beyond Gospell bushe: noe ground in Sandfield, nor none in Slow Hill field beyond Bishopton, nor none in the enclosures beyond Bishopton." The date of this paper is 5th September, 1614, and, as we have said, we may presume that it was chiefly upon this business that Shakespeare came to London on the 16th November. It should appear that Thomas Greene, of Stratford, was officially opposing the inclosure on the part of the corporation; and it is probable that Shakespeare's wishes were accordant with those of the majority of the inhabitants: however this might be, (and it is liable to dispute which party Shakespeare favoured) the members of the municipal body of the borough were nearly unanimous, and, as far as we can learn from the imperfect particulars remaining upon this subject, they wished our poet to use his influence to resist the project, which seems to have been supported by Mr. Arthur Mainwaring, then resident in the family of Lord Ellesmere as auditor of his domestic expenditure. It is very likely that Shakespeare saw Mainwaring; and, as it was only five or six years since his name had been especially brought under the notice of the Lord Chancellor, in relation to the claim of the city authorities to jurisdiction in the Blackfriars, it is not impossible that Shakespeare may have had an interview with Lord Ellesmere, who seems at all times to have been of a very accessible and kindly disposition. Greene was in London on the 17th November, and sent to Stratford a short account of his proceedings on the question of the inclosure, in which he mentioned that he had seen Shakespeare and Mr. Hall (probably meaning Shakespeare's son-in-law) on the preceding day, who told him that they thought nothing would be dicate that he would be capable of a work of such power and variety. It is divided into three portions, the "Character," the "Legend," and the "Tragedy" of Richard III.; and the second part opens with the following stanzas, which show the high estimate the writer had formed of the genius of Shakespeare: they are extremely interesting as a contemporaneous tribute. Richard, narrating his own history, thus speaks : "To him that impt my fame with Clio's quill, "Yet if his scenes have not engrost all grace, The hell-deepe reaches of my soundlesse braines." The above is the last extant panegyric upon Shakespeare during his lifetime, and it exceeds, in point of fervour and zeal, if not in judicious criticism, any that had gone before it; for Richard tells the reader, that the writer of the scenes in which he had figured on the stage had imped his fame with the quill of the historic muse, and that, by the magic of verse, he who had written so much and so finely, had raised him from oblivion. That C. B. was an done1. Greene returned to Stratford soon afterwards, and auth author of distinction, and well known to some of the greatest having left our poet in London, at the instance of the cor poration, he subsequently wrote two letters, one to Shakespeare, and the other to Mainwaring, (the latter only has been preserved) setting forth in strong terms the injury the inclosure would do to Stratford, and the heavy loss the in habitants had not long before sustained from the fire. A petition was also prepared and presented to the privy council, and we may gather that the opposition was effectual, because nothing was done in the business: the common fields of Welcombe, which it had been intended to inclose, remained open for pasture as before. How soon after the matter relating to the inclosure had been settled Shakespeare returned to Stratford, how long he remained there, or whether he ever came to London again, we are without information. He was very possibly in the metropolis at the time when a narrative poem, founded in part upon his historical play of "Richard III.," was published, and which until now has escaped observation, although it contains the clearest allusion, not indeed by name, to our author and to his tragedy. It is called "The Ghost of Richard the Third," and it bears date in 1614; but the writer, C. B., only gives his initials". We know of no poet of that day to whom they would apply, excepting Charles Best, who has several pieces in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602, but he has left nothing behind him to in poets of the day, we have upon their own evidence, from the terms they use in their commendatory poems, subscribed by no less names than those of Ben Jonson, George Chapman, William Browne, Robert Daborne, and George Wither. The author professes to follow no particular original, whether in prose or verse, narrative or dramatic, in "chronicles, plays, or poems," but to adopt the incidents as they had been handed down on various authorities. As we have stated, his work is one of great excellence, but it would be going too much out of our way to enter here into