quarter_. When I consider the exceeding Candour and Good-nature of
our Author, (which inclin’d all the gentler Part of the World to
love him; as the Power of his Wit obliged the Men of the most
delicate Knowledge and polite Learning to admire him;) and that he
should throw this humorous Piece of Satire at his Prosecutor, at
least twenty Years after the Provocation given; I am confidently
persuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving Rancour on the
Prosecutor’s Side: and if This was the Case, it were Pity but the
Disgrace of such an Inveteracy should remain as a lasting Reproach,
and _Shallow_ stand as a Mark of Ridicule to stigmatize his
Malice.

It is said, our Author spent some Years before his Death, in Ease,
Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends, at his Native
_Stratford_. I could never pick up any certain Intelligence, when He
relinquish’d the Stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by
some, that _Spenser_’s _Thalia_, in his _Tears of his Muses_, where
she laments the Loss of her _Willy_ in the Comic Scene, has been
apply’d to our Author’s quitting the Stage. But _Spenser_ himself,
’tis well known, quitted the Stage of Life in the Year 1598; and,
five Years after this, we find _Shakespeare_’s Name among the Actors
in _Ben Jonson_’s _Sejanus_, which first made its Appearance in the
Year 1603. Nor, surely, could he then have any Thoughts of retiring,
since, that very Year, a Licence under the Privy-Seal was granted
by K. _James_ I. to him and _Fletcher_, _Burbage_, _Phillippes_,
_Hemmings_, _Condel_, &c. authorizing them to exercise the Art of
playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as well at their usual House call’d
the _Globe_ on the other Side of the Water, as in any other Parts of
the Kingdom, during his Majesty’s Pleasure: (A Copy of which Licence
is preserv’d in _Rymer_’s _Foedera_.) Again, ’tis certain, that