylor, (the father of his clerk,) who is now eighty-five years old, and an alderman of Warwick, where he at present resides, says, he lived, when a boy, at the next house to New Place; that his family had inhabited the house for almost three hundred years; that it was transmitted from father to son during the last and the present century; that this tree (of the fruit of which he had often eaten in his younger days, some of its branches hanging over his father's garden,) was planted by Shakspeare; and that till this was planted, there was no Vide Wheler's Guide, p. 27. + Vide Stratford Register; Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 138. |