any farther examination of it. CHAPTER XX. Shakespeare's return to Stratford. Marriage of his daughter Judith to Thomas Quiney in February, 1616. Shakespeare's will prepared in January, but dated March, 1616. His last illness: attended by Dr. Hall, his son-in-law. Uncertainty as to the nature of Shakespeare's fatal malady. His birth-day and death-day the same. Entry of his burial in the register at Stratford. His will, and circumstances to prove that it was prepared two months before it was executed. His bequest to his wife, and provision for her by dower. The autumn seems to have been a very usual time for publishing new books, and Shakespeare having been in 1 The memorandum of the contents of his letter (to which we have already referred on p. lxii.) is in these terms, avoiding abbreviations:"Jovis, 17 No. My cosen Shakespeare comyng yesterday, I went to see him, how he did. He told me that they assured him they ment to inclose no further than to Gospel bush, and so upp straight (leaving out part of the Dyngles to the field) to the gate in Clopton hedg, and take in Salisburys peece; and that they mean in Aprill to survey the land, and then to gyve satisfaction, and not before: and he and Mr. Hall say they think there will be nothyng done at all." In what way, or in what degree, Shakespeare and Greene were related, so that the latter should call the former his "cousin," must remain a matter of speculation; but it will be recollected that the parish register of Stratford shows that "Thomas Greene, alias Shakespeare," was buried on 6th March, 1589-90. Whether Thomas Greene, the solicitor, was any relation to Thomas Greene, the actor, we have no means of ascertaining. 2 And these not on the title-page, but at the end of the prefatory matter: the whole title runs thus : "The Ghost of Richard the Third. Expressing himselfe in these three Parts. 1. His Character. 2 His Legend. 3. His Tragedie. Containing more of him than hath been heretofore shewed, either in Chronicles, Playes, or Poems. Laurea Desidiæ præbetur nulla. Printed by G. Eld: for L. Lisle: and are to be sold in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Tygers head. 1614." 4to. It is about to be reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, and on every account it well merits the distinction. 3 We may suspect, in the last line but one, that the word "wits" has been misprinted for acts. The stanza which follows the above refers to another play, founded on a distinct portion of the same history, and relating especially to Jane Shore :- "And what a peece of justice did I shew The allusion may here be to Heywood's historical drama of "Ed- 4 It appears from Henslowe's Diary, that in June, 1602, Ben Jonson was himself writing a historical play, called "Richard Crookback," for the Lord Admiral's players at the Fortune. We have no evidence that it was ever completed or represented. Ben Jonson's testimony in favour of the poem of C. B. is compressed into a few lines. London in the middle of November, 1614, as we have remarked, he was perhaps there when "The Ghost of Richard the Third" came out, and, like Ben Jonson, Chapman, and others, might be acquainted with the author. He probably returned home before the winter, and passed the rest of his days in tranquil retirement, and in the enjoyment knowing2, but it was probably not of long duration; and if might be deferred until he was attacked by serious indis position, and then the date of the month only might be altered, leaving the assertion as to health and memory as it had originally stood. What was the nature of Shakespeare's fatal illness we have no satisfactory means of of the society of his friends, whether residing in the country, when he subscribed his will he had really been in health, or occasionally visiting him from the metropolis. "The we are persuaded that at the age of only fifty-two he would latter part of his life," says Rowe, "was spent, as all men have signed his name with greater steadiness and distinct of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the society of his friends;" and he adds what cannot be doubted, that "his pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood." He must have been of a lively and companionable disposition; and his long residence in London, amid the bustling and varied scenes connected with his public life, independently of his natural powers of conversation, could not fail to ren ness. All three signatures are more or less infirm and illegible, especially the two first, but he seems to have made an effort to write his best when he affixed both his names at length at the end, "By me William Shakspeare." We hardly need entertain a doubt that he was attended in his last illness by his son-in-law, Dr. Hall, who had then been married to Susanna Shakespeare more than eight years: we have expressed our opinion that