That this was at the expense of his son is evident, for the son, as an actor, could not write himself "gentleman;" but John Shakespeare had been high bailiff of his native town. But Shakespeare, from his intimacy with great persons, had such a longing for family that'(and we quote Mr. Morgan again) his fellow-actors dubbed him "the gentle Shakespeare"-" gentle " meaning, at that time certainly, "of gentle blood," and "having no reference to manners or speech." The arms were granted "bend sable charged with a spear, on a field or." But it was with a crushed heart that Shakespeare would contemplate them; for the great sorrow of his life had then fallen upon him. In August, 1596, his only boy Hamlet, died, at the age of almost twelve years. We have no particulars, save the record in the Stratford register (for he was probably taken down to his native place to die); nor has Shakespeare left any memorial of his loss. And yet we are to believe that, not content with forming a disgraceful attachment to a married woman, he must needs parade it before his friends in a series of sonnets! Ben Jonson, far more rugged than "gentle Shakespeare," wrote a tender epitaph on his infant daughter Mary, and mourned in sweet and saddest verse the death of his darling boy, when seven years old; but a heavier bereavement visited Shakespeare, and yet he who, we are told, unveiled his inmost heart in his sonnets, left that blameless sorrow unsung.

The next year Shakespeare purchased New Place. He had still a wife and two daughters-Susanna, now fourteen, and Judith, twin sister of poor little Hamlet (mostly written Hamnet, though why the error is not arbitrarily corrected is as uncertain as it is peculiar).

And here let me say a last word about Anne Shakespeare, the woman who, when all is said, was wife to the greatest poet that ever lived, and the mother of his children. Who casts stones at any woman? Who throws a stone-save the mark!-at Anne Shakespeare?

In the epitaph, of which we give a fac-simile, evidently placed by her elder daughter on her tomb, and probably written by the husband, Dr. Hall, she is spoken of, not in terms of inflated eulogy, not in any of the "stock phrases" of the Latin epitaph, but as the gentle, pious, affectionate mother, whom the daughter, although a middle-aged woman, most lovingly mourns over. My mother, thou gavest me life and milk from thy bosom. Woe to me! for such gifts I can only offer a stone." But still she rejoices in the hope that the stone at our Lord's coming will be rolled away; then, "let the tomb remain closed, for my mother seeks the skies." Now, can we believe that a daughter with such feelings would coolly take possession of house and furniture, "plate, jewels, and household stuff whatsoever," while the real mistress of the house, her own mother, was thrust into some neglected corner with her "second best bed"? It is important to bear in mind here that views of the rights of "mistress of the family" were very

high in Shakespeare's day, and that one of the most fruitful sources of conjugal bickering was interference with the wife in her household management. To "rule the household," to have sole possession of "the keys," was conceded as her right, even by the bitterest opponents of feminine sway; to have ignored his wife, therefore, during his lifetime, and to have "cut her off in his will with an old bed," would have aroused the fury of every old woman in Stratford, and covered the name of Shakespeare with disgrace.

The facts, however, were, that Shakespeare, however he may have offered them up for the good of others, had built this splendid house and was occupying it, living at the rate (according to old Dominie Ward, of a thousand pounds a-year; which statement, calculating the value of money at that time, we easily take to mean that he lived profusely and to the top of his well-earned fortune!) This Dr. Hall was quite as thrifty as his father-in-law had been, and took as good care of his father-in-law's investments. In 1605 Shakespeare had bought for £440 the unexpired term of the moiety of a lease of the tithes of Stratford and three neighboring parishes. It was probably the most profitable of his many shrewd business operations. The lease had then thirty-one years to run; and his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, in 1624, sold the remaining twelve years' rights for £400, or within £40 of what the poet had paid for the property which yielded him and his heirs good returns for nineteen years.

