FROM

SHAKESPEARE;

ARRANGED

ACCORDING TO THE PLAYS, &e.

WITH

A PREFACE AND NOTES;

NUMERAL REFERENCES TO WACH SUBJECT;

; AND

A COPIOUS INDEX.

" TAKE HIM FOR ALL IN ALL,
6 WE NE'ER SHALL LOOK UPON HIS LIKE AGAIN.”

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,

PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON,
BY GEDGE AND BARKER, BURY.

4

THE HEAD OF SHAKESPEARE

Prefixt to these Aphorisms, is copied from the original

Print (by Droeshout) to the Folio Editions of his Works printed in 1623 and 1632, to which was annexed the Inscription of Ben Jonson, inserted in page xxxi of the. Introduction.

An APHORISMI is a cleor, cincise, detacht, and pithy Sen

tence ; impressively conveying to Observation and Memory some imporiant Truth

Delivery of Opinions or Precepts by way of APHORISMS,

shews whether an Author have entered deeply into his Subject or not: for they are ridiculous unless drawn from the central parts of Science.

Bacon.

INTRODUCTION.

MR. ROWE, in his Biographical Introduction, which he has modestly calld “Some Aco' count of the Life, &c. of Mr. William Shakespeare," has related an Anecdote, which, perhaps, can no where be better plac'd than at the head of this Collection of APHORISMS. He informs us, that in a Conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William Davenant, Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson *, . Sir John Suckling, who was a professt Admirer of Shakespeare, had undertaken bis Defence against Ben Jonson

* I was not aware of this being the correct orthography, until it was pointed out to me by the Author of the Life of Chaucer, (Mr. Godwin) but I since find it was the spelling adopted in Mr. Capell's Life of Shakespeare, and also by Mr. Walter Scott, in his elegant Edition of Dryden's Workss just publish'd.

b