following. Why the purchase was made, does not appear, but, as John Heminge, William Johnson, and John Jackson were parties to the transaction, Mr. Collier aptly conjectures that the Poet advanced the £80 to them, expecting they would refund it before the expiration of the mortgage; but as they did not do so, he paid the other £60, and the property remained his.

On the 29th of June, the same year, the Globe theatre was burnt down, and certain contemporary notices of the event, which are quoted in our Introduction to the play, ascertain that King Henry VIII. was in performance at the time. As the conflagration was very rapid, giving the people barely time to save themselves, it is likely that many of the Poet's manuscripts perished, and perhaps some, of which no copies were left. The theatre was soon rebuilt, and, as Stowe informs us, "at the great charge of King James, and many noblemen and others.". The Poet is not traced as having any thing to do with the rebuilding of the establishment; but, if he suffered no loss himself, we may be sure that he took a lively interest in the losses of his fellows, and was forward to lend them a helping hand.

The summer following, he had a narrow escape from a similar calamity at home. On the 9th of July, 1614, Stratford was devastated by fire, to such an extent that the people made an appeal to the nation or relief. At the instance of various gentlemen of the neighbourhood, the King issued a brief in May, 1615, authorizing collections to be made in the churches for the rebuilding of the town, and alleging that fifty-four dwelling-houses had been destroyed, besides much other property, amounting in all to upwards of £8000. The result of the appeal is not known; nor is it known what influence the Poet may have used towards procuring the royal brief. With such friends as Southampton and Pembroke among the nobility, added to his own high position, he could not want means of acting with effect on the Court, and probably with the more effect, for being himself not

seen.

The fall of 1614 finds Shakespeare in London using his influence effectually in the cause of his fellow-citizens. It seems that several persons had set on foot a project for in closing certain commons near Stratford, which the public were interested to keep open. The Poet had private reasons, also, for bestirring himself in the matter, as the projected inclosure was likely to affect his interest in the lease of the tithes. A legal instrument, dated October 28th, 1614, is extant, whereby William Replingham binds imself to indemnify William Shakespeare and Thomas Greene for any loss which they, in the judgment of certain referees, may sustain in respect of the yearly value of the tithes they jointly or severally hold, "by reason of any enclosure or decay of tillage there meant or intended."

A few days after, Greene is found in London moving in the business as clerk of the Stratford corporation. In some notes of his made at the time, we have the following, dated November 17th, 1614: "My cousin Shakespeare coming yesterday to town, I went to see him, how he did. He told me that they assured him they meant to inclose no further than to Gospel-bush, and so up straight (leaving out part of the dingles to the field) to the gate in Clopton hedge, and take in Salisbury's piece; and that they mean in April to survey the land, and then to give satisfaction, and not before; and he and Mr. Hall say they think there will be nothing done at all."

Greene returned to Stratford soon after, and his notes, which he continued to make, inform us that the corporation had a meeting on the 23d of December, and sent letters to Shakespeare and Mainwaring: "Letters written, one to Mr. Mainwaring, another to Mr. Shakespeare, with almost all the company's hands to either. I also writ myself to my cousin Shakespeare the copies of all our acts, and then also a note of the inconveniences that would happen by the inclosure." The letters to Shakespeare are lost: in that to Mainwaring, which is preserved, the corporation urged in

strong terms the damage Stratford would suffer by the projected inclosure, and also the heavy loss the people had late ly sustained by fire. Mr. Arthur Mainwaring was a person in the domestic service of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, which explains why he was written to in the matter. It is pretty clear from these slight notices, that the corporation left the care of their interests very much to Shakespeare, who had approved himself a good hand at bringing things to pass in actual life, as well as in ideal. The result was, an order from Court not only forbidding the inclosure to proceed, but peremptorily commanding that some steps already taken should be forthwith retraced.

