I'Ki)^'''' XJNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES n ,, „ //^ n ft /< <^^Sl (jCiJu^^ Oc^LM.^ ^^^-^HiXy ^l^o Sept. 97. 4 from the bottom. For take such care, r. have been so anxious. 15. For Elizabeth, r. Elyzabethe. loi. 15. /^cr Midsummer's, r. MiDsuMMER- 113. n. 56. 1. 2. For vol. i. r. vol. F. 211. 2 of Note. For set down in, r. " sette onne." 243. 10. In part of the impression, /ir original, r. ori- finals. It is plain, that in this slippery age we live in, it is very easy to make a book look as old as you would have it. Lord Ch. Justice, in Lady Ivy's Case ; State Trials, Vol. VIL p. 572. But hear me further : Japhet, 'tis agreed. Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,— In all the Courts of Pindus guiltless quite j But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write. Pope. k \ ( .-tl^^ .-fl.) Wfij'' T^l*^ LETTER TO THE EARL OF CHARLEMONT.' My dear Lord, nr HOUGH I have had the honour and pleasure of your lordfhip*s friendship and correspondence for twenty years, during which time I have been in the habit of occa- sionally furnishing you with an account of what was doing here in the literary world, I ^ As my noble friend's nannie appears in the Libt of Subscribers prefixed to the Miscellaneous Papers, &c. here examined, I am authorized by him to say, that he sub- scribed to that work at the request of a gentleman who fur- nished him with a splendid Prospectus of it, which he carried from hence to Ireland ^ and that if Lord C. had known as much of it as he now does, he would not have given either his name or his money to the publication. B do [ 2 ] do not recollect ever to have employed my pen on any top ick more interesting than that which I mean to make the subject of this letter. In mentioning your long-continued kindness to me, I trust I shall not be charged with any idle vanity ; a weakness, if I at all know myself, most foreign from my nature and disposition. If the desire laudari a laudato viro be natural and excusable, I surely may be allowed to feel some degree of pride in the consciousness of having so long enjoyed the friendship of him, whom all who know him personally love and esteem, and whose virtues and attainments are admired and venerated wherever the name of Englishman is known. It has been said, and I believe truly, that every individual of this country, whose mind has been at all cultivated, feels a pride in being able to boast of our great dramatick poet, Shakspeare, as his countryman: and proportionate to our respect and veneration for that extraordinary man ought to be our care of his fame, and of those valuable writ- ings that he has left us j and our solicitude to preserve them pure and unpolluted by any modern sophistication or foreign admixture w^hat- [ 3 ] whatsoever. Strongly as I am impressed with this sentiment, I hasten to discuss a question in which the reputation and charac- ter and history of my ^reat Master are necessarily and immediately involved ; and I am the more anxious to seize the present moment, because, in this interval of the political warfare, the cause of Shakspeare an3 the Muses has a chance to be heard. Previous to the publication of my edi- tion of this great poet*s works in 1790, I had collected some curious circumstances re- lative either to himiself, his family, or estate, which I appended by way of notes to Mr. Rowers very meagre Life of him; and which, according to the modern mode of ?naki?ig books, after having been properly sliced and hashed and stewed, have been ferved up in a late work, without any ac- knowledgment where the ingredients of the literary mess were found. Since that time I have pursued my inquiries on the same subject with unrem.itting ardour ; and have amassed such an accumulation of materials for a more regular Life of our poet, as have exceeded my most sanguine expectations, and are now swelled to such a size as to B 2 form [ 4 ] form a considerable volume. In my researches into the early history of the Stage', I have been equally successful, and have obtained such curious and valuable accessions to what I formerly published on that subject, as to ascertain, with a degree of precision beyond my hopes, the actual state of our theatres and the performances they exhibited, almost up to the time when Shakspeare appears lo have commenced his dramatick career. — With all this ardour of inquiry, and all this mass of information, your lordship will easily judge how much I must have been surprized in the beginning of the last year, when I was informed that many original pieces were dis- covered, in the hand- writing of this poet, which had never before been heard of; and how much that surprize was increased, when I found from the information of various * When the Books of the late Mr. Topham Beauclerk were sold by auction in April 1781, I neglected (I know not by what accident) to purchase or even to examine the lot numbered 4137, which was sold for 3I. 6s. and contained seven small tracts; among which was one relative to our ancient stage, that I have never met with. If these sheets should fall into the hands of the purchaser, (with whose name I am luiacquainted, the Sale-Catalogue having been mislaid,) he will oblige me by favouring me with his address. intelligent [ s ] intelligent persons who had viewed and examined the supposed originals, that every date affixed to these papers, and almost every fact mentioned in them, were alike incon- sistent with the history of the time and with all the ancient documents of which I was possessed. These extraordinary manuscripts are at length given to the publick, by whose judgment their authenticity or spuriousness will, if I mistake not, be very speedily ascertained. It is not at all to be wondered at, that the possessor and discoverer of these curiosities should set a very high value upon them, and thinking them to be genuine ancient manu- scripts, should publish them in a splendid form : those persons also who are convinced of their authenticity, have a perfect right to adorn the shelves of their libraries with what they think a valuable treasure : but in this free country every intelligent reader claims a right to judge for himself, unin- fluenced by any authority but that of right reason, and the best information he can pro- cure ; and by the judgment of the intelligent part of the publick must the fate of these papers be finally decided. To aid those in the [ 6 ] the course of their investigation, who, though they may fall within this description, may not be endowed with your lordship's faga- city, or may not have devoted so many years as you have done to the most curious literary researches, as well as to ail the liberal arts, is the object of the present inquiry ; which, with your permission, I mean to lay before that tribunal by which the adjudication on one of the most important questions that has for many years been agitated in the literary world must now be given. In his Preface the Editor informs us, that all the scholars, all the men of taste, anti- quaries, and heralds, who viewed them previous to their publication, have " unani- mously testified in favour of their authenti- city ; and declared, that where there was such a mass of evidence internal and exter- nal^ it was impossible, amidst such various sources of detection, for the art of imi- tation to have hazarded so much without betraying itself, and consequently, x\\-dX these papers can be no other than the production of Shakspeare himself.'^ What is meant here by external evi- dence, [ 7 1 dence, it is not easy to conjecture. The writer should seem to have supposed that the labels and seals appendant to the deeds, be- cause exterior^ were external evidence: but nei- ther these, nor the faded ink and discoloured paper orparchment, in my apprehension, come within that description. The only exter- nal evidence, strictly speaking, that has been produced, is the narrative, which I shall presently transcribe, stating that these trea- sures were found in a nameless place, in the custody of a nameless person. If these pro- found Scholars, Antiquaries, and Heralds are satisfied with that account, I can only say that they are very easily satisfied; and that, if the hand-writing is also to be considered as external evidence, their credulity on that head is perfectly consistent with the satisfac- tion which they feel in the manner in which these papers have been ushered to the pub- lick. — In the position that ** it was impossible so much could be hazarded without betray- ing itself," I entirely agree with these gentle- men: the fabrication of these manuscripts, by whomsoever made, has accordingly be- trayed itself almost in every line j so as to shew, beyond a possibility of doubt, that not a single piece in this collection was the pro- duction [ 8 ] duction of Shakspeare, or of the other persons to whom they are ascribed. The manner in which these curiosities are said to have been found being extremely- material to the present question, that I may proceed in due form, and do no injustice to the editor, I shall give his account of the discovery in his own words : ** It may be expected (says he) that some- thing should be said by the editor, of the manner in which these papers came into his hands. He received them from his son, SamuelWiLLiAM Henry Ireland, a young man then under 19 years of age, by whom the discovery was accidentally made at the house of a gentleman of considerable property. ■ ** Amongst a mass of family papers, the Contracts between Shakspeare, Lowine, and Condelle, and the lease granted by him and Hemynge to Michael Fraser, which was first found, were discovered; and soo/j afterwards the deed of gift to William Henry Ire- land, (described as the friend of Shakspeare, in consequence of his having saved his life I on [ 9 ] on the river Thames, when in extreme danger of being drowned) and also the Deed of Trust to John Hemynge, were discovered. In pursuing this search he was so fortunate as to meet with some deeds very material to the interest of this gentleman, and such as established, beyond all doubt, his title to a considerable property : deeds of which this gentleman was as ignorant, as he was of his having in possession any of the MSS. of Shakspeare. In return for this service, added to the consideration that the young man bore the same name and arms with the person who saved the life of Shakspeare, this gentle- man promised him every thing relative to the present subject, that had been, or should be found either in town, or at his house in the country. At this house the principal part of the papers, together with a great variety of books, containing his MS. notes, and three MS. plays, with part of another, were discovered. ** Fortified as he is with the opinion of the unprejudiced and intelligent, the editor will not allow that it can be presumption in him to say, that he has no doubt of the truth and authenticity of that which he lays before c the I 10 ] the piiblick. Of this fact he is as fully satis- fied, as he is with the honour that has been observed towards him, throughout the whole communication made to him upon this subject. So circumstanced, he should not feel justified in importuning or any way request- ing a gentleman, to whom he is known only by obligation, and not personally, to subject himself to the impertinence and licentious- ness of literary curiosity and cavil, unless he should himself voluntarily come forward. But this is not all. It was not till after the mass of papers received became voluminous, that Mr. Ireland had any idea of printing them : he then applied to the original pos- sessor for his permission so to do ; and this was not obtained but under the strongest injunction that his name should not appear. This injunction has, throughout all the stages of this business, been uniformly declared : and, as this gentleman has dealt most liberally with the editor, he can confidently say, that in his turn he has with equal openness and candour conducted himself towards the publick ; to whom, immediately upon every communication made, every thing has been submitted without reserve. ** But [ II ] *' But, it is said, that the disclosure of the name of the gentleman, from whom these papers came, would remove all doubts, and settle men's minds upon the subject. He believes, and is confident, that with some it would. But who is it that says this ? It cannot be the real Critic or Antiquarian. He will not say that his art or science amounts to nothing, and that his lucubrations are idle and useless. But if the point cannot finally or satisfactorily be decided either by the thing written, its paper or parchment vehicle, or seals appendant, or the other circumstances under which it was introduced, and must depend wholly upon the place and person from whom they came, what becomes of the acumen of the Critic, or the skill and labour of the Antiquarian ? By this rule it is a question for another jurisdiction; and the occupation of the Critic and Antiquarian is gone." After perusing this account, we are naturally led to ask one or two questions. It is observable that we are not here told where the three deeds which are said to have been first discovered, were found. Th.Q principal part of the whole mass, indeed, is said to c 2 have [ 12 ] :ve been found in a mansion-house in the country ; but whether the first discovery was made in town or country, we are not told. Neither are we informed what led the discoverer to examine the deeds and papers of the unknown gentleman. They, however, who recollect the first production of these curiosities, may remember that it was then said by those who gave credit to their au- thenticity, that the discoverer met the pos- sessor, to whom he was wholly unknown, at a cofTee-house, or some other publick place : that the possessor was a gentleman of large fortune, who lived chiefly in the country, and was devoted to rural amuse- ments, but had chambers in the Temple, to which he occasionally resorted : that the conversation turning on old papers, and autographs, of which the discoverer said he was a collector, the country-gentleman exclaimed, '* If you are for autographs^ I am your man ; come to my chambers any morn- ing, and rummage among my old deeds ; you will there find enough of them:** that accordingly the discoverer went there, and on taking down a parcel of old deeds from a shelf, in a very few minutes lighted on the [ 13 ] the name of Shakspeare, or some of his fellows of the theatre, which induced him to proceed further. — Such was the account then circulated by the persons who were the most strenuous partisans for the authenticity of these papers ; but whether this relation may not have gained additional circumstances as it rolled along, I am unable to ascertain. I merely state what was then the report of the day. I am sensible I am travellings as the lawyers call it, out of the record \ and there- fore shall only advert to one other matter which the statement above-quoted suggests. The discovery of a title to a considerable estate must be acknowledged to be so fortu- nate and beneficial, that one cannot at all wonder at the great liberality of the unknown gentleman on the present occasion, in giving up to the discoverer all his right to these valuable MSS. j but one naturally wishes to know in what county this estate lies, and whether any suit has been instituted within this last year, in consequence of this discovery; as, on the trial of an Eject- ment, the learned Counsel employed by the defendants (who, by themselves, or those under whom they derive their title, must have been in possession for near two centuries,) [ H ] centuries,) would, I apprehend, require a more explicit account of the manner and place in which these deeds were found, than that which has so completely satisfied the profound Scholars, Antiquaries, and Heralds, already mentioned. Leaving, however, these considerations, let us advert to the editor's statement above given in his own words ; the sum and sub- stance of which is. That the unknown gentle- man has behaved most liberally and honour- ably to him ; that he has desired his name to be concealed, lest he should be exposed to the impertinence and cavils of criticism ; (in which he seems to be over-scrupulous, for what imputation could fall on him, if it should be proved that all these controverted papers, which by some accident have found their way among his family-deeds, were forged by some undiscovered person ;) that therefore the Editor thinks himself bound to act With equal honour to the unknown, and not to divulge his name. The subsequent position, that the dis- closure of the name of this gentleman would remove all doubts, is one, I conceive, to which [ 15 ] which no person who knows any thing of the rules of evidence will subscribe. It would not substantiate the most insignificant paper that has been exhibited ; though it is justly required, and ought to be made, be- fore any one of these pretended ancient MSS. can be entitled even to an examination. In the Prerogative Court, if any Will or testamentary writing is exhibited at a time when, or from a quarter where, it might not reasonably be expected, the party producing it is always asked, in the first place, in what cabinet or coffer belonging to the deceased, or where else, it was found ; how long it has been in his possession ; when, and to whom he first mentioned the discovery, &c. The ground of these questions is obvious. In such a case a suspicion concerning the genuineness of the instrument or paper produced naturally arises ^ and therefore to repel that suspicion, and to set the claimant right in the opinion of the Court, he is called upon to account for its not having been produced sooner, and to state where it was found. This is the first thing required to be done ; without which the claimant is not allowed to advance a single step. His I account, [ >6 ] account, however satisfactory, will not sub- stantiate or establish the paper or instrument produced ; it merely entitles it to be read and examined : and then it is to be tried by all those tests by which falsehood is distin- guished from truth. But suppose a person should come into that court, and, after refusing to give any answer whatsoever to the inquiries which on such an occasion are always made, should throw his paper on the table, and address the very learned and respectable Judge who presides there in these words J —** Wherefore, Sir, are you placed on that bench, unless you are able to ascertain whether the testamentary writing under which I claim, be genuine or not ? you have the aid of his Majesty's Advocate General, a man of as much ability and integrity as any person who ever filled that high office ; you are surrounded by many other Doctors learned in the law ; what avails all your reading, to what end have you expended so many years in perusing your Institutes, your Pandects, and your Codes, if all your lucubrations, and all your sagacity will not enable you to discern whether this little paper be authentick or not : I will give you no account of it ; but I call upon you to do me [ '7 ] me justice, and either to allow my claim, or to assign some satisfactory reasons why it should not be established." What, I say, would be the answer to this fine harangue ? the claimant would be turned out of court, and his paper immediately flung after him. In that court, as in all other courts, it is an established rule that the best evidence the nature of the case will admit of, shall always be required,? if possible to be had ; but, if not possible, then the best evidence that can be had shall be allowed: ** for, if it be found (says Sir William Blackstone) that there is any better evidence existing than is produced, the very not producing it is a ^ ** The design of the law is to come to rigid demon- stration in matters of right ; and there can be no demon- stration of a fa6l without the beft evidence that the nature of the thing is capable of: lefs evidence doth but create suspicion and surmise, and does not leave a man the entire satisfadlion that arises from demonstration ; for if it be plainly seen in the nature of the transaction that there is some more evidence that doth not appear, the very not pro- ducing it is a presumption that it would have detected something more than appears already, and therefore the mind does not acquiesce in any thing lower than the utmost evidence the fact is capable of." Gilbert's Law of Evidence, p. 5. D presumption [ i8 ] presumption that it would have detected some falsehood that at present is con- cealed \'* But in requiring similar evidence in the present case, it is said, we transfer the mat- ter from a literary tribunal to another juris- diction: we are not now in a court of law. — It is true, we are not ; but all the principal rules of evidence, as Blackstone's great pro- totype, Lord Chief Baron Gilbert, has clearly shewn in his admirable treatise, are founded on right reason, on which ground alone they are adopted ; and this first and most general rule is just as applicable to the papers in question, as to any deed or other instrument produced in a court of law. — The great ob- ject, however, of this requisition does not seem to be well understood. It is not from any idle curiosity to learn the name of the original owner of these treasures, that the inquiry is made ; for it is of very little im- portance to the world v/hether he is called Smith, or Johnson ; whether he lives in London or Middlesex ; whether he is a fair or a black man ; a dwarf or six feet high : * Blackft. Com. iii. 36S. Nil [ 19 ] Nil nimiiim studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere, Nee scire, utrum sis albus, an ater homo : It is not, I say, from any idle curiosity of this kind, that the cautious examiner makes this demand ; but because every new cir- cumstance stated, every new fact adduced, furnish additional materials to work with, and supply means either to corroborate or disprove the point contested. Thus, for example, if it should be said in the present instance, that this gentleman's name is Johnson, — that he lives in the county of Derby, — that he has been possessed of these papers for several years, that his great grand-father derived them from Sempronius, from whom he pur- chased an estate in the year — , and Sempronius fromTitius, who was an Attor- ney that had been employed by Shakspeare, or Heminge, or Condell, in law-business, and on the death of some one of these persons without a will, got possession of them ; if this or any other similar narrative should be given, then every one of these facts might be controverted, and eventually either strengthen or diminish the credit of the MSS. in question. Persons who are not conversant with D 2 legal [ 20 ] legal subjects, or the true object of lawyers in their examination of evidence, are fre- quently surprised at minute questions put to witnesses, which they think either vexatious or impertinent ; and on such occasions the well-known question which a late admir- able comick actor introduced into one of his pieces, and which he rendered ftill more ridiculous by imitating the thin and stridu- lous voice of an eminent barrister who was afterwards raised to the Bench, — " Pray, now let me ask you, was — the — toast buttered on both sides ?'* is often mentioned with much satisfaction and applause by those who have attended more to the humour of the theatre, than the investigation of truth. But the judicious lawyer, when he asks, not precisely such questions as the English Aristophanes has invented for him, but, in the case (we will suppose) of a disputed Will, — whether the testator, when he made and published it, was sitting up in his bed or in an arm-chair ; — what was the size or form of the room, — how many persons were present, — who lighted the candle, or furnished the wax with which it was sealed, &c. perfectly understands what he is about j and in cases of fiction and fraud the event often [ 21 ] often proves the propriety of such an ex- amination ; for by the answers given to these questions, compared with the testi- mony of others and the real fact, the instrument set up is quickly overthrown. ** But if the point cannot finally or satisfactorily be decided either by the thino- written, its paper or parchment vehicle, or seals appendant, or the other circumstances under which it was introduced, and must depend wholly upon the place and person from whom they came, what becomes (we are asked) of the acumen of the Critick, or the skill and labour of the Antiquarian?'* — To this question it is only necessary to answer, that, it is believed, no person of common sense was ever so absurd as to say that the authenticity of these papers depend- ed wholly on the place from whence, or the perfon from whom, they came ; though the inquirer ought, in the firft instance, to have been informed on these points. This information, as I have already shewn, merely entitles them to be read. I concur, how- ever, with the editor, that if these MSS. be spurious, the Critick and Antiquary will be able to detect them. Relinquishing therefore [ 23 ] therefore every claim to that information which I have shewn would be required in the ecclesiastical and common -law Courts, and which in the present case the Literary World has an equal right to de- mand ; and judging of these papers merely as they appear in the printed copy and in the fac-si?mles, which I make no doubt faith- fully represent their originals/ I undertake to 5 You may perhaps wonder that curiosit)' did not lead me to view and examine these pretended origii als I very early resolved not to inspect them at the hou.-e of the pos- sessor, and I was glad to find that my friend Dr. Farmer, and Mr. Steevens, had made the same determination ; from an apprehension that the names of persons who might be supposed more than ordinarily conversant with the sub- ject of these MSS. might give a countenance to them, to which, from the secrecy that was observed relative to their discovery, they were not entitled. I had, however, no ob- jection to view them elsewhere ; and therefore very early after their first production, when a gentleman invited me to see these inestimable treasures, as he considered them, at his house, where, as I understood him, he frequently had them in his hands, (in which I afterwards found I had misapprehended him,) I readily accepted the invitation, and waited on him on a subsequent day by his appointment : but these rarities were not then visible. A few days after- wards, having obtained a facsimile of the hand-writing of the earl of Southampton, 1 informed him by a line, that if he could procure the letter said to be written by that noble- man to Shakspeare, I could furnish a facsimile of his un- doubted t 23 ] to prove, from i. the Orthography, 2. the Phraseology, 3. the Dates given or dedu- cible by inference, and 4. the Dissimihtude of the Hand-writing, that not a single paper or deed in this extraordinary volume was written or executed by the person to whom it is ascribed. That your lordship may see at one view the extent and quantity of these inventions, I shall, in the first place, lay before you a List of them. Ill the newly published volume they appear in the following order : doubted hand-writing, which would at once ascertain the truth or falsehood of the supposed original : I added, that I wished my name not to be mentioned ; and my reafon for doing so was, that 1 was unwilling it should directly or in- directly give the fmallest sanction to these papers. He did not, however, procure the Letter in question, and I gave myself no further trouble about the matter. This transaction, as I have been informed by several of my friends, having been related, devested of the clrcum- itanccs which led to it^ and decorated, as is often the case where tales are transmitted from ear to ear, with circum- stances that did not belong to it, I have thought it proper to state the plain and simple fact. — If there was any breach of the strictest propriety and decorum in accepting the in- vitation thus made, or afterwards, in con'^equence of that invitation, in proposing to the invittr a test from which no genuine paper ever shrunk, I confess I am not clear-sighted enough to discover it. I . SI lice n I .i.-^x [ 24 ] 1 . ^ccn Elizabeth*s Letter to Shakspeare. 2. Kx tracts from MisceUa?ieous Papers, •--. 3. A Note of HaJid, and a Receipt. "^X/} J^" 4- ^-^^^^^^^/^'^^^^ Shakspeare /o Anna Hather- rewaye. 5. Verses /^^ Shakspeare, addressed to the same lady. 6. A Letter from Shakspeare to />6^ Earl of Southampton. y. T^he Earl of Southampton's Answer. 8. Shakspeare's Profession of Faith. 9. A Letter from Shakspeare to Richard Cowley, the player. 10. A Portrait^ enclosed in the sa?ne. 11. Reverse of ditto. 12. A Deed of Gift from Shakspeare t9 William Henry Ireland. I 3. Tributary Lines to the satne. 14. View of William Henry Ireland's House and Coat of Artns. 1 5 . Engraved Portraits of Bassanio and Shy- lock. 16. An Agree7nent between Shakspeare and John Lowin, the player. I'j. An Agree?nent between Shakspeare and Henry Condell, the player. 18. A Lease fro?n Shakspeare and John I Heminge [ 25 ] Heminge to Michael Fraser and his wife* 19. Deed of Trust to John Heminge. Subjoined to these Miscellaneous Pa- pers, &c. are the tragedy of King Lear, and a fragment of Hamlet, both alleged to be in the hand- writing of Shakspeare ; but these I shall reserve for a distinct con- sideration. I. Queen Elizabeth*s Letter. The first piece which we are to examine is, the pretended Letter from Queen Eliza- beth to Shakspeare. As this and a few other pieces in this volume are very short, and cannot be well understood by partial extracts, I shall transcribe them, as by this means my objections will appear in a clearer light. Her Majesty, if we are to credit these MSS., writes as follows : She no more'* stands upon points'* than Bottom, the Weaver; her Letter is " like a tangled chain, nothing impaired, but all disordered :" " Wee didde receive youre prettye Verses goode Masterre William through the hands off oure Lorde Chambelayne E ande [ 26 ] ande wee doe Complemente thee onne theyre greate excellence Wee shalle departe fromme Londonne toe Hamptowne forre the holydayes where wee Shalle expecte thee withe thye beste Actorres thatte thou mayste playe before oureselfe toe amuse usse bee notte slowe butte comme toe usse bye Tuesdaye nexte asse the lord Leycesterre * wille bee withe usse. j y. ^f Ehzabeth. R. [Superscn'Sed] ** For Master William Shakspeare atte the Globe bye Thames. [On a small paper stuck on.] •' Thys Letterre I dydde receyve fromme mye moste gracyouse Ladye Eliza- bethe ande I doe requeste itte maye bee kepte withe alle care possyble. a W"* Shakspeare.'* Before I enter on the examination of this curious paper, permit me to make a few * I have here followed the facsimile of the pretended original. In the printed copy, I suppose by an error of the press, we have Lexscesterre, preliminary [ 27 ] preliminary remarks. Your lordship will at once perceive, that it has not been dipped in that stream in which Achilles is said to have been plunged by his mother. It is indeed so far from being vulnerable only in one place, that there is scarcely a single spot in this and all the other papers, in which they are not assailable. The badges ot fiction are so numerous, that the only appre- hension I entertain is, that you may be fatigued before I have done, for I can with perfect truth say with the Orator, — " 72on mihi tarn copia quam modus in dice?ido qiiceren- dus est \'' and the topicks of detection are so obvious that they must immediately strike every reader who has been at all conversant with these studies ; consequently many of the observations I shall make, before these papers shall have passed through the press, may be anticipated by others. Hovvever, I thall proceed in my own way ; and if any such coincidence should be found, it will uiily serve to corroborate my arguments. •/"The next observation I beg leave to make is, that this and some other of these papers have, each of them, an archetype, after which it has been formed; a model, either E 2 now [ 28 ] now existing or which once existed, on which it has been constructed. — In the year 1710, Bernard Lintott, the bookseller, published our author's Poems, from copies (as I have lately discovered) furnished by Mr. Congreve, which, though not the original editions, were then considered as great curiosities ; so little at that time were the shops of booksellers, or the libraries of the learned, furnished with the early im- pressions of the works of the English Poets. In the preface to that publication, he for the first time mentioned that King James the First honoured Shakspeare " with an amicable Letter written with his own hand,'* (pro- bably, as Dr. Farmer has conjectured, in con- sequence of the production of Macbeth,) ** and that this Letter remained long in the hands of Sir William D'Avenant, as a credible person then living could testify." This person, as appears from a MS. note written by Mr. Oldys, who probably de- rived his information from Lord Oxford, was Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire. Sir William D'Avenant having died intestate and insolvent, and his goods having been seized by his creditors, this Letter was unfortunately lost, and I fear will never be recovered. ■ [ 29 ] recovered. — Here we have the germ and first principle of the Letter from Elizabeth to Shakspeare, now before us. ■• -i Our late excellent and ever-lamented friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, used to main- tain, that even in fancy-pieces no painter should attempt to delineate the human figure without a model before him, however he might deviate from it ; for by this means he would always be preserved from running into wildness and extra vao^ance. Though the fabricator of several of these papers (as I have already observed) had in his thoughts, an imaginary archetype which gave birth to his performance, and after which he wrought, yet when he came to the execution, and was obliged actually to exhibit the hand-writing of Queen Elizabeth, Southampton, Heminge, Condell and Lowin, he had no archetype whatsoever; that is, he had never seen any of the hand- writing of Elizabeth, but her sign-manual, (which he has imitated most miserably,) nor the hand- writing of South- ampton and the rest at all. Hence in every part of their Letters, &c. (excepting only the Queen's autograph,) you may observe the wild flutter of fiction; or in ^^•''^^' other [30] Other words that unnatural and licentious extravagance and irregularity, which would not have been found, had any model what- ever been followed, however clumsily it might have been imitated. But it is now time to examine more particularly this gracious and condescending epistle of our virgin Queen. According therefore to the method I have laid down. I proceed to prove from, the orthography, the phraseology, the date, and the total dissimilitude of the hand-writing, that it is a forgery. You will perhaps smile at my reserving the hand- writing for my last topick ; as, if I am able to shew that it has not the smallest resemblance to the Queen's hand- writing, the question is at an end. — When a certain Potentate of vSpain happened to pass through a town in his dominions which he had not visited for a long time, it was thought proper by the magistracy of the place to congratulate him on his arrival into that part of his kingdom. The deputy-bailiff, as I remember, being introduced, began an harangue, which he had conned with much care, lamenting in the first place his own insufficiency, which he trusted his Majesty would [ 31 ] would have the goodness to pardon, his principal being unable to attend. For his absence, he added, he should presume to state several substantial reasons, the first of which was, that he was dead. It is almost needless to say, that the simple deputy was told, he might *' spare his arithmetick,** and that it was unnecessary to give himself any further trouble on that head. By follow- ing the example of this provincial orator, and producing at once a genuine specimen of her Majesty's hand- writing, I might certainly save myself some trouble ; but I choose rather to follow the course I have chalked out, and to take a wider ranee : because, though I am perfectly aware that the disquisition is supererogatory, it may tend to produce a more full and complete conviction in the minds of many of my readers. I. The first topick I am to consider is, the Orthography. — In the Chattertonian Controversy, in order to ascertain the spuriousness of the poems attributed by the youth, Chatterton, to Thomas Rowley, the author of one of the earliest pamphlets ^ ^ CursoryObservationt. on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, 8vo. 1782. that [ 32 ] that appeared on that subject, produced numerous specimens of really ancient poetry, which when contrasted with the verses of the pseudo-bard of the fifteenth century proved, with irresistible force, that the authors of those specimens, and of the pre- tended ancient reliques, could not have lived within the same period. By what he called a Double Transformation, that is, by devesting several of Rowley*s verses of the disguise of ancient spelling, and cloathing some of Chatterton*s undoubted poetry in old language, he also shewed that they might change places very commodiously, and that the one was just as ancient or just as modern as the other." And though the author of the Strictures alluded to, and the late ?vlr. Warton, who a few months after- wards followed him with more ability in the same inquiry, and Mr, Tyrwhitt in his admirable Vindication of his Appendix, produced many additional and ' The former of thefe methods obtained the approba- tion of Mr. Tyrwhitt ; (Vindication of the Appendix to the Poems called Rowley's, &c. p. 82.) and to the propriety of the latter ted Mr. Warton bore testimony. An Enquiry into the authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, &c. p. 93. I incon- [ 33 ] incontrovertible proofs of that forgery, they were all given ex abundcuiti^ and the cause, in my apprehension, might have been rested on those specimens alone. In like manner, in the present case, it might be sufficient merely to contrast the orthography of this and the other papers with that of Elizabeth herself, or any of the writers of her age. In the controversy above-mentioned, it was justly observed that the orthography and language of the poems called Rowley's, were not the language or orthography of any particular period, but of various and different ages. In the papers before us, the orthography is infinitely more objectionable ; for 1 will venture to assert, without the smallest apprehension of being refuted, that the spelling in this letter, as well as in all the other papers, is not only not the ortho-r- graphy of Elizabeth, or of her time, but is for the most part the orthography of no age whatsoever. FVom the time of Henry the Fourth, I have perused, I will not say several hundred, but some thousand deeds and other MSS., and I never once found the copulative and spelt as it is here, with a final e. The same observation may be made on the . F word [ 34 ] word for, here and almoft uniformly after- wards exhibited forre : a mode of ortho- graphy, I beheve, unprecedented. The ckimsy fabricator had seen far written in old booksy^rr^, and took it for granted, that a word so nearly similar as for had anciently the same terminating letters. The absurd manner in which almost every word is over-laden with both con- sonants and vowels will at once strike every reader, who has any knowledge of the state of our language at the period referred to : but instead of wearying you with minute remarks, the most satisfactory mode, I con- ceive, will be to produce a few specimens of orthography from the time of Chaucer to near the end of the sixteenth century, a period of above two hundred years. Out of some hundred books of that period, wdth which I am surrounded, I shall quote a few which happen to be near at hand, and which v.dll shew the progressive changes in the mode of orthography during that time. To begin with Chaucer, who, we know, died in the year 1 400 j — I quote from the excellent [ 35 ] excellent edition of the Canterbury Tales, by Mr. Tyrwhitt, who adhered to his author's orthography with the most scrupulous fidelity. In his Prologue, the old Bard, after describing the Knight, who was *' besmotred with his habergeon, — * " For he was late ycome fro his viage, ** And wenXe for to don his pilgrimage, — *' thus graphically introduces the young gallant of those days : ** With him ther was his sone, a young squier, ** A lover, and a lusty bacheler, " With lockes cruU ^ as they were laide in presse j " Of twenty yere of age he was, I gesse. "Of his stature he was of even lengthe, •* And wonderly deliver y, and grete of strengthe. •• And he hadde be '° somtime in chevachie ", "In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie, *• And borne him wel, as of so litel space, *' In hope to stonden in his ladies grace. *• Embrouded '^ was he, as it were a mede '* ** AUe ful of freshe floures, white and rede. * Curled. 9 Nimble. '° been. " A military Expedition. *\ Embroidered. '' A Meadow. F 2 " Singing [ 36 ] *' Singing he was, or floyting '■> all the day, *' He was as freshe, as is the moneth of May. " Short was his goune, with sieves long and wide ; *' Wei coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride. " He coude songes make, and wel endite, " Juste '^ and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write. -" So hote he loved, that by nightertale '^ «* He slep no more than doth the nightingale. ♦* Curteis '" he was, lowly, and servisable, " And carf ^ before his fader at the table." My next specimen shall be taken from Sir John Fortescue's Treatise on The Dif- ference between an absolute and limited Monarchy.^ He was probably born about the year that Chaucer died, and in the twentieth year of King Henry the Sixth (1441-2) was made Lord Chief Justice of England. Whether he composed this curious work before or after he retired into France with Prince Edward and his mother, after the battle of Tewksbury in 1 47 1 , has not been ascertained. '* Playing on the Flute. '-^ Tilt. '^ Night-time. *' Courteous. '» pa. t. of carve, v. Sax. * Published from a MS, Copy in the Bodleian Library, by John. Fortescue Aland, Esq. 8vo. 1714. " Here- [ 37 ] ** Hereafter he schewyd^ the Frutes of Jus Regale, a?id the Frutes of Jus Politicum & Regale. ** And hou so be it, that the French Kyng reynith upon his people Domifiio Regalij yet Saynt Lewes sumtyme Kyng ther, ne any of his progenytors set never talys or other impositions upon the people of that lond, without the assent of the three astatts, which, whan thay be assemblid, a/ like to the court of parlement in England. And this order kept many of his successours until late days, that Englishmen made such a war in Fraunce, that the three estats durst not come to geders. And than for that cause and for grete necessite which the French Kyng had of goods, for the defence of that lond, he took upon hym to set talys and other imposi- tions upon the commons, without the assent of the three estats j but yet he would not set any such chargs, nor hath set upon the Nobles, for feare of rebellion. And because the Commons, though they have grutchid, have not rebellid or be hardy to rebell, the French Kyngs have yearly sythen sett such chargs upon them, and so augmented the same chargis, as the same Commons be so I impoverishid 1.90121 [ 38 ] impoverishid and distroyyd, that they may iinneth " lyve. Thay drynke water, thay eate apples, with bred right brown made of rye. Thay eate no flesche, but if it be selden*"", a Htill larde, or of the entrails or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and merchaunts of the lond. They weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their uttermost garment, made of grete canvas, and cal it a frok. Their hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee; wher- for they be gartrid, and their thyghs bare. Their wifs and children gone bare fote ; they may in non other wyse lyve. For sum of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his tenement, which he hyrith by the yere, a scute", payyth now to the Kynge, over that scute, fyve skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd " by necessite, so to watch, labour, and grub in the ground, for their sustenaunce, that their nature is much wastid, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd, and ar feble, not able to fyght, nor to defend the realme ; nor they have wepon, nor monye to buy '9 Scarce. ^° Except or r.nlefs it be seldom. *' Escus, or ecus d'or, a gold crown-piece of the value of 3s. 4d. *- Coarcted, compelled. them [ 39 ] them wepon withal ; but verely thay lyvyn in the most extreme povertie and myserye, and yet thay dwellyn in one the most fertile realme of the world : wher thrugh the French Kyng hath not men of his owne realme, able to defend it, except his Nobles, which beryn non such impositions, and therfor thay ar ryght likely of their bodys ; by which cause the said Kyng is compellid to make his armys and retennys for the defence of his land, of straungers, as Scotts, Spaniards, Arragonars, men of Almayn, and of other nacions ; els al his ennymys might overrenne hym ; for he hath no diffence of his own, excepte his castells, and fortrasis. Loo this the frute of hys Ji/s Regale. Yf the realme of England, which is an ile, and therefor may not lightly get socoures of other londs, were rulid under such a lawe, and under such a prince, it would conquere, robbe, and devouer yt ; which was well prouvyd in the tyme of the Brytons, whan the Scotts and the Pyctes so bette and oppressyd this lond, that the people therof soughte helpe of the R^jmayns, to whom they had byn tributorye. And whan thay could not be defendyd by them, they sought helpe of the Duke of Brytayne, than [ 40 ] than callid Litil Brytayne ; and grauntyd therfor to make his brother Constantine their Kyng. And so he was made Kyng heere, and raynyd many yers, and his children after hym, off which grete Arthiire was one of their yssue. But blessid be God, this lond ys ruled under a better lawe, and therfor the people therof be not in such penurye, nor therby hurt in their persons, but thay be wealthye and have al thyngs necessarye to the sustenaunce of nature. Wherfor thay be myghty, and able to re- syste the adversariis of the realme, and to bett other realmes, that do or will do them wrong. Loo this is the frute of Jus Poli- ticum ^ Regale, under which we lyve. Sumwhat now I have schewyd you of the frutys of bothlawys, Vt ex fructibiis eorum cognoscatis eos, &c '." The ^^ I have selected this chapter, as it exhibits a curioira picture of a country, which has lately been so much the object of men's thoughts, and which every friend to the welfare of mankind, and the peace and true interest and happiness of England, must wish blotted from the map of the world. When we reflect on the pernicious principles which have been made the basis of all their proceedings, and that their successive blood-stained rulers, not contented with desolating France by anarchy, depredation, and every species of sanguinary cruelty, have for these five years past en- deavoured [ 41 ] The following Letter is sele(fl:ed from the Paston Collection, as it exhibits the spelling and deavoured to light the fire-brands of sedition and misrule in this and every other country which their arts, or arms, or ill-gotten wealth could reach, it is impossible to contem- plate without horrour the period when it may be found convenient to enter into any kind of amity with such a nation. The only safety for us, in my apprehension, will be, to form a barrier to prevent any Frenchman ever enter- ing into this country ; which would naturally produce a similar prohibition on their part. This, I acknowledge, would only be a kind of smothered war : but unless some such measure be adopted, on the day on which any treaty of peace shall be signed with that nation, on that day will be signed the death-warrant of the Constitution of England. Its destruction indeed, will not be immediate : the man of narrow income will be pleased with the prospect of a diminution of taxes ; the merchant will look to his money- bags, and anticipate in imagination the commerce of the world ; the leveller and republican will clap his hands, and rejoice ; and the gay and inconsiderate will not per- ceive the ruin impending over our heads : but, ere a very few years shall have passed away, " This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, '• This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, " This other Eden, demi-paradise, " This fortress, built by nature for herself, ** Against infection, and the hand of war, - - - " This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, •• Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth, ' " This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, " Dear for her reputation through the world, G •' This [ 42 ] and phraseology of an English Princess. It was written, as Sir John Fenn conjectured, in the reign of Edward the Fourth, before 1 4*79, by Elizabeth, sister to that monarch and Richard the Third. She married, as he observes, John de la Pole Duke of Suffolk, and her son the Earl of Lincoln was declared by Richard after the death of his own son, heir to the crown. ** On to [Unto] Jan Paston in hast. Mastyr Paston I pray yow y* it may plese yow to leve your logeyng for iii. or fore^"* days tyll I may be porved*' of anodyr and I schal do as musche to yowr plesyr, for Godys sake say me not nay and I pray yow rekomaund me to my lord Cham- byrleyn.'''' gour frenD ^li^aftctft.*' " This England, that was wont to conquer others, •' Will make a shameful conquest of itself:" and, if we ourselves do not live to the fatal period, our children will see the fairest structure ever formed by human ingenuity, devested of all its glories, and levelled with the dust. *+ So the original, of which vl facsimile has been given. By some mistake in the printed letter we find for. *i Purveyed. *^ William, Lord Hastings. *' Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 202. The [ 43 ] ** The Christening of Prince Arthur.''' -- ** On St. Eustachius' day, which was in the year of our Lord m.cccc.lxxxvi. the Dominical letter A, and the ijde yere of the reigne of our saide Souveraigne, [Henry VII.] the Prince Arture was born at Winchester, whiche Avas the firste begotten sone of our said Souveraigne Lorde King Henry the Vllth, and cristened in manner and forme as ensueth, but not untill the Soneday next folowing, bycause th Erie of Oxynforde was at that tyme at Lanam in Suffolke, which shulde have ben on of the Godfaders, at the font, and also that season was al rayny. Incontynent after the birth, Te Deiwi with procession was songe in the cathedrall chirche, and in all the chyrches of that citie ; great and many fiers made in the streets, and messengers sent to al the astats and cities of the realme with that comfortable and good tydynge, to whom were geven great giftes. Over al Te Dciwi haudamiis songen, with ringyng of belles, and in the moest parties, fiers made in the praysing of God, and the rejoysing of every true Englisseman." *^ Leland's Collectanea, iv. 204. G 2 Sir [ 44 ] Sir Thomas More was bom in the year 1480, and is supposed to have written his History of Richard the Third about the year 151 3, when King Henry the Eighth had sat on the throne four years. The following passage in that work, which relates to a lady whom Shakspeare, and Rowe*s tragedy, have made well known to every class of readers, may compensate for some of the minute verbal disquisitions in which I shall have occasion very soon to engage. ** Now then by and bi, as it wer for anger, not for couetise, y^ Protector fent into y^ house of Shores wife, (for her husband dwelled not with her,) and spoiled her of al y^ ever she had, above y^ value of ii or iii M. marks, and sent her body to prison. And whan he had a while laide unto her, for the maner sake, y^ she went about to bewitch him, & y' she was of counsel with the lord Chaberlein to destroy him, in con- clusion when y^ no colour could fasten upon these matters, then he leyd heinously to her charge y"" thing y^ her self could not deny, that al y'' world wist was true, & that nathe- les every man laughed at to here it then so sodainly so highly taken , y' she was nought [naught] [ 45 ] [naught] of her body. And for this cause as a goodly continent prince clene and fautles of him self, sent out of heaven into this vicious world for the amendment of mens maners, he caused the bishop of London to put her to open penance, going before the crosse in procession upon a sonday with a taper in her hand. In which she went in countenance & pace demure so womanly, & albeit she were out of al array, save her kyrtle only, yet went she so fair & lovely, namely e, while the wonderinge of the people caste a comly rud in her chekes, (of whiche she before had most misse,) that her great shame wan her much praise among those that were more amorous of her body then curious of her soule. And many good folke also y^ hated her living, & glad wer to se sin corrected, yet pitied thei more her penance then rejoyced therin, when thei considred that y^ Protector procured it, more of a corrupt intent then ani vertuous affeccion. *' This w^oman was born in London, worshipfully frended, honestly brought up, and very wel maryed, saving somwhat to sone J her husbande an honest citezen, yong & goodly, & of good substance. But for- asmuche [ 46 ] asmuche as they were coupled ere she wer wel ripe, she not very fervently loved for whom she never longed. Which was happely the thinge that the more easily made her encline unto y^ Kings appetite, when he required her. Howbeit y^ respect of his royaltie, y^ hope of gay apparel, case, plea- sure, and other wanton welth, was hable soone to perse a softe tender hearte. But when the King had abused her, anon her husband, (as he was an honest man and one that could his good) not presuming to touch a Kinges concubine, left her up to him al togither. When the King died, the Lord Chaberlen toke her. Which in the Kinges daies, albeit he was sore ennamored upon her, yet he forbare her, either for reverence or for a certain frendly faithfulnes. Proper she was & faire : nothing in her body you wold have changed, but if you would have wished her somewhat higher. Thus say thei y^ knew her in her youthe. Albeit some that now se her (for yet she leveth) deme her never to have ben wel visag^ed. Whose jugement semeth me somwhat like, as though men should gesse y= bewty of one long before departed by her scalpe taken out of the charnel-house : for now is she old, lene, [ 47 ] lene, withered & dried up, nothing left but ryvilde skin & hard bone. And yet being even such, whoso wel advise her visage, might gesse which partes, how filled, wold make it a faire face. Yet delited not men so much in her bewty, as in her ple- sant behauiour. For a proper wit had she, & could both rede wel & writer mery in company, redy & quick of aunswer, neither mute nor ful of bable, sometime taunting without displeasure & not with- out disport. The King would say that he had iii. concubines, which in three divers properties diversly exceled : one the meriest, an other the wiliest, the thirde the holiest harlot in his realme, as one whom no man could get out of y^ church lightly to any place, but it wer to his bed. The other two were somwhat greter parsonages, & natheles of their humilitie content to be nameles, and to forbere the praise of those properties. But the meriest was this Shores wife, in whom the King therfore toke speciall pleasure. For many he had, but her he louedj whose fauour, to sai the trouth, (for sinne it wer to belie y' deuil) she neuer abused to any mans hurt, but to many a mans comfort & relief: where the [ 48 ] the King toke displeasure, she would miti- gate and appease his mind; where men were out of fauour, she wold bring them in his grace. For many that had highly- offended, shee obtained pardon. Of great forfetures she gate men remission. And finally in many weighty sutes she stode many men in grete sted, either for none or very smal rewardes, & those rather gay then rich : either for that she was content with the dede selfe well done, or for that she delited to be suid vnto, & to show what she was able to do wyth the King, or for that wanton women and welthy be not alway covetouse. ••I DOUBT not some shal think this woman to sleight a thing to be written of & set amonge the remembraunces of great matters : which thei shal specially think, y^ happely shal esteme her only by y^ thei ■now see her. But me semeth the chaunce so much the more worthy to be remembred, in how much she is now in the more beggerly condicion, unfrended and worne out of acquaintance, after good substance, after as gret fauour with the prince, after as grete sute 6c seking to with al those y^ in [ 49 ] in those days had busynes to spede, as many other men were in their times, which be now famoiise only by the infamy of their il dedes. Her doinges were not much lesse, albeit thei be muche lesse remembred, be- cause thei were not so evil. For men vse, if they have an euil turne, to write it in marble ; & whoso doth vs a good tourne, we write it in duste; which is not worst proued by her, for at this daye shee beggeth of many at this daye lining, y* at this day had begged if she had not bene."