When, in 1597, Burbadge pulled down The Theatre, transported its material to the Bankside and built the never-to-be-forgotten Globe, Edward Alleyn, who had already waxed rich by the operation of his Bear Garden and his Hope (not two hundred yards from the site selected by Burbadge), both bear and bull bating establishments took it as a challenge, and he built in an incredibly short time another theatre of the familiar oval model and christened it "The Swan," destined to become memorable from the fact that, to a performance in this theatre a clerical gentleman named John De Witt, Canon of St. Mary's, Utrecht, found his way in 1596, and was so impressed that he made a rough pencil sketch of the interior. This sketch he enclosed in a letter home, which happily was preserved, and five years ago was discovered by Dr. Goedertz in the Royal Library at Berlin, and is to-day the only thing which preserves or acquaints posterity with the interior plan of a theatre in Shakespearean times. (This sketch will be found engraved in the seventh volume of the Bankside Shakespeare, and is of course invaluable). Some of Ben Jonson's plays were performed here, until Shakespeare, by loaning money to him, convinced Ben by methods familiar to creditors, that the Globe was the best for his purposes. The Swan theatre was not a successful competitor to the Globe, and was soon abandoned.*

* See for detailed description of De Witt's sketch and description of the Swan, ante. Vol. vi., pp. 330-415.

The fact of Shakespeare having performed before Queen Elizabeth in December, 1594, is established by the following entry recorded in the manuscript accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber: "to William Kempe, William Shakespeare and Richarde Burbage, servauntes to the Lord-Chamberleyne, upon the councelles warrant dated at Whitehall, xv. to Marij, 1594, for twoe severall comedies or enterludes shewed by them before her Majestie in Christmas tyem laste paste, viz., upon St. Stephens daye and Innocentes daye xiij., Li. vj. s. viij. d, and by waye of her Majesties rewarde vij. Li. xiiv. s. iiij. d, in all xx. Li." The Court was then at Greenwich Palace. "For making ready at Greenwich for the Qu. Majestie against her Highnes coming thether, by the space of viij. daies mense Decembr., 1594, as appereth by a bill signed by the Lord Chamberleyne viij. Li. xiij. s. iiij. d," MS. ibid. "To Tho: Sheffeilde, under keeper of her Majesties house at Grenewich for Thallowaunce of viij Labourers there three severall nightes, at xij d the man, by reason it was nighte worke, for making cleane the greate chamber, the Presence, the galleries and clossettes, mense Decembr., 1594, xxiiij. s.” MS. ibid. The view of the palace here introduced is taken from one on a much larger scale, which was engraved by Basire from an ancient drawing and published in 1767. This is believed to be the only authentic representation of the building as it appeared at the time of Shakespeare's visit. There are a number of views belonging to other periods, and an engraving of modern date purporting to represent it, but the last is really from a sketch of a large Elizabethan mansion which formerly stood in the immediate neighborhood.

Shakespeare, now waxing rich, turns for investment of his savings to his native town. He left there while the goodwives and gossips shook their heads at a "ne'er-do-weel," and the local magistrates were getting him down in their books as a young man to be looked after. He will go back rich, and the richest in the town. Abraham Shirley, a Stratford alderman, toward the end of 1597, desired his brother-in-law, then in London, to inquire whether our fellow-townsman, Mr. Shakespeare is willing to invest in the Tithes (to “farm”- that is to advance the town money for them, and get back what he can by collecting them himself). He also adds that Mr. Shakespeare, if he did not feel like doing this, might be willing to loan them, on an emergency, something against the next tax levy. Quiney wants £30 (that is $180 or $900.00 of per cent. values), a request which could only have been made of a rich man. As Quiney and Shakespeare were always friends, and as Shakespeare's youngest daughter ultimately marries Quiney's son, doubtless the loan was made.

Meres' Palladis Tamia is now printed (1598), which speaks of Shakespeare as a great and widely honored poet of high rank as a dramatist. It is to us the first record. But we may be very sure it was not the