grant to John Shakespeare was among the causes of complaint. His justification rested, in a great measure at least, upon the allegation upon the margin of the draft of 1596, that John Shakespeare "sheweth a patent thereof under Clarence Cook's hands in paper xx years past"; and in the grant of 1599 it is expressly stated that John Shakespeare had "produced this his auncient cote of arms heretofore assigned him whilst he was her Majesties officer and baylefe" of Stratford. Because no record of this grant is known to exist, it has been hitherto supposed that no such grant was made. But it is not at all improbable that John Shakespeare, when he was bailiff and in the height of his prosperity, made application to the heralds for arms at the time of one of their visitations, and that the matter went as far, at least, as the draft of a grant and a sketch, or, as it was called, a trick, of the arms, and that, the matter being spoken of in the neighborhood, the final grant was stopped at the instance of an old county family like the Lucys, who were particular about what Mrs. Page of Windsor would have called the article of their gentry. For in the famous first scene of the comedy in which she appears, where the bearer of the coat with the luces is ridiculed, his particularity about the antiquity of that coat is made even more of than his anger at the stealing of his deer. He is Robert Shallow, Esquire, Justice of Peace and coram, and cust-alorum, and ratalorum too; and a

gentleman born, who writes himself armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation; and he has done it any time these three hundred years; all his successors that have gone before him, and all his ancestors that come after him may give the dozen white luces in their coat. For, mind you, it is an old coat; and although this ignorant, lowbred Welsh parson will mistake a luce for the familiar beast to man, and have it passant, you are to know that the luce is the fresh fish, and that the salt fish is an old coat, and that the upstart bailiffs in yonder dirty little town are not to be bearing silver-headed tilting-spears upon golden shields, and getting within the pale of gentry by marrying poor gentlemen's daughters, and by heraldic puns upon their names, when their betters, by punning on their names can only bear fresh fish, which are subject to unpleasant misapprehension and mispronunciation, and have to be salted to keep and attain the honors of antiquity. If Shakespeare had two causes of quarrel with the man of the luces, he settled the two accounts rarely in that short scene of his only comedy of English manners; which he wrote in 1598, between the date at which the confirmation of his father's arms was drafted and that at which it was granted.

IV.

Shakespeare was now able to take an important step toward establishing himself handsomely in his native place. In 1597 he bought of William Underhill the Great House, or New Place, as it was called in Stratford, a mansion built of brick and timber, about a hundred and fifty years before, by Sir Hugh Clopton, the benefactor of the town. It cost Shakespeare sixty pounds sterling (equal to about $1500); a small outlay for the dwelling of a man of its new possessor's means and capacity of enjoyment. We know from the fine levied at the sale, that the premises included the Great House itself, two barns, two gardens, and two orchards. But from contemporary legal documents we learn that in 1550 the house was so much in need of repair as to be almost in decay. This was doubtless the reason why it was sold for so small a price. Its owner in the early part of the last century, Sir Hugh Clopton, a lineal descendant of its builder, told Theobald that Shakespeare "repaired and modelled it to his own mind"; and this family tradition is supported by the record of the payment in 1598 of "x d” to Mr. Shakespeare for "a lod of ston," which was probably at the thrifty poet's disposal on account of the extensive alterations at New Place. No representation of the house as it was in Shakespeare's time is known to exist, it having been

again much altered by Sir John Clopton in 1700; yet its size was not enlarged, and an existing representation of it in its last condition shows that it was a goodly mansion. But its new master took possession bereaved and disappointed. The death of his only son, Hamnet, in the twelfth year of his age, 1596, left him without a descendant to whom he might transmit, with his name, the houses and lands and the arms which he had obtained by such untiring labor. Shakespeare having money to invest, of course there was no lack of applicants for the pleasure of placing it for him to his advantage. Of these was one Master Abraham Sturley, a Puritan of the first water. He begins a long letter, written at Stratford, January 24th, 1559, to a friend in London, (probably Richard Quiney, whose son afterward married Shakespeare's daughter,) with a pious ejaculation, and then passes promptly to business, urging his correspondent to quicken an intention which Shakespeare was known to have to lay out some of his superfluous money in Stratford property, and especially to recommend to him a purchase of the tithes of Stratford and three other parishes, as profitable to himself, beneficial to the town, and likely to gain him many friends.*

*"Most loveinge and belovedd in the Lord. In plaine Englishe we remember u in the Lord, & ourselves unto u. I would write nothinge unto u nowe, but come home. I prai God send u comfortabli home. This is one speciall remembrance ffrom ur ffather's motion. It semeth bi him that our countriman, Mr. Shakspere, is willinge to disburse some monei upon some od

The recommendation, as we shall hereafter see, appears to have had some effect. There is another letter of this time, written also to Richard Quiney, which contains an obscure mention of a money transaction with Shakespeare.* And the fact is somewhat striking in the life of a great poet, that the only letter directly addressed to Shakespeare which is known to exist, is one which asks a loan of £30. It is from Richard Quiney, who at the writing was in London, and is as follows; for this money transaction belongs in full to Shakespeare's history.

66 Loveinge Contreyman, I am bolde of yo", as of a ffrende, craveinge your helpe wth xxx", uppon Mr Bushells & my securytee, or Mr Myttens with me. Mr Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, & I have especiall cawse. Yo shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out of all the debtts I owe in London, I thanck god, and muche quiet my mynde wch wolde not be indebeted. I am now towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatche of my Buysenes. Yo" shall nether loose creddytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge; & nowe butt perswade yo" selfe soe, as I

yarde land or other att Shottri or neare about us; he thinketh it a veri fitt patterne to move him to deale in the matter of our tithes. Bi the instructions u can geve him theareof, & by the frendes he can make therefore, we thinke it a faire marke for him to shoote att, & not impossible to hitt. It obtained would advance him in deede, and would do us much good. Hoc movere, et quantum in te est permovere, ne necligas, hoc enim et sibi et nobis maximi erit momenti. Hic labor, hoc opus esset eximiae et gloriae et laudis sibi." &c., &c.

*"Yff yow bargen with Wm. Sh― or receve money therefor, brynge your money home that yow maye."