appropriate exclamation of ROBIN GOODFELLOW, alias PUCKE, alias HOBGOBLIN.' Mr. Aubrey informs us lastly, that Shakspeare was wont to go to his native country once a yeare. I thinke I have been told that he left near 300l. to a sister. He understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country." Many traditional anecdotes, though not perfectly accurate, contain an adumbration of the truth. It is observable that Mr. Aubrey speaks here with some degree of doubt;-" I think I have been told ;" and his memory, or that of his informer, led him into an error with respect to the person to whom our poet bequeathed this legacy, who, we find from his will, was his daughter, not his sister but though Aubrey was mistaken as to the person, his information with respect to the amount of the legacy was perfectly correct; for 300l. was the precise sum which Shakspeare left to his second daughter, Judith. In like manner, I am strongly inclined to think that the last assertion contains, though not the truth, yet something like it: I mean, that Shakspeare had been employed for some time in his younger years as a teacher in the country; though Dr. Farmer has incontestably proved, that he could not have been a teacher of Latin. I have already suggested my opinion, that before his coming to London he had acquired some share of legal know ledge in the office of a petty country conveyancer, or in that of the steward of some manerial court. It is not necessary here to repeat the reasons on which that opinion is founded. If he began to 7 See Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, Vol. III. p. 202. apply to this study at the age of eighteen, two years afterwards he might have been sufficiently conversant with conveyances to have taught others the forms of such legal assurances as are usually prepared by country attorneys; and perhaps spent two or three years in this employment before he removed from Stratford to London. Some uncertain rumour of this kind might have continued to the middle of the last century, and by the time it reached Mr. Aubrey, our poet's original occupation was changed from a scrivener's to that of a school-master. I now proceed to the more immediate object of our present inquiry; our poet's merit as an actor. "Being inclined naturally (says Mr. Aubrey) to poetry and acting, he came to London, I guesse about 18, and was an actor at one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well. Now Ben Jonson never was a good actor, but an excellent instructor." The first observation that I shall make on this account is, that the latter part of it, which informs us that Ben Jonson was a bad actor, is incontestably confirmed by one of the comedies of Decker; and therefore, though there were no other evidence, it might be plausibly inferred that Mr. Aubrey's information concerning our poet's powers on the stage was not less accurate. But in this instance I am not under the necessity of resting on such an inference; for I am able to produce the testimony of a contemporary in support of Shakspeare's histrionick merit. In the preface to a pamphlet entitled Kinde-Hartes Dreame, published in December 1592, which I have already had occasion to quote for another purpose, the author, Henry Chettle, who was himself a dramatick writer, and well ac quainted with the principal poets and players of the time, thus speaks of Shakspeare: "The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the hate of living writers, and might have used my own discretion, (especially in such a case, the author, [Robert Greene] being dead,) I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault; because my selfe have seene his demeanour no less civil than he EXCELLENT in the qualitie he professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honestic, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art." To those who are not conversant with the language of our old writers, it may be proper to observe, that the words," the qualitie he professes, particularly denote his profession as an actor. The latter part of the paragraph indeed, in which he is praised as a good man and an elegant writer, shows this: however, the following passage in Stephen Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, 1579, in which the very same words occur, will put this matter beyond a doubt. Over-lashing in apparell (says Gosson) is so common a fault, that the verye hyerlings of some of our plaiers, which stand at the reversion of vi s. by the weeke, jet under gentlemen's noses in sutes of silke, exercising themselves in prating on the stage, and common scoffing when they come abrode; where they looke askance at every man of whom the sonday before they begged an almes. I speak not this, as though every one That by the words The other, was meant Shakspeare, has been already shown in the Essay on the Order of his Plays, Vol. II. p. 237. that professeth the qualitie, so abused him selfe; for it is well knowen, that some of them are sober, discreet, properly learned, honest householders, and citizens well thought on amonge their neighbours at home, though the pride of their shadowes (I meane those hange-byes whome they succour with stipend) cause them to be somewhat talked of abrode."9 Thus early was Shakspeare celebrated as an actor, and thus unfounded was the information which Mr. Rowe obtained on this subject. Wright, a more diligent enquirer, and who had better opportunities of gaining theatrical intelligence, had said about ten years before, that he had" heard our author was a better poet than an actor;" but this description, though probably true, may still leave him a considerable portion of merit in the latter capacity: for if the various powers and peculiar excellencies of all the actors from his time to the present, were united in one man, it may well be doubted, whether they would constitute a performer whose merit should entitle him to "bench by the side" of Shakspeare as a poet. A passage indeed in Lodge's Incarnate Devills of the Age, 1596, has been pointed out, as levelled at our poet's performance of the Ghost in Hamlet. But this in my apprehension is a mistake. The ridicule intended to be conveyed by the passage in question was, I have no doubt, aimed at the actor who performed the part of the Ghost in some miserable play which was produced before Shakspeare commenced either actor or writer. That such a play once existed, I have already shown to be highly In the margin this cautious puritan adds-" Some players. modest, if I be not deceived." VOL. III. probable; and the tradition transmitted by Betterton, that our poet's performance of the Ghost in his own Hamlet was his chef d'oeuvre, adds support to my opinion. That Shakspeare had a perfect knowledge of his art, is proved by the instructions which are given to the player in Hamlet, and by other passages in his works; which in addition to what I have already stated, incline me to think that the traditional account transmitted by Mr. Rowe, relative to his powers on the stage, has been too hastily credited. In the celebrated scene between Hamlet and his mother, she thus addresses him : Alas, how is't with you? "That you do bend your eye on vacancy, "And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse? look! "Starts up, and stands on end.-Whereon do you glares! "His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, "My stern effects: then what I have to do "Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood." Can it be imagined that he would have attributed these lines to Hamlet, unless he was confident that in his own part he could give efficacy to that piteous action of the Ghost, which he has so forcibly described? or that the preceding lines spoken by the Queen, and the description of a tragedian in King Richard III. could have come from the pen of an ordinary actor? |