This Thomas Greene was an attorney of Stratford. The origin and degree of his relationship to the Poet are not known. The parish register of Stratford records the burial of "Thomas Greene, alias Shakespeare," on the 6th of March, 1590. Probably enough, the attorney of 1614 may have been his son; and the relationship between the two families may furnish the true key to that remarkable acquaintance which the Poet shows with the mysteries of the law.

Of this wonderful being, in whom all sorts of men both actual and possible seem to have been mysteriously wrapped up, nothing further is known till his death. As evidence how early began that profound homage to his genius, which was to follow him as one who "was not of an age, but for all time," we may worthily quote some verses of a poem that first appeared in 1614, entitled The Ghost of Ricnaru the Third:

"To him that imp'd my fame with Clio's quill;
Whose magic rais'd me from Oblivion's den;
That writ my story on the Muses' hill,
And with my actions dignified his pen;
He that from Helicon sends many a rill,

Whose nectar'd veins are drunk by thirsty men
Crown'd be his style with fame, his head with bayes,
And none detract, but gratulate his praise

"Yet, if his scenes have not engross'd all grace
The much-fam'd action could extend on stage;
If Time to Memory have left a place
For me to fill, t'inform this ignorant age;
To that intent I show my horrid face,
Impress'd with fear and characters of rage:
Nor wits nor chronicles could e'er contain

The hell-deep reaches of my soundless brain."

The poem is divided into three parts, severally entitled The Character, The Legend, and The Tragedy; and these stanzas, wherein Richard is of course represented as telling his own story, are at the opening of the second part. The author gives only his initials, C. B., which are commonly thought to stand for Charles Best ; though the poem is much better than any thing else that came from Best. Be that as it may, C. B. was certainly an author highly distinguished in his time, as appears by the commendatory poems upon him from such hands as Jonson, Chapman, Browne, and Wither.

Tradition makes the Poet to have been something of an epitaph-writer in his latter years. Several specimens in this line are attributed to him, and one of them stands on such testimony that we cannot well refuse it. This is an epitaph on the tomb of Sir Thomas Stanley, in Tonge church, who died in 1576. Dugdale, in his collection of monumental inscriptions for the county of Salop, taken in 1663, gives a copy of it, and states that "the following verses were made by William Shakespeare,. the late famous tragedian :'

WRITTEN UPON THE EAST END OF THE TOMB.

Ask who lies here, but do not weep;

He is not dead, he doth but sleep:
This stony register is for his bones;

His fame is more perpetual than these stones;
And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
Shall live when earthly monument is none.'

"WRITTEN ON THE WEST END THEREOF
Not monumental stone preserves our fame,
Nor sky-aspiring pyramids our name.

The memory of him for whom this stands

Shall outlive marble and defacers' hands.

When all to time's consumption shall be given,

Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven.'"

We cannot say that we think these lines not unworthy of the Poet: we would gladly have omitted them as spurious, but that the authority seems too strong to be so dealt with. But because Shakespeare could write Hamlet, it does not therefore follow that he could achieve any thing very superb when his faculties were "cribb'd and cabin'd in" between the terms of an epitaph. As for the others, they are still less worthy of him, and, besides, have no such authority to force their reception.

When, or to whom, the Poet parted with his theatrical interests, we have no knowledge: that he did part with them, may be probably, though not necessarily, concluded from his not mentioning them in his will; and, from the large productiveness of such investments at that time, he would of course have no difficulty in finding purchasers enough. We have given Mr. Collier's estimate of his probable income after retiring from the stage: it appears certainly low enough. This brings us to the passage promised some pages back from Ward's Diary. A note at the end of the volume informs us that "this book was begun February 14, 1661, and finished April 25, 1663, at Mr. Brooks' house in Stratford-upon-Avon." The passage in question is as follows :

"Shakespeare had but two daughters, one whereof Mr. Hall, the physician, married, and by her had one daughter, to wit, the Lady Barnard of Abingdon. — I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit, without any art at all. He frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days liv'd at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year; and for that had an allowance so large, that he spent at the rate of £1000 a year, as I have heard. - Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and, it seems, drank too hard; for Shakespeare