Dr. and Mrs. Hall lived in the same house with our poet, and it is to be recollected der his society most agreeable and desirable. We can that in his will he leaves New Place to his daughter Susan readily believe that when any of his old associates of the stage, whether authors or actors, came to Stratford, they found a hearty welcome and free entertainment at his house: and that he would be the last man, in his prosperity, to treat with slight or indifference those with whom, in the earlier part of his career, he had been on terms of familiar intercourse. It could not be in Shakespeare's nature to disregard the claims of ancient friendship, especially if it approached him in a garb of comparative poverty. One of the very latest acts of his life was bestowing the hand of his daughter Judith upon Thomas Quiney, a vintner and wine-merchant of Stratford, the son of Richard Quiney. She must have been four years older than her husband, having as already stated, been born on 2nd February, 1585, while he was not born until 26th February, 1589: he was consequently twenty-seven years old, and she thirty-one, at the time of their marriage in February, 16161; and Shakespeare thus became father-in-law to the son of the friend who, eighteen years before, had borrowed of him 30l., and who had died on 31st May, 1602, while he was bailiff of Stratford. As there was a difference of four years in the ages of Judith Shakespeare and her husband, we ought perhaps to receive that fact as some testimony, that our great dramatist did not see sufficient evil in such disproportion to in duce him to oppose the union. new na. Hall must have been a man of considerable science for the time at which he practised, and he has left behind him proofs of his knowledge and skill in a number of cases which had come under his own eye, and which he described in Latin: these were afterwards translated from his manuscript, and published in 1657 by Jonas Cooke, with the title of "Select Observations on English Bodies," but the case of Dr. Hall's father-in-law is not found there, because, unfortunately the "observations" only begin in 1617. One of the earliest of them shows that an epidemic, called the " fever," then prevailed in Stratford and "invaded many." Possibly Shakespeare was one of these; though, had such been the fact, it is not unlikely that, when speaking of "the Lady Beaufou" who suffered under it on July 1st, 1617, Dr. Hall would have referred back to the earlier instance of his father-in-law. He does advert to a tertian ague of which, at a period not mentioned, he had cured Michael Drayton, ("an excellent poet," as Hall terms him) when he was, perhaps, on a visit to Shakespeare. However, Drayton, as formerly remarked, was a native of Warwickshire, and Dr. Hall may have been called in to attend him elsewhere. We are left, therefore, in utter uncertainty as to the immediate cause of the death of Shakespeare at an age when he would be in full possession of his faculties, and when in the ordinary course of nature he might have lived many years in the enjoyment of the society of his family and friends, in that grateful and easy retirement, which had been earned by his genius and industry, and to obtain which had apparently been the main object of many years of toil, anxiety, and deprivation. His will had been prepared as long before its actual date as 25th January, 1615-16, and this fact is apparent on the face of it: it originally began "Vicesimo quinto die Januarij," (not Februarij, as Malone erroneously read it) but the word Januarij was subsequently struck through with a pen, and Martij substituted by interlineation. PosWhatever doubt may prevail as to the day of the birth sibly it was not thought necessary to alter vicesimo quinto, of Shakespeare, none can well exist as to the day of his or the 25th March might be the very day the will was exe- death. The inscription on his monument in Stratford church cuted: if it were, the signatures of the testator, upon each tells us, of the three sheets of paper of which the will consists, bear evidence (from the want of firmness in the writing) that he was at that time suffering under sickness. It opens, it is true, by stating that he was "in perfect health and memory," and such was doubtless the case when the instrument was prepared in January, but the execution of it "Obiit Anno Domini 1616. And it is remarkable that he was born and died on the same day of the same month, supposing him, as we have every reason to believe, to have first seen the light on the 23d April, 1564. It was most usual about that period to men- married to Thomas Quiney considerably more than a month tion the day of death in inscriptions upon tomb-stones, tab- anterior to the actual date of the will, and although his eldlets, and monuments; and such was the case with other est daughter Susanna is mentioned