*'^ ** TI?e Christening of Prince Edward, the most dearest sonne of King Henry 8//?, of that Na7)ie.^'' ** By the provision of the living God on the 1 2th day of October the Feast of St. *'^The Workes of Sir Thomas More, p. 56. Rastell's edit. 1557. I have adhered faithfully to the original spelling, but have in general supplied the w'i and ns, which it was the fashion of that time frequently to Aamit in writing, (placing a mark of abbreviation over the word) and still oftner in printed books, for the sake of getting a certain number of words into a line. Me for men, set for sent, and Lodd for London, would hardly have been intelligible to a modern reader. '" Leland's Collectanea, ii. 670. H Wilfride, [ 50 ] Wilfride, the vigil of St. Edward, which was on the Friday, about 2 of the clock in the morning was borne at hampton court, Edward, sonne to King Henry the 8th, in the yeare of our Lord one m.v.xxxvii ;* the Dominical! letter was G. in the xxixth yeare of the reigne of our Souveraigne Lord ; which was not christened till the Monday next following. ** Incontinent after the birth, Te Deiim was song in the cathedrall church of Paules, right solempnly, and in all the other churches of london; and many great fires in every streete, and so continued till night. And there was there goodly banqueting and triumphing, with shooting of gunns all day and night in the goodliest manner that might be devised. And messengers were sent to all the Estates and citties of the realme of that most joy full and comfortable tydings, to whome were given great and large gifts. And over all Te Deum was sung with ringing of bells, and in the most part fiers. made in praise of God, and rejoycing of all Englishmen. * In the original there was probably a C. over the first Y. which the editor of Leland's Collectanea has omitted, I '* The [ 51 J ** T^he Preparations orJei?ied for the said Christening at hampton court. ** First, The going to the church began at the presence lodging, convayed through the counsell chamber to the gallary leading through the Kings great chamber, and so through the hall and the second court to the gallary that goeth to the chappell, standing all that way torches borne by the Kings servants and other noblemens servants, and all that way barred where no walles be, and richly hung, and strawed with rushes. •' At the chappell dore a large porch, and the same covered with rich cloth of gould or arras, and double hanged with arras rich, and the flore horded, and covered with carpetts. - - - *' This order was followed for ffoino^ from the Princes lodging to the christening. " First certein Gentlemen, Esquires & Knights. ** Then the 3 Lords Chamberleins, and the Lord Chamberlein of England m the middest. *' Then the Chrysom richly garnished, borne by the Lady Elizabeth, the Kings daughter : the same lady, for her tender age, H a, was [ 52 ] was borne by the Viscount Beauchamp, with the assistance of the Lord Morley,'* &c. From the Songes and Sonettes of Lord Surrey, I select the following short poem written by an uncertain author, about the year 1 54O. T^he Loner declareth his paines to excede far the paines of hell. "The souks that lacked grace, " Which lye in bitter paine, " Are not in such a place, " As foolish folke do faine : " Tormented all with fire, " And boile in leade againe, " With serpents full of ire, " Stong oft with deadly paine ; *^Then cast in frosen pittes, " To freze there certaine howers ; " And for their painfull fittes, *' Apointed tormentours. " No, no, it is not so, " Their sorow is not such : " And yet they haue of wo, " I dare say twise as much j ** Which comes because they lack " The sight of the Godhed, " And be from that kept back " Wherewith are aungels fed. " This [ 53 ] " This thing knov/ I by loue, " Through absence, crueltie, " Which makes me for to prone - " Hell pain before I dye. " There is no tong can tell " My thousand part of care ; " Ther may no fire in hell " With my desire compare. " No boyling leade can pas " My scalding sighes in hete j " Nor snake that euer was, " With stino;inpr can so frete '^ A true and tender hert, " As my though tes dayly doe ; *^ So that I know but smart, " And that which longes thereto. " O Cupid, Venus son, " As thou hast showed thy might " And hast this conquest woon, " Now end the same aright : ". And as I am thy slaue, " Contented with all this, " So helpe me soone to haue " My parfect earthly blisse." ^' '■ SoNGES AND SoNETTEsby Henry Hawardc, late earle of Surrey, -and other. Printed for Richard Tottel ; 8vo. 1557- In [ 54 ] In February 1548-9, the Protector and Council were apprehensive that too great famiharity subsisted between the Princess Ehzabeth and Lord Seymour, brother to the Protector, and then Lord High Admiral of England, which might end in their mar- riage ; Seymour having recently lost his wife, Queen Catharine Parr, the widow of Henry the Eighth, who died in childbed in Sept. 1548, at Sudley in Glocestershire. On that occasion the young Princess, inconse- quence of the Confessions of Thomas Parry her Cofferer, and Catharine Aschylye, (or Ashley) one of her female attendants, was her- self personally examined at Hatfield ; and her Confession (a very innocent one) is preserved among the Burghley Papers. It consists of eleven Articles, and the concluding para- graph ; but this paragraph and the first article, alone, being in her own hand-writing, and printed from the original, I shall confine myself to those only : and in the present inquiry it may be curious to compare her orthography with that which has been attri- buted to her near forty years afterwards ; Tht [ 55 ] ne Confession of the Lady Elezabeyths Grace. I. ** Kat. Aschylye tolde me, after that my Lord Admiralde was maried to the Quene, that if my Lorde migth haue had his owne wil, he wolde haue had me, afore the Quene. Than I asked her how she knewe that : than she sayd, she knewe it wel inougth, bothe by him selfe and by others. The place, wher she said this, I haue forgotten, for she hathe spoken to me of him manye times, and of the wiche I haue forgotten divers times . [The second and the nine following Articles are in the hand- writing of Mr. Tyrwhitt. Then the Princess added in her own hand- writing what follows.] ** My Lorde, thes ar the Articles wiche I do remember j that bothe she and the Coferar talked with me of ; and if ther be anye moe behind, wiche I have not declared as yet, I shall most hartely desire your Lordship and the rest of the Counsel, not to thinke that I do willingeli concille them, but that I have indide fyrgotteii them. For [ 56 ] if I did knowe them, and did not declare them, I wer wonderfully e and aboue al the reste to be rebuked, consideringe how frindely your Grace has bothe writen to me in Letters, and conselled me by messages, to declare what I knowe hirein. Also I assure your Lordship that if ther be any more wiche I haue not tolde (wiche I thinke there be not) I wil send you wordeof them, as the come to my minde. Your assured frende to my litel power, Elizabeth.'^ The Dedication of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, written probably about the year 1580, will furnish us with the familia^r address and orthography of that time. *' To My Dcare Lady and Sister^ the Covntesse of Pembroke. '* Here now haue you (most deare, and most worthye to bee most deare Lady,) this idle worke of mine : which I feare (like the spiders webbe) will be thought fitter ^* BuRGHLEY Papers, Vol. i. p. 102. to [ 57 ] to be swept away, then worne to any other purpose. For my part, in very trueth, (as the cruell fathers among the Greekes were woont to doe to the babes they would not foster,) I could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulnesse this childe, which I am loath to father. But you desired me to doe it, and your desire to my heart is an absolute commaundement. Now, it is done onely for you, only to yow : if you keep it to your self, or to such, friends, who will weigh errors in the bal- lance of good will, 1 hope, for the fathers sake, it will be pardoned, perchaunce made much of, though in it selfe it have deformi- ties. For, indeed, for seuerer eies it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. \ our deare selfe can best witnes the manner, being done in loose sheetes of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest, by sheetes sent vnto you, as fast as they were done. In summe, a young head, not so wel staied as I would it were, (and shall be when God will,) hauing many many fancies begotten in it, if it had not beene in some way deliuered, woulde haue growen a monster ; and more sorie might I be that they came in, then that they gat out. But his chiefe safetie shall be, I the [ 58 ] the not walking abroade, and his chief pro- tection, the bearing the Huery of your name ; which (if much much good will doe not de- ceiue me) is worthie to be a fanctuarie for a greater offender. This say I, because I know the vertue so ; and this say I, because it may be euer so, or to say better, because it will be euer so. Reade it then at your idle times ; and the follies your good iudgement will finde in it, blame not, but laugh at. And so looking for no better stuffe, then, as in a haberdashers shoppe, glasses, or feathers, you will continue to loue the writer, who doth exceedingly loue you, and moste moste heartilie praies you may long line, to be a principall ornament to the family of the Sidneis. Your louing brother, Philip Sidney."'^ / From Puttenham*s Arte of English PoESiE, published in 1589, I select the following passage, because it contains some, of the poetry of our Virgin Queen, probably in her own orthography : 53 Not having the original quarto edition of 1590, 1 quote from the folio, 1593. , ** So [ 59 ] '* So doth this figure, which therefore I call the Gorgious, polish our speech, and as it were attire it with copious and pleasant amplifications, and much varietie of sen- tences all running vpon one point, & to one intet j so as I doubt whether I may terme it a figure, or rather a masse of many figurative speaches, applied to the bewtify- ing of our tale or argumet. In a worke of ours intituled Phi log alia, we have strained to shew the vse & application of this figure and all others mentioned in this booke ; to which we ref^rre you. I find none example in Englishe meetre, so well maintayning this figure as that dittie of her Maiesties owne making, passing sweete and harmonicall, which figure beyng, as his very originall name purporteth, the most bewtifull and gorgious of all others, it asketh in reason to be reserued for a last coinplement^ and desciphred by the arte ot a Ladies penne, her selfe beyng the most bewtifull, or rather bewtie of Queenes. And this was the occasion : Our soueraigne Lady perceiuing how by the Sc. Q^ [Scottish Queen's] residence within this realme at so J9 His LucRECE he thus presented to the same nobleman, about a year afterwards : ** To the Right Honourable^ Henry Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton, ^W Baron ofTichfield. '^' The loue I dedicate to your Lordship is without end j whereof this pamphlet with- out beginning is but a superfluous moity. *9 Venus AND Adonis, i6mo. 1596. — This poem was entered on die Stationers' Books, by Richard Field, April 18, 1593 ; and I long fince conjectured that it was printed in that year, though I have never seen an earlier edition than that above quoted, which is in my possession. Since I pub- lished that poem my conjecture has been confirmed, beyond a doubt ; the following entry having been found in an an- cient MS. Diary, which some time since was in the hands of an acquaintance of Mr. Steevens, by whom it was com- municated to me : " 12th of June, 1593. For the Survay of Fraunce, with the Venus and Athonay p"" Shakspere, xii.d." K 2 The [ 68 ] The warrant I have of your Honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutord lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I haue done is yours, what I haue to doe is yours, being part in all I haue. deuoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew greater; meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life still lengthned with all hap- pinesse. Your Lordships in all duety, William Shakespeare."^" It is wholly unnecessary to make any observations on these genuine specimens of the orthography and language of Shakspeare's age, as well as of the preceding century. Without the aid of other specimens of Elizabeth's own orthography, almost at the very period to which her Letter must be referred, (which will be given hereafter,) they prove decisively and at the first view, that the paper before us, in which such laboured and capricious deformity of spelling *° Rape of Lucrece, 4-to. 1594. This poem was entered on the Stationers' Books, May 9, 1594, by John Harrison, sen. by whom it was published. is [ 69 ] is introduced, was not written by her Ma- jesty, but is an entire forgery. The spelling, however, of two or three words in this royal epistle demands par- ticular notice. Master re was not the spell- ing of the word Master at this period, but Maister,^' The omission of the letter r 4' Out of an hundred instances that might be produced in proof of this assertion, I shall give only the following : AS'ighte of the Portugal Pearle, that is, the ajiswere of D. Haddon, Maister of the Requests unto our souveraigne Lady Elizabeth, &c. i6^. 1565. So, The Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piemont, Sec. 4to. 1595. Palladis Tarnia^ Wits Treasury^ &c. by Francis Meres, Maister of Arts, 8vo. 1598. — " Unto this Maister D. Gager replying, and desiring Maister Rainoldes to forbcare, Maister Rainoldes did rejoine as foUoweth." [30 May, 1 593-] T/>' Overthrow of Stage-Playes, 4to. 1599. So, in the Ret urne from Parnassus, 1606. " Kempe. It is good manners to follow us, Maister Philomusus, and Maister Otioso." So also in a Letter written by Qiieen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Sidney, in 1565, printed from the original at Penshurst, Sydney Papers, vol. i. p. 7. " Let this Memoriall be only committed to Vulcanes base keping, without any longer abode than the leasure of the reding therof, yea, and with no mention made therof to any other wight. I charge you, as I may comande you, seme not to have had but Secretaries letters from mc. Your lovinge Alaistres, Elizabeth R." The elder spelling of this word, Mastyr, may be found in the Paston Letters, ii. 292. in E 70 ] in Chamber lay ne is unprecedented. If the Queen had chosen to omit any letter in that word, it would have been the m : and Cham- berlain, not Chamberlayne, was, I think, the 'Spelling of that period of her reign : but this is of little consequence, londonne is more material, for no example of such orthography can, I believe, be produced. Even Robert of Gloucester, who flourished in the time of Edward the First, might have taught our forger that London was ** lighter in the mouth.*** In 1449, Margaret Paston wrote LONDON. In Aggas*s Map of that city, which appears to have been executed in 1568, we find it written in the same way; and throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth, the Burghley and Sydney Papers shew that there was no variation in the orthography of this word. — The next, and a still more fatal objection lies to Hamptowne. Though Hampton-Court, which was given to Henry the Eighth by Cardinal Wolsey in 1526, does not seem to have been so favourite a residence with her Majesty, as Greenwich, Nonesuch, and Richmond, she occasionally * " And now me clepcj) it London, ])at ys lygter in fe inou)>." passed [ V ] passed some time there, and had probably in the course of her reign signed several hundred state-papers issued from thence, and regidarly dated frotn the Ho?iour of Hcunpton ' Court : ^"^ yet this learned and accomplished Qiieen, who was mistress of eight languages/' is here exhibited as such a dolt as not only not to know the true orthography of a word thus familiar to her, but not to be able to distinguish her palace from the neighbouring town : and to mend the matter, she is made to give to the toivn a termination entirely repugnant to the genius and analogy of the English language, in •** Such was the almost uniform spelling of the time, as far as relates to the first part of this compounded word, which never was separated till the publication of these Papers. See BuRGHLEY Papers, 1.4; Hawpton-Corte \ i. 6^ & 574, Hampton-Court. Sydney Papers, i. J-'6, 354; ii. 31 1.312, Hafjipton-Coorte : i. 233, 235; Ii. ^07, Hcwipton-Com-te. i. 272, Hampton-Courgbt. See also Nordcn's speculum, 1593, p. 26: " Hampton-Court, an Honour of Qiieen Elizabethes, a regall palace, statelie raysed of bricke. It is called Hampton-Court, of the parish of Hampton,\^\\\i:\\ standeth not farre thence," &c. Since the above was written, I have met with one solitary instance of Hamptown-QomX, written by a clerk, 0£t. 14, 1562, [Forbes's State Papers, ii. 109,] which proba- bly gave rise to the speHing adopted in this forged letter. •^5 Florio's First Frutes, 4to. 157B. Hentzner, Itin. 4to. 1598. 1 which [ 72 ] which the Saxon ton is found to form the final syllable of many hundred names of places. But all these misnomers are trivial, compared with her not knowing the tme orthography of the name of Leycester, for which we have here — heycesterre. Her uni- form attachment to that nobleman for the first thirty years of her reign, (excepting some little coldness while he was Govemor of the Netherlands,) is so well known, that it makes a part of the scandalous chronicle of those times. Probably, scarce a day passed during that period without her seeing his name written, as he always wrote it, Ley- c ESTER; and how fairly and legibly he wrote, may be seen by looking on Plate II, where a fac-smile of his autograph will be found, from an original in my possession, written on the 30th of June, 1585. The old spelling of this title in the preceding century was not heycesterre^ but hey c est re ; but the nobleman with whom we are con- cerned uniformly wrote it heycester^ as may be seen by looking into the Burgh] ey and Sydney Papers, and other ancient documents. The Queen, it is well known, constantly attended [ 73 ] attended the sittings of her Privy Council, and took so active a part in what was doing, that we may be sure she perused the Register of each day*s proceedings ^ which she could not look at without the name of Leycester almost constantly presenting itself to her, while he was in England (a list of the Counsellors present each day being always set down) ; and in addition to all these circumstances, during the last three years of this nobleman *s life, the greater part of which he passed in a high station abroad, she must have had innumerable Letters from him. With respect to all the other minute deformities of spelling in this Letter, I shall content myself with merely referring to a curious comparison between her real and fictitious orthography, given below/^* I NOW 44 In the BuRGHLEY Papers, i. 102, are two para- graphs written by Elizabeth herself in 154(^-9, (and printed^ from the original,) which have been given in a former page. In the Sydney Papers, i. 7, is an entire Letter written by her in 1569. — Other specimens will hereafter be given from the Cotton Library and the Heralds-Office. The gross variation in this pretended letter from the Qijeen's orthography, in several particulars beside those already noticed, will appear at one view from the following table, (for the scheme of which I am indebted to a friend,) which exhibits such words as occur both in these authentick papers, L and [ 74 ] 2. I NOW come to the Language and Phraseology. — The first word that occurs worthy of notice ispretty, — '* Wee did receive and her spurious Letter. The figure annexed denotes how often the word is repeated. Spurious Letter. Examin. Burghley Pap. i, ro2. Letter, Letters, Syd. Pap. Cotton i. 7. MSS. Letter to Shrews- bun-, MS. you re goode off ande wee (3) doe onne theyre shalle from me toe (2) forre where beste thatte before oure usse (3) bee butte comme bye asse withe atte your (4) of (3) and (6) do (2) shall tof6) for that (4) be (4) but come by as (2) with your (7J good {4} of (6) and (8) we (3) do (2) on ther/cr [their] (4) shall (3) from (2) to fio) for\2) . whare{i) wher [i] best that (8) befor (i) our (3) us Ci) be (13} but (2} come (3} by as (6) with (4) at(t] your good of and to your of for (2) that with • your [ 75 ] y our /)r^//y verses j" which was not, I think, the language of the time. Shakspeare indeed, and Ralegh, have — pretty tales, which approaches somewhat near to the other; but both of them use tale in the sense of a narrative or entertaining story related: and I doubt much whether the epithet pretty was then applied to writtefi compositions. On this objection, however, I do not much rely j and here, once for all, I enter my protest against the triumph of those who may produce ancient examples of the usage of certain words to which I object only as doubtful. If indeed, where I make a firm stand, and attempt to prove, as far as a negative can be proved, that the word did not exist at that time, I shall be found mistaken, there may be some ground for triumph : but even here, though my critical . sagacity or knowledge may be impeached, nothing less than a complete refutation of all the verbal , objections will be sufficient to establish the authenticity of this or any other of the papers we are now considering : since if out of four objections one only should be found incontrovertible, it will establish the spuriousness of the piece in question as well as four hundred. — I need not employ many L 2 words [ 76 ] words to shew, that no manuscript alleged to have been written in the age of Queen Eliza- beth, can be genuine, in which a single word is found which was not in use till several years, or perhaps an age, after her death. After acknowledging the receipt of our poet*s pretty verses, her Majesty proceeds to complement him on their great excellence. Now unfortunately no such verb active as to complement^ in this sense, was known in that age, nor for some time afterwards : and when it did come into use, it was always, coupled with a preposition not found here. To begin with the substantive, comple- menter for so it was then spelt. Barrett in his Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionary, 1 580, has it not : but in 1 589 we find it used by Puttenham, in a passage already quoted from his Arte of " Poesie,"^' and in the sense which the word then universally bore, that of ** completing ox filling up. ^^ In Caw- drey's Alphabetical Table of hard words, 8vo. 1604, ^^ ^^ defined '* a perfecting of any thing.'' Bullokar in his English Expositor, 8vo. 161 6, brings it a little ^^ See p. 59. nearer [ 77 ] nearer to its present acceptation, interpreting it — ** Fulness; perfection; fine behaviour.'** And so our poet himself in his love*s labour's lost : " A man of complements, whom right and wrong " Have chose as umpire of their mutiny." i. e. a man adorned with all those accom- plishments, which are ** the varnish of a complete man.** Again, in k. henry v. where the word has the same sense ; *' Garnish'd anddeck'd in modest complement,'' Even in 1611, the French word compli- 7ne7it does not seem to have been yet in- troduced into that language, for Cotgrave, whose dictionary was published in that year, has it not ; and from Howel's republication of that work in 1650, compared with Sherwood's English and French Vocabulary subjoined to it, one might be led to suppose that our present word compliment was not borrowed from the French, as Dr. Johnson supposed, but their word from us : for Howel in the French part has it not ; and Sherwood, in whose Vocabulary it appears, (spelt — • [ 78 ] (spelt — complement,) renders it not by the French word compliment, but by entretien ; as he does complements hy fressurades, cere- monies. However this may be, Shakspeare himself, after the death of Elizabeth, seems to have used the substantive in one of his late plays [twelfth-night] with the same signification as is now affixed to it ; as Sydney had done before him : " My servant, Sir ; — 'twas never merry world, *' Since lowly feigning was call'd complement.'* yet even here it may mean accomplishment. In Edward Philips's New World of Words, which, I think, first appeared in 1659, we have complement in its original and secondary sense: *' A filling up ; also ceremony in speech and behaviour :" and in Cole's ENGLISH DICTIONARY, 1685, *■*■ Cofnpletnent ; a filling up: also a choice of the best words to express our minds by j and (corruptly) too much ceremony in speech and behaviour." The same author in his LATIN DICTIONARY, (the early edition of which in 410. 1679, throws much light on our old language,) has — '* Comple- ment, blandimentum, fucus." But all this while [ 79 ] while we find no trace in anywrlterof the age of EHzabeth, of the verb active — '* to com- plement," and therefore, till some instance shall be produced, I have a right to assume that it did not exist. Nor, if it had existed, would it exempt this letter from the charge of forgery ; for when it was first used, it was always accompanied by the preposition with. Thus in Sherwood*s Vocabulary, 1650, ** To complement i^y/zi? ; entretenir;" and in Cole's Latin Diet. 1679, ** To complement with ; ablandire^ blandis et benignis verbis et gestibus excipere.'' Glanvill about this period used the verb without the adjunct with, if the quotation from that writer given by Dr. Johnson be correct; and probably he was the first who discarded that appendage. Thus therefore we see that the verb active to compliment was so far from being known in the age of Elizabeth, that it was not in use for half a century afterwards ; and when it was introduced, it was not employed as it appears in this spurious epistle, but was always accompanied with the adjunct with, placed before the person addressed. On the excellence of Shakspeare's verses, I have not much to say; but I call upon I those [ 8o ] those who may be inclined to maintain the authenticity of this Letter, to produce any example of that word being applied in his age to denote the purity or goodness of written compositions, whether in prose oir verse : I know of no such example. The next word that demands our attention is oureselfe. Those v/ho have the slightest knowledge of English grammar need not be told, that the capricious word self is some- times considered as a substantive, and some- times as an adjective ; and that when used with the personal pronouns or pronominal adjectives, though joined in construction with them, it was formerly always written separately. In no instance have I ever found in any manuscript of the age of Elizabeth the words, our self ^ yourself^ &c. written as one word ; though sometimes (but very rarely) such a combination may be found in printed books, either from the compositor's carelessness, or want of room. The uniform mode of writing at that time, and long after- wards, was, our selfe ; your selves i See. This observation alone, without any other aid, would be fatal to the letter before us. When [ 8i ] When we next find that oiir poet is ordered by the Queen to attend with his best actors, in order to amuze her, what opinion can we entertain of the writer of this Letter, but that he knew no more of the language he en- deavoured to imitate, than of the manners and history of the time. The word amuze^ in its prese?2t sense ^ is perfectly modern. — As it certainly came to us from the French, let us first attend to Cotgrave's definition of it in 1611 : '* Amuser. To amuse, to make to muse or think of, wonder or gaze at ; to put into a dumpe ; to stay, hold or delay from going forward by discourse, questions, or any other amusements.** — ** Amuse-foL One that with vaine pratling or toying holds fond people at gaze.** — It is in this instance perfectly unnecessary to turn to Barrett, Cawdrey, Bullokar, Sherwood, Cockeram, or Philips. Coles is the first English Lexicographer, (that I have seen,) who has the word. In his English Dictionary, of which I know not the first edition, (mine is that of 1685,) ^^ ^'^^ — ** ^^ ajnuse^ put in a dump j** which in his Latin work, (1679) he renders — '* Detineo, a?2i??iu?n ifi spectaculo occupare.'*^ In that work he adds — " To M amuse [ 82 ] amuse (with words), aliquem inanibus verbis ducere, trahere^ morari, ludifcari.** The first writer (that I know of) who has the word even in a kindred sense to that in which it is now used, is the author of THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN, who in that excellent work entitled the decay of PIETY, says, " — they think they see visions, and are arrived at extraordinary ^revelations, when indeed they do but dream dreams, and amuse themselves with the fan- tastical ideas of a busy imagination.** I have not time to examine the original, though it is close at hand, but quote the passage as given by Dr. Johnson. Yet even here it piay mean to deceive, — Of the word amuse- ment, in its present sense, Rogers, the divine, has furnished that Lexicographer with the first example. Even so late a writer as Kersey, in 1708, gives no other definition of the verb to amuse ^ than — ** to stop or stay one with a trifling story ; to feed with yain expectation ; to hold in play." 3. Having now done with the lan- guage of this letter, I proceed to consider the [ 83 ] the other incongruous circumstances attend- ing it; — the superscription, the negative date, &c. Her Majesty, your lordship will observe, instead of sending this Letter to Master William Shakspeare, by one of her ordinary messengers or grooms of the cham- ber, or by the proper officer, the Master of the Revels, to honour the poet still more superscribes it herself, not indeed precisely in the fashion of a Letter sent by the modern penny-post, but with the formality of those epistles which in her time were conveyed by common carriers, or state-messengers, from one part of the kingdom to the other : ** For Master William Shakspeare atte the Globe bye Thames.'* Had she added — ** deliver these with speede," — or ** Hast, hast, post hast for thy lif,'" it would have been complete. To prevent a possibility of its miscarrying, in her superscription she writes the first letter of the word For in that print-like mode which she observed in her sign-manual : and the reason is ob- vious j the true writer, as you will presently see, had no other archetype before him. But where is this Letter to find the poet ? — ** at the Globe by Thames.*' So that we are to suppose there was no other house or tavern M z in [ 84 ] ih London or South wark, to which the Globe was a sign, but the theatre here in- tended to be described ; and on which side of the Thames it lay, whether north or south, the messenger was to find out as he could ; if he did but perambulate iy Thames long enough, first on one side of the river, and then on the other, he could not fail of stumbling upon it. Unluckily, however, the Globe theatre was not built at the time to which this Letter must be referred ; and when it was built, it was not situated by names, but in Maiden-lane, a street in Southwark at some distance from the river, as is proved by an authentick document in jTiy possession. In Aggas's Map of London, which is supposed to have been executed in 1 568, and had perhaps an earlier date, there are two buildings in Southwark, one appropriated to 'Boll e -bay tinge, the other, which is more to the east, to Bear c-bay tinge, but no theatre is delineated or mentioned : nor is there any found in Virtue's m.ap of London in 1 560, or in that by Braun and Hogenbergius, in 1573. The Itinerary of Chy tragus, a German, who visifed London in 1579, shews that no [ 85 ] ho such building then existed in Southwark ; for had it existed, he without doubt would have alluded to it, as his countryman Hentz- ner did about twenty years afterwards : " Opposita in Thamesis ripa longa area parvis " Distincta aspicitur tectis, ubi magna canum vis " Ursorumque alitur, diversarumque ferarum, " Quse canibus commissse Anglic spectacula prae- bent " Hospitibusque novis, vincti dum prslia mis- cent, " Luctanctes aut ungue fero vel dentibus uncis, " Totius ast urbisquam sit preciosa supellex, " Parietibus quam sint storcce, pictique tapetes " Inducti egregie, ut juncis herbisque virescant " Strata pavimenta, atque hominum quam mundus amictus, " Omnia quid numerare refert ?" ''^ I DO not, however, mean to say that there were no plays exhibited in Southwark at that period, (for I have authentick proofs to the contrary in my possession,) but that there was no regular theatre on the Bankside expressly built for scenick exhibitions. The drama- -♦J Nath. Chytraei Poemata, 8vo. 1579. Iter Anglic am, p. 170. tick [ 86 ] tick performances were at that time either in yards of inns, or in other buildings occasionally employed for that purpose.—- In Norden's Map of London in 1593, is found the first delineation of a playhouse in South warkj but this was not the globe, but the Rose Theatre, which was so deno- minated from Rose-Alley near which it stood, as the Globe probably derived its name from Globe- Alley. The Rose Theatre, of which the total cost was 103I. 2s. yd., was built by Mr. Philip Henslowe in 1592, and opened by him in that year, as appears from his theatrical Register now before me. Norden in his Map only calls it T^he Play- house^ its name probably not having then become familiarly known ,• but that thii was the theatre there mentioned, may be deduced from other circumstances. A few weeks before I published the History of the English Stage, I discovered a Contract made the 8th of January 1 599-1 600, be- tween Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn the player, on the one payt, and Peter Streete, a carpenter, on the other, for building the For- tune Playhouse near Golding-Lane j which ascertained the dimensions and plan of the Globe theatre, there called ** the late-erected playhouse [ 87 ] playhouse on the Bank," &c.^^ and I have since discovered a Bond executed by Bur- badge the player to this very Peter Streete, on the 22d of Dec. 1593, (which has fur- nished me with the autograph from which the fciC'simile in Plate II. N". xiv. is taken,) -for the performance of all the covenants contained ** in a certaine paire of Indentures of Articles of agreement, of the date above- mentioned, made between the said Richard Burbadge and Peter Streete.** A similar Bond was doubtless executed by this car- penter to Burbadge ; and the Articles of Agreement probably related to the building of the Globe Theatre, and were similar to those between Streete and Alleyn, which have been already printed. ^^ This may fix the building of the Globe Theatre to the year 1594, and probably it was opened in that or the following year. Accordingly in the Map of London as it appeared in 1599, we see this theatre. There also, is -*^ Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, crown 8vo. 1790, Vol. I. P. II. p. 325. A firm believer in the authenticity of these MSS. contends that these words may very well allude to a playhouse erected /^/r/)' years before ! Comparative Review, &c. p. 53. ■♦' Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, ut supr. delineated [ 88 ] delineated a small theatre near it, more to the west, to which the modern pub- lisher has not affixed a name : it was the ROSE, which was much smaller than the GLOBE, and had already been noticed by Norden, though without a name, in the Map of 1593. The Rose theatre, which was thatched, and from the price it cost was probably very slight, fell into decay, I imagine about the middle of King James*s reign, if not sooner ; and there is no trace of it in the Map of London, &c. executed at Venice in 1629. Thus we see the Globe theatre did not exist at the time to which this letter must be referred ; for though the writer cautiously avoided putting a date to it, he has furnished us with a negative date by mentioning Lord Leycester as then living. The Letter therefore must be referred to some period antecedent to Sept. 1588, in the early part of which month that nobleman died.-*^ The ■♦* Burghley's Diary, in Murden's State Papers, p. 788. — The Escaetria, or Inquisition after the death of Lord Leycestei-, is not to be found in the Chapel of the Rolls; but it appears from the Sydney Papers, i. 75, that his Will was proved in Sept. 1588. I greater [ 89 ] greater part of the last three years of his life he spent abroad. On the 8th of December, 1^85, with a view to assist the United Provinces, he embarked with a considerable force for Flushing, and on the 25th of the following month he was sworn Governour of the Netherlands. He was almost the whole of the year 1586 abroad. In the October of that year he fought the battle of Zutphen, where unfortunately his nephews Sir Philip Sydney, loft his life. On the 23d of November following the earl returned to London, at which time the Queen was at Richmond -, and he continued in England till the 25th of June 1587, when he went to the Hague, and remained abroad till the latter end of that year. From the time of his return to his death was a period of about nine months, during the whole of which, I believe, he remained at home. This pretended Letter, therefore, if written subsequently to the 8th of December 1585, (and if, after what I have stated and have yet to state, it should find any partisan, I suppose he will not choose to refer it to an earlier period,) muft have been written either between the 23d of Nov. 1586, and the 25th of June 1587, or between the N months [ 90 ] months of December 1587 and Sept. 1588. Now it must also be shewn that the Queen was at Hampton- Court during some part of those two periods. The regular time for the exhibition of plays at Court was Christmas, Twelftide, (as it was called,) Candlemas, and Shrovetide. Accordingly, Shakspeare is very properly called upon to play before the Queen in the Holydayes. But^I am able to shew, beyond a doubt, that she was not at Hampton- Court during the holydays in either of the periods above mentioned. FoPv.MERLY, as is well known, the great officers of state removed with the Sovereign from palace to palace, and were accommo- dated with no very convenient apartments wherever the Court happened to reside.''* Hence 49 The following Letter written by the eldest daughter of John Duke of Northumberland, Lady Mary, the wife of Sir Henry and mother of Sir Philip Sydney, furnishes us with a curious view of the inconveniencies suffered on these occasions. It also affords a specimen of the orthography of a woman of high rank, at the period when it was written, which, though inaccurate enough, (as the orthography of ladies continued to be till the present century,) has no kind of resemblance to the fantastical mis-spelling attributed to Queen Elizabeth, Lord Southampton, &;c. The words in Italicks are particularly worthy of attention. To [ 91 ] Hence it is that we find so many old Letters dated y>-o;?z the Court-, that is, from the apartments [To Edmund Mollineux, Esq.] «* Molenex, ** I thoght ^(?5rt? to put you in remembance to moue my Lord Chamberlein, [Thomus RatclifFe, earl of Sussex,] in my Lord's name,* to haue some other roome then my chamber, for my Lord to haue his resort unto, as he was vvoont to haue ; or ells my Lord wilbe greatly trublcd, when he shall haue enny maters of di?pache : my lodginge, you see, beinge very lytle, and my sealfe continewaly syke, and not able to be mouche out of my bed. For the night tyme, on [one] roofe, with Gods grace, shall serue vs : for the day tyme the (^len will louke to haue my chamber always in a redines for her Majesties cominge thether ; and thoghe my Lord him sealfe cann be no impediment thearto by his owen presens, yet his Lordshipe, trustinge to no playce ells to be provyded/^/r him, wilbe, as 1 sayd before, trubled/sr want of a conuenient playce, for the dispache of souche people as shall haue occasion to come to him. Therefore 1 pray you, in my Lords owen name, moue my Lord of Sussex for a room for that purpose, and I will haue it hanged and lyned /ir him, with stoof from hens. I wish you not to be unmyndfull hearof ; and so for this tyme I leue you to the Almyghty. From Chiswicke, this xi of October, 157B. Your very assured louing Mistris and Frend, M. Sydney." The officers to whom the arrangernent of the apartments belonged, were on these occasions often put to great diffi- * Sir Henry Sydney was Lord President of Wales, N 2, culties. [ 92 ] apartments of the "Lord Treasurer or other great officer of state, where the Court then happened to be. The Privy Council in the time of EHzabeth consisted of a very small number, (not more than ten or twelve persons,) and their meetings, which were, I think, daily, were almost always held in whatever palace the Queen then inhabited. Hence the Registers of the Council ascer- tain the residence of the Queen. Now it appears from the Council-books that her Majesty spent the Christmas of the year 1586, at her favourite palace of Greenwich, and continued there till May 1587, when she went to Nonesuch ; from which she returned in June to Greenwich, where she continued the whole of that month, on the 25th of which Leycester left England. — cuhies. In 1574, when preparations were made at Arch- bishop Parker's palace at Croydon for the reception of the Qiieen and her Court, Mr. Bowyer, Gentleman-Usher of the black rod, writes, — ** if my lady of Oxford should come, I cannot then tell wher to place Mr. Hatton ; and for my Lady Carewe, here is no place with a chimney for her, but she must lay abrode by Mrs. Apparry and the rest of the Privye Chamber : for Mrs. Skelton there is no rome with chimneys. - - Here is as mytche as I have any wayes able to doo in this house." — From a MS. in the Library at Lambeth. Lysons's Environs of London, i. 174. So [ 93 ] So much for the first of the two periods which I have mentioned. Let us now see whether the second period will be more favourable to the amusement of her Majesty and her favourite. From the beginning of December 1587, to the 8th day of July 1588, she resided at Greenwich. On that day she went to Richmond, where she re- mained to the end of July. She then removed to St. James's, where she resided, making the most vigorous preparations against a second Spanish invasion, to the end of Sept. 1588 ; during which time the only excursion she made was to the Camp at Tilbury, (August 9th.)* when she pronounced that celebrated harangue recorded by all our historians. In neither of these periods does her Majesty appear ever to have been at Hampton-Court. Our great poet, your Lordship observes, is here addressed not as a noviciate or pro- * It has been suggested (Comparative Review, h Elizabeth's genuine hand-writing. — As the ^ name Elizabeth is an adumbration of her hand-writing, (though a most imperfect one,) and this forgery may be clearly proved without deriving any aid from thence, I might now immediately proceed to examine the writing of the letter itself: but as I have been informed that a deservedly emi- nent barrister, whose great practice makes him peculiarly conversant with the laws of evidence, has given some kind of sandion to these spurious papers, I shall, for the sake C 104 ] of my brethren of the bar, expend a little time on this supposed autograph ; that they may not be induced by so high an authority, on similar occasions, and in matters which to the generality of the world will appear of more importance than the question before us, ever to hazard an opinion without a mi- nute comparison of the pretended and real originals. — In the name which has been exhibited as the hand-writing of the Queen, there are no less than six grofs errors. The firfi: is, that it is too small for the period to which it must be referred. Sir William Musgrave obligingly furnished me with five autographs of her Majesty, two written in the first, the rest in the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth years of her reign. I am myself possessed of one written in her twenty eighth year; and in the facsimile plate, annexed, two others will be found. From these, and others which I have examined, it appears that her hand-writing gradually enlarged as she advanced in life ; and that in the year 1587 or 1588, it was at least a fourth, per- haps a third, larger than her writing when she came to the throne. And though there may have been some slight variation in her hand- writing in the same or nearly the same period, [ 105 ] period, as there is between N". II. and N\ III. on t\iQ facsimile plate, (written at no great distance of time from each other,) yet even the smallest of these is considerably larger than what we are now examining. The second error is, that the pretended autograph inclines sideways ; * whereas her genuine autographs are bolt-upright , In the print-like hand which she adopted for her sign-manual, she contrived the in- tricate flourish which she always placed under the first letter, so as to supply the lower stroke, and to render the letter perfect, and entire : but in her pretended autograph this not being done, we find an F instead of an E. This is the third deviation. The fourth is in the letter a. In the early part of her reign she formed the direct stroke of that letter like other persons : but by degrees it became higher than the cir- in/ a cular part : it never, however, reached to such a height as in the spurious autograph, nor v/as it ever open or looped at top : nor ever so disjoined as to appear, as it here does, like an /. * See Plate I. N°. I. [ io6 ] In all her autographs the b is closed at bottom either by being so formed, or by the flourish under it. Here it is open at bottom ; this is the fifth deviation : and the sixth is, that the R is not connected with the other letters by a line passing through the h. — Such is that perfect and unquestionable autograph, which satisfied such numerous examiners, many of whom are said to have declared that they had seen several autographs of Queen Elizabeth, and that they were as perfectly convinced of its genuineness, as they should have been if they had seen her Majesty write it. It is manifest that the fabricator of these papers either was possessed of one of the many autographs of this Queen which are extant, or relied upon 2i facsimile of it in a book which he was likely to examine for other purposes, (the Antiqjjarian Re- -PERTORY,) though he has made so misera- ble and imperfect an imitation of his arche- type ; but having no archetype whatfoever of her running or secretary hand, as it is called, he invented as well as he could; sometimes keeping that autograph in his eye, and sometimes deviating from it, just 6 fl^ [ 107 ] as caprice dictated. The genuine and spu- rious Alphabet which is given in Plate I. will shew at once that he had never seen any of her ordinary hand- writing. When she was little more than sixteen years old, her Master, Ascham, highly praises her for her caligraphy ;'"^ and from that time to a very late period of her life, a fairer, a more ^•* " Si quid Grasce Latineve scribat, manu ejus nihil pulchrius." Ascliam. Epistol. lib. i. p. 21. edit. 1703. " There are two original letters of hers [the Lady Eliza?- beth] yet remaining, (says Burnet,) writ to the Qt^ieen when she was with child of King Edward, the one in Italian, the other in English, both writ in a fair hand, the same that she wrote all the rest of her Ufe. But the conceits in that writ. in English are so pretty, that it will not be unaccept- able to the reader, to see this first blossome of so great a princess, when she was not full four years of age : she be- ing born in September 1533, and this writ in July 1537." Hist, of the Reform, vol. i. p. 2og. Burnet subjoins the letter, and does not seem to have once reflected that it might be the composition of an- other person. It was, without doubt, dictated to her by her governess, or some other person near her. Did ever any child of four years old compose such a sentence as this ? — «* I much rejoice in your health, with the well liking of the country ; with my humble thanks that your Grace wished me with you till I were weary of that countrey. Your highness were like to be combered, if I should not depart till I were weary being with you : although it were in the worst soil in the world, your presence would make it pleasant,** p z beautiful [ io8 ] beautiful, or more uniform hand-writing than her*s will not be found in any of the papers of that age. It very strongly resem- bles, as has been suggested to me, the very elegant hand-writino^ of the celebrated Dr. Dee, who occasionally addressed letters to her Majesty, which are still extant. In Plate I., I have contrasted part of the spurious Letter which has been now exa- mined, with two genuine specimens of Elizabeth's hand-writing. That marked N^ II. is the conclusion of a Letter ad- dressed to the King of Scotland, and dated the 26th of April, 1584. It is among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum; Ca- ligula, C. ix. p. 107. No part of the letter but the conclusion and the signature, (*' Your best wischinge Cousin and truely AfFectionated Sistar, Elizabeth R.") is in her hand- writing. The other specimen, which, as well as the former, was pointed out to me by the Rev. Mr. Ayscough of the Museum, is still more valuable and curious j because it furnishes us with a trait of manners, and a proof of that condescend- ing familiarity by which she won the hearts of her people. It is taken from an imperfect paper, [ 109 ] paper, of which the address, whether super- scribed or subjoined, is lost ; this fragment being pasted on a leaf in one of the volumes of the Cotton MSS. Vespasian, F. 3. p. 13. b. It is highly probable, as Mr. Planta of the Museum suggests to me, that it was addressed to Sir Henry Wallop, one of the ancestors of the present earl of Portsmouth, and a very distinguished cha- racter in that age. At the time her Majesty appears to have honoured him with this testimony of her regard, he was Vice-trea- surer and Treasurer at War in Ireland, and one of the Lords Justices of that kingdom, to which last high station he was advanced on the sixth of the preceding September, 1582, on the recall of Spencer's patron, the Lord Deputy Arthur Lord Grey. Sir Henry coming to England in 1591, he was in that year honoured with a royal visit at his seat at Farley Wallop, where her Majesty and her attendants were entertained for some days. He afterwards returned to Ireland, where he died April 14, 1599. " Elizabeth R. ** Trustie and right welbeloved, we greet [ "O ] greet you well, having had so long expe- rient of yo' good service done to us in that place where you are, and nowe of late espe- cially by yo"" carefull and diligent observa- tion of the affaires not only of that realme where you remaine as o'^ Leiger, but of the occurrents from other Contries, w'^ as matters greatly importing o' State here at home, and lykevv^ise ou' affaires abroade with other princes, you do alwaie both tymely and at large advertise hither : we cannot but greatly allowe and comend this yo' faithful service, and therfore for yo*" better encouragement to hould on this course in the same we thought it convenient by this o*^ owne Ire to signifie o*" good acceptation therof. We may not likewise forgett to yeld you thankes for sondrie presents you have heretofore sent unto us, and namely for yo' late newe yeares gifte. Last of all, towching yo' private sute unto us, we will have the same in such good remembrance as shall bee you shall here- after see to yo' comfort. Given under o"^ signett at o' Mano' of Richmond the xxiiijth of February in the xxvth yere of o' raigne [■582-3]-" There being a void space at the top of this I ai^t J^LT^ord^fio'^^ridp-fuJ ^^'Wc/rn^c'^' dog' ^//fe^/^e^ I tii 5= r P 'VkSumiidM_ ' 'r-- ^^y,(a^ V^.tt >. vVm c- /77^. ^i [ "7 ] Steevens and myself having most innocently- led the fabricator of all these novelties into a lamentable error, which alone, v/ithout any other consideration, would prove be- yond a doubt the forgery of the whole heterogeneous mass. In the year 1776 Mr. Steevens, in my presence, traced with the utmost accuracy the three signatures affixed by the poet to his Will. While two of these [N\ xi. and xii. in Plate II.] manifestly appeared to us Shakspere^ we conceived that in the third [N°. xiii.] there was a variation; and that in the second syllable an a was found. Accordingly we have constantly so exhibited the poet's name ever fince that time. It ought certainly to have struck us as a very extraordinary circumstance, that a man should write his name twice one way, and once another, on the same paper : however it did not j and I had no suspicion of our mistake, till, about three years ago, I re- ceived a very sensible letter from an anony- mous correspondent,^'^ who shewed me very clearly ^ At the same time that I return my thanks to this cor-, respondent, (to whom I wish to be personally known,) 1 bca; clearly that, though there was a superfluous stroke when the poet came to write the letter r in his last signature,* probably from the tremor of his hand, there was no a discover- able in that syllable i and that this name, like both the other, was written Shakspere. Re- volving this matter in my mind, it occurred to me that in the wq^n facsimile of his name which I gave in 1 790, my engraver had made a mistake in placing an a over the name which was there exhibited Shakspe » and that what was supposed to be that letter was only a mark of abbreviation, with a turn or curl at the first part of it, which gave it the appearance of a letter. I re- solved therefore once more to examine the original, before I published any future edition of his works ; and (it being very beg leave to inform him, that I had myself corrected the error into which I had fallen relative to Shakspeare*$ second daughter Judith Qiieeny, [Plays and PoExMS OP William Shakspeare.V'oI. 1, P. I. p. 175, n. 3.] and on the very ground he mentions ; as he will find by turn- ing to Vol.1. P. n. p. 15S. She was, without doubt, married to Thomas Qi_ieeny with her lather's knowledge, though probably without his opprobaiwi. * See Plate II. N°. xiii. material [ 119 ] material in th^ present inquiry) to take this opportunity of ascertaining my own error, if any error there was. On the loth of March 1 612-13, Shak.. 5>peare purchased from one Henry Walker a small estate in Blackfriars, for one hun- dred and forty pounds, eighty of which he appears to have paid down ; and he mort- gaged the premises for the remainder. In the year 1768 the mortgage-deed, which was dated the iith of March, but without doubt executed on the same day as the deed of bargain and sale, (like our modern con- veyance of Lease and Release,) was found by Mr. Albany Wallis, among the title- deeds of the Rev. Mr. Fetherstonhaugh of Oxted in the county of Surrey, and was presented by him to the late Mr. Garrick* From that deed the facsimile above men- tioned was made. As I have not the pleasure of being acquainted with Mrs. Garrick, to whom I was indebted on that occasion. Lord Orford, (since I began this Letter,) very obligingly requested her \o furnish me once more with the deed to which our poet's autograph is affixed : but that lady, after a very careful search, was not [ 120 J not able to find it, it having by some means or other been either mislaid or stolen from her. On the same day on which I received this account, I called upon Mr. Wallis, with whom I am acquainted, and to whom the deeds of Mr. Fetherston- haugh, after having been a long time out of his hands, have been lately restored : among them he luckily met with the coun- terpart of the original deed of bargain and sale, made on the loth of March 1 612-13, which furnished me with our poet's name, and fully confirmed my conjecture ; for there the mark of abbreviation appears at top nearly such as I expected I should find it in Mrs. Garrick's deed, and the poet having had room to write an r, though on the very edge of the label, his own ortho- graphy of his name is ascertained, beyond a possibility of doubt, to have been Shak- SPERE. Mr. Wallis having obligingly permitted me to make use of this new autograph of our poet, (which has the additional advantage of having his christian name at length,) 2. facsimile of it will be found in Plate II. N". x. Notwithstanding this authority, I shall still continue to write our poet's name Shakspeare, for reasons which [ 121 ] which I have assigned in his Life. But whether in doing so I am right or wrong, it is manifest that he wrote it himself Shakspere; and therefore if any original Letter or other MS. of his shall ever be discovered, his name will appear in that form. The necessary consequence is, that these papers, in which a different ortho- graphy is almost uniformly found, cannot but be a forgery. Your Lordship sees, that if Mr. Steevens and I had maliciously intended to lay a trap for this fabricator to fall into, we could not have done the business more adroitly. But you will readily acquit us of any such in- tention. — This, however, was not the only errour into which he has been led. When I had resolved to give, in my edition, our poet's name on the fac-si?