is found in a MS. in the Museum, (MSS. Sloan, 1786,) is only worthy of preservation, as it shows how high the reputation of this actor was in his own age: "Epitaph on Mr. RICHARD BURBAGE, the player.* "This life's a play, scean'd out by natures arte, JOHN HEMINGE is said by Roberts the player to have been a tragedian, and in conjunction with Condell, to have followed the business of printing; but it does not * I did not till lately discover that there is an original picture of this admired actor in Dulwich College, or his portrait should have been engraved for this work. However, the defect will very speedily be remedied by Mr. Sylvester Harding, the ingenious artist whom I employed to make a copy of the picture of Lowin at Oxford, which he executed with perfect fidelity; and who means to give the publick in twenty numbers, at a very moderate price, not only all such portraits as can be found, of the actors who personated the principal characters in our author's plays, while he was on the stage, but also an assemblage of genuine heads of the real personages represented in them; together with various views of the different places in which the scene of his historical dramas is placed. Each plate will be of the same size as that of Lowin, so as to suit the present edition. * Answer to Pope, 1729. appear that he had any authority for these assertions. In some tract, of which I have forgot to preserve the title, he is said to have been the original performer of Falstaff. I searched the Register of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, (in which parish this actor lived,) for the time of his birth, in vain. Ben Jonson in the year' 1616, as we have just seen, calls him old Mr. Heminge if at that time he was sixty years of age, then his birth must be placed in 1556. I suspect that both he and Burbadge were Shakspeare's countrymen, and that Heminge was born at Shottery, a village in Warwickshire, at a very small distance from Stratford-upon-Avon; where Shakspeare found his wife. I find two families of this name settled in that town early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth, the daughter of John Heming of Shottery, was baptized at Stratfordupon-Avon, March 12, 1567. This John might have been the father of the actor, though I have found no entry relative to his baptism: for he was probably born before the year 1558, when the Register commenced. In the village of Shottery also lived Richard Hemyng, who had a son christened by the name of John, March 7, 1570. Of the Burbadge family the only notice I have found, is, an entry in the Register of the parish of Stratford, October 12, 1565, on which day Philip Green was married in that town to Ursula Burbadge, who might have been sister to James Burbadge, the father of the actor, whose marriage I suppose to have taken place about that time. If this conjecture be well founded, our poet, we see, had an easy introduction to the theatre. John Heminge appears to have married in or before the year 1589, his eldest daughter, Alice, having been baptized October 6, 1590. Beside this child, he had four sons; John, born in 1598, who died an infant; a second John, baptized August 7, 1599; William, baptized October 3, 1602, and George, baptized February 11, 1603-4; and eight daughters; Judith, Thomasine, Joan, Rebecca, Beatrice, Elizabeth, Mary, (who died in 1611,) and Margaret. Of his daughters, four only appear to have been married; Alice to John Atkins in January, 1612-13; Rebecca to Captain William Smith; Margaret to Mr. Thomas Sheppard, and another to a person of the name of Merefield. The eldest son, John, probably died in his father's lifetime, as by his last will he constituted his son William his executor. William, whose birth Wood has erroneously placed in 1605, was a student of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of a Master of Arts in 1628. Soon after his father's death he commenced a dramatick poet, having produced in March, 1632-3, a comedy entitled The Coursinge of a Hare, or the Madcapp, which was performed at the Fortune theatre, but is now lost. He was likewise author of two other plays which are extant; The Fatal Contract, published in 1653, and The Jews Tragedy, 1662. From an entry in the Council-books at Whitehall, I find that John Heminge was one of the principal proprietors of the Globe playhouse, before the death of Queen Elizabeth. He is joined with Shakspeare, Burbadge, &c. in the licence granted by King James, immediately after his accession to the throne in 1603; and all the pay. ments made by the Treasurer of the Chamber in 6 MS. Herbert, 1613, on account of plays performed at court, are "to John Heminge and the rest of his fellows." So also in several subsequent years, in that and the following reign. In 1623, in conjunction with Condell, he published the first complete edition of our author's plays; soon after which it has been supposed that he withdrew from the theatre; but this is a mistake. He certainly then ceased to act, but he continued chief director of the king's company of comedians to the time of his death. He died at his house in Aldermanbury, where he had long lived, on the 10th of October, 1630, in, as I conjecture, the 74th or 75th year of his age, and was buried on the 12th, as appears by the Register of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, in which he is styled, "John Heminge, player." I suspect he died of the plague, which had raged so violently that year, that the playhouses were shut up in April, and not permitted to be opened till the 12th of November, at which time the weekly bill of those who died in London of that distemper, was diminished to twenty-nine. His son William, into whose hands his papers must have fallen, survived him little more than twenty years, having died some time before the year 1653: and where those books of account of which his father 7 That he and Condell had ceased to act in the year 1623, is ascertained by a passage in their Address "to the great varietie of readers," prefixed to our poet's plays. "Read him therefore, and againe, and againe: and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him, And so we leave you to other of his friends, whom if you need, can be your guides." i. e. their fellow-comedians, who still continued on the stage, and, by representing or author's plays, could elucidate them, and thus serve as gues to the publick. MS. Herbert. speaks, now are, cannot be ascertained. One cannot but entertain a wish, that at some future period they may be discovered, as they undoubtedly would throw some light on our ancient stage-history. The day before his death, John Heminge made his will, of which I subjoin a copy, extracted from the Registry of the Prerogative Court. In this instrument he styles himself a grocer, but how he obtained his freedom of the Grocers' Company, does not appear. "IN the name of God, Amen, the 9th day of October, 1630, and in the sixth year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, Charles, by the grace of God king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, &c. I John Heminge, citizen and grocer of London, being of perfect mind and memory, thanks be therefore given unto Almighty God, yet well knowing and considering the frailty and incertainty of man's life, do therefore make, ordain, and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following. First, and principally, I give and bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my Maker and Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits, death and passion, of Jesus Christ my saviour and redeemer, to obtain remission and pardon of all my sins, and to enjoy eternal happiness in the kingdom of heaven; and my body I commit to the earth, to be buried in christian manner, in the parish church of Mary Aldermanbury in London, as near unto my loving wife Rebecca Heminge, who lieth there interred, and under the same stone which lieth in part over her there, if the same conveniently may be: wherein I do desire my executor herein after named carefully to see my |