by her husband's patromembers of the Shakespeare family. We are thus informed nymic. It seems evident, from the tenor of the whole inthat his wife, Anne Shakespeare, "departed this life the 6th strument, that when it was prepared Judith was not marday of Augu. 16231:" Dr. Hall "deceased Nove. 25. Ao. ried, although her speedy union with Thomas Quiney was 1 The registration in the books of Stratford church is this : "1615-16 Feabruary 10. Tho Queeny tow Judith Shakspere." The fruits of this marriage were three sons; viz. Shakespeare, baptized 23rd November, 1616, and buried May 8th, 1617; Richard, baptized 9th February, 1617-18, and buried 26th February, 1638-9; and Thomas, baptized 23rd January, 1619-20, and buried 28th January, 1638-9. Judith Quiney, their mother, did not die until after the Restoration, and was buried 9th February, 1661-2. The Stratford registers contain no entry of the burial of Thomas Quiney, her husband, and it is very possible, therefore, that he died and was buried in London. 2 The Rev. John Ward's Diary, to which we have before referred, contains the following undated paragraph : "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson, had a merie meeting, and, itt seems, drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a fevour there contracted." What credit may be due to this statement, preceded as it is by the words " it seems," implying a doubt on the subject in the writer's mind, we must leave the reader to determine. That Shakespeare years had he been otherwise; and we are sure also, that if Drayton and Ben Jonson visited him at Stratford, he would give them a free and hearty welcome. We have no reason to think that Drayton was at all given to intoxication, although it is certain that Ben Jonson was a bountiful liver. 3 For a copy of this curious and interesting work, we gladly express our obligations to Mr. William Fricker, of Hyde, near Manchester. 4 He several times speaks of sicknesses in his own family, and of the manner in which he had removed them: a case of his own, in which he mentions his age, accords with the statement in his inscription, and ascertains that he was thirty-two when he married Susanna Shakespeare in 1607. "Mrs. Hall, of Stratford, my wife," is more than once introduced in the course of the volume, as well as "Elizabeth Hall, my only daughter." Mrs. Susanna Hall died in 1649, aged 66, and was buried at Stratford. Elizabeth Hall, her daughter by Dr. Hall, (baptized on the 21st Feb. 1607-8,) and grand-daughter to our poet, was married on the 22d April, 1626, to Mr. Thomas Nash, (who died in 1647) and on 5th June, 1649, to Mr. John Bernard, of Abingdon, who was knighted after the Restoration. Lady Bernard was of sober, though of companionable habits, we are thoroughly died childless in 1679, and was buried, not at Stratford with her own convinced: he could not have written seven-and-thirty plays (not family, but at Abingdon with that of her second husband. She was reckoning alterations and additions now lost) in five-and-twenty | the last of the lineal descendants of William Shakespeare. 0 0 16352;" Thomas Nash, who married Hall's daughter, "died April 4, A. 16473:" Susanna Hall "deceased the 11th of July, Ao. 16494." Therefore, although the Latin inscription on the monument of our great dramatist may, from its form and punctuation, appear not so decisive as those we have quoted in English. there is in fact no ground for disputing that he died on 23d April, 1616. It is quite certain from the register of Stratford that he was interred on the 25th April, and the record of that event is placed among the burials in the following manner: "1616. April 25, Will' Shakspere, Gent." Whether from the frequent prevalence of infectious disorders, or from any other cause, the custom of keeping the bodies of relatives unburied, for a week or more after death, seems comparatively of modern origin; and we may illustrate this point also by reference to facts regarding some of the members of the Shakespeare family. Anne Shakespeare was buried two days after she died, viz. on the 8th Aug., 16235: Dr. Hall and Thomas Nash were buried on the day after they died; and although it is true that there was an interval of five days between the death and burial of Mrs. Hall, in 1649, it is very possible that her corpse was conveyed from some distance, to be interred among her relations at Stratford". Nothing would be easier than to accumulate instances to prove that in the time of Shakespeare, contemplated: the attorney or scrivener, who drew it, had first written "son and daughter," (meaning Judith and her intended husband) but erased the words " son and" afterwards, as the parties were not yet married, and were not son and daughter" to the testator. It is true that Thomas Quiney would not have been Shakespeare's son, only his son-in-law; but the degrees