were particularly admired; and his vanity could not resist the
opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed
to _any other_ part of the performance.

To whom then shall we ascribe it?--Somebody hath told us, who should seem
to be a _Nostrum-monger_ by his argument, that, let _Accents_ be how they
will, it is called _an original Play of William Shakespeare_ in the _Kings
Patent_, prefixed to Mr. Theobald's Edition, 1728, and consequently there
_could_ be no fraud in the matter. Whilst, on the contrary, the _Irish_
Laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks (and were it true, it would be certainly
decisive) that the Plot is borrowed from a Novel of Cervantes, not
published 'till the year after Shakespeare's death. But unluckily the same
Novel appears in a part of _Don Quixote_, which was printed in Spanish,
1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.--The same reasoning, however, which
exculpated our Author from the _Yorkshire Tragedy_, may be applied on the
present occasion.

But you want _my_ opinion:--and from every mark of Style and Manner, I make
no doubt of ascribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us that he left
some Plays in MS.--These were written about the time of the _Restoration_,
when the _Accent_ in question was more generally altered.

Perhaps the mistake arose from an _abbreviation_ of the name. Mr. Dodsley
knew not that the Tragedy of _Andromana_ was Shirley's, from the very same
cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tell us that Marston's Plays
were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of _William Shakespeare_, the
famous Comedian."--Here again I suppose, in some Transcript, the real
Publisher's name, _William Sheares_, was _abbreviated_. No one hath
protracted the life of Shakespeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is
pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.

Shirley is spoken of with contempt in _Mac Flecknoe_; but his Imagination
is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a passage in the
fourth book of the _Paradise Lost_, which hath been suspected of
_Imitation_, as a _prettiness_ below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where
_Uriel_ glides _backward and forward_ to Heaven on a _Sunbeam_. Dr. Newton
informs us that this might possibly be hinted by a Picture of Annibal
Caracci in the King of France's Cabinet: but I am apt to believe that
Milton had been struck with a Portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the Comedy
of the _Brothers_, 1652