'Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry. "These are but vain: that's only good These two poems, which Dr. Warburton gives to Shakspeare, are, by writers nearer that time, disposed of, one to Marlow, the other to Raleigh. They are read in different copies with great variations. JOHNSON. In England's Helicon, a collection of love-verses printed in Shakspeare's life-time, viz. in quarto, 1600, the first of them is given to Marlowe, the second to Ignoto; and Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, observes, that there is good reason to believe that (not Shakspeare, but) Christopher Marlowe wrote the song, and Sir Walter Raleigh the Nymph's Reply; for so we are positively assured by Isaac Walton, a writer of some credit, who has inserted them both in his Compleat Angler, under the character of "That smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago; and an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days . . . . . Old fashioned poetry, but choicely good." See The Reliques, &c. vol. i. p. 218, 221, third edit. In Shakspeare's sonnets, printed by Jaggard, 1599, this poem was imperfectly published, and attributed to Shakspeare. Mr. Malone, however, observes, that "What seems to ascertain it to be Marlowe's, is, that one of the lines is found (and not as a quotation) in a play of his-The Jew of Malta; which, though not printed till 1633, must have been written before 1593, as he died in that year: "Thou in those groves, by Dis above, "Shalt live with me, and be my love." STEEvens. Evans in his panick mis-recites the lines, which in the original run thus : "There will we sit upon the rocks, "And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls "Melodious birds sing madrigals: "There will I make thee beds of roses "With a thousand fragrant posies," &c. In the modern editions the verses sung by Sir Hugh have been corrected, I think, improperly. His mis-recitals were certainly intended. He sings on the present occasion, to shew that he is 66 not afraid. So Bottom, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear, I am not afraid." MALONE. I A late editor has observed that Evans in his panick sings, like Bottom, to shew he is not afraid. It is rather to keep up his spirits; as he sings in Simple's absence, when he has a great dispositions to cry." RITSON. 66 The tune to which the former was sung, I have lately discovered in a MS. as old as Shakspeare's time, and it is as follows: 1 When as I sat in Pabylon,-] This line is from the old version of the 137th Psalm: SIM. Yonder he is coming, this way, sir Hugh. EVA. He's welcome : To shallow rivers, to whose falls—— Heaven prosper the right !—What weapons is he? SIM. No weapons, sir: There comes my master, master Shallow, and another gentleman from Frogmore, over the stile, this way. Eva. Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. SHAL. How now, master parson? Good-morrow, good sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful. SLEN. Ah, sweet Anne Page! PAGE. Save you, good sir Hugh! EVA. 'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you! SHAL. What! the sword and the word? do you study them both, master parson? PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatick day? EVA. There is reasons and causes for it. PAGE. We are come to you, to do a good office, master parson. EVA. Fery well: What is it? PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, "When we did sit in Babylon, "The rivers round about, 66 Then, in remembrance of Sion, "The tears for grief burst out." The word rivers, in the second line, may be supposed to have been brought to Sir Hugh's thoughts by the line of Marlowe's madrigal that he has just repeated; and in his fright he blends the sacred and profane song together. The old quarto has"There lived a man in Babylon; which was the first line of an old song, mentioned in Twelfth Night-but the other line is more in character. MALone. who belike, having received wrong by some person, is at most odds with his own gravity and patience, that ever you saw, SHAL. I have lived fourscore years, and upward 2; 2 I have lived FOUR SCORE years, and upward;] We must certainly read-threescore. In The Second Part of King Henry IV. during Falstaff's interview with Master Shallow, in his way to York, which Shakspeare has evidently chosen to fix in 1412, (though the Archbishop's insurrection actually happened in 1405,) Silence observes that it was then fifty-five years since the latter went to Clement's Inn; so that, supposing him to have begun his studies at sixteen, he would be born in 1341, and, consequently, be a very few years older than John of Gaunt, who, we may recollect, broke his head in the tilt-yard. But, besides this little difference in age, John of Gaunt at eighteen or nineteen would be above six feet high, and poor Shallow, with all his apparel, might have been truss'd into an eelskin. Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the present play ought to be read between the First and Second Part of Henry IV. an arrangement liable to objections which that learned and eminent critick would have found it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to surmount. But, let it be placed where it may, the scene is clearly laid between 1402, when Shallow would be sixty-one, and 1412, when he had the meeting with Falstaff: Though one would not, to be sure, from what passes upon that occasion, imagine the parties had been together so lately at Windsor; much less that the Knight had ever beaten his worship's keepers, kill'd his deer, and broke open his lodge. The alteration now proposed, however, is in all events necessary; and the rather so, as Falstaff must be nearly of the same age with Shallow, and fourscore seems a little too late in life for a man of his kidney to be making love to, and even supposing himself admired by, two at a time, travelling in a buckbasket, thrown into a river, going to the wars, and making prisoners. Indeed, he has luckily put the matter out of all doubt, by telling us, in The First Part of King Henry IV. that his age was some fifty, or, by'r lady, inclining to threescore." RITSON. 66 The foregoing note, and many others of the same writer, afford ample proof, that something more is requisite to form a sound commentary on these plays, than mere antiquarian research; and that this kind of knowledge, though admirably useful when properly employed, if not regulated by taste and judgment, is not only of no value, but often darkens, instead of illustrating the subject to which it is applied, and bewilders and misleads, instead of instructing the reader. Shakspeare unquestionably never much troubled himself with I never heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of his own respect. minute historical researches, as appears from his frequently deviating from the truth of history; in which doubtless he conceived that he was sufficiently warranted by that licence which has always been assumed by dramatick poets in the construction of pieces intended for stage exhibition. But, in the present instance, he has departed from no historical fact. Shallow was a creature entirely of his own imagination; and if he had no scruple in deviating from historical truth, in speaking of the age of Cicely, Duchess of York, a real character,-(if indeed he knew her age with any degree of exactness, which I much doubt,) he certainly would have none in the play before us, with respect to his fictitious Gloucestershire Justice; with whatever semblance of real life he might clothe him, and in what period soever of the reign of King Edward the Fourth, he might, in another play, have placed him in Clement's-Inn. The truth is, throughout his plays, when he speaks of very aged persons, or of those whom he chooses to represent as such; whether those persons be real or fictitious, he uses the terms of almost fourscore years, or fourscore, or fourscore and upwards, as a general designation of extreme age, without any consideration of the precise and true age of him or her spoken of, or speaking, even when the character is historical; and à fortiori, without paying the least attention to such circumstances as are assembled in the preceding remark, when the character is of his own formation. Thus, in King Richard III. the Duchess of York says, "And I with grief and extreme age shall perish And again: 66 Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen, "And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen." These words are supposed to be spoken by Cicely, Duchess of York, in 1583. But at that time, she was not past eighty, but sixty-eight years old; for she was born on the 3d May, 1415. See Wylhelmi Wyrcester Annales, apud Lib. Nig. Scaccarii, p. 453, edit. 1771. King Lear, speaking of himself as a very old man, does not say, that he is seventy or ninety, but fourscore and upward, and most assuredly Shakspeare, in this description, was not guided by any historical document. Geffrey of Monmouth tells us, that he began to be infirm through old age about three years after he had divided his kingdom between his two elder daughters. After their ill-treatment of him, he went to France, and returned with his youngest daughter, Cordeilla, and her husband, Aganippus, king of France, who, in conjunction with Lear, fought a battle with the old king's sons-in-law, and routed them, which is |