ployed Jonson to write this prologue? Shakspeare's associates. Who spoke it? Shakspeare's associates. Who preserved it? Shakspeare's associates. Who, finally, gave it to the world? Shakspeare's associates!the very men whom, as Mr. Malone has just observed, 'the muse of Shakspeare had supported, and whom his last Will shewed that he had not forgotten!' However great may be the obligations of Jonson to Shakspeare, (of which, I believe, the reader has here had a full account,) it will scarcely be denied that these men, who had so long profited by his wonderful talents, who were, at that very moment, profiting by them, were, at least, equally indebted to him.-Yet of their ingratitude not a word is said, not a hint is dropped, while the collected fury of Mr. Malone and his followers is levelled against a person who, at the worst, was only a simple agent, and wrought as they directed! "I have entered into these details merely to shew what inconsistencies it is necessary for those to swallow who put their faith in Mr. Malone-for, after all, the whole of this tedious story is an absolute fable. The Prologue was not written by Jonson, and the play was not written by Shakspeare. The Piece acted in 1613 was a new play, called All Is Truth,' constructed, indeed, on the history of Henry VIII, and, like that, full of shows; but giving probably a different view of some of the leading incidents of that monarch's life. Shakspeare's Henry VIII, as Mr. Malone affirms, was written in 1601; if it had been merely revived, the Prologue would have adverted to the circumstance: but it speaks of the play as one which had not yet appeared; it calls the attention of the audience to a novelty; it supposes, in every line, that they were unacquainted with its plan; and it finally tells them that, if they came to hear a bawdy play, a noise of targets, or to see a fellow in a fool's coat, they would be deceived. Could the audience expect any thing of this kind? or was it necessary to guard them against it, in a favourite comedy, with which they had all been perfectly familiar for twelve years?" The commentator, who is first quoted, was Tom Davies; the person who first suggested that the piece performed in 1613 was Shakspeare's Henry VIII., was Mr. Tyrwhitt, and the prologue was ascribed to Jonson, by Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer. These distinguished persons can scarcely be termed Mr. Malone's followers. Mr. Gifford has referred to the prologue as furnishing proofs, that it was an entirely new play. I have read it attentively with this view, and discover no such intimations as he has pointed out; but I have attempted to show that no satire was directed against Shakspeare, whoever might have been the author *. Mr. Malone's name is introduced in a note, where words are ascribed to him which he never used, though they are put in an inverted comma says 666 But,' Mr. Malone, All Is Truth must be Shakspeare's Henry VIII., for the titles of many of his plays were changed in 1613; thus Henry IV. was called Hotspur; Much Ado About Nothing, Benedict and Beatrice,' &c. What is this to the purpose? If other titles were given to those plays in familiar conversation, they were still named after the principal characters or the leading events, and no mistake was likely to arise; but who would have recognized Henry VIII. under the name of All Is Truth? Besides, it is expressly termed a new play. Could Sir Henry Wotton, and those who notice it, be so ignorant of Shakspeare, as to call one of his most popular dramas a new play after it had been familiarised to the stage so many years! Mr. Malone has nowhere said, that All Is Truth must be Shakspeare's Henry VIII. for the reason here given. He speaks with less confidence on the subject than Mr. Tyrwhitt; but mentions, indeed, that the titles of some of our author's plays were altered in that year. * See vol. xix. p. 500. "Thus, Henry IV, &c.;" yet by no means produces it as the words which have been added would denote as a decided proof. "But who (says Mr. Gifford) would have recognized Henry VIII. under the name of All Is Truth?" If it had two names, not an uncommon circumstance, any one would have done so easily; and we are expressly told in the continuation of Stowe, that Henry VIII. was the name of the play which was performed when the Globe theatre was burnt; the same thing is stated in a MS. letter to Sir Thomas Puckering by Thomas Larkin; and even Sir H. Wotton, who has given it the title of All is True, has described a scene in it exactly corresponding with Shakspeare's drama *. Let us come to another charge: "Ben, however, did not trust to the praises of others. One of his admirers honestly confesses 'He Of whom I write this, has prevented me, "This admirer, whom Mr. Malone, when he next mentions him, calls Ben's old antagonist,' p. 640, is Owen Feltham.