}ule plate, at length, (to shew how it would have ap- peared had it been so written, and on paper, instead of parchment,) the Engraver desired me to furnish him with an archetype for one of the concluding letters j the letter r. Inadvertently I took down a MS. of the time, which happened to be near at hand, and pointed out to him a German r, (much R used [ 122 ] used by Scriveners in the time of Elizabeth ^nd James,) for which, the printing-house not being furnished with such a type, I must refer you to Plate II. where it is placed close to N". x. with a view to the present reference. The correspondent above- mentioned very justly observed, that I was here also inaccurate ; for Shakspeare having thrice in his Will used a different kind of r, (such as is frequently used at this day,) and no other specimens of his hand-writing, containing that letter, being then extant, there was no ground for supposing that he had ever employed the German r. — Our fabricator, however, has here also followed ine implicitly ; and as he conceived that the poet had in his Will written his name twice SJoakspere, and once Shakspeare, he resolved to supply us with equal variations : in his modern-antique papers therefore we have the name exhibited in both ways j and that no kind of variety might be wanting, we have one pretended signature with the chancery-hand r, ^' another with this same German r, ^* of which I have been obliged 6' See the preteiidcd Letter " to Masterre Richard Cowley," in Miscellaneous Papers, &c. *^^ See the pretended Letter to Lord Southampton, PI. II. N°. ix. to [ 123 ] to give so long a history, and one without any r at all/'* This canine letter, indeed, seems to have particularly engaged his at- tention, and to have been particularly fatal to him; for finding in the Paston Letters, and in Forbes *s Collections, (to both of which, if I mistake not, he has been in- debted,) that some persons in ancient times used what is called the Chancery-hand r,^^ he thought it would give an antique air to these wonderful discoveries : and therefore in almost all Shakspeare's pretended writing, and in one of his autographs, he has made him employ a letter which is intended to represent this kind of r, but is no more like it than the first letter of the alphabet is to the last/^ The use of this letter was entirely dis- continued ^'^ See the Signature to the " Tributary Lines to Ire- land." Miscellaneous Papers, p. 50, counting IVom the first ; for the book is not paged. ^'4 See it in Plate II. N°. X. next to the German r already mentioned. ^^ The reader is desired to cast his eye en the word Ley- cesterre in N°. VII. Plate II. and also a little below on the true Chancery-hand ( r ), near the edge of the phte under N°. X. But why. it will be said, could he not imitate this letter exactly ? Why should he give what looks more like a ^ than an r.^ I suppose to elevate and surprise. — Of this, R 2 however, [ 124 ] continued in current writing long before the time of James the First, except in enrolments of deeds, and other legal instruments; now and then indeed, but very rarely, a signature may be found in which it occurs : but in the ordinary or secretary hand I have never met with it. — These circumstances, alone, therefore, without further examination, would ascertain every one of the papers that have been attributed to our poet, to be forged. In copying his fjamCj the fabricator had for his direction the autographs with which w^e have furnished him, and therefore it is not at all surprising that here there should be some little resemblance to the archetypes before him ; though even here the imitation, however, more will be said hereafter. — He had seen in the fac-simik of the Letter of Elizabeth of York to Sir John Paston, this r formed very rudely, and probably thought that a good archetype. However, he has gone beyond his original, by giving an open tail to this letter, of which he would find it difficult to produce a single precedent. For the sake of joining it to an e or some other letter, they used sometimes to rim a stroke from about the middle of the r to the next letter ; but it was never made as it is here, like a j or g. — But of these mimitia perhaps too much. partly ««#*^, [ 125 ] partly from inability and partly from ca- price, is bungling and incorrect enough ; ^^ but to all the other writing attributed to our poet many other objections lie, beside those already made. It is manifest that when in health he wrote a small hand, as was the general mode of that time, at least among authors and actors, '^' and that his writins: was neat and uniform ; none of which characters belong to the forged scrawls that have been ascribed to him. ^'^ It is observable that our poet before he began to form the //^in his christian name, made a kind of prelude or flourish (See Plate II. N°. X. and XII.) : this our fabri- cator observing, resolved that he would not omit so charac- teristick a singularity ; but in doing it, in order to be quite sure of producing a proper effect, he has made in fact two JV's. See PL II. N°. viii. ^■^ See Plate II. — Authors probably adopted a very small hand, for the sake of sparing paper, and compressing a great deal of matter in a little space. Sir William Dugdale, Anthony Wood, and many others in the last age, wrote so extremely small, that their Manuscripts are to a weak sight very difficult to read. — In their signatures our Ancestors, in the age of Elizabeth and James, followed two modes very different ; writing either the very small hand now men- tioned, (see the signatures of Massinger and Chapman in Plate II.) or a large fair Italian hand, (See the signatures of Nat. Field, Hathwaye the poet, antl Lord Leycester, ibid. ;) and this latter was the more common among the nobility. But [ 126 ] But it is time to return to his Account of Lord Leycester's great bounty to him, for playing before him, which we are told was no less than ** the summe o5oPoundes.'* In this paper, as in all the rest, we have the spelling of no time. The corner of the paper is very dextrously wanting, so as to deprive us of the date, after the word Christ : devoured, we may suppose, by mice in that dark repository from whence it came. It is, however, ascertained to have been prior to September, 1588. As her Majesty knew not how to spell the name of her favourite Leycester, one might forgive Shakspeare for writing his name in a man- ner in which neither that nobleman nor others in that age wrote it, if the poet had not lived within fourteen miles of Kenel- worth Castle from his infancy, and from his early years been acquainted with the troop of actors who served Lord Leycester. But these are but trifling objections to the manner in which the sums are here speci- fied, I mean in Arabick numerals ; a mode which those who have the slightest know- ledge of former times know not to have been the practice of that age. If any exceptions can [ 127 ] can be produced, (which I much doubt) they will but confirm the general rule. In several hundred Accounts of that age which I have perused, the sums mentioned are marked by Roman numerals/* The sum therefore here stated, should have been written xix''. Thus, in ** the Accompte of John Gibbes, one of the Chamberlains of Stratford-upon- Avon from the fowerth day of October 1589, '* In the Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Housholds, printed by the Society of Antiquaries in 1790, we find under the head of *• The Annual Expences of Qiieen Elizabeth" all the sums specified in Arabick numerals. But this paper was copied from the Desiderata Curiosa of Mr. Peck, who printed from a MS. in his possession. I have not the smallest doubt that he adopted this mode as least trouble- some, and that his original, like all the accounts of that age which 1 have seen, had Roman numerals. In confirmation of my opinion I may observe, that in the same volume of Ordinances are given ;he Esta- blishments of Henry Prince of Wales in 1610, and various other Royal Houshold Establishments, from MS. Harl. N°. 642, and all the sums are printed by the editor in Arabick figures : but on examining the MS. itself, I find the sums are there all specified in Roman numerals : as is the case in every money-account of that age that I have seen. At the head of different sections of Establish- ments, they used Arabick figures, i, 2, &c. so also in expressing the year of our Lord: but not in sums — The modern fashion of printing has been adopted merely to save trouble. 7I. 8s. 4d. is mucii shorter thanvii//. \nis. iujd. I to [ 128 ] to St. Thomas thapostle in the same yeare," (in the Archives of Stratford,) I find at the bottom of the first page, '* Some vii."* lis. vd. ob. j at the foot of the second, — *' Some xiiij."" vs. ; and subjoined to the third, — •" Some xx."' vs. viiid/' — I will not trouble you with any more instances : almost every book of that age in which any accounts are given, will prove that this was the ordinary practice of the age of Elizabeth. Even when the sums specified were very large, they still adhered to this tedious and troublesome mode. Thus, in a MS. re- ceipt now before me, dated the xii**'. of November 1586, the sum which in the body of the paper is stated to be ** the som of two thowsande two hundrethe threeskore and seven powndes, nyne shyllings, sixe pence sterlinge," is in the margin expressed thus : •' M". M''. ccLxvij'. ix^ vid." In the History of the Stage I ascertained the payment of a play at Court, when the actors were called upon to go into the country to perform at any of the royal palaces, to have been, in the time of Charles the First, twenty pounds ; and I conjectured that the same sum ^ was probably paid by Elizabeth. [ 129 ] Elizabeth. But I have since found from authentick documents that this was not the fact ; and that in her time the sum paid for each representation at Court was no more than ten pounds. My error, however, in this instance was the foundation of the sum here charged to Lord Leycester in Arabick numerals (19 poundes) : and, to mend the matter, that nobleman in his great liberality is made to pay thirty-one pounds more for his entertainment than was charged to him, and to exceed her Majesty's bounty on similar occasions in no less a sum than forty pounds. Whether Shakspeare and his troop were Lord Leycester's servants, or, if they were not his servants, how they came to be preferred to that company which were im- mediately under his patronage, very pru- dently has not been told. To add to all the other denotations of forgery in this paper, our incomparable poet is represented as so grossly ignorant as not to know an earPs proper title. It is scarcely necessary to observe, (the fact having been pf late so particularly noticed,) ^'^ that the ^"9 Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, 1790, vol. X. p. 3. n. 2. s most [ I30 ] most common address to peers imder the degree of a Duke, was in that age your honour. His grace (here appHed to Leyces- ter) was then, as it is now, appropriated to dukes, and at an earlier period was given even to the person on the throne. Henry the Eighth is mentioned in some of the statutes of his reign by the appellation of ** the king's Grace. ^^ This title was also occasionally given to Elizabeth. Nor was our author ignorant of this circumstance : of what indeed was he ignorant ? In the First Part of Henry the Fourth, in the scene where Falstaff and the Prince amuse themselves by alternately represent- ing the King, " I would,*' (says FalstafF, in the person of the Prince, and addressing Henry as King) ** your Grace would take me with you : What means your Grace .•?" — The same title we find also given to the princes and princesses of the blood.'" lOt That in our poet's time, as well as at '° So in Sir Thomas Pope's Letter from Hatfield to the. President of his newly founded College, dated the 22d of August, 1556: — •• and at my lady Elizabeth hei Graces desier, and at my wiffes request, they were receyved into the house again." Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope, 7d edit. p. 88. present. [ 131 ] present, your grace was the proper and usual mode of address to dukes, might be proved by innumerable instances. I shall only give one from Shakspeare himself. In the very first scene of the first act of Henry the Eighth, the Dukes of Norfolk and Buck- ingham are introduced meeting each other : Buck. Good-morrow, and well met. How have you done. Since last we saw in France ? Nor. I thank your Grace : Healthful, &c. Our next curious relique is this : " FoRRE our greate trouble inne getting alle inne orderre forre the lord Leycesterres comynge ande oure moneys layde oute there upponne 59 shy Hinges. *' Receyved o Masterre Hemynge forre thatte Nyghte 3 Poundes. ** Masterre Lowinc 2 shyllynges moure forre his Good Scrvyces ande welle play- mge. W-. S. On this nonsensical and unintelligible trash I will not detain you long. All the observations already made on the orthogra- s 2 phy* [ 132 ] phy, and the Arabick numerals, apply to the words for re, alle, i?jne, moure, &c. here found, and to the sums here specified. Where my lord Leycester was to come, who at this time was principal and who subordinate, some one better versed in de- cyphering nonsense than I am, must deter- mine. Concerning '* Master Lowin,** I shall have occasion hereafter to speak more particularly. At present it is only necessary to observe that he was born in the year 1576, as appears from the inscription on his portrait in the Ashmolean Museum at Ox- ford'' (given, I believe, with many other portraits by Mr. John Aubrey) : so that allowing to this paper the latest date it can bear, that of 1588, when he was rewarded for these ** his good servyces ande welle playinge," he was just twelve years old. He might, however, without doubt we shall be told, perform the part of Arthur in King John, or the Duke of York in King Richard III. But there is good ground for believing that those plays were not '' From this portrait an Engraving was made, which was given in the edition of Shakspcare, 1790. I written [ ^33 ] written till about eight years afterwards. '* Well then, he might have acted the part of a young prince, or of a young woman in some other play.'* — Undoubtedly he might, had he been then on the stage, or had he been in the early part of his life in the same company with Shakspeare, Heminges, and Burbadgej but unluckily, (as I shall shew presently,) he does not appear to have joined their troop till after the Accession of King James. The two following papers relate to mo- ney, which Shakspeare promises to pay to John Heminges, for so his name should be written, *' One Moneth from the date hereof I doe pro?nyse to paye to my good and Worthye Freynd John Hemynge the sume of five Pounds a?id Jive shillings English Monye as a recompense for hys greate trouble in settling and doinge much for me at the Globe Theatre as also for hys trouble in going downe for me to statford Witness my Hajid W"" Shakspere. Septetnber the Nynth 1589. *' Re- [ 134 ] ** Received of Master W"" Shakspeare the sum of five Pounds and five Shillings good English Money thys Nynth Day of October 1589. Jn" Hemynge.'* Here we find, I think for the first and last time, the poet*s name spelt in his own genuine manner ; yet even that circum- stance will not give any authenticity to this paper. — We have here fortunately a date, which beside the other uses it may serve, may prevent your lordship from supposing that you are reading some tradesman's pro- missory note of the year 1796. — It is observable that the old spelling, some of which is of no age, is here almost entirely deserted, and the orthography of about Charles the Second's time adopted. We have no poundes^ no shyllynges^ no MasterrCy no mourcy &c. But then on the other hand we have several very striking novelties. The first is our bard's Jiew hand-writing, which you will perceive, if you look on the fac-simUcy is as different from what we had before, as both are from the poet's true hand-writing. But what is most worthy of remark is, that Shakspeare, having been, we [ i3i ] we are to suppose, some eight or ten years in London, and now at the head of an esta- blished company of comedians, has quite foroot the name of his native town, for which he writes Stntford (for the letter r is still to be a stumbling-block). Need I call your attention to the sum of five guineas, here in fact, though not in words, promised to be paid ? Some persons have sagaciously remarked, in defence of this paper, that in old accounts such sums as five pounds and five shillings sometimes occur."' Who ever maintained '* Since this was written, as art'^m;7;^/)r5(?/'of thisfact,the following extract from the Royal Houshold Establishments, 4to. 1790, has been produced. [CoTuparalhe Review, &c. /// supr. p. icc.) & S. D. *' P. 255. — Joyners fee - - 19. 19. o. Record 16. 16. 8." How this last sum, which I cannot find in the page mentioned, illustrates the question, 1 am unable to dis- cover. I wonder the writer did not also give us such sums as — 20I. 4s. 6d. — 30I. 16. 4.d. &c. — The sums required are those which exactly represent a certain number of guineas of the present day ; of which without doubt in the infinite combinations of sums entered on ancient rolls, instances may be found, without in the smallest degree diminishing the suspicion that the sum specified in Shak- speare's Promissory Note naturally suggests. The sums above stated, and all others in that paper, which is an Account of Q; Elizabeth's Annual Expcnces Civil and Military t 136 ] maintained that in the infinite combinations which sums are capable of, such payments may not occasionally have been made as five pounds and five shillings, or one pound and one shilling ? — Yet even in these instances the usual mode of ancient times was, to write — xxi shillings j or cv shillings. But the question is not, whether some very rare instances of the kind above-mentioned do not occur : though twenty such should be pointed out, this circumstance in the paper before us, when accompanied with many other suspicious circumstances ^ must have weight, because it is highly probable that so very ignorant a person as the fabricator of it might have thought that pieces of the same precise value as our guinea then subsisted. The word recompence^ though it was in use at that time, would not have been the word employed here, but reward -y and settling''^ for adjusting is equally suspicious ; Military about the year 1578, should have been printed in Roman Numerals, which are found in all the accounts of that age. (See n. 68.) The other mode has been adopted in modern publications merely to save trouble. 7i '• In Minsheu we have only — " To settle, set or sit down. - - - Lat. residere.''' more ■f"/""""/'*'^- T e^ JirWf^ /J' T/T/h r^. fUkk^' aJ-<^*-^^V<^ ( '^:,^af/f f w- /)>V^i^««:j XhiRf -v'y'i'"'^'^ u,?^^ /v-^ Uf^e^^ ^C,<^(^^. r- "i'l d-y^ai >^ [ >37 ] more especially as the great trouble taken by John Heminges " in settling and doing much for Shakspeare/* was at the Globe Theatre, which I have shewn was not built for some years after 1589. But we want no aid from these minute observations. The whole is an evident forgery : and the Receipt signed with the name of John Hemj^nge was manifestly done by the same person who has attempted to exhibit the hand-writing of Lord Southampton.''* When I first looked on th.e facsimile in- tended to represent Heminges* hand- writing, though I was not then possessed of his au- tograph, it was manifest from the unsteadi- ness and irregularity of the strokes, that it could not be the genuine hand- writing of any one. Dr. Johnson, as some others do, inclined all his letters towards the left, as the hand-writing of most persons on the contrary inclines to the right : but no hand- writing was ever yet found, except that of a drunkard or a madman, that inclined alter- ''■* See Plate II. N°. iv. (Superscription of the pretended Letter of Southampton,) and N°. v. (John Heminges' Re- ceipt,) which I have placed together, to shew that these two were the performances of the same hand. T natelv [ 138 ] nately each way, as that now before us does. I determined, however, in every part of the present inquiry, not to rely on any general reasoning, but, whenever I could, to get at facts ; and therefore spent some time at the Prerogative-Office with the hope of finding the original Will of this Actor. Unluckily that which is preserved in the Office as an original, though it has both the Prohat and what is called the Jurat, is not an original ; having neither the testator's name nor that of the witnesses. By the means however of a deed executed by John Heminges, Feb. loth, 1617-18, in performance of a trust reposed in him by Shakspeare, with which I have been furnished by Mr. Albany Wallis, and which will be found in the Appendix, (N". III.) I have obtained his Autograph, which is given in Plate II. N". vi. It proved, as I expected it would, to have no more resemblance to the signature sub- scribed to this forged receipt, than Hebrew or Chinse characters have to English. In the spelling of this adlor's name, as in that of Shakspeare, I have led the fabri- cator into another error. It was a very frequent practice in the last age to add a final [ 139 ] final J- to proper names ;'^ which, though at first a mere corruption, in process of time became so inveterate that the true name was lost. Thus, our author's friend, John Combe, was more frequently called John-a-Co;;2<^^j" ; Lord Clarendon always calls Bishop Earle^ Earlej- ; and the great Bacon is in the modern editions of his printed Works called St. Albans^ as was his successor in the title, Henry Jermyn, though both he and Jermyn always wrote St. Albmi,'^' The cor- ruption of the name of Heminge, {Hejningcs^^ (for so it appeared to me, and I accordingly always printed it Heminge,) was, we find, adopted by himself, and accordingly in this his genuine autograph it is writ- ten Hemifiges, as it is also in the margin of that Will which is preserved in the Preroga- tive-Ofiice as an original. Our forger, however, has given us Heinynige, On examining the Register of the parifli '^ See Poems and Plays of William Shakspeare, 1790, Vol. I. Part ii. p. 177, n. i. "'^ See his Signature subscribed to his Confession, pre- sented to the House of Lords in 1621. Parl. Hist. Vol. y. p. 415. — The autograph of Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban, I have seen. T z of [ I40 ] of Aldermanbury, since I began this Letter, I found an entry of this actor's marriage, which had escaped me on a former search. He was married on the xth of March 1587-8, to Rebecca Nuell, Widow. — It was certainly a great mark of his friendship to our poet to leave his bride in the following year, to go down to this terra incog- ?iita, statford: but how far the lady may have relished such a desertion, I have no means of ascertaining. I have already noticed the form of this promissory note, which is so completely modern, that the doubters concerning the mistake of five pounds five shillings might, methinks, give the forger credit for that ab- surdity, when they see such plain marks of fraud and folly in every other part of the paper. I run no rifk, when I assert that no such form of promissory note existed at that time, because luckily I am able, from an old theatrical register, to give the forms then actually used in bills of debt, (the pro- missory note of that time,) payable both on demand, and one month after date; which I beg leave to recommend as precedents to all persons who may hereafter have occasion to make old MSS. M. [Me?7f] [ HI ] M. [Mem""] That I Gabrell spencer the 5 of apell. have borowed of phillippe hen- slo the some of thirtie shellynges in Redy money to be payed unto hime agayne w/jen he fialle demande yt. I faye borowed — xxx'* Gabriell Spencer."" The above, we see, is the true promissory note on demand, of that time. The follow- ing is a Note or bill of debt payable one month after date, signed by an actor, who at one period performed in our author's com- pany : ** The I and twentie daye of septtember a thousand six houndard borrowed of Mr. Henshlowe in Redie monie the som of fortie shellings to be paid the twentie daie of October next folleinge the date her of in witnes her of I set to my hajid. John Duke.'* Another form was, — ** Received 30 die Januarii 1598, of — the sum of — to "' A player ; one of the Lord Admiral's Servants. '^ Henslowe's Register, MS. — From this autograph the fac-simile in PI. II. N°. xv. has been made- The note, as well as the signature, is in the handwriting of John Duke, who was at this time one of Lord Worcester's Servants. be [ 142 ] bee repayed unto him or his assignes upon the last of February next ensuinge, for pay- ment whereof I bind rne, my heires, execu- tors and administrators." — But none of these, whether entered in the book of the lender, or written on separate slips of paper, were indorsable over, nor could an action at law be maintained on them.^^ IV. A Letter from Shakspeare to Anna Hatherrewaye. But now I ought in due form to invoke Venus, and her son, and all the Loves and Graces, to listen to my tale; for lo! I am next to present you with a letter from the Stratford youth to the lady whom he after- ''y Being fully convinced, on general recollection, that no such Promissory Notes as that which has been here examined, were in use in the time of Shakspeare, and having produced examples of the kind of unnegotiable paper-security, or bills unsealed, then given for money due, I did not think it necelTary to turn over my law-books, or to go deeper into the subject : but some very judicious observations, communicated by a friend, furnish so clear and satisfactory a history of the origin and gradual exten- sion of Bills Ob'igatory, of which our present Promis- sory Notes are the genuine offspring, that my readers, I am confident, will be pleased with their insertion. Being too long for this place, they will be found in the Appen- dix, No. I. wards [ 143 ] wards married. Though love, like death, levels all distinctions, yet as that passion, which the poet tells us first invented verse, certainly exalts the mind as well as improves the heart, and makes almost every man elo- quent, what may we not exped: from the ten- der effusions of such a soul as Shakspeare's in such a situation! — Prepare then, my lord, to behold our bard in circumstances in which he has never before been viewed. This precious letter is accompanied with a lock of the poet's hair, '* too intrinse to unloose" and most curiously braided, ^"^ in speaking of which he assures his dear- *° To the following lines in our author's beautiful poem entitled The Lover's Complaint, (edit. 1790.J we are, without doubt, indebted for this braided lock : " Look here, what tributes wounded fancies fent me ** Of paled pearls, and rubies red as blood : '* And lo! behold these talent? of their hair " With twisted metal amourously impleacf/d, " I have receiv'd from many a several fair," &c. A person who viewed this lock of hair, observed that it has a wonderful property belonging to it, of retaining the same close and co?npact appearance which it had when ori- ginally discovered, though since that time it is said to have furnished materials to ornament several rings, decorated with proper inscriptions in honour of our immortal bard. I ESSTE [ H4 ] ESSTE Anna, that '* no rude hande hathe knottedde itte, thye Willys alone hathe done the worke. Neytherre the gyldedde bawble thatte envyronnes the heade of Majestye noe norre honourres moste weyghtye wulde give mee halfe the joye as didde thysse mye lyttle worke forre thee. The feelinge thatte dydde neareste approache untoe itte was thatte whiche commethe nygheste untoe God meeke and Gentle Charytye.'* — I shall not at present trouble you with any more of this soft epistle than what I have now transcribed. At the bottom of the page we find, Anna Hatherrewaye, which is meant forthe superscription, the poet fore- seeing that two centuries afterwards it would become the fashionable mode to discard the superfluous To or For, with which fuch ad- dresses were formerly introduced. But how far the lady here meant was entitled to this address, or how probable it was that this letter should ever reach her hands, may be worth our inquiry. The truth is, she had no title whatsoever to either of those names : she was christened plain Anne, and her name was not hatherrewaye, as fhe is here absurdly called, but hath- awa Y. Your [ 145 ] Your lordship well remembers the first rise of the yet prevailing passion for long and sonorous christian names, instead of the more familiar appellations with which our simpler ancestors were contented. The Lady Elizas, Lady Matildas, and Lady Lou- sas, have now gained a complete ascendency, and a Lady Betty or Lady Fanny is no where to be found. Lady Betty Germaine was, I believe, the last in this country ; and you have, I think, still in Ireland, one Lady Betty, of the noble house of Cavendish, who keeps up the memory of the olden time. But to talk of Anna Hatherrewaye in 1582, is truly ridiculous. Master Slender, and ** sweet Anne Page, might have taught the fabricator better. In the Indexes of the Prerogative Office, in which the entries are made in Latin, and in some old Parish Registers, where the entries have been made by clergymen in the same language, we find Annas and Marias enough; and so also in some of our oldest poets, in imita- tion of the Cynthia and Delia of Propertius and Tibullus, and in order to give a dignity to their verse : but in plain prose the most diligent researcher will, I am confident, not discover a single Anna in the sixteenth cen- u tury. [ h6 ] tury. The name of the father of this lady, here absurdly called Hatherrewaye, was, as Mr. Rowe long since mentioned, Hathaway, and the tradition which he received from Stratford upon this subject, is confirmed by the Will of Lady Barnard our poet's grand-daughter, which I dis- covered and published some years ago; and by a deed executed by her, in my pos- session. She in her Will expressly notices feveral of her relations of the name of Hathaway. As to the true orthography of both the christian and surname of the per- son to whom this letter is pretended to be addressed, we need only consult the Regis^ ter of Stratford, where the following entry occurs under the head of Marriages in 1579-80. *• Jan. 17. William Wilson to Anne Hathaway of Shotterye.'* I once thought it not improbable that the lady whose marriage is here recorded, afterwards became the wife of our poet ; but that could not have been the case for a reason which 1 have assigned in his Life. However it sufficiently establishes the forgery before US.'" I CANNOT I suppose it will be asked, why could not the fabrica- tor [ 147 ] I CANNOT dismiss the first two words of this Epistle without observing that dear and dearest was not so common an address at that period as at present. Had the fabricator of this letter given us — ** My sweet hnnQ^^* it might have passed well enough. Thus, Sir John Harrington begins his Letter to his lady, dated Dec. 27, 1602, with the words — ** Sweet Maliy'' for which, if the maker of these MSS. had invented an epistle for that Knight, we undoubtedly should have had — My dearest Maria, Th o u g h , after what has been now stated , it may seem superfluous to animadvert fur- tor as well have written this name Hathaway as Hath- errewaye? To these and other questions of a similar kind it is by no means necessary to give any answer. He has written it falsely : Shakspeare could not have written it so; and the consequence necessarily follows, that the paper is forged. If, however, it were necessary to assign a reason for this misnomer, it would not be very dif- ficult. It might have arisen from caprice, and a foolish notion that this sort of variation in this and other instances would give an air of truth to these papers : or it might have arisen from mere ignorance, and the vulgar or inac- curate pronunciation of one person dictating to another. But speculations of this kind are endless, and in the present case wholly unnecessary.' Whatever the cause or motive may have been, the forgery is proved by the fact, u 2 ther [ 148 ] ther on this spurious paper, I muft not omit to observe that the word themselves is here (as in other places), contrary to the pradice of that age, spelt as one word instead of two [thenne indeede shalle Kynges themme- sehes bowe ande paye homage toe itte] : nor can I dismiss it without particularly noticing the other sentence which I have transcribed from it. Whenever hereafter any light shall be given that may lead to a discovery of the now unknown hand that has dared to fabri- cate this tissue of imposture, the vulgarisms, and the sentiments found in it, may be worth attending to, as they may aid the detection. Thus, from the present contemptuous men- tion of KINGS, it is no very wild conjecture to suppose that the unknown writer is not extremely adverse to those modern repub- lican zealots who have for some time past employed their feeble, but unwearied, endea- vours to diminish that love and veneration which every true Briton feels, and I trust will ever feel, for royalty, so happily and beneficially inwoven in our inestimable constitution. Such, however, was his ig- norance of the period to which the Letter Vi-»-. before [ H9 "J before us must be referred, that, for the sake of the sentiment, the contemptuous lan- guage of the present day is introduced at a time when it was as Httle known, as the or- thography and phraseology which the writer has employed. Our author was married to Anne Hath- away in or before September, 1582. We will suppose this love-letter to have been written a few months before, in the April or May of that year, at which time he was just eighteen years old. Of the Queen, who had then sat on the throne above twenty-three years, it is not necessary here to give any minute delineation. However the splendour of her character may have been a little abated by the lapse of time, the inquisition that has been made into the history of that age, and the more definite notions of the prerogatives of the crown and the rights of the people now entertained and happily established, it is certain that her virtues gave her an unbounded ascendant over her subje(fts ; and though few of our princes have exercised a more arbitrary dominion, the boundaries of our admirable constitution not being then, as at present, nicely [ 150 ] nicely ascertained, she unquestionably was not in that age thought to infringe the liberties of the people. No stronger proof of this can be produced than her great popu- larity. Every ad: of her reign appearing to spring from a regard to the welfare and happiness of her subjects, imperious as she was in many instances, she was almost idolized by them. At once dignified and familiar, respected and beloved, she almost every year of her reign made a Progress among them, and won their hearts by her affability and condescension.^* — ** There was no Prince living, (says a good observer, who lived near the time,) who was so ten- der of honour, and so exactly stood for the preservation of sovereignty, that was so great a courtier of her people, yea of the commons, and that stooped and descended lower in presenting her person to the pub- lick view, as she passed in her progresses and perambulations, and in the ejaculation of her prayers for her people."*' — The de- ''^ In one of these Progresses she visited Leycester at Kenelworth Castle, in 1 576,whcn our youthful bard, among the crowds that flocked ihither from all the neighbourhood, might have seen her. ^i Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, p. 12. testable [ 151 ] testable doctrines of French Philosophy and the imaginary Rights of Man, had not yet been inculcated ; nor had Englishmen yet been sedulously taught to throw away *' re- spect, tradition, form, and ceremonious duty," and to accept of French liberty and Frefich equality, instead of that beautiful and salutary gradation of ranks, which forms an essential part of our admirable constitution ; where the distincftion of conditions is so easy and imperceptible, that almost every man under the first personages of the land places himself, in his own estimation, without offence, in a somewhat higher order than that to which he is strictly entitled ; and where men of the lowest origin may always by their own merit attain the highest honours and emoluments of the state. — A due subordination then everywhere pre- vailed ; which naturally produced a profound reverence for persons distinguished by their noble birth and the offices they held, from the worshipful Justice of the Peace to the. grave counsellors and splendid courtiers who surrounded the throne. ** It was (as has been truly observed) an ingenuous unin- quisitive time, when all the passions and affed:ions of the people were lapped up in. I such [ «S2 ] such an innocent and humble obedience, that there was never the least contestations nor capitulations with the Queen ; nor, though she very frequently consulted with her subjects, any further reasons urged of her actions than her own will. ^* Add to this the powerful operation pro- duced in the minds of the people at that time by the alterations in religion. ** As they had been lately made,'* (I use the words of a learned writer yet living,) as their importance was great, and as the benefits of the change had been earned at the expence of much blood and labour, all these considerations begot a zeal for religion which hardly ever appears under other cir- cumstances. This zeal had an immediate and very sensible effecfl on the morals of the reforrped. It improved them in every in- stance ; especially as it produced a cheerful *■» The Disparity ''written by Lord Clarendon in his youth). Reliq^ WoTTON, 1685, p. 189. Happily for ns, no such reason of action can now be urged by our Kings, the boundaries between the preroga- tives of the crown and the privileges of the people having since the period here described been nicely ascertained, so as to leave the executive branch of our Constitution no power but what is salutary and beneficial for the the people. submissioi> [ 153 ] submission to the Government, which had rescued them from their former slavery, and was still their only support against the re- turning dangers of superstition. Thus reli- gion acting with all its power, and that too heightened by gratitude and even self-in- terest, bound obedience on the minds of men with the strongest ties. ^' And luckily for the Queen this obedience was further secured to her by the high uncontroverted notions of royalty which at that time ob- tained amongft the people. >>86 To prevent these notions from fading from their minds, the Homilies, which were published by authority and enjoined to 85 " One of these (says this writer) was the prejudice of education ; and some uncommon methods were used to bind it fast on the minds of the people. — A book called EIPHNAPXIA, sive ELIZABETH A, was written in Latin verse by one Ockland, containing the highest pane- gyricks on the Queen's character and government, and setting forth the transcendent virtues of her ministers. This book was enjoined by authority to be taught, as a classick author, in grammar-schools, and was of course to be gotten by heart by the young scholars throughout the kingdom.— This was a matchless contrivance to imprint a sense of loyalty on the minds of the people." Hurd, ul>i supr. «^' Moral and Political Dialogues, by the Rev. Mr. Hurd, (now Lord Bishop of Worcester,) vol. ii. p. 27. X be [ 154 ] be read every Sunday by the Clergy in their respective churches, inculcated unconditional and passive obedience ^' to the prince on the throne, which on no account or pretence whatsoever was it lawful to infringe. Such was the period, when our Stratford youth, whose tender mind was probably impressed with a sense of loyalty on each day of the week employed in the acquisition of learning, and who was further confirmed in the same sentiments by the doctrines en- joined to be taught on the day devoted to the functions of religion, is made to express himself concerning the diadem of kings, in the style wdiich one of the Regicides would have used in the following century, or one. of the Rulers of France would employ at this day. When Cromwell had no further use for the Rump Parliament, and kicked them, as they well deserved, out of doors, he desired one of his Janizaries (as Whitelocke tells us) to take away \S\2X fooV s -bauble ^ the Speaker*s »' The Homilies, it has been observed, contain more precepts in support of this vile and slavish doctrine, than all the writings of Filmer and his followers. I mace." [ H5 ] mace.'*^^ A bauble, in ancient time, had various significations. It originally meant a jewel, ^'^ and afterwards a temporary scaf- fold for any scenick exhibition or pageant.'^" It also signified the truncheon which licensed fools used to carry in their hands. — In a se- condary and derivative sense deduced from the original barbarous term baiibellinn^ (a jewel,) in process of time the word in popular language came to signify any slight toy, gewgaw, or trifling piece of finery ; and in this sense it is employed by our poet himself in several of his plays : but I have some doubt whether the word had obtained that signification so early as the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Be that as it may, the sentiment before us may have been sug- gested either by the following passage in a Letter of Cromweirs to his Secretary ^^ Hume, and some other Historians, make him say — •' What shall we do with this bauble /"' here, take it away : by which the point of the allusion is lost — The/Wj bau- lie was a short truncheon with a carved head and ass's ears. «'> Roger Hoveden, as Minshieu, and (after hirn) Dr. Johnson, observe, has the word baubellum in this sense: " Omnia banbella sua dedit Othoni." fol. 449. b. y° Barrett's Alve A R IE, 1580, in v. jc 2 Thurloe, [ 156 ] Thurloe, relative to a petition presented to his HIGHNESS ! by the wife of WilHam Beacham, mariner, which was printed about thirty years ago, — *' I have not the particular shining bauble or feather in my cap for crowds to gaze at, or kneel to, but I have power and resolution for foes to tremble at j*''" or (which is still more probable) by these satirical verses of Swift : *^ A prince, the moment he is crowrCd^ " Inherits every virtue round, " As emblems of the sovereign power, " Like other baubles of the Tower," ^* Cromwell, or some of his flagitious colleagues, if I remember right, speaking of Charles the First, said that he considered him only as the high constable of the nation. If, in the present passage, we had in the more measured language of our modern republicans — " Neither the gilded bauble 9' Gentleman's Magazine for 1766, p. 412. This Letter had, I bcHeve, appeared in the Annual Regis- ter, a few years before. 9* On Poetry, A Rhapsody. 1733. that [ 157 ] that environs the head of the chief ma- gistrate,'* &c. all would have been uniform and complete. The counterfeit ornament v^ith which the fabricator of this paper has environed the head of Majesty, is perfectly in unison with all the rest of these factitious manu- scripts. It is, however, worthy of remark, that our poet was better acquainted with the diadem, than to call it a gilded bauble; in every place where he mentions a crown (that I can recollect) describing it, truly, as made of gold. Thus in his K. Rich ard II. " Now is the golden crown like a deep well, — .** Again, in K. Henry IV. P. 11. " Why does the crown lie there upon his pillow, " Being so troublesome a bed' fellow ! " O poUsh'd perturbation, golden care," &c. Again, on the same occasion, after his son has taken the crown away, the king exclaims, " How quickly nature falls into revolt, " When gold becomes her object !" So [ 158 ] So also, in Macbeth : " Hie thee hither. " That I may pour my spirits in thine ear ; " And chastise with the valour of my tongue " All that impedes thee from the golden round, " Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem ** To have thee crown' d withdl." Again, in the same play, where the eight kings appear : " Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls : — And thy air, " Thou oxhtr gold-bound brow, is like the first." * If it should be said that in his earlier days he was unacquainted with this circum- stance, the answer is, that at that period of his life, instead of supposing the diadem to have been a piece of gilded metal, he was much more likely to have fancied it still more rich and resplendent than it really is, * At the opening of the Session in 1614, King James told the parliament that his integrity was like the whiteness of his robe, and his purity like the metal of gold in his erown. Parl. Hist. vol. v. p. 273. and [ 159 ] and to have emblazoned it in his youthful imacrination with all the precious stones of the East. I HAVE but one or two observations more to make on this love-epistle. It has not been proved that our poet wrote any of his admirable plays while he was yet at school, or recently after he had left it, though with due diligence some discovery of this kind may be furnished from the inexhaustible store-house of curiosities already in part exposed to the publick view. However, when he wrote to his dcaresste A?ina that *• the feelinge that dydde neareste approache untoe itte was thatte which commeth nygh- este untoe God, meeke and gentle charytye," it is evident that the sentiment .of his own Portia was passing through his youthful mind : " The quality o^ mercy is not strain'dj " It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven " Upon the place beneath : - - - " 'Tis mighdest in the mightiest j it becomes *' The throned monarch better than his crown : " His sceptre shews the force of temporal power, « The [ i6o ] *f The attribute to awe and majesty, " Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; " But mercy is above this scepter'd sway, " It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, " It is an attribute to God himself j " And earthly power doth then shew likesi God's, <^ When mercy seasons justice." ^^ It is observable that our author here speaks with somewhat more respect of the sceptre of kings, than the writer of the epistle before us has done of the ** precious diadem*' with which their brows are en- vironed ; and in one of his early historical plays his veneration for Majesty is still more apparent. The unhappy Richard the Second asserts, that " Not all the water in the rough rude sea *' Can wash the balm from an anointed king ; *^ The breath of worldly men can not depose *^ The deputy elected by the lord." •' It may be worth remarking, that in my edition the wri- ter might have found at the bottom of the page, where this encomium on mercy occurs, " And kings approache the nearest unto God, " By giving life and safety unto men." And [ i6i ] And in the same play we find the Bishop of Carhsle expressing the same sentiments : " What subject can give sentence on his king ? *' And who sits here, that is not Richard's sub- ject ? " Thieves are not judg'd, but they are by to hear, " Although apparent guilt be seen in them : " And shall the figure of God's majesty, " His captain, steward, deputy elect, " Anointed, crowned, planted many years, " Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath, " And he himself not present ? O, forbid it, God!" Thus also, the King in Hamlet : " Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person ; " There's such divinity doth hedge a king, " That treason can but peep to what it would, " Acts little of his will." With the truth or rectitude of these sentiments we have at present nothing to do : they are produced solely to shew the prevalent opinions of our author's age, and that, I conceive, they do most eflPectually. Y Our [ l62 ] Our youthful lover's last compliment to his mistress is couched in the following terms : *' I cheryshe thee in my hearte, forre thou arte ass a talle Cedarre stretchynge forthe its branches ande succourynge smaller Plants fromme nyppynge Winneterre orr the boysterouse Wyndes.** As Shakspeare is known to have been a curious observer of nature, we might sup- pose that this description was suggested by what he had himself seen : but as it has been shewn that there were no Cedars in England till after the Restoration,* where could this image have been presented to our Stratford Youth ? In the Bible, without doubt we shall be told. In Holy Writ we find that the Cedar of Lebanon was *' ex- alted in height above all the trees of the field /' that it had ** fair branches^ and a sha- dowing shroud : the waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his pla?its [his own plants] : all the fowls of heaven made their * Mr. Evelyn is on good ground supposed to have first brought the Cedar tree uito England, about the year 1662. See a curious Memoir on this subject, by the late Sir John Cullum, in the Gent, Magazine for 1779, p. 138. nests [ i63 ] nests in his boughs, and under his shadow dwell all generations."* — But where did our author discover that the wide-spreading tranches of this goodly tree protect the smaller plants under it from the nipping blasts of winter ? In some Natural History, I suppose, that will shortly be brought for- ward: but till it appears, it may be safely asserted that the very reverse of this is the truth, and that an " umbrageous multitude of leaves," instead of succouring, destroys all vegetation under it. V. Verses by Shakspeare, addressed TO Anna Hatherrewaye. We are at length arrived at the Verses pretended to have been addressed by Shak- speare to his mistress. As a specimen of them, take the first stanza. Is there, says the lisping poet. Is there inne heav-enne aught more rare Thanne thou sweete nympheof Avon fayre Is there onne earthe a manne more trewe Thanne Willy Shakspeare is toe you * EzEK. c. 31. Y 2 Is [ i64 ] Is this, I know you will say, a love- sonnet, or the posy of a ring ? I shall not therefore sicken your Lordship with any more of this namby-pamby stuff. Let me however draw your attention to the rhythm of the first line, on which we have the decision of Spencer: '* Heaven being used short as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched with a diastole, is like a lame dog that holdeth up one leg.'"^"^ In our poet*s genuine compositions we never find any such hobling metre. VI. Letter from Shakspeare to THE Earl of Southampton. VII. The Earl's Answer. The Letters which are pretended to have passed between our poet and his patron, Henry Earl of Southampton, if possible surpass in absurdity any thing w^e have yet examined : for there is not a sino-le circum- stance belonging to them, that is not so evidently fraudulent, that the mere state- ment of them, without any amplification or colouring whatsoever, will be sufficient to detect and expose the imposture. ^^^ Letter to Gabriel Harvey, lo April, 1580. In C 165 ] In my edition of our poet's works, I en- deavoured to do all honour to this highly- distinguished and most amiable nobleman, by collecting some Memoirs of his life, which I have since enlarged ; and if they should not become too bulky for an episode, they may perhaps be interwoven in the Life of Shakspeare. Having been sedulously, though at intervals, employed on that work for two years past, and collected more mate- rials for it than the most sanguine expec- tation could have hoped to procure, to say nothing of the time which I had previously expended (perhaps idly, but certainly agree- ably to myself, and I hope not wholly un- profitably to the publick,) on the illustration of both his works and his history, I could not help smiling at the observation of some of the criticks of the day, that I had shewn great temerity in thus hastily deciding on the authenticity of these Manuscripts. When I tell your Lordship that in the course of my inquiries, I have, with the aid of authentick and indisputable documents, overturned almost every traditional story that has been received concerning Shak- speare for near a century past, need I em- ploy many words to shew that I was at least [ i66 ] least not unconversant with the subject of the late spurious publication ? The truth is, that a single perusal of it was sufficient ; and in one hour afterwards the entire foun- dation of the Letter I am now writing was laid, and all the principal heads of objection briefl)^ set down. The expanding of the topicks, and the minute examination of authorities, necessarily required some time. I HAVE already observed, that several of these papers have been formed either on some existing archetype, or some received tradition concerning Shakspeare ; which was considered as a canvass which might commodiously and plausibly be wrought upon and filled up : and if the artist, or rather artists, had known any thing of drawino-, had not all their colours been made of brickdust, and the whole piece crowded w^ith distorted and disgusting figures, without any regard to nature, or truth, or costiwje, there might have been some dif- ficulty in distinguishing the copy from the original.'' The 95 Even where the task is undertaken by persons of talents much superior to the miserable and bungling artificers em- ployed f '67 ] The fabrication we are now considering, took its rise from a tradition, first nnen- tioned by Mr. Rowe, and transmitted to him (though not immediately) from Sir Wilham D'Avenant, — that Lord South- ampton gave our author, to complete a pur- chase, no less a sum than one thousand pounds, which was then certainly equal to five thousand at this day. Having tlie highest veneration for this nobleman, I am fi\r from Avishing to diminish his well- earned fame ; and I have not the smallest doubt that he was extremely liberal to Shakspeare : he appears indeed, from every circumstance that I have collected concerning him, to have been the very soul of bounty and of honour: but still I am possessed of indisputable documents, ployed in the present fabrication, happily for mankind they cannot guard themselves on every side againft dete£tion. — It is extremely difiicuk, (as Archbishop Tennison has justly observedj) " to imitate such great authors in so lively and exact a form, as without suspicion to pass lor them. They who are the moft artificial counterfeits in this way, do not resemble them as the son iloes the father, but, at best, as the dead picture does the living person." — Baco- nians, 8vo. 1679. — The resemblance in the present case is that of a weather-beaten alehouse' sign in a country village to a portrait by Titian or Sir Joshua Reynolds. which [ i68 ] which prove decisively that his hberahty to our poet must have been greatly magni- fied, and that this story in all its parts can- not be true. True or false, however, it was thought, to be a good subject for a correspondence between the patron and the poet to be engrafted upon. In such a correspondence, what would have been the natural order of things? First, would pass a Letter in which this amiable en- courager and patron of talents, wherever they were found, would offer to bestow a sum of money on his humble follower, either in return for the poems dedicated to him by Shakspeare, or from an admira- tion of those inimitable dramas which he and his friend the Earl of Rutland used to see with such pleasure. "^^ The poet's Letter of thanks would follow of course. Such, I say, would have been the natural order, if any such correspondence had really passed between them. But this order would not at all have suited our fabricator ; 9^ " My Lord Soutlmmpton and Lord Rutland come not> to the Court [at Nonesuch]. The one doth but very seldome. They pass away the tyme in London merely in going to plaies every day. — Strand, this thursday the 1 1 of October, 1599." Sydney Papers, ii. 132. I for [ '69 ] for then, in making the offer on the part of the patron, a specifick sum must have been mentioned ; and if some in- quisitive researcher, hke myself, should happen to be possessed of documents that ascertained this bounty to have been very different from the sum fixed upon, detec- tion would instantly follow. To evade this difficulty, though the fabricator had certainly never heard of the uq-eiiov 'urpTepo-j of the Rhetoricians, it was in fact adopted : and hence the preposterous order of the two letters which I ffiall now transcribe ; in the firft of which the poet thanks his patron for his ** great bounty" already bestowed on him, and in the other the patron, in reply, tells the poet what he knew already ; — but that w^as not suf- ficient for our schemer; it was necessary that the reader should know it also. ** Copye of mye Letter toe hys Grace offe Southampt6?i . *' Mye Lorde, ** DOE notte esteeme me a sluggarde nor tardye for thus havynge delayed to answerre or rather toe thank you for youre greate z Bountye [ ^10 ] Bountye I cioc assure you my graciouse and.c good Lorde that thryce I have essayed toe wryte and thryce mye efforts have bennc fruitlesse I knowe notte what toe saye Prose Verse alle all is naughte gratitude is alle I have toe utter and that is tooe greate and tooe sublyme a feeling for poore mortalls toe expresse O my Lord itte is a Budde which Bllossommes Bllooms butte never dyes itte cherifhes sweete Nature and lulls the calme Breaste toe softe softe repose Butte mye goode Lorde forgive thys mye departure fromme mye subjecte which was toe retturne thankes and thankes I Doe retturne O excuse m.ee mye Lorde more at presente I cannotte Yours devotedlye and withe due respecte W™ Shakspeare." '* Deare Willam *' I Cannotte doe lesse than thanke you forre youre kynde Letterre butte whye dearest Freynd talke soe muche offe gra- titude mye offerre was double the somme butte you woulde accepte butte the halfe thereforre you neede notte speake soe muche onn thatte subjectte as I have beene thye Freynd I'Uil [ 17' ] Freynd soe will I continue aughte thatte I canne doe forre thee praye commando mee ande you shall fynde mee Julye the 4 Yours Southampton.