the devouring element which may have robbed the world of his own precious writings. No man valued more highly the precious treasure of a goodly reputation than he did. He took heed for to-morrow in worldly affairs; made hay while the sun shone, and put more money in his purse than any poet who went before or came long after him; and he who was so careful of that "which has been slave to thousands" was not likely to forget entirely the fame," which he says, "all men hunt after in their lives."

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Nearly all his heroes-Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Brutus, Harry V., Richard III.-look to future ages with hope or fear, according to the deeds done in the body. The terms of his will indicate a desire to have his name carried down honuorably to future generations. And respecting the condition in which he left his works, it may be in some measure accounted for by the shortness of his life and the suddenness of the attack, which, in a few days, and at the comparatively early age of 53, carried away into "the undiscovered country" the greatest genius "that ever lived in the tide of times;" and it is here worthy of remark that his professional associates, John Heminge and Henrie Condell, who published the first complete edition of his works seven years after his death, ascribe to this cause— his sudden death and too brief candle of life-indirectly the fact of his not being the editor and publisher of his own works. "It had bene a thing," they say, 66 we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them." I therefore hold that there are not sufficient grounds for the opinion that he left no record of his life and character, and that he designedly trusted to those who might come after him-such doubtless loving, if not able editors, as Heminge and Condell to do justice to his works.

Despite the disheartening account given by Mr. Hallam of Shakespearian explorations, a number of clever, earnest

plays took well. As a proof it may be of the truthfulness of his remark touching the condition of poetry at that time, Aubrey gives us the following taste of Shakespeare's quality, "One time," the biographer says, "as he was at the tavern, at Stratford-upon-Avon, one Combes, an old rich usurer was to be buried; he makes there this extraordinary epitaph:"

"Ten in the hundred the devil allows;

But Combes will have twelve, he swears and vows.

If any one asks who lies in this tomb,

'Ho!' quoth the devil, ''tis my John o' Combe.''

Having given a deliverance on the poet's personal appearance, and the quality of his art as above quoted, Mr. Aubrey informs his readers that Shakespeare was wont to go to his native county once a year, and that he understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country. And thus ends the bald disjointed chat of Aubrey, which passed for a "Life of Shakespeare.'

Of the statements it contains the first may be taken as unquestionable; the second as possible but improbable; the third is doubtless; the fourth is very questionable, and positively contradicted; for Rowe says his highest performance was the Ghost in his own "Hamlet," a part certainly calling for considerable innate dignity and elocutionary power, but one which may be played well by an actor devoid of the energy, the enduring flexible voice, feeling, facial expression, and graceful gesticulation essential to the true tragedian. That he began early to make essays in poetry is most likely, but that he wrote the doggerel epitaph for John o' Combe is very doubtful. There are more than one version of the lines. They are very dull and ill-natured, and Shakespeare was neither. I do not believe the gentle and the good Shakespeare ever wrote a line calculated "to make one worthy man his foe," and John Combe appears to have been anything but the foe of his alleged libeller, for he bequeathed him a legacy of £5, and Shakespeare in turn left his sword to Thomas Combe, John's nephew. The next statement has more truthfulness about

it. One can readily credit the old gobe-mouche, when he says Shakespeare visited Stratford annually, for here were all his early old associates, and here was his heart with his treasures of wife and children. In conclusion, Aubrey says he knew Latin pretty well; thus discrediting the dictum of worthy Ben Jonson on this point.

Naturally dissatisfied with Aubrey's account of Shakespeare, and unable to find out anything more satisfactory about him in London, Thomas Betterton, the most gifted and accomplished tragedian of his age; and, according to Pepys, "the best actor in the world," travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon to ascertain further particulars. Whatever Betterton learned there when he arrived, towards the end of the seventeenth century, he communicated to Nicholas Rowe, a scholar and gentleman-poet laureate to George I., but better known by his contribution to our dramatic literature. Rowe worked the materials into what he modestly enough calls" some account of the life, &c., of William Shakespeare," published in 1709.

Now, one would have expected from the devoted zeal of Betterton and the literary ability of Rowe a respectable biography ought to have been compiled; but the work deserves no better title than the author bestowed upon it. Its merits have been variously estimated. Johnson, not a rash or lavish dispenser of literary reputation, says, “I have borrowed the author's life from Rowe, though not written with much elegance or spirit, it relates however what is now to be known, and therefore deserves to pass through all succeeding publications." No publication of Shakespeare's works or life has certainly ever been since given to the public without some degree of obligation to Rowe; but the astute critic was singularly-yet-duly liberal in his judgment on such a production. If, however, overrated by the critics of the past age, Rowe appears to me to be unduly depreciated by those of the present. Mr. Malone confines the information of the life to eleven facts, and in these he asserts that only "two truths are told," not

"As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme;"

but as "the be all and the end all" of the certainties to be found in "The Life," by Rowe namely, the poet's birth and death. One he says is doubtful (his recommending of Ben Jonson and his writings to the public) and the other eight are altogether false. Adopting the same view, a writer in that most respectable periodical, "Chambers's Journal," a few days ago, says, "The traditions gathered by the gossiping and uncritical Aubrey or mentioned by Rowe cannot be depended upon as containing even a germ of fact." Here the credulity of Johnson is fully counterbalanced by the infidelity of Chambers. Truth lies between them.

Rowe, as it appears to me, may be fairly charged with giving full credence and unqualified assertion to things which were in themselves doubtful and utterly without proof, whilst he places before the public, upon mere hearsay evidence, facts which might have been established by incontrovertible testimony. For instance, we are told by him that Shakespeare was obliged to fly from Stratford for deer stealing. This indictment is sent up to the jury without even the name of a witness to sustain it, and there seems to be no scepticism in the mind of the author upon the subject. But when he comes to narrate matters in relation to which positive proof might have been easily discovered there is no such confidence in his manner of assertion. He makes no question of the deer stealing story; but Hathaway, Shakespeare's father-in-law, is only said to have been a substantial yeoman-a fact of which no one need be sceptical who visits his house in Shottery even at this day. Then we have the language of rumour in nearly every subsequent sentence. "He seems," says the author, "to have given entirely into that way of life," &c.; "the ballad on Lucy is said to have been," &c.; "it is upon this accident he is said to have made his first acquaintance," &c.; "Falstaff is said to have been written," &c.; "John Combe is said never to have forgiven him," &c. Rowe will not even state positively that Shakespeare resided in Stratford-upon-Avon for any considerable period before his death. He tells us that it was "said" he did so. Nearly everything he states