How the poet bequeathed his property may be read in the copy of his Will appended to the present Memoir. His wife, his eldest daughter Susanna married to Dr. Hall, his other daughter Judith married to Thomas Quiney, and his grand-daughter Elizabeth Hall, his son he would tell them the story as above. Now, by the way, his mother had a very light report. In those days she was called a trader." Aubrey's Mss. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. "If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit; and her husband, Mr. John Davenant (afterwards mayor of that city), a grave melancholy man; who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Davenant (afterwards Sir William), was then a little schoolboy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman, observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, to see his god-father Shakspeare. There's a good boy, said the other; but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain. This story Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's monument then newly erected in Westminster Abbey; and he quoted Mr. Betterton the player for his authority. I answered that I thought such a story might have enriched the variety of those choice fruits of observations he has presented us in his preface to the edition he had published of our poet's works. He replied, there might be in the garden of mankind such plants as would seem to pride themselves more in a regular production of their own native fruits than in having the repute of bearing a richer kind by grafting; and this was the reason he omitted it." Oldys's Ms. Collections for a Life of Shakspeare. Mr. Halliwell observes; "the anecdote related by Oldys is a common one in early jest-books, and has been attributed [applied] to several individuals. Taylor, the water-poet, thus relates it in his Workes, ed. 1630, ii. 184,— A boy, whose mother was noted to be one not overloden with honesty, went to seeke his godfather, and enquiring for him, quoth one to him, who is thy godfather? The boy repli'd, his name is goodman Digland the gardiner. Oh, said the man, if he be thy godfather, he is at the next alehouse, but I feare thou takest God's name in vaine."" Life of Shake 6 were the members of Shakespeare's family who survived him :-together with his sister Joan, the widow of William Hart (who was buried April 17th, 1616), and their children.-According to one authority," "his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be layd in the same grave with him :" the wish was not exactly fulfilled; but two of them at least,-his wife and his eldest daughter,-rest beside him in Stratford Church. On the brass plate which covers his wife's remains1o we read; "Heere lyeth interred the body of Anne, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of Avg. 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares. speare, p. 184, ed. folio.. “March 13, 1601. Upon a tyme when Burbidge played Rich. 3, there was a citizen greue soe farr in liking with him, that before shee went from the play, shee appointed him to come that night unto hir by the name of Ri. the 3. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was intertained, and at his game ere Burbidge came. Then, message being brought that Rich. the 3o. was at the dore, Shakespeare caused returne to be made, that William the Conquerour was before Rich. the 3. Shakespeares name Willm.-Mr. Tooly [Touse?]." Manningham's Diary, Ms. Harl. 5353.-The first of these stories would certainly seem to have originated in the vanity of Davenant, who was willing to be thought the son of Shakespeare even at the expense of his mother's reputation. The second reads like an invention, suggested by the names Richard and William. See pp. 74, 94, 118.-Of his three brothers-two, viz. Richard and Edmund, we know were dead; see pp. 95, 105: and it is most probable that Gilbert was also dead, since he is not mentioned in Shakespeare's will. 9 Dowdall: see note 37, p. 28. 10 In the register, under August 1623, her burial is entered thus,— Mrs. Shakespeare and Mrs. James having been buried on the same day. Ubera tu, mater, tu lac vitamque dedisti : Væ mihi, pro tanto munere saxa dabo. Sed nil vota valent: venias cito, Christe, resurget, The inscription on Mrs. Hall's12 tombstone is as follows; "Heere lyeth y body of Svsanna, wife of John Hall gent.; y daughter of William Shakespeare, gent.: shee deceased ye 11th of Jvly, A° 1649, aged 66. Witty13 above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to salvation was good Mistriss Hall: 11 I am informed by Mr. Halliwell that this "ut," which the poet (so to call him) must have written, is omitted in the brass plate. But the correspondent whom I have already quoted in p. 120, note 45, observes to me; "In the brass in memory of Shakespeare's wife my rubbing certainly gives the 'ut,' the existence of which Mr. Halliwell denies. It is interlined, and may be recent, but there it is." 12 We learn from the register that "Mrs. Susanna Hall widow" was buried July 16th, 1649.