his wife only a second-best bed, and that, as originally written out, she was not mentioned in it at all, the bequest being introduced by an ex post facto interlineation. Malone drew unpleasant conclusions from this, which, however, seem groundless. Mr. Charles Knight has pointed out that the wife was entitled to dower, and was thus amply provided for by the ordinary operation of the law. Her provision would be all the greater from the fact that, with a single exception, Shakespeare's estates were not copyhold, but freehold. A handsome life-interest thus accrued to his widow, which rendered any testamentary bequest unnecessary. It was therefore solely from an affectionate desire to show that she was not out of the testator's mind that she was put down as a legatee. The best bed was one of those chattels which the law gives to the heir along with the mansion-house; but the second-best bed could be disponed as the owner desired. And who

knows, as Steevens suggests, but that it was far more valued by Shakespeare and Anne than the newer heirloom? Who knows but that thirty years before it had been their bridal bed? Both Knight and Halliwell have shown that in the Wills of many men of substance executed about the same period, nothing but a very trifling legacy was bequeathed to their wives, it being notorious that they were well and richly provided for otherwise. Had Anne Hathaway been little regarded either by her husband or her children,—had she dwelt "but in the suburbs of their good pleasure," she would not

have been buried beside Shakespeare when she died seven years after him, nor would a loving inscription, in which she is specially designed as the "wife of William Shakespeare," been placed upon her tombstone by her daughters. We may fairly, therefore, cherish the belief that he who wrote "Julius Cæsar" could say with Brutus,—

"You are my true and honourable wife;
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart."

Shakespeare had no old age. He had barely reached his fifty-third year when he died.

Within

a month of his decease he had declared himself to be "in perfect health and memory, God be praised!" What his last illness was, or how it was contracted, remains unknown. There is an apocryphal tradition that his friends Ben Jonson and the poet Drayton, who was afterwards deemed worthy of a tomb in Westminster Abbey, had come upon a visit, and that Shakespeare's hospitality so overflowed that a fever supervened, which ran a short course to a fatal termination. This may or may not be true. Had the world known then, so well as it knows now, whom it was losing, a thousand chroniclers would have recorded the minutest particulars of the parting

scene.

As matters are, all that we know is the bare fact that he expired at New Place on the 23d April, 1616, and was interred on the 25th in the chancel of Stratford Church. "That church," says Washington Irving, "stands on the banks of the Avon,

on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. The situation is quiet and retired, and the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. Small birds have built their nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirping, and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire.” It is there that Shakespeare "quiet consummation" hath.

A flat stone covers his grave, bearing the wellknown inscription,

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here;

Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."

Whether these lines were or were not Shakespeare's, they are at all events of an ancient date; for Dugdale quotes them in 1656 as his epitaph, cut on

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a plain free-stone, underneath which his body is buried." Some writers have characterized them as doggrel; but the author of the Sketch Book says they "have in them something extremely awful, and show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds." They had the merit, at any rate, of achieving their purpose, since they have secured for his native place the permanent possession of his remains.

A few years after his death, and before 1623, a

commemorative monument was erected on the north wall of the chancel, near the grave. The design evinces some taste; but the poetical inscription, which is partly in Latin and partly in English, possesses little merit. The most interesting portion of the monument is a bust of Shakespeare, the size of life, formed out of a block of soft stone. The sculptor was one Gerard Johnson, a "tombmaker," and contemporary of Shakespeare. The late Sir Francis Chantrey was of opinion that Johnson had probably modelled the features from a cast of Shakespeare's face taken after death. Such a cast may have been procured by his sonin-law, Dr. Hall, who was in London within a few weeks of his death, and may then have placed the cast in Johnson's hands. It is to be feared, however, that Johnson's knowledge of his art was not great. He painted over the whole work, and produced a coloured image rather than a piece of sculpture. The hands and face were of flesh-colour, the eyes of a light hazel, the hair and beard auburn, the doublet scarlet, and the gown or tabard black; the upper part of the cushion on which the arms rest was green, the under half crimson, and the tassels gilt. Those colours all faded in the course of time; they were renovated in 1749; but in 1793 the entire bust was covered with one or more coats of white paint, which destroyed its original character, and altered the expression of the face. Yet, with all these drawbacks, this bust is the earliest, and, on the whole, the most authentic

portrait which exists; and there is an individuality in the features, and in the unmistakable forehead, which leads to the belief that it presents a general, though defective resemblance of the great original.

There is only one other well-established cotemporary likeness of Shakespeare, and that is the print by Martin Droeshout, prefixed to the folio edition of 1623. The original engraving was poorly executed; and as impressions were taken from the plate for three subsequent editions, the copies now commonly met with are much deteriorated. Considerable interest, however, attaches to them, when it is recollected that the print was brought out by and for persons who had seen Shakespeare, and who would have rejected it if altogether unlike. Ben Jonson so far attests its accuracy in some lines which were printed under it, beginning,—

"This figure that thou here see'st put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to outdo the life."

There is a good deal of resemblance between this engraving and the bust, a fact which corroborates the authenticity of both.-Various other Shakespearian portraits have from time to time been brought forward as genuine; but these have in no instance been proved to have been executed from the life, and their value is consequently extremely problematical.

Cervantes and Shakespeare were taken from the