irony runs through it. Decker's Gallant was a kind of gentle man-bully, whofe ambition it was to be fignalized by fome notable exploits-commonly called by our Oxford heroes of the prefent day-kicking up a d-d duft. Such gallants, as the old fatirift calls them, make up by noife what they want in wit: and he therefore humoroufly affures them, that it will crowne them with rich commendation to laugh aloud in the midft of the moft ferious and faddeft fcene of the terribleft tragedy: and to let that clapper, their tongue, be tofled fo high, that all the houfe may ring of it.'

Decker's Gallant bears a ftrong resemblance of our modern choice fpirits, who find it an easier task to raise a riot at a play houfe, than to decide with judgment on the respective merits of authors or actors. Their abfurdities, however, were manifefted in different modes. Among other fooleries, Decker rallies them for card-playing, to amuse the time before the play began.

To the prefent edition is added a curious extract from Mr. Grainger's Biographical Hiftory of England, relating to the portraits of Shakspeare. They are diftinctly enumerated, and their refpective merits are judiciously difcuffed. This edition is embellifhed alfo with two prints of Shakspeare. The firft is copied from an engraving of Martin Droefhont, and was originally impreffed on the title-page of the folio edition of Shakfpeare, by Heminge and Condell. The fecond is a copy of the portrait prefixed to his poems, published in 12m0, in 1640. These two prints are indeed much unlike one another in point of expreffion. The first is moft efteemed, as it carries ftronger marks of dignity and elevation of mind than the latter, and feems beft to fuit the genius of the man:-but chiefly is it valued for the teftimony which Ben Jonfon bore to it on account of its resemblance to his friend Shakspeare; and

'Wherein (fays he) the graver had a strife

• With nature to outdo the life.'

This was the teftimony of a man who had known Shakspeare too well to have been deceived; and for the fake of complimenting the engraver's art, would fcarcely have ventured on an affertion that, if not true, could have been fo eafily, and by fuch numbers falfified. Mr. Grainger informs us, as a corroborating proof of the exactness of Droefhant's engraving, that the author of a letter from Stratford upon Avon, printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, about twenty years fince, informs us, that this head is as much like his monumental effigy, as a print can be.'

Mr. Steevens, in the edition of 1773, had (as he frankly ac knowledges) given inadvertently a wrong account of the folio edition of 1632. He had given it a fimilar character with the 3d and 4th impreffions which were all printed in the course of the last century, from 1623 to 1685. The two laft editions he

fill confiders as little better than wafte paper; for they differ only from the preceding ones by a larger accumulation of errors But on maturer examination he retracts his former charge against the second edition of 1632, and informs us that it is not without its value; for though it be in fome cafes more incorrectly printed than the preceding one, it has likewife the advantage of various readings, which are not merely fuch as a reiteration of copies will naturally produce. The curious examiner of Shakfpeare's text, who poffeffes the first of thefe, ought not to be unfurnished with the fecond.' We thought it not amifs to transcribe this note as a proof of Mr. Steevens's candour, and that the poffeffors of the old edition of 1632 may know what value to fet on it.

The other additions to the prefent work confift of a lift of plays, altered from Shakspeare, by Sir William Davenant, LordLandfdowne, Tate, Betterton, Dennis, Sheffield D. of Bucks, Dryden, Otway, Garrick, Cibber, Sheridan, Colman, and others; with a list of detached pieces of criticifm on Shakipcare and his editors,'-beginning with Rymer's Short View of Tragedy,' printed in 1693, and ending with Voltaire's Letter to the French Academy,' in 1777. Next follow fuch extracts of entries on the books of the Stationers Company,' as bear any reference to Shakspeare's plays, or the plays of other authors, that were published with the fame titles that he himself had adopted,

.

