the spot, and commemorate his likeness, name, and memory. In what year the monument was erected is not known, but certainly before 1623, as it is mentioned in the verses of Leonard Digges in that year. He is represented under an arch, in a sitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left rested on a scroll of paper. The following distich is engraved under the cushion :

Judicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, popvlvs mæret, Olympvs habet.

In addition to this Latin inscription, the following lines are found on a tablet immediately underneath the cushion on his monument :

Stay, passenger, why goest thov by so fast?

Read, if thov canst, whom enviovs death hath plast
Within this monvment, Shakspeare; with whome
Qvick natvre dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more than coste, sieth all yt. he hath writt,
Leaves living art bvt page to serve his witt.

Obiit Ano. Doi. 1616. ætatis 53. die 23 Ap.

On his grave-stone underneath is the following inscription, expressed, as Mr. Steevens observes, in an uncouth mixture of small and capital letters :—

Good Frend for Iesus SAKE forbeare

To diGG T-E Dust EncloAsed HERe

It is uncertain whether this epitaph was written by Shakspeare himself, or by one of his friends after his death. The imprecation contained in the last line was probably suggested,' as Mr. Malone has remarked, by an apprehension that his remains might share the same fate with those of the rest of his countrymen, and be added to the immense pile of human bones deposited in the charnel-house at Stratford.'

In the year 1741, another very noble and beautiful monument was raised to his memory, at the public expense, in Westminster Abbey, under the direction of the Earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martyn. It stands near the south door of the Abbey, and was the work of Scheemaker, after a design of Kent. The performers of each of the London theatres gave a benefit to defray the expenses, and the dean and chapter took nothing for the ground.

We have now recorded the substance of the scanty notices respecting the life of Shakspeare, which we are enabled to collect from Rowe and from various commentators on his works. To these we shall add the following anecdotes from John Aubrey, in his manuscript collections in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It is worthy of note, that Aubrey resided at Oxford for several years after 1642; that he was intimate with Sir W. Davenant,

Hobbes, Milton, Ray, &c.; that he made it a practice to collect and write down anecdotes of his friends and of public characters; that Davenant knew Shakspeare; that there was frequent communication between Stratford and Oxford; and that, although there are some variations in the accounts of Rowe and Aubrey, the latter is, on the whole, most intitled to credit.

Mr. William Shakespear was borne at Stratford upon Avon, in the county of Warwick: his father was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade; but when he kill'd a calfe, he would doe it in a high style, and make a speech. There was at that time another butcher's son in this towne, that was helde not at all inferior to him for a naturall witt, his acquaintance and coetanean, but dyed young. This William, being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guesse about eighteen, and was an actor at one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well. Now Ben Jonson never was a good actor, but an excellent instructor. He began early to make essayes at dramatique poetry, which at that time was very lowe, and his playes tooke well. He was a handsome, well-shap't man, very good company, and of a very readie and pleasant smooth witt: the humour of the constable in A Midsum