ueen Elizabeth

Ty recorded in

Chamber: "to Burbage, ser =warrant dated

edies or enter mas tyem laste

e xiij., Li. vj. s. .xiiv. s. iiij. d Palace. "For

nst her Highnes cembr., 1594, as ij. Li. xiij. s. ij. of her Majesties rers there three ighte worke, for

the galleries and The view of

uch larger scale, ng and published

representation of

re's visit. There

dan engraving of

is really from a

erly stood in the

first then. Such mention as Meres gives is of a well-known m not at all the first announcement of a coming poet. Still we m aptly conclude that Meres' mention either chronicled or created money value for the name "Shakespeare," since it is immediately af the circulation of the Palladis Tamia that the name appears on a ti page-the Quarto of the Love's Labour is (or 's) Lost.

And now his plays are printed thick and fast, in 1599 and 16 (thickest in the latter year): they come, flood London, are quick purchased, and forty years thereafter, some of them continue to published by shrewd money-making booksellers. In 1602 he is c scribed in a deed as "William Shakespeare of Stratforde upon t Avon-that is, a country gentleman. In 1607 his eldest daught Susanna, marries Dr. Julien Hall, gentleman, physician. Susanna wa ed until she was twenty-eight-a long time in those days of early m riages. Possibly the thrifty doctor was waiting for an understanding to the dot. We know he lived at New Place with his father-in-law, a thereafter until the demise of the widow put the mansion into the marke

In Mr. William H. Fleming's Introduction to the sixth volume the Bankside Shakespeare (and there is no clearer among all the bri iant Introductions to that magnificent series), there is ample demo stration that Shakespeare had no cause to hate the Puritans (creepin as they were to the authority where they could smash theatres, drar atists and actors, and drive them out of the land into a forty year exile). And that Mr. Fleming is right, the records seem to prov Indeed, it seems to be an error to suppose that Shakespeare's play shared the general animosity of the Puritans to anything connecte with the stage. One of Milton's earliest poems was the magnificer apostrophe beginning:

"What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones?" And that austerest of the austere Puritans, and their principal write quotes frequently from Shakespeare in even his heavy theological trea tises. It was the terrible dressing they got from Ben Jonson and others no doubt, which finally irritated the Barebones party beyond endurance Doubtless not a Milton himself-certainly not a Cromwell-could hav contemplated a "Zeal-In-the-Land Busy" with fortitude. There i reason to believe that Shakespeare's wife and two daughters, at least were, if not Puritans, at least not bitter against them. Dr. Hall, it i well known, was one himself. There is the well-known "Item, for on quart of sack and one quart of clarett wine, given to a preacher at New Place, in the Stratford town records in 1614. And why should they supply wine to "a preacher" if not of the "preacher's" faith? It was not a clergyman of the Established Church, at any rate (for these were never designated as "preachers"). The occasion was one when a "silenced" preacher preached before the Aldermen and Burgesses

-known man, Still we may or created a mediately after ears on a title

GREENWICH PALACE, WHERE SHAKESPEARE PLAYED BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH, 1594.

For surely guests invited to New Place by the owners would not ha asked the town to pay for the wine they gave their guests, but h Puritans been unwelcome at New Place, a Puritan "preacher" wo not have been billeted there. And there is another consideration, v when Quiney writes Shakespeare for "your helpe with £30," he sa "I thanke God, and muche quiet my minde," and closes, "The Lor be with you and with us all. Amen." Another letter from Abraha Sturley to Quiney, above alluded to, asking him to induce Shakespea to invest in the Tithes, is addressed "Most loving and beloved in t Lord," and abounds with the like pious expressions. This stamps t writers of both letters at once as Puritans. It is an ear-mark whi cannot be gainsaid. Now, had not Shakespeare been well affected Puritans, Puritans would not have applied to him for money. TI much ought to be certain, for the lines were being tightly drawn those days between members of the same family, let alone between t "conventicles" and the play-houses.

So far as the records go, then, there is absolutely no reason in fa for believing that Shakespeare cared much one way or the other f priest, Puritan, church or conventicle. He minded his own business rarest of accomplishments!—ran his theatres, bought and sold, an grew rich at it-the committees on attending to other people's busine had not yet been formed, or, if they had been, Shakespeare was n a member! He appears not only to have grown rich but to hav deserved to!

Shakespeare died April 23, 1616. There is a tradition of ver respectable antiquity that he died of a fever contracted through goin on a drinking-bout with Ben Jonson and other boon companions; bu as not even teetotalers nowadays would venture to affirm that alcoh is productive of typhus or scarlatina, some other cause must be looked fo to account for the death of the great dramatist at the comparatively earl age of fifty-two. Mr. Nisbet, in his "The Insanity of Genius," claim that Shakespeare died of paralysis, or some disease akin to paralysi The signatures to the will, he holds, afford strong presumption of thi Dr. John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law, who printed in 1657 a book "Select Observations on English Bodies, or Cures both Empiricall an Historicall performed upon very eminent Persons in desperate Diseases first written in Latine by Mr. John Hall, physician, living at Stratford upon-Avon in Warwickshire, where he was very famous, as also in th countries adjacent, as appears by these Observations drawn out o severall hundreds of his as choysest; now put into English for commo benefit by James Cooke, practitioner in Physick and Chirurgery," (a second edition appeared in 1679, reissued in 1683 with a new title page), died without throwing any light upon the subject. Dr. Halli well-Phillipps remarks very acutely that the fever of which Shakespeare died was probably ascribed to the drinking-bout with Jonson and Dray

ould not have
ests, but had

cher" would

deration, viz.:

30," he says,
"The Lorde
rom Abraham

eShakespeare
Deloved in the

This stamps the
car-mark which

vell affected to

money. This

ghtly drawn in

ne between the

REAR OF DWELLING-HOUSES IN THE OLD TOWN OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

reason in fact

the other for

own business

t and sold, and

people's business
espeare was not

ich but to have

radition of very ed through going companions; but

firm that alcohol must be looked for mparatively early Genius," claims akin to paralysis. sumption of this.

in 1657 a book, th Empiricall and esperate Diseases. iving at StratfordDus, as also in the ons drawn out of English for common d Chirurgery," (a with a new titleabject. Dr. Halli which Shakespeare Jonson and Dray.