only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubtedly the cafe with our author likewife. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonfon calls ftale and mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the drama. I know, that another of thefe difcarded pieces, The Yorkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called fo; but moft certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no fooner than 1604: much too late for fo mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falfhood, which Mr. Theobald was defirous of palming upon the world for a pofthumous one of Shakspeare: and I fee it is claffed as fuch in the laft edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus,' in a letter to Aaron Hill, fuppofes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written fince the middle of the last century:

This late example

"Of bafe Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
"From each good ajpect takes away my truft."

2 « William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire, Efquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne houfe, then ftabde his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then inftantlie with like fury went from his house, to haue flaine his yongeft childe at nurfe, but was preuented. Hee was preft to death in Yorke the 5 of Auguft, 1604." Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo. 1607, P: 574: The ftory appeared before in a 4to. pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the folio chronicle, 1631.

3 Thefe, however, he affures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot.

And in another place,

"You have an aspect, fir, of wondrous wisdom.”

The word afpect, you perceive, is here accented on the first fyllable, which, I am confident, in any fense of it, was never the cafe in the time of Shakspeare; though it may fometimes appear to be fo, when we do not obferve a preceding elifion.*

Some of the profeffed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutiæ: I could point out to you feveral performances in the refpective ftyles of Chaucer, Spenfer, and Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not poffibly have either read or conftrued.

This very accent hath troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be "a tone different from the prefent ufe." Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatife of Harmony and Numbers, very folemnly informs us, that "this verfe is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III. v. 266:

His words here ended, but his meek afpé • Silent yet spake.

Here (fays he) a fyllable is acuted and long, whereas it fhould be short and graved!"

And a still more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new verfion of the Paradife Loft, into BLANK verfe, " by which that amazing work is brought fomewhat nearer the

4 Thus a line in Hamlet's defcription of the Player, fhould be printed as in the old folios:

"Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspéct.” agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places.

fummit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, v. 540:

The fetting fun

"Slowly defcended, and with right aspect→→→
"Levelĺ'd his evening rays.-

Not fo in the new version :

"Meanwhile the fetting fun defcending flow-
"Level'd with afped right his ev'ning rays."

Enough of fuch commentators.The celebrated Dr. Dee had a Spirit, who would fometimes condefcend to correct him, when peccant in quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little affifted the wights abovementioned.-Milton affected the antique; but it may feem more extraordinary, that the old accent fhould be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, The Double Falfhood is fuperior to Theobald. One paffage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written:

Strike up, my mafters;

"But touch the ftrings with a religious foftnefs:

"Teach found to languish through the night's dull ear,
"Till melancholy ftart from her lazy couch,

"And careleffnefs grow convert to attention."

Thefe lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not refift the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed to any other part of the performance.

To whom then fhall we afcribe it?-Somebody hath told us, who fhould feem to be a noftrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and confequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the

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contrary, the Irish laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks, (and were it true, it would be certainly decifive) that the plot is borrowed from a novel of Cervantes, not published till the year after Shakspeare's death. But unluckily the fame novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.-The fame reafoning however, which exculpated our author from The Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the fent occafion.

pre

But you want my opinion:-and from every mark of ftyle and manner, I make no doubt of afcribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us, that he left fome plays in MS.-Thefe were written about the time of the Refloration, when the accent in queftion was more generally altered.

Perhaps the miftake arofe from an abbreviation of the name. Mr. DodЛley knew not that the tragedy of Andromana was Shirley's, from the very fame caufe. Thus a whole ftream of biographers tell us, that Marfton's plays were printed at London, 1633,"by the care of William Shakespeare, the famous comedian."-Here again I fuppofe, in fome tranfcript, the real publisher's name, William Sheares, was abbreviated. No one hath protracted the life of Shakspeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.

Shirley is fpoken of with contempt in Mac Flecknoe; but his imagination is fometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a paffage in the fourth book of the Paradife Loft, which hath been fufpected of imitation, as a prettiness below the genius of Milton: I mean, where Uriel glides backward and forward to heaven on a fun-beam. Dr. Newton informs us, that this might poffibly be hinted by a picture of Annibal Caracci in the King

of France's cabinet: but I am apt to believe that Milton had been ftruck with a portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the comedy of The Brothers, 1652, defcribes Jacinta at vefpers:

"Her eye did feem to labour with a tear,
"Which fuddenly took birth, but overweigh'd
"With its own fwelling, drop'd upon her bofome;
"Which by reflexion of her light, appear'd
"As nature meant her forrow for an ornament:
"After, her looks grew chearfull, and I faw
"A fmile fhoot gracefull upward from her eyes,
"As if they had gain'd a victory o'er grief,
"And with it many beams twifted themselves,
"Upon whofe golden threads the angels walk
"To and again from heaven.5-

You must not think me infected with the fpirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's imitations:

The fwan with arched neck

"Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
"Her ftate with oary feet." Book VII. v. 438, &c.

"The ancient poets, fays Mr. Richardfon, have not hit upon this beauty; fo lavish have they been in their defcriptions of the fwan. Homer calls the fwan long-necked, dorixossipov; but how much more pittorefque, if he had arched this length of neck?"

For this beauty however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whofe name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings:

5 Middleton, in an obfcure play called A Game at Cheffe, hath fome very pleafing lines on a fimilar occasion:

Upon thofe lips, the fweete fresh buds of youth, "The holy dewe of prayer lies like pearle,

"Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne

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Upon the bashfull rofe.