to a goodly size, and produced abundant fruit. "The planting of this tree by Shakespeare," says Malone, "is as well authenticated as anything of that nature can be. The Rev. Mr. Davenport informed me that Mr. Hugh Taylor, the father of his clerk, who was in 1790 eighty-five years old and an alderman of Warwick, told him that he lived, when a boy, at the next house to New Place; that his family had inhabited the house for almost three hundred years; that it was transmitted from father to son, during the last and present century, that this tree (of the fruit of which he had often eaten in his younger days, some of its branches hanging over his father's garden) was planted by Shakespeare; and that till this was planted there was no mulberry tree in that neighbourhood." A similar tradition was preserved in the Clopton family; and in 1742 Sir Hugh Clopton entertained the two celebrated actors, Garrick and Macklin, under the flourishing and time-honoured branches. The aforesaid Vicar of Frodsham, however, the Rev. Francis Gastrell, took a dislike to the tree, on account of its popularity, which exposed his reverence to frequent requests to permit strangers to see it. This interruption to his own ease was intolerable; so the leaden-souled priest, who had never drawn one breath of inspiration in the garden where Shakespeare had walked, ordered the tree, in the year 1756, when it was at its full growth and of remarkable beauty, to be cut down and cleft into pieces for firewood. When the assertion

is made that a man may do what he likes with his own, it may be well to remember that the slave-owner lashes the negro to within an inch of his life, and that the Rev. Francis Gastrell cut down Shakespeare's mulberry tree and demolished his house.

He

After his purchase of New Place and the adjacent lands, Shakespeare's relationships with Stratford became closer and more constant. There is evidence that he at one time thought of buying a messuage at Shottery, in remembrance, perhaps, of his youthful days of love-making there. farmed some land in the immediate vicinity of Stratford, which was probably managed for him by his brother Gilbert. The books of the local Burgh Court show that decrees were once or twice issued at Shakespeare's instance for the price of corn and other farm produce owing to him. In the year 1596 application was made to the Herald's College for a grant of a coat of arms to John Shakespeare; and there can be little doubt that this was done at the instigation of his eldest son. The grant was not obtained till 1599. It bears in gremio that the reasons for conceding it were that John Shakespeare's great-grandfather had done "faithful and approved service to the late most prudent prince, King Henry VII.;" that lands and tenements had been given for his services, which had continued in the family since; and that the said John Shakespeare had married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden

In

of Wellingcote, a "gentleman of worship." consideration of these premises, "and for the encouragement of his posterity, unto whom such blazon of arms and achievements of inheritance from their said mother, by the ancient customs and laws of arms, may lawfully descend," a shield and coat of arms were assigned. The arms of the Shakespeare family were,-in a field of gold upon a bend sable, a spear of the first, the point upward, headed argent; and for a crest or cognizance, a falcon with his wings displayed, standing on a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear headed or steeled silver. These arms were impaled upon another escutcheon with "the ancient arms of the said Arden of Wellingcote," and the whole were surmounted by the motto, "Non sanz droict."

It was probably between the years 1606 and 1608 that Shakespeare transferred his head-quarters from London to Stratford. There is evidence of his being occasionally in London after 1608; but he ceased to appear upon the stage prior to that year. He was one of the actors in Ben Jonson's "Sejanus," which was produced at the Globe in 1603; but he did not perform in the same author's "Volpone," which was brought out in 1605. In 1604 the London theatres were closed for a time on account of the plague; and it is likely that Shakespeare then went to Stratford. In a diary written in 1662 by the Rev. Mr. Ward, Vicar at Stratford, the author says, "Mr. Shakespeare frequented the plays all his younger time, but in

his older days he lived 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 £1,000 a-year."

Some events which took place in the Shakespearian circle early in the seventeenth century must have occasioned alternate pain and pleasure. In September, 1601, his father died; in June, 1607, his daughter Susannah married Dr. John Hall; on the last day of the same year he buried, at the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark, his youngest brother Edmond, who died at the early age of twenty-seven, after a brief career as an actor; in February, 1608, he became a grandfather by the birth of a daughter to Mrs. Hall; in the September following he lost his mother, Mary Arden or Shakespeare; and on 4th February, 1613, his brother Richard, who was ten years his junior, was buried at Stratford.

Among the plays which Shakespeare wrote between the years 1606 and 1613 are generally included "Macbeth," "Julius Cæsar," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Coriolanus," "The Winter's Tale," "Othello," "The Twelfth Night," and "The Tempest." It is believed by Thomas Campbell, De Quincey, and others, that "The Tempest" was his last play; and, as Campbell says, this gives it "a sort of sacredness." Campbell further suggests that Shakespeare may be regarded as in some sort typified in Prospero, the potent and benevolent magician, who moved within that circle

"none

durst tread but he;" and De Quincey, following up the same idea, conjectures that it was with a prophetic feeling of the end that Shakespeare makes Prospero "solemnly and for ever renounce his mysterious functions, symbolically break his enchanter's wand, and declare that he will bury his books, his science, and his secrets

'Deeper than did ever plummet sound.""

It is not within the scope of the present biographical sketch to enter into any critical analysis of Shakespeare's separate plays; but if "The Tempest" was written in his forty-ninth year, it affords the completest evidence that his fancy retained all its freshness. None of his creations are more original than Caliban and Ariel, none more beautiful than Miranda, none more lofty than Prospero. It is difficult to say that "The Tempest" is finer, as a romantic drama, than "As You Like It," "Cymbeline," or "The Winter's Tale," but it takes rank with these, and is as luminous with poetry as any of them.

The last eight or nine years of Shakespeare's life were probably among the happiest which he spent on this "bank and shoal of time." His mind was matured, his passions were softened, the fever of expectation was over; he had won his position, he had fulfilled the mission which the Almighty had assigned to him. And with how much tranquil earnestness had he done his work! He had involved himself in no hatreds; stood aloof from all