The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Volume I Part 9

The latter part of our author's life was spent in ease and retirement, he had the good fortune to gather an estate, equal to his wants, and in that to his wish, and is said to have spent some years before his death in his native Stratford. His pleasant wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and ent.i.tled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. It is still remembered in that county, that he had a particular intimacy with one Mr. Combe, an old gentleman, noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury. It happened that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe merrily told Shakespear, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when dead, he desired it might be done immediately; upon which Shakespear gave him these lines.

Ten in the hundred lyes here engraved, 'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved: If any man asketh who lies in this tomb?

Oh! oh! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it.

Shakespear died in the fifty-third year of his age, and was buried on the North side of the chancel in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed on the wall. The following is the inscription on his grave-stone.

Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear, To dig the dust inclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curs'd be he that moves my bones. He had three daughters, of whom two lived to be married; Judith the elder to Mr. Thomas Quincy, by whom she had three sons, who all died without children, and Susannah, who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a physician of good reputation in that county. She left one child, a daughter, who was married to Thomas Nash, Esq; and afterwards to Sir John Bernard, of Abington, but deceased likewise without issue.

His dramatic writings were first published together in folio 1623 by some of the actors of the different companies they had been acted in, and perhaps by other servants of the theatre into whose hands copies might have fallen, and since republished by Mr. Rowe, Mr. Pope, Mr. Theobald, Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Warburton.

Ben Johnson in his discoveries has made a sort of essay towards the character of Shakespear. I shall present it the reader in his own words,

'I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespear, that in writing he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted out a thousand! which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chuse that circ.u.mstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify my own character (for I lov'd the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any). He was indeed honest, and of an open free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopp'd. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so. Many times he fell into those things which could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar thou dost me wrong."

He replied, "Caesar did never wrong, but with just cause;"

'And such like, which were ridiculous; but he redeemed his vices with his virtues; there was ever more in them to be praised, than to be pardoned.' Ben in his conversation with Mr. Drumond of Hawthornden, said, that Shakespear wanted art, and sometimes sense. The truth is, Ben was himself a better critic than poet, and though he was ready at discovering the faults of Shakespear, yet he was not master of such a genius, as to rise to his excellencies; and great as Johnson was, he appears not a little tinctured with envy. Notwithstanding the defects of Shakespear, he is justly elevated above all other dramatic writers. If ever any author deserved the name of original (says Pope) it was he: [1] 'His poetry was inspiration indeed; he is not so much an imitator, as instrument of nature; and it is not so just to say of him that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him. His characters are so much nature herself, that it is a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. The power over our pa.s.sions was likewise never possessed in so eminent a degree, or displayed in so many different instances, nor was he more a matter of the great, than of the ridiculous in human nature, nor only excelled in the pa.s.sions, since he was full as admirable in the coolness of reflection and reasoning: His sentiments are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject, but by a talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point, on which the bent of each argument, or the force of each motive depends.'

Our author's plays are to be distinguished only into Comedies and Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a mixture of Comedy amongst them. That way of Tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become so agreeable to the English taste, that though the severer critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences seem better pleased with it than an exact Tragedy. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comic humours, and a pleasing and well distinguished variety in those characters he thought fit to exhibit with. His images are indeed every where so lively, that the thing he would represent stands full before you, and you possess every part of it; of which this instance is astonishing: it is an image of patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he says,

---She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i'th'bud, Feed on her damask cheek: She pin'd in thought, And sat like patience on a monument.

Smiling at grief.

But what is characteristically the talent of Shakespear, and which perhaps is the most excellent part of the drama, is the manners of his persons, in acting and in speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shewn by the Poet, in making an apparent difference between his characters, and marking every one in the strongest manner.

Poets who have not a little succeeded in writing for the stage, have yet fallen short of their great original in the general power of the drama; none ever found so ready a road to the heart; his tender scenes are inexpressibly moving, and such as are meant to raise terror, are no less alarming; but then Shakespeare does not much shine when he is considered by particular pa.s.sages; he sometimes debases the n.o.blest images in nature by expressions which are too vulgar for poetry. The ingenious author of the Rambler has observed, that in the invocation of Macbeth, before he proceeds to the murder of Duncan, when he thus expresses himself,

-----Come thick night And veil thee, in the dunnest smoke of h.e.l.l, Nor heaven peep thro' the blanket of the dark, To cry hold, hold.