of consanguinity were not at that time strictly marked and attended to, and in the same will Elizabeth Hall is called the testator's "niece," when she was, in fact, his granddaughter. The bequest which has attracted most attention is an interlineation in the following words, "Itm I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture." Upon this passage has been founded, by Malone and others, a charge against Shakespeare, that he only remembered his wife as an afterthought, and then merely gave her "an old bed." As to the last part of the accusation, it may be answered, that the "second best bed" was probably that in which the husband and wife had slept, when he was in Stratford earlier in life, and every night since his retirement from the metropolis: the best bed was doubtless reserved for visitors: if, therefore, he were to leave his wife any express legacy of the kind, it was most natural and considerate that he should give her that piece of furniture, which for many years they had jointly occupied. With regard to the second part of the charge, our great dramatist has of late years been relieved from the stigma, thus attempted to be thrown upon as well as before and afterwards, the custom was to bury him, by the mere remark, that Shakespeare's property be persons very shortly subsequent to their decease. In the case of our poet, concluding that he expired on the 23d April, there was, as in the instance of his wife, an interval of two days before his interment. Into the particular provisions of his will we need not enter at all at large, because we have printed it at the end of the present memoir from the original, as it was filed in the Prerogative Courts, probate having been granted on the 22d June following the date of it. His daughter Judith is there cnly called by her Christian name, although she had been 1 The inscription., upon a brass plate, let into a stone, is in these terms: We have to thank Mr. Bruce for the use of his copies of them, with which we have compared our own. "Heere lyeth interred the Body of Anne, Wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of Augu. 1623. being of the age of 67 yeares. Ubera, tu mater, tu lac, vitamq; dedisti, Sed nil vota valent, venias cito Christe resurget 2 The following is the inscription commemorating him. Hallius hic situs est, medica celeberrimus arte, Dignus erat meritis, qui Nestora vinceret annis, In terris omnes, sed rapit æqua dies. Ne tumulo quid desit, adest fidissima conjux, Et vitæ comitem nunc quoq; mortis habet." 3 His inscription, in several places difficult to be deciphered, is this: "Heere resteth ye Body of Thomas Nashe, Esq. He mar. Elizabeth the daug. and heire of John Halle, Gent. He died Aprill 4. A. 1647, Aged 53. Fata manent omnes hunc non virtute carentem, 4 The inscription to her runs thus: "Heere lyeth ye body of Susanna, Wife to Iohn Hall, Gent: ye daughter of William Shakespeare, Gent. Shee deceased ye 11th of July, Ao. 1649. aged 66." Dugdale has handed down the following verses upon her, which were originally engraved on the stone, but are not now to be found, half of it having been cut away to make room for an inscription to Richard Watts, who died in 1707. ing principally freehold, the widow by the ordinary operation of the law of England would be entitled to, what is legally known by the term, dower. 10 It is extraordinary that this explanation should never have occurred to Malone, who was educated to the legal profession; but that many others should have followed him in his unjust imputation is not remarkable, recollecting how prone most of Shakespeare's biographers have been to repeat errors, rather than take the trouble to inquire for themselves, to sift out truth, and to balance probabilities. Witty above her sexe, but that's not all; Then, passenger, hast ne're a teare To weepe with her that wept for all? Them up with comforts cordiall. The register informs us that she was buried on the 16th July, 1649. "1623, August 8. Mrs. Shakspeare." 6 Their registrations of burial are in these terms : “1635. Νου. 26. Johannes Hall, medicus peritissimus." "1647. Aprill 5. Thomas Nash, Gent." 7 The register contains as follows: "1649. July 16. Mrs. Susanna Hall, widow." 8 We are indebted to Sir F. Madden, Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, for the use of a most exact collation of Shakespeare's will; in addition to which we have several times gone over every line and word of it. We have printed it as nearly as possible as it appears in the original. 9 Another trifling circumstance leading to the conclusion that the will was prepared in January, though not executed until March, is that Shakespeare's sister is called Jone Hart, and not Jone Hart, widow. Her husband had died a few days before Shakespeare, and he was buried on 17 April, 1616, as "Will Hart, hatter." She was buried on 4 Nov. 1646. Both entries are contained in the parish registers of Stratford. 