Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/422

402 fine picture, because Mr. Walpole has said he painted very few pictures, or that there are very few of his hand in England; but this is not so; Mr. Parsons has had above a hundred of his go through his hands. He allows the picture however, though it has not the merit of rarity, to be admirably executed.

On looking a few days since over the General Advertiser, 1748, for Macklin’s letter relative to Ford and Shakspeare which I have proved to be fiction, I found, the actress, was in that year weak enough to think of performing the part of George Barnwell for her husband’s benefit. However, before the day came she thought better of it, and performed Lady Macbeth instead.

Mr. Fenton mentions in his notes on Waller’s Poems, pp. 29, 46, that Spencer was matriculated at Cambridge, on the 20th May, 1569; and supposing him to have been in his sixteenth year, he concluded that this poet was born in 1553; but at that time it was much more common to go to the university at twelve years old than at sixteen. If he was but twelve in 1569, he was born in 1557. His birth took place in East Smithfield in the parish of St. Botolph. I examined the register of that parish in vain for his baptism. I did not commence I found till 1550.

There is I suppose some mistake with respect to the portrait shown as Sacharissa’s at |Mr. Waller’s house; for on my mentioning to Lord Macartney at