It is worth remark, fays Mr. Steevens, that on thefe books of the Stationers Company, Titus Andronicus, Venus and Adonis, two parts of King Henry VI., Locrine, Widow of Watling-Street, King Richard II., King Richard the Illd, King Henry II., &c. are the first performances attributed to Shakspeare. Thus might the progress of his dramatic art be afcertained, were we abfolutely fure that his productions were fet down in chronological arrangement on thefe records of ancient publication. It may be added, that although the interefts of playhoufes had power to fufpend privately the printing of his theatrical pieces, they could not have retarded the appearance of his poems; and we may therefore justly date the commencement of his authorship from the time when the first of them came out, viz. his Venus and In the dediAdonis, when he was in the 29th year of his age. cation of this poem to the earl of Southampton, Shakspeare calls it, "The first Heir of his Invention.”.

Of all his undifputed plays, the only one omitted in the books of the Stationers Company, is King John. The fame attention to fecure a lafting property in the works of Ben Jonfon, and Beaumont and Fletcher, doth not appear to have been exerted; as of the former I have met with no more than feven or eight entries, and of the latter a ftill lefs confiderable number. Beaument

I

Beaumont died in 1615, Fletcher in 1625, and Jonfon in 1637 My refearches, however, were not continued below the year 1632, the date of the fecond edition of Shakspeare.

Let it be added to the praises of our Author, that if he did not begin to write till 1593, nor ceafed till within three years of his death, which happened in 1616; in the course of twenty years he had produced no lefs than thirty-five plays, admitting that the eight others (amongst which is to be reckoned Titus Andronicus) were fpurious. I feize this opportunity, however, to exprefs my doubts concerning all but the laft mentioned piece and Locrine. Locrine hath only the letters W. S. prefixed to it; and exhibits internal proofs that it was not only the compofition of a fcholar but of a pedant. Neither has it ever yet been fufficiently proved, that it was once cuftomary to fet the names of celebrated living authors at full length in the title-pages to the works of others, or to enter them under thefe falfe colours in the books of Stationers Hall. Such frauds, indeed, have been attempted at a later period, but with little fuccefs. The moft inconfiderable of all the pieces rejected by the editors of Shakspeare, is the Yorkshire Tragedy; and yet in 1608 it was both registered and published with his name. At this time too, he was probably in London, prefiding at the Globe Theatre, in confequence of the licence granted by king James I. to him and his fellow-comedians in 1603. The Yorkshire Tragedy is only one out of four fhort drainas which were exhibited for the entertainment of a fingle evening, as the title-page informs us; and perhaps would have been forgotten, with the other three, but that it was known to have been the work of our celebrated Author. Such miscellaneous reprefentations were not uncommon, and the Reader will find a fpecimen of them in the tenth volume of Mr. Seyward's edition of Beaumont and Fletcher. Shakspeare, who hath expreffed fuch a folicitude that his Clowns fhould speak no more than what was fet down for them, would naturally have taken fome opportunity to fhew his impatience at being rendered anfwerable, in a still more decifive manner, for entire compofitions which were not his own. It is poffible, likewife, that the copies of the plays omitted in the first folio, had been already difpofed of to proprietors, out of whofe hands they could not be redeemed: or if Heminge and Condell were * difcerning friends to the reputation of their affociate, conscious, as they might have been, that fuch pieces were his, they would have omitted them by defign, as inferior to his other productions. From this inferiority, and from a cast of style occafion

If the original editors of Shakspeare were difcerning friends to the reputation of their affociate, how came Titus Andronicus to find a place amongst his works in their own edition? Rev.

ally

ally different, nothing relative to their authenticity can, with exactness, be inferred; for, as Dr. Johnfon very juftly obferves on a fimilar occafion, "There is little refemblance between the first works of Raphael and the laft." But could it even be proved that thefe rejected pieces were not among the earliest effufions of Shakspeare, fuch proofs would by no means affect their authenticity; as both Dryden and Rowe, after having written their best plays, are known to have produced others, which reflect a very inconfiderable degree of honour on their memory,'

These reasonings in favour of the rejected plays, which had been originally attributed to Shakspeare, are exceedingly plaufible; but whether they will be confidered as decifive, we prefume not to determine. Perhaps they have been rejected too precipitately, through an implicit dependence on the authority of Mr. Pope; whose reasons for their total omiffion were, however, very far from being conclusive,

The most curious and important fupplement, to the prefaces of the former edition, is an attempt to afcertain the order in which the plays attributed to Shakspeare were written,' by Mr. Malone. Of this attempt,' Mr. Steevens makes the following handsome acknowledgment. By the aid of the registers at Stationers Hall, and fuch internal evidences as the pieces themfelves fupply, he [Mr. Malone] hath fo happily accomplished his undertaking, that he only leaves me the power to thank him for an arrangement which I profefs my inability either to difpute or to improve.'