-The inscription on her husband's tombstone, which is next her own, runs thus; "Heere lyeth ye body of John Hall, gent.: hee marr. Svsanna ye daughter and coheire of Will. Shakespeare, gent. Hee deceased Nove 25. Ao 1635, aged 60. Hallius hic situs est, medica celeberrimus arte, Expectans regni gaudia læta Dei. Dignus erat meritis qui Nestora vinceret annis, Et vitæ comitem nunc quoque mortis habet." 13 These verses were removed to make room for an inscription to the memory of Richard Watts who died in 1707; but,—having been preserved by Dugdale (Ant. of Warwick. p. 686, ed. 1730,-they were some years ago restored at the expense of my friend the Rev. William Harness. Then, passenger, hast ne're a tear To weepe Them up with comforts cordiall? When thou hast ne're a teare to shed." Judith (who at the time of her father's death had been married little more than two months) bore three children to her husband Thomas Quiney; viz. Shakespeare, baptized Nov. 23d, 1616, and buried May 8th, 1617; Richard, baptized Feb. 9th, 1617-8, and buried Feb. 26th, 1638-9; and Thomas, baptized Jan. 23d, 1619-20, and buried Jan. 28th, 1638-9. Judith lived to see the Restoration, and was buried at Stratford, Feb. 9th, 1661-2.-No entry of her husband's burial is found in the Stratford register. The poet's grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall, was twice married; first, April 22d, 1626, to Thomas Nash, who died in 1647,14 without issue; secondly, June 5th, 1649, to John, afterwards Sir John, Barnard of Abington in Northamptonshire, by whom she had no offspring. She was buried at Abington, Feb. 17th, 1669-70.-On the death of Lady Barnard the lineal descent from Shakespeare was at an end :-and the honour of being 1 He is laid with the Shakespeares in the chancel of Stratford Church: "Heere resteth ye body of Thomas Nashe, esq. He mar. Elizabeth, the davg: and heire of John Halle, gent. He died Aprill 4. A. 1647, aged 53. Fata manent omnes: hunc non virtute carentem, Ut neque divitiis, abstulit atra dies; Abstulit, at referet lux ultima: siste, viator; Si peritura paras, per male parta peris." his representatives is now claimed by the Harts, the descendants15 of his sister Joan, who was buried at Stratford Nov. 4th, 1646. New Place,16 the abode of the poet's later years,— which is said to have been originally built by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of Henry the Seventh,―came, on Shakespeare's death, to Mrs. Hall, and, on her decease, to her only child, Elizabeth Nash, afterwards Lady Barnard. In this mansion, while it belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Nash, Queen Henrietta Maria (on her way to join the King) held her court for about three weeks, during the civil war, in 1643. As directed in Lady Barnard's will, New Place was sold after the death of herself and her husband. The purchaser was Sir Edward Walker, Knt., Garter Principal King at Arms; and his only child, Barbara, having married Sir John Clopton, the house returned again into the possession of the Clopton family. About 1720, Sir Hugh Clopton pulled down New Place, and entirely rebuilt it.17 His son-in-law and executor, Henry Talbot, Esq. (brother of the Chancellor Talbot) sold the new New Place, in 15 One of these descendants (according to her own account), a Mary Hornby, whose maiden name was Hart, used to obtain a subsistence by conducting strangers over the house in which Shakespeare is supposed to have been born. In 1820, after favouring me with some remarks on his dramas, she said, "I writes plays, sir." She then told me that she had published by subscription a tragedy called The Battle of Waterloo, and showed me the Ms. of another which she had composed, The Broken Vow, founded on a circumstance that happened to one of her relations. 16 See p. 61, note 11. 17 In the former edition of this Memoir, I stated that "Sir Hugh Clopton modernized the house by internal and external alterations :" but see Bellew's Shakespeare's Home, &c. pp. 21, 276. |