*' \_Superscribed^ ' * To the Globe Theatre Forre Mast"^ Willam Shakspeare.** Here, as in all the other papers, the proofs of traud are so numerous, that they produce convi6tion on the first view. The ortho- graphy, the phraseology, and hand- writing, all betray the imposture, and render it almost superfluous to say a word on the subject. — However, I must go through mv task. To take these Letters in their order. The handwriting of the iirst has not the slightest resemblance to that of Shakspeare. The spelling is the spelling of no time. The writer however, it is observable, though he retaines his andt\ forgets to spell for with the duplication observed in other inflances i^forre) ; but, by way of compen- z 3 sation [ 172 ] sation, gives us bllossomes and bllooms^ '' a combination of consonants of which no example can be produced in the English language, from the time of Robert of Glou- cester to this day. Need I insist on the improbability of our careless poet ever keeping a copy of any' Letter he wrote, or of this being the copy of a Letter addressed to his Grace of South- ampton. He well knew, as I have already shew^n, that this was not the proper desig- nation of an Earl j and no very uncommon book, which I suppose will- presently be produced from Shakspeare's newly disco- vered library, with sundry annotations by our poet, might have taught the writer to have avoided this absurdity. Whitney concludes the Epistle Dedicatory to the earl of Leycester, prefixed to his Emblems in 1586, — '* Your Hojiours humble and faith- full Servant, Geffrey Whitney.'* So also in the concluding Emblem addressed to the same nobleman : '^■^ It has been justly observed, that Shakspeare was too good a naturalist not to know that a bud first blooms, and then blossoms. Ftre Refections, &:c. 8vo. 1796. '' Which [ 173 ] " Which if you shall receive with pleasinge looke, " I shall rejoyce, and thinke my labour lighte j " And pray the Lorde your Honour to preserve, " Our noble Queene and countrie long to serve." But were I even to allow that Grace, instead of being in those days the usual address to Dukes, and sometimes to the Queen "^^ and the princes of the blood, was also used in speaking to or of Earls, it would not exempt this Letter from the charge of forgery : for the phrase — his Grace of Norfolk^ or his Grace of Bucks ^ is much posterior to the sixteenth century. Instead of" Mye Lorde," with which words this Letter commences, we ought to have had — "Right Honorable/' which, though it was not the only mode of that time, (the other being sometimes used,) was the more ordinary mode, especially from an inferior to a superior j and certainly was our <;8 " pjej- Ma.t's remeaneth here at Nonsyche as yet, but mindeth to remove to Otlands about a senight hens. Hir Grace liketh well of this place." Letter from Lord Tal- bot to his father the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated " fro the Couert at Nonsyche the xxiii."' of June, 1580." Shrews- bury Papers, ii. 228. author's [ 174 ] author's mode, as appears from his Dedi- cations to this nobleman. The origin of the indefinite words — ** youre greate bounty e,*' has been akeady pointed out. — When the following words were written,** thryce I have essayed io^ write, and thryce mye efforts have been fruitlesse," it requires no great sagacity to discover that Ovid suggested this thought : '' Ter conata loqui, ter fletibus era rigavit :" — but I entirely acquit the author of having ever read the original. He was without doubt indebted to Milton's imitation of his favourite poet : *' Thrice he essayed, and thrice^ in spight of scorn, " Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth. '"^"^ A SUBSEQUENT passage is still more ^ He might likewise have remembered Dryden's tra^js- lation of the sixth iEneid : " He twice essay d to cast his son in gold, *' Twice from his hands he dropp'd the forming mould." ** Then ihrice around his neck his arms he threw,' *' And thrice the flitting shadow slipp'd away, " Like winds, or empty dreams that fly the day." worthy [ 175 ] worthy of remark ; — I mean where the poet tells his patron that '* gratitude is a budde which bllossommes, bllooms, butte never dyes ; itte cherishes sweete Nature, ande lulls the calme breaste toe softe softe repose.''* — Of all the editors of our poet's works, Dr. Warburton is, I believe, the last person that he would consider as his Jidus Achates. — Yet were this letter genuine, it would do the Bishop more honour than perhaps all his other literary triumphs ; for it would prove that he read the very soul of Shak- speare ; or rather that the bard two centuries ago expressed himself in exactly the same language as the editor in the middle of the present century employed in his Commen- tary, without the slightest communication with each other, or either knowing what the other wrote. In the fifth adl of Antony and Cleo- patra, (scene ii.) the Egyptian Queen, when she is in the monument, thus reflects upon the suicide she was about to commit : ^^ My desolation does begin to make " A better life : 'tis paltry to be Ccesar; " Not [ 176 ] " Not being fortune, he's but fortune's knave, " A minister of her will ; And it is great " To do that thing that ends all other deeds ; *' Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change j " Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, " The beggar's nurse and Cesar's." But, says the Commentator, we should read thus : " To do that thing that ends all other deeds ; " Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change, " [Lulls wearied Nature to a sound repose ^~\ " Which sleeps, and never palates more the dugg, -" The bep;o;ar's nurse and C^sars." 'tDD*^ ** That this line in hooks (he adds) was the substance of that lost^ is evident from its making sense of all the rest ; which are to this effecft : It is great to do that which frees us from all the accidents of humanity, hills our over-wearied nature to repose ^ (which now sleeps and has no more appetite for worldly enjoyments) and is equally the nurse of Caesar and the beggar." Would your Lordship desire better I sympathy [ '77 ] sympathy than this ? Whether Shakspeare, when he told Lord Southampton that '* o-ra- titude cherishes sweet nature^ and lulls the calm breast to soft repose ^"^^ foresaw what would occur to Dr. Warburton a hundred and fifty years afterwards j or the Doctor dived into the poet's bosom, and there found that sentiment which has lain so long concealed in the bottom of an old trunk ; which ever way this marvellous coincidence is viewed, it reflects the highest honour on the sagacity of one or the other : but whether the laurel crown is to be adjudged to the poet or the commentator, I shall not pre- sume to determine. It is not necessary to take notice of any other part of this Letter, except the conclu- sion, which is completely modern: "O excuse me, mye Lorde, more at presente I cannotte." Yours devotedlye and with due respecte.'* Almost every word here deserves to be particularly attended to. Though *' ?io more at present^* might pass well enough in a modern epistle, however spurious, it will not do here. The phrase of the time was A A not [ 178 ] not** at present,** but, *' at /y6/> present;*'"" and — '• with due respecte" is equally mo- dern, and equally objectionable. There is a fashion in the style, and particularly in the conclusion, of Letters, as in most other things. As the writer of the present day assures his correspondent that he is his faithfuU or affectionate^ or obedient servant^ (as the case may be,) so, in the times we are now treating of, the mode between equals ^vas — •' Your Lordships assuredly,** or *' Your good Lordships assured loving frend," or *' your Lordships most assured tocomande,'*or " your assured frende to do you service:'* — and from an inferior the customary expressions were — " Your ho- nours most humbly at comandmente ;** — or *' Your good lordships most readie in all service;" or " Your honours most assured and ready to be used ;" or " Y'our honours most humbly to use and commande;*' or ** Your honours most humble poore frende, assured, and at comandement."" — Such, I say, I30 " And many a man there is, even at this present, — " Winter's Tali. " Thy letters have transported me beyond •" Tljis \gnox2inx present \ — ." Macbeth. * 'Ml Sydney and Shrewsbury Papers, passim. The [ 179 ] say, were the modes of those days, of which our fabricator appears to have been com- pletely ignorant. — Whenever any example shall be produced of a person in so low a situation as that of a player was then es- teemed to be, presuming to conclude a letter to a nobleman with the modern familiar assurance of attachment — '* Yours,*' and of his adding also that he is devotedly at- tached to the person thus addressed, (a word certainly used in the same sense in that age, but which I have not found in the conclusion of letters, though at a subsequent period it became common,) and when all the other absurdities and incongruities of this Letter are also done away, then may it pass for the composition of our poet ; *' but in such a then I write a never, ^^ Permit me now to take a view of Lord Southampton's Answer to this epistle. The writer might also have found an apt conclusion for this fabrication, in a Letter trom Sir John Harrington to the Lord Treasurer Burghley, NuOiB Antiq^ ii. 84 ; " In all dutie I rcste your humble well-wisher :" — but he appears to have been as little acquainted with the writings as the manners of the lime. A A 2 HExNRY [ i8o ] Henry, the third earl of Southampton, was born October 6, 1573;'" so that he Was not twenty years old, when our poet selected him for his patron by the dedication of his earliest poem. It is not necessary for me here to enter minutely into his his- tory ; nor do I wish to anticipate my future work by stating the circumstances which led our poet to place himself under the patronage of this nobleman, or which shew how well he merited the encomiums that Shakspeare has bestowed upon him. At once accomplish- ed, literate, brave, and liberal, all the poets and artists of the time looked up to him as their protector. Whatever donation he gave to Shakspeare, it is highly probable that it was given in return for his dedications, according to the established practice of that age. This circumstance woidd fix the date of the Letter before us to 1594. Let us^ however, suppose it to have been written either then or at any subsequent period that its partisans may choose to fix upon, pre- vious to the death of the poet in 161 6. Lord Southampton was then in his forty third year. •°^ Esc. 24. Eliz. p. r. n. 46. To [ i8i 1 To pass over the Orthography, (which «s not only not that of Lord Southampton, as we shall presently see, but not the ortho- graphy of any age whatsoever,) and to come to the Phraseology, the first badge of literary fraud in this piece is found /;/ limine ; — ** Deare Willam." I will not take up your Lordship's time on this inauspicious commencement, which every one, at all acquainted with the manners of that day, knows was not the language of a nobleman to a person at the immeasurable distance at which Shakspeare stood from Lord South- ampton. Had he condescended to write to our poet, he would without doubt have begun with •* Mr. Shakspeare,*' or ** Good Master Shakspeare, "or "Good William ;*''"* or some other similar form. — The christian name, William, was sometimes at that '°' So, in the Queen's Letter already given, — " I thanke you, Good Harry" &c. So also. Lord Essex, writing to his dependant, Mr. Combe, in 1599, (Harrington's A^w^<:r Antiq. ii. 8.) " GoodThomas." — And Lord Burghley to Mr. (afterwards,) Sir John Harrington, when a boy at Cam- bridge, in 1578: " I ihancke you, my good Jacke, for your lettres," &c. Ibid, p, 282.— See alsQ Sydnf.v Pa- pers, i. 389, Sir Philip Sydney to Edward V/aterhouse, (28th April, J 578,) — " My good Ned, never since yov/ wente/' &c. period, [ i82 ] period, as now, written contractedly, W", as Shakspeare himself has once written it : but the more ordinary abbreviation was Willrrij which I have found in several hun- dred papers of the age of Elizabeth, and is employed by our poet in his will. Wiliam, as here given, is the pronunciation of a vulgar illiterate female of the present day. Lord Southampton's telling Shakspeare, whom he is here absurdly made to call his dearest /rfj/W, (which, by the way, we shall presently find was neither his mode of spell- ing the latter word, nor the spelling of the age,) that he had offered bim double the siim^ will naturally remind your Lordship of those inartificial soliloquies on the stage, where a gentleman is introduced very grave- ly telling himself a long story, of which the poet wishes the audience to be informed. But it was quite necessary here \ for though Shakspeare knew ot this generous offer, how should the reader have known any thing of it, if the patron had not reminded the poet of his own liberality ? and the words — '* double the somme,'' and ** you woulde accepte butte the halfe," leave the matter involved in that mist of uncertainty and [ i83 ] and obscurity, which on this occasion was so desirable, for the reason I have already stated. But I hasten to the conclusion: — ** As I have beene thye freynde, soe will I con- tinue aughte thatte I canne doe forre thee : praye, commande mee, and you shalle fynde mee Yours, Southampton." Here, in the true style of Mr. Bays, we have ** flash for flash, and dash for dash.'* As the poet concludes with the most familiar assurance of regard, ( Tours ^) the patron will not be outdone by him, and adopts the same mode ; scorning the or- dinary forms of — '* Your assured w^ell- wisher,** or *' Your ready friend to do )^ou service," &c. as trite and vulgar. — The preceding words, ** Pray, command me," (to say nothing of their modern air, when thus used imperatively,) considered as the language of a nobleman to a player, harmo- nize perfectly well with the rest of this spurious epistle. But the signature, ** Southampton," requires a more minute examination. This circum- [ i84 ] circumstance, and Lord Leycester's being mentioned in the Queen's pretended Letter addressed to Shakspeare as master of a company of comedians, of which I was informed soon after this wonderful discovery- was announced, gave me a perfect insight into the nature and quahty of these manu- scripts. In the reign of Ehzabeth, as your Lordship knows, noblemen in their signa- tures usually prefixed their christian name to their titles ; as their ladies, and my lords the Bishops, do at this day. This, I say, was the ordinary practice, though a few peers deviated from that mode, and subscribed their titles only ; as they now do universally. In the time of James the First, the general mode continued the same, though it was then also occasionally departed from ; and in the time of his successor the present mode seems to have prevailed rather more than the other, though it was not generally established till after the Restoration. But whatever examples of the modern practice may occasionally be found in ancient times, Henry Lord Southampton prefixed his christian name to his title ; a practice which seems to have been hereditary in his fa- mily ; for the autograph of his father (H. , South- [ i85 ] Southampton) is in the Museum;"''* and his son, the Lord Treasurer, even some years after the Restoration, (June 26, 1666,) signed T. Southampton, as appears from an auto- graph in my possession. This circumstance therefore, even if it stood alone, would be fatal to this spurious epistle. Nothing more now remains on this part of my subject, but to prove what I have asserted, by producing two Letters written by Lord Southampton, the only Letters of his known to be extant ,- '"^ which, while they ascertain this point, will shew '°-* MS. Cotton. Titus. B. vii. Letter the fourth, dated July 26, 1572. This Nobleman, who wrote a very good hand, formed his autograph, (as was much the fashion formerly,) so as to make the first \tntx o{ Southampton serve for half of the initial letter of his christian name (Henryj. This was a common practice in the last century. Antony Wood almost always, in writing the initials of his christian and surname, made the second stroke of the A serve as the first of the W. '°^ Mr. Astle very obligingly, at my request, searched the State- Paper Office, with the hope of finding some other specimens of Lord Southampton's hand-writing ; but in vain. I had also hoped to have found some of his Letters among the papers belonging to the Ordnance-Office j but >vas there also disappointed. B B that [ «86 J (hat not one word of this nobleman's hand- writing had ever been seen by the fabricator of the Letter before us, in which the miser- able scrawl of a paralytick man of four- score is attributed to a young peer pro- bably of one and twenty, but certainly not more than forty-two. The iirst of these Letters, which I found near a year ago in the Museun, (MSS. Harl. 7000, p. 46,) has no date, but was written to the Lord Keeper in the latter end of July, 1621 . In the parliament which met January 30, 1620-21, Lord South- ampton took a very active part ; and in a debate on the 14th of March, relative to an illegal patent granted to Sir Giles Mom- pesson, the profits of which were shared by Sir Edward Villiers, he called the Duke jOf Buckingham to order, for speaking twice on the same subject; which created such confusion in the House, that the Prince of Wales thought it proper to interpose, and ^reconciled them.'"^ This reconciliation, however, '"* Camden. Rcgn. Reg. Jacob. Axnal. p. 69.410. 1 69 1. — According to the Parliamentary History, this al- tercation happened on the 22d of March. •' A debate arising [ i87 ] however, should seem not to have been very sincere on the part of the minifter ; for on the 1 6th of June he caused Lord Southamp- ton to be taken into close custody,"" and confined under the care of the Dean of Westminster (Dr. Williams), who in the fol- lowing month was made Bishop of Lincoln, and Lord Keeper of the great Seal, in the arising in what manner to proceed against the said Sir Giles, whether by indictment in that house or otherwise ; and there being some confusion amongst the Speakers, the Prince of Wales, who constantly attended this busine.is morning and afternoon, made a motion, • That by the ancient orders of the House no Lord was to speak twice, though to explain himself, except some other Lord mis- take his meaning in any part of his speech.' This was commanded to be entered, and ordered to be observed.'* Parl. Hist. v. 371. '°' Camden, ut siipr. p. 72. The altercation however in March was not the only cause of Lord Southampton's being taken into custody, as appears from his Examination, preserved in the Museum, (MSS. Harl. 161. art. 8.) and published by Mr. Tyrwhitt, at the end of the Debates of the House of Commons in 1621, 8vo. 1766. Two of the questions put to him were these: " Whether in the time of Parliament some of the lower House did not usually come up into the Committee-chamber of the upper House, upon design and plot lo receive a direction from him what to do in their House ?"_" Whether he did not say, they had like to come to blows i"' Answer. " He said, that ha saw that heat in the House, that, if the Prince had not been there, they had like to have come to blows." B B 2 room [ i88 ] room of Bacon, who had been degraded on the 2d of May. On the i8th of July, Lord Southampton was hberated from his confinement in the house of the Lord Keeper,''''' but was not fuffered to appear at court, being commanded to retire to his country-house at Tichfield. In the latter end of that month he wrote the following Letter"*' to the Lord Keeper, Williams :"*" ** My »°8 Ibid. p. 73. '°9 This Letter is very inaccurately printed in the Ca- bala, p. 359, edit. 1663, where also is the Lord Keeper's answer, dated August 2, 1621. On the preceding day he had written to the Duke of Buckingham in favour of Lord Southampton. " This enclosed (says the Bishop) will let your lordship understand, that somewhat is to be finished in that excellent piece of mercy which his Majesty fyour hand guiding the pencil) is about to express to the earl of Southampton. It is full time his attendant were revoked, in my poor opinion, and himself left to the custody of his own good angel." — Cabal, p. 285. On the 22d of July, he thus expresses himself in a letter to the same per- son : " With my truest affection and thankfulness pre- mised, I do not doubt but his Majesty and your Lordship do now enjoy the general applause of your goodness to the Karl of Southampton. Saturday last he came and dined with me, and I find him more cordially affected to the service of the King, and your Lordship's love and friend- ship, then ever he was, when he lay a prisoner in my house. Yet the sunshine of his Majesties favour, though most briglit / f)^Tmi^ ^--- ,^0. „ ^ ^^Mc^.--u,iUy (?/-nytn -^»t*<- "ly/C^ J ^f c«/- ^ A^u^ /W /d^/^i L<^3Lu^~-^r ' 7 y^ dc^-^ [ i89 ] «• My Lo : ** I HAVE found your lo: alredy so favorable & affectionate unto mee that I shall bee still hereafter desirous to acquaint you w*^ what concernes mee, & bould to aske your advice & counsell, which makes mee now send this bearer to give your lo: an account of my answer from Court, w^^ I cannot better doe then by sendinge unto you the answer it self, w** you shall receave heere enclosed, wherin you may see what is expected from mee that I must not only magnifie his ma*'" gracious dealings with mee, but cause all my frendes to doe the lyke, & res tray ne them from makinge any extenuation of my errors, w*" if they be disposed to doe or bright upon others (more open offenders), is noted to be somewhat eclipsed towards him. What directions soever his Majesty gave, the order is somewhat tart upon the Earl. The word Confinement spread about the city, though I ob- served not one syllable so quick to fall from his Majesty, his Keeper much wondered at. The act of the Councel [was] published in our names, who were neither present thereat, nor heard any word of the same : yet upon my credit the Earl takes all things patiently, and thankfully, though others wonder at the same." Ibid. p. 283. "° See Plate III. N°. xxiii. where z facsimile of part of it is given. not [ 190 ] not to doe is impossible for mec., to alter, that am not lykely for a good time to sec any other then my owne famely. for my self I shall euer be ready as is fitt to ac- knowlege his ma^'" favor to mee, but can hardly perswade my self that any error by mee comitted deserved more punishment then I haue had, & hope his Ma'^y will not expect that I should confess my self to have beene subject to a starchamber sentence, w^ God forbidd I should euer doe. I haue & shall doe accordinge to that part of my lo: of Buckingams aduise ta speake as little of it as I can, & so shall doe in other thinges to meddle as little as I can. I purpose God willinge to goe to-morow to Tichfield the place of my confinement, there to stay as long as the Kinge shall please. Sir Will. Par- kurst '" must goe \v'^ mee, who hoped to [have] been discharged at the returne of my messenger from Court, & seames much trobled that hee is not, pertendinge that it is extreeme inconuenient for him in reo-ard of his owne occations. hee is fear- "' Sir William Parkiirst was the attendant mentioned by the Lord Keeper in his Letter to the Duke of Bucking- ham. See n. 109. full [ 191 ] full least hee should bee forgotten, if there.. Wherfore when your lo: writes to the -Court, if you would putt my lo: of Buckingham in remembrance of it, you shall I thinke doe him a favor, for my part it is so little troble to mee & of so small moment, as I mean to move no more for it ; when this bearer returns I beseech you returne by him this enclosed ler, & be- leeue that whatsoever I am I will ever bee your lo : most assured frend to doe you seruice H Southampton/"'^' The following Letter, written by the same nobleman, of part of which a fac- simile is also given, "^ was obligingly pointed out to me by Mr. Planta of the Museum. It has no date but that of '" Lord Southampton, not having room to conclude this letter at the bottom of the page, was obliged to turn the^ paper, and to write the words—" ever bee," &c. on the side margin ; in consequence of which, having very little space for his name, he wrote it in a smaller size, and could not make the first stroke of the letter H in what appears from his other autograph to have been his ordinary manner. See the signatures, Plate III. N°. xxiii. and xxiv. .. nj "^^11, Mus. MS. Cotton. F. xiii. p. 311.— Sec Plate III. N°. xxiv. 6 ** ^^e [ 19^ ] ** the 17 of October;*' nor have 1 been able to discover the undertaking aUuded to, in which Lord Chandos was engaged, and which might serve to ascertain the date; but Grey, Lord Chandos, the person here meant, (who was commonly called the King of Cotswold,) having died at Sudeley in Glocestershire, on the loth of August, 1621,'"^ this Letter must have been dated in some year between October 1620 and the accession of King James to the English throne. ** I HAVE sent you heerewith a peti- tion delivered unto mee in the behalt of certayne poore men dwellinge att Gosport who have been hardly used by winter ^^'^ who under coller of beeinge Captayne of "-* Esc. 19 Jac. p. I. n. 103. — Camden says in his Annals of King James, that Lord Chandos died at Spa in Germany, Aug. 5, 1621 ; but the Inquisition which was taken at Winchcombe in Glocestershire, close to his house, Jan. II, 1 621- 2, shews that the Annalist was misinformed. George, the eldest son of Grey, Lord Chandos, (who had succeeded to the title in 1602,} was only one year and one day old at his father's death. "* Perhaps a descendant of William Winter, Esq. who (as appears from Forbes's State Papers) was much em- ployed in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign in fur- nishing the Navy with Ordnance stores- the [ 193 ] the Kinges Pinnace hath comitted mayny insolences ; as also a noate of divers other his misdeamenors, w'^'' the neglect of his duty & charge j all w^*" & much more (as I am informed) will be proued against him, if it will please my Lo. Priuy Seale to appointe some to examin the parties that complayne, and some other dwellinge thereaboutes, who will bee redy to iustify these thinges and more; but they beeinge poore men would bee utterly undoone if they should goe to London, to bee ex- amined. Wherfore, my lo. weare best to appoint any who hee shall thinke fitt, to take their examinations heere in the contry. My lo : Shandos hath fay led, for I heare no newes of him, & am ther- fore uncertayne of my cominge into the playnes,"^ but if I come you shall heare from mee, otherwiss I hope wee shall meete att your returne; till when wishinge you good sport I rest your assured frend *' the 17 of Octob.'' H Southampton.'* "^ Probably Salisbury Plains. — In the preceding part ^of this letter in p. 192, (which is on a different sheet,) an error happened at the press, which I did not discover till the sheet was worked off. For coUer, the original has collar \ and for fmvet we should tvvice read haue. c c These [ 194 ] These Letters require no comment or observation. One glance on the plate where fac-simi/es of both of them are given, will at once establish the spuriousness of the pretended correspondence between this nobleman and our poet. There are some peculiarities in Lord Southampton's hand- writing; one of which is his formation of the letter y, in which he is uniform through- out ; — but neither this circumstance, nor his using the letter u where we should now write V, (as was common at that time,) nor his signature, nor the orthography of both these genuine letters, though totally varying from the modern-antique exhibited in a former page, (where we find the r used in the old chancery-hand, /zo//f, forre, dec.) none of these, I say, are wanting to prove wliat the entire dissimilitude of the hand- writing ascertains beyond a doubt, - — tha.t the whole is ** false and hollow,** a miserable, bungling, nonsensical forgery.''' VIIL Shak- V' I caiinot dismiss this part of my subject without lay- ing before my readers the foUawing abservatiou, a$ a /iurar/ cynosity; " The comparison of signatures is not always satisfac- tory proof of authenticity, on account o( diversities which occur [ 195 ] VIII. Shakspeare's Profession of Faith. On the Profession of Faith, which is the next article of this extraordinary Miscellany, occur in the same person's writing at different times. In the British Museum are to be seen three signatures, unac- companied by any date, of the Earls of Southampton ; one of the father, and two said to be of the son, the friend of Shakspeare : the two latter on comparison appear to be widely different from each other, and from Mr. Ire- land's MSS. [With respect to the assertion that Lord Southampton's two signatures differ widely from each other, the reader has only to cast his eye on PI. III. to be con- vinced that it is wholly unfounded. They differ only in si%e. The cause is assigned in p. 191, n. 112.] *• In general, however, (proceeds this writerj signatures, though agreeing perhaps upon the zvbole, have some in- dividual distinctions more or less minute, according to the different circumstances which may have affected them." Comparative Review, 5cc. p. 20. As it has been very generally known that specimens ot Lord Southampton's genuine hand-writingwere speedily to be produced, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the foregoing observation was made with a view of meeting with this evidence, and diniinishing its force by anticipation. Let us then see what kind of illustration the subject may derive from this remark. In examining affidavits, which are frequently made by the contending parties in the course of legal proceedings. Judges make it a rule to throw out of . their consideration every thing that is irrelevant to the ques- tion before them, to use legal language, or in plain English, nothing to the purpose. If such a process were used here, I fear the residue would be a mere eapui moriuum. For c c 2 what [ 196 ] Miscellany, I have very little to say. There beinsf no note of time to ascertain when it o was wliat is the {.tate of the question r — A Letter is produced pretending to be the hand- writing of Henry Lord Southamp- ton, the patron of Shakspeare, but exhibiting the scrawl of a man drunk or paralytick. To this are opposed two genuine letters of the same nobleman, in a fair, regular hand, and no more resembling the forged scrawl than Chinese characters resemble English.— -What is the Answer r It is not precisely in the words of Fluellen — " There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river at Mon- j^outh, — and there is salmons in both ;" but the reasoning is nearly as good. *' There is a signature in the Museum, Avritten by Henry Lord Southampton the father, [and it might have been added, in a strong, free, and fair hand, July 26, 1572,] and two by the son [equally fair, and differing from each other only in size'], and all fotally differing from the pretended letter. Ergo, the pre- ■ tended letter may be genuine, because signatures, though agreeing on the whole, have minute and individual distinc- tions." — If the foregoing deduction be not intended to be dravv'n, I know not what the writer had in view. The concluding paragraph I do not well understand, but sup- pose it was meant to support and strengthen what went before. 1 do not concei\ e that on a question of evidence this rea- soning would appear quite satisfactory to my lords the Judges in Westminster Hall ; and, though only an adopted son, I have so high a respect for the University of Oxford, that I cannot suppose any such logick is taught by that learned body in their Schools. Certain it is, that neither Crakanthorp, Wallis, or Aldrich, furnish any examples of it. It is notj however/ wholly without precedent ; for I am [ 197 ] was written, no argument can be grounded on its date. The same objections, how- ever, founded on the orthography, the language and phraseology, and the dis- similitude of the hand-writing to that of the person to whom it is ascribed, lie to this paper as to all the former. I HAVE already had occasion to ob- serve that several of these fictions were founded on, and grew out of, either tra- am told that several instances of this species of argument are to be found in the Dialecticks of Pigrogrgmi- Tus, (a well-known sciolist of the sixteenth century,) which were translated into English from the original Vapian language by a great admirer of his, Sir Topas, a country curate, of Q^ieubus near Leeds in Yorkshire, and published in 1590, by John Trundle, Stationer in Barbican, at the Sign of No-Body. This tract consists of two hundred pages, or 39H0 lines (the lines being mmhered throughout, and twenty lines in every page but the first and the last) : It is of such extreme rarity, that no copy of it is known to be extant, except one said to have been lately discovered in Shakspeare> library, v\hich is proved beyond all question to have belonged to our incomparable poet, by his having written his nam.e in it exactly six hundred times, that is, on the top and bottom and side margin of every page, with all the variety and diversity that the most wanton caprice could dictate. In the last leaf, there being a vacant space, he observes that he and his friend Cowley, the player, had many a hearty laugh over the paralogisms in this book. ditional [ 198 ] clitional stories concerning our author, or papers which had previously appeared in the account of his Life. The Profession of Faith before us was manifestly formed on a Confession of Faith written by one John Shakspeare, which I published for the first time in the end of the year 1790."* It was found about the year 1770, by one Mosely, a master bricklayer, who usually worked wath his men, being employed by Mr. Thomas Hart, (the fifth descendant in a direct line from our poet*s sister, Joan Hart,) to new-tile the old house in Stratford, in which Shakspeare, on no good authority, is supposed to have been born. The paper w^as discovered between the rafters and the tiling of the house ; and the evidence re- specting its authenticity transmitted to me by my friend the Rev. Dr. Davenport, Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, appeared to me suf- ficiently satisfactory to warrant its publi- cation. But in my conjecture concerning the writer of that paper, I certainly was mistaken ; for I have since obtained docu- ments that clearly prove it could not have "« Plays and Poems of Williari Shakspeare, lyv^o. Vol. II. P. II. p. 162, and p. 330. , been [ 199 ] been the composition of any one of our poet*s family j as will be fully shewn in liis Life. However, here was a ground to work on ; and accordingly we have before us a second and similar paper, the fabricator of which does not seem to have once reflected how extremely improbable it would appear that all the Shakspeare family should be Confessors of their faith. Of this mystical rhapsody I shall only quote a few passages, adhering closely to the absurd orthography that has been employed. It begins thus : ** I beynge nowe off gounde Mynde doe hope that this mye wyshe wille atte mye deathe be acceeded toe.'* ** I doe fyrste looke toe oune lovynge and great God ande toe his gloriouse sonne Jesus I doe alsoe beleyve thatte thys mye weake ande frayle Bodye wille returne to duste but for re my soule lette God judge that as to hymsselfe shalle seeme meete.*- - - - - whenne the teares ofFe sweete repentance bathe hys wretched piilowe " O Manne, [ 20O ] " O Manne, where are thye greate thye boasted attrybutes buried loste forre everre inne colde Death - - - more thou attempteste more arte thou loste tille thye poore weake thoughtes arre elevated toe theyre summite ande thence assnowe fromme the lefFee tree '"^ droppe ande distylle them- selves tille theye are noe more - - - - «' _ « _ greate God receyve me toe thye bosomme where alle is sweete contente ande happynesse alle is blysse «' O cherishe usse like the sweete Chickenne thatte under the coverte ofFe herre spreadynge Wings Receyves herre lyttle Broode &c.'* This last passage has evidently been formed on Holy Writ,'" where the kind- ness '"J It has been justly observed, that this epithet is unfor- tunate, trees being generally denuded of their foliage when snow falls. Letter to George Steevens, Esq. &c. by James Boaden, Esq. p. 44. 120 (( Q Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." St. Matthew, xxiii. 37. « — Q thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their [ 201 ] ness and pity of our merciful Creator arc represented under the familiar image of a hen protecting her little brood under her wins:s. But whence the absurd introduction of a chicken, (Avhich is here by courtesy to pass for the mother bird,) to perform this parental office ? Whence, but from the same caprice and refinement of folly which dic- tated his Grace of Southampton, and twenty other fooleries, which it was supposed would give an air of originality to the whole, on the principle that a forger w^ould not have so departed from verisimilitude ; and that therefore the conclusion that the MSS. were genuine would necessarily follow ; for in this fabricator's mind, absurdity and authenticity seem to have been terms precisely synony- mous and equipollent. It is observable, that in this paper the poet deserts the old r used in the chancery-hand, of which he was before so prodigal, and which is presented to us jn every page of their trust in thee, from those that rise up against them, keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings. ^' Psalm xvii. 8. *' He shall ^57'^;- thee with his feathers, and under his zy/wo-i shaJt thou trust." Psalm xci. 4.. D D the [ 202 ] the factitious copy of King Lear. With- out, however, resting on the hand-writing, or the orthography, (which is of noage,)The " wrefched ipiWoWy** and the modem dupli- cation without a connecting particle, — *' bu- ried, lost,'* — " all is sweete contente, alle is blysse,** &c. might enable any reasonable man to form a decided opinion upon it : but when I have added that the word hymsselfe is exhibited in this pretended ancient MS. as one word,'"' and that the word acceded is found in it, I conceive it would be a perfect waste of time to detain your lordship any longer on this head. The word accede J^t. Johnson supposed to liave been originally a diplomatick word, and it is of so recent an origin that no exam- ple of it is found in his Dictionary. It came into use, I believe, within the present cen- tury ; and was probably employed in State- papers and parliamenta.ry speeches, before it became a word of ordinary use. It is un- necessary here to refer to Barrett, Bullokar, Minshieu, or any of our elder lexicogra- phers. It is remarkable that Edward Philips, Milton's nephew, who was a good scholar, '*' See p. 80. as [ 203 ] as appears by his Latin Treatise on Drama- tick Poetry,'" has not this word in his Dic- tionary, though he has the kindred word concede 'j and what shews decisively that the word did not exist when he pubhshed his book, (1659,) ^^' ^"^^ ^^ mentions and ex- plains the two law- writs, Accedas ad Curiam, and Accedas ad Vice-comitem -, so that he could not possibly have over-looked the English word accede, had it been then in use. This is decisive. Its non-existence '-* An anonymous Annotator on Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton, as exhibited in the collection of his works, sup- posed that the Biographer was in an error when lie de- scribed Philips as the author of " a small History of Poetry written in Latin," and that he had mistaken his Thea- TRUM PoETARUM, (vvhich is written in English, and is only a list of poets Ancient and Modern, with a short account of their works,) for a Latin Treatise. But the Annotator is himself in an error, and Dr. Johnson was perfectly correct. Philips's treatise, of which I have a copy, is entitled, Tractatnlusde Carmine Dramatico Poetarum Veterum, praserlim. in Choris tragicis et veteris comcedics. Cut suhjungitur compendiosa enurneratio poetarum (saltern quorum fama inaxime eniluit) qui a tempore Dantis Aligerii usque ad hunc atateni claruerunt, dec. He published an- other short Latin tract in 4to. entitled Tractatulus de modo et ratione formandi voces derivitivas Lingua Latincs, &c. of which I have never seen a copy except that in the Bodleian Library. D D 2 is [ 204 ] is further confirmed by Coles* Latin Dic- tionary, 1679, who thus interprets the word Accedo: *' To come, approach, resem- ble, assent, to be added, increased, included in." Here we do not find accede, an un- questionable proof that the word was theil unknown. Blount in the fifth edition of his Glossographia, (1681,) though profess- ing to " interpret the hard words oi whatever language now used in our English tongue," has it not ; neither is it found in so late a hookas Kersey's English Dictionary, 1708. — We have here therefore a word unknown to our language for near a century after the death of the person by whom it is pretended to have been used. If this be not a decisive proof of forgery, I know not what has a title to be considered as one. Even the French, who perhaps adopted this word from the Latm before us, had it not in Shakspeare's time, for it is not noticed by Cotgrave in 1 6 1 1 , nor by Howel or Sherwood in 1650 ; so that probably it was introduced even among them, after the Re- storation. IX. X. XI. i^hv Cu>- 'LCJhcP'-''^ C^&^i/)x^- Jj^cl^i-i^J- Yc^(t>- ^.St> rH/j,,>- 4 '■J- 'jy!-<-^''umj-!>-i^orl?j.jjS^ lo^.A- A [ 205 ] IX. X. XL A Letter from Shak- SPEARE TO Richard Cowley, &c. The piece next presented to us in this Misceikmy, is a pretended Letter from Shak- speare to Richard Cowley, a low actor who played the part of Verges in Much ado ABOUT Nothing ; and who, if we are to credit these papers, was our poet's bosom friend. Like the greater part of these fic- tions, it (very prudently) has no date, except Marche ny/iihe. In this epistle Shakspeare says to his woi'thye freynde^ — '* Havinge alwaye accountedde thee a Pleasaynte ande wittye Personne and oune whose Companye I doe muche efteeme I have sente thee in- closedde a whymsycalle conceyte." I do not think it necessary to proceed any further. Wit, in our author's time, being the gene- ral term for the intellectual powers, a witty person then signified either a man of cun- ning and shrewdness, or one of sound under- standine:, of considerabk intellectual endow- ments ; not, as it is here used, a man of lively [ 206 ] lively fancy or imagination. Thus Bucking- ham is characterised by Richard, as ** the deep-revolving, witty Buckingham. '^^ The whymsicalle conceit will demand a more particular examination. Whim, ac- cording to Dr. Johnson, " is derived by Skinner, from a thing turning round, nor can I (adds that lexicographer) find any etymology more probable." But there is here certainly some mistake ; for Skinner seems to think that the w^ord whimzy (he has not ivhim,) comes from the French ^int, originally a fifth In musick, and afterwards used metaphorically, as Cotgrave has stated, for ** a fantasticall humour or veine, a foolish giddinesse of the braine.'* Skinner's etymology is surely very far-fetched. The English word whim in its present sense, without doubt was a mere contraction of **-' So, in The Overthrow of Stage Playes, 4to. 1599 ; Pref. •' Maister Dr. Gagcr is likewise, I under- stand, a man of gifiesy a good sckollar, and an honest man, and, (as it should sceine by Maister Rainoldes his severall aiinsweres and replies,) hath saied more for the defense of p^aics than can be veil saied againe by any man that shall succedc and come after him. So that the cause being thus w'lMely and scholkrlike maintained," &c. See also Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 561. , whim- [ 207 ] "ji'hi?n-ivha?n,^''* a child's toy, which being of some fantastical form, (perhaps of the shape of a wind-mill,) gave birth to the secondary sense in which whim is used at this day. Though this secondary sense had come into use before Shakspeare's death,* the adjec- tive WHIMSICAL, most assuredly, was not employed till long afterwards. Neither Bullokar, nor Minshieu in his first or second edition, nor Sherwood in 1650, nor Philips in his third edition in 1671, nor Blount, nor Skinner, have the word. It first appears in Coles* Latin Dictionary in 1679,'*' and Dr. Johnson could find among our Englisli writers no authority for this word higher than Addison. "4 See Cotgrave's Dict. 1611. " Babiole. A trifle, a whim-vjhajn^ guigaw, pr small toy for a child to play with." * IVhimsey is used by B. Jonson, Volpone, (1607,) Act III. sc. i. (The quotation is Mr. Waldron's.) <« . fny most prosperous parts •• They do so spring and burgeon, \^gcrmtnate\ \ can feele " A whimsey in my blood." '^' Coles seems to have derived his conception of this word from Skinner's definition oiivhimzy, tor he renders it by f/torosus, and w/jim or ivhimzy by " Msroiitau impetus ?norosus ei anomalus ; chimasra." He has likewise whim-ivham, but its original meaning (a child's toy) seems to have been forgotten, and it had assumed a new signification. Coles' interpretation of this word xs—fabula ; nugcs aniks. A COL- [ 208 ] A COLLATERAL proof of its non-cxist- ence may be drawn from the French and Italian Dictionaries of our poet's time. The French words now^ ordinarily used to ex- press what we call whimsical^ 2.xefantastique^ capricicux, bizarre-, the Italian, capricioso, fa'fitasticGy ghiribizzoso. Had the word whi?nsicalheer\ then known, unquestionably under one or other of these words it would have been found. But fatitastique is inter- preted by Cotgrave in 1611, ** fantasticall, humorous, new-fangled, giddie, skittish, invented, conceited. Capricieux^ '* caprici- ous, humorous, fantasticall, conceited, gid- die- headed." Bizarre is explained by ♦^ fantasticall, toyish, odde, humorous, gid- die-headed, selfe-conceited, haire -brained ; also divers or diversified in fashion or in colour.*' Thus also Florio in his Italian Dictionary, 1611: *' Capricioso, humor- ous, fantasticall, toyish, conceited, wavering in minde." — •' Fantasia, A fantasy, a hu- mour, a conceit." — '' i^r/«/ Pat. I. Jac. p. 2. m. 4. ''^ Pat. I. Car. p. i. m. 5. devested [ 215 ] devested of it by the King's Servants ; for I have before me a Letter directed to the Lord Mayor of London, and to the Justices of the Peace in the Counties of Middlesex and Surrey, ordering them ** to permit and suffer the three Companies of Plaiers to the King, Queene, and Prince, to exercise ther plaies in ther severall and usuall howses, the Globe, - - - the Fortune, and the Curtain — ." This paper being dated April 9th, 1604, i^ appears that Shakspeare*s com- pany were not then possessed of the play- house in Blackfriars ; but probably, in the winter of that year, and before the 24th of March, 1604-5, they purchased i^ ^ ^^^ Marston's Malecontent appears to have been acted there some time in that winter. — We see from hence that Shakspeare had no motive to reside in the Blackfriars before this period. The truth indeed, I believe, is, that he never resided in the Blackfriars at all. From a paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn, the player, our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear- Garden, in 1596. Another curious document in my possession, which will be produced in the History of his Life, affords the strongest pre- I sumptive [ 2l6 ] sumptive evidence that he continued to reside in Southwark to the year 1608, which is four years after the date of this pretended deed ; nor is there any ground for supposing that he ceased to reside there, till he quitted the stage entirely ; for he did not purchase the tenement in the Blackfriars till March 10, 1 61 2-1 3, (about which time he probably retired to Stratford j) and soon after he got possession of it, he appears to have made a lease of it for a term of years tO' one John Robinson, v/ho is mentioned in his Will three years afterwards as the tenant in possession. Supposing he had not then retired from the stage, his residence on the Bankside could be no inconvenience to him, the passage from thence to Puddle Wharf, near the Blackfriars theatre, being very short. So much for that part of this deed which describes our author as a resident in Black- friars in the year 1 604. Let us now examine the curious tale contained in it. Shakspeare, we find, being on Tha?ncs with his friend, his Ireland, (who bore, we are told, the two christian names of William Henry, which are likewise the baptismal names .of the son of the Editor of these deeds [ 217 ] deeds and papers,) and other friends, — by some mismanagement in consequence of the boatmen being " toe merrye throughe liquorre," the boat was upsette^ and our poet would have been drowned, had not his life been most happily saved by Mr. William Henry Ireland. — Whether Shakspeare could swim, I have no means of ascertaining. I think it, however, extremely probable, from his admirable lines in the Tempest, that he was well acquainted with that useful art.'^' This, however, is mere conjecture, which certainly can have no weight if the deed before us be genuine : for here we find that the hapless bard was as ignorant in this respect as those little wanton boys whom he describes, that, trusting to bladders, are sometimes carried beyond their depth. It '*' " I saw him beat the surges under him, " And ride upon their backs ; he trod the water, " Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted " The surge most swoln that met him : his bold head •« 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd *• Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke ** To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, •* As stooping to relieve him : I not doubt, ** He came alive to land." See also Julius Caesar, Act I. : ** For once upon a raw and gusty day," &c. F F is [ 2l8 ] is worthy of notice that when all his friends, as well as the boatmen, had got safe to shore, and saw the poor poet drown- ing, not one of them offered him any assist- ance, except Master William Henry Ireland. Most fortunately this kind actf was left to him alone. Shakspeare, in si- milar circumstances, I have no doubt would have ** plunged in, accoutred as he was ;" but his friend, warmly as he was attached to our author, though this accident hap- pened close to the shore, which he had just reached by swimming, would not venture again into the water, till he had " takenne ofFe his Jerrekynne," which we may suppose was made of blue velvet, drawn out with white sattin, and given him by his friend, his Shakspeare, out of that splendid ward- robe, an account of which is reserved for a subsequent page. As for the other expert swimmers, they most unfeelingly stood Stone-still, one only of them observing that Shakspeare was drowning. — Some of the occurrences mentioned in these papers are so extremely curious and picturesque, that one naturally is induced to wish that they may be delineated by some of our excellent modern artists. The drowning j^oet will make [ 219 ] make a very proper companion for his sup- perless editor, as exhibited by the admirable pencil of Hogarth. But to return once more to verbal dis- quisition. — The word upset is "a word of exceeding good command,'* and requires our particular attention. It is perfectly a sea- man's word, and was without doubt first introduced by that brave and honest class of men, to express shortly and clearly one of those unfortunate accidents to which the uncertain element on which a great part of their lives is passed, exposes them. So far from being found in any ancient vocabulary, it has not a place even in Johnson's Dic- tionary. It has crept into our language, I think, within these few years, but certainly within this century ; and I do not recollect ever to have seen it in print, except in a newspaper, before the present publication. The word indeed was so little familiar to me, that, till I sat down to examine these spurious papers, I had not a precise idea of its signification. It denotes, as I now un- derstand, a particular species of misfortune to which seamen are liable. When a boat is turned keel-upward by the mere force of r F 5 the [ 220 ] the waves, it is in the seaman's language upset ; when a similar accident happens by mismanagement of a sail, or the force ot the wind, the boat is then said to be over- turned. Here, therefore, we find an accident not very likely to happen on the Thames, where we seldom have such boisterous waves, expressed by a word unknown to our language for above a century after- wards. There are several other circumstances belonging to this deed, that must not be passed over. The editor in his preface mentions, that ** amongst a mass of family papers the Contracts between Shakspeare, Lowine, and Condelle,and the lease granted by him and Hemynge to Michael Fraser and his wife, which was first found, were discovered ; and soon afterwards the deed of gift to William Henry Ireland.'' When the believers in the authenticity of these MSS. were first informed of this deed, they can best ascertain. I certainly never heard it mentioned by any of those who were in the habit of inspecting these papers, till May last, about four months after they were first announced ; and lately on my [ 221 ] my questioning a very accurate friend on this subject, who, from time to time, had a very early view of all of them, as they were brought forward^ he told me that my recollection was perfectly correct. The words, however, soo?i afterwards ^ being indefinite, perhaps may have been intended to apply to the period which I have men- tioned. In the intervening time every one was naturally curious to know from what quarter they were derived. A plausible story was circulated, (but I know not on what authority,) that our poet's associate in the theatre, John Heminges, having died intestate, his papers fell into the hands of an artful attorney, from whom they de- scended to the unknown gentleman, in whose house they were discovered ; to which there was no objection but that Heminges had made a Will, which I pub- lished a few years ago. This circum- stance, I remember, I mentioned to the gentleman from whom I received the fore- going account, and from that time I never heard more of John Heminges. But the time when his eldest son, William, died, being unknown, the true believers were obliged to rest theijr faith on him for a while; [ 222 ] a while ; till at length a kind of obscure twilight was thrown upon the subject by the lucky discovery of the deed before us : which certainly furnishes a very plausible ground for the unknown gentleman's so liberally bestowing all these treasures (this valuable relique among the rest) on the son of the editor, who most fortunately bears the same two christian names. The only difficulty is, that it has not yet been quite satisfactorily proved that any such man. as William Henry Ireland ever existed in the days of Shakspeare ; though there are unquestionable proofs that a piece of him^ (as Horatio says,) one iVillia??i Ireland, did live at that period : an honest trades- man who kept a shop in the Blackfriars, and whom, about five years ago, I had the honour of first introducing to the world. In March 1612-13, as I have already mentioned, Shakspeare purchased from one Henry Walker a house in the Black- friars.'^^ This house Walker had bought '^- It is observable, that this modern spelling is constantly employed in this and all the other deeds where Blackfriars is mentioned, except one. But the spelling and phrase- ology of Shakspeare's time was— //6 No punctuation whatsoever is employed in deeds. These three notes of admiration (of which even the printed books ot former times furnish no example,) are therefore here [ 232 ] of Henrye fowrthe, Henrye fyfthe, Kyng John, Kyng Leare, as allsoe mye written playe neverr yett impryntedd whych I have named Kyng henrye thyrde of Englande alle the profytts of the whych are whollye toe bee for sayde Ireland ande atte hys deathe thenne toe hys fyrste sonne namedd also William henrye /* for this name of William Henry is to be continued, like an heir-loom, in the family, to the third and fourth generation. From his mentioning his *• written playe of Henrye Fowrthe," &c. one not particularly conversant with the various editions of our poet*s works might suppose that neither King Henry IV. nor Henry V. had been printed in 1604; but the first part of the former had appeared in 1598, the second in 1600, and Henry the Fifth in the same year. King John indeed was not then printed ; and what is somewhat unlucky, King Lear was not here faithfully preserved, not only as what Dogberry would call a most graceful and senseless ornament, but because they render this instrument what the collectors of coins and other rarities so highly estimate, unique. written [ '2'33 ] written till after the 24th of October, 1 604, as I have shewn in the Essay on the Chro- nological Order of our author's plays.''