Of the fuccefs of this undertaking Mr. Malone speaks in the following modest and candid manner: After the most diligent enquiries, very few particulars have been recovered refpecting Shakspeare's private life or literary history; and while it hath been the endeavour of all his editors and commentators to illuftrate his obfcurities, and to regulate and correct his text, no attempt hath been made to trace the progrefs and order of his plays. Yet, furely, it is no incurious fpeculation to mark the * gradations by which he rofe from mediocrity to the fummit of excel lence: from artless and uninterefting dialogues, to thofe unri valled compofitions which have rendered him the delight and wonder of fucceffive ages.

It is not pretended that a regular fcale of gradual improvement is here prefented to the Public: or that if even Shakspeare himself had left us a chronological lift of his dramas, it would exhibit fuch a scale. All that is meant is, that as his knowledge increased, and he became more converfant with the ftage and with life, his performances, in general, were written more happily, and with greater

art.

Rev. Jan. 1780.

The

The materials for afcertaining the order in which his plays were written, are indeed fo few, that it is to be feared nothing very decifive can be produced on this fubject. In the following attempt to trace the progrefs of his dramatic art, probability alone is pretended to. The filence and inaccuracy of those persons who, after his death, had the revifal of his papers, will, perhaps, for ever prevent our attaining to any thing like proof on this head. Little then remains, but to collect intó one view, from his feveral dramas, and from the ancient tracts in which they are mentioned, or alluded to, all the circumftances that can throw any light on this new and curious inquiry. From thefe circumstances, and from the entries in the books of the Stationers Company, extracted, and now first published by Mr. Steevens (to whom every admirer of Shakspeare has the highest obligations), it is probable that the plays attributed to our Author were nearly written in the following fucceffion, which, though it cannot at this day be afcertained to be their true order, may yet be confidered as approaching nearer to it than any which has been obferved in the various editions of his works. The rejected plays are here enumerated with the reft; but no opinion is thereby meant to be given concerning their authenticity. Of the nineteen genuine plays, which were not printed in our Author's life-time, the majority of them were, I believe, late compofitions. The following arrangement is, in fome meafure, formed on this idea.

The dates of the feveral plays are arranged by Mr. Malone in the following order:

N. B. The rejected plays, which had been admitted in the 3d and 4th editions of the laft century, and alfo by Mr. Rowe, are, in the following lift, marked by Italics; and those which were not printed till after the Author's death, and made their first appearance in the folio edition of his plays in 1623, are diftinguished by an afterifk.

*

1. Titus Andronicus, 1589. [This play, though admitted by all the Editors, yet is generally fuppofed to be fpurious.] 2. Love's Labour Loft, 1591. 3. Firft Part of King Henry VI. 1591. 4. Second Part of Henry VI. 1591. 5. Third Part of ditto, 1592. 6. Pericles, 1592. 7. Locrine, 1593. 8. * The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1593. 9. *The Winter's Tale, 1594. 10. Midfummer Night's Dream, 1595. 11. Romeo and Juliet, 1595. 12. *The Comedy of Errors, 1596. 13. Hamlet, 1596. 14. King John, 1596. * 15. King Richard the IId. 1597.. 16. King Richard the IIId. 1597. 17. First Part of King Henry IV. 1597. 18. Merchant of Venice, 1598. 19. All's Well that Ends Well, 1598. 20. Sir John Oldcastle, 1598. 21. Second Part of King Henry IV. 1598. 22. King Henry V. 1599. 23. The Puritan, 1600.

24.