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It has been generally supposed that, during the latter years of his life, he had retired from the mere cares and business of theatrical life, and settled down to the enjoyment of the calm felicity of home at Stratford, with an unwithered soul, and with a satisfied ambition. Age had not chilled the powers of enjoyment; effort had not worn off the fine edge of his intellect; time had not weakened the potency of his fancy, nor deadened the vigorous pulsations of his heart. His observation was mellowed, his knowledge ripened, his sagacity matured, his humanity refined, and his scope of thought widened. He had full stores of information; the skill and experience of a life of active artistic effort were his; his acquaintance with what would touch and take the souls of men, was extensive; his theory of dramatic esthetics was formed. There was every hope, therefore, that in after years he would mould and fashion high and glorious themes into new forms, and enliven them by the rare glow and suffusion of his unequalled genius; but "the man died before the poet had felt the touch of time," and he early departed

"From the world's stage, to the grave's tiring-room."

CHAPTER V.

DEATH, FAITH, AND FAMILY OF SHAKESPERE.

"We are such stuff

As dreams are made of; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep."-Tempest.

"When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover."-Sonnet 32.

"This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him.
The third day comes a frost-a killing frost;
And when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening-nips his root,

And then he falls.”—Henry VIII.

Of the peculiar habits, the specialities of manner, the private talk, the brilliant wit, the kindly every-day wisdom, the outward personal appearance and demeanour of Shakespere, we have no lively, much less living picture. Scandal and gossip hold aloof from his character, and no Boswellian parasite seems to have clung to his skirts in all companies. He appears to have kept himself clear of the petty rivalries of authorship, of the worthless praises of pot-companions, of sycophants and flatterers, and of peddling poetasters. Eulogy he won; satire he escaped in all but the earliest part of his career. His success does not seem to have enkindled an envy or enmity bitter enough to survive. A few witticisms, of no great merit, are recorded as his; a little gossip has been expended upon his conversations, but the greater portion of what is commonly written on these subjects, so far as he is concerned, is either fictitious, traditionary, or inferential. Ingenious guesses in this case possess little value; and we can scarcely ingenuously infer more from what we know of him than that-unlike many of the playwrights of his time-he did not affect to be a "Sir Oracle" at

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his club. He did not beg money from his patrons by his dedications, or extort it by his satire. He did not hug the trivial verse writers of the day to his heart, that they might preface his works with their verbal rhodomontade; he did not excite the ire which defames, nor encourage the unscrupulous toadyism which adulates without cause. With regard to him, these are both conspicuous from their absence." Yet we cannot conceal from ourselves that there is a pleasure in knowing, as we do, on the authority of Aubrey, that "he was a handsome, well-made man; very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant, smooth wit." Fuller's fancy picture was probably founded on good information, and is reliable so far, especially as it exactly tallies with the actual and contemporary testimony of Chettle, Davies, &c., and even of Ben Jonson himself, who says, with that broad, dashing earnestness which so characterized him, "He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped." "There was ever more in him to be praised than pardoned."

If he merited and won this character when he was shaping the golden fabric of his visions for representation by

"L 'Comedians, tragedians,

Tragi-comedians, comi-tragedians, pastorists,

Humourists, clownists, satirists," &c.,

on the rude scaffoldage of that "wooden O"-the globe,-how much more worthy of it was he likely to be when the uncongenial destiny of struggle was over! when he roved at will among the sequestered woodlands of his native place, and stretched his eye across the

"Rich leas

Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease,"

in Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, of which he was the proprietor! when the vista of his life was lighted up by hope and fancy, by consciousness of superior powers, of well-earned fame, of an arduous struggle passed, of an early ambition realized, and of a life of thought which had ripened in fruit, a-glow with a perennial beauty, and instinct with undying worth! The year 1616 opened upon him with a keen sense of responsibility, no doubt, for

on 25th January he set himself to make his will, the preparation of which the attorney, perhaps, delayed for two months. A marriage feast occupied him early in the year; friends,-literary friendsJonson and Drayton-at a later period enjoyed his hospitality; but "spongy April"— his birth-month, called him off "to sleep in dull, cold marble." The record of the year runs thus:

1616. On 10th Feb., 1616, Judith, the poet's youngest daughter, then aged 31, was married to Thomas Quiney, vintner and wine merchant, Stratford.

On 25th March, Shakespere executed his will, and prepared his worldly affairs against the sudden advent of the

"Last scene of all in life's eventful history,"

his death,*—which took place, as is generally believed, exactly on his fifty-third birthday, 23rd April, 1616,-for two days thereafter the Stratford burial register was supplied with the following addition to its contents, viz.,—

"1616, April 25. Will. Shakspere, Gent."

"A Festo Annunciationis, 1616.

Curious enough, of all days, on this same day, Shakespeare, as his stone monument still testifies, at Stratfordon-Avon, died :

-

'Obiit Anno Domini, 1616,
Etatis 53. Die 23 Apr.'

While Oliver Cromwell was entering himself of Sidney Sussex College, William Shakespeare was taking his farewell of this world. Oliver's father had, most likely, come with him; it is but twelve miles from Huntingdon; you can come and go in a day. Oliver's father saw Oliver write in the Album at Cambridge: at Stratford, Shakespeare's Ann Hathaway was weeping over his bed. The first world-great thing that remains of English history-the literature of Shakespearewas ending. The second world-great thing that remains of English history-the armed appeal of Puritanism to the invisible God of heaven, against many very visible devils on earth, and elsewhere,—was, so to speak, beginning. They have their exits and their entrances; and one people, in its time, plays many parts. Chevalier Florian, in his 'Life of Cervantes,' has remarked that Shakespeare's death-day, 23rd April, 1616, was likewise that of Cervantes, at Madrid. Twenty-third of April is, sure enough, the authentic Spanish date; but Chevalier Florian has omitted to notice that the English twenty-third is of old style. The brave Miguel died ten days before Shakespeare, and already lay buried, smoothed right nobly into his long rest. The historical student can meditate on these things."-Carlyle's “Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations,” vol. i. 60–63.

Of the manner and cause of his death nothing is certainly known. A tradition, extant forty-five years after his demise, asserts, " Shakespear, Drayton, and Ben Jonson, had a merrie meeting, and itt seems drunk too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted." It is hard to believe this. We should have preferred knowing that reflections such as these occupied the last earthly hours of William Shakespere!

"Poor soul! the centre of my sinful earth,

Foiled by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,-
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms-inheritors of this excess-
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul! live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine by selling hours of dross ;
Within be fed, without be rich no more;

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men:

And Death once dead, there's no more dying then!"

Or, better still, as Charles Knight suggests, that his dying utterances were known to have been in the opening words of his will: "I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting."

Has it ever been ascertained that Jonson and Drayton were in Stratford in 1616? His bust apparently contradicts the idea of his having "died of a fever;" for it is not emaciated at all. Shakespere's plays do not contain the same riotous glorying in the shame of drunkenness as many of his contemporaries. A "merry meeting" may have occurred shortly before his death,-might it not even bave been his daughter's wedding ?-but that may not have been the cause of it. Conjecture, however, is vain. Such is the tradition, and the fact only remains that he was fated, then and thereafter, "To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;"

"to become a kneaded clod" of lifeless clay; and to take his place "With dead men's rattling bones,

With reeky shanks, and yellow, chapless sculls."

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