But the sharpness of the fatire is said to have fung the man fo feverely, that he never forgave it.3 FENERATORIS EPITAPHIUM. "Ten in the hundred lies under this ftone, That at fuch as lent mony gratis wondred, But thus being now of life bereav'n, 'Tis a hundred to ten he's scarce gone to heav'n." So, in Camden's Remains, 1614 : "Here lyes ten in the hundred, "In the ground fast ramm'd; 'Tis an hundred to ten But his foule is damn'd." MALONE. STEEVENS 7 Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.) The Rev. Francis Peck, in his Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, 4to. 1740, p. 223, has introduced another epitaph (imputed on what authority is unknown) to Shakspeare, It is on Tom-a-Combe, alias Thin-beard, brother to this John, who is mentioned by Mr. Rowe. “Thin in beard, and thick in purse; Never man beloved worfe ; "He went to the grave with many a curfe "The devil and he had both one nurie." STEEVENS. I fufpect that thefe lines were fent to Mr. Peck by fome perfon that meant to impofe upon him. It appears from Mr. John Combe's will, that his brother Thomas was dead in 1614. John devifed the greater part of his real and perfonal estate to his nephew Thomas Combe, with whom Shaklpeare was certainly on good terms, having bequeathed him his fword. Since I wrote the above, I find from the Regifter of Stratford, that Mr. Thomas Combe) the brother of John) was buried there, Jan. 22, 1609-10. MALONE.. 8 -- the arpness of the fatire is faid to have Aung the man fo feverely, that he never forgave it.) I take this opportunity to avow my disbelief that Shakspeare was the author of Mr.Combe's Epitaph, or that it was written by any other perfon at the request of that gentleman. If Betterton the player did really He died in the 53d year of his age, and was vifit Warwickshire for the fake of collecting anecdotes relative to our author, perhaps he was too eafily fatisfied with fuch as fell in his way, without making any rigid fearch into their authenticity. It appears alfo from a following copy of this infcription, that it was not afcribed to Shakipeare fo early as two years after his death. Mr. Reed of Stape-Inn obligingly pointed it out to me in the Remains, &c. of Richard Braithwaite, 1618; and as his edition of our epitaph varies in fome measure from the latter one published by Mr. Rowe, I fhall not hesitate to tranfcribe it: Upon one John Combe of Siralford upon Avon, a notable Ufurer, faftened upon a Tombe that he had caused to be built in his Life-Time: Ten in the hundred muft lie in his grave, But a hundred to ten whether God will him have: "Who then must be interr'd in this tombe? "Oh (quoth the divill) my John a Combe." Here it may be obferved that, ftrict y fpeaking, this is no jocular epitaph, but a malevolent prediction; and Braithwaite's copy is furely more to be depended on (being procured in or before the year 1618) than that delivered to Betterton or Rowe, almost a century afterwards. It has been already remarked, that two of the lines faid to have been produced on this occafion, were printed as an epigram in 1608, by H. P. Gent. and are likewife found in Camden's Remains, 1614. I may add, that a ufurer's folicitude to know what would be reported of him when he was dead, is not a very probable circumflance; neither was Shakspeare of a difpofition to compofe an invective, at once fo bitter and uncharitable, during a pleasant converfation among the common friends of himself and a gentleman, with whofe family he lived in fuch friendship, that at his death he bequeathed his fword to Mr. Thomas Combe as a legacy. A mifer's monument indeed, conftructed during his life-time, might be regarded as a challenge to fatire; and we cannot wonder that anonymous lampoons fhould have been affixed to the marble defigned to convey the character of fuch a being to pofterity. I hope I may be excufed for this attempt to vindicate Shakspeare from the imputation of having poifoned the hour of confidence and feftivity, by producing the feverest of all cenfures on one of his company. I am unwilling, in short, buried on the north fide of the chancel, in the great to think he could fo wantonly and fo publickly have expreffed his doubts concerning the falvation of one of his fellowcreatures. STEEVENS. Since the above obfervations first appeared, (in a note to the edition of our author's Poems which I published in 1780,) I have obtained an additional proof of what has been advanced, in vindication of Shakspeare on this fubject. It occurred to me that the will of John Combe might poffibly throw fome light on this matter, and an examination of it fome years ago furnished me with fuch evidence as renders the ftory recorded in Braithwaite's Remains very doubtful; and fill more firongly proves that, whoever was the author of this epitaph, it is highly improbable that it fhould have been written by Shakspeare. The very first direction given by Mr. Combe in his Will is, concerning a tomb to be erected to him after his death. .. My will is, that a convenient tomb of the value of threefcore pounds fhall by my executors hereafter named, out of my goods and chattels firftrayfed, within one year after my decease, be fet over me, " So much for Braithwaite's account of his having erected his own tomb in his life-time. That he had any quarrel with our author, or that Shakspeare had by any act ftung him fo feverely that Mr. Combe never forgave him, appears equally void of foundation; for by his will he bequeaths to Mr. William Shakfpere Five Pounds. It is probable that they lived in intimacy, and that