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SHAKESPEARE[What follows is the unsigned biography of William Shakespeare that first appeared in the "greatly improved and enlarged" Second Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1777-84). By far surpassing the three-volume First Edition, the Second was bound into 10 sturdy volumes that were enriched by a number of additional materials. Among these was "an account of the lives of the most eminent persons in every nation, from the earliest ages down to the present times." The biography of Shakespeare is printed on pages 8116-8118 in volume 10. The version that follows is presented in modern typography for ease in reading but retains the original spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and italics.]
SHAKESPEARE (William), the great poet of nature, and the glory of the British nation, was descended of a reputable family, at Stratford upon Avon. His father was in the wool-trade, and dealt considerably that way. He had ten children, of whom our immortal poet was the eldest, and was born in April 1564. At a proper age, he was put to the free-school in Stratford, where he acquired the rudiments of grammar-learning. Whether he discovered at this time any extraordinary genius or inclination for literature, is uncertain. His father had no design to make a scholar of him; on the contrary, he took him early from school, and employed him in his own business; but he did not continue long in it under the controul of his father; for at seventeen years of age he married, commenced master of a family, and became the father of children before he was out of his minority. He now settled in business for himself, and had no other thoughts than of pursuing the wool-trade, when, happening to fall into acquaintance with some persons who followed the practice of deer-stealing, he was prevailed upon to engage with them in robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park, near Stratford. The injury being repeated more than once, that gentleman was provoked to enter a prosecution against the delinquents; and Shakespeare, in revenge, made him the subject of a ballad, which, tradition says, (for the piece is lost), was pointed with so much bitterness, that it became unsafe for the author to stay any longer in the country. To escape the law, he fled to London. There, destitute of friends and money, he approached the play-house, and, for present support, engaged in the servile employment of holding the horses of those who rode to the theatre: but conversing accidentally with some of the players, he at length gained admittance into the house, in the capacity of an inferior actor; nor did his performance entitle him to advancement, so that the highest character he ever played was that of the Ghost in his own Hamlet. The part of an under-actor neither engaged nor deserved his attention. It was far from filling, or being adequate to the powers of his mind; and therefore he turned the advantage which that situation afforded him to a higher and nobler use. Having, by practice and observation, acquainted himself with the mechanical oeconomy of the theatre, his native genius supplied the rest: But the whole view of his first attempts in stage-poetry being to procure a subsistence, he directed his endeavours solely to hit the taste and humour that then prevailed among the meaner sort of people, of whom the audience was generally composed; and therefore his images of life were drawn from those of that rank. Thus did Shakespeare set out, without the advantage of education, the advice or assistance of the learned, the patronage of the better sort, or any acquaintance among them. But when his performances had merited the protection of his prince, and the encouragement of the court had succeeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years were manifestly raised above the level of his former productions. In this way of writing he was an absolute original, and of such a peculiar cast, as hath perpetually raised and confounded the emulation of his successors; a compound of such very singular blemishes, as well as beauties, that these latter have not more mocked the toil of every aspiring undertaker to emulate them, than the former, as flaws intimately united to diamonds, have baffled every attempt of the ablest artists to take them out without spoiling the whole. Queen Elizabeth, who showed Shakespeare many marks of her favour, was so much pleased with the delightful character of Sir John Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded the author to continue it for one play more, and to show the knight in love; which he executed inimitably, in the Merry Wives of Windsor. Among his other patrons, the earl of Southampton is particularly honoured by him, in the dedication of two poems, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece; in the latter especially, he expresses himself in such terms as gives countenance to what is related of that patron's distinguished generosity to him. In the beginning of king James I.'s reign (if not sooner) he was one of the principal managers of the play-house, and continued in it several years afterwards; till, having acquired such a fortune as satisfied his moderate wishes and views in life, he quitted the stage, and all other business, and passed the remainder of his time in an honourable ease, at his native town of Stratford, where he lived in a handsome house of his own purchasing, to which he gave the name of New Place; and he had the good fortune to save it from the flames in the dreadful fire that consumed the greatest part of the town in 1614. In the beginning of the year 1616, he made his will, wherein he testified his respect to his quondam partners in the theatre: he appointed his youngest daughter, jointly with her husband, his executors, and bequeathed to them the best part of his estate, which they came into the possession of not long after. He died on the 23d of April following, being the 53d year of his age; and was interred among his ancestors on the north side of the chancel, in the great church of Stratford, where there is a handsome monument erected for him, inscribed with the following elegiac distich in Latin. Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, In the year 1740, another very noble one was raised to his memory, at the public expence, in Westminster-abbey; an ample contribution for this purpose being made upon exhibiting his tragedy of Julius Cæsar, at the theatre-royal in Drury-Lane, April 28th 1738. Nor must we omit mentioning another testimony of the veneration paid to his manes by the public in general, which is, that a mulberry-tree, planted upon his estate by the hands of this reverend bard, was cut down not many years ago; and the wood being converted to several domestic uses, was all eagerly bought at a high price, and each single piece treasured up by its purchaser as a precious memorial of the planter. The late commemorative jubilee, celebrated at his birth-place by the most illustrious persons in the nation, is fresh in every one's memory. The learned editors of the works of this immortal bard have exerted their utmost power in praise of his extensive genius and universal knowledge of human nature. If, indeed, there ever existed an inspired writer, (if by inspiration we mean originality), Shakespeare was indisputably inspired. "His characters," says Mr Pope, "are so much nature's self, that it were injurious to call them by so distant a name as copies." It is astonishing, when we consider the infinite variety of his characters, that a poet, who from his education had so little opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of mankind, should, as it were by intuition, have delineated the whole world with such accuracy and truth! But to an English reader it is sufficient, independent of his judgment, to appeal to his feelings. Some foreigners have foolishly attempted to ridicule particular scenes, and to condemn his inattention to their rules of the drama; but such criticisms serve only to expose their total ignorance of his capacity, his design, his invention. He despised their rules as he would have despised their criticisms. Some of his plays are intentionally neither tragedies nor comedies, but a natural mixture of both: others are professedly historical: but they are always just representations of human nature, call them by what name you will. They say Shakespeare was illiterate. The supposition implies more than panegyric with a hundred tongues could have expressed. If he was unlearned, he was the only instance of a human being to whom learning was unnecessary; the favourite child of Nature, produced and educated entirely by herself; but so educated, that the pedant Art had nothing new to add. The following is a list of his works. 1. The tempest, a comedy. 2. The two gentlemen of Verona, C. 3. Henry IV, historical play, 2 parts. 4. Merry wives of Windsor, C. 5. Measure for measure, C. 6. The comedy of errors. 7. Much ado about nothing, C. 8. Love's labour lost, C. 9. The midsummer night's dream, C. 10. The merchant of Venice, C. 11. As you like it, C. 12. The taming of the shrew, C. 13. All's well that ends well, C. Taken from the ninth novel of day iii. of Boccace's Decameron. 14. The twelfth night, or What you will. 15. The winter's tale, tragi-com. The plot from Robert Green's novel of Dorastus and Faunia. 16. King John, tragedy. 17. King Richard II. T. 18. King Henry V, historical play. 19. King Henry VI, historical play, in three parts. 20. King Richard III. T. 21. King Henry VIII. T. 22. Troilus and Cressida, T. From Chaucer. 23. Coriolanus, T. 24. Romeo and Juliet, T. 25. Timon of Athens, T. The story is in Lucian's dialogues, Plutarch's Life of Anthony, &c. 26. Julius Cæsar, T. 27. Macbeth, T. 28. Hamlet prince of Denmark, T. 29. King Lear, T. The story originally from Geoffroy of Monmouth, but immediately from an old ballad. Vide Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. vi. 30. Othello the Moor of Venice, T. The story from Cinthio's novels. 31. Anthony and Cleopatra, T. 32. Cymbeline, T. The plot partly from Boccace's Decameron, day ii. nov. 9. 33. Titus Andronicus, T. This tragedy, being supposed spurious, is rejected by the later editors of Shakespeare. It is however in Theobald's edition. --Eleven of these plays only were printed during Shakespeare's life, and those not corrected by himself, nor published under his inspection. The several editions of Shakespeare's plays are, by Hemmings and Condel, Lond. 1623, 1632, 1663, 1685. --Nic. Rowe, 1714, 8vo, 9 vol. --Alex. Pope, 1721, 1725, 4to. --Mr Theobald, 1733, 8vo. 1740, 1757, 1762, 1773, 12mo. --Sir Tho. Hanmer, Oxf. 1744, 4to, 6 vol. 1745, 1749, 1771, 8vo. --Mr Warburton, Lond. 1747, 8vo, 8 vol. --Dr Johnson, 1765, 1768, 8vo. 8 vol. --G. Steevens, 20 plays, 1766, 4 vol. 8vo. --Mr Capel, 1768, 8vo. 10 vol. --Johnson and Steevens, 1773, 10 vol. 8vo. Besides his dramatic works, Shakespeare is said to have written several poems, which are published in a single 8vo volume. His sonnets were published in 1609, 4to.
[Editor's note: In the listing above, 4to means quarto, 8vo means octavo.] |