small tithes in Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcome, and paid for the remainder of this lease £440—a sum equivalent to perhaps £2500 at the present day.
In 1607 the poet had the gratification of seeing his elder daughter, Susanna, united to Dr. Hall, a physician of considerable eminence in Warwickshire. This alliance appears to have been in every respect auspicious, and it is to be hoped added much to the serenity and happiness of Shakespeare's closing years. In December of the same year, however, the death of his brother Edmund must have cast a shadow over the circle at New Place. Of the fortunes of Edmund we find no record whatever. The register of the parish where he was buried (St. Saviour's, Southwark) describes him as "a player;" and it is likely, as we have previously observed, that with his brother Richard, who died a few years later, he held some subordinate position in the company of which William Shakespeare was the pride and ornament.
The year that followed, 1608, was marked to the family by a far sadder bereavement, the greatest we may believe the poet ever suffered. In that year his mother died. To have been the mother of Shakespeare, "is a title," as De Quincey has eloquently said, "to the reverence of infinite generations, and of centuries beyond the visions of prophecy." How fondly then should we cherish any memorial of so illustrious a benefactress! But we have none. The oblivion which has overwhelmed so much in the history of her immortal son, has swept away all traces of her own.
At this period, and we apprehend for two or three years previous, our dramatist was permanently resident at Stratford. His latest biographers, relying on the genuineness of certain papers published by Mr. Collier with reference to this stage of the dramatist's career, have fixed his withdrawal from the metropolis some years later. These papers, consisting of a letter presumed to be from Lord Southampton to some one high in office, soliciting his influence on behalf of Shakespeare and his fellows; a warrant to Daborne, Shakespeare, Field, &c., for the Children of the Queen's Revels; and a list, in which Shakespeare's name appears, of persons rated to the poor of the Liberty of the Clink in Southwark—are now, however, found to be fabrications of a date not anterior to the present century.—(See A Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy. By C. M. Ingleby, LL D.)
The Diary of the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, from 1648 to 1679, was found a few years ago in the library of the Medical Society of London, and affords us a few scanty records of the poet in his latter years. Among other things the worthy vicar speaks of having heard that "Mr. Shakespeare" in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year, and had for it an allowance so large "that he spent at the rate of £1000 a year." It is not easy to estimate with anything like precision what Shakespeare's annual income was after his retirement, but that he could afford an expenditure of £1000 per annum is not credible. The statement that he furnished the theatre in London with two plays each year is not, however, improbable; though it is surprising, that at the very period when he was supplying London with productions which were to confer immortality on him and those nearest to him, which were to render Stratford a literary Mecca, to whose shrine pilgrims from every climate in the world would come to offer homage, the performance of plays in that town was rigidly forbidden. So early as 1602, the municipal powers of the borough interdicted all theatrical exhibitions under a penalty of ten shillings for each infraction of their order. In 1612 "the inconvenience of plaeis being verie seriouslie considered of," the fine was increased to £10. This intolerance of the drama at Stratford has been ascribed to the strong growth of puritan spirit in Warwickshire during the early part of the seventeenth century. The writer of the life of Dr. Harris, a well-known puritan divine who had a living near Banbury, distinctly tells us that he established a fortnightly lecture in the church of Stratford, "unto which there was a great resort both of the chief gentry and choisest preachers and professors in those parts; and amongst them that noble and learned knight. Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, had always a great respect for him." The Rev. Joseph Hunter, who was one of the first to direct attention to this circumstance, has further shown that this puritan spirit entered the families of Quiney and Sadler, with whom Shakespeare was allied, and that his daughter and her husband were undoubtedly influenced by it. And he remarks, "it has sometimes occurred to me, that the entire disappearance of all manuscript of Shakespeare—so entire that no writing of his remains except his name, and only one letter addressed to him—is in some way connected with the religious turn which his posterity took."
The year 1613, which we have now reached, appears to have been fertile in events to Shakespeare. At the opening of it he was deprived of his brother Richard, who died at Stratford. In March we find him in London occupied in the purchase of a house and ground in the vicinity of the Blackfriars theatre. At the same time he was involved in the anxieties and charges of a chancery suit, which arose out of the share he had bought of the tithes in 1605. The draft of the bill presented by him and the other plaintiffs is still preserved, but the result of the litigation is not known. The summer of this year was marked by another incident which must have impressed him deeply. This was the destruction of the Globe theatre, which was burned down on the 29th of ,June, during the performance of his own "King Henry VIII." Whether he was a pecuniary sufferer by this disaster has not been shown; it is thought, as he makes no mention of theatrical property in his will, that he disposed of his interest in it when he finally retired from public life.
There is still another important circumstance of his biography connected with the present year. About this date he is supposed by some commentators to have brought his literary labours to a close; but we are not aware that there are any solid reasons for assigning his last play to this particular period, any more than for determining what that final play was.
On the number and names of the plays produced by Shakespeare, from the opening of the seventeenth century to the termination of his literary life, opinions are divided. We have conjectured that up to 1600 he had written twenty-three or twenty-four pieces, the names of which have been given. From that period to the end it is probable that he wrote fifteen or sixteen more, and these for the most part the grandest of the series—namely, "Timon of Athens;" "Measure for Measure;" "Macbeth;" "Hamlet" (enlarged); "Troilus and Cressida;" "Twelfth Night;" "Coriolanus;" "Julius Cæsar;" "Antony and Cleopatra;" "A Winter's Tale;" "Othello;" "King Lear;" "Cymbeline;" "The Tempest;" and "Henry VIII."
During the following year our dramatist was engaged with the corporation of Stratford in opposing a projected inclosure of some public lands, and, as we learn from the memoranda of Thomas Green, the clerk to the municipal body, again visited London. The same year appeared a poem, partly founded on his play of "Richard III.," entitled The Ghost of Richard the Third, which contains the last contemporaneous encomium upon Shakespeare's genius extant. Richard is the speaker:—
" To him that impt my fame with Clio's quill,
Whose magicke rais'd me from Oblivion's den,
That writ my storie on the Muses' hill.
And with my actions dignified his pen;
He that from Helicon sends many a rill,
Whose nectared veines are drunke by thirstie men;
Crown'd be his stile with fame, his head with bayes.
And none detract, but gratulate his praise."
There is little more to relate. The scanty and dispersed fragments applicable to frame a memoir of Shakespeare's personal history are soon exhausted. On the 10th of February, 1616, his younger daughter, Judith, was married to Thomas Quiney, a vintner at Stratford, the bride being then thirty-one years of age, and the bridegroom twenty-seven. On the 25th of the following month Shakespeare executed his will, which, from the words Vicesimo quinto die Martii having been substituted for Vicesimo quinto die Januarii was evidently prepared two months before. He declares himself as in perfect health when the will was made, but his signatures to it evince much physical debility; and a few weeks later, on the 23rd of April, the anniversary of his birth,
" He gave his honours to the world again.
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace."
Of the works of this transcendent writer it would be superfluous to speak in detail here, even if our space permitted. They have been the theme of discussion and panegyric for ages, and they will continue to be so while literature endures. They have elevated the name of Shakespeare pre-eminent above every other human name; have conveyed more delight and instruction, either by public exhibition or by private study, and—curious consideration—have afforded more employment to editors, com-