*'' The ^'^° Plays and Poems, kc. 1790. vol. i. p. i. p. 353. The following shrewd remark on this subject is worth notice : " Mr. Malone shrewdly guesses - - - that it [K. Lear.J was not written till after the accession of James the First to the crown of England, which happened, says Mr. B, on the 24th of October, 1604; but which happened, says History, on the 24th of March, 1602-3. So much for accuracy of dates, and skill in comparison." Comparative Review, &c. p. 54. It is an old remark, which can never be too often re- peated, that those who write, should read. It is, how- ever, very clear, that the writer of the above passage, though he refers to my Essay at the bottom of the page, had not read it, or did not understand it — Not one word will be found there concerning this play being written after the accession of King James to the throne ; neither did the gentleman who relied on my authority, say a word of his Accession. What I have said, and what I was quoted as saying, was, that the play of King Lear was written after James was proclaimed King of Great Britain ; and that was not on the 24th of March, 1602-3, but on the 24th of October, 1604. " So much for accuracy of dates t and skill in comparisonJ" In fixing the date of this tragedy I had less difficulty than in almost any of Shakspeare's plays, and was not re- duced to guessing, as the author would have found if he had looked at what he has referred to. My words are, — " This play is ascertained to have been written after the month of October, 1604,'* &c. H H " The [ 234 ] The present deed bears date the following- day : to reconcile these dates therefore we have only to suppose that Shakspeare rose early on the 25th ; and considering the won- derful facility with which he wrote, it will not be extravagant to suppose that he began and finished that sublime tragedy in one morning, previous to the Scrivener's engros- sing this deed. — Leaving this play to shift for itself, it must be remembered that our poet had already sold to the theatre such of the plays here enumerated as were then written, as was the constant practice of that time, and had no property whatsoever in them : and had he ever mentioned his his- torical play of Henry the Fifth, he would have written it, not as we find it here, but i^//>,'*' as it is printed in the early quarto edition of that piece, and in the folio copy M« "The Chronicle History of Henry the fift" Sec. 4to. 1600. And so in the folio, 1623, " The Life of Henry the Fift" See also Stowe's Annals, 4to. 1605. p. 557 : King Henry the Fi/f, born at Monmouth," &c. William Basse's Epitaph on Shakspeare ascertains the ancient pro- nunciation of this word, which remains the same at this day in many parts of England : " To lodge all four in one bed make a shift ** Until doomsday ; for hardly will a 7^/," &c. Shaksp. ut supr. Vol. I. P. I. p. 198. J published published by Heminges and Condellin 1623; as he himself unquestionably pronounced the word, and as half the people of England pronounce it at this day. Of the play of ** Henry e thyrde of Eng- lande,** I have only to say, that I make no doubt it is as good a piece as any that has been or ever will be drawn from the same repository. — Before however we fling this instrument after all the rest, it may not be without use to take a slight view of the indorsements on it. They are these: " Sealed and dely veredd in the presaunce of us Jo : Edwards — Jos. Byggett. — Deede of guyfte from Shakspeare to Irelaunde — % James." Those who are conversant with deeds of that period know, that the Scrivener who drew them, and his servant or apprentice, Avere almost always witnesses to them. On neither this deed, however, nor any other that has been produced on the present occa- sion, does the name of a Scrivener appear as a subscribing witness. — But this defect on the back of this and all the other deeds is not half so fatal as that indorsement which H H 3 the [ 236 ] the ignorance of the fabricator has placed on them : the year of the king's reign in Enghsh. If the maker of these instru- ments had even been what, I think, Lord Camden called a sucking lawyer, he would have learned, before he had turned over a few leaves of Sir Edward Coke's First In- stitute, that some ancient feofments had been discovered to be forged by their having livery of seisin indorsed on them ; '"** and would not have fallen into a similar error. — In the time we are now treating of, it w^as by no means common to write either the year of the king's reign, or the year of our Lord, on the back of a deed. I have very 14s (I jp^j. certainly (says this great lawyer,) the witnesses named in the deed were witnesses of both [the delivery of the deed and livery of seisin] ; and witnesses either of delivery ot the deed or of livery of seisin by expresse tearms, was but of later times \ and the reason was in respect of the notoriety nf the feofment. [So] if a deed, in the style of the king, wzvat h'wn defensor fide'i htioxQ 13 H. 8., or supreme headhdoTG 20 H. 8., (at which time he was first acknow- ledged supreme head by the clergy, albeit the king had not the style of supreme head in his charters, &c. till 22 H. 8.) or king of Ireland before 33 H. 8., at which time he assumed the title of King of Ireland, being before that called Lord of Ireland, it is certainly forged : et sic de SIMILI- Bus." Co. Litt. 7. Hargrave's edit. seldom [ 237 ] ' seldom found more than a short note of the purport of it, (as, ** A Deed belonging to the house in Blackfryers," — or ** A deed of bargain and sale from Walker to Shak- speare,") and often not even so much as that : but when the year of the king's reign was indorsed, it was always written in Latin (2 Jacobi, or 2 Jac. &c.) ;'"*' and this con- tinued to be the uniform practice till the statute 4 Geo. II. c. 26. was made, which directing that all the proceedings at law should be from thenceforth in English, naturally produced an alteration in this minute particular also. The indorsement, therefore, on this and all the other deeds before us, containing the year of the king's reign in English, instead of Latin, is a de- cisive proof of forgery j and the two words ** 1 James y^^ 2iXQ as fatal on the outside as William-Henry are within this instru- ment. — Thus we see that th^ spirit of Horace's precept, — talis ad itnumy operated '4J So the Statutes were formerly always referred to in Latin : 10 Jac. , 4 Car. &c. And Sir George Croke's Reports in the time of Elizabeth and the two succeeding princes, are constantly cited in the same language : Cro. Jac. Cro. Car. through [ 238 ] through every part of these fabrications, however Httle the letter of it may have been known to the fabricator. XIII. Tributary Lines to Ireland. XIV. View of William Henry Ire- land's House and Coat of Arms. XV. Engraved Portraits of Bas- sanio and Shylock. I may now congratulate your Lordship on being within sight of land ; for after I shall have dispatched the foregoing — what shall I call them ? — " unreal mockeries," which will be quickly done, we have only three or four deeds left to examine. On the *' Tributary Lines" to the re- nowned William Henry, I shall not detain you long, contenting myself with a short extract, by way of specimen : " O Modelle of Virretue Charytyes sweetestc " Chylde thye Shakspeare thanks thee *' Norre Verse norre Sygh norrc Teare canne " paynte mye Soule norre saye bye *' halfe howe muche I love thee." Is [ 239 3 Is this the composition of Shakspeare, or of a young lady of fifteen, after reading the first novel that has fallen into her hands ? — But I beg pardon of all the young ladies of Great Britain and Ireland ; there is not one of them that would not, even at that early age, produce something more in character than the tender effusion of one man address- ing another, which is here stuck in between the verses and tears of our blubbering poet. The next paper is briefly, and in the frue modern style, entitled — ** View of my Masterre Irelande's House," &c. with two coats of arms beneath it, tricked (as, I think, the heralds call it,) and most beautifully linked together ; the one of Shakspeare, the other of our hero, William Henry Ireland. — ■ The View is a miserable exhibition of an old-fashioned tenement, with the modern improvement of windows down to the ground, done with a pen and ink by our immortal bard. The only objection to it is, the title j the word VieWj in the sense of a delineation of a house or any other object, either on canvass, paper, or copper, being unfortunately wholly unknown to our an- cestors, [ 240 ] cestors, and so completely modern, that it is not found in any one of the various vocabu- laries which I have mentioned in the course of this inquiry. Had the word borne this signification in the last century, we should have had here — A View," 6cc. not the dipt language of the present day. I HAVE not met with many delineations of this kind so early as the time of our author; but when such Views came to be commonly delineated and engraved, they were called Prospects, or Prospectives, or Pic- tures. Thus we have " Prospects of re- markable places in and about the city of Lon- don," — sold by Overton, after the Restoration. •* The South-east Ppospect of the Church of St. Dunstan*s." '* The South Prospect of the Citie of London, (after a print by Hol- lar,) R. P. excudit •" in which many heads appear on London Bridge, and old St. Paul's without a spire. *' A Prospect of London and Westminster, taken at several stations to the southward," sold by Robert Morden, at the Atlas in Cornhill, and Philip Lea, at the Atlas in Cheapside. *♦ The Picture of the most famous City of London, as it ap- peared in the night in the height of its ruinous [ 241 ] ruinous condition by fire, September 2, 1666." — Engraved by Sherwin. ** TheWest Prospect of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul," engraved by Daniel King.''^'^ In 1693 was published, in folio, Slezer's ** Thea- TRUM Scotia, containing the Prospects of his Majesty's Palaces, Castles, and most considerable tow^ns in Scotland.** And even within this present century have appeared ** A Prospect of the seat of Sir William Ashhurst, Knight, at Highgate," (Member of Parliament for London, in the reign of Queen Anne,) and '* A South Prospect of Pancras Wells. '*'^5 The word View, as now used, came to us from the French, (Veue et Perspective) if I mistake not, in the beginning of the present century.'-*^ — So much '44 All the Prospects here mentioned, are in a volume in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, marked Lon- don Plans, &c. The names of the Sellers and En- gravers of them have been specified, as they contribute in some measure to fix the dates. »4s Ut supr. '4^' In 1710 appeared *• The View of the fnside of the Quire of St. Paul's Cathedral, Queen Anne, and the noble House of Lords," &c. engraved by Du Guernier, a French- man. In a Volume belonging to the Society of Antiqua- ries, given by Lord Coleraine. — The French used the vi'ord veue, in this sense, early in the sixteenth century. I I In [ 242 ] much for this curious View, which was done by our author in order to win a wager of five shiHings."*' As for our Blackfriars* Marksma?i and Haberdasher, when he got these arms which our poet has so gracefully tricked, I am altogether ignorant. Certain however In Lord Orford's Catalogue of Engravers, p. 6i, I find — " View of York from the Water- House," &c. by Wil- liam Lodge, (who was born in 1649, and died in 1689.} But this description was given by Virtue, who employed the language of his own day (little thinking that he was laying a trap for our forger) ; for on examining the origi- nal in the very valuable topographical Collection of John Symmons, of Paddington, Esq. I find that Lodge knew nothing of this View. His prints are entitled, " The ancient and loyal City of York ;" by William Lodge. [De- dicated to the Hon. Sir John Broeke, Bart.] — " From the old Water-house in York." By W. L. '^7 Here we have another proof of several of these fabri- cations having been founded on archetypes furnished by the edition of Shakspeare's Plays and Poems, published in 1790. See Vol. L P. \\. p. 323, where I have given a Letter addressed to Edward AUeyn, the Player, who was requested to play, for a ivager, some part in which Knell, or Eently, (the Garrick and Barry of their day,} had excelled : " Deny me not, sweet Ned \ the wager's downe, ** And twice as muche commaunde of me or myne ; <* And if you wynne, I swear the half is thine, " And for an overplus an English crswie." it [ 243 ] it is, that in those days armorial bearings were thought a very honourable distinction ; and that it was not quite so common at that time as it is at present, for a haberdasher to walk to the College of Heralds, and as soon as he had learned what were the arms of an ancient family whose name he hap- pened to bear, to assume them without further ceremony. The originals of the two following co- loured prints, one of which presents us with the portrait of an actor, (Shakspeare, if you will,) in the part of Bassanio, in The Merchant of Venice, and the other with that of Shylock in the same play, I have not seen ; and if I had seen them, I am not entitled, by any knowledge of the art, to decide upon their merit or authenticity. But by those who are perfect and indisputable judges in such matters, I have been informed, that in spite of the pro- cess of discoloration by tobacco-water and of fumigation by smoke and brimstone, which they appear to have undergone in that unknown repository in the country from whence all these curiosities have been ^ ^ 2 issued. [ 244 ] issued, they are manifestly washed draw- ings of a recent date. The Dutch Shy lock, with his blue night-cap, and his hands in his trowsers, will, I am told, be easily recog- nized by any one who has either visited Holland, or seen any representation of the natives of that country. XVI. Agreement between Shak- SPEARE AND LoWINE. The sixteenth article of this Miscellany is an Agreement between our poet and John Low in, the player, made on the 'yth of November, 1 608 ; by which Mr. Lowin binds- himself for four years '* to playe upon the stage, (what stage is not mentioned,)'* as well in those comedyes and tragedyes which he [Shakspeare] has alreadye pro- duced, as those which he may at anye time hereafter brynge forivard^ ande likewise any other Playes which he the saide W'" Shak- speare maye at anye tyme cause to be '4^ In the real stage-contracts of that time, tlie theatre on which such of the actors as were called Hirelings were engaged to play, was always mentioned either by name or description ; and they covenanted not to play in any other publick or common playhouse. See the next note. played, [ 245 ] played, not written or composd bye hym^ selfe, but whiche are the Writyngs or co??i- posityo?is of others." The actor's salary, it is agreed, shall be (not one guinea per week, as was maliciously reported, but) the summe of '* ou?je pound ande ten shil- lings per week." The phrase to bring forward ^ which occurs in more places than one in this volume, is now a very common theatrical expression, being presented to us almost every morning at breakfast in the play-bills of the present day : but how ancient it is, I shall leave to the partisans of these manu- scripts to ascertain. In the History of the Stage I have shewn, that the principal actors formerly played on Shares, as it is called j that is, they divided the profits of the exhibition daily in various proportions among them ; as is yet the practice in itinerant companies in the country. Other inferior actors were retained by the name of HIRELINGS,'*'^ at a weekly salary of from 149 «< Md y' this 8th of December 1597 my father Phi- lip Hiiishlow hiercd as a covenaunt servant willyam Ken- dall for ij years after the statute of Winchester w''' ij single penc A [he] to geve hym for his sayd serviseveriweek of his playing [ 246 ] from six to tea shillings a week, which was paid by the Sharers ; and each Sharer was entitled to have a boy,'^" who played either young or female characters, for whose services he received from three to six shil- lings a week. The mode frequently was, for some speculator to build a theatre, which he conducted, dividing the emolu- ments into shares, and retaining to himself the receipts of the Galleries or half the Galleries, ''' to reimburse him for all ex- pence s, playing In London x s. & in y' cuntric vs. for the w"'" he covenaunteih for y*^ space of those ij ycares to be redyc at all Tymes to play in y' howse of the said Philip & in no other during the sayd Terme. Wittnes my self the writer of This — E. Alleyn." Henslowe's Register. MS. See also Plays and Poems of Shakspeare, Vol. I. P. II. p. 311. *J° Hart, the celebrated tragedian, had been Robinson's boy or apprentice, at Blackfriars, and Mohun was Beeston's boy, at the Cockpit. '^' " item, he [Philip Henslowe] agrees with the same Companie, that they should enter bond to plaie with him for three yeares at such house and houses as hee shall appoint, and to allowe him half galleries for the said house and houses, and the otner halfe galleries towards his debt of 126 . and other such moneys as hee should laie out for playe- apparel duringe the space of the said three yeares agreeinge with them, in considcracon wheareof to seale each of them a bond [ 247 ] pences, of which he kept an account; such as dresses, &c. for new plays, the purchase of the copies of such plays as a certain number of the Sharers should think fit to be bought, and all other incidental charges. At a certain period he settled accounts with the company ; '^* and if the receipts appro- priated a bond of 2oo'^ to find them a convenient house and houses, and laie out such moneies as fower of the Sharers should think fitt for theire use in apparel, which at the three yeares end being paid for to be delivered to the Sharers ; who ac- cordinglie entered the said bonds, but Mr. Henchlowe and Mr. Mead deferred the same, and in conclusion denied to scale at all." From a paper, entitled Articles of Grievance against Mr. Hinchlowe. MS. 152 n Reckned w*'' the company of my lorde the carle of notingamesmen to this place, Sc I have layd owte for them the some of vi hunderd & thirtie two pownds & they have payd unto me of this deatte iij hunderd & fiftie & eyghte powndes to this daye beinge the 13 of October 1599." Henslowe's Register. MS. " Merd. That the fulle some of all the deabtes w'^*' we owe unto Mr. Henslow to this xvi of m'che 1603, cometh to juste the some of 140". is. ood. w*'*' some of 140". ois. ood. we whose names are here under wrytten do aknowledge ower dew deatte & promysse trewe payment. Thomas Blackwood." lii'd. '♦ Caste up all the acowntes frome the beginninge of the world untell this daye beinge the 14 daye of marche 1604 [1604-5] by Thomas Dov^ghton & Edward Jube for the [ 248 ] priated to him were not sufficient to defray the charges he had been at, the balance was paid him by the company in various pro- portions according to the shares they held ; who thus acquired a property in the plays and dresses which had been purchased. I HAD been induced by a passage in aa old Collection of Epigrams printed in 1614, to suppose that there were sometimes forty sharers in a company : but this was cer- tainly a mistake ; and I have now good reason to believe that the sharers were usually not more than twelve. These shares were again often divided into two and sometimes into four parts : and the owner of the share, whether an actor or proprietor of the house, made a lease of such part of it as he chose to dispose of, to an actor, who paying a certain rent was thereby en- titled to play in the company, to receive his dividend daily, (proportionable to what he held,) and to a share also in the property the company of the Princes men and I Philipe Henslow So ther reastethe dewe unto me P. Henslow the some of xxiiij." all Reconyngs consernynge the company in stocke generall descarged, and my sealfe descarged to them of all deat." Ibid. of [ 249 ] of the cloaths and other stage-necessaries, '^5 which having been paid for out of the re- ceipts of the house, or the pockets of the Sharers on settling accounts, became their own, What I have now stated is not con- jectural, but is ascertained by a Lease intend- ed to have been made by Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn in the year 1608, (the very year in which the deed before us is said to have been made,) to Thomas Downton, an actor ; •^•* and by other documents in my possession, which have been given in the notes. This explains the following passage in the Will of John Heminges : *' And I do hereby will and appoint that the moiety or one half of the yearly benefit and profit of the several ^^r/ J-'" which I have hy lease in the several playhouses of the Globe and Black-fryers, be from time to time re- ceived and taken up by my executor.** '^' On this ground the Sharer, when he came into the company, laid down a sum of money, which was paid in to the general stock. '^•* See the Appendix, N°. IV. He had originally been a Hireling, but afterwards became a Sharer. '^^ In a subsequent part of his Will he uses the technical term: '• — the yearly profit and benefit which shall arise or be made by my several parts and shares in the several playhouses called the Globe and Blackfriers." Shaksp. Vol. I. P. n. p. 194. K K John [ 250 ] John Lowin, whose name was formerly sometimes written Lewi?i, but never Lowiney as it is exhibited in this deed, was born, as I have already mentioned, in 1576. He probably went on the stage before the end of that century : but he was not in the Company of the Lord Chamberlain's Ser- vants, to which Shakspeare belonged ; and in 1603, when he was one of Lord Wor- cester's servants, he was in so low a situa- tion, that in that year he was under the necessity of borrowing a very small sum of money from the Proprietor of the Rose Theatre, where he then played, to enable him to go with a strolling party into the country. This fa (51 is proved by the follow- ing memorandum : ** Lent unto John Lowyn the 12 of marche 1602, [1602-3] when he went into the contrey with the company to playe, in Redy mony, the some of vs."'^^ Some time in the following year he joined our author's Company who then had become the King's Servants, and appeared '^^ Henslowe's Register. MS. personally [ 251 ] personally in the Induction to Marston*s Malecontent, which was played at the theatre in the Blackfriars then newly taken by that company.''' He was at this time without any doubt a subordinate actor, and did not get into the first rank till after the death of Shakspeare and Burbadge, and the retirement of Heminges and Condell, in or before 1623.'''^ The progress of this actor's reputation '57 He likewise appears in the list of the performers of Ben Jonson's Sejanus, which he informs us was acted by the King's Servants in 1 603 ; but the year then extend- ing to the 25th of March, this piece must have been pro- duced in 1603-4. — That Lowin was not of their company in 1603, is proved not only by Henslowe's MS., but by the Patent granted to Shakspeare, &c. May 19, 1603, where, though we find the names of the obscure Cowley and William Sly, Lowin's name does not appear. '^* That Condell had retired before 1623, is ascertained by the title-page of Webster's Duchess of Malfy, printed in that year. Heminges without doubt retired at the same time, or before ; for in the next year Lowin and Taylor stand at the head of the List of the King's Servants. See Plays and Poems of Shakspeare, Vol. L P. IL p. 208. Heminges, however, it appears from Sir Henry Herbert's MS. took some concern in the management of the theatre, and used to present Sir Henry, as Master of the Revels, with his New- Year's gift, for three or four years afterwards. — Shakspeare died in 1616, and Burbadge in 1619: thus^ K K 2 tlicre- [ 252 ] reputation I have thought it necessary to mark particularly, because in another deed, that shall very soon be brought forward^ dated 20 Feb. 1611-12, we shall find him called OUR best actor, when he was only emerging into notice. Our fabricator was led into this errour by two lines which I have quoted from an old lampoon written on Ben Jon son : " Let Lowin cease, and Taylor scorn to touch " The loathed stage, for thou hast made it such :" and by another quotation from Wright's HisTORiA HisTRioNicA, in which it is said that *' before the Wars he used to act FalstafF with mighty applause." But this undoubtedly relates to the period between 1623 ^^^ 1 641, as the preceding verses have a reference to the year 1632, when Jonson's Magnetick Lady was played, which the writer asserts had rendered the stage loathsome. Accordingly, in 1625, Lowin had attained to so high a rank as to be named together with Taylor in the Patent granted to the King's Servants by Charles therefore, about the period I have mentioned, an open field was left to Taylor and Lowin. — Taylor, from i6i2 to 161 6, appears to have played with another Conapany. the [ 253 ] the First, immediately after Heminges and Condell, who though they appear to have ceased to act, preserved a property in the theatre ; and not long before, (Dec. 20, 1624,) on the Master of the Revels expres- sing his disapprobation at the play ot the Spanish Viceroy having been performed by that company without a licence, the sub- mission made on that occasion was signed by the ten principal actors in the King's Company, at the head of which list stand the names of Joseph Taylor and John Lowin. '^^ But though Lowin in 1608 was only in the second class, there is no reason to sup- pose that a man who afterwards attained to such eminence was then an annual hireling. He without doubt had a half share, or some other portion of one, even then : a fatal circumstance for the deed before us. It is indeed, like the rest, a filo de se ; for here we find him, like one of our modern actors, engaged for three years at a salary of one pound ten shillings a week. The actor is to receive his salary even when he is pre- '^■9 Shakspeare, Vol. I. P. II. p. 208. vented [ 254 ] vented from playing by sickness or any other impediment ; and, like one of our modern taylors or shoemakers, he is to receive his thirty shillings every Saturday night before twelve o'clock. In the Appendix will be found a genuine stage-contrad: of this very period, that renders it quite unnecessary to say more on this part of the subject j from which I shall only quote one passage that may serve to throw some light on this Saturday-Night-Clause. The deed, which was intended to have been executed in 1608, after informing us that Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, in considera- tion of twenty pounds and ten shillings, had demised to Thomas Downton [an actor then in the Princess Company, who played at the Fortune Theatre,] " one eight parte of a fowerth of all such clere gaynes in monye as shall hereafter duringe the terme hereunder demised [thirteen years] arise, grow, accrew, or become dewe, or properly belonge unto the said Phillip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, for or by reason of any stage - playing or other exercise, comoditie or use whatsoever, used or to be used or exercised within the play-house of the [ 255 1 the said Phillipp Henslow and Edward Alleyn, comonly called the Fortune, si- tuate and beinge betweene Whitecrosstreet and Golding Lane,"^ — proceeds thus : ** And the said eight part of a fowerth parte of all the saide clere gaynes properly be- longinge to the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn to be paide by the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, or one of them, their or one of their executors or assignes, unto the saide Thomas Downton, or his assigns every day that any flay or other exercise shal be acted or exercised in the play- house aforesaide, upon the sharing of the mo- nies gathered and gotten at every of the same playes and exercises, as heretofore hath BEEN USED AND ACCUSTOMED." Mr. Downton covenants to pay Henslowe and Alleyn a Rent of ten shillings a year during his term ; to defray his due proportion of whatever expences may be incurred by the repairs of the play-house ; to exercise du- ring the said term his faculty or quality of playing in the said house " to the best and most benefit he can,'* unless he should be disabled by sickness, or should obtain the consent of the Lessors j and that he will not I during [ 256 ] during the said term act in any common play-house in London or within two miles of it, except the Fortune, without the spe- cial licence of Henslowe and Alleyn (or one of them) in writing under their hands and seals. Here we have a true stage-contract of precisely the period in question, and as decisive a proof of the forgery of the deed which I have been obliged so minutely to examine, as can be conceived. To furnish us, however, with additional proofs, if they were wanting, the fabricator has introduced the word composition y as de- scriptive of a written work. The word undoubtedly signified in our author*s time the act of forming or composing a work, being used in that sense by Spencer ; ^^^ but I do not believe that it then bore the signi- fication of a written work. Our author has it not, I think, in either sense. '^' The highest '^ " Simple is the device, and the composition meane ; yet carrieth some delight." Epistle Ded. to Mother Hubberd's Tale, 410. 1590. i6i <« There is no composition [that is, congruity or con- sistency] / [ 257 ] highest authority Dr. Johnson could find for this word, with the signification here re- quired, is L*Estrange. Cawdrey in 1604 de- fines it, *' A making or minghng together;" Bullokar in 1 6 1 6, * ' a joining or putting toge- ther." FromCotgrave's Dictionary in 161 1, it appears, that the French long before us employed this word in the sense required to justify its use in the deed now under con- sideration. •' Composition, A composition, [here clearly in the sense given by Bullokar and Cawdrey,] a making, framing, a con- fection, compositure, compounding : also a worke or book, or the writing of a work or book; also accord," &c. Here we see he; uses the English word as synonymous to the French in the first clause, which relates to compoundi?ig, &c. but when he comes to give that sense of the French word which we are now considering, he explains it by booke or work, not as before by the English word, composition ; a proof that it was not then in use, in this latter sense. Cockeram in 1655 gives only the old interpretation, sistency] in these news," says the Duke, in Othello. This is the only place in which I recollect the word to have been used by Shakspeare. L L ** a join- [ 258 ] *' a joining or setting together :" but some years afterwards Philips in his World of Words, (3d Edition, 1671,) afRxes to this xvord the signification which it now bears : ** A setting together ; also a work set forth in any piece of learning or art." — Thus therefore, I think, we are furnished with strong presumptive evidence that this word in the sense we are now speaking of, came to us from the French about the time of the Restoration. In all the instances of modern language which I have produced, I am perfectly aware of the impossibility of proving a universal negative : but I have, I appre- hend, brought forward evidence enough to satisfy any reasonable inquirer, and which at least is entitled to be received as true, till some proof of the existence of the con- tested words shall be produced from a book of Shakspeare's age, by those who may differ from me in opinion. The Will of John Lowin (if ever he made one) not being extant, I am not fur- nished with his autograph, so as to prove J the [ 259 ] the signature to this deed a forgery. But the other circumstances attending it render any additional proof of that kind quite unne- cessary. The reader has only to compare the forged name of John Heminges with his true autograph, and then apply the old adage — crimine ab imo disce otmjes. The names of his friend Joseph Taylor and the other comedians in Plate II. may also throw some light on the fancy -scrawl o^ this "■ our best actor." — Before, however, I dismis* this stage-contract, I must draw your Lord- ship *s attention to Master Lowin*s seal, which is well worthy of inspection with a magnifying-glass ; being a well-formed head, copied, if I mistake not, from the representation of some of our Saxon Mo- narchs, among the engravings of Virtue. I HAD almost forgot to mention, that though the Scrivener who drew this deed has written our poet*s christian name very correctly, the poet himself had either quite forgot it, or to keep his booby patron in countenance, mis-spells it — Willam. h L a XVII. [ 260 ] XVII. Agreement between Shak- SPEARE AND HeNRY CoNDELL. We now come to similar articles of Agreement between Shakspeare, who is the grand proprietor and sole mover of the theatrical machine, and his fellow Henry Condell, executed on the 20th of May, 1610; by which he covenants *' for the further space or terme of three years to play upon the stage for the s'' W"". Shak- speare alle comedyes ande tragedyes whiche he the s"*. W"". Shakspeare may at any tyme during the s'^ terme cause to be played not written or composed by hymselfe butte are the 'writings or composytyons of others.*^ His salary is to be a guinea a week, not indeed in express words, being only *' oune pounde and oune shillynge per weeke.*' Like Lowin, he is to be paid every Saturday night before twelve of the clock, sick or well, and whether he plays or not. If we add to this that he is to forfeit a hundred pounds if he does not perform the covenants expressed,'^* we have the whole of this deed. '^'* This penalty was copied from the contracts wiiich I published between Philip Henslowe and those low actors whom [ 26l ] deed. And surely he must be a most un- reasonable fellow not to perform them, the only covenants being that he shall play on the stage certain plays, and that whether he plays or not, he shall receive " oune pounde and oune shillynge** every week in the year. In this deed, as in the former, we find the word composition in the sense of a written work ; and it also informs us that Condell was one third lower in estimation than Lowin. In what manner or by what arts the latter contrived thus to leap over the head of our poet*s friend, Condell, whom he has particularly remembered in his will, and was the joint-editor of his Plays, we are not told. Certain however it is, that when Lowin was under the necessity of borrowing a crown to go a strolling into the country, Condell was in such repute that whom he engaged to perform in his playhouse at a weekly stipend, as hirelings : and the same contracts also suggested the term oS. three years. [See Shaksp. 1790, Vol. I. P. II. p. 311-] But actors of Condell's rank, who had a property in the house in which they were Sharers, entered into no bonds, as the hireUngs did, for performance of Covenants, unless when a Company was first formed by a Speculator like Henslowe, when the contracting parties mutually tied themselves to each other. in [ 262 ] in the patent granted to Shakspeare and others in 1603, ^^^ name stands immediately after that of Heminges, and that so far from being a weekly hireling, he v/as a principal sharer of the profits made by the perform- ances exhibited at the Globe and Blackfriars theatres, from that time to 1 627,whenhedied. There are several other curious circum- stances belonging to this agreement. The first is, that poor Condell is made to cove- nant, not that he should exercise his faculty or quality of playing in a certain theatre called the Globe, &c. as we have just seen was the mode of the time, but that he should outdo even the aspiring Bottom, and perform an entire comedy or tragedy himself. In Lowin's Agreement, it is observable that the same covenant is found. To re- concile therefore the two deeds, we must suppose that Condell, the Hotspur of those days, performed, as a mute, on the shoulders of his plump fellow-comedian, a species of exliibition to which Lowin was familiarized by occasionally playing the part of Falstaff, as the double of He- minges. — The next observable circumstance is, the mortal antipathy which our author appears [ 263 ] appears to have taken to his own dramas; for Condell is tied down to play only the comedies and tragedies written by other au- thors ; so that we must suppose either that Shakspeare would never suffer one of his own pieces to be performed in his own playhouse, or that he bore such enmity to Condell, that he had made a fixed resolu- tion that this actor should not discharge any part in them. The salary, ** oune pounde and oune shillynge," is a very proper periphrasis for that coin which was running in the head of the fabricator of this deed, and accords extremely well with the other ridiculous covenants ; and that all should be in perfect harmony, the whole is concluded with a pretty fiction of a trim boar's head, which is intended to pass for Shakspeare *s seal, and which we are to suppose he em- ployed the Marchant of that day to engrave for him, in honour of the fat knight who in three of his plays had afforded to number- less spectators inexhaustible entertainment. So ME years ago I published a copy of Henry Condeirs Will, extracted from the Registry in the Preroeative-office : but the bundle of ori- ginal Wills for the year 1627 being unfor- tunately [ 264 ] tunately lost, I have not been able to procure the autograph of this actor : '^^ happily however the deed itself sufficiently ascer- tains the nature of the fictitious signature affixed to it. If there be any such letter as is here made to represent an H in the signa- ture ** H^ Condell," it has escaped not only my researches, but those of a very diligent examiner of ancient hand-writing, in whose work entitled Court-hand Restored, '^-^ it is not found. It was manifestly formed on the ninth capital / found in the eigh- teenth Plate of that work, by a reversal and slight change of the letter. The indorsement on the deed now before us — " ao'*" Maye 9'^: lam' :" is at least as curious as any thing that is found in the '^'^ As Condell lived, when he was in town, in Alderman- bury, where he served some of the parish offices, I hoped to have found his signature in the Register of that parish, but was disappointed. I was equally unsuccessful at Ful- ham, where he had a country house. The old Register of that parish is lost, but several of the Vestry Proceedings of a very ancient date are extant ; in none of which, how- ever, the name of Henry Condell occurs. '^4 Published by Mr. Andrew Wright of the Inner Temple, 4to. 1776. — The eighteenth Plate contains «' A general Alphabet of the old law hands," inside [ 265 ] inside of it j for to say nothing of its being in English, (which I have already noticed as a circumstance fatal to all these instru- ments,) or of the unnecessary th after 20, (which Scriveners never wrote,) the deed itself has already informed us that it was made on the " twentieth day of Maye in the eyghth yeare'' of King James . When two such great authorities differ, tQ which of them are we to give credit ? I conceive, in the present instance it will be safest to believe neither. XVIII. A Lease to Michael Fraser AND HIS Wife. The following deed was one of the earliest, if not the very first of all these instruments, which was exhibited to those •* ingenuous, intelligent, and disinterested persons," on whose shoulders the weighty load of all this motley mass of trumpery has been laid. It is a Lease pretended to be made on the 14th of July, 1610, (8Jac.) by which Shakspeare and his friend John Heminges (by the name of John Hemynge^ demise to one Michael Fraser and his wife ** his two messuages or tenements (to which M M of [ 266 ] of the two lessors the word his refers does not appear,) abutting close to the Globe theatre by Black Fryers London,"- - *' and also all those two Gardens on the North side of the same which appertayne or belong thereto, and whiche conteyne six Acres and an halfhQ they more or less," for a term of sixty four years from the 29th of September next ensuing, at a rent of forty four pounds a year, to be paid half yearly, and the first payment to be made on the said 29th day of September. However our modern conveyancers may surpass their predecessors in the number of covenants or provisos, it will, I believe, be found that our ancient deeds, though brief and simple, were at least as clear, explicit, and correct, particularly in the description pf the thing sold, demised, or granted, as the more ample and voluminous indentures of the present day. Here, however, we have a description of six acres and a half of land abutting close to the Globe theatre by Blackfryers ; which is about as good a description, as if the ground on which the house of the present Earl Bathurst is built had been conveyed to the late earl, as 1 ** a certain [ 267 ] ** a certain piece of ground containing in front ninety feet, and in depth one hundred and twenty feet, on which the Inn known by the name of the Hercules' Pillars now stands, abutting close to Hyde -F ark Corner by Whitechapel," In detecting the fabrications of Chatterton it was curious to trace the mistakes he fell into, up to the authors from whose bhmders they were derived. The present ridiculous blunder appears to have been derived from a mere error of the press in a book which our fabricator was very likely to examine, the BioGRAPHiA Dramatic A, published in 1780, where, under the article ''Robert Armin," he found the following words: *' This author was an actor at the Globe ^ Black-Fryers^ and was living in 161 1,** &c. The conjunction and having been inadvert- ently omitted by the compositor at the press, the theatre in Southwark was conceived to be close adjoining to Blackfriars, or this latter was supposed to be a larger and more general description of the quarter where the Globe theatre stood ; as we now say — Duke Street, St. James's Square. It is observable, that in this deed Blackfryers is spelt rightly, M M 3 as [ 268 ] as it is in the book that led the fabricator into this error : whereas in the other deeds where that district is mentioned, he has spelt the word in the modern fashion, (as far as relates to the vowel in the second syllable) Bld-ckfryarSj contrary to the mode of ortho- graphy which prevailed in our author's time, and which was nearer to the etymology of the word (frere) ; this district being then constantly written with an e in the second syllable,* — Blackfryersj or in two words, blacke ffryers. The phrase abutting to, here employed, is unknown to our language, abutting upon having been invariably the legal and collo- quial language from the time of Shakspeare to this hour. On the phrase — the Globe theatre^ having omitted to take notice of it where it was first introduced, (in the Pro- missory Note to Heminges,) I shall not insist here, reserving it for another place. It is only necessary now to mention, that the * See the title-page of Othello, 4to. 1622; the Conveyance from Walker to Shakspeare in the Appendix, N**. II. or any book or MS. of the time of James the First in which this place is mentioned. Globe, [ 269 ] Globe, not the Globe theatre^ was the uni- form language of the time.'^'' As it is not very easy to know on which side of the Thames these six acres and a half are supposed to have lain, it is neces- sary to take a view both of the district of the Blackfriars and the Bankside. In 1596 there was certainly in Southwark some ground unoccupied by buildings j but it was chiefly in that part of it which lay more to the West than the Globe theatre, and which afterwards became the property of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, whose gardener, Cuper, renting the ground, it took the name of Cu- per's Gardens. Even at an earlier period of the reign of Elizabeth the ground near where the Globe stood, seems to have been almost all occupied, though I do not doubt there may have been then some small gar- dens in that quarter. With respect to the Blackfriars, there were in that district some void spaces certainly, as is proved by the Conveyance to Shakspeare, already mentioned : but in general (as appears from ancient maps,) the ground on the east side of Fleet Ditch (where the theatre stood) '^'■^ See Append. N°. I. note. was [ 270 ] was almost wholly occupied by houses. To the west there appears to have been a considerable space of void ground about forty years before the date of this pre- tended Lease ; but this was in Whitefriars^ with which we have no concern. — In six acres and a half there are thirty one thou- sand four hundred and sixty square yards, a space on which above three hundred houses might have been built ; as appears from a cause '^' of much celebrity which was tried in the last century, and which I shall presently have occasion to mention jnore particularly. Most assuredly neither near the Globe, nor in the Blackfriars, was there in the year 1610 void space sufficient to contain the fourth part of the number of edifices above mentioned. If however I were to allow that there might have been such an immense void space as would con- tain three hundred houses, either adjoin- inp- to the eastern end of Maiden-lane in Southwark, where the Globe stood, or in the precinct of the Blackfriars on the other side of the river, it would contribute no- thing to the establishment of this fabricated instrument ; for till such an ancient build- '^'> Lady Ivy's case, 1684. ing [ 271 ] ing as the Globe theatre by Blackfriars shall be proved to have existed in the reign of James the First, together with six acres and a half adjoining to it, this deed must share the same fate with the rest. Mr. Pope, speaking of the early pub- lishers of Shakspeare's works, has observed that their French is as bad as their Latin, and even their very Welch is false. A similar observation may be made on the papers and deeds before us. One finds it difficult to say in what circumstance the fabricator of them displays the most igno- rance ; whether his spelling is worse than his phraseology, or the incongruity of his fictions with the history and manners of the time be more observable than either. Even his law is all false. — '* Provided always (says this lease) that if the s^ Mich^ Fraser and Eliz'\ hys Wife theyr Ex^ Ad^ or Affigns or any of them do well and truly perform and keep all & singular the s**. covenaunts herein before agreed upon, that then it shall and may be lawfuU to and for the s'*. M'. Fraser and Eliz'\ hys Wife to enter into and enjoy the same, but in case of non per- formance or non payment of the sa?tie that then [ 272 ] then it shall be lawfulle to & for the s^. Willam Shakespeare and John Hemynge again to have & enjoy the same." It is here observable, that previous to this proviso for the performance of all & singular covenaunts, no covenant has been mentioned except that for the payment of rent, half yearly. If however the lessees keep this covenant, what is the boon granted to them ? Why truly to enter into the pre- misses and enjoy them : that is, these unfor- tunate people after they have paid half a year's rent on the 29th day of Sep. when their lease is to commence, and atter they shall have regularly made several other half yearly payments, are, at the end I suppose of two or three years, to be quietly put in possession of the premisses. But ** in case of non performance or non payment of the same," that is, in case they do not make several half yearly payments of rent before they get possession of the premisses, then the said Willam Shakspeare and John Hem- ynge are to re-enter upon themselves^ and to be restored to that possession of which they never have been devested. The [ 273 ] The next clause is still more extraordi- nary. *' — And the said W"". Shakespeare and John Hemynge for themselves theyr H^ Ex'. Ad'. & Assigns shall and will clearly exonerate a?jd discharge from tyme to tyme the s^. MK Fraser and Eliz'" . hys wyfc from the payment of such rent, and well & sufficiently keep harmless the s^. M'. Fraser and Eliz'\ hys wife, theyr Ex'. Ad'. & Assigns & every of them, of & from all incumbres whatsoever by them the s"^. W"'. Shakespeare & In°. Hemynge at any tyme before committed or done.'* — As in the former part of this demise the lessees were somewhat hardly dealt with, in being obliged to make several half yearly payments of rent before they should be permitted to enter, it must be acknowledged that here ample compensation is made to them by an entire and total discharge and acquittance of all rent during the term. — The fabricator had heard that it was usual for the lessor to discharge, save and keep the lessees and the premises harmless from all former grants, leases, charges, and incumbrances whatsoever ; and to make the matter sure, instead of covenanting to give the lessees • N N from t 274 ] from time to time proper acquittances, has made the lessors covenant wholly to exone- rate and discharge them from the payment of any rent whatsoever*'^*^ Of this covenant the only precedent I have been able to find in our law-books, after a long search, is «66 What was meant here, would in the time of James the First have been thus expressed : — " And the said W. IS. & I. H. for themselves, &c. do covenant, that they, their executors, &c. shall from time to time, and at all times, well and sufficiently discharge, save & keep harmless, as well the s** M. F. & E. his wife, their executors, &c. as also the said Messuages, & all other the premises by these presents mentioned to be demised, with all & singular their appurtenances, & every part & parcel thereof, of and from all & singular former grants, bargains, sales, leases, charges, & incumbrances whatsoever, had, made, granted, &c. And also shall save harmless the said M. F. &c. their executors, &c. & the said Messuages, &c. of and from all & all man- ner of quit-rents, annuities & rent-charges whatsoever, issu- ing or going out, or to be issuing or going out, of the same or any part thereof, other than the said yearly rent of 44/. reserved by these presents, yearly to be paid for the said messuages i^ other the premises. And that upon every pay- ment made of the said yearly rent, or any part thereof, to the said W. S. or 1. H. their executors or assigns, by the said M. F. & E. their executors, &c. according to the tenor and true meaning of these presents, the saidW. S. or L H. their executors or assigns, shall and will subscribe to such a reasonable writing or acquittance as the said M. F. and E. their executors or administrators shall reasonably require, testifying and declaring the receipt of the said payment.'' > one [^75] one in the Puzzled Clerk*s Guide, by Mr. Serjeant Grimgribber, whose works, though now superseded by the more refined jurisprudence of modern times, were in some request before the statute which di- rected all legal proceedings to be in English, and in the early part of the present century are cited with respect in Sir Richard Steele's Reports. In addition to all this nonsensical jargon, we find at the end of this lease, — ** In witnesse whereof the si Ptes to these Indres interchangeablie have sett their hands & scales the daye & yeare first above written : Anno-Dom (1610).** Now even in so small a matter as this, fiction has betrayed itself; for this was not the abbreviation of the time, but either Anno Dili., or A. Dili., or An. Dili. — At the back we find — '* 14*^ July 5 Jam'.", for which in the Errata we are desired to read — '* 8 Jam'.", which is not a whit better than the other. It should be as I have already observed, — 8 Jac. Throughout this deed, as in the con- clusion of the contract with Lowin, we have N N 2 Willam [ 276 ] Willam Shakspeare, and for the reason already assigned. But as in the former case the Scrir vener would not keep his employer in counr tenance by writing his christian name in his own absurd way, so here, to punish him for his oscitancy or his perverseness, our poet leaves him in the lurch, subscribing his name to this deed, in plain and legible characters, William Shakspeare. XIX. A Deed of Trust to John Hemynge. We are at length arrived at the last legal instrument presented to us in this new Anthology, which is a Deed of Trust pretended to have been made by our poet to John He?7iynge, (as he is here improperly called,) on the 23d day of February 1 611- 12, the consideration of which necessarily de- mands particular attention. All the absur- dities and incongruities, which have been already noticed, must now yield the palm to superior absurdity and incongruity ; the thickest Cimmerian darkness being bright sunshine compared with the vapid nonsense and impenetrable obscurity of this fabri- cation. It [ 277 ] It sets out with informing us that Shak^ speare, on the day above mentioned, had not yet retired to the country ; an important piece of information, could we rely on our informer. In the deed of purchase and mortgage in the next year, March lo and II, 1612-13, (I am now speaking of ge- nuine deeds,) he is described as of Strat- ford iipon'^' Avon, from whence I am inclined to believe that he had then retired from the stage, Some years ago I conjectured that he had originally some slight knowledge of law, and particularly of the lower branches of conveyancing ; and I have since found no reason to think that my conjecture was ill- founded. He was at the supposed time of making this deed living in intimacy with Mr. Francis Collins, an eminent attorney who practised both at Stratford and War- wick, and who was a witness to his Will, which, without doubt, Collins drew. I must also observe, that our poet had a cousin, who at this time had chambers in 167 Not <' on Avon," as we find it in this and several other of these deeds. the [ 278 ] the Middle-Temple, Mr. Thomas Greene, a barrister, or solicitor in Chancery,'^* with whom he was connected by friendship as well as blood. Thus circumstanced, he is made to preface the deed before us with these words : '* Having founde muche wick- edness amongst e those of the I awe and not liking to leave matters at theyre wills, I have herein named a trusty and tried friende who shall afterr mye dethe execute withe care myne orderrs herein given.'* I SHALL not stay to observe on the mo- dern expression, — ** not liking to leave matters at theyre wills :" but the reason assigned for his making this deed, his ** having founde muche wickedness amongste those of the law," is well worthy of notice. Had tradition informed us that, like Dekker, Jonson, and many other poets of the time,'^*^ he ''^ In one of his papers he mentions his having attended Sir Edw.Coke on law-business, in terms that seem to denote that he was a Solicitor ; but in the superscription of letters addressed to him, he is styled Thomas Greene, Esq. an addition not then given to solicitors, or attorneys at law. — He expressly calls our author — " my cousin Shakspeare." '^ " Lent unto Thomas Downton the 30 of Janewary 1598 to descarge Thomas Dickers from the areaste of my lord chamberlenes men, 1 saye lent iij". xs." ** Lent [ 279 ] he had been in any part of his hfe necessi- tous and embarrassed, and that in conse- quence he had felt the strong gripe of the law, that is, had the whole history of his life and character been the reverse of what it was, such a reflection might perhaps have been plausibly ascribed to him: but that, the gentle, ingenuous, honest, wealthy, and liberal Shakspeare should transmit to pos- ** Lent unto the Company the 4 of Febreary 1598 to discharge Mr. Dicker out of the counter in the pouUrey, the some of fortic shillinges I say dd. [delivered] to Thomas Downton — xxxxs." In another place, as I remember, Mr. Henslovve redeems Dekker out of the Cl'mke ; but I cannot at present find the passage. ♦* Lent unto Bengemen Johnson player the 28 of July 1597 "^ Redey money the some of fower powndes to be payd yt agayne when so ever ether I or any for me shall demande yt, I saye iiij". " Witness E. Alleyn & John Synger.** «* Lent Bengemyne Johnson the 5 of Janewary 1597 [1597-8] in Redy mony the some o f - ■■ - vs." ♦* Lent unto Thomas Downton the xvij of Janewary 1598 to lend unto harey chettell to paye his charges in the Marshallicy, the some of xxxs." Henslowe's Register, MS. Henry Chettle was author of above thirty plays, of which the only one now extant (entirely written by him,) is the TRAGEDY OF HoFFMAN ; printed anonymously in 1631. terity [ 28o ] terity such a malevolent and unfounded stigma on a most useful and honourable profession, with some of whose members he was at the same moment living in great amity, is utterly incredible. But let us now hear his reasons for making this deed. He has already told us that he relies on a trusty friend to execute his orders. "But in case I shoulde att any tyme hereafterr make a Will as perr- chaunce I shall in manner of forme I have lefte some things nott herein given or dis- posedd of that maye serve to fylle upp said Will and thereby e cause no hyndraunce in the Executyonn of thys mye deede of gifte. But sho"*. I nott chaunce make a will thenn I doe give all suche things afs"^. not herein ment"^. unto mye lovynge Daughterr and her heyres for everr. — Firste untoe mye deare Wife I doe orderr as folowithe thatt she bee payde withinne oune monthe afterre mye dethe the somme of oune hondrythe and fowre score Pounds fromm the moneys whyche be nowe layinge onn Accompte of the Globe Theatre in the hands of Master John Hemynge Also I doe give herr mye suyteof grey vellvett edged withe silverr tog', withe mye [ 28l ] myelyttelle CedarrTriinke in wyche there bee three Ryngs oune lyttel payntyng of jnyselfe in a silverr Case & sevenn letters wrottenn to her before oure marryage these I doe beg herr toe keepe safe if everr she dydd love me. — To mye deare Daughterr who hathe alwaye demeaned herrselfe well I doe give as folowithe the somme of twentye Pounds and sevenne shyllyngs thys muste bee payde herr withinne two Months afterr mye dethe & for raysyng s'^. summe of 20'. & sevenne shyllyngs I doe hereby e orderr Masterr hemynge toe sell mye share of the two houses neare the Globe butt sho*^. that nott be enough thenne I doe herebye orderr him toe make it upp oute of the Moneys inn hys hands onne Accompte of the Thea- tre. — I doe allso give herr mye suyte of blacke silke & the Rynge whyche I doe alwaye weare givenne toe mee by hys Grace of Southampton thys I doe beg herr as she dothe love mee neverr toe parte fromm." Before we examine the different clauses of this nonsensical passage, allow me to give your Lordship a clew that may enable you to find your way out of this labyrinth of folly and imposture. As every thing o o that [ 282 ] that relates to Shakspeare is interesting, we are not to wonder that some observations have been made on the last solemn act of his life, his Will, which was executed on the 25th of March 161 6, a month before he died. It has particularly been remarked that at first he had taken no notice what- soever of his wife, and when he did recol- lect or was reminded of her, he left her no other memorial of his affection but his ** second-best bed with the furniture.