“William Shakespeare’s Father was a Butcher,—while he was a Boy he exercised his Father’s trade, but when he killed a Calf, he would do it in a high stile, and make a speech. This William being inclined _naturally_ to Poetry and Acting, came to London, I guess, about _eighteen_, and was an Actor in one of the Playhouses, and did act _exceedingly well_. He began _early_ to make Essays in dramatique Poetry.—The humour of the Constable in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ he happened to take at Crendon in Bucks.—I think I have been told that he left near three hundred pounds to a _Sister_.—_He understood Latin pretty well, _FOR_ he had been in his younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the Country._” I will be short in my animadversions; and take them in their order. The account of the _Trade_ of the Family is not only contrary to all other Tradition, but, as it may seem, to the instrument from the Herald’s office, so frequently reprinted.—Shakespeare most certainly went to London, and commenced Actor thro’ necessity, not natural inclination.—Nor have we any reason to suppose that he did act _exceedingly well_. Rowe tells us from the information of Betterton, who was inquisitive into this point, and had very early opportunities of Inquiry from Sir W. Davenant, that he was no _extraordinary Actor_; and that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_. Yet this _Chef d’Oeuvre_ did not please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for ever pestering the town with Pamphlets, published in the year 1596 _Wits miserie, and the Worlds madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this Age._ 4to. One of these Devils is _Hate-virtue_, or _Sorrow for another mans good successe_, who, says the Doctor, is “_a foule lubber_, and looks as pale as the Visard of the Ghost, which cried so miserably at the Theatre, like an Oister-wife, _Hamlet revenge_.” Thus you see Mr. Holt’s supposed _proof_, in the Appendix to the late Edition, that _Hamlet_ was written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever might be the case of the particular passage on which it is founded. Nor does it appear that Shakespeare did begin _early_ to make _Essays in Dramatique Poetry_: the _Arraignment of Paris_, 1584, which hath so often been ascribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winstanley, was written by George Peele; and Shakespeare is not met with, even as an Assistant, ’till at least seven years afterward.—Nash, in his Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of both Universities, prefixed to Greene’s _Arcadia_, 4to. _black Letter_, recommends his Friend, Peele, “as the chiefe supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of Poetrie, and _primus Verborum Artifex_: whose first increase, the _Arraignment of Paris_, might plead to their opinions his pregnant dexteritie of wit, and manifold varietie of inuention.”