Edward III could have appeared, achieved a popularity sufficient to attract imitators of his own style, then there will be at least an excusable surmise that his work is to be traced in parts of that historical drama. Every now and then one meets in it with passages, especially in the scenes referring to the King's infatuation for the Countess of Salisbury, which are so infinitely superior in composition to the rest of the play, and so exactly in Shakespeare's manner, this presumption, under the above named premises, can scarcely be avoided. Whether this view be accepted or not, Edward III will, under any circumstances, be indissolubly connected with the literary history of the great dramatist, for one of its lines is also found in his ninety-fourth sonnet. As the last-named poem, even if it had been written as early as 1595, was not printed for many years afterwards, it is unlikely that the line in question could have been transplanted from the sonnet into the play by any one but Shakespeare himself, who, however, might have reversed the operation, whether he were or were not the original author of the words. This is the passage in the drama in which the line of the sonnet is introduced, A spacious field of reasons could I urge The shame is treble by the opposite. In the summer of the year 1596, upon the death of the Lord Chamberlain on July 22, the company of actors to which the poet belonged became the servants of that nobleman's eldest son, Lord Hunsdon, and one of the first dramas selected by them, while in their new position, was Shakespeare's tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, which was produced at the Curtain Theater and met with great success. Romeo and Juliet may be said, indeed, to have taken the metropolies by storm and to have become the play of the season. Its popularity led to the compilation of an imperfect and unauthorized edition which issued from Danter's press in the following year, one got up in such haste that two fonts of type were engaged in its composition. In 1599, Cuthbert Burby, a bookseller, whose shop was near the Royal exchange, published the tragedy with the overstrained announcement that it had been "newly corrected, augmented and amended." This is the version of the drama which is now accepted, and it appears to be an authentic copy of the tragedy produced in 1596, after a few passages in the latter had been revised by the author. The long-continued popularity of Romeo and Juliet may be inferred from several early allusions, as well as from the express testimony of Leonard Digges, but it is rather singular that the author's name is not mentioned in any of the old editions until some time after the year 1609. An interesting tradition respecting one of the characters in this tragedy is recorded in 1672 by Dryden, who observes that the great dramatist "showed the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself that he was forced to kill him in the third act, to prevent being killed by him." The eminent narrator of this little anecdote ingenuously adds,-"but, for my part, I cannot find he was so dangerous a person;-I see nothing in him but what was so exceeding harmless that he might have lived to the end of the play, and died in his bed, without offense to any man." A severe domestic affliction marred the pleasure that the author might otherwise have derived from his last-mentioned triumph. His only son Hamnet, then in his twelfth year, died early in August, 1596, and was buried at Stratford-on-Avon on the eleventh of that month. At the close of the year the poet also lost his uncle Henry, the farmer of Snitterfield, during the same Christmas holidays in which his company had the honor of performing on two occasions before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall Palace. No positive information on the subject has been recorded, but the few evidences there are lead to the belief that the Shakespeare family continued, throughout his life, to reside in the poet's native town. They had not accompanied him in his first visit to the metropolis, and, from the circumstance of the burial of Hamnet at Stratford-on-Avon, it may be confidently inferred that they were living there at the time of the poor youth's decease. It is in the highest degree unlikely that they could have taken up an abode anywhere else but in London, and no hint is given of the latter having been the case. Let it also be borne in mind that Shakespeare's occupations debarred him from the possibility of his sustaining even an approach to a continuous domestic life, so that, when his known attachment to Stratford is taken into consideration, it seems all but certain that his wife and children were but waiting there under economical circumstances, perhaps with his parents in Henley Street, until he could provide them with a comfortable residence of their own. Every particular that is known indicates that he admitted no disgrace in the irresponsible persecution which occasioned his retreat to London, and that he persistently entertained the wish to make Stratford his and his family's only permanent home. This desire was too confirmed to be materially affected even by the death of his only son, for, shortly after that event, he is discovered taking a fancy to one of the largest houses in the town, and becoming its purchaser in the following year. At this time, 1596, he appears to have been residing, when in town, in lodgings near the Bear Garden in Southwark. There is preserved at the College of Arms the draft of a grant of coat-armor to John Shakespeare, dated in October, 1596, the result of an application made no doubt some little time previously. It may be safely inferred, from the unprosperous circumstances of the grantee, that this attempt to confer gentility on the family was made at the poet's expense. This is the first evidence that we have of his rising pecuniary fortunes, and of his determination to advance in social position. Early in the year 1597,-on New Year's Day, Twelfth Night, Shrove Sunday, and Shrove Tuesday,-Shakespeare's company again performed before the Queen at Whitehall. In the summer they made a tour through Sussex and Kent, visiting Faversham and Rye in August, and acting at Dover on September 3. In their progress to the latter town, he who was hereafter to be the author of Lear might have witnessed, and been impressed with, the samphire gatherers on the celebrated rock that was afterwards to be regarded the type of Edgar's imaginary precipice. By the end of the month they had quitted the southern counties, and traveled westward as far as Bristol; acting about the same time at Marlborough and Bath. In the spring of this year the great dramatist made his first investment in realty by the purchase of New Place, consisting of a mansion and nearly an acre of land in the center of the town of Stratford-on-Avon. The estate was sold to him for £60, a moderate sum for so considerable a property, but in a paper of the time of Edward VI the residence is described as having then been for some time "in great ruyne and decay and unrepayred,” so that it was probably in a dilapidated condition when it was transferred to Shakespeare. There are reasons for believing that it was renovated by the new owner; but whatever may have been its state of repair at the time of its acquisition, it was unquestionably one of the largest domiciles in the town, there having been no other, with the single exception of the College, that was conspicuously more important. Sir Hugh Clopton, for whom it was erected, speaks of it in 1496 as his "great house," a title under which, as it will be observed anon, it was popularly known at Stratford for upwards of two centuries. Neither its history nor its magnitude sufficed, however, to attract the serious consideration of our early topographers, and thus it is that scarcely any details of a precise character have been discovered respecting the nature of the house, one which, if now in existence, would have been the most interesting edifice on the surface of the globe. We know indeed, that it was mainly constructed of brick raised on stone foundations, that it was gabled, and that there was a bay-window on the eastern or garden side, but little beyond this. Two eye-witnesses only, out of the numbers who had seen the building previously to its destruction, have left memorials, and those but faint notices, of its appearance. Leland, who wrote about the year 1540, simply describes it as "a praty house of bricke and tymbre," words which may imply either that the upper part was formed entirely of wood or that there |