But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A great while ago the world begun, [Exit. knaves and thieves muft evidently be, against knave and thief.-When I was a boy, my folly and mischievous actions were little regarded; but when I came to manhood, men ihut their gates against me, as a knave and a thief. Sir Thomas Hanmer rightly reduces the fubfequent words, beds and beads, to the fingular number; and a little alteration is ftill wanting at the beginning of fome of the ftanzas. Mr. Steevens obferves in a note at the end of Much ado about Nothing, that the play had formerly paffed under the name of Benedict and Beatrix. It seems to have been the court-fafbion to alter the titles. A very ingenious lady, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted, Mrs. Afkew of Queen's-Square, has a fine copy of the fecond folio edition of Shakspeare, which formerly belonged to King Charles I. and was a prefent from him to his Mafter of the Revels, Sir Thomas Herbert. Sir Thomas has altered five titles in the lift of the plays, to "Benedick and Beatrice,— Pyramus and Tbifby,Rofalinde, Mr. Paroles, and Mal-volio." It is lamentable to fee how far party and prejudice will carry the wifeft men, even against their own practice and opinions, Milton, in his Exovonλáns, cenfures King Charles for reading" one whom (fays he) we well knew was the clofet companion of his folitudes, William Shakspeare." FARMER. I have followed the regulations propofed by Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Farmer; and confequently, instead of knaves, thieves, beds, and heads, have printed knave, thief," &c. Dr. Farmer might have obferved, that the alterations of the titles are in his Majesty's own hand-writing, materially differing from Sir Thomas Herbert's, of which the fame volume affords more than one specimen. I learn from another manufcript note in it, that John Lowine acted King Henry VIII. and John Taylor the part of Hamlet. The book is now in my poffeffion. To the concluding remark of Dr. Farmer, may be added the following paffage from An Appeal to all rational men concerning King Charles's Trial, by John Cooke, 1649: "Had he but ftudied fcripture half so much as Ben Jonson or Shakspeare, he might have learnt that when Amaziah was fettled in the kingdom, he suddenly did justice upon those servants which killed killed his father Joafh," &c. With this quotation I was furnished by Mr. Malone. A quarto volume of plays attributed to Shakspeare, with the cypher of King Charles II. on the back of it, is preferved in Mr. Garrick's collection. Though we are well convinced that Shakspeare has written flight ballads for the fake of discriminating characters more strongly, or for other neceffary purposes, in the course of his mixed dramas, it is fcarce credible, that after he had cleared his ftage, he should exhibit his Clown afresh, and with fo poor a recommendation as this fong, which is utterly unconnected with the subject of the preceding comedy. I do not therefore hesitate to call the nonfenfical ditty before us, fome buffoon actor's compofition, which was accidentally tacked to the Prompter's copy of Twelfth-Night, having been cafually fubjoined to it for the diverfion, or at the call, of the lowest order of spectators. In the year 1766, I saw the late Mr. Wefton fummoned out and obliged to fing Johnny Pringle and his Pig, after the performance of Voltaire's Mabomet, at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. STEEVENS. This play is in the graver part elegant and easy, and in fome of the lighter fcenes exquifitely humourous. Ague cheek is drawn with great propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefore not the proper prey of a fatirift. The foliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the fucceeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper inftruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just picture of life. MEASURE FOR MEASURE.] The story is taken from Cinthio's Novels, Decad. 8, Novel 5. POPE. We are fent to Cinthio for the plot of Measure for Measure, and Shakfpeare's judgment hath been attacked for fome deviations from him in the conduct of it, when probably all he knew of the matter was from Madam Ifabella, in The Heptameron of Whetstone, Lond. 4to, 1582. She reports, in the fourth dayes Exercife, the rare Hiftorie of Promos and Caffandra. A marginal note informs us, that Whetstone was the author of the Comedie on that fubject; which likewife had probably fallen into the hands of Shak. fpeare. FARMER. There is perhaps not one of Shakspeare's plays more darkened than this by the peculiarities of its author, and the unfkilfulness of its editors, by diftortions of phrafe, or negligence of tranfcription. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's remark is fo juft refpecting the corruptions of this play, that I fhall not attempt much reformation in its metre, which is too often rough, redundant, and irregular. Additions and omiffions (however trifling) cannot be made without conftant notice of them; and fuch notices, in the prefent inftance, would fo frequently occur, as to become equally tire fome to the commentator and the reader. Shakspeare took the fable of this play from the Promos and Cassandra of George Whetstone, published in 1578. See Theobald's note at the end. A hint, like a feed, is more or lefs prolific, according to the qualities of the foil on which it is thrown. This ftory, which in the hands of Whet. ftone produced little more than barren infipidity, under the culture of Shakfpeare became fertile of entertainment. The curious reader will find that the old play of Promos and Cassandra exhibits an almost complete embryo of Measure for Measure; yet the hints on which it is formed are fo flight, that it is nearly as impoffible to detect them, as it is to point out in the acorn the future ramifications of the oak. Whetstone opens his play thus: A& I. Scene i. "Promos, Mayor, Shirife, Sworde bearer: one with a bunche of keyes: Phallax, Promos Man. "You officers which now in Julio staye, "Know you your leadge, the King of Hungarie, "Phallax, reade out my Soveraines chardge. Phal. As you commaunde I wyll give heedeful eare. Pro. Phallax readeth the Kinges Letters Pattents, which must be fayre written in parchment, with fome great counterfeat zeale. "Loe, here you see what is our Soveraignes wyl, "Loe, heare his wish, that right, not might, beare fwaye : "Such |