nothing for the ground. The money received by the performance at Drury-lane theatre amounted to above 200l., but the receipts at Covent-garden did not exceed 100%.

From these imperfect notices, which are all we have been able to collect from the labours of his biographers and commentators, our readers will perceive that less is known of Shakspeare than of almost any writer who has been considered as an object of laudable curiosity. Nothing could be more highly gratifying than an account of the early studies of this wonderful man, the progress of his pen, his moral and social qualities, his friendships, his failings, and whatever else constitutes personal history. But on all these topics his contemporaries and his immediate successors have been equally silent, and if ought can be hereafter discovered, it must be by exploring sources which have hitherto escaped the anxious researches of those who have devoted their whole lives, and their most vigorous talents, to revive his memory and illustrate his writings. In the sketch we have given, if the dates of his birth and death be excepted, what is there on which the reader can depend, or for which, if he contend eagerly, he may not be involved in controversy, and perplexed with contradictory opinions and authorities?

It is usually said that the life of an author can be little else than a history of his works; but this opinion is liable to many exceptions. If an author, indeed, has passed his days in retirement, his life can afford little more variety than that of any other man who has lived in retirement; but if, as is generally the case with writers of great celebrity, he has acquired a pre-eminence over his contemporaries, if he has excited rival contentions, and defeated the attacks of criticism or of malignity, or if he has plunged into the controversies of his age, and performed the part either of a tyrant or a hero in literature, his history may be rendered as interesting

as that of any other publick character. But whatever weight may be allowed to this remark, the decision will not be of much consequence in the case of Shakspeare. Unfortunately, we know as little of his writings as of his personal history. The industry of his illustrators for the last fifty years is such as, probably, never was surpassed in the annals of literary investigation; yet so far are we from information of the conclusive or satisfactory kind, that even the order in which his plays were written rests principally on conjecture, and of some plays usually printed among his works, it is not yet determined whether he wrote the whole or any part.

Much of our ignorance of every thing which it would be desirable to know respecting Shakspeare's works, must be imputed to the author himself. If we look merely at the state in which he left his productions, we should be apt to conclude, either that he was insensible of their value, or that while he was the greatest, he was at the same time the humblest dramatic writer the world ever produced: "that he thought his works unworthy "of posterity, that he levied no ideal tribute upon future "times, nor had any further prospect than that of present "popularity and present profit." And such an opinion, although it apparently partakes of the ease and looseness of conjecture, may not be far from probability. But before we allow it any higher merit, or attempt to decide upon the affection or indifference with which he reviewed his labours, it may be necessary to consider their precise nature, and certain circumstances in his situation which affected them; and, above all, we must take into our account the character and predominant occupations of the time in which he lived, and of that which followed his decease.

With respect to himself, it does not appear that he printed any one of his plays, and only eleven of them

8 Dr. Johnson's Preface.

were printed in his life-time. The reason assigned for this is, that he wrote them for a particular theatre, sold them to the managers when only an actor, reserved them in manuscript when himself a manager, and when he disposed of his property in the theatre, they were still preserved in manuscript to prevent their being acted by the rival houses. Copies of some of them appear to have been surreptitiously obtained, and published in a very incorrect state; but we may suppose that it was wiser in the author or managers to overlook this fraud, than to publish a correct edition, and so destroy the exclusive property they enjoyed. It is clear therefore that any publication of his plays by himself would have interfered, at first with his own interest, and afterwards with the interest of those to whom he made over his share in them. But even had this obstacle been removed, we are not sure that he would have gained much by publication. If he had no other copies but those belonging to the theatre, the business of correction for the press must have been a toil which we are afraid the taste of the publick at that time would have very poorly rewarded. We know not the exact portion of fame he enjoyed; it might be the highest which dramatick genius could confer, but dramatick genius was a new excellence, and not well understood. His claims were, probably, not heard beyond the jurisdiction of the master of the revels, certainly not much beyond the metropolis. When he died, the English publick was approaching to a period in which matters of higher moment were to engage attention, and in which his works were nearly buried in oblivion, and not for more than a century afterwards, ranked among the productions of which the nation had reason to be proud.

Such, however, was Shakspeare's reputation, that we are told his name was put to pieces which he never wrote, and that he felt himself too confident of popular favour to undeceive the publick. This was a singular resolution

in a man who wrote so unequally, that even at this day, the test of internal evidence must be applied to his doubtful productions with the greatest caution. But still how far his character would have been elevated by an examination of his plays in the closet, in an age when the refinements of criticism were not understood, and the sympathies of taste were seldom felt, may admit of a question. "His language," says Dr. Johnson, "not being "designed for the reader's desk, was all that he desired "it to be if it conveyed his meaning to the audience."

Shakspeare died in 1616, and seven years afterwards appeared the first edition of his plays, published at the charge of four booksellers; a circumstance from which Mr. Malone infers that no single publisher was at that time willing to risk his money on a complete collection of our author's plays." This edition was printed from the copies in the hands of his fellow-managers Heminge and Condell, which had been in a series of years fres quently altered through convenience, caprice, or ignors ance. Heminge and Condell had now retired from the stage, and, we may suppose, thought they were guilty of no injury to their successors, in printing what their own interest only had formerly withheld. Of this, although we have no documents amounting to demonstra tion, we may be convinced, by adverting to a circumstance, which will, in our days, appear very extraordi nary, namely, the declension of Shakspeare's popularity. We have seen that the publication of his works was ac counted a doubtful speculation; and it is yet more cer tain, so much had the public taste turned from him in quest of variety, that for several years after his death the plays of Fletcher were more frequently acted than his, and during the whole of the seventeenth century they were made to give place to performances, the greater part of which cannot now be endured. During the same period only fours editions of his works were pub lished, all in folio; and perhaps this unwieldy size of

volume may be an additional proof that they were not popular; nor is it thought that the impressions were

numerous.

These circumstances, which attach to our author and to his works, must be allowed a plausible weight in accounting for our deficiencies in his biography and literary career, but there were circumstances enough in the history of the times to suspend the progress of that more regular drama of which he had set the example, and may be considered as the founder. If we wonder why we know so much less of Shakspeare than of his contemporaries, let us recollect that his genius, however highly and justly we now rate it, took a direction which was not calculated for permanent admiration either in the age in which he lived, or in that which followed. Shakspeare was a writer of plays, a promoter of an amusement just emerging from barbarism; and an amusement which, although it has been classed among the schools of morality, has ever had such a strong tendency to deviate from moral purposes, that the force of law has in all ages been called in to preserve it within the bounds of common decency. The church has ever been unfriendly to the stage. A part of the injunctions of queen Elizabeth is particularly directed against the printing of plays; and, according to an entry in the books of the Stationers' Company, in the 41st year of her reign, it is ordered, that no plays be printed except allowed by persons in authority. Dr. Farmer also remarks, that in that age poetry and novels were destroyed publickly by the bishops, and privately by the puritans. The main transactions, indeed, of that period could not admit of much attention to matters of amusement. The Reformation required all the circumspection and policy of a long reign to render it so firmly established in popular favour as to brave the caprice of any succeeding sovereign. This was effected in a great measure by the diffusion of religious controversy, which was en