lived to a good old age, even some years as I compute, after the restoration of King Charles II. would in his younger days come to London to visit his brother Will, as he called him, and be a spectator of him as an actor in some of his own plays, This custom, as his brother's fame enlarged, and

1 One of Shakspeare's younger brothers, &c.] Mr. Oldys seems to have studied the art of "marring a plain tale in the telling of it;" for he has in this story introduced circumstances which tend to diminish, instead of adding to, its credibility. Male dum recitas, incipit esse tuus. From Shakspeare's not taking notice of any of his brothers or sisters in his will, except Joan Hart, I think it highly probable that they were all dead in 1616, except her, at least all those of the whole blood; though in the Register there is no entry of the burial of either his brother Gilbert, or Edmund, antecedent to the death of Shakspeare, or at any subsequent period.

The truth is, that this account of our poet's having performed the part of an old man in one of his own comedies, came originally from Mr. Thomas Jones, of Tarbick, in Worcestershire, who has been already mentioned, (see p. 62, n. 1,) and who related it from the information, not of one of Shakspeare's brothers, but of a relation of our poet, who lived to a good old age, and who had seen him act in his youth. Mr. Jones's informer might have been Mr. Richard Quiney, who lived in London, and died at Stratford in 1656, at the age of 69; or Mr. Thomas Quiney, our poet's son-in-law, who lived, I believe, till 1663, and was twenty-seven years old when his father-in-law died; or some one of the family of Hathaway. Mr. Thomas Hathaway, I believe Shakspeare's brother-in-law, died at Stratford in 1654-5, at the age of 85.

There was a Thomas Jones, an inhabitant of Stratford, who between the years 1581 and 1590 had four sons, Henry, James,. Edmund, and Isaac: some one of these, it is probable, settled at Tarbick, and was the father of Thomas Jones, the relater of this anecdote, who was born about the 1613. year

If any of Shakspeare's brothers lived till after the Restoration, and visited the players, why were we not informed to what player he related it, and from what player Mr. Oldys had his account? The fact, I believe, is, he had it not from a player, but from the above-mentioned Mr. Jones, who likewise communicated the stanza of the ballad on Sir Thomas Lucy, which has been printed in a former page. MALONE.

his dramatick entertainments grew the greatest support of our principal, if not of all our theatres, he continued it seems so long after his brother's death, as even to the latter end of his own life. The curiosity at this time of the most noted actors [exciting them] to learn something from him of his brother, &c. they justly held him in the highest veneration. And it may be well believed, as there was besides a kinsman and descendant of the family, who was then a celebrated actor among them, [Charles Hart. See Shakspeare's Will.] this opportunity made them greedily inquisitive into every little circumstance, more especially in his dramatick character, which his brother could relate of him. But he, it seems, was so stricken in years, and possibly his memory so weakened with infirmities, (which might make him the easier pass for a man of weak intellects,) that he could give them but little light into their enquiries; and all that could be recollected from him of his bro ther Will. in that station was, the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at

2

Charles Hart.] Mr. Charles Hart the player was born, I believe, about the year 1630, and died in or about 1682. If he was a grandson of Shakspeare's sister, he was probably the son of Michael Hart, her youngest son, of whose marriage or death there is no account in the parish Register of Stratford, and therefore I suspect he settled in London. MALONE.

Charles Hart died in August, 1683, and was buried at Stanmore the 20th of that month. Lysons's Environs of London, Vol. III. p. 400. REED.

which he was seated among some company, who were eating, and one of them sung a song.' See the character of Adam, in As you like it, Act II. sc. ult.

"Verses by Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, occasioned by the motto to the Globe Theatre-Totus mundus agit histrionem.

Jonson.

If, but stage actors, all the world displays,
'Where shall we find spectators of their plays?'

Shakspeare.

'Little, or much, of what we see, we do;
We are all both actors and spectators too.'

Poetical Characteristicks, 8vo. MS. Vol. I. some time in the Harleian Library; which volume was returned to its owner."

"Old Mr. Bowman the player reported from Sir William Bishop, that some part of Sir John Falstaff's character was drawn from a townsman of Stratford, who either faithlessly broke a contract, or spitefully refused to part with some land for a valuable consideration, adjoining to Shakspeare's, in or near that town.'

To these anecdotes I can only add the following.

At the conclusion of the advertisement prefixed to Lintot's edition of Shakspeare's Poems, it is said, “That most learned prince and great patron of learning, King James the First, was pleased with

his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakspeare; which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William D'Avenant,3 as a credible person now living can testify." Mr. Oldys, in a MS. note to his copy of Fuller's Worthies, observes, that "the story came from the Duke of Buckingham, who had it from Sir William D'Avenant."

It appears from Roscius Anglicanus, (commonly called Downes the prompter's book,) 1708, that Shakspeare took the pains to instruct Joseph Taylor in the character of Hamlet, and John Lowine in that of King Henry VIII. STEEVENS.

The late Mr. Thomas Osborne, bookseller, (whose exploits are celebrated by the author of the Dunciad,) being ignorant in what form or language our Paradise Lost was written, employed one of his garretteers to render it from a French translation into English prose. Lest, hereafter, the compositions of Shakspeare should be brought back into their native tongue from the version of Monsieur le Compte de Catuelan, le Tourneur, &c. it may be necessary to observe, that all the following particulars, extracted from the preface of these gentlemen, are as little founded in truth as their description of the ridiculous Jubilee at Stratford,

which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William D'Avenant.] Dr. Farmer with great probability supposes that this letter was written by King James in return for the compliment paid to him in Macbeth. The relater of this anecdote was Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.

MALONE.

which they have been taught to represent as an affair of general approbation and national concern.

They say, that Shakspeare came to London without a plan, and finding himself at the door of a theatre, instinctively stopped there, and offered himself to be a holder of horses :-that he was remarkable for his excellent performance of the Ghost in Hamlet:-that he borrowed nothing from preceding writers :-that all on a sudden he left the stage, and returned without eclat into his native country:-that his monument at Stratford is of copper-that the courtiers of James I. paid several compliments to him which are still preserved that he relieved a widow, who, together with her numerous family, was involved in a ruinous lawsuit:-that his editors have restored many passages in his plays, by the assistance of the manuscripts he left behind him, &c. &c.

Let me not, however, forget the justice due to these ingenious Frenchmen, whose skill and fidelity in the execution of their very difficult undertaking, is only exceeded by such a display of candour as would serve to cover the imperfections of much less elegant and judicious writers. STEEVENS.