10 This vindication of Shakespeare's memory from the supposed neglect of his wife we owe to Mr. Knight, in his "Pictorial Shakspere." See the Postscript to "Twelfth Night." When the explanation is once given, it seems so easy, that we wonder it was never before mentioned; but like many discoveries of different kinds, it is not less simple than important, and it is just that Mr. Knight should have full credit for it. CHAPTER XXI. Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, The half-length on the title-page of the folio of 1623, Monument to Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon erected engraved by Martin Droeshout, has certainly an expression before 1623; probably under the superintendence of Dr. Hall, and Shakespeare's daughter Susanna. Difference between the bust on the monuiment and the portrait on the title-page of the folio of 1623. Ben Jonson's testimony in favour of the likeness of the latter. Shakespeare's personal appearance. His social and convivial qualities. ،، Witcombats" mentioned by Fuller in his "Worthies." Epitaphs upon Sir Thomas Stanley and Elias James. Conclusion. Hallam's character of Shakespeare. of greater gravity than the bust on Shakespeare's monument; and, making some allowances, we can conceive the original of that resemblance more capable of producing the mighty works Shakespeare has left behind him, than the original of the bust: at all events, the first rather looks like the author of "Lear" and "Macbeth," and the last like the author of "Much Ado about Nothing" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor:" the one may be said to represent Shakespeare during his later years at Stratford, happy in A MONUMENT to Shakespeare was erected anterior to the the intercourse of his family and friends, and the cheerful publication of the folio edition of his "Comedies, Histories, companion of his neighbours and townsmen; and the other, and Tragedies" in 1623, because it is thus distinctly men- | Shakespeare in London, revolving the great works he had tioned by Leonard Digges, in the earliest copy of commen- written or projected, and with his mind somewhat burdened datory verses prefixed to that volume, which he states shall by the cares of his professional life. The last, therefore, outlive the poet's tomb : "when that stone is rent, And time dissolves thy Stratford Monument, Here we alive shall view thee still." conclude, without much hesitation, that artist was the This is the most ancient notice of it; but how long before 1623 it had been placed in the church of Stratford-uponAvon, we have no means of deciding. It represents the poet sitting under an arch, with a cushion before him, a pen in his right hand, and his left resting upon a sheet of paper: it has been the opinion of the best judges that it was cut by an English sculptor, (perhaps Thomas Stanton) and we may ployed by Dr. Hall and his wife, and that the resemblance was as faithful as a bust, not modelled from the life, but probably, under living instructions, from some picture or cast, could be expected to be. Shakespeare is there considerably fuller in the face, than in the engraving title-page of the folio of 1623, which must have been made from a different original. It seems not unlikely that after he separated himself from the business and anxiety of a professional life, and withdrew to the permanent inhaling of his native air, he became more robust, and the halflength upon his monument conveys the notion of a cheerful, good-tempered, and somewhat jovial man. The expression, we apprehend, is less intellectual than it must have been in reality, and the forehead, though lofty and expansive, is not strongly marked with thought: on the whole, it has rather a look of gaiety and good humour than of thought and reflection, and the lips are full, and apparently in the act of giving utterance to some amiable pleasantry. On a tablet below the bust are placed the following inscriptions, which we give literally : "Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Obiit ano Doi. 1616. Ætatis. 