The memory of him for whom this stands

Shall outlive marble and defacers' hands:

When all to time's consumption shall be given,

Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven '"

We cannot say that we think these lines not unworthy of the Poet: we would gladly have omitted them as spurious, but that the authority seems too strong to be so dealt with. But because Shakespeare could write Hamlet, it does not therefore follow that he could achieve any thing very superb when his faculties were "cribb'd and cabin'd in" between the terms of an epitaph. As for the others, they are still less worthy of him, and, besides, have no such authority to force their reception.

When, or to whom, the Poet parted with his theatrical interests, we have no knowledge: that he did part with them, may be probably, though not necessarily, concluded from his not mentioning them in his will; and, from the large productiveness of such investments at that time, he would of course have no difficulty in finding purchasers enough. We have given Mr. Collier's estimate of his probable income after retiring from the stage: it appears certainly low enough. This brings us to the passage promised some pages back from Ward's Diary. A note at the end of the volume informs us that "this book was begun February 14, 1661, and finished April 25, 1663, at Mr. Brooks' house in Stratford-upon-Avon." The passage in question is as follows:

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'Shakespeare had but two daughters, one whereof Mr. Hall, the physician, married, and by her had one daughter, to wit, the Lady Barnard of Abingdon. - I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit, without any art at all He frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days liv'd at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year; and for that had an allowance so large, that he spent at the rate of £1000 a year, as I have heard. Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and, it seems, drank too hard; for Shakespeare

died of a fever there contracted. - Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays, and be versed in them, that I may not be ignorant in that matter."

The only point in this, to be noticed now, is the Poet's alleged expenditure. The honest and cautious vicar did well, to add to his statement "as I have heard." That Shakespeare kept up a liberal, not to say sumptuous, establishment, and was fond of entertaining his neighbours, and still more his old associates, after a generous fashion, we can well believe. But that he had £1000 a year to spend, or would have spent it if he had, is not credible. Such a-sum at that time would have gone as far, practically, as the salary of our American President can go now!

A few particulars respecting the Poet's family will bring us to the closing passage of his life. We have already seen that his father died in September, 1601, and his mother just about seven years after. There seems little room for doubt, that their latter years were passed under his roof. Joan, his only surviving sister, born in April, 1569, was married to William Hart, of Stratford, a hatter. The marriage probably took place out of Stratford, as there is no note of it in the register. Their first child was christened William, August 28th, 1600. Three other children, Mary, Thomas, and Michael, were born to them, respectively, in 1603, 1605, and 1608. Mary Hart died in December, 1607, and her father was buried April 17th, 1616, a few days before the Poet. The three surviving children were kindly remembered in their uncle's will, as was also their mother.

We have seen that Gilbert lived at Stratford, and appears to have taken some charge of the Poet's home affairs. It is not known whether he were married; but the Stratford register enters the burial, February 3d, 1612, of "Gilbert Shakespeare, adolescens;" who may have been his son. We have noticed elsewhere a tradition of one of the Poet's brothers having lived to a great age. If the tradition be true, it must, as will presently appear, refer to Gilbert, who

was born in 1566. Richard, the next brother, born in 1574, was buried at Stratford February 4th, 1613. Nothing further is heard of him. It is tolerably certain that Edmund, the youngest brother, born in 1580, became a player. The register of St. Saviour's parish, in which the Globe theatre stood, records the burial of "Edmund Shakespeare, a player," on the 31st of December, 1607. In the low estate of his father's affairs, he had most likely followed his brother's fortune. Nothing more is known of him. On the 16th of October, 1608, a little more than a month after the death of his mother, the Poet stood sponsor at the christening, in Stratford, of a boy named William Walker, who is also remembered in his will.

