The genealogy of this story, it must be acknowledged, is very correctly deduced. It first appeared in print in The Lives of the English Poets, published in 1753, under the name of Mr. Cibber. "Sir William D'Avenant (says the author of that book) told it to Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Rowe; Mr. Rowe told it to Mr. Pope, and Mr. Pope told it to Dr. Newton, the late editor of Milton; and from a gentleman who heard it from him, 'tis here related "." This gentleman, without doubt, was Dr. Johnson, who was a school-fellow of Bishop Newton's, and has himself introduced the anecdote in his edition of Shakspeare, published in 1765, and whose amanuensis, Mr. Robert Shiels, had a considerable share in the compilation above-mentioned. We have here cer

6 Cibber's Lives of the Poets, vol. i. p. 130.

7 As this anecdote does not stand on the authority of Mr. Shiels, or Mr. Theophilus Cibber, the person here meant, it is unnecessary to enter into any disquisition concerning their respective claims to the work here quoted. However, as this curious circumstance of literary history has been involved in some confusion, it may not be improper to make some observations upon it. It is observable that Dr. Johnson told Mr. Boswell, "that the work was entirely composed by Mr. Shiels. The booksellers (he added) gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas to allow Mr. Cibber to be put in the title-page as the author: by this a double imposition was intended; in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all, and in the second place, that it was the work of old Cibber." Boswell's Life of Johnson, 8vo. ii. 392.

Mr. Boswell adds, that Dr. Johnson has given the same account in his Life of Hammond, where he says, "the manuscript of Shiels is now in my possession."

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The writer of an article in the Monthly Review for May, 1792, has strenuously endeavoured to refute this statement. 'The alleged design of making the compilement pass for the work of old

tainly a very fair pedigree; notwithstanding which, I am utterly incredulous with respect to this first introduction of our poet to theatrical reputation. I do

Mr. Cibber (he asserts) is founded on an uncharitable construction, no such thought being harboured either by the proprietors or first designer of the work." To this, on the part of Dr. Johnson, it is only necessary to reply, that the thoughts or intentions of men are inscrutable; we can only judge of them by their actions. With what possible view could the name of Mr. Cibber be put to this work, but that it should be supposed to be the production of the father, who was known throughout England by that designation, and not that of his son, with whom for more than twenty years the publick had been acquainted by the title of Theophilus Cibber; and who during his father's life-time had no title to the designation here given him?

"The materials for this work (according to the same anonymous writer's account) were collected and digested by Mr. Shiels, for which he was paid seventy pounds; but his work was revised and corrected in the proof sheets, by Theophilus Cibber, who added some new lives and notes, and received for his trouble twenty guineas in the first instance, and at a subsequent period some additional sum; and soon afterwards (we are further told) embarked for Dublin, but the ship was cast away, and every person on board perished." He embarked for Dublin five or six years after this transaction, in the year 1758. I do not perceive any material difference between these two accounts. Mr. Theophilus Cibber is, indeed, not here acknowledged to have been in prison, though, I believe, this was the fact; and there is a slight mistake in the sum said by Dr. Johnson to have been paid him; nor does Dr. Johnson appear to have been acquainted with his labours, as a corrector, vamper, and reviser of the printed proof sheets of Shiels's work; but his work undoubtedly it originally was; and Dr. Johnson had probably perused it in its original form; and in that form, it is believed, it was destroyed, with several of his own manuscripts.

The true state of the case, however, yet remains to be disclosed. The fact, I believe, is, that the only valuable additional information inserted in this work by Theophilus Cibber, was de

not, however, object to this anecdote, because, as has been suggested by Mr. Steevens, Mr. Rowe, having omitted to insert it in his Life of Shakspeare, must therefore be supposed not to have believed it; for though he did believe it, he might not think it worth insertion: nor do I object to it on another ground taken by Mr. Steevens, who doubts whether it was then the custom to ride on horseback to the play. "The most popular of the theatres (says that gentle

rived from the notes of the late Mr. Oldys and Mr. Coxeter. "When I left London (says Oldys, in his manuscript notes on Langbaine) in the year 1724, to reside in Yorkshire, I left in the care of the Rev. Mr. B's family, with whom I had several years lodged, among many other books, goods, &c. a copy of this Langbaine, in which I had written several notes, and references to further knowledge of these poets. When I returned to London in 1730, I understood my books had been dispersed; and afterwards becoming acquainted with Mr. Coxeter, I found that he had bought my Langbaine of a bookseller. As he was a great collector of plays and poetical books, this must have been of service to him; and he has kept it so carefully from my sight, that I never could have the opportunity of transcribing into this I am now writing in, the notes I had collected in that. He died on the 10th of April, being Easter Sunday, 1747, of a fever, which grew from a cold caught at an auction of books over Exeter Change, or by sitting up late at the tavern afterwards."