53. die 23 Apr." On a flat grave stone in front of the monument, and not far from the wall against which it is fixed, we read these lines; and Southwell's correspondent (whose letter was printed in 1838, from the original manuscript dated 1693) informs us, speaking of ccurse from tradition, that they were written by Shakespeare himself : is obviously the likeness which ought to accompany his plays, and which his "friends and fellows," Heminge and Condell, preferred to the head upon the "Stratford Monument," of the erection of which they must have been aware. There is one point in which both the engraving and the bust in a degree concur, -we mean in the length of the upper lip, although the peculiarity seems exaggerated in the bust. We have no such testimony in favour of the truth of the resemblance of the bust1 as the engraving, opposite to which are the following lines, subscribed with the initials of Ben Jonson, and doubtless from his pen. Let the reader bear in mind that Ben Jonson was not a man who could be hired to commend, and that, taking it for granted he was sincere in his praise, he had the most unquestionable means of forming a judgment upon the subject of the likeness between the living man and the dead representation. We give Ben Jonson's testimonial exactly as it stands in the folio of 1623, for it afterwards went through various literal changes. "TO THE READER. "This Figure, that thou here seest put, With this evidence before us, we have not hesitated in having an exact copy of Droeshout's engraving executed for the present edition of the Works of Skakespeare. It is, we believe, the first time it has ever been selected for the purpose since the appearance of the folio of 1623; and, although it may not be recommended by the appearance of so high a style of art as some other imputed resemblances, there is certainly not one which has such undoubted claims to our notice on the grounds of fidelity and authenticity. The fact that Droeshout was required to employ his skill upon a bad picture may tend to confirm our reliance upon the likeness: had there been so many pictures of Shakespeare as some have contended, but as we are far from believing, Heminge and Condell, when they were seeking for an appropriate ornament for the title-page of their folio, would hardly have chosen one which was an unskilful painting, if it had not been a striking resemblance. If only half the pictures said, within the last century, to represent Shakespeare, were in fact from the life, the poet must have "Good frend, for Iesvs sake forbeare 1 It was originally, like many other monuments of the time, and some in Stratford church, coloured after the life, and so it continued until Malone, in his mistaken zeal for classical taste and severity, and forgetting the practice of the period at which the work was produced, had it painted one uniform stone-colour. He thus exposed himself to much not unmerited ridicule. It was afterwards found impossible to restore the original colours. 2 Besides, we may suppose that Jonson would be careful how he applauded the likeness, when there must have been so many persons living, who could have contradicted him, had the praise not been deserved. Jonson does not speak of the painter, but of the " graver," who we are inclined to think did full justice to the picture placed in his hands. Droeshout was a man of considerable eminence in his branch of art, and has left behind him undoubted proofs of his skill some of them so much superior to the head of Shakespeare in the folio of 1623, as to lead to the conviction, that the picture from which he worked was a very coarse specimen of art. : possessed a vast stock of patience, if not a larger share of vanity, when he devoted so much time to sitting to the artists of the day; and the player-editors could have found no difficulty in procuring a picture, which had better pretensions to their approval. To us, therefore, the very defects of the engraving, which accompanies the folio of 1623, are a recommendation, since they serve to show that it was both genuine and faithful. by the quickness of his wit and invention." The simile is well chosen, and it came from a writer who seldom said anything ill. Connected with Ben Jonson's solidity and slowness is a witticism between him and Shakespeare, said to have passed at a tavern. One of the Ashmolean manuscripts (No. 38) contains the following : "Mr. Ben Johnson and Mr. Wm. Shakespeare being Here lies Ben Jonson he gives it to Mr. Shakespeare to make up, who presently That, while he liv'd, was a slow thing, It is certainly not of much value, but there is a great Aubrey is the only authority, beyond the inferences that merrie at a tavern, Mr. Jonson begins this for his epitaph, may be drawn from the portraits, for the personal appearance of Shakespeare; and he sums up our great poet's physical and moral endowments in two lines; --" He was a handsome well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready, and pleasant, and smooth wit." We have every writt reason to suppose that this is a correct description of his personal appearance, but we are unable to add to it from any other source, unless indeed we were to rely upon a few equivocal passages in the "Sonnets." Upon this authority it has been supposed by some that he was lame, and certainly the 37th and 89th Sonnets, without allowing for a difference between the estimate of an extempore joke figurative mode of expression, might be taken to import as at the moment of delivery, and the opinion we may much. If we were to consider the words literally, we