on the day following mortgaged the premises to the vendor Henry Walker for the residue of the sum; and subsequently, when he had paid off the whole of the purchase-money, he leased them for a term of years to John Robinson, who is mentioned in his Will as the tenant in possession. The object of Shakespeare in this purchase may have been, as Mr. Collier conjectures, to accommodate in some way his friend and fellow actor John Heminge and the two other persons named with him in the deed. It is probable that, after Shakespeare had bought New Place in 1597, his visits to Stratford became more frequent; and to the time when he finally took up his residence with his family at New Place it would seem that we may assign an earlier date than that of the conveyance just described, which he certainly executed in London, whither, when business called him, he still occasionally went.-We have seen that he first quitted Stratford, if not as a fugitive, at least as an adventurer with "the world all before him:" and we now behold him established there for the remainder of his life, with an income which enabled him to support the character of a gentleman, and (though only about one half of his immortal labours was as yet known to the public through the medium of the press) with a fame superior to that of any contemporary poet.-Ward, who was appointed to the vicarage of Stratford in 1662, had "heard" that Shakespeare "in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with "28 two plays every year, and for itt had an allowance so large, that hee spent att the rate of 1,000l. a-year.' But, as Mr. Collier remarks, "it is utterly incredible that subsequent to his retirement [to Stratford] he 'supplied the stage with two plays every year:""29 in ́deed, I suspect that before 1613 he had entirely abandoned dramatic composition. And of Shakespeare's wealth Ward had evidently received a very exaggerated account; for it represents him as living at the rate of about five thousand pounds per annum according to the present value of money. "The latter part of his life," says Rowe, "was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, 28 Diary (printed in 1839), p. 183.—In a tract, entitled Ratseis Ghost, or the Second Part of his Madde Prankes and Robberies, Printed by V. S., 4to, n. d., is a passage, the concluding portion of which seems plainly to allude to Shakespeare:-the hero of the tract, Gamaliel Ratsey, a highwayman, is addressing one of a set of strolling players, whom he had paid 40s. for acting before him, and had afterwards robbed of the money:-" And for you, sirrah (says he to the chiefest of them), thou hast a good presence upon a stage; methinks thou darkenest thy merit by playing in the country: get thee to London, for if one man [i. e. Burbadge] were dead, they will have much need of such as thou art. There would be none, in my opinion, fitter than thyself to play his parts; my conceit is such of thee, that I durst all the money in my purse on thy head to play Hamlet with him for a wager. There thou shalt learne to be frugal (for players were never so thrifty as they are now about London), and to feed upon all men; to let none feed upon thee; to make thy hand a stranger to thy pocket, thy heart slow to perform thy tongue's promise; and when thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy thee some place of lordship in the country, that, growing weary of playing, thy money may there bring thee to dignity and reputation: then thou needest care for no man; no, not for them that before made thee proud with speaking their words on the stage. Sir, I thank you (quoth the player) for this good council: I promise you I will make use of it; for I have heard, indeed, of some that have gone to London very meanly, and have come in time to be exceeding wealthy." 29 Life of Shakespeare, p. 193, sec. ed. retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasion, and, in that, to his wish; and is said to have spent some years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them it is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury. It happened that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakespear in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately. Upon which, Shakespear gave him these four verses: Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd; 'Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav'd: If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb? Oh, ho, quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.' But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it."30 Though 30 Life of Shakespeare.-A different version of the epitaph is given by Aubrey, who says that Shakespeare made it "at the tavern at Stratford" when Combe " was to be buryed." Mss. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. Another occurs in Brathwaite's Remains, 1618. Indeed, the verses are found, with sundry variations, in our old miscellanies.-According to Ms. Lansd. 213, three officers, "a captaine, a lieutennant, and an ancient, all three of the military company in Norwich," while on a tour in 1634, saw at Stratford Shakespeare's monument, "and one of an old gentleman, a batchelor, Mr. Combe, upon whose name the sayd poet did merrily this story may not be altogether a fabrication, it cannot be true as related above. John Combe certainly appears to have been a highly respectable and charitable fann up some witty and facetious verses, which time would nott give us leave to sacke up."-Nay, more, there is extant another epitaph, also attributed to Shakespeare, on Thomas Combe! The lines wrongly entitled Shakespeare upon the King have been already mentioned: see note p. 92. An epitaph (or rather a double epitaph), said to have been composed by our author, is preserved in a collection of Epitaphs at the end of Dugdale's Visitation of Salop, a Ms. in the Heralds' College :-Dugdale, describing a monument in Tong Church, erected to the memory of Sir Thomas Stanley, Knight, informs us that "these following verses were made by William Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian : Written upon the east end of this tombe. This stony register is for his bones, His fame is more perpetuall than these stones; Written upon the west end thereof. Not monumentall stone preserves our fame, Shall outlive marble and defacers' hands: When all to time's consumption shall be given, Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." A Ms. of the time of Charles the First also gives the above epitaph as the production of Shakespeare: see Mr. Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 162, folio ed. A Ms. vol. of poems, by Herrick and others, among Rawlinson's Collections in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, contains the following When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet, Elias James to nature payd his debt, And here reposeth: as he liv'd, he dyde; The saying in him strongly verefide, inhabitant of Stratford, and at the time of his decease31 he undoubtedly was on the best terms with Shakespeare, to whom he left a legacy of five pounds in token of esteem: we find, too, that Shakespeare be Such life, such death: then, the known truth to tell, WM. SHAKESPEARE." In a Ms. volume of songs and poems collected by a Richard Jackson (which was formerly in the possession of Thorpe the bookseller) the song "From the rich Lavinian shore," &c., is called "Shakespeare's rime which he made at the Mytre in Fleete Streete."-Mr. Collier, in his Hist. of English Dram. Poet. iii. 276, committed a trifling mistake in printing as Shakespeare's four lines concerning the wine at the Mitre, which he found attributed to our author in the same Ms. volume: they are merely four verses of Ben Jonson's crst Epigram, a little altered. A story of Shakespeare and some of his companions having accepted the challenge of the Bidford topers and sippers to drink with them, &c. was communicated to Malone by a native of Stratford, Life of Shakespeare, p. 500, sqq., and is related with some variations in Ireland's Picturesque Views, p. 229, sqq. Shakespeare, we are told, composed these lines on the occasion; "Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillborough, and Hungry Grafton, Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.” [1863. A new and fuller version of this nonsensical story ("as related on the spot by Mr. Bagshawe, of Bidford, to whom it was told in his childhood by the old people of the village") is spun out into several pages of the sheerest absurdity by Mr. Fullom in his History of W. Shakespeare, &c. p. 109, sqq.] To have done with such trash :-As Shakespeare was one day leaning over a mercer's door in his native town, a drunken blacksmith with a carbuncled face accosted him thus; 66 Now, Mr. Shakespeare, tell me, if you can, The difference between a youth and a young man :" The poet immediately answered; "Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple, The same difference as between a scalded and a coddled apple." 31 July 10th, 1614.-" His principal residence was at the college [Stratford College,-very near New Place], which he purchased, about the year 1596, of the Crown," &c. Wheler's Guide to Stratford-upon |