That the words dunnest and blanket, which are so common in vulgar mouths, destroy in some manner the grandeur of the image, and were two words of a higher signification, and removed above common use, put in their place, I may challenge poetry itself to furnish an image so n.o.ble. Poets of an inferior cla.s.s, when considered by particular pa.s.sages, are excellent, but then their ideas are not so great, their drama is not so striking, and it is plain enough that they possess not souls so elevated as Shakespeare's. What can be more beautiful than the flowing enchantments of Rowe; the delicate and tender touches of Otway and Southern, or the melting enthusiasm of Lee and Dryden, but yet none of their pieces have affected the human heart like Shakespeare's.

But I cannot conclude the character of Shakespeare, without taking notice, that besides the suffrage of almost all wits since his time in his favour, he is particularly happy in that of Dryden, who had read and studied him clearly, sometimes borrowed from him, and well knew where his strength lay. In his Prologue to the Tempest altered, he has the following lines;

Shakespear, who taught by none, did first impart, To Fletcher wit, to lab'ring Johnson, art.

He, monarch-like gave there his subjects law, And is that nature which they paint and draw; Fletcher reached that, which on his heights did grow, While Johnson crept, and gathered all below: This did his love, and this his mirth digest, One imitates him most, the other best.

If they have since outwrit all other men, 'Tis from the drops which fell from Shakespear's pen.

The storm[2] which vanished on the neighb'ring sh.o.r.e Was taught by Shakespear's Tempest first to roar.

That innocence and beauty which did smile In Fletcher, grew in this Inchanted Isle.

But Shakespear's magic could not copied be, Within that circle none durst walk but he.

The plays of this great author, which are forty-three in number, are as follows,

1. The Tempest, a Comedy acted in the Black Fryars with applause.

2. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, a Comedy writ at the command of Queen Elizabeth.

3. The first and second part of King Henry IV the character of Falstaff in these plays is justly esteemed a master-piece; in the second part is the coronation of King Henry V. These are founded upon English Chronicles.

4. The Merry Wives of Windsor, a Comedy, written at the command of Queen Elizabeth.

5. Measure for Measure, a Comedy; the plot of this play is taken from Cynthio Ciralni.

6. The Comedy of Errors, founded upon Plautus's Maenechmi.

7. Much Ado About Nothing, a Comedy; for the plot see Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.

8. Love's Labour Lost, a Comedy.

9. Midsummer's Night's Dream, a Comedy.

10. The Merchant of Venice, a Tragi-Comedy.

11. As you Like it, a Comedy.

12. The Taming of a Shrew, a Comedy.

13. All's Well that Ends Well.

14. The Twelfth-Night, or What you Will, a Comedy. In this play there is something singularly ridiculous in the fantastical steward Malvolio; part of the plot taken from Plautus's Maenechmi.

15. The Winter's Tale, a Tragi-Comedy; for the plot of this play consult Dorastus and Faunia.

16. The Life and Death of King John, an historical play.

17. The Life and Death of King Richard II. a Tragedy.

18. The Life of King Henry V. an historical play.

19. The First Part of King Henry VI. an historical play.

20. The Second Part of King Henry VI. with the death of the good Duke Humphrey.

21. The Third Part of King Henry VI. with the death of the Duke of York. These plays contain the whole reign of this monarch.

22. The Life and Death of Richard III. with the landing of the Earl of Richmond, and the battle of Bosworth field. In this part Mr. Garrick was first distinguished.

23. The famous history of the Life of King Henry VIII.

24. Troilus and Cressida, a Tragedy; the plot from Chaucer.

25. Coriola.n.u.s, a Tragedy; the story from the Roman History.

26. t.i.tus Andronicus, a Tragedy.

27. Romeo and Juliet, a Tragedy; the plot from Bandello's Novels. This is perhaps one of the most affecting plays of Shakespear: it was not long since acted fourteen nights together at both houses, at the same time, and it was a few years before revived and acted twelve nights with applause at the little theatre in the Hay market.

28. Timon of Athens, a Tragedy; the plot from Lucian's Dialogues.

29. Julius Caesar, a Tragedy.