**'^" From this and some other circumstances it has been conjectured, not without probable ground, that he was not very strongly at- tached to her. Another observation natu- rally arises on the perusal of his Will ; that he had a stronger affection for his eldest daughter Susanna, who in the year 1607 was married to Dr. John Hall, an eminent physician of Stratford, than for his second daughter Judith, who not long before his death married, I believe without his appro- bation, Mr. Thomas Queeny, who in the researches which I made there some years '''° It was long supposed that he had bequeathed her his irown best bed ; but by examining and collating the original Will, I discovered that the donation (which at best denoted no great kindness,) was still less valuable. ago [ 283 ] ao-o to obtain materials for our poet's Life, I found was a Vintner in that town. On these observations, naturally suggested by Shakspeare's Will, and stated in the edition which I had the honour to present to the publick, the Instrument before us was con- structed ; '"' with a view at the same time to cover and give some collateral strength and authenticity, not only to the lock of hair, love-letters, and pictures, already noticed, but to all such trumpery of the same kind as the credulity of the town at any future period might digest. Passing over the orthography of this deed, which is like that of all the rest, I shall confine myself to the instrument itself. What in plain English is the meaning of the passage which I have transcribed ? Our poet thinks it not improbable that he shall ''' How then, I suppose it will be said, came it to pass, that the fabricator has here made our poet mention his wife with kindness, and bequeath her a considerable sum of money ? Either on the principle adopted in many other places, to surprize by novelty, or (which is more probable,) because it had been suggested that Shakspeare, previous to the making of his Will, had made some provision for his wife. 2 make [ 284 ] make a Will, in which however he foresees there may be some defects and omissions ; and therefore he gives certain things not mentioned in this deed, (what they are some Qidipus must inform us,) which may supply the deficiencies of the last so- lemn act of his life. But if he should not make a Will, then he gives all things aforesaid (though nothing whatsoever has been specified) unto his lovy?jge daughterr. To this same *• deare daughterr, who hathe alwaye demeaned herrselfe well,'* he gives the sum of twenty pounds and seven shil- lings, &c. This CODICIL to an unmade Will surely surpasses any instance of Se- cond Sight that ever has been recorded in Scotland. There is no maxim of law better esta- blished than that every gift should be cer- tain ; and, like many other rules of law, it is adopted, because it is agreeable to reason and common sense. A gift there- fore ** to his dear daughter who had always demeaned herself well," would have been ab- solutely void, for these words denote that he had more daughters than one j and this kind of [ 285 ] of ambiguity being what Lord Verulam calls patcfis,''^ or appearing to be ambiguous upon the deed or instrument, cannot be holpen by averment, or parol evidence to shew which of his daughters he meant : for that (says Bacon) *' were to make all deeds hollow and subject to averments, and so in effect that to pass without deed, which the law appoints shall not pass but by deed." — For the sum given (twenty pounds seven shillings) no probable reason can be assigned, all gifts of this kind, or legacies, being usually even sums. The fabricator, however, of this instrument see- ing that in Shakspeare's Will, and other old Wills, legacies of twenty-six shillings and eight pence, or thirteen pounds six shillings and eight pence, &c. were be- queathed, supposed these were odd sums ; whereas in fact, and in the contemplation of the testator, they were as much even sums as our modern five, ten, or twenty pounds; for the former sum (il. 6s. 8d.) was two marks ^ and the latter (13I. 6s. 8d.) which is Shakspeare*s bequest to his friend Francis Collins, was exactly twenty marks. ''* Maxims of the Law. Reg. 23. As [ 286 ] As therefore in the stage-contracts and the promissory note (given almost a century be- fore it was known) the even sums of one ppund one shilHng, and five pounds five shillings, [even^ so far as they correspond with the present current gold coin of the realm,) were primo intuitu suspicious, and when attended with other circumstances of imposture were more than suspicious ; so in the present deed the uneven sums of twenty pounds and seven shillings given to Shakspeare's dear daughter, thirty -seven shillings given to Master Shancke, and for- ty-nine shillings to Master Rice, are all equally objectionable, and manifest deno- tations of fiction. The sum of twenty pounds and seven shillings is ordered to be paid to his dear daughter two months after his death, (the regulation of a Will, instead of a deed of gift,'"') and how does your Lordship think '"J *< If a gift does not take effect by delivery of immediate possession, it is then not properly a gift, but a contract, aru! this a man cannot be compelled to perform but upon good and sufficient consideration." 2 Blackst. Com. 441. There being no consideration expressed here, the whole deed, were it even to be considered as a deed, would have been void : but it is a Will rather than a deed of gift. it [ 28? ] it is to be raised ? — To raise this little sum, Shakspeare's trusty friend, Heminges, is not to put his hand into the chest of which we shall hear more presently, but to sell our author's moiety of his estate near the GLOBE BY BLACKFRIARS (for it SCemS he had but a moiety of it, though in the lease to Fraser and his wife the whole is called his) ; and if the sale of this moiety should not produce twenty pounds and seven shillings, then the deficiency is to be made good out of money in Heminges* hands. In the year 1612 an estate in houses was commonly sold at the lowest at twelve years purchase, and an estate in land at about sixteen. '''* At twelve years' purchase Shak- speare's pretended moiety of this estate, which consisted of both land and houses, and was let for sixty-one years at 44I. per annum, would have produced a sum of two hundred and sixty -four pounds at the least ; and yet the owner, who we shall presently find is a most excellent counter- '74 Briefe, easie, and necessarie Tables for the valua- tion of Leases, &c. 8vo, 1622. caster. [ 288 ] easier, is here made to doubt whether it will supply about the thirteenth part of that sum. As the ** Rynge givenne by hys Grace of Southampton" was mentioned to give coun^ tenance and support to the correspondence between him and our poet, which had be- fore been brought forward, so in the gift to his dear wife, " the sevenn letterrs wrotten to her before oure marry age,'' the ** three Ryngs," '* oune lyttell payntyng of myself e in a silverr case," and the *' lyttelle Cedarr Trunke," were all introduced in this last instrument, (for it was the U envoy of all these fictions,) with a view to afford a friendly cover to the washed drawing, and the amorous effusions of our poet, with which the world had previously been grati- fied. Nothing therefore need be said of them. All the money bequeathed to her, (for so I must call it,) as well as the other sums afterwards mentioned, are to be drawn out of the fund now layinge''^ in Heminges* '7i For this vulgarism the fabricator is answerable ; for though it is a very old one, it occurs, I think, no where in our author's plays. 1 hands t 289 ] hands ** onti accompte of the Globe Thea- tre:'* so that we are to suppose that the playhouse in Blackfriars produced nothing ; whereas the fact is, that from about the year 1 605 that was the place of exhibition during a great part of the year, and they played at the Globe only for a short time in the summer. After the detection of Chatterton, and the demolition of the chest with six keys, I did not expect to have heard again, for some time at least, of such a repository for ancient Manuscripts : from a similar recep- tacle, however, the unknown gentleman is hardy enough to draw all his speciosa mira- cula ; for an oaken cheste at the Globe playhouse, it seems, contained not only our poet's theatrical, but his domestick wardrobe, his love-letters to his wife, (for though he did not, like one of Congreve's coxcombs, write letters to himself, we find he kept the let- ters he had written to her, among the play- house stuff, she, poor woman, all the while remaining quietly at Stratford,) rings, pic- tures, caskets, and plays of all sorts, new and old. p p It [ 290 ] It is irksome to me to dwell longer on this foolish deed ; yet it still demands some further animadversion. When plays were sold to the theatre, which was the practice of our author's time, they became the pro- perty of the house, that is, of the Sharers who constituted the company ; who though they did not purchase them in the first in- istance, (the money being paid by the pro- prietor of the building, at the appointment of four or five of them nominated for this purpose,) afterwards acquired the property of the copies by reimbursing the proprietor for this and all other expences defrayed by him.'"^ Shakspeare therefore well knew that he had no title to any of his plays then in the hands of his associates ; yet in this deed he distributes them about most liberally ; that is, he very bountifully gives to individuals what already belonged tQ them all collectively. At that time no •'s " Alsoe wee have paid him for plaie-books 200''. or thereabouts, and yet he denies to give us the copies of anye one of them." From a paper drawn up by Joseph Taylor and other players, entitled ** Articles of Grievance and Oppression against Mr. Hinchlowe," MS. notion [ 291 ] notion of literary property was entertained, unless where a particular licence to print and vend certain books for a limited time was granted by the Crown. In this deed, however, all the provisions and regulations relative to our author's plays printed and in manuscript, are founded on the now received idea of literary property to a cer- tain extent vested in authors or their assigns by the statute of Queen Anne. That all might be of a piece, the various donations to the several actors named, are as absurd, capricious, and incongruous, as those to his wife and daughter. To the obscure Cowley, we are told, he gives his Ternpeste, his Mydsomerrs dreme, Mac- bethe, Henry VIII. and his altered playe of Titus Andronicus ; and " sho'^ they bee everre agayne Impryntedd^'*^ he desires it may be done from these his *' true writtenn playes,'* and that all the profits of such new imprinting may belong to Cowley. The plain and direct meaning of the words ** sho^ they bee everre agayne impryntedd^^ is, that at the time of making this pretended deed, (23 Febr. 1611-12,) these five plays had appeared in print ; but the Tempest, p p 3 Mac- [ 292 ] Macbeth, and Henry VIII. were not printed till about ten years afterwards, being first published by John Heminges, here named, and Henry Condell, in 1623, when for the first time they were entered in / the books of the Stationers* Company.'''*' This circumstance alone would defeat the deed before us. In the History of the Stage I ascertained that there was an old play entitled Titus Andronicus, played by the servants of Lord Sussex at the theatre belonging to Philip Henslowe, in January 1593-4. From this circumstance, and Heminges* having admitted a play with this title to stand among Shakspeare's works, it is, I think, manifest that he made some alterations and additions to that piece, as I have shewn he did in the second and third part of King Henry the Sixth. Hence the mention in this deed of *' my altered play of Titus Andronicus." I state '^'^ See the Register of the Stationers' Company, — " Nov. 8, 1623, Mr. Blount and Isaak Jaggard. — Mr. William Shakespeares Comedyes and Tragedyes, soe many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to other men : Viz. The Tempest, - - Henry Eight, Macbeth," &c. &c. Shaksp. 1790. Vol. I. P. I. p. 259. this [ 293 ] this minute circumstance, because it, as well as many others that I have noticed, prove, that the greater part of these fabri- cations was made subsequent to November ly^o, when that History was pubhshed. In the year 1600 the play of Sir John Oldcastle was printed, and ascribed to Shakspeare, whose name appears at full length in the title-page. It was always considered as an imposture, but was never certainly known to be such till I produced an entry from an old theatrical Register of the precise sum paid to the four poets who were the authors of that piece. '^' We do not, however, find that on the publication of this play, the careless Shakspeare, who, as Pope most truly and happily described him, " For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, " And grew immortal in his own despite," took any step to vindicate his reputation, on this head ; nor did he, as he might easily have done, mention in his Will that '"' Anthony Mundy, Michael Drayton, R. Wilson, and R. Hathwaye. several [ 294 ] several dramatick pieces had been fraudu- lently ascribed to him. After his retirement from the stage he did not think his works worth collecting, at least he never did col- lect or publish them ; nor did he even leave a fair correct copy of them in manuscript to his children. Such was the man who is here represented as extremely anxious that the future impressions of his plays may be printed from his true copies. In the Essay on the Chronological Order of his Plays, I had occasion to quote a passage from Meres*s Wits Treasury, in which Anthony Mundy, a dramatick poet of the day, is spoken of as *' our best plotter^ Hence we have here a donation of 5I. and the four following plays, — " mye Moche adoe aboute noethynge, The Wives of Windsor, Rycharde y^ 3*^ as allso mye Coryolanus, to Masterr Lowinne, owe beste Actor r.^^ Lowin, I have already shewn, was in a very low state in the year 1604, only eight years before the date of this deed ; and instead of being considered as the best actor in our author's life-time, he undoubtedly did not rise into the first parts till after the death of Shakspeare and Bur-' badge, [ 295 ] badge, and the retirement of Heminges and Condell.''* All the writers of the time who have left us any memorials of the stage, concur in informing us that at this time not Lowin, but Burbadge, who is here passed over without any eulogy, was the principal actor of the Blackfriars and Globe Theatre. He was, we know from the testimony of Bishop Corbet, ''* and other documents, the original representative of Richard the Third ; and therefore if the copy of that play had been in our poet's disposal, which it was not, to him both justice and gratitude might have directed it. Sir Richard Baker, who was born in 1568, and lived till 1644-5, ^^^ ^^^ there- fore an opportunity of marking the progress of his reputation through the whole of his theatrical career, pronounces him to have been such an actor " as no age must look to see the like.'* In the very next year after the date of this deed, his reputation and his property placed him in so high a rank, that the King's Servants are called by ''* See p. 251. ''■^ See his Iter Boreal e, and an old comedy entided The Returne from Parnassus, 410. 1606. , a very [ 296 ] a very intelligent and accurate writer of that time, ** Bourbege his Companie ;""" and six years afterwards, when he died, he is styled by Camden ** alter Roscius.'''^' Though our author, as I have already ob- served, is somewhat niggard of his praise to this eminent tragedian, he gives him from the oAKENN CHESTE not only the plays of Cymbeline and Othello, but a play which we have never seen, called the Vir- GiNN QuENE, his ** chose interrlude neverr yette impryntedd," which had been acted only three times before her namesake, ** y' profytts fromm prynting same to bee whollye for s' Burbage." Henry Condell, who at his death was a man of good property, and who at the time when this deed is pretended to have been made must have been in easy circumstances, was, we find, indebted to Shakspeare in so small a sum as three pounds nine shillings, which he very kindly forgives him ; and '^° Letter from Mr. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, Knight and Baronet, dated the last of June, 1613. MSS. Harl. 7002. "" R. Jac. Annal. sub ann. 1619. with [ 297 ] with equal liberality our poet sends three pounds and a gold ring after his ** good Kempe,** who appears to have been then dead.''* The next donation, or legacy, is some- what unlucky, for it is " toe my pleasaunte and wittye Masterr Armynne," an actor who, I have shewn, usually performed the part of a Clown. Now if the fabricator of this deed had followed the eulogium with which I furnished him, and called him ** honest gamesome Master Armin," he would have been safe. But, poor man, ** he would be talking,'* and has stumbled on a word that bore no such meaning as was here intended to be affixed to it. '^^ The gifts to Shanke and Rice,'^* two low '** Shaksp. lit. supr. Vol. I. P. II. p. 197. '^^ See p. 206. '84 The •* greene shppd suyte of velvette," which is given to Rice, is just as intelligible as if a man at this day were to bequeath to his servant his *' breeched suit of blue cloth." Slops was the ancient term for large breeches. So, Falstaff: *' What said Mr. Dombledon about the sattin for my short cloak and slops f" The green velvet suit here mentioned had doubtless a pair of white sattin breeches sewed on each 0.0^ of [ 298 ] low players, are chiefly observable for the absurd sums allotted to them ; to one 37 shillings in money, and 18 shillings to buy a ring, and 39 shillings to another. No number of nobles or marks will make any of these sums. Our author in the last place rewards his. trusty friend John Hemynge (as he is here called) for managifig all his matters at the Globe j for he was such a driveller that he could do nothing for himself; and as for the Blackfriars theatre, though he at this time derived almost his entire profits from it, he does not think it worth mentioning. As a ** recompence*' for all Heminges' good services, he is to have ** y' somm of lol. & 20 shyllyngs to buye hymm a Golde Rynge," and the following plays out of the CHESTE : ** Mye Gentlemenn of Verona- alterrdf'^^ mye Measure for Measure, Co- medy e of the sleeves by way of ornament. — The fabricator seems to have thought if he could but introduce an ancient word, all would be well : whether it was sense or nonsense was no part of his consideration \ or rather was quite beyond his ken. '^i This word was added in consequence of the sugges- tion of Hanraer and Upton, that the Gentlemen OF [ 299 ] medye of Errorrs, Merrchaunte of Venice, togetherr with my newe Playe neverr yette imprynted (he is still " at his old lunes** ) called Kyng H^ vii."'^' There still remains in the hands of Heminges precisely the sum of 287I. 14s. od. by which we learn how admirable ai> arithmetician our poet was : this sum there- OF Verona was not entirely of the hand of" Shakspeare ; a notion for which, in my opinion, there is not the shghtest foundation. '^*^ In a note on the Dissertation on the Three Parts of K. Henry VI. I observed that several portions of the Eng- lish History had been dramatizdiS before the time of Shak- speare ; (Edward I. ]I. and III. Henry IV. and V. &c.j and that he was induced by the popularity of those pieces to make some of the principal historical events of preceding times the subject of various plays. Hence we have here — " Kynge Henry VII. ;" in a former deed, *' Kynge Henrye thyrde of Englande ;" and another, which, Ave arc told, yet remains in the oakenn cheste, " Kynge Hen- rye Seconde of Englande." — But the device is somewhat of the stalest; for a tricking bookseller in 1653 entered at the Stationers' Hall — " Henry I. and Henry II. by Wil- liam Shakespeare and Robert Davenport ;" how honestly, will appear from an entry in the Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to King James and King Charles the First, MS. " For the Kings Company. The Historye of Henry the First, written by Damport, [the old pronunciation of Davenport,] the 10 of April, 1624. — - ll. OS. od." Q^ Q^* fore [ 300 ] fore and ** the eyghte Playes thatt bee stylle inne s^ Cheste as allso mye otherr Playe neverr yett Impryntedd called Kynge Vor- tygerne'* are appropriated to the use of the child of whom he and Heminges had ** spokenne butt who muste not bee named here.'* This child, I presume, was Shak- speare's Godson, young Will. D*Avenant ; and I fear I am answerable for his having been thus again brought forivard to publick notice, by having stated that there were good grounds for supposing him our poet's natural son ; a tradition first mentioned by Wood in a MS. now lost, and of which I have lately found a strong confirmation in the biographical papers of Mr. Aubrey at Oxford.'^' The poor lad, however, never derived any benefit from his supposed fa- ther's kindness j for about six years after the date of this deed he became a chorister of Magdalen College, where nearly thirty pounds a year (the interest of 287I.) beside the profit of these eight plays, and above all the copy-right of that matchless piece '*' Of the whole of Aubrey's biographical collections, deposited in the Ashmolean Museum, I nnade a transcript last summer, which will hereafter be laid before the publick. '* Kynge [ 301 ] " Kynge Vortygerne'* would in those days have supported him very well in a higher rank. Of this last fiction also, I fear, I have been (though very innocently) the cause ; by mentioning that a play with this title was acted in 1593 at the Rose theatre, by the Earl of Pembroke's ser- vants. Our poet concludes this important in- strument by declaring that he trusts to his ** freynd John Hemynges honorr^^^ (a phrase which he foresaw would come into use after his death,) " and allso onn hys promys of beynge clouse of speeche inn thys laste Matterr." — On the back we look in vain for the name of a Scrivener among the Witnesses ; '^^ but, by way of compensation, we have, as before, the year of the king's reign in English — ** 9 James.'' It will naturally be asked, how came it to pass that none of the actors here men- '^^ I do not mean to say that all deeds were attested by the Scriveners who drew them ; or that this deed is proved by the circumstance here mentioned to be a forgery. It was, Jiowever, the general practice. tioned [ 302 ] tioned availed themselves of these valuable gifts on the death of our author, at which time they might very properly claim them, though no specifick time of delivering the plays, I think, is mentioned. Shakspeare without doubt, would notify to his friends his kind intentions towards them. Why did not Burbadge, and the rest, immediately after his death print the Tempest, Mac- beth, Othello, &c. which had been so long withheld by ** the grand posses- sors,^^ and for which doubtless the retired scholars of Oxford and Cambridge who had it not in their power to visit the metro- polis, were exceedingly impatient ? Why at least, did not Mrs. Shakspeare receive her ov/n letters, the '* rings and things" and all the other bravery here mentioned ? The an- swer is ** as ready as a barber's chair j" that faithless villain, John Heminges, never fulfilled the trust reposed in him. Why, however, did not some of the actors institute a suit against him, to enforce a specifick execution of this trust ? To this question I know not what answer will be given. Why again, it may be said, did not this unprin- cipled Trustee destroy the deed, so as to save [ 303 ] save himself at least from future infamy ? Or if he only suppressed it, and the parties interested knew nothing of the kindness intended to them, why did not Heminges in the fourteen years which he survived our poet, produce for his own benefit some of these virgin plays at the Globe or Black- friars ; and why were they not printed in the Collection of our author's works ? If again, they were unaccoimtably neglected, and made no use of whatsoever, why have they not all come down to us along with the deed that relates to them ; and why have they not been brought forward f This last is, however, a very dangerous ques- tion j for in good time I make no doubt we shall have them all. — But most unluckily for this fine hypothesis of the dishonesty of poor Heminges, a real deed has been disco- vered since I began this Inquiry, to which I have already alluded, and by which it appears that he did very honourably on the loth of February 1 617-18, fulfill the only trust (as far as we know) that Shakspeare ever reposed in him. This deed being im- portant, both in this respect, and as having furnished us with the genuine autograph of I that [ 304 ] that Actor, I shall subjoin it by way of Appendix"''^ to these sheets. Having now gone through all this y^r- rj^o of papers and deeds, I should indue form proceed to the copy of " Kynge Leare'* and a fragment of ** Hamblette,** which in fact form the most bulky part of the ex- traordinary volume lately presented to the publick. But three words on this subject will suffice. Had the fabricator of this piece been content to exhibit it as a play- house copy that by good fortune had escaped the ravages of time, it might, if genuine, have been a curiosity at least to the editors of Shakspeare*s works : but he has gone a step further, and has ventured '*^ See the Appendix, N°. III. — Why John Heminges was made a trustee by our author, when he purchased his estate in Blackfriars, is not very clear. He did not execute the only part of the deed of conveyance now extant, though he is a party named in it ; and the estate would with equal certainty have descended to Shakspeare's daughters, or fol- lowed the directions of his Will, without the aid of Heminges. — These trustees seem to have succeeded the old feoffees to uses, of the former age. to [ 305 ] to write in the first page — ** Tragedye [not The Tragedye] of Kynge Leare isse from?ne Masterre Hollin?ieshedde I have inne somme lyttle deparretedde fro7nme hymme butte thatte LiBBERTYE Will notte I truste be blamedde bye mye gentle Readerres. — W"" Shak- speare." — In this case therefore — '* Aut Erasmus, aut Diabolus,'* — may be fairly applied : if it is not of Shakspeare's 'own hand, it is nothinof. Some gentlemen, I find, have taken the trouble to collate several passages of this spurious piece with the m.ost authentick copies. For my part, I have not collated nor ever shall collate a single line of it, excepting only the speech which I shall presently transcribe. Life is not long enough to be wasted in the examination of such trash, when almost a single glance is sufficient to shew that it is a plain and palpable forgery, written by the same hand which fabricated all the other deeds and papers that have been already examined. To prove this decisively, it is only necessary to quote a passage from it. Being possessed of the original quarto copy of this play, your Lordship knows that in consequence R R of [ 3o6 ] of being printed from a playhouse transcript, made by some ignorant person, it is the most corrupt of any of the quartos : and yet with all its faults, it is of great service in correcting in certain places the errors of the folio. I suppose it will be allowed that Shakspeare knew verse from prose, and sense from nonsense, and that therefore he could not have written with his own hand any play in which metrical speeches are; written unmetrically, and the most ridi- culous blunders occur in every page. Take as a specimen the following passage, which many months ago was mentioned to me as a standard by which all the rest of the piece might be truly estimated : " Alb. Whats the Matterre Sir Leare. Marke meelle telle the life andc deathe [I amme ashamd thou hast powerre toe shake mye Mann- [hoode thusse thatte these hotte teares thatte breake fromme mee perreforce shoud make worse blasts ande foggs onne the unnetennederre woundynges of a Fatherres usse playe thys parte agayne Be plucke ye oute ande caste you with the Waterres thatte you maye temperre claye." Thus [ 30? ] Thus clearly and intelligibly is this speech exhibited as written by our poet*s own hand^ , instead of the following stuffs which the foolish player -editors have substituted in its room : Alb. What's the matter. Sir ? Lear. I'll tell thee -, — Life and death ! I am asham'd \^o Goneril. That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus : That these hot tears, which breake from me per- force, Should make thee worth them, — Blasts and fogs upon thee ! The untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee ! — Old fond eyes-, Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out. And cast you with the waters that you lose. To temper clay. It has been suggested"^'' that the only archetype the fabricator of this piece had at first before him was the second folio. Whether this was the case, I shall never take the trouble to examine. Certainly, however, that spurious and adulterated copy of our author's plays was very ** german to the '9° Letter to George Steevens, Esq. ut supr. ' R R 2 matter,** [ 308 ] matter" in hand, and was very properly chosen for the basis of a new fiction. Afterwards he is supposed to have got one of the early quartos for his model ; but it is much more probable that those very rare editions were beyond his reach, and that he used the re-impression of them published in 1766. It is of no conse- quence how the forgery was effected. As the whole of this play is in the hand-writ- ing assigned to Shakspeare in the Miscel- laneous Papers, and as it is manifest that it cannot be genuine, on the single ground which I have stated, (without em- barrassing the question with the consi- deration of the absurd orthography used throughout,) it follows necessarily that it is an absolute forgery : for the stickler for its authenticity, or its value in any way, is precluded, for the reasons already given, from changing his ground, and saying that, though it is not of Shakspeare's own hand- writing, it is an old playhouse copy of this admirable tragedy. The speech of Kent in the last scene of this play having been thought by the com- mentators too short and bald, in vamping this [ 309 ] this piece, two lines which the poet has allotted to him have been beaten out and amplified into seven ; and though the verses which have been supplied are not better than any school-boy who had ever com- posed a line of poetry could write, for want of better arguments they have been quoted as teeming with energy and pathos. That all might be consistent and of a piece from the first to the last, the lines throughout are numbered in the margin, a practice unexampled in our author's time ; and Shakspeare, w^ho in none of his plays has ever mentioned what author he followed, is made here to tell his readejs (still with a view to the press) where he found his story, and to apologize for the liberty he has taken in departing from the Historian ; a word not used in that sense till long after his death. The term of his age (here required) was licence, — That this piece might have two ear -marks ^ he subscribes his name to it, by way of prelude, I suppose, to a similar subscription to Kynge Vortigerne. I HAVE but little more to say on the subject of this play, but it is material, being [ 3^0 ] being equally applicable to all the other manuscripts which have been examined. The editor has informed us that the paper on which it is written exhibits more than twenty different paper-marks. I have aU? ready taken notice how little of the true antiquarian form is found in this publi- cation, by the purchasers* not having been gratified with difac-fnnile of the paper-mark on each of these MSS. However what has been stated, will answer our purpose just as well. There are two or three obvious ways of procuring old paper, proper for the execu- tion of such a scheme as the present. In publick offices it is a rule to write every memorial, account, or whatever else is to be written, however short, on a whole sheet of paper. In consequence of this practice, in the State-Paper Office, and in many other publick offices where ancient documents are preserved, many superfluous half sheets are from time to time thrown away, when the papers that have become old are arranged and bound up in volumes ; the second leaf of the sheet being often mere lumber. I do not, however, believe 1 that [ 3"> ] that the unknown country gentleman to whom we are indebted for these fabri- cations, could very easily gain access to our publick offices. The old Houshold- Books and Diaries of ancient families, many of which are but half filled, would also furnish an abundant supply of the same material. But this also was out of his reach. The true and natural paper- warehouse for such a schemer to repair to is, the shop of a bookseller, where every folio and quarto of the age of Elizabeth and James would supply a couple of si?igle leaves of white-brown paper, of the hue required. — When these wonders were first announced, I immediately asked some of the true be- lievers^ whether they had ever seen this tragedy of Lear, in its integrity^ as Dr. Warburton would call it, — whole and en- tire ; how was it sewed, what number of leaves did it contain ; were the edges in their natural rough state, &c. &c. Not one, I found, had ever seen, I will not say the play, but even a single sheet of it. It was produced from time to time (probably as fast as the country gentleman could write it,) in single leaves, that is, in other words, it was written on such paper as the old volumes [ 312 ] volumes that had been collected for this purpose would furnish : and because such a kind of paper is but of a bad texture, and would not well bear writing on both sides, these half sheets, cut down to the size of our old plays printed in small quarto, were presented to the admiring crowd written oji one side only. — When I first received this account, I immediately took down from their shelf half a dozen old plays of Shakspeare's time, of which I am possessed, and shewed them to any friend who happened to talk with me upon this subject. They are precisely in the same state as when they first came into my hands, and are neither trimmed nor ornamented in any way, but stitched in covers and well embrowned with dust and age ; but un- luckily for these half-covered half or quarter sheets of Kynge Lea re, my plays are all written on both sides : nor did I ever see a manuscript play of that age that did not in this respect correspond precisely with those now in my Library. Your Lordship, I re- member, purchased a few years ago a curi- ous volume containing no less than fifteen manuscript plays, (most of them nearly of the time of Shakspeare,) among which is The i 3^3 ] The Elder Brother of Fletcher; I believe you will find every one of them Written on both sides. — What would an author naturally do when he sat down to write a play, at least such an author as Shakspeare, who at the time Lear was produced was in the zenith of his re- putation, and in affluent circumstances. Would he not purchase a paper-book, or at least a quire of paper, which would be suf- ficient for the longest piece he ever wrote, and could then be procured for five pence ? But what would he do who sat down to write a play for him near two centuries after his death ? He would pick up as well as he could such scraps of old paper as he could find, at various ^.imes, and in various places j he would, as in the present case, not be able to shew any of his pretended originals except in the form of half or quarter sheets, and these single leaves hav- ing been collected from various quarters would exhibit more than twenty different paper-marks. "^' Having "^' I have been lately informed, that a very honest and intelligent bookbinder at Cambridge has for some years past preserved^ as a literary curiosity, all such tly-leaves (as I think they are called,) as the old books put inie. his hands s s to [ 3H ] Having now done with Kynge Leare, 1 may perhaps be expected to say a word on the far-famed tragedy of Kynge Vorr- TYGERNE, and all the kkynges and all the Q^EENES which have been announced from the same quarter. But any disqui- sition on this subject is, I conceive, wholly unnecessary ; the outworks being all demo- lished, the fort must surrender of course. If the tragedy of Kynge Leare and all the other Manuscripts which have been produced, in some of which this matchless play is mentioned, have been proved not to be genuine, Vorrtygerne, which affects, like all the rest, to be of, and in the hand of Shakspeare, and is issued from the same repository, cannot but be a forgery also. If it had exhibited any other hand- writing but the pretended hand-writing of Shakspeare, it might have been supposed a genuine old play, though it could not boast of so high a parentage as his dramas ; but the writer of it having *' assumed the person of the noble father*' of the stage, to he re-bound have supplied ; a circumstance which would have saved our unknown gentleman a great deal of trouble, if he had been apprized of it in due time. it [ 315 ] it can be no other than a modern fiction ; and whether it is a good or a bad fiction, I shall leave to others to determine. The topicks which have been the sub- ject of the foregoing pages have been suggested by the various pieces lately pre- sented to the publick in a folio volume ; but there are some particulars relative to this matter, not noticed in any part of that publication, which are well worthy of your Lordship's attention. Several months ago we were informed by the believers in these fictions, that the iinhiown gentletnan to whom we are in- debted for all these fooleries, was possessed of a whole-length portrait of Shakspeare, painted in oil colours ; that he there ap- peared a most goodly personage, of no ordinary stature ; that he had been long concealed from the vulgar ken by having been consigned to a garret, and from his owner's eye by his whole person being entirely covered over with the leaves of old black-letter books, (carefully pasted on,) of s s 2 some [ 3i6 ] some of which the titles were specified : that Mr. Ignoto never thought of wash- ing the poet's face till he was prompted to it by the discovery of the other trea- sures which he has so liberally poured forth ; but that this invaluable portrait being at length perfectly cleaned and var- nished, it would by the very first oppor- tunity be conveyed to the Metropolis. Week after week, however, has passed away, and month succeeded to month, without the amateur's being gratified with this most curious sight. In the same repo- sitory also, we were told (about the same time) two copies of the first folio edition of his plays had been found, with the edges of the leaves uncut, which had been the actual copies that had belonged to Messrs. Heminges and Condell, (the gift no doubt of Mr. Isaack Jaggard, and the other pub- lishers of the work,) and added such au- thenticity to all the rest of the discoveries, as must flash conviction into the most in- credulous, and strike all opponents dumb. Happily however for them, neither picture nor books have appeared, and those who shook their heads on that occasion are yet possessed of the gift of speech. — We must however [ 31? ] however acknowledge that whenever these folios and this portrait (the latter of which I do not yet despair of seeing) shall be brought forward^ they will add considerable support and credit to the manuscripts in question; tor '* who can receive it other*' than that all these treasures originally be- longed to the same person, and that this person must necessarily be either a descen- dant of Shakspeare, or some person intimate- ly connected with him ? Till however that day shall arrive, we may safely regulate our judgments by the old law maxim — de no?2 apparcntibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio. There is yet another very curious cir- cumstance of which we have no notice in the editor's preface ; an omission which I shall here endeavour to supply. While these rarities were on shev/, among other extraordinary specimens of ancient lore was exhibited to several persons, as I have heard from themselves, a Letter from Shakspeare to his dear friend Richard Cowley, in which he gives an account of having passed the preceding evening with Ben Jonson at a tavern (no doubt his old haunt, the I Devil) ; [ 3i8 ] Devil) ; our poet adds, that Ben was very surly and dogged, and at length be- haved with great rudeness to him, which, however, he says, he was inclined to over- look, as he attributed the ill-behaviour of his old antagonist to his understanding being deranged by liquor. "^* By some odd accident this very curious Letter has not been given to the world in the late Miscel- lany ; by which our author has been de- frauded of that fair fame to which he is entitled, since in addition to all his other extraordinary endowments this paper ascer- tains that he had the gift of prophecy ; foreseeing not only that after his death the French would introduce the word deranger and derangeme?it into their language, but that we should within these very few years adopt those words from that nation. "^' — The ";- Or " to the derangement of his understanding by liquor;" — I am not sure which of these expressions was used. "^^ In our poet's time the French had not the words — arranger, deranger, nor derangement. In Cotgrave's Diet, in i6ii, and its repubhcation by Howel in 1650, w^e find only ranger — *' to range, rank, order, arraie," &c. De- ranger and derangement were introduced long afterwards. The words — deranged and derangement have been intro- duced so recently in England, that there are those living who remember Iff \ [ 319 ] The omission however of this Letter is the less to be regretted, as it is probably only withheld for a short time, and will here- after appear with the various complimentary Sonnets which Shakspeare wrote to the Earl of Cumberland, Lord Essex, and many other noblemen, (in imitation of Spencer,) in the two folio volumes of his posthumous works with which the publick are at a future day to be gratified."^'* On reviewing what I have written, I find that I have yet a few observations to make on these papers, and that the very few arguments which have been or may be produced in favour of them yet remain to be answered. It has already been mentioned that Sir William D*Avenant was possessed of a remember their being at first spoken with a French accent, as not being yet made denizens. Y^i. Johnson has given neither of them a place in his Dictionary. '^■^ The Letter in whicli Shakspeare speaks very highly of his play of Vorrtygerne, and insists on a larger price for the copy-right of it than his bookseller was willing to give, will, it is hoped, appear at the same time, as it places our author in an entirely new light. gracious [ 320 ] gracious Letter written by King James to our poet with his own hand. Here there- fore our fabricator had a fair ground to work upon ; and why it may be asked, did he not adhere to this received tradition, and produce this Letter of James, which is known to have once existed, rather than invent a fiction for which the world was not so well prepared. — In speculating concerning the motives of actions, we are always liable to error ; but it is not very difficult in the present case to assign plau- sible reasons for the course that has been taken. The fabricator of the Letter of Elizabeth might not have been sufficiently acquainted with the Scottish idiom, to have ventured on devising an Epistle for our British Solomon. This difficulty, however, might perhaps in due time have been got over. But there was another that never could be surmounted : he could not be sure that the Letter of James was not still extant in some unexamined repository ; and when- ever it should be produced, detection would necessarily follow. He abstained therefore from this fabrication, for the very same rea- son which induced him to describe Lord South- [ 321 ] Southampton's bounty to our poet in general terms, instead of naming a specifick sum."^* As I have once more had occasion to mention this Letter of King James, it na- turally leads me to another inquiry. We will allow for a moment that the Epistle of our maiden Queen which has been so mi- nutely examined, and the paper which ac- companies it, are genuine. As our author was so extremely anxious that this mark of his gracious Mistresses favour to him should be preserved *' withe alle care possyble** in his family, why was he not equally solicit- ous about the Letter of James ? and why were not these two royal epistles *' feat and affectedly enswathed with sleided silk," and placed together in the " lyttelle cedarr trunke," or in any casket proper for their reception ? It does not fall to the lot of many men to receive letters from two crown- ed heads : and when it does, if either from the love of fame, or any other motive, the person thus honoured should have any soli- citude about the transmission of such me- morials to posterity, he would naturally place them together y and preserve them in the same '^^ Seep. 169. T T cabinet. [ 322 ] cabinet. — We do not however find that Shakspeare did so in the present instance : but in due time, I make no doubt that what I have now suggested as probable, will be found to be the truth, and after a proper search the Letter of King James will be discovered in the same repository which contained that of Elizabeth. "^^ The various specimens of old language which have been given in the preceding pages, prove incontrovertibly that the ortho- graphy used in these spurious manuscripts is the orthography of no time whatsoever : but say the partisans of these fictions, though we cannot produce any examples of the an de znd for re used here, and of such an extraordi- nary redundancy of consonants and vowels, it does not therefore follow that these papers are modern fabrications ; for that being an age of no curiosity or consistency in this respect, particular persons might have fallen "^^ It is not improbable also, that in some time after the facsimiles of the genuine hand-writing of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Southampton exhibited in this volume, shall have reached the unknown gentkfnan, he may discover a new cor- respondence between those personages and our poet, " of a better leer" than what we have now reviewed : but I here before-hand enter ray protest against this device. I into [ 3^3 ] into unexampled modes of capricious and irregular orthography. Be it so then : in the books and manuscripts of the time we certainly find great irregularity of orthogra- phy ; the courtier spells in one way, the lawyer in another, the gentlewoman in a third, the artisan in a fourth. But unfor- tunately be?ry the Queen, the Nobleman, the Actor, the Scrivener, all spell exactly like each other, and like no other Queens, No- blemen, Actors, or Scriveners, that lived be- fore or since their time. Can we have a stronger proof than this, that this miscel- laneous collection was the composition of one and the same hand, or rather (on account of the deedsj of two hands acting in concert with each other ? But the following defence of the authen- ticity of these pieces is of a finer texture. It is easier, it is said, to give credit to all these papers with all their absurdities and incon- gruities of spelling and language, the total dissimilitude of the hand-writing to that of the persons in whose names they appear, and all the other denotations of fraud belonging to them, than to suppose that any person should devote a large portion of his life to T T 3 such [ 3^4 ] such a scheme ; that he should be such a fool as to make use of orthography unknown in any age, run his head against known facts, and not endeavour to produce some kind of resemblance to the hand-writing of the persons whose genuine papers were pretended to be shewn. This incongruity, and wild deviation from ordinary practice, is what no fabricator of such manuscripts would have ever thought of, or hazarded j and therefore this circumstance, instead of weakening their credit, gives them the strongest support, and proves their authen- ticity with irresistible force. This reasoning is evidently formed on the well-known thesis of your Lordship's old acquaintance, Hume, respecting miracles, — that if it be more miraculous that a certain fact should have happened than that the relater of it should deceive or be deceived, it is incumbent on the serious inquirer, after weighing probabilities, to decide according to the superiority discovered, and to reject what he calls the greater miracle. In like manner, in the present case we are told, it is easier to believe all these papers to be genuine, than that such an extraor- dinary [ 325 ] dinary combination of folly and imposture should exist, as must have produced them on the supposition of their being spurious : this is the greater miracle of the two, and therefore we must acquiesce in their au- thenticity, be the objections to them what they may : — the arguments of their oppo- nents only serve to support and authenticate them j for the most ordinary forger might have imitated the hand-writing of Elizabeth and the rest with sufficient accuracy ; and when Holinshed and Shakspeare*s own works lay before him, he never would have thought of departing so widely from veri- similitude by adopting an orthography and laneuaofc unknown alike to them and the o o age in which they lived. One knows not well how to answer this crotchety for I will not call it argument. According to this doctrine, if the theatrical accompts, and the correspondence of our poet with his mistress and Lord Southampton, had been produced in Latin or Greek, they would be still less disputable, or rather indubitably authentick ; for what forger would have ever devised any thing so im- probable ? [ 326 ] probable ? — In deeds the usual and orderly- parts are, the premises^ which contain the number and names of the parties ; the habendum and tenendum^ which determine what estate or interest is granted, and the tenure by which it is to be held j the red- dendum, or rent or services reserved j the clause of warranty, the covenants, and the conclusion, which last mentions the exe- cution and date of the deed. Supposing therefore this mode of reasoning to be just, if a deed should be constructed for the me- ridian of that country where Ralegh, and after him Shakspeare, tell us the heads of the inhabitants grow beneath their shoul- ders, and the habendum, instead of being in the middle, should be placed in the begin- ning of the instrument j or if, in honour of Abbe Sieves, and to gratify the Convention of Palace-yard, the bottom should be placed at the top, and the names of the parties and their hands and seals should change places ; *' by this kind of chase," I say, if such a deed should be produced as executed by Shakspeare, these or any other similar fantastick absurdities ought to be considered as the strongest marks of its authenticity ; for if we will but assume that no fabricator of [ 3^7 ] of a forged instrument would ever venture to depart from verisimilitude, the more in- congruous, untechnical, and absurd any deed or paper is, the more likely it is to be genuine. But did the partisans of these fabrications never hear of cunning over- reaching itself ? Might not all these incon- gruities and absurdities have been adopted for the purpose of laying a foundation for this very argument ? or lastly, might not many of them have been the genuine off- spring of ** dull, unfeeling, barren igno- rance," eager to effect a lucrative and difficult imposture, but totally unfurnished with the means of accomplishing it ? Reasoning such as this may be, and sometimes is, used at the bar, because a barrister must employ such topicks as his cause will admit. An eminent lawyer in Ireland, now dead, your Lordship remem- bers used a similar argument in a great cause decided some years ago in your House, and endeavoured to shew that a certificate of marriage, which was the car do qaus^, was the more authentick for its not having a very fair appearance, ♦* the blots and alterations of letters in it being all owing (as t 328 ] (as he contended) to its being written with a spht pen, the nib of which divided in making the strokes. Had it been forged, it would have been fabricated in such a manner as not to be Hable to any suspicion or objection. All its little inaccuracies only tended to shew that it was not a writing framed to impose upon the world : and if these were purposely introduced, it was a deeper policy than that of the elder Brutus, who was said to have carried on treason- able designs under the countenance of an idiot." To this argument the praise of ingenuity may be allowed ; but (without in the least impeaching the cause of the gentleman who produced it,] it will not bear any very cri- tical investigation. Though the common practice, in cases of fabrication, is to follow the beaten path, and to aim at an identity of language, hand-writing, &c. yet this is not always the case ; either because igno- rance sometimes may not know how to effect its purpose, or a subtle practiser, like great wits, may sometimes intentionally " From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part," to give a grace and gloss to his scheme, be- yond [ 329 ] yond the conception or reach of ordinary artists. — But in spite of all the gloss, and graces, and refinements, of art, truth and falshood can never be so confounded as not to be distinguishable from each other : and though the exact similitude of hand-writing is no certain proof of the authenticity of any paper, because the art of forgery is so well understood and practised, that even the Clerks of the Bank of England cannot sometimes distinguish their own hand-writ-, ing from its counterfeit, yet to the plain and common sense of mankind a great dis- similitude of hand- writing, and the use of words or stamps that were not known till many years after the date of the writings or deeds exhibited, are as flrong proofs of forgery as can be produced. I MAY add that ** the whymsycalle con- ceyte" by which these manuscripts are at- temped to be supported, stands on a false hy- pothesis ; namely, that it would have taken a large portion of life to have fabricated such various and numerous pieces, and that it is incredible so much folly and imposture as is acknowledged in the present case, should u u be [ 330 ] be found united in the same person or per- sons. In answer to the last observation, it is only necessary to ask, who can ascertain the boundaries of ignorance and imposture ? With respect to the quantity of these fabri- cations, which has been much relied on, and has struck a few persons as a proof of authenticity, it may be proper to be more particular. — In this, as in many other cases, admiration arises only from not having suf- ficiently examined the subject. The whole of what has been produced is, twelve short papers, four deeds, and two plays, consisting, we will say, of three thousand lines each ; all of which, instead of employing a large portion of life, might have been produced in one year. We are not tied down to sup- pose that only one person was concerned. It is much more probable that the composition of all but the deeds was the work of one, and that the Shakspearean rags (for I will not call it cloathing) were sewn on by an- other. He, or she, (for we know not even the sex of the author) who might be able to ** spin a thousand lines a day," might know nothing of old hands ; and the adept in the art of counterfeiting old hands might not have the faculty of writing a line of poetry. [ 33^ J poetry. The invention of the smaller pieces and of the play, it is surely not unreasonable to suppose, might have been effected in six months ; and in six more not only these, but the tragedy of Lear, might have been copied in the hand required. — It should be recollected that no hand-writing but that of Shakspeare has been exhibited, excepting the miserable attempts at that of Elizabeth, Lord Southampton, Heminges, Condell, and Lowin ; all of which could not have taken a month. Of Shakspeare's hand- writing we have but eleven letters of the ordinary alphabet, and three capital letters, extant. Here therefore the artist had an open field. There was no large quantity of waiting of the poet known to be any where existing, to which an appeal could be made, and which, from a peculiarity in the manner of his forming certain