-But what shall be said of Mr. Malone? A judicial blindness appears to have fallen upon him the instant that he approached Jonson. Deprive him of this plea, and no terms will be strong enough to describe the excess of his ignorance or his malice. The praise refers to our author's works. It is in the composition of his Sejanus, Catiline, and other poems mentioned by Feltham, that he pronounces Jonson to have said so much in his own praise as to make the applause of his friends superfluous: and the critic expressly contrasts his conduct, in this respect, with that of the trivial poets, whose chatterings live and fall at once."" Mr. Malone has spoken of Feltham as Jonson's admirer, and also as his old antagonist; because at different. * See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, vol. xix. p. 306. times he was both: in his verses in Jonsonus Virbius, he was the one, in his parody on "Come leave the loathed stage," he had been the other. I know not why Mr. Malone's interpretation of these lines should be attributed to judicial blindness. That Jonson was in the habit of saying much in his own praise, will not, I think, be denied, and if the adverb boldly is more applicable to the words taken in this sense, there will be neither malice nor ignorance in supposing that Feltham meant to say that his merits were such that only his own pen was fit to describe them. But not to fatigue the reader with entering into a discussion of all the passages in which Mr. Gifford has endeavoured to turn Mr. Malone into ridicule, I shall confine myself to one or two more, in which heavy imputations are laid upon my late friend. A letter from Mr. Malone to Mr. Whalley has been produced in answer to one from that gentleman, soliciting his assistance in his projected edition of Jonson; and wherever Mr. Malone's sentiments, at a subsequent period, are found to vary from those which that letter contains, this change of opinion is converted into a charge against him, and Mr. Gifford exclaims, "What! not honest either?" because he expresses some doubts as to what he had said eleven years before in the hurry of a private correspondence. Mr. Rowe has recorded an anecdote of the venerable John Hales of Eton; and Mr. Malone having found other versions of the same story, has laid them before the reader, as was his usual practice. By this mode we are enabled to compare statements, elicit what appears most agreeable to truth, and, perhaps, may be furnished with materials to shake the credit of the narrative altogether, and this Mr. Gifford thinks he has effected on the present occasion. He ridicules, and with justice, the story, as it was told by Gildon in one of his letters, but none of his arguments tend to impeach it as related by Rowe; yet as a charge is implied against Mr. Malone for having retained in a note what Mr. Rowe had struck out in his first edition, I must refer the reader to p. 445 of this volume, where he will find the reason assigned. I may add that as the story was altered by Rowe, it exhibited Jonson's hostility in a stronger light. If Hales defended Shakspeare against Jonson, who was present, we might infer from these expressions, that he had called his merits generally in question; but, as it is originally told, he confined his charge to a want of classical knowledge, which was true, and which naturally introduces Hales's answer. But let us see on what grounds Mr. Gifford supposes the story to be utterly incredible. "A tissue of mere dotage scarcely deserves unravelling; but it may be just observed that when Jonson was seized with his last illness, (after which he certainly never went 'to Mr. Hales's chamber, at Eton' or elsewhere,) the two grave judges, Suckling and Falkland, who sat on the merits of all the Greek and Roman poets, and decided with such convincing effect, were, the first in the 12th, and the second in the 15th year of their ages!" How does this appear? Rowe has given neither date nor place to his anecdote; Jonson, not many years before his death, was still fond of society. Suckling, at the time of that event, was twenty-four, and Lord Falkland was well acquainted with Jonson, and had enjoyed his conversation at the Dog*. Mr. Gifford expresses a doubt whether there is any authority for the assertion, that Suckling was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, except Sir John's Session of the Poets. "To censure Jonson with good-humoured wit for an unlucky play, is sufficient, in the eyes of the criticks, to set him down as an admirer of Shakspeare." Yet Dryden expressly tells us, that he maintained Shakspeare's superiority; and in one of his letters he speaks of " my friend, Shakspeare," which, as he certainly could not have personally known him, was a colloquial mode of speaking of a favourite author. If the criticks had no other ground for their opinion Gifford's Jonson, vol. ix. p. 4. |