On the 5th of June, 1607, the Poet's eldest daughter, Susanna, then in her twenty-fifth year, was married to Mr. John Hall, of Stratford, styled "gentleman" in the register, but afterwards a practising physician of good standing. The February following, Shakespeare became a grandfather; Elizabeth, the first and only child of John and Susanna Hall, being baptized on the 17th of that month. It is supposed, and apparently with good reason, that Dr. Hall and his wife lived in the same house with the Poet; she was evidently deep in her father's heart; she is said to have had something of his genius and temper; the house was large enough for them all; nor are there wanting, as will be seen hereaf ter. signs of entire affection between Mrs. Hall and her mother. Add to all this the Poet's manifest fondness for children, and his gentle and affable disposition, and we have tne elements of a happy family and a cheerful home, such as might well render a good-natured man impatient of the stage. Of the moral and religious spirit and tenour of do mestic life at New Place, we are not allowed to know: at a later period, the Shakespeares seem to have been not a lit tle distinguished for works of piety and charity. The chamberlain's accounts show the curious entry, in 1614, of 18. 8d. "for one quart of sack and one quart of claret wine, given

to a preacher at the New Place." The worshipful corporation of Stratford seem to have been at this time rather addicted to puritanism, as they could not endure plays within their jurisdiction: why they should thus have volunteered a part towards entertaining the preacher, if he were not minded like them, and why they should have suffered him to put up at New Place, if he were, are matters about which we can only speculate.

On the 10th of February, 1616, Shakespeare saw his youngest daughter, Judith, married to Thomas Quiney, of Stratford, a vintner and wine-merchant. He was a son of the Richard Quiney who requested from the Poet a loan of £30 in 1598, and who died in May, 1602, being at that time high bailiff of Stratford. From the way Shakespeare mentions his daughter's marriage-portion in his will, it is evident that he gave his sanction to the match. Which may be cited as arguing that he had not himself experienced any such evils, as some have been fond of alleging, from the woman being older than the man; for his daughter had four years the start of her husband; she being at the time of her marriage thirty-one, and he twenty-seven.

Shakespeare was now in the meridian of life. There was no special cause that we know of, why he might not have lived many years longer. It were vain to conjecture what he might have done, had more years been given him: possibly, instead of augmenting his legacy to us, he might have

• We have seen, in Chapter ii., note 2, that the corporation be gan to bear down hard upon such naughtiness in 1602. In 1612, they made a more stringent order, as follows: "The inconvenience of plaies beinge verie seriouslie considered of, with the unlawfullnes, and how contrarie the sufferance of them is againste the orders hearetofore made, and againste the examples of other wellgoverned citties and burrowes, the companie heare are contented, and theie conclude, that the penaltie of x. s., imposed in Mr. Bakers yeare for breakinge the order, shall from henceforth be x. li. upon the breakers of that order; and this to hold untill the nexte commen councell, and from thenceforth for ever, excepted that it be then finalli revoked and made voide."

recalled and suppressed more or less of what he had already written as our inheritance. For the last two or three years, he seems to have left his pen unused; as if, his own ends once achieved, he set no value on that mighty sceptre with which he since rules so large a portion of mankind. That the motives and ambitions of authorship had little to do in the generation of his works, is evident from the serene carelessness with which he left them to shift for themselves; tossing those wonderful treasures from him, as if he thought them good for nothing but to serve the hour. Still, to us, in our ignorance, his life cannot but seem too short. For aught we know, Providence in its wisdom may have thought best not to allow the example of a man so gifted living to himself.

Be that as it may, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE departed this life on the 23d of April, 1616.

Two days after, so much of him as could die was buried beneath the chancel of Stratford church. His burial took place on the day before the anniversary of his baptism; and it has been commonly believed that his death fell on the anniversary of his birth. If so, he had just entered his fifty-third year; but there is no good authority for the belief, save the then usual custom of baptizing three days after the birth.

As to the immediate cause or occasion of the Poet's death, we have no information beyond what has been quoted from Ward. Stratford seems to have been rather noted in those days for bad drainage. Garrick tells us that even in his time it was "the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved, wretched looking town in all Britain." Epidemics were frequent there in the Poet's time; and not long after his death we hear, from Dr. Hall, of "the new fever," which "invaded many of the Stratford people: he also mentions, though without stating the time, his having cured Michael Drayton, excellent poet," of a tertian ague. Perhaps Drayton was on a visit to his friend Shakespeare at the time; but, as he

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an