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are two coats, I observe, in Dugdale, where three filver fishes are borne in the name of Lucy; and another coat, to the monument of Thomas Lucy, fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quartered in four feveral divifions, twelve little fifhes, three in each divifion, probably Luces. This very coat, indeed, feems alluded to in Shallow's giving `the dozen white Luces, and in Slender faying, He may quarter. When I confider the exceeding candour and good-nature of our author, (which inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him; as the power of his wit obliged the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him;) and that he should throw this humorous piece of fatire at his profecutor, at least twenty years after the provocation given; I am confidently perfuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving rancour on the prosecutor's fide: and if this was the cafe, it were pity but the difgrace of fuch an inveteracy fhould remain as a lafting reproach, and Shallow ftand as a mark of ridicule to ftigmatize his malice.

It is faid, our author spent fome years before his death, in eafe, retirement, and the con verfation of his friends, at his native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain intelligence, when he relinquifhed the ftage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by fome, that Spenfer's Thalia, in his Tear of his Mufes, where she laments the lois of her Willy in the comic scene, has been applied to our author's quitting the ftage,

But

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But Spenfer himself, 'tis well known, quitted, the stage of life in the year 1598; and, ⚫ five years after this, we find Shakespeare's name among the actors in Ben Johnson's Sejanus, which first made its appearance in the year 1603. Nor, furely, could he then have any thoughts of retiring, since that very year, a licence under the privy-feal was granted by King James I. to him and Fletcher, Burbage, Phillips, Hemings, Condel, &c. authorizing them to exercise the art of playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as well at their ufual houfe called the Globe on the other fide of the water, as in any other parts of the kingdom, during his majesty's pleasure: (a copy of which licence is preserved in Rymer's Foedera.) Again, it is certain, that Shakespeare did not exhibit his Macbeth, till after the union was brought about, and till after King James I. had begun to touch for the evil: for it is plain, he has inferted compliments, on both those accounts, upon his royal master in that tragedy. Nor, indeed, could the number of the dramatic pieces. be produced, admit of his retiring near fo early as that period. So that what Spenfer there fays, if it relate at all to Shakespeare, must hint at fome occafional recess he made for a time upon a dif gust taken: or the Willy, there mentioned, must relate to some other favourite Poet. I believe, we may fafely determine that he had not quitted in the year 1610. For in his Tempeft, our author makes mention of the Bermuda Islands,

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which were unknown to the English, till in 1609, Sir John Summers made a voyage to NorthAmerica, and difcovered them: and afterwards invited fome of his countrymen to settle a plantation there. That he became the private gentleman, at least three years before his decease, is pretty obvious from another circumftance: I mean, from that remarkable and well-known Story, which Mr. Rowe has given us of our author's intimacy with Mr. John Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury and upon whom Shakespeare made the following facetious epitaph.

Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,
'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd;
If any man afk who lies in this tomb,

Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe. This farcaftical piece of wit was, at the gentleman's own request, thrown out extemporally` in his company. And this Mr. John Combe L take to be the same, who, by Dugdale in his antiquities of Warwickshire, is said to have died in the year 1614, and for whom at the upper end of the quire, of the guild of the holy cross at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a statue thereon cut in alabaster, and in a gown, with this Epitaph. "Here lyeth interred the body of “John Combe, Efq; who died the 10th of July,

1614, who bequeathed several annual charities "to the parish of Stratford, and 100l. to be lent

to fifteen poor tradefmen from three years to "three

"three years, changing the parties every third, year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per Annum, "the increase to be diftributed to the almesThe donation has all the air

66 poor there.".

of a rich and fagacious ufurer,

Shakespeare himself did not furvive Mr. Combelong, for he died in the year 1616, the 53d of his age. He lies buried on the north fide of the chancel in the great church at Stratford; where, a monument, decent enough for the time, is erected to him, and placed against the wall. He is represented under an arch in a fitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left refted on a fcroul of paper. The Latin diftich, which is placed un-. der the cushion, has been given us by Mr. Pope, in this manner.

or his graver, INGENIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arté Maronem, 51

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Terra tegit, Populus mœret, Olympus habet.

I confefs, I don't conceive the difference betwixt ingenio and genio in the firft verfe. They seem to me intirely fynonomous Terms; nor was the Pylian fage Neftor celebrated for his ingenuity, but for an experience and judgment owing to his long age. Dugdale in his antiquities of Warwickfhire, has copied this diftich with a diftinction which Mr. Rowe has followed, and which certainly reftores us the true meaning of the epitaph.

JUDICIO Pylium, Genio Socratem,

&c.

In 1614, the greater part of the town of Stratford was confumed by fire; but our Shakespeare's houfe, among fome others, escaped the flames." This House was firft built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a. younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood, who took their name from the manor of Clopton. Sir Hugh was sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III. and Lord-mayor in the reign of King Henry VII. To this gentleman the town of Stratford is indebted for the fine ftone-bridge, confifting of fourteen arches," which at an extraordinary expence he built over the Avon, together with a caufe-way running at the west-end thereof; as alfo for rebuilding the' chapel adjoining to his houfe, and the crofs ifle' in the church there. It is remarkable of him, that, though he lived and died a bachelor, among the other exten five charities which he left both to the city of London and town of Stratford, he bequeathed confiderable legacies for the marriage of poor maidens of good name and fame both in London and at Stratford. Notwithstanding which large donations in his life, and bequests at his death, as he had purchased the manner of Clopton, and all the eftate of the family, fo he left the fame again to his elder brother's fon with a very great addition: (a proof, how well beneficence and œconomy may walk hand in hand in wife families :)

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