form of it long afterwards, when it has been put upon should imagine that some accident had befallen him, which paper, and transmitted to posterity under such names rendered it impossible that he should continue on the stage, as those of Shakespeare and Jonson. The same exand hence we could easily account for his early retirement cuse, if required, may be made for two other pieces of from it. We know that such was the case with one of his unpretending pleasantry between the same parties, which most famous predecessors, Christopher Marlowe1, but we we subjoin in a note, because they relate to such men, have no sufficient reason for believing it was the fact as regards Shakespeare: he is evidently speaking metaphorically in both places, where "lame" and "lameness" occur. and have been handed down to us upon something like Of a different character is a production preserved by authority. His social qualities, his good temper, hilarity, vivacity, Dugdale, at the end of his Visitation of Salop, in the and what Aubrey calls his "very ready, and pleasant, and Heralds' College: it is an epitaph inscribed upon the tomb smooth wit," (in our author's own words, "pleasant without of Sir Thomas Stanley, in Tongue church; and Dugdale, scurrility, witty without affectation,") cannot be doubted, whose testimony is unimpeachable, distinctly states that since, besides what may be gathered from his works, we "the following verses were made by William Shakespeare, have it from various quarters; and although nothing very the late famous tragedian." good of this kind may have descended to us, we have sufficient to show that he must have been a most welcome visitor in all companies. The epithet "gentle" has been frequently applied to him, twice by Ben Jonson, (in his lines before the engraving, and in his laudatory verses prefixed to the plays in the folio of 1623) and if it be not to be understood precisely in its modern acceptation, we may be sure that one distinguishing feature in his character was general kindliness: he may have been "sharp and sententious," but never needlessly bitter or ill-natured: his wit had no malice for an ingredient. Fuller speaks of the "wit-combats" between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson at the convivial meetings at the Mermaid club, established by Sir Walter Raleigh2; and he adds, " which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances: Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds 1 See the extract from a ballad on Marlowe (p. xxxi.). This circumstance, had he known it, would materially have aided the modern sceptick, who argued that Shakespeare and Marlowe were one and the same. 2 Gifford (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. I. p. lxv.) fixes the date of the establishment of this club, at the Mermaid in Friday Street, about 1603, and he adds that "here for many years Ben Jonson repaired with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect." Of what passed at these many assemblies Beaumont thus speaks, addressing Ben Jonson: Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest." "Written upon the east end of the tomb. "Ask who lies here, but do not weep;. "Written on the west end thereof. With Malone and others, who have quoted them, we feel satisfied of the authenticity of these verses, though we may not perhaps think, as he did, that the last line bears pointed and smooth even as they are taken out of the earth, so nature itself was all the art which was used upon him." Of course Fuller is here only referring to Shakespeare's classical acquirements: his "learning" of a different kind, perhaps, exceeded that of all the ancients put together. 5 "Shakespeare was god-father to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deepe study, Jonson came to cheere him up, and askt him why he was so melancholy? No, faith, Ben, (sayes he) not I; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolv'd at last.'-'I pr'ythee what?" says he. ' I 'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a douzen of Latten spoones, and thou shalt translate them." Of course the joke depends upon the pun between Latin, and the mixed metal called latten. The above is from a MS. of Sir R. L'Estrange, who quotes the authority of Dr. Donne. It is inserted in Mr. Thoms's amusing volume, printed for the Camden Society, under the title of "Anecdotes and Traditions." p. 2. The next is leian Collection : The Mitre, in Fleet Street, seems to have been another tavern where from a MS. called "Poetical Characteristics," formerly in the Harthe wits and poets of the day hilariously assembled. 3 Worthies. Part iii. p. 126, folio edit. "Verses by Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, occasioned by the motto 4 Fuller has another simile, on the same page, respecting Shake- to the Globe theatre-Totus mundus agit histrionem. |