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But then bright Salmacis began to feare,

And sayd, Fayre Stranger, I will leaue thee here
Amid these pleasant places all alone.

So, turning back, she fayned to be gone;

But from his sight she had no power to passe,

Therefore she turn'd, and hid her in the grasse,

When to the ground bending her snow-white knee,
The glad earth gave new coates to euery tree.

He then supposing he was all alone,

(Like a young boy that is espy'd of none)

Runnes here, and there, then on the bankes doth looke,

Then on the cristall current of the brooke,

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Then with his foote he toucht the siluer streames,
Whose drowzy waves made musike in their dreames,
And, for he was not wholy in, did weepe,
Talking alowd and babbling in their sleepe:
Whose pleasant coolenesse when the boy did feele,
He thrust his foote downe lower to the heele;
O'recome with whose sweet noyse, he did begin
To strip his soft clothes from his tender skin,
When straight the scorching Sun wept teares of brine,
Because he durst not touch him with his shine,

For feare of spoyling that same iu'ry skin,
Whose whitenesse he so much delighted in:
And then the Moone, mother of mortale ease,
Would fayne have come from the Antipodes,
To haue beheld him naked as he stood,
Ready to leape into the siluer flood,

But might not; for the lawes of heauen deny,

To shew men's secrets to a woman's eye;
And therefore was her sad and gloomy light
Confin'd vnto the secret-keeping night.

When beauteous Salmacis awhile had gaz'd
Vpon his naked corps, she stood amaz'd,
And both her sparking eyes burnt in her face,
Like the bright Sunne reflected in a glasse.

Scarce can she stay from running to the boy,
Scarce can she now deferre her hoped ioy;
So fast her youthfull bloud playes in her vaynes,
That almost mad, she scarce her selfe contaynes,
When young Hermaphroditus as he stands,
Clapping his white side with his hollow hands,
Leapt liuely from the land, whereon he stood,
Into the mayne part of the cristall flood:
Like iu'ry then his snowy body was,

Or a white Lilly in a cristall glasse.

Then rose the water-Nymph from where she lay, As hauing wonne the glory of the day,

And her light garments casts from off her skin.
Hee's mine, she cry'd, and so leapt spritely in.
The flattering iuy who did euer see

Inclaspe the huge trunke of an aged tree,
Let him behold the young boy as he stands,

Inclasp in wanton Salmacis's hands:

Betwixt those iu'ry armes she lockt him fast,

Striuing to get away, till at the last,

Fondling, she sayd, why striu'st thou to be gone?

Why shouldst thou so desire to be alone?

Thy cheeke is neuer faire when none is by;

For what is red and white, but to the eye?

And for that cause the heauens are darke at night, Because all creatures close their weary sight;

For there's no mortall can so earely rise,

But still the morning waytes vpon his eyes.

The earely-rising and soone-singing larke

Can neuer chaunt her sweete notes in the darke;

For sleepe she ne're so little or so long,

Yet still the morning will attend her song.
All creatures that beneath bright Cinthia be,
Haue appetite vnto society:

The ouerflowing waues would haue a bound
Within the confines of the spacious ground,

And all their shady currents would be plaste
In hollow of the solitary vaste,

But that they lothe to let their soft streames sing,
Where none can heare their gentle murmuring.
Yet still the boy, regardlesse what she sayd,
Struggled apace to ouerswimme the mayd;
Which when the Nymph perceiu'd, she 'gan to say,
Struggle thou mayst, but neuer get away.

So graunt, iust gods, that neuer day may see

The separation twixt this boy and mee.

The gods did heare her pray'r and feele her woe;

And in one body they began to grow.

She felt his youthfull bloud in euery vaine,
And she felt hers warme his cold brest againe;

And euer since was woman's loue so blest,
That it draw bloud from the strongest brest.
Nor man nor mayd now could they be esteem'd:
Neither, and either, might they well be deem'd,
When the young boy Hermaphroditus sayd,
With the set voice of neither man nor mayd,
Swift Mercury, thou author of my life,
And thou my mother, Vulcan's louely wife,
Let your poore offsprings latest breath be blest,
In but obtayning this his last request.

Grant that who e're, heated by Phoebus beames
Shall come to coole him in these siluer streames,

May neuermore a manly shape retaine,

But halfe a virgine may returne againe.

His parents hark'ned to his last request,

And with that great power they the fountaine blest; And since that time who in that fountaine swimmes, A mayden smoothnesse seyzeth halfe his limmes.

FINIS.

ART. XIV. The new Fact regarding Shakespeare and his Wife, contained in the Will of Thomas Whittington.

I wish to offer a few remarks on the new fact regarding Shakespeare and his wife, recently discovered at Worcester, and transmitted not long since by Sir Thomas Phillipps to the Society of Antiquaries.

It is contained in the will of a person of the name of Thomas Whittington, of Shottery, in the county of Warwick, husbandman, in the following words :

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Item, I give and bequeath unto the poor people of Stratford, forty shillings, that is in the hand of Anne Shaxspere, wife unto Mr. William Shaxspere, and is debt due unto me, being paid to mine Executor by the said William Shaxspere, or his assigns, according to the true meaning of this my will."

This is the whole that relates to our great poet, and what does it seem to show? It is a question upon which Sir Thomas Phillipps has not touched in his brief communication, and it is a deficiency I shall endeavour briefly to supply.

May we not fairly gather, from the words of Whittington's will, (which bears date 25th March, 1601) that Shakespeare was then in London-that, at all events, he was absent from Stratford or the testator would not have said that the money was" in the hand of Anne Shakespeare," but in that of William Shakespeare, her husband: it was due from him as a “debt,” because it had been borrowed by his wife, probably to supply some temporary emergency at a period when she could not conveniently apply to her husband, who was at a distance of more than a hundred miles. The end of March was not long before the company of the Lord Chamberlain's players

usually removed from the Blackfriars theatre, where they performed in the winter, to the Globe, on the Bankside, where they usually acted from the middle of April until late in the autumn. Dr. Simon Forman saw "Macbeth" acted "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April," which, we apprehend, was soon after it opened for what we now call "the season."

The 25th of March, 1601, was the first day of the new legal year, for the historical year 1601 commenced on 1st January preceding. Whittington's will was no doubt drawn by a scrivener of Stratford, who observed the division of the legal year, and it was rather less than six months anterior to the death of our poet's father. Shakespeare had bought "New Place," (the house built by the Cloptons in the reign of Henry VIII.) in or about 1597, and there his wife Anne was doubtless living in March, 1601, the date when she owed £2 to Thomas Whittington. That sum was then equal, it is supposed, to about £10 of our present money; and having some claim made upon her, which she could not discharge by instantly resorting to her husband, she perhaps supplied her immediate necessity by obtaining the money from the testator. This may have been the mode in which the "debt" was contracted, which we may presume was fully discharged when our great dramatist made his next visit to his native town, if not before.

When Thomas Whittington died is not stated by Sir Thomas Phillipps, but probably the entry of his burial may be found in the registers of Stratford. He was "of Shottery,” as we are told in his will, and Shottery was the place from which Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, perhaps had originally come before she settled at Stratford, and where some members of her family had long resided. Two Hathaways, it will be seen presently, are mentioned in Whittington's will, although the circumstance does not appear to have attracted the attention it deserves. It may seem to render it likely that Anne Hathaway had come from Shottery, when we find her many

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