After Mr. Coxeter's death, his books and MSS. were purchased by Osborne, the well-known bookseller of Gray's Inn, and were offered for sale in the year 1748. The book in question, No. 10131, in Osborne's catalogue for that year, was purchased either by T. Cibber, or by some bookseller who afterwards put it into his hands; and from the notes of Oldys and Coxeter, the principal part of the additional matter furnished by Cibber for the Lives of the Poets, was unquestionably derived. Mr. Coxeter's MSS. are mentioned in the title-page, but Oldys is unnoticed. Probably the secret history of this business was not then known.

man) were on the Bankside; and we are told by the satirical writers of the time, that the usual mode of conveyance to these places was by water; but not a single writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the practice of having horses held during the time of the exhibition."-In this and many other disquisitions, a little attention to dates will save much trouble. It should be recollected, that we are now speaking of the year 1586, or 1587, at which time, though Southwark was not without a theatre, the most popular playhouses appear to have been that specifically called the Theatre, which was situated at Newington Butts, and the Green Curtain in Shoreditch 8. To the former of these two theatres in summer, and to the latter in winter, as well as to the plays performed by the choir-boys of St. Paul's, and the representations at the Bull in Bishopsgate-street, the Cross Keys in Gracechurch-street, and the Bell-Savage on Ludgate-hill, the spectators were under the neces

8 The Lord Chamberlain's servants, in which company Shakspeare first entered himself, performed, till the year 1600, at The Curtain in Shoreditch. See The History of the Stage, vol. iii. There had been a theatre in Whitefriars, but it was pulled down before the period we are now speaking of.

In a sermon preached by John Stockwood in 1578, the preacher, computing the whole sum made by the theatre in a year, speaks of eight places for stage exhibitions in the city. As his object was to aggravate the mischief arising from plays, he undoubtedly would not have left Southwark out of his account, had there been any playhouses on the Bankside.-Stephen Gosson, in his Plays confuted in Five several Actions, no date, but written about 1580, mentions exhibitions at Paul's [St. Paul's school-room], the Black fryars, and every other playhouse in London, but says not a word of Southwark.

sity of going either on foot or on horseback, coaches being then certainly not in ordinary use. Nor is it true, that no writer of the time has alluded to this mode of conveyance to the theatre; for Sir John Davies, and Dekker, himself a dramatick writer, expressly allude to it'. Though the fine gentleman

9 According to the writer of an old pamphlet called A Dialogue between Coach and Sedan, the first coach used in England was one given by the Earl of Arundel to Queen Elizabeth, in which she went to St. Paul's cross, to hear a sermon [preached on account of a victory] obtained over the Spaniards in 1588. Anderson, in his Hist. of Commerce, p. 421, says Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel, introduced the use of coaches in England in 1580; and the continuator of Stowe's Annals says a coach was made for the Queen by a Dutchman in 1564. However this may have been, it is certain that coaches were not in ordinary use when Shakspeare may be supposed to have first visited London.

I

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Faustus, nor lord, nor knight, nor wise, nor old,

"To every place about the Towne doth ride; "He rides into the fields, Playes to behold," &c.

Epigrams written about the year 1590; printed at Middlebourg, no date, but about 1.598. See also The Guls Horne-booke, by Thomas Dekker, 4to. 1609: By this time [he is describing an ordinary] the pairings of fruit and cheese are in the voyder, cardes and dice lie stinking in the fire; the guests are all up, the guilt rapiers ready to be hanged, the French lacquey and Irish footboy shrugging at the doores, with their masters hobby horses to ride to the new play; that's the rendevous, thither they are gallopt in post; let us take a pair of oares and row lustily after them." Here we see that even when the Globe theatre on the Bankside, in Southwark, was in high reputation, gentlemen frequently rode thither, instead of going by water.

Actors themselves rode to the playhouses in London. See Taylor's Wit and Mirth, § 30. " Master Field, the player, riding up Fleet-street a great pace [going probably to the play-house in Blackfriars], a gentleman called him and asked him what play was played that day;" &c.