Mr. Combe had made fome purchafe from cur poet; for he devifes to his brother George, the clofe or grounds known by the name of Parfon's Close, alias Shakfpere's Clofe. It must be owned that Mr. Combe's will is dated Jan. 28, 1612-13, about eighteen months before. his death; and therefore the evidence now produced is not abfolutely decifive, as he might have erected a tomb, and a rupture might have happened between him and Shakspeare, after the making of this will: but it is very improbable that any fuch rupture fhould have taken place; for if the fuppofed caufe of offence had happened fubfequently to the execution of the inftrument, it is to be prefumed that he would have revoked the legacy to Shakfpeare: and the fame argument may be urged with refpect to the direction concerning his tomb. Mr. Combe by his will bequeaths to Mr. Francis Collins church at Stratford, where a monument is placed in the wall. On his grave-ftone underneath is, 2 Good friend, 3 for Jefus' fake forbear To dig the duft inclofed here. Bleft be the man that fpares thefe ftones, the elder, of the borough of Warwick, (who appears as a legatee and fubfcribing witnefs to Shakspeare's will, and therefore may be prefumed a common friend,) ten pounds; to his godfon John Collins, (the fon of Francis,) ten pounds; to Mrs. Sufanna Collins (probably godmother to our poet's eldest daughter) fix pounds, thirteen fhillings, and four-pence; to Mr. Henry Walker, (father to Shakspeare's godfon,) twenty fhillings; to the poor of Stratford twenty pounds; and to his fervants, in various legacies, one hundred and ten pounds. he was buried at Stratford, July 12, 1614, and his will was proved, Nov. 10, 1615. Our author, at the time of making his will, had it not in his power to fhew any teftimony of his regard for Mr. Combe, that gentleman being then dead; but that he continued a friendly correfpondence with his family to the laft, appears evidently as Mr. Steevens has obferved) from his leaving his fword to Mr. Thomas Combe, the nephew, refiduary legatee, and one of the executors of John. On the whole we may conclude, that the lines preserved by Rowe, and inferted with fome variation in Braithwaite's Remains, which the latter has mentioned to have been affixed to Mr. Combe's tomb in his life-time, were not written till after Shakspeare's death; for the executors, who did not prove the will till Nov. 1615, could not well have erected a fair monument,, of confiderable éxpence for thofe times, till the middle or perhaps the end of the year 1616, in the April of which year our poet died. Between that time and the year 1618, when Braithwaite's book appeared, fome one of those perfons (we may prefume) who had fuffered by Mr. Combe's feverity, gave vent to his feelings in the fatirical composition preferved by Rowe; part of which, we have seen, was borrowed from epitaphs that had already been printed. That Mr. Combe was a money-lender, may be inferred from a clause in his will, in which he mentions his good and juft debtors; to every one of whom he remits twenty fhillings for every twenty pounds, and fo after this rate for a greater or leffer debt, on their paying in to his executors what they owe. Mr. Combe married Mrs. Rofe Clopton, Auguft 27, 1560; and therefore was probably, when he died, eighty years old, His property, from the defcription of it, appears to have been confiderable. In juftice to this gentleman it fhould be remembered, that in the language of Shakspeare's age an ufurer did not mean one who took exorbitant, but any, interelt or ufance for money; which many then confidered as criminal. The opprobrious term by which fuch a perfon was diftinguished, Ten in the hundred, proves this; for ten per cent. was the ordinary intereft of money. See Shakspeare's will.-Sir Philip Sidney dire&s by his will, made in 1586, that Sir Francis Wallingham fhall put four thousand pounds which the teftator bequeathed to his daughter, to the beft behoofe either by purchase of land or leafe, or fome other good and godly ufe, but in no cafe to let it out for any ufury at all.", MALONE. 9 He died in the 53d year of his age,) He died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, and had exactly completed his fifty-fecond year. From Du Cange's Perpetual Almanack, Gloss. in v. Annus, (making allowance for the different ftyle which then prevailed in England from that on which Du Cange's calculation was formed, it appears, that the 23d of April in that year was a Tueiday. No account has been tranfmitted to us of the malady which at fo early a period of life deprived England of its brighteft ornament. The private note-book of his fon-in-law Dr. Hall,* containing a fhort ftate of the cafes of his patients, was a few years ago put into my hands by my friend, the late Dr. Wright; and as Dr. Hall married our poet's daughter in the year 1607, and undoubtedly attended Shakspeare in his laft illness, being then forty years old, I had hopes this book might have enabled me to gratify the publick curiofity on this fubject. Butunluckily the earliest cafe recorded by Hall, is dated in 1617. He had probably filled fome other book with memorandums of his practice in preceding years; which by fome contingency may hereafter be found, and inform pofterity of the particular Dr. Hall's pocket-book after his death fell into the hands of a furgeon of Warwick, who published a tranflation of it, (with fome additions of his own) under the title of Seled Obfervations on the English bodies of eminent perfons, in defperate difeafes, &c. The third edition was printed in 1683. |