letters, "^^ might lead to detection. He had nothing therefore to do but to attain what he thought "^^ a general resemblance, and when once '9' Thus, for example, Lord Southampton appears to have formed the letter/in a manner peculiar to himself. '98 I say, what he thought ; for he will not find many who will allow that it has even a general resemblance. It is remarkable that he had not sagacity enough to reflect u u 2 that [ 33'^ ] once that was attained, I have no doubt that he transcribed the printed pages of Lear, or the written pages of Vorrty- GERNE, nearly as fast as he could have transcribed them in his ordinary hand. The present fabrication therefore differs from all ofhers in this respect, that the artificer thought he might take a greater licence, and consequently was enabled to proceed with much more facility and despatch than in ordinary cases. How much may be done by assiduous application, where a particular object is in view, I can from my own experience fur- nish a strong instance. I transcribed the poem of RoMEUs and Juliet, which I afterwards published, and which consists of above three thousand long lines of fourteen syllables each, in seven days : but to effect it, I was obliged to work from morning till night. A similar application in the present instance would have effected this audacious that the hand-writing of the youth of eighteen generally differs much from that of the man at fifty. Hence, we find our poet's name subscribed to the pretended Letter to his mistress, which must be referred to 1582, evidently formed on the signature to his Will in 1616, and undistinguish- able from the other pretended signatures to the deeds, &c. fabrication [ 2>Z2, ] fabrication in a much shorter time than I have allowed. But supposing all my cal- culations to be erroneous, why may not this forgery have been the work of three or four years ? — In that time even its most zealous partisans must acknowledge it might have been all completed. "^"^ The usual spelling of the time might have been easily copied, but it was departed from for the reason already assigned, — to give a greater air of originality to the fabri- cation ; and the m.ass of papers and deeds was hazarded, to subdue all suspicion by its magnitude. As for the correct imitation of hands, which it is contended might have been accomplished, that certainly was not so easy ; because in several instances the fabricator had no archetype whatsoever. Queen Elizabeth's ordinary hand-writing he had no means of getting at. He might indeed have found it in the Museum j but tracing it there, as it is called, with the "-"^ I think it extremely probable that the scheme was laid, and that books, &c. were collected five or fix years ago, and the executive part effected in the year, or at most in the two years, which preceded January 1795. proper [ 334 ] proper apparatus, might afterwards have in- duced suspicion, and endangered the whole scheme. Lord Southampton's hand-writing he certainly had no means of imitating at all ; for that there was a Letter written by him among the Harleian Manuscripts, was, I have reason to believe, known to few beside myself, there being no reference to it in the Index to the Harleian Catalogue, and it being unknown even to the judicious and well-informed Librarians of that noble collection. The other Letter of the same nobleman in the Cotton Library was disco- vered only a few months ago, in conse- quence of a particular examination being ordered to be made of the three volumes of Royal and State Letters there reposited, which are only generally mentioned in the old catalogue. The hand- writing of Hem- inges, Lowin, and Condell, were all equally unknown, and, like Southampton's, were all supposed to be out of the reach of the most curious inquirer. As to language and phraseology, what was conceived to be the phraseology of that time was imitated, ac- cording to the slender abilities of the fabri- cator of this fiction ; — how well we have seen : [ 33S 1 seen : very different abilities, and taste, and knowledge, would have been requisite to have produced any fiction that should not be assailable on that ground ; and I doubt much whether those who have travelled longest in the paths of antiquity would not be liable to stumble in such an attempt. Dr. Johnson, if I remember right, has somewhere observed, that the imitators of Spencer think they have performed their task, when they have adopted his stanza, and disfigured their verses by a due sprink- ling of old spelling and old language ; but they forget that if any word is introduced unknown to Spencer's age, the poem can be no just imitation of that author. In addition to the mass of papers pro- duced, we are assailed by the whole Library of Shakspeare, consisting, according to some accounts, of eleven hundred volumes; of which a very fair catalogue is pro- duced, and some of the pretended volumes have been displayed. How this circum- stance can have made any impression on any one, (as I am told it has on two or three persons,) appears to me very extraor- dinary. Was it then a matter of such mighty [ 336 J mighty achievement, (for the purpose of forming this Catalogue,) to transcribe Mr. Capell's List of the volumes of that age, which he collected for the purpose of illustrating Shakspeare's works, and to add to it from any old Catalogues whatever might be wanting P""" — " But some of the books themselves have been produced." — I make no doubt of it. But are old books so very difficult to be procured ? And could not two or three hundred have been picked up on stalls, and elsewhere, in five or six years, during which this scheme may have been in contemplation ? Within these few years past the price of Holinshed*s Chronicle has doubled, in consequence of his having been pointed out as the author whom Shakspeare followed in his Historical Plays, and of our poet's daily-increasing reputation : yet still it is without much difficulty to be procured ; and I have seen no less than four copies of it on sale within the last year. The same observation may be made on many other valuable books of that age, for which a high 200 By turning over the pages of the late editions of Shak- speare, I make no doubt, the names of a thousand books or tracts of his age, might be collected in a few days : and names alone are wanting to make a catalogue. I price [ 337 ] price might very well occasionally have been given, where a great object was in view. But valuable or costly books were not always necessary ; worthless books, when duly appropriated by writing our poet*s name forty or fifty times in them, would do just as well."' — With respect to smaller tracts, a different process was to be pursued, for they could not be safely exhi- bited as Shakspeare's, while they remained in miscellaneous volumes. It is well known to the collectors of these rarities, that very often pieces extremely discordant, both in their subjects and dates, are strangely blended together under the same covering. Thus *' The Golden Legend,'' printed by Wynken de Worde, or ** the Gorgeous Gal- *°' In the margins of several of these books, I have been told, are displayed remarks by Shakspeare, each of which is subscribed with his name ; and very properly, — for how else should the inspector have known that these books came out of his Library ? This trick of our author is quite peculiar to himself. Few scribblers in books think of appropriating their mar- ginal remarks bv this kind of subscription to each ot them ; but his kfinvn vanity, and attention to his literary property and fame, were without doubt the cause of this practice. X X lery [ 33^ ] lerv of Gallant Inventions, *"' or Greene's ^* Art of Connycatching,'* '"' or ** A Fig for Momus,'' *"*or'* The Nest of Ninnies," ''' or " The Art of Swimming," "' (not by the renowned William Henry Ireland of Black- friars, but by Christopher Middleton,) or ** The Essayes of an Apprentice in Poetry," *"' or " The Arte of Legerdemaine," or " the Arbour of Amorous Devices," '"* or some other of those delectable treatises which the late editors of Shakspeare's works have thought it necessary to read for the illustration of their author, may happen to be bound up in the same volume with *' A Plot for the good of Posterity," *'° or " Tom of all Trades," ^" or - A Pacquet of Wonders brought over in Charon's ferry- boat," '■' or •* Fair Warnings to a Careless World," *'^ or '* The Counter-Scuffle," ''' or *' The Unloveliness of love-locks," "' or * 'Papers Complaint against the paper-spoylers of these times," "^ which belong to a period :02 4to. 1578. *°^ 4to. 1^92. ^^Uto. 1595- '°Mto. 1609. ^°-' 4to. 1595. -°^ By King James. Edinb- 4^0- 1584. *°* By Samuel Rowland, 4tu. 161 2. *°^ 4to. 1580. *'° By Francis Cheynell, 4.10. 1646. *" 410. 1631. *" 4to. 164T. "^ 410. 1662. *"• 4to. 1628. *'5 4to. 1648. -'^ByA. H.4to. 162+. 6 subsequent [ 339 ] subsequent to Shakspeare's death. No such vokime therefore could be safely exhibited as his. What then is to be done ? The pro- cess is extremely simple. The u?ik?ioiv?i gentleman from whose store-house all these rarities have issued, has nothing to do but to cut out such tracts as are dated prior to 1616 j and after each of them has been se- parately cloathed with morocco or vellum, or any other covering that fancy may direct, and the name of William. Shakspeare has been written in the upper, lower, and side margin of twenty or thirty pages, it be- comes a most valuable relick, miraculously preserved for near two hundred years, and now first displayed to the gazing world, an undoubted and invaluable original. The prying Antiquary without doubt may occa- sion a little embarrassment by regretting the loss of the original cover, which, beside its comely ancient simplicity, he may suppose a mark of authenticity -, but he is only one of many, and on all others it will pass very well. — In two months two hundred such volumes might be procured. Let us then hear no more of Shakspeare*s Library. X X 2 But [ 340 ] But still, it is said, the deeds at least must be ancient ; for the parchment, writing, and seals, have all the appearance of anti- quity. Is then '* the state of these good believers so gracious" that they have never heard that the whole writing of ancient deeds may be discharged by the essential salt of lemons, or marine or nitrous acid ? The contents of these deeds being proved to be forged, it necessarily follows, if the parchments be really old, that the original writing has been discharged by one or other of these processes, and new writing substi- tuted in its place. But the parchments themselves may be as modern as the writ- ing ; for the process by which parchment acquires the air of antiquity is not very tedious or difficult.^'' Supposing the parch- ment ^'"^ As probably the greater part of my readers are wholly unacquainted with the art and mystery of making aid deeds, the following extract from a cause of much celebrity in the last century, which contains some curious information on this subject, may not be unacceptable to them. I mean the case of Mossam, v. Dame Theodosia Ivy, reported in the State Trials, vol. vii. p. 571. The property in contest was a large district in the parish of Shadwell, (about seven acres,) on which between three and four hun- dred houses had been built, and the question was, whether these [ 341 ] ment to be old, which however I do not believe to have been the case, some of the seals these seven acres were part of the inheritance of the Dean of St. Paul's, to whom a Mr. Neale was lessee, and then lessor of the plaintiff, or part of Wapping Marsh, that had been drained by one Vanderdelf, and afterwards was sold to a person of the name of Stepkins, under whom Lady Ivy claimed. The deeds on v/hich her title principally de- pended, were two leases, one alleged to have been made on the 13th of November, and the other on the 22d of De- cember in the second and third years of Philip and Mary, [Nov. and Dec. 1555,] who were styled in these deeds King and Queen of England, Spain, France, the two Si- cilies, &c. Dukes of Burgundy, Millain, and Brabant, &c. — The King and Queen not having assumed the title of King and Qi^ieen of Spain till some months afterwards, (before which time they were styled Princes of Spain,) and Millain being always in their true style put before Burgundy, these deeds were thus ascertained to be forged. — In the course of this trial several facts were ascertained, that may throw some light on the question before us. * * * * " Sir John Trevor. My Lord, we would gladly know where they had this Lease, that so it may appear whence it came ; for we know they have an excellent art at finding out of deeds. Mr. Att. Gen. Mr. Knowles, do you know any thing of that deed ? When did you first see it ? Mr. JVilliams. And where had you it ? Knowles. My lord, I had it in a garret, in a kind of a nook, about six feet long, and three feet and an half wide, in my own house, in the garret, among other writings. [Mr. [ 342 ] seals have been newly tempered^ like Shal- low, between the finger and the thimb ; for great [Mr. Sutton sworn and examined.^ Mr. Sol. Gen. [_JfUr a few questions had been ashed^ Pray, my lord, give me leave to ask him \^Knowks~\ a ques- tion, which I hope may clear all this matter, for it is plain the man is mistaken. Lord Ch. J. Mistaken ! Yes, I assure you very grossly. Ask him what questions you will, but if he should swear as long as Sir John Falstaff fought, I would never believe a word he says. [Knowles was then examined again."] * * * * Mr. Alt. Gen. [After a long examination.'] We must lay aside the testimony of this man. Lord Ch. J. Ay, so you had need. Mr. Att. Gen. We shall desire your lordship to consider all the use we make of this deed is, to prove that the mill was removed to another place. LordCh. J. I do not know what it proves ; but if you had kept your witness, Knowles, in the mill, I think you had done better than brought him hither. * * * * Mr. Att. Gen. They go about to blemish our deeds by the folly of our witnesses, which we cannot help. We however leave the deeds to the Jury, and let them see // those seals and other things look like counterfeits. * * * * Mr. Bradbury. My lord, we have had a violent suspicion that these deeds were forged ; but we suspect now no longer, for we have detected it ; and will shew as palpable self-evident forgery on the face of these deeds as ever was. [Part of the deeds of the 13th of Nov. and 22d of Dec. 2 and [ 343 ] great indeed must be his credulity who beheves Shakspeare*s pretended seal with the •2 and 3 of Philip and Mary, was then read ; as were the titles of the acts of the parliament which began Oct. 22, and ended 9th of Dec. 2 and 3 of Philip and Mary, and several of the fines levied in the following Hilary and Easter Term, in which the true style of the King and Queen was found. In Trinity term the style was changed. Mr. Bradbury. I cannot see how these deeds can be truly made at that time, when they stand single, and none like them can be shewn, except they come from the same forge that these do. I cannot believe that the Miller alone^ or he thai drew his leases for hiin, could so long before prophecy what manner of style shotdd hereafter be used. * * * * Mr. Williams. Pray, swear that lady. — \_Mrs. Diiffei sworn.'] Mrs, DufFet, — Will you acquaint my Lord and the Jury what you know has been done by my Lady Ivy, or by her direction, in making and altering of deeds ? Mrs. Duffet. My lord, I did see Mr. DuiFet forge and counterfeit several deeds for my Lady Ivy. Lord Ch.y. Was my Lady Ivy by, when the writing was made ? M'^s. Duffet. She was by, giving him order how to make it, and what ink he should use, to make it look old ; and they forced me to make the ink, and to fetch saffron to put in it, to make it look old, Mr. Serj. Stringer. Pray, what did they do to the deeds they made, to make them look like ancient true deeds ? Mrs. Duffet. For the making of the outsides look old and dirty, they used to nib them on windows that were very dusty, and wear them in their pockets to crease them, for some weeks togeiher, according as they intended to make [ 344 ] the impression of a boar's head, in honour of Falstaff's tavern, or that of Lowin, shadowed out after the head of one of our Saxon Monarchs, or some similar original, to be genuine. The former of these seals furnishes one of those instances to which I have already alluded, where cunning over- reaches itself j for this doubtless was make use of them. — When they had been rubbed upon the window to make them look dirty, and they were to pass for deeds of a great many years standing, it was used to lay them in a balcony, or any open place, for the rain to come upon them and wet them, and then the next sun-shiny day they were exposed to the sun, or a fire made, to dry them hastily, that they might be shrivelled. Mr. Dolbens. What do you know of counterfeiting any seals ? Mrs. Duffel. Mr. DufFet once had the impression of a seal in his hand, with which he said he was going to one Mr. Dryden to have it counterfeited : but 1 do not re- member what the seal was. Mr. IViUiajns. When tl>e deeds were written, how did he use to put the names to them ? Mrs. Duff'et. I have seen my Lady herself write some great letters of the names first upon paper, which Mr, DufFet could not so well hit ; and he has writ the rest." — Verdict for the plaintiff ; and a motion was made by his counsel that the several deeds produced by the defendant, that were detected of forgery, might be left in court, that an Information might be brought against Lady Ivy for forging and pubhshing them ; which information was ac- cordingly fyled in Trinity Term, 1684. thought [ 345 ] thought a most happy device, while in fact it is a manifest denotation of fraud. Let me ask, before I conclude, what would have been the process, if any person had really discovered a coffer, or old cabi- net, filled with original manuscripts of Shakspeare ? Would he not immediately have perused them all most eagerly, and after having made an exact list of the whole, would he not then proclaim his good fortune to the world, and invite all his friends to see and examine them, to whom he would naturally relate in what manner he had made the discovery, how long they had been in his possession, and from whom they were derived ? And could not all this, excepting the invitation to friends, have been done in a week, as well as in three or four months ? I am myself at this moment surrounded with not less than a hundred deeds, letters, and miscellaneous papers, directly or indirectly relating to Shakspeare ; and though they are not in the most exact order, in consequence of my having fre- quent occasion to consult them, I would undertake to arrange and make a list of them all in two days, without omitting a Y Y single [ 346 ] single article. — In the present case, on the other hand, that there might be no one circumstance or ground of suspicion want- ing, we find that no such complete list was made by the unknown gentleman, or ever produced : he fed the publick precisely in proportion to their credulity, issuing out his papers and deeds by driblets in the course of four or five months, during which it is manifest that some of those produced in the latter part of that period were devised and fabricated, in order to cover and give a kind of sanction to those which had been previously transmitted from that dark and unknown repository where they were originally framed. There is yet another difficulty, which not only never has been, but never can be got over. Allowing for a moment that not one of the decisive proofs of for- gery which have been produced, are valid, from what quarter could such a mass of heterogeneous papers and deeds be de- rived? Lady Barnard, Shakspeare*s grand- daughter, or her executor, might have her grandmother^s love-letters, the rings and lock of hair of her grandfather, and the coun- [ 347 ] counterparts of any leases he had made; but how should she have a deed of trust made by her ancestor to John Heminges, and suppressed by him^ or a deed made by Shakspeare to his beloved friend Mr. William Henry Ireland, &c. ? On the other hand, among the papers of Mr. Heminges might have been found this suppressed deed and stage-contracts, and leases made jointly by him and Shakspeare ; but how should he or his representatives become possessed of letters written by the poet to his mistress, the lock of hair w^hich he presented to her, the valuable ring given to him by Lord Southampton, or the gra- cious epiftle with which Queen Elizabeth honoured him ? Whatever quarter is fixed upon, will be found equally objectionable ; and accordingly, after frequently shifting the ground, this point has been given up in despair, and we are not furnifhed with even a plausible conjecture upon the subject. Impostures of this kind are no novel- ties in the History of Letters. Muretus, about the time Shakspeare was born, deceived Joseph Scaliger by some verses Y Y a of [ 348 ] of an ancient dramatick poet named Trabeas, which, he said, he had recently discovered.*'* In 1693, Francis Nodot, a Frenchman, pubhshed at Paris what he called a com- plete copy of Petronius, from a MS. which he pretended to have found at Bel- grade five years before : but it is now well known to have been a forgery.'"^ The fable of Psalmanazar will be long remembered for the great ingenuity and deep contrition of that learned impostor."" At *'* Scaliger revenged himself by the well- known epi- gram : Qui rigidas flammas vitaverat ante Tholosae, Muretus, fumos vendidit ille mihi. *'9 The following Hendecasyllables, which were writ- ten on that occasion, are sufficiently applicable to the author of the present clumsy imposture : Salve, nee latio libelle naso, Nee lingua facili, nee elegante, Nee sane nimis Attici saporis. Proles patris imaginosa Galli. Tu te ludere credis et jocari Romano sale, Gratiis Latinis r Tun' fucum facere auribus Batavis ? O inscitia ruris inficeti, O vecordia putidi cerebri. »-° There are many now living who remember the deep contrition of PsaImanazar,whose real name is yet unknown. In his last Will he thus penitently expresses himself, rela- tive [ 349 ] At Venice in the present century (1738) an entire Manuscript of Catullus was fa- bricated, which the forger said he had discovered at Rome, and which happily supplied all the defects found either in preceding manuscripts or the printed edi- tions of that author."' — The fabrications of tive to this imposture: "But the principal manuscript I thought myself bound to leave behind is a faithful narra- tive of my education and the sallies of my w^retched youth- ful years, and the various ways by which I was in some measure unavoidably led into the base and shameful im- posture of passing upon the world for a native of Formosa, and a convert to Christianity, and backing it with a fictitious account of thdt island and of my own travels, conversion, &c. all or most of it hatched in my own brain, without regard to truth and honesty. — If the obscurity I have lived in during such a series of years should make it needless to revive a thing in all likelihood so long since forgot, I cannot but wish that so much of it was published in some weekly paper, as might inform the world, espe- cially those who have still by them the fabulous account of the island of Formosa, &c. that I have long since owned both in conversation and in print, that it was no other than a mere forgery of my own devising, a scandalous imposi- tion on the publick, and such as I think myself bound to beg God and the world pardon for writing, and have been long since, as I am to this day and shall be as long as I live, heartily sorry for and ashamed of." "' The fabricator of this spurious MS. was G. F. Cor- radini. — " Corradinum mendacii manifestum tenemus, ip- semet [ 350 J of Lauder, and of the poems of Oflian and Rowley, are yet fresh in the memory of every one ; and some time before either Ossian or Chatterton was heard of, WilhamRufus Chetwood, an obscure book- seller, distinguished himself by the fruit- fulness of his inventions, which, like those now before us, related to Shakspeare ; he did not, however, aspire to the dignity of forging manuscripts, contenting himfelf with inventing the titles of editions of our author's plays, never seen by any one except himself.*" But none of these im- postors semet namque codicem Romanam sibi confinxit, qiiin de hac ludificatione ridebat interdum, fabulando." Maf- feius in Append, ad Museum Veronense, p. ccv. By following this copy, the elegant edition of Catullus printed by Coustelier at Paris, in 1743, is of no value. 222 William Rufus Chetwood had been Prompter to Drury-Lane Theatre for twenty years, and was also a Bookseller. Having been obliged to leave London, he re- moved to Dublin, and died in the Marshalsea there about the year 1760. While he was in coniinement, a book entitled The British Theatre was published in Dublin, (i2mo. 1750) compiled, as the editor says, from Chetwood's papers, in which, in order to give them an additional value, he inserted the titles of several fictitious editions of Shakspeare's plays which, he said, were printed in small quarto in the author's iife-time : «' An [ 35' ] posters were daring enough to produce any- pretended original manuscript, as written by " An excellente conceyted Tragedie of Romea and Juliette, with the Wranglyngs of the ttvo famou f homes of Mountague and Capulette, 1593."— " The Tempeste.yN^iht the Enchantments of the banished Lorde Prospero, 1595." •• A most pleasaunte Comedie called A Midsummer Night' i Dreame, with the Freakes of the Fayries, 1^9$" — " "^^^ true Chronicle of Kyjtge Henrie the %th, wythe the costlie coronatione of Queene Anne Bulleyne, after his divorce from Qiieene Catharine \ the cnnninge of Cardinal Wol- sey wythe his disgrace and deathe ; wythe the birthe and christianing of our gracious Princefs, Elizabethe, 1597. 1598, [with alterations) 1605." — " A wittie and pleasaunte Comedie called the Taininge of tJie Shrewe, 1598, 1601, 1607, 1608. There are great alterations in the two last editions.'" — " Hamlet, Prince of Demnarh his Tragedie, wythe his just revenge on the adulterous Kynge Claudius, and the poisoning of the Qi^ieen Gertrude, 1599, 1605, 1609." — " The Twoe Gentlemen of Verona, a pleasaunte Comedie, 1600, 161 3, 1614."— " The true Tragedie of Titnon of Athens, wythe the dogged veine of Apemantus, 1604." — " The excellente Tragedie of Cymbeline, wythe the warres of the Romans wythe the Brittaines, i6o6." — •' A Winter Nighte Tale, an excellent Comedie, 1606." — *♦ Caius Murtius Coriolanus, his lamentable Tragedie, 1606," &c. &c. His invention seems to have reached its utmost height in the two following paragraphs, which doubtlefs he thought master-pieces : " Measure for Measure. This play is without a date, but by an Advertisement at the end, viz. Pf^ere may be boughte at his shopp printed last year (i6oo) the Twoe Ge?7- tlemen [ 2S'^ ] By the author himself : all these fictions therefore, however reprehensible, were, for obvious reasons, harmless and innocent compared with the present fabrication, whether it be considered with a view to society, or to the character and history of the incomparable poet whose handwriting has been counterfeited. But to draw to a conclusion. — In the course of this inquiry it has been shewn that the artificer or artificers of this clumsy and daring fraud, whatever other qualifica- tions they may possess, know nothing of the history of Shakspeare, nothing of the thmen of Verona by W. Shakespeare y gentleman, we may venture to date this play in 1601." *• The Whole Content tone betweene the two famous e houses sf Lane astre and Torhy &c. in two parts. — These two plays are printed without a date, but we are assured they must be acted about this time ; for at the end of Romeo and Juliett printed for Andrew Wise in 1597, is the following Adver- tisement. At the Shopp of Andrew Wise Mr. William Shakespeare his Henrie the 6th, in two parts, 7?iay be boughte. — The 3d part is printed in 1600; but we make no doubt that it was printed before that date, though the edition is not in our possession." Romeo and Juliet was printed in 1597? not for Andrew Wise, but John Danter, and at the end of the play there is no advertisement whatsoever. I history [ 353 ] history of the Stage, or the history of the Enghsh Language. It has been proved, that there is no external evidence v^hatso- ever that can give any credibihty to the manuscripts which have been now examin- ed, or even entitle them to a serious consi- deration. That the manner in which they have been produced, near two centuries after the death of their pretended author, is fraught with the strongest circumstances of suspicion. That the orthography of all the papers and deeds is not only not the ortho- graphy of that time, but the orthography of no period whatsoever. That the language is not the language of that age, but is in various instances the language of a century afterwards. That the dates, where there are dates, either express or implied, and almost all the facts mentioned, are repug- nant to truth, and are refuted by indisputa- ble documents. That the theatrical contracts are wholly inconsistent with the usages of the theatres in the age of Shakspeare ; and that the law of the legal instruments is as false as the spelling and phraseology are absurd and senseless. And lastly, that the hand-writing of all the miscellaneous pa- z z P^rs, , [ 3S4- ] pers, and the signatures of all the deeds ^ wherever genuine autographs have been ob- tained, are wholly dissimilar to the hand- writing of the persons by whom they are said to have been written and executed ; and where autographs have not befen found, ta the general mode of writing in that age. If any additional proof of forgery is want- ing, I confess I am at a loss to conceive of what nature it should be. I HAVE now done; and I trust I have vindicated Shakspeare from all this '* im- puted trash,'* and rescued him from the hands of a bungling impostor, by proving all these Manuscripts to be the true and genuine offspring of consummate ignorance and unparalleled audacity,"* While i^J It has often been a subject of regret among the friends of that great and good man, the late Dr. Johnson^ that his vaUjable life was not protracted a few years longer ; that he did not live to see the attempts which have been madQ in a neighbouring kingdom to obliterate from men's minds the belief of a future state,, and every principle which tends to enforce a conformation of human actions to the Divine laws ; with all the wild and pernicious theories of government which have been propagated by the republican zealots of the present day^ both in this country and France^ alike [ 3SS ] While I was employed in this investi- tration, I sometimes fancied that 1 was pleading alike subversive of those establishments which he so justly revered, and of the peace and happiness of mankind. On such a subject how would he have kindled, and with what strength of argument, and energy, and eloquence, would he have treated it ! — Though he would not have displayed equal ardour on a subject comparatively of so little import- ance as the present fabrication, yet even here, he who in opposing the fictions of Ossian and Chatterton was as strenuous as any of their most determined assailants, would not have been an indifferent spectator : and as his sagacity and discernment would have immediately seen through the whole of the fraud, he would not have been slow to express his indignation at it. Strongly impressed with this notion, while 1 have been employed in the present work, I have sometimes imagined that I beheld him looking down from the abodes of the blessed, animating me to pro- ceed in the cause of Shakspeare and of truth, and exclaim- ing in his firm and sonorous tone, cape saxa manu, cape rohora, pastor. The warm part he took on the detection of Lauder, na- turally brought this excellent man to my mind. It is well known that he wrote the greater part of that impostor's penitentiary Letter to Dr. Douglas, (the present Lord Bishop of Salisbury,) which Lauder afterwards was base enough to retract. As I trust, that the now unknown con- triver of the present imposture will hereafter be discovered, and hope that he will have a due sense of the heinousness of his offence against society and the cause of letters, the z z 2 following [ 3S6 ] pleading the cause of our great dramatick poet before the ever-blooming God of me- lody following formulary of recantation and contrition, written for Lauder by Dr. Johnson, may very properly (mutatis tnutamlisj be recommended to him : " I publickly, and without the least dissimulation, sub- terfuge, or concealment, acknowledge the truth of the charge which you have advanced. On the sincerity and punctuality of \.\\\s confession, I am willing to depend for all the future regard of mankind ; and cannot but indulge some hopes that they whom my offence hath alienated from me, may by this instance of ingenuity and repentaiice be propitiated and reconciled. — Whatever may be the event, 1 ishall at least have done all that can be done in reparation of my former injuries to Sbakspeare, to truth, and to man- kind ; and entreat that those who shall still continue im- placable will examine their own hearts, whether they have not committed equal crimes without equal proofs of sorrow, or equal acts of atonement. — For the violation of truth I offer no excuse, because I well know that nothing can ex- cuse it. Nor will I aggravate my crime by disingenuous palliations. I confess it, 1 repent it, and resolve that my first offence shall be my last. More I cannot perform, and more therefore cannot be required of me." — Milton tio Plagiary, or a Detection of the Forgeries contained in Lauder's Essay on the imitation of the Aloderns in the Pa- radise Lost, &c. By the Rev. John Douglas, A.M. 2d edit. 1756, p. 84. Lauder published his recantation in 1751, in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Douglas, drawn up for him by Dr. John- sqn. [ 357 ] lody and song. Possessed with this idea, and having after a very restless night closed my eyes at an early hour of the morning, I imagined myself transported to Parnassus, where Apollo and his nine female assessors were trying this question, and were pleased to call on me to deliver my sentiments, as Counsel for Shakspeare, before they should proceed further in the cause. The various poets of all times and countries were amus- ing themselves with their lyres on this cele- brated hill, which was richly stored with a profusion of bay trees, and ivy, interspersed with a great variety of aromatick shrubs, which perfumed the air with the most de- lightful fragrance. I immediately knew our author by his strong resemblance to the only authentick portrait of him, which be- longed to the late Duke of Chandos, and of which I have three copies by eminent m^as- ters. He appeared to be a very handsome man, above the middle size, and extremely well made. The upper part of his head son, to which however he added a contradictory postscript of his own. He afterwards went to Earbadoes, where he died in great poverty about the year i yyo. was t 358 ] was almost entirely denuded of hair ; his eyes were uncommonly vivid, and his countenance was strongly marked by that frankness of air, and gentle benignity, which all his contemporaries have attri- buted to him. At the top of the hill he had found out a pleasant even lawn, where he was playing at bowls with Spencer, Sir John Suckling, little John Hales, and two other friends ; wholly inattentive to what was going forward in the Court, though Apollo was seated but a few paces from him. He had been hunting at an early hour of the morning (as I learned from his con- versation) in the adjoining plains of Phocis, with Diana (who was then on a visit to her brother) and a bevy of her nymphs, who were now spectators of the game in which he was engaged. Recollecting the nume- rous proofs which his writings (corrobo- rated by the testimony of his contemporaries) exhibit, of the tenderness of his heart and his passionate admiration of the fairer part of the creation, whose innumerable graces add a zest to all the pleasures, and sooth and alleviate all the cares of life, I was not surprised to hear him tell one of his female associates [ 359 ] associates In the chase, that his sport that day had far exceeded any amusement of the same kind he had ever partaken of in his sublunary state. His old and surly anta- gonist, Ben Jonson, was seated on an empty cask, looking on the game, in which from the great corpulency and unwieldiness of his frame he was unable to join. Being now unfurnished with his beloved sack, he was obliged to betake himself to the pure stream of the Castalian spring, of which an immense flaggon stood near him ; and he appeared to have taken such large potations of it, that he was become perfectly bloated and dropsical. When I had urged the principal topicks which have been enlarged upon in the pre- sent Inquiry, and the Counsel of the other side had done pleading, Apollo proceeded to pronounce sentence. He began with observing, that this was one of the most important causes that had ever been argued in that court ; not only as it concerned the history and reputation of the greatest poet that the world had seen since the days of Homer, but also involved in it the history of language, and of that species of poetical composition 6 over [ 3^0 ] over which two of his assessors on the bench particularly presided. That the rights of authors were as sacred as any other, and that the Statute in this case made and pro- vided had very w-isely guarded their hterary property from every kind of invasion, by securing to them for a certain period an ex- clusive privilege of printing and publishing their works, for their own benefit. That the present, however, was entirely a new case, no mention being made in the Act of the injury which might be done to the reputation of poets, long after their death, by attributing to them miserable trash printed from pretended ancient manuscripts, made in some obscure comer for the noficCy and thus debasing and adulterating their ge- nuine performances, which had been admired for ages, by the most impure and base alloy : that this offence, though not within the letter, was clearly within the spirit and equity of the statute, and was a still greater injury than that expressly provided against, inasmuch as that only affected the property of an author, whereas this robbed him of that good name and reputation w^hich to all men of sensibility is dearer than lite itself. He [ 36i ] He added, that to remove all doubts in fu- ture, he thought it highly necessary that the Act on this subject should be explained and amended, and he hoped a select com- mittee of poets would draw up a bill for that purpose. Without however waiting for such an explanatory act, he thought himself fully justified on the ground before stated, in pronouncing the sentence of the law in the present case, in which the whole court were unanimous. He therefore or- dered in the first place that a continual hue and cry should be made for one year after the original contriver and fabricator of those Miscellaneous Papers which had been recently published in a folio volume, and attributed to the illustrious Shakspeare and others ; that a perpetual injunction should issue to prevent the further sale of them, and that the whole impression now remaining in the hands of the Editor should immediately be delivered up to the Usher of the Court j and when a proper fire had been made of the most baleful and noxious weeds, that all the Copies should be burned by Dr. Farmer, Mr. Steevens, 3 A and [ 362 ] and myself, assisted by Mr. Tyrwhitt,"-* who I perceived was honoured with a seat on the bench, and whose pohte ciemeanour and thoughtful aspect displayed all that urbanity and intelligence for which he was distinguished in life : (for in this calenture of the brain, your Lordship cannot but have observed that the imagination often, unites the most discordant circumstances, and without any difficulty brings together the future and the past, the living and the dead.) — He should not, however, (the God of Verse added,) content himself with vindicating the reputation of this his fa- vourite son ; but, as his Court involved a criminal as well as a civil jurisdiction, should proceed to give sentence on those persons who had been arraigned at the bar, for giving a certain degree of counte- ?*"* It is not, I believe, geiierally known, that the very learned editor of Chaucer was himself a poet. While he was yet at college, (i749») he published a poem entitled *• An Epistle to Florio at Oxford," which I have never met witii, but I have been informed by a very good judge that it abounds with poetical merit. He also published at Oxford, ** Translations in Verse. Mr. Pope's Messiah, Mr. Philips's Splendid Shilling, in Latin j the Eighth Isthmianof Pindar in English." 4to. 1752. I pance [ 363 ] nance and support to this audacious fiction. As their offence was not of a very heinous kind, he should treat them with lenity ; and the punishment, being wholly discretionary in the court, should be proportioned to the various degrees of guilt in the offenders. With respect to the multitude of persons of each sex and of all ages and denominations, who had flocked during the preceding year to see these spurious papers, and expressed the highest admiration of them, (they were so brown and so yellow, so vastly old, and so vastly curious !) the Ringleaders, who were then in custody, should be dismissed with only a gentle reproof, and an admonition never again to pronounce judgment on matters with which they wxre not conver- sant, without taking the advice of Counsel learned in the laws of Parnassus : — but on a small group of hardened offenders, who were placed at the bar by themselves, and did not appear to me to be more than seven or eight, "^ he thought himself bound to "5 In this group I did not see my friend, the learned and ingenious Author of the " Essay on the writings and 3 A 2 genius [ 364 ] to inflict a much more severe punishment. That if these gentlemen had modestly and ingenuously said that they had too hastily given a judgment on a matter which they did not understand, — that they knew nothing of old hand-writing, and nothing of old language, (which he conceived they might have done without any impeachment of their understandings,) he should have had great tenderness for them. But inasmuch as they had pertinaciously adhered to error after it had been made as manifest as his owri Sun at noon-day, and chmg to an opi- genius of Pope," who, though he has passed his seventieth year, retains all the ardour and vivacity of youth ; nor a very respectable clergyman well known to the learned world, and eminently distinguished for his love and know- ledge of the fine arts, his literature, and suavity of man- ners ; nor another very worthy friend, who presides at one of our revenue-boards, with great credit to himself and ad- vantage to the publick ; a scholar, a man of excellent taste, and much various knowledge ^ all of whom, though at first, and on a cursory view, they were dazzled by the quantity and specious appearance of this mass of imposture, always expressed themselves with great moderation and reserve on the subject, and never gave a decided opinion on hand- writing and phraseology to which the course of their studies had not led them to pay any particular attention. nion [ 365 ] nion because they had once given it, which they were unable to maintain and unwilling to retract, he thought they ought to be made a publick example. That in every sentence he pronounced he kept in mind the rule of a great judge of their own na- tion, " always remembering when he found himself swayed to pity, that there was ALSO A PITY DUE TO THE COUNTRY ;'* and that he wished the tribunals of that nation, (which on account of the eminent poets it had produced was extremely dear to him,) whether consisting of one, or of one dozen ^ would always keep that just rule before their eyes. That the pity to the country, in the present instance, was, by the punishment of these offenders, (who, though not so guilty as the undiscovered principal, yet, as accessories after the fact, had a considerable degree of guilt,) to maintain and establish truth and honesty, the best supporters of all human dealings, and to prevent the propagation of error, and the success of forgery and impos- ture. — The pains and penalties however of that Court extending only to that kind of [ 366 ] of chastisement which men of wit best know how to inflict, he ordered that Butler, Dry den, Swift, and Pope, should forthwith compose four copies of verses on the sub- ject, either ballad, epigram, or satire, as their several fancies might direct ; and that, after he had affixed his sign-manual to them, they should be conveyed by Mercury to England, and inserted for one month in the Poets' Corner of all the loyal Morning and Evening Newspapers of London, to the end that each of these credulous partisans of folly and imposture should remain " Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, " And the sad burthen of some merry song," On this mild and just sentence being pro- nounced, all the poetick tribe who were with- in hearing gave a loud shout of applause, which drew Shakspeare and his companions from their game, and awakened me from my dream. Farewell, my dear Lord ! You are, I know, too w^ell convinced of my unalter- able esteem and attachment, to need anv puhlick [ 36? ] pub lick assurances on that head ; and there- fore I shall only add in the usual style of papers intended for the publick view, that 1 have the honour to be, &c. Edmond Malone, Queen-Anne-Street, East, March jg, -f796« Appendix. APPENDIX, NUMBER I. Origin and History of Promissory Notes AND Paper-Credit. np H E inquiry into the authenticity of the note •^ of hand, said to have been given by Shak- speare to John Heminges in the year 1589,' is naturally » It has been already printed in p. 133; but in order that the arguments of my ingenious and learned friend may ap- pear to the best advantage, and be fully understood, I fhall give it a place here also : " Ofie monethfrotn the date htrtoi I d.ot prowyte to paye •« to my good and Worthye Freynd John Hemynge the fume «* oi five Pounds and five shillings of English Monye as a •* recompense for hys greate trouble in settling and doinge «' much for me at the Globe Theatre as also for hys trouble *' in going downe for me to Stafford. Witness my Hand " W"" Shakspere. " Sepember the Nynth 1589." In the multitude of objedlions to this spurious Promissory Note, I forgot to take notice of the phrase going down to Stratford, for that is the place meant, " save, as Fluellen says, the phrase is a little variations." The pre-eminence of the Capital over the Country was then without doubt as fully acknowledged as it is at present : but though the inferiority 3 B ot' [ 370 ] naturally conneded with the history of personal securities and paper-credit in England. The in- of every other part of the kingdom is now marked by out constantly uling the phrases of " go'mgc/own to the Country," and " comingup to London," there is no ground for suppos- ing that this was the language of Shakspeare's age. I have never met with it in any of the familiar letters of the time, where, if the phrafe had then been in ufe, it would un- doubtedly have been found. " The Glohe thea/re," which I alfo omitted to notice, is equally objectionable. When they spoke of the playhouses of that time, they said the Globe, the Rofe, or the Curtain, not the Globe theatre, 6:c. So in the Contract between Henslowe, Alleyn, and Streete, for building the Fortune play-houfe, — "and with such like steares, &c. as are made and contrived in and to the late ereded play-house on the Bancke, in the faid parish of St. Saviours, called the Globe.** So also in a stage-contract, which will appear in a subse- (juent page, (Appendix, No IV.)" — used or to be used or exercised within the play-house of the said P. H. and E. A. commonly called The Fortune," Again, in a Memo^ randum by Edward Alleyn (Shakspeare'sPLAYS and Poems Vol. I. Part II. p. 43} : " What The Fortune [not the Fortune theatre] cost me, Nov. 1599-" Again, in Randolph's Muses Looking-Glass, 1632 : ■ That the Globe «' Hath been confumed; the Phoenix burnt to ashes, **The Fortune whipt forablind whore; Blackfryers " He wonders how it scaped demolishing." See also the title-page to Othello, 4to. 1622: " Th« tragedy of Othello, as it was played at the Globe on theBankside, and at the private house in the Black-friers.*' If Heminges had thougiu it necessary to add any word after " the Globe," it would have been the plain English word, play-houfe, not theatre. ^ strument [ 371 ] strument is very properly entitled a note of hand. In all its leading characteristicks it clofely corre- sponds with the promissory notesy which under the familiar name of notes of hand, are current at this day. It begins with the time of future payment ; contains merely a " promise to pay," without any antecedent acknowledgement of a debt; and is authenticated by the signature only, without a seal. A question therefore arises whether any such in- strument is known to have been in use at that period, and what were the instruments, most nearly resembling a promissory note, which were then in use ; and the result will be still more satis- factory, if the time can be positively ascertained, when such instruments as this ascribed to Shak- speare, first came into circulation, and were esta- blilhed by law. Enough has been already done, in all proba- bility, to satisfy every candid inquirer of the fabrication in the present instance. But the sub- ject altogether is curious, and may not be unin- teresting in a country which has carried its com- merce to such an unexampled height, by the aid, in a great degree, of thefe very promissory notes. One considerable source of information has hitherto escaped the search of professed writers on Com- merce. They have occasionally drawn some ma- terials, though not all they might, from the statute- book, but they have neglected the Reports of proceedings in Westminster-Hall, and Law-treat- -j B 2 ises [ 372 ] ises on the nature and forms of instruments. The study of these authorities, in black-letter and barbarous French, interlarded with as barbarous Latin and obfolete English, all three full of abbre- viations, is not very inviting ; but there are few diggers and delvers after antient customs and man- ners in the mines of antiquity who would not find enough to reward their labour, if they sometimes followed the vein by that leader. The personal securities used in the time of Shakspeare, and for centuries before, were either Obligations^ now commonly called Bonds, with a penalty and condition ; or Bills^ sometimes deno- minated bills of debt or bills obligatory. The latter are chiefly to the present purpose. They were single bonds without any penalty or condition j but they were equally deeds^ requiring to be signed sealed and delivered. * In one of the oldest cases, where a bill was ruled to be invalid, ' one of the grounds appears to have been that it had no claufe expressing the sealing, though it seems to have been actually sealed. It would be idle to mul- tiply authorities to prove that there was always a seal to these bills. One more may be sufficient, ■* from the time of Shakspeare. The case arose on a bill dated only three years before the pretended * Cowell, in v. Bill, & Co. Lit. 272. J Year-book, 40. E. III. p. 2. * Talbot and Godbolt. Yclv. 137&147. 6Jac. .v«,i note [ 373 ] ■note of hand ; and it is a memorable instance, where an unfortunate retainer of the Law, the clerk of a learned Serjeant, burned his fingers with his own sealing-wax. The poor man, (as lawyers do not always succeed the best in their own affairs) drew a bill, binding himfelf by mistake, instead of his master. He acknowledged the receipt of 40I. for his master's use, to be paid the Michaelmas following ; but forgetting to express by whom it was to be paid, was held to be responsible himself, as he had sealed the bill. The use of the seal indeed was so familiar at this period, that it was even applied on other oc- casions, where, with rules of evidence lefs favour- able, no person now would expect it to be affixed. We learn from an act of Parliament passed in 16 10, ^ that Shop-books and other accompt-bcoks between persons who were in a course of dealing with each other, were received in evidence, even for the party by whom they were kept. Much more then, and according to the strictest rules of evidence would they be binding against the party who made any particular entry in them, such as were probably those acknowledgements of debt in the text, extracted from the old theatrical Re- gister of Dulwich : yet it was a common practice with Merchants and Tradesmen in London at the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, to have 5 7 Jac. c. 12. regular [ 374 ] regular bills of debt or obligations inserted In their books by their debtors, signed, sealed, and de- livered, ^ One of the names of the single bill, that of a hill of debty by which it most frequently passed about the time of Shakspeare, points to an express acknowledgement of a debt as an essential part of the instrument. Accordingly West who com- piled his Symboleography the very year after the supposed note of hand in question, defines a bill or obligation to be " a deed, 'uohereby the Obligor " doth knowledge himself to owe unto the Obligee a " certaine summe of money or other thing, " In which (continues he) besides the parties' " names, are to be confidered the summe or thing *' due, and the time, place, and manner of paiment " or delivery thereof," All his precedents, of which there are many, some more some less formal, have of course all the parts required by himself, as well as the clause of sealing. One of his pre- cedents of a bill for a thing lent has probably been very seldom copied, at least in our times. It may be well however to preserve the memory of it, as it may jfhortly be of utility to some harmless people of antiquated prejudices, if the anti -cru- saders of modern philosophy fhould succeed in making the thing as scarce in this country, as it was *• Fox and Wright, 40 Eliz. Cro. Eliz. 613. in [ 375 J in times of ancient ignorance. It is an acknow- ledgement of having received, and an engagement to re deliver a Bible. It is true that a bill obligatory might be con- ftituted by any words of power to create an ob- ligation to pay, without any acknowledgement of owing. And it was early so ruled. But of the real bills, afbually put in issue, very few indeed, if any, will be found before the 17th Century, that are without some direct admission of the debt. All bills that have been preserved to us at full length in reports from the Year-books down- wards, have some phrase or word of introduction. The more methodical and technical begin with " Kno'du all men by these presents'' j " Beit hwwn''\ or This bill witnesseth'\ or something to that effect, whether in Latin or English : the looser and less regular are ushered in with the word " Memoran- dum'" or some abbreviation of it. This word is to be found at the head of the oldest instrument of the kind on record in the reign of Edward the IU% and it stood unmoved in the time of Charles the F. TheTouch-Stone ofCommon AssuRANCEswas published in 164 1. It goes under the name of Sheppard, but is believed to have been the produc- tion of Mr. Justice Doderidge, who was raised to the bench in the life- time of Shakspeare ; and that book has no less than fourteen or fifteen of the shorter and more simple forms, ' to every one of which 7 Tit. Obligation, p. 6 8. without [ 376 ] without exception the word " Memorandum^' is prefixed. The obligatory or promissory part of the ancient bill was generally expressed by the words, " to bepaidy" a translation of the Latin word " Sol- "jendum." It is observable that when the phrase " / promise to pay" first crept into a bill of debt, about a century before our Poet, an objection was taken to it by Mr. Serjeant Vavasour. * " Here are no " words of obligation (said he)j a promise does not " constitute an obligation." The Court, it is true, over-ruled the objection; the new phraseology however, was not adopted, but the accustomed form still continued to prevail. Another circumstance in which the old bills of debt differed from our modern notes of hand was in the grammatical structure of the sentence. The term fixed for future payment always followed, and never preceded the obligatory words of the bill. This is invariable in all the inflances to be found down to the periodnowin question, of 1589. The concluding claufe too was always full : not " witness my handj" but " in witnesse whereof I have hereunto set my hand and scale" or to that effect ; as will be found in every one of West's precedents, and wherever else the form of a bill is set forth at length. Neither was the date ever * Year-book. 22 E. IV. 22. ; ^ ^ placed i 377 ] |)laced by itself in a corner, but embodied in the bill. But as examples best illustrate, it maybe proper to add two or three precedents of different kinds. They will be found to correspond generally in their form with the entries taken from Henslowe's Register- 'O* The first shall be the bill where the phrase " I " promise to pay" originally appeared. It ran thus : " Md, that I Master Jo. Hately have re- *' ceived of W. K. twenty pound, the which " twenty pound I the said Maister Jo. Hately *' promise to pay to K. In witness whereof I set to «' my seale,*^" &c. &c. The following is very few years prior in date to the pretended note of hand-. "' " Me. That I owe to A. B. twenty pound t^ " be paid in watchets. — In witness whereof," &c. It has been hinted above that some benefit might occasionally be reaped by Antiquaries, if they were somewhat better Lawyers j and it is but justice to say here in return, that Lawyers would some- times not be the worse for being better Anti» quaries. The modern Abridgers, Viner, Bacon," «» Year-Book, 22 E. IV. 22. •° Hil. 26Eliz. And. 117. " Tit. Obligation. 