Mr. Malone has observed, that our author’s prose compositions, should they be discovered, would exhibit the same perspicuity, the same cadence, the same elegance and vigour, which we find in his plays. In 1751, an attempt was made to impose on the public by a book entitled ‘A Compendious or Brief Examination of certayne Ordinary Complaints of divers of our Countrymen in these our Days, &c., by William Shakspeare, Gentleman;’ the signature to which, in the original edition of 1581, was “W. S., Gent.;” and Dr. Farmer has clearly proved the initials to mean “William Stafford, Gent.” Another and more impudent forgery was attempted by Ireland, who published in 1795 a volume, entitled ‘Shakspeare’s Manuscripts.’ The fraud met with partial success, and the tragedy of ‘Vortigern’ was performed as one of Shakspeare’s, to the great disgust, it is said, of John Kemble, who had to act in it much against his will. Malone exposed the imposition in 1796, and Ireland himself ultimately acknowledged it. With respect to the probable character of Shakspeare’s prose compositions, it is needless to speculate on it, as we have no reason to believe that he ever wrote any prose, except for the stage. Some interesting criticisms of Mrs. Siddons on the chief female characters of Shakspeare will be found in the life of that eminent actress in this volume. We may here introduce another observation of hers on Constance in ‘King John.’ She said that the intuition of Shakspeare in delineating that character struck her as all but supernatural: she could scarcely conceive the possibility of any man possessing himself so thoroughly with the most intense and most inward feelings of the other sex: had Shakspeare been a woman and a mother, he must have felt neither less nor more than as he wrote.