His heiress. Legacies to friends. to make public his indifference or dislike. Local tradition subsequently credited her with a wish to be buried in his grave; and her epitaph proves that she inspired her daughters with genuine affection. Probably her ignorance of affairs and the infirmities of age (she was past sixty) combined to unfit her in the poet's eyes for the control of property, and, as an act of ordinary prudence, he committed her to the care of his elder daughter, who inherited, according to such information as is accessible, some of his own shrewdness, and had a capable adviser in her husband. This elder daughter, Susanna Hall, was, according to the will, to become mistress of New Place, and practically of all the poet's estate. She received (with remainder to her issue in strict entail) New Place, all the land, barns, and gardens at and near Stratford (except the tenement in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London, while she and her husband were appointed executors and residuary legatees, with full rights over nearly all the poet's household furniture and personal belongings. To their only child and the testator's granddaughter, or 'niece,' Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed the poet's plate, with the exception of his broad silver and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger daughter, Judith. To his younger daughter he also left, with the tenement in Chapel Lane (in remainder to the elder daughter), 150/. in money, of which 100%., her marriage portion, was to be paid within a year, and another 150l. to be paid to her if alive three years after the date of the will. To the poet's sister, Joan Hart, whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the testator by only six days, he left, besides a contingent reversionary interest in Judith's pecuniary legacy, his wearing apparel, 20/. in money, a life interest in the Henley Street property, with 57. for each of her three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael. To the poor of Stratford he gave 10l., and to Mr. Thomas Combe (apparently a brother of William, of the enclosure controversy) his sword. To each of his Stratford friends, Hamlett Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash, and John Nash, and to each of his 'fellows' (i.e. theatrical colleagues in London), John Heming, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell, he left xxvjs. viijd., with which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William Walker, received 'xx' shillings in gold. tomb. Before 1623 an elaborate monument, by a London The sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of the parish church. As early as 1623, Leonard Digges, in commendatory verses before the First Folio, wrote that Shakespeare's works would be alive [When] Time dissolves thy Stratford monument. The tomb includes a half-length bust, depicting the dra- Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast? Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast Obiit ano. doi 1616 Die 23 Ap. At the opening of Shakespeare's career Chettle wrote of Personal his 'civil demeanour' and of the reports of 'his uprightness character. of dealing which argues his honesty.' In 1601-when near the zenith of his fame- he was apostrophised as 'sweet Master Shakespeare' in the play of 'The Return from Parnassus,' and that adjective was long after associated with his name. In 1604 one Anthony Scoloker in a poem called 'Daiphantus' bestowed on him the epithet 'friendly.' After the close of his career Jonson wrote of him: 'I loved the man and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free nature.' John Webster, the dramatist, made vague reference in the address before his 'White Divel' in 1612 to 'the right happy and copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Decker, and M. Heywood.' No other contemporary left on record any definite impression of Shakespeare's personal character, and the 'Sonnets,' which alone of his literary work can be held to throw any illumination on a personal trait, mainly reveal him in the light of one who was willing to conform to all the conventional methods in vogue for strengthening the bonds between a poet and a great patron. His literary practices and aims were those of contemporary men of letters, and the difference in the quality of his work and theirs was due not to conscious endeavour on his part to act otherwise than they, but to the magic and involuntary working of his genius. He seemed unconscious of his marvellous superiority to his professional comrades. The references in his will to his fellow-actors, and the spirit in which (as they announce in the First Folio) they approached the task of collecting his works after his death, corroborate the description of him as a sympathetic friend of gentle, unassuming mien. The later traditions brought together by Aubrey depict him as 'very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit,' and there is much in other early posthumous references to suggest a genial, if not a convivial, temperament, linked to a quiet turn for good-humoured satire. But Bohemian ideals and modes of life had no genuine attraction for Shakespeare. His extant work attests his 'copious' and continuous industry, and with his literary power and sociability there clearly went the shrewd capacity of a man of business. Pope had just warrant for the surmise that he For gain not glory winged his roving flight, His literary attainments and successes were chiefly valued as serving the prosaic end of providing permanently for himself and his daughters. His highest ambition was to restore among his fellow-townsmen the family repute which his father's misfortunes had imperilled. Ideals so homely are reckoned rare among poets, but Chaucer and Sir Walter Scott, among writers of exalted genius, vie with Shakespeare in the sobriety of their personal aims and in the sanity of their mental attitude towards life's ordinary incidents. XV SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS SHAKESPEARE'S widow died on August 6, 1623, at the age The surof sixty-seven, and was buried near her husband inside the vivors. chancel two days later. Some affectionately phrased Latin elegiacs doubtless from Dr. Hall's pen were inscribed on a brass plate fastened to the stone above her grave. The words run: 'Heere lyeth interred the bodye of Anne, wife of Mr. William Shakespeare, who depted. this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares. Vbera, tu, mater, tu lac vitamq. dedisti, Vae mihi; pro tanto munere saxa dabo! Quam mallem, amoueat lapidem bonus Angel [us] ore, Sed nil vota valent; venias cito, Christe; resurget, The younger daughter, Judith, resided with her husband, Mistress The poet's elder daughter, Mrs. Susanna Hall, resided at Mistress The last descendant. New Place till her death. Her sister Judith alienated to hei Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, To weepe with her that wept with all? Mrs. Hall's only child, Elizabeth, was the last surviving descendant of the poet. In April 1626 she married her first husband, Thomas Nash of Stratford (b. 1593), who studied at Lincoln's Inn, was a man of property, and, dying childless at New Place on April 4, 1647, was buried in Stratford Church next day. At Billesley, a village four miles from Stratford, on June 5, 1649, Mrs. Nash married, as a second husband, a widower, John Bernard or Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire, who was knighted by Charles II in 1661. About the same date she seems to have abandoned New Place for her husband's residence at Abington. Dying. without issue, she was buried there on February 17, 1669-70. Her husband survived her four years, and was buried beside her. On her mother's death in 1649 Lady Barnard inherited under the poet's will the land near Stratford, New Place, the |