3 c and [ 378 ] and others, for watchets'' (that is, watchet-lights, a sort of taper,) have substituted " watches.'' An Antiquary who should take their word without going back to the genuine black-letter, would think he had made a rare discovery. The next specimen is still nearer to the date of 1589, and must be presumed of good authority. It is the bill of Mr. Serjeant Gaudy's Clerk, who probably followed the most approved form in popular use. He did not suffer for departing from sound precedents, but rather for adhering to them too closely. He was fined for wanting judgement to vary them as circumstances required. The words are, " Memor. that I have received of Ed- " ward Talbot to the use of my Master, Master " Serjeant Gaudy, the sum of forty pound to be " paid at Michaelmas following. In witness where- " of," &c. This bill is described to have been dated in the 28th of Elizabeth. It probably ran like the following, which is dated in the 3 2d of the same reign, or 1590, and is the only English precedent in West, for payment of a debt at a future day certain : " Bee it knowne unto all men by these presents « that I, T. K. of D. in the county of S. yeoman, " do owe unto T. S. of the said towne and county, <« gentleman, 100 1. of good and lawfuU Enghsh money. [ 379 ] *' money, to be paid to the said I. S. his heires, " executors or administrators, upon the feast of *^ Easterday next comming after the date hereof: " for which paiment wel and truly to be made, *^ I bind me and mine heires firmly by these pre- *^ sents. In witnesse whereof I have hereunto " put my hand and seale. Dated the first day of *' Januarie, in the two and thirtieth year of our " Soveraign Lady El." &c. But it may be asked, whatever were the forms alone recognized by the common law, were there no instruments, like this in Shakspeare's name, then used by merchants and others in their confi- dential transactions ? — It will be found, on the con- trary, that the want of them was a theme of com- plaint for more than half a century after his death. Malines wrote his book called Lex Mercatoria, or Law-Merchant, in 1622, about fix years after the death of our great dramatick poet. This wri- ter allots two whole chapters, the xii''' and xiii'** as well as half of the xi'" to the subje6t oi bills of debt or bills obligatory y as employed in buying and selling by the merchants-adventurers of Amster- dam, Middleburgh, and Hamburgh. He tells us, that " in the Eaft Countries," (that is,- in the countries about the Baltick,) " and sometimes in " the Low- Countries, they will put a/^-^/^," but 302 thaC [ 380 ] that sealing Is not necessary." The use and trans- fer o{ these bills in commerce he declares to be *' a laudable customc noi pra5fised in Englandy* but which he thinks " might with great facility ** neverthelesse be established, and would be very <* beneficiall to the King and the Commonwealth *' in generall."' He is very full in explaining the nature and all the circumstances of one of these bills obligatory y as of a thing almost unknown; and he inserts the form, which is a foreign form, but which, except in being made payable to the bearer, and having no seal or mention of a sealy. resembles in general substance the precedents oF West. If any thing, it is more full : "I A.B. Merchant of Amfterdam, doe acknow- " ledge by these presents to be truly indebted^ ** to the honeft C. D. English merchant dwelling *^ at Middle borough, inthesumme of five hundred " pounds currant money, for merchandize, which **^ is for commodities received of him to my ** contentment, which summe of five hundred " pound as aforesaid I do promise to pay unto " the said C. D. (or the bringcr hereof) within ** six months next after the date of these presents : ** in witnesse whereof I have subscribed the same " at Amsterdam the loth of July 1622, Stih « no-jQ, A. B." One One of this author's remarks plainly shews, that he, like West, thought the acknowledgment of the debt to be of the essence of the bill. " The « Civil-Law, and the Law-Merchant, (says he) ** doe require, that the bill Jhall declare for what " the debt growethy either for merchandise or *^ monie, or any other lawfull consideration.'* Under the Proteftorate of Cromwell, in the year 165 1, John Marius, a Notary Public, wrote a work entTtliled " Advice concerning Bills " of Exchange;'* and in 1655 printed a second edition much enlarged. This he gives as " the «* crop of four and twenty years experience in •^ his employment in the art of a Notary Pub- •* like, which (he tells us) he yet pradised at ** the Royal Exchange in London both for /«- •* land and outland instruments.'* The work is a folio of forty close pages j but though it has so much on inland as well as outland bills of ex- change and letters of credit, and contains short diredions for merchants* book-keeping, there is not a fmgle syllable upon hills of debiy or bills obligatory. We learn too that even the validity ofifiland bills of exchange under the Lav/- inerchant was then controverted by foreign wri- ters, and was clearly not acknowledged by the Common Law of England, Just [ 382 ] Just before the Restoration in 1660 a book called " Amphithalami" was published by Abra- ham Liset, which amongst other things con- tains, " Instruftions for a merchant.'* What this writer says upon hills of debt or bills obligatory is extra6ted and abridged from Malines. He continues the same complaint that " this laudable " custom was not pradlised in England," and the same instances to enforce its adoption in this country : It is to be inferred therefore, that no alteration with regard to these bills had taken place from the time of Malines, Soon after the Restoration, the rigour of the- Common Law gave way by degrees to the less formal instruments of the Law-Merchant founded on the Civil Law. Bills of exchange were the first mercantile instruments thus favoured, and with respeft to them the custom of merchants was allowed to be pleaded. This had been done be- fore with regard to foreign bills of exchange; but now these bills extended to all money-transaftionj between all men residing at a distance from each other, and at laft every person by drawing a bill of exchange was considered by the law as hav- ing become a merchant in that particular ad. The various stages of their progress are thus shortly, but satisfactorily, related by Chief Juflice Treby of the Common Pleas, in the year 1696. '* " Bromwich and Loyd, 8 W. IIL 2 Lutw. 1585. 7 " Bills [ 3^3 1 " Bills of exchange (says he) at first extended ** only to merchant strangers trading with English *' merchants, and afterwards to inland bills between '* merchants trading the one with the other here " in England, and afterwards to all traders and -*' negociators, and of late lo all persons traf- •* Jicking or not,'* When inland bills of exchange had gained a foot- ing in Weftminfter-Hall, and were judged to be good between all traders and negociators, it seemed an easy step to establish also in some form or other, the transferrable bill of debt or bill obli- gatory used by merchants abroad, and so much and long recommended for introdu6lion here. The origin of the new promissory note is distinftly attributed to the Goldsmiths ; and such a note in our books of reports after the Revolution is often called by its familiar name of a Goldsmith's note. The period of time to which an authority, that will hereafter be quoted at length, refers the beginning of these notes, is about the year 1673. It is well known that previous to the year 1640 the mint was the usual place of depofit for the running cash of merchants. The seizure of the money there by Charles the V\ in 1640, deftroyed for ever the credit of the Mint. The frequent elopement of clerks with all the money ia [ 384 1 in tKeir hands to one army or the other, when the Civil War broke out, prevented the merchants from leaving cash in the charge of cashiers at home, and thus about the year 1645 ^^ Gold- smiths became the general bankers. '^ The situ- ation of the country, first from the real and ne- cessary distresses of the Parliament and Protestor, and afterwards from the profusion of Charles 11. gave the new bankers great opportunities of making emoluments, and of tempting all men of property by the allowance of a small interest td deposit money in their hands. Thus their trade grew and flourished till the year 1667, when, an alarm taking place in consequence of the Dutch sailing up the Thames and burning some ships at Chatham, a run was made on the Goldsmiths, and their credit was shaken. They seem how- ever to have been recovering from that blow, when Charles II. In 167 1-2, took the violent mea- sure of shutting up the Exchequer, and impound- ing there between thirteen and fourteen hundred thousand pounds of their principal money, be- side the current interest due upon it. Previous to this period, their prosperity was so encreasing, and money came so fast into their hands, that they were perpetually employed in '^ Anderson's Hist, of Commerce, under the years 1645, 1665, and 1672: on the authority of a curious pamphlet printed in 1676. devising [ 385 ] devising new modes of disposing it to advan- tage without being under the necessity of having recourse to their own paper-credit to support their, trade. But the shutting of the Exchequer threw the whole commerce of the city into confusion, and made extraordinary expedients necessary to sustain every part of the system. It is just about this time that we find the Goldsmiths to have first issued their promissory notes. This date of their first introdu6lion seems in- deed to be very nearly ascertained from contempo- rary evidence, A little anonymous work of consi- derable merit was published in 1680, under the title of " The Interests of Princes and States." It is said in the prefatory Advertisement to have been written some years before, and on that ground an apology is made for any thing which from sub- sequent changes might not apply at the time of publication. The internal evidence in truth dates it between the years i668 and 1672. Now it clearly fhows promissory notes not to have been in circulation when it was written : for in a list of measures which the author proposes for the inte- rests of this kingdom, he reckons as the fifth, that " the transferring of bills of debt should be " made good in law : it being, as he says, a " great advantage to traders (especially young men " of small stocks) to be able to supply them- " selves with money, by the sale of their o'-jon bills " ofdebtr 3 D On [ J86 ] On the other hand, that the introduction of thefe notes had taken place between the writing and publishing of that passage we learn from a cafe of the year 1680 '■* (the earliest Law Report in which they are mentioned) ; and there they appear in a way which plainly shews them at once to have been common among merchants, and yet not received into general use in the new form with a signature only. The attion was brought on a note by which one Hentley promised to pay to the bearer thereof on the delivery of the note, lool. But the note was sealed accord- ing to the old practice, and was argued as a scroll which had become a perfect deed by the de- livery of it to the plaintiff, who was then the bearer. This was a moment of public ferment, and the Chief Justice, Sir Francis Pemberton, had notmany days filled his situation, to which he was promoted on the removal of Sir William Scroggs, in conse- quence of his impeachment by Parliament. He may therefore have been desirous, circumstanced as he was, of doing what would be popular. He in- clined to the doctrine of the Plaintiff's Counsel, and observed, that when a merchant promises to pay to the hearer of a note, any who brings the note fh all bn paid-y but Mr. Justice Jones said, that it was the custom of merchants which made that good. The decision was adjourned, and the sequel has not been reported, '-• Shelden and Hentley, E 33. Car. IL 2 Show. i6o. 161. The [ 387 ] The success which attended the adoption of promissory notes ^ one of the projedls urged in vain during the usurpation, seems to have suggested the notion of reducing others also, connected with that, into praftice. '' Accordingly in 1683 the scheme of a general bank, supported by a numerous association of subscribers, (a scheme which had been proposed in different shapes under Cromwell) was revived by Dr. Chamberlain and Mr. Robert Murray, '^' who had lately estabhshed the Penny Post. Though this scheme of a Bank did not take effect, yet as it probably gave the hint of the Bank of England, erected by other more fortunate projectors about eleven years after, it may not be unentertaining to insert here a curi- ous account of the plan from the unpublished papers of Aubrey the antiquary, with which I have been furnished by Mr. Malone : " The Penny Post was set up on our Lady- " day, (being Friday) A'' Dni. 1680 ; a most " ingenious and useful project, invented by Mr. " Robert Murray first, and then Mr. Dockwra " joined with him. The Duke of York seized " on it in 1682. Mr. Murray was formerly clerk " to the general commissioners for the revenue " of Ireland, and afterwards clerk to the com- " missioners of the grand Excise of England; " and was the first that invented and introduced '^ Anderfon's Hlftory, 1651. 'Mbid. 1683. 302 *' into [ 388 ] " Into this city the Club of Commerce, consi.st- " ing of one of each trade -, whereof there v/ere " after very many elected and are still continued in " this city. And he also contrived and set up " the office or Bank of Credit at Devonshire *^ House in Bishopgate Street without, where " men depositing their goods and merchandize, *' were furnished with bills of current credit, at " two thirds or three fourths of the value of the " said goods according to the intrinsick value of " money; whereby the deficiency of coin might " be fully supplied : and for rendering the same " current, a certain number of traders, viz. ten " or twenty of each trade (whereof there be five *^ hundred and ten several traders within the city,) " were to be assembled or formed into such a " society or company of traders, as might '•^ among them complete the whole body of com- ," merce ; whereby any possessed of the said cur- *^rent credit might be furnished among them-~ " feives with any kind of goods and merchandize " as efi^ectually as for money elsewhere". ' ' But the great epoch in the history of paper- credit, is the formation of the Bank of England in 1694, and there we have on the authority of '" From a paper entitled Noiivelks. MS. Aubrey, in Mus. Asl'jmol. Mr. Aubrey adds, that " Robert Murray was a citizen of London, a Vlillcner, [Andcrjccnalls. him an upholfterer, ] of the company of Clothworkers ; his father a Scotchman, his mother Englilh j born in the Strand, Dec. 12, 1633.' [ 389 ] Parliament fome material evidence applying to our immediate object. There is a claufe in the act of Incorporation which plainly indicates the true birth and parentage of promissory notes, as derived from the bills of debt, or bills obligatory, of former times. It is exprefsly provided " that all bills " cbligatory^ under the fed of that corporation, might " be assignable tcties quoties -, and that fuch as- " signments should absolutely vest the property " in the assignees." '* This latter provision was necessary to obviate one strong objedVion ori- ginally made, as we learn from Malines, to the transfer of bills obligatory^ or bills of debt : " that *^ by the Common Law debts were chofes in a^ioriy " whereof no property could passe by assignement '^ or alienation." The original bank notes were actually fealed bills, "^ and bore an interest of two pence by the day for every hundred pounds. The establishment of the Bank of England gave a new fpring to the minds of projectors, and among other plans soon after published, was one for promoting the circulation of notes of hand and letters of credit. This plan did not take effect ; but the circulation gained ground. Soon afterwards this fort of Paper-credit had the fanctionofthe State. In 1696 Exchequer-bills were first issued. In the mean time, hov/ever, the Common Law '^ 5 and 6 of W. and M. c 20. '^ Andeison's history, 1604. I had [ 390 J had made a powerful stand against these notes of the Goldsmiths ; especially against the legal operation which their inventors and patrons en- deavoured to give them. It was attempted to assimilate them to bills of exchange, and to brino- actions upon them in the same manner under the custom of merchants. Indeed, the mere signature of an acceptor to a bill of exchange being allowed to raise an obligation of payment to the holder over of the bill, it was not unnatural to conclude that a signature to a direct promise of payment in another form would be admitted as equally bind- ing, and capable of being pleaded in the same Way. And it may perhaps have been to avoid an apparent distinction on the face of the instrument, that the first part of the old form recommended by Malines for a bill obligatory (the acknow- ledgement of the debt) was omitted, and the subsequent promise to pay alone retained. The change in the local arrangement of the date, which was now taken out of the body of the note, and placed separately in a more conspicuous part, generally at the top, was probably made that it might more readily present itself to the eye for the calculation of the discount. At the same time the old formal clause of attestation was cut down to " Witness my hand." A CASE arose upon one of these bills so early as the second year of William and Mary. ^" It ^° Horton v. Coggs, 2 W. & M. 3 Lev. 299. was [ 39^ 1 was an action brought in the Court of Common Pleas against Coggs, a Goldsmith. A Jury found a verdict against him on his promissory note ; but upon a motion in arrest of judgement it was ruled that the custom pleaded of being bound to pay the bearer, was too general. It was said too (as we learn from Chief Justice Holt in a subsequent case)*' that such notes were not bills of ex- change. It would be to no purpose to mention every case which followed ; but it may be right cursorily to notice, that in the earliest the defendants ap- pear to have been actual Goldsmiths. The Court of Common Pleas seemed at one time inclined to favour these notes as a great convenience to trade ; but the Court of King's Bench was stre- nuous in opposing them. It was in the first year of Queen Anne that the doctrine was there settled on various points in different cases. The first of these (and an important testimony it is on the present inquiry) was a suit instituted against a person of the name of Martin, on his promissory note payable to I. S. or Order j " and one of the counts was upon the custom of mer- chants, as for a bill of exchange. It was argued that though it never had been endorsed, yet by =" Gierke & Martin. « Gierke & Martin, i Anne, 2 L^' Raym, 75;. beino; [ 39^ ] being made payable to order, instead of the bearer, the note was brought within the principle of a bill of exchange. But Chief Justice Holt was against it " with all his might,'''2ii the Reporter says. He said *^ that the note coiild not be a bill " of exchange : that the maintainiiig of these actions " upon such notes were innovations upon the rules of the " Common Law ; and that it amounted to the setting up " a new sort of specialty ^ unknown to the Common LaWy *' and invented in Lombard Street j which attempted " in these matters of bills of exchange to give " laws to Westminster-Hall." The custom of merchants was there laid gene- rally. In another case ''^ which followed immediately after, the special custom of London was pleaded. But the Court held this also to be a void custom, since it bound a man to pay money without a consideration. In the same year one of these notes having been established in the Common Pleas on an action which went in one count of the declaration upon the custom of Merchants, the judgement was reversed by a writ of Error in the King's Bench. *■* Still the merchants persisted, and the next year, 1703, a new point was tried. A promissory note payable to order, was put in suit by an En- 2J Gierke & Martin, i Anne, 2 L'^ Rayra. p . 759. *4 Cutting & Williams, i Anne,i Salk. 25. dors [ 393 3 dorsee against the Drawer. ^^ And there the whole history of these instruments as well as of inland bills of exchange appears fully from the best evi- dence. Chief Justice Holt said, that he remem- bered when actions upon inland bills of exchange first began. The action was against the acceptor, and a particular custom between London and Bristol was laid. Since that time these actions had become frequent, as the trade of the nation encreased. " But the notes in question (added he) ' are only an invention of the Goldsmiths in Lombard ' Street, who had a mind to make a law to hind all that ^ dealt with them. And sure to allow such a note to * carry any lien with it, were to turn a piece of ' paper, which is in law but evidence of a parol ^ contract, into a specialty : and besides it would '■ impower one to assign that to another which he ^ could not have himself; for since he to whom ^ this note was made could not have this action, '• how can his assignee have it ? These notes are ' not in the nature of bills of exchange ; for the '■ reason of the custom in bills of exchano;2 is for '^ the expedition of trade, and its safety, and like- ^ wise it hinders the exportation of money out of 'the realm." Judgement however being for the present postponed, on another day Chief Justice Holt declared, " that he had desired to speak with ■»'■ Duller & Crips. 6 Mod. 29. 3 E " two [ 394 ] " two of the most famous tner chants in London to be " informed of the mighty ill consequences that it " was pretended would ensue by obstructing this " course j and that they had told him, it was very " frequent with them to make such notes, and " that they looked upon them as bills of ex- '* change, and that they had been used for a " MATTER of THIRTY YEARS j and that not only " notes but bonds for money were transferred fre- " quently, and indorsed as bills of exchange :" — that is, obligations, and bills obligatory under seal, (which were one sort of bonds) were not even then, in the beginning of the present century, wholly driven out of use by the new promissory notes of Lombard-Street. The Chief Justice was as firm in the conscien- tious discharge of his duty against the Law-mer- chant, as on another memorable occasion he had been against the Law of Parliament. The mer- chants were foiled in all their attempts. Nothing therefore remained, but that resource, which Ma- lines tells us was the wish of many good Lawyers as. well as Merchants in his days, — " an act of " Parliament to establish this course in England." Accordingly such a law passed soon afterwards, *^ making all promissory notes recoverable by action " in the same manner as inland bills of " exchange drawn according to the custom of »<» 3 & 4 Ann. c. 9. " mer- [ 29S ] " merchants." In consequence, hills obligatory under the seal of the Bank of England, and under the seals of mdividuals, disappeared togetherj all men substituted notes of hand, which, though in rather more accurate spelling and terser phrase- ology, ran in effect like this ascribed to Shak- speare above a century before j and " I promise to pay" universally succeeded to *^ Memorandum that I owe." But the time of future payment continued to keep its station for many years in the body of the note. *' It seems a very modern in- novation indeed to place it in the beginning of the sentence. On looking back there is much in this little historical outline to arrest and occupy a contem- plative mind. What was recommended in vain as a publick benefit to the Grandfather (for to King James was the work of Malines dedicated) was at last the lucky consequence of an arbitrary act, to which the Grandson was driven by his prodigality : and the system of paper-credit, which thus had its origin in the bad faith of the last Protestant King of the House of Stuart, when after the Revolution it had acquired strength, »" Smith V. Jarvis & Eaily, 2 L** Raym. 1484. Trin. 13 Geo. I. & I Geo. II. Burchell & Slocock, ibid. 1545. Mich. 2 Geo. II. — Youth's Introduction to Trade and Business, 1737. tit. Promissory Notes. — Cooke v. Colchan, •2 Str. 1 21 7. 18 Geo. II. 3 E 2 solidity. [ 396 ] solidity, and body, from the establishment of the Bank of England, became a main prop and pillar of the settlement by which the immediate heirs of the House of Stuart were excluded for ever from the throne. But these are only sports of chance, that amuse rather than instruct. What is most worthy of attention and admiration is the excel- lent spirit of our Law. It accommodates itself, though slowly and with becoming deliberation, to the general law of Europe, where our intercourse with foreign countries demands it : we have seen it do so in regard to bills of exchange : and having once admitted a principle, it gradually expands itself to embrace the subject in its natural and just extent. Yet at the same time it resists innova- tions, however specious, which hold forth only internal convenience as their end, and leaves them to the wisdom of the Legislature -, where, if they are of approved utility, they will seldom meet other than a favourable reception. The circulation of promissory notes however was not opposed by Westminster-Hall alone. Many of the mercantile interest, and even Sir Josiah Child among the rest originally declared against " the innovated practice of bankers, and the new invention of cashiering j" "^ to which all of his name have not continued his animosity. Nor did even the first proof of the benefits derived •^ See his Discourses on Trade. from [ 397 ] from this system precliule all invective agaiast it. Our great ethick Poet, in his Moral Essay " on the Use of Riches," breaks into the most animated satire upon this topick, while he too affords one more testimony to the recent introduction of that which he apostrophizes : ** Blest Paper-Credit ! last and best supply, *' That lends corruption lighter wings to fly ! " Gold, imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things, " Can pocket States, can fetch or carry Kings j *' A single leaf shall waft an Army o'er, " Or ship off Senates to some distant shore i " A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro " Our fates and fortunes, as the wind shall blow : n of the said Henry Walker his heires execute's or administrators or any of them, or of or by any other person or persons w^^ have or may before the date hereof pretende to have any lawful! estate, righte, title, vse, or interest, in or to the premisses or any parcell thereof, by from or under him the said Henry Walker. And also that hee the said Henry Walker and his heires and all and every other person and persons and their heires which have or that shall lawfullie and rightfullie have or clayme to have any lawful! and rightful! estate, right, title, or interell, in or to the premisses or any parcell thereof, by from or vnder the said Henry Walker, shall and will from tyme to tyme & at all tymes fromhens- forth for and during the space of three yeares now- next ensuing at or vpon the reasonable request and costs and charg' in the lawe of the said Wil- iiam Shakespeare his heires and assignes doe make knowledge and suffer to bee donne made and knowledge all and every such further lawful! and reasonable acte and acts, thing and things, devise and devises in the law whatsoever, for the convey- ing of the premises, bee it by deed or deeds in- rolled or not inrolled, inroiment of theis pnts, fyne, feoffament. [ 408 ] feoffament, recoverye, release, confirmacon, or otherwise, w'^ warrantie of the said Henry Walker and his heires against him the said Henry Walker and his heires onlie, or otherwise w'hout warrantie or by all any or as many of the wayes meanes and devises aforesaid, as by the said William Shakespeare his heires or assignes or his or their Councell learned in the lawe shalbee reasonablie devised or advised, for the further, better, and more perfect assurance suertie suermaking and conveying of all and singuler the premisses and every parcell thereof w^'> thappurtenancs vnto the said William Shakespeare his heires and assignes forever to th'use and in forme aforesaid, And FURTHER THAT all and every fyne and fynes to be ievyed, recoveryes to be suffered, estats, and assurancs at any tyme or tymes hereafter to bee had made executed or passed by or betweene ;he said parties of the premisses or of any parcell thereof, shalbee, and shalbee esteemed, adiudged, deemed, and taken to bee, to th' onlie and proper vse and behoofe of the said William Shakespeare, his heires, and assignes forever ; and to none other vse, intent or purpose. In witnesse whereof the said parties to theis Jndentures Jnterchaung- ablie have sett their seales. Yeoven the day and yeares first above written. W" Johnson Jo : Jackson. Scaled [ 409 ] Sealed and delivered by the said William Shake- speare, William Johnson, and John Jackson, in the price of Will : Atkinson Ed : Query Robert Andrewes Scr. Henry Lawrence servant to the same Scr. NUMB. lU. Declaration of Trust by John Heminges and others. THIS Indenture made the tenth day of fFe- bruary in the yeres of the reigne of our sove- reigne Lord James, by the grace of God kinge of England Scotland fFraunce and Ireland, defen- der of the faith, &c. That is to say, of England, ' fFraunce, and Ireland, the fifteenth, and of Scot- land the one and fiftith j Between John Jackson and John Hemynge of London, gentlemen, and William Johnson, Citizen and Vintnier of Lon- don, of thone part, and John Greene of Clements Inn in the County of Midd. gent, and Matthew Morryes of Stretford vpon Avon in the County of Warwick gent, of thotherpart j Witnesseth, that the said John Jackson, lohn Hemynge, and William Johnson, as well for and in performance of the confidence and trust in them reposed by 3 G William [ 410 ] William Shakespeare, deceased, late of Stretford aforesaid, gent., and to thend and intent that the lands tenem' and hereditam'' hereafter in theis pnts menconed and expressed, may be conveyed and as- sured according to the true intent and meaning of the last will and testam"^ of the said William Shakespeare, and for the some of ffyve shillings of lawfull money of England to them payd, for and on behalf of Susanna Hall, one of the daughters of the said William Shakespeare and now wife of lohn Hall of Stretford aforesaid gent, before then- sealling and deliuery of theis pnts. Have aliened bargained sold and confirmed, and by theis pnts doe and every of them doth fully cleerely and absolutely alien bargaine sell and confirme vnto the said lohn Greene and Matthew Morry, their heires and assignes for ever. All that dwel- ling house or tenem' with thapp^tunts scituat and being within the precinct, circuite, and compasc of the late Black-frieres, London, sometymes in the tenure of James Gardyner Esquicr, and since that in the tenure of lohn ffortescue gent, and, now ^"^ or late being in the tenure or occupacon of one William Ireland or of his Assignee or As- signes, abutting vpon a street leadinge downe to -'* These words are merely copied from Walker's Convey- ance to Shakspeare in March 1612-13. From a subsequent •'^part of this deed it appears that John Robinson was now the tenant in possession, under a lease made to him by Shakspeare for a term of years. '««'.. ,. Puddle [ 411 ] Puddle Wharfe, on the east part, right against the kings Ma" warderobe, part of which tenem* is erected over a great gate leading to a capitall messuage which sometymes was in the tenure of William Blackwell Esquier deceased, and since that in the tenure or occupacon of the right Hono'''" Henry Earle of Northumberland, And also all that plot of ground on the west side of the said tenem% which was lately inclosed with boords on twoe sides thereof by Anne Bacon widdow, soe farr and in such sort as the same was inclosed by the said Anne Bacon, and not otherwise ; and being on the third side inclosed with an ould Brick wall i Which said plot of ground was sometymes parcell and taken out of a great peece of voyd ground lately vsed for a garden ; And also the soyle wherevpon the said tenem' sCandeth ; And also the said Brickwall and boords which doe in- close the said plot of ground ; with free entry, access, Ingres, egres, and regres, in by and through the said great gate andyarde there vnto the vsuall dore of the said tenem' -, And also all and singuier tellers sollars roomes lights easem'^ profitcs comodyties and hereditam'^ whatsoeuer to the said dwelling house or tenem'^ belonging or in any wise apperteyning. And the revercon and rever- CjHS whatsoever of all and singuier the premisses and of every parcell thereof j And also all rents and yerely profitts whatsoever reserued and from henceforth to grow due and payable vpon what- 2 G 2 soeuer [ 412 ] soeuer lease demisse or graunt, leases demises or graimts, made of the premisses or any par- cell thereofi And also all thestate, right, title, interest, property, vse, clayme, and demaund whatsoeuer, which they the said John Jackson, John Hemynge, and William Johnson, now have or any of them hath or of right may, might, shoold, or ought to have in the premises : To HAUE AND TO HOLDE the said dwelling hov/se or tenem', lights, cellers, soUers, plot of ground, and all and singuler other the premisses aboue by theis pnts menconed to be bargained and sold, and every part and parcell thereof, with thapp^- tnts, vnto the said John Green and Mathew Morrys their heires and assignes foreuer s To the vse and bfehoofes hereafter in theis pnts declared menconed expressed and lymitted, and to none other vse, behoofe, intent, or purpose : That is to say, to the vse and behoofe of the aforesaid Susanna Hall for and during the terme of her naturall life, and after her deceas to the vse and behoofe of the first sonne of her body lav/fuUy yssueing, and of the heires males of the body of the said first sonne lawfully yssueing j And for the want of such heires to the vse and behoofe of the second sonne of the body of the said Su- sanna lawfully yssueing, and of the heires males of the body of the said second sonne lav/fully yssueing; and for want of such heires to the vse of the third sonne of the body of the said Susanna lawfully yssueing and of the heires males of the body of the said [ 413 ] said third son lawfully yssueing; And for want of such heires to the vse and behoofe of the fowerth, fiveth, sixt, and seaventh sonnes of the body of the said Susanna lawfully yssueing, and of the several! heirs males of the severall bodyes of the said fowerth, fiveth, sixt, and seaventh sonnes, law- fully yssueing, in such manner as it is before lymitt- cd to be and remeyne to the first, second, and third sonnes of the body of the said Susanna lawfully yssueing, and to their heires males as aforesaid j And for default of such heires to the vse and behoofe of Elizabeth hall daughter of the said Susanna Hall and of the heires males of her body lawfully yssueing j and for default of such heires to the vse and behoofe of Judyth Quiney now wife of Thomas Quiney of Stretford aforesaid Vintner, one other of the daughters of the said William Shakespeare and of the heires males of the body of the said Judyth lawfully yssueing j And for default of such yssue to the vse and behoofe of the right heires of the said William Shakespeare forever. And the said John Jackson for himself, his heires, executors, ad- mistrators and assignes, and for every of them, doth covennt, promise, and graunt, to and with the said John Green and Mathew Morrys and either of them, their or either of their heires and assignes, by theis phts. That he the said John Jackson, his heires, executors, admlstrs or as- signes, shall and will from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter within convenient tyme after every reasonable [ 414 ] reasonable request to him or them madc^ well and sufficiently save and keepe harmeles the said bargained premisses and every part and parcell thereof, of and from all and all manner of former bargaines, sales, guifts, graunts, leases, statuts, recognizauncs, joynctures, doM^ers, intayles, vses, extents, iudgem" execucons, annewyties, and of and from all other charges, titles, and incom- brauncs whatsoeuer, wittingly and willingly had, made, comitted, or done by him the said John Jackson alone, orjoynctly with any other person or persons whatsoeuer ; Except the rente and servics to the CheifFe Lord or Lords of the fee or fees of the premisses from henceforth to be due and of right accustomed to be done. And Except one lease and demise of the premisses with thapp'tnncs heretofore made by the said William Shakespeare, together with them the said John Jackson, John Hemynge, and William Johnson, vnto one John Robinson, now Tennant of the said premisses, for the terme of certen yeres yet to come and unexpired ; As by the same wherevnto relacon be had at large doth appeare. And the said John Hemynge for him self, his heires, executors, admistrators, and assignes, and for every of them, doth covenht, promise, and graunt, to and with the said John Greene and Mathew Morrys, and either of them their and either of their heires and assignes, by theis prets. That he the said John Hemynge, his heires, exe- cutors. [ 415 ] cutors, admlstrators, or assignes, shall and will from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter, within convenient tyme after every reasonable re- quest, well and sufficiently save and keepe harme- les the said bargained premisses and every part and parcell thereof of and from all and all manner of former bargainer,, sales, guifts, graunts, leases, statuts, recognizauncs, ioynctures, dowers, in- tayles, vses, extents, judgem'' execuc3ns, An- ncwyties, and of and from all other charges, titles, and incombraunces whatsoever, wittingly and will- ingly had, made, comitted, or done by him the said John Hemynge alone, or ioynctly with any other person or persons whatsoeuer -, Except the rentes and service to the Chieffe Lord or Lords of the fee or fees of the premisses from henceforth to be due and of right accustomed to be done. And except one lease and demise of the premisses with thapp'^tnants heretofore made by the said William Shakspeare together with them the said John Jackson, John Hemyng and William John- son vnto one John Robinson, now Tennant of the said premisses, for the terme of certen yeres yet to come and vnexpired. As by the same where- vnto relac^n be had at large doth appeare. A no THE SAID William Johnson for him self, his heires, executors, admTst""' and assignes, and for every of them, doth covenant promise, and graunt, to and with the said John Green and Mathew Mor- ryes, and either of them, their and either of their 6 heires [ 4i6 ] heires and assignes, by theis pnts. That he the said William Johnson, his heires, executors, ad- mistrs, or assignes, shall and will from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter within convenient tyme after every reasonable request, well and sufficiently saue and keepe harmeles the said bargained premisses and every part and parcell thereof of and from all and all manner of former bargaines, sales, guifts, graunts, leases, statuts, recognizauncs, ioynctures, dowers, intayles, vses, extents, iudgements, execucons, Annewyties, and of and from all other charges, titles, and incom- brauncs whatsoeuer, wittingly and willingly had made comitted or done by him the said William Johnson alone, or ioyntly with any other person or persons whatsoeuer -, Except the rents and ser- vice to the Cheiff Lord or Lords of the fee or fees of the premisses from henceforth to be due and of right accustomed to be done. And except one lease and demise of the premisses with thapp'tnncs heretofore made by the said Wil- liam Shakespeare together with them the said John Jackson John Hemynge and William Johnson vnto one John Robinson, now Tennant of the said premisses, for the terme of certen yeres yet to come and unexpired. As by the same wherevnto relation be had at large doth appeare. In witnes whereof the parties aforesaid to theis prite Indentures have interchaungeably sett their hands t 417 ] hands and sealls. Yeoven the day and yeres first aboue written 16 17. Jo : Jackson John Heminges Wm Johnson Sealed & delyvered by the within named John Jackson in the phce of Roc : Swale John Prise Sealed & delyvered by the w'thinamed Willm Johnson in the p'sence of Nickolas Harysone John Prise Sealed and delyvered by the w'thinamed John Hemynges in the p'nce of Matt^ Benson John Prise Memorand. that the xi^"^ day of fFebruarye in the yeres within written John Robinson tenant of the p'mysses w'thinmencoed did geve and dely ver vnto John Greene w'thinnamed to the vse of Susanna Hall w'thinnamed five pence of lawfull money of England in name of Attoriiment in the p'sence of Matt: Benson John Prise by me Richarde Tylor 3 H NUMB. [ 4i8 ] NUMB. IV. Agreement between Philip PIenslowe and Edward Alleyn, andThomas Downton, Player. THIS Indenture made the > day of 1608, And in the yercs of the roigne of our sov'aigne Lord James, by the Grace of God kinge of Englandc, ffrauncc, and Ireland, 5° Tliomas Downton, whose name in Henslowe's Register is sometimes written Doughton, and sometimes DowUn, was originally a HIRELING in his theatre, as ap- pears by the following entries : " Mdom that the 6 of October 1597 Thomas Dowten came & bownd hime seaife unto me in xxxx" in a somep- $ctt by the Receving of iijd of me before witnes. the cove- nant is this, that he shold from the daic above written un- tell sraftid next come ij yeares to pleye in my howsc & in no other abowt London publickley, yf he do with owt my consent toforfet unto me this some of money above writ- ten. Wittnes to this " E. AUeyn Robarte Shawc W" borne John Synger Dicke Jonnes." " Thomas Downton the 25 of Jenewary 1599 [1599- 1600J did hire as his covenante servant for ij yeres tobegyne at Shrofte tewsdaynext & he to gevc hime viijs. a weeke as long as they play e, & after they lye styllof one fortnyght then to give hime halfe wages, Witnes P. H. & Edward Browne & Charles Marsey.'* Henslowe's Re- gister, MS. defender [ 419 ] defender of the faith, &c. the Sixt, and of Scot- land the twoe and fFortith, Betweene Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, of the p'ishe of St. Saviours in Southwark, in the county of Surry, Esquiors, on th'one p'tye, and Thomas Downton of the p'ishe of St. Gyles without Criplegate, London, gentleman, on th'other p'tye, Wit- NESSETH, That the said Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, for and in consideracon of the some of Twenty and seaven pounds and Ten shillings of lawfull mony of England to them in hand act or before thensealinge hereof by the saide Thomas Downton paid, whereof and wherew'h they the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn doe acknowledge them selves well and truly contented, satisfied and paide, by theis p'sents haue demised, leased, and to farme letten, and by theis p'sents doe demise, lease, and to farme lett, vnto the saide Thomas Downton one-eight parte of a ffowerth part of all such clere gaynes in mony as shall hereafter du- ringe the terme herevnder demised arrise, growe^ accrezv, or become due^ or properly belong vnto the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, or either of them, their or either of their executors or assignes, for or by reason of any stage-playinge^ or other exercise comoditie or vse whatsoeuer vsed or to be vsed or exercised y w'hin the play -how se of the saide Phillipp Henslow and Edward Alleyn, comon- ly called the fortune, situate and beinge be- tweene Whitcrosse streete and Goldinge lane, in the 3 H 2 p'ishe [ 420 ] p'ishe of St Gyles w^hout Criple gate London in the County of Midd : Jnd the saide eighte parte of a ffowerth p'te of all the saide clere gaynes properly belonginge to the saide ^KiYx^-^ Henslowe and Edward AUeyn, to be paid by the saide Philipp Flenslowe and Edward AUeyn or one of them, their or one of their executors or assignesy vnto the saide Thomas Downton or his assignes, eu'y day that any play or other exercise shall be acted or exercised in the play bowse aforesaide upon the sharinge of the monyes ga^ thered and gotten at eu'y of the same playes and ex^ ercisesy as heretofore hath byn vsed and accustomed: To HAUE AND TO HOULDE and receavc the saide eight parte of a ffowerth p'te of the saide clerc gaynes to be gotten by playinge or by any other exercise whatsoeu', and to be paide in manner and forme aforesaide vnto the saide Thomas Downton, his executors and assignes, from the feast of St. Michaell tharchaungell last past before the date hereof vnto thend and terme of Thirteene Yeres from thence next ensuinge and fully to be compleate and ended, in as full large ample and beneficiall manner and forme, to all intents, con- struccons, and purposes, as they the saide Phiilipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, or either of them, or the executors or assignes of them or either of them, might, should, or ought to haue had, held, cnioyed, received, and taken the same as afore- saide, if this p'sent Indenture had never beene had nor made : Yieldjnge and payinge therefore yerely [ 421 ] yerely duringe the saide tcrme, vnto the saidc Phillipp Henslowe and Edward AUeyn, their heires, executors or assignes, att the saide playe howse called the fortune, ten shillings of lawfull mony of England, att fower feasts or termes of the yere, (that is to say) att the feasts of the birth of our Lord God, Thaniiciacon of our lady, the Natiuity of St. John Baptist, and St. Michaell Th'archaungell, or w^hin ffowerteene dayes next cnsuinge eu'y of the same feast dayes, by euen por- cons : And the saide Thomas Downton for him, his executors, and adm'strators, doth cove- n'nte and graunte to and w'h the saide Philipp Henslowe and Edward AUeyn, and either of them, their and either of their heires, executors, and assignes, by theis p'sents, in manner and forme followinge, that is to say, that he the saide Thomas Downton, his executors, administrators or assignes, shall att his or their owne p'per costs and charges hearey pay^ and discharge one equall eight p'te of a ffowerth p'te of all such necessary and needfull charges as shalhe bestowed or layed forth in the newe build- inge or repairinge of the saide play howse y duringe the saide terme of thirteene yeres without fraud or covyn : And that he the saide Thomas Downton shall not att any tyme hereafter duringe the saide terme giue over the faculty e or quality e of play inge , but shall in his owne p'son exercise the same to the best and most benefitt he can w'hin the play hcwse aforesaide^ duringe the tyme aforesaide^ vnles he shal become vnhable by reason [ 422 ] reason of sicknes or any other infirmity e, or vnks it be iv'h the consent of the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, or either of them, their executors or assignes : And that he the saidc Thomas Downton shall not att any tyme hereafter during the saide terme of Thirteene yeres play or exercise the faculty e of stage playing in any Comon play-house now erected^ or hereafter to he erected w'thin the saide Cittye of Lon- don or Twoe myles Compasse thereof other then in the saide play-house called the fortune without the speciall licence will consent i^' agreement of the saide Phillipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn or one of them, their or one of their heires executors or assignes, first therefore had and cbteyned in wrytinge vnder their hands and scales. And that he the saide Thomas Downton shall not att any tyme hereafter duringe the saide terme, giue, graunte, bargainc, sell or otherwise doe away or dep'tc w'*^ the saidc Eight p'te of a fowerth p'te of the saide clerc <''aynes before demised, nor any p'ceil thereof, to any p'son or p'sons whacsoeu' w-hout the like con- sent, licence, will, and agreement of them the saide Philipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn or either of them, their or either of their heires, executors, admlstrators, or assignes, first there- fore had and obteyned in wryting vnder their hands and seales for the same as aforesaide. And THE SAID Philipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn for them and either of them their and either of their heires executors & adm"i strators doe Co- ven'ntc [ 423 ] ven'nte and graunte to and w*h the salde Thomas Downton his executors & assignes, by theis p'sents. That he the saide Thomas Downton, his executors and assignes (Payinge the saide yerely rent of Ten shillings in forme aforesaide and p'forming all other Coven'nts,graunts, articles and agreements abovesaide on his and their p'ts to be p'formed) shall or may duringe the saide terme of Thirteene yeres, haue, hold, receave, and enjoy, the saide Eighte p'te of a fiowerth p'te of all the saide clere gaynes to be gotten by playing or any other exercise as aforesaide in manner and forme aforesaide, accordinge to the true intent and meaninge of theis p'sents, whout the lett, trouble, molestacon, deniall, or intcrrupc jn of the saide Philipp Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, or either of them, their or either of their heires or assignes, or of any other p'son or p'sons by their either or any of their meanes, right, tytle, interest, or p'curemente. Prouided alwaies. That if it shall happen the saide yerely rent of Ten shillings or any p'cell thereof to be behinde and vnpaide in p*te or in all by the saide space of fFowerteene dayes next over or after any feast day of paymente thereof abovesaide, in w'^^ the same ought to be paide (being lawfully demaunded att the place aforesaide) Or if the saide Thomas Downton, his executors, administrators, or assignes, or any of them, doe infrindgc or breake any of the coven'nts graunts articles or agreements abouesaide on his 6 or [ 424 ] or their p'tes to be p'formed, contrary to the te- nore & true meaninge of theis p'sents, That then and from thenceforth this p'sent Lease, Demise, and graiinte, & eu'y coven'nte, graunt, & article herein conteyned, on the p'te & behalfe of the said Philipp and Edward or either of them, their or either of their heires excuto" or Ass"^ from henceforth to be p'formed, shalbe vttcrly void frustrate & of none effect, to all intents con- struccons and purposes. Any thinge herein con- teyned to the contrary thereof in any wise not w'hstandinge. In Witnes whereof the said p'tyes to theis p'sent Indentures sunderly haue sett their hands and Scales. Yeoven the day & yeres first abouewritten. ^' *' This deed was not executed. THE END. Pag. 103. 1. 15. ^ov from, x.to. >K 105. 1. 21. for circular, r. oval. ^' 27.8. 1. 13. \ln part of the impression,^ for chossing^ r. likirisr. >« The following Prospectus, which was published iast yeavj is added here only for the sake of the notices subjoined to ity which by being more widely circulated may perhaps be the means of illustrating the history of the life of Shakspeare, by drawing from some hitherto unexplored Repository papers of a very different com- plexion from the miserable trash we have now been examining. Proposals for an Edition of Shakspeare, in Quarto, decorated with Engravings, having been some time ago issued out by Mr. Malone, and the Bookseller who undertook the said Work having relinquished it on account of the present Season being unfavourable to such expensive Undertakings, Mr. Malone thinks it proper to give this publick Notice, that the Proposals above-mentioned are to be considered as a Nul- lity. — Reverting, however, to his original idea, (from which he was very reluctantly induced to depart,) that of giving a new and splendid Edition of the Plays and Poems of this Author without Engravings, he intends to present the Publick with a Second Edition of his former Work, IN TWENTY VOLUMES, ROYAL OCTAVO, On a larger Paper and Tj'pe, BOTH FOR THE TEXT AND COMMENTARIES, than have ever been employed in any Edition of Shakspeare with Notes : which will be issued out either in two deliveries, or the whole together, as may suit the convenience of the Editor. 31 The first Volume will be appropriated to an entirely NEW LIFE OF SHAKSPEARE, (compiled from original and authen- TICK documents,) Which is now nearly ready for the Press i The Second and Third to Mr. Malone's HISTORY OF THE STAGE CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED, and his other Dissertations illustrative of this Poet's Works i together with the Prefaces of former Editors, to which some new Elucidations will be added. The twentieth Volume will com- prize Shakspeare's Poems, and the remaining sixteen his Plays ; (which will be arranged in the Order in which they are supposed by Mr. Malone to have been written i) with the Editor's Commentaries, as well as those of his Predeces- sors, and several new Annotations. To the Plays it is not proposed to annex any Engravings i bur the Life of Shakspeare will be ornamented with a Delineation of his Bust at Stratford -, (of the Head of which Mr. Malone is possessed of a Fac- simile ;) the engraved Portraits of Sir Thomas Lucy and Mr. John Combe, from Drawings made on purpose for this Work in 1793, by Mr. Syl- vester Harding j and also with an Engraving of Shakspeare, not from any Factitious or Ficti- tious Representation of that Poet, but from a Drawing, of the same size with the original, made in 1786 by Mr. Humphry, from the only au- thentick Portrait now known, that which was formerly in the Possession of Sir William D'Ave- nant, and now belongs to the Heir of the late Duke of Chandos. * ^* Though Mr. Malone has already obtained several very curious and original Materials for the Life of Shakspeare, he will be extremely - obliged by any further Communications on that Subject. He has always thought that much In- formation might be procured, illustrative of the History of this extraordinary Man, if Persons possessed of ancient Papers would take the trou- ble to examine them, or permit others to peruse them ; and he has already pointed out the sources from which such Information may probably be derived. Shakspeare 's Grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, (the only Child of Susanna Hall,) died in January, 1669-70; and by her last Will ap- pointed her kinsman Mr. Edward Bagley, Citizen of London, her Executor, and Residuary Legatee. Tliis Person, (who, it is believed, was not related to Shakspeare, but kinsman either to Sir John Barnard of Abington near Northampton, or to the Family of Hall or Nash,) must have become possessed of all her Cofiers and Cabinets, in which undoubtedly were several of her Grand- father's Papers. When and where Mr. Bagley died, is uncertain, no Will of his having been discovered in the Prerogative Office, though search has been made there for fifty years subse- quent to 1670, to ascertain those Facts, as well as the Name of the Person to whom his Effects de- scended. But if any Person be now living who derives any Property from the said Mr. Bagley, he is requested to examine all such Papers as have descended to him, with the View already mentioned. On the Death of Sir John Barnard in 1674, Administration of his Efi^ects having been granted to his Daughters (by a former Wife) and their Husbands, and they being entitled under Lady Barnard's Will to keep Possession of the New- Place (Shakspeare's House in Stratford) for six Months after the Death of Sir John, some of the Poet's Papers might have fallen into their hands. They were, Elizabeth, married to Henry Gilbert of Locko in the County of Derby, Esq. Mary, married to Thomas Higgs of Colesborne, Esq. and Eleanor, the Wife of Samuel Cotton, Esq. Shakspeare having purchased some Property from Ralph Hubaud, Esq. (Brother of Sir John Hubaud, of Ipsley in Warwickshire, Knt.) some Instrument executed by the Poet, on that Occa- sion, may perhaps be found among Mie Title- Deeds of that Gentleman's Estates, in Whatever Hands they may now be : — And if any descendant of Mr. John Heminges be now living, he probably has among the Deeds and Papers of his Ancestor, Mr. Heminges' Accompt-Books and theatrical Contracts, which would throw much Light on the History of the Stage at the period when Shakspeare lived. Mr. John Heminges died in October 1630, leaving at least one Son, William, who died about the Year 1650 ; and four married Daughters ; Alice, the Wife of John Atkins ; Rebecca, married to Captain William Smith ; Margaret, married to Thomas Sheppard j and another Daughter, the wife of a person of the Name of Merefield ; from which Families also some Information may possibly be derived. Sw^ 1; y \ Ki2? / V ..J'..^ > V - />^ f This book is DUE on the last date stamped below ?^L > 193. W 12 135^ ^ mivivk SEP 2 3 ^fcCD LO-URl nFC28 «EC'D "APR 2 Form L-9-15m-7,'31 967 1972 LD-URL ioT3 1973 tliW* A9S3 y,"°'i^fl™ REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 000 966 IFORNIA L08 Aivui^LES LIBRARY ii 1/ V >