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the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again; and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. He had some time before cut down Shakspeare's mulberry tree,* to save himself the trouble of shewing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the classic ground on which it stood. That Shakspeare planted this tree appears to be sufficiently authenticated. Where New Place stood is now a garden.Before concluding this history, it may be necessary to mention that the poet's house was once honoured by the temporary residence of Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles I. Theobald has given an inaccurate account of this, as if she had been obliged to take refuge in Stratford from the rebels;

*"As the curiosity of this house and tree brought much fame, and more company and profit to the town, a certain man, on some disgust, has pulled the house down, so as not to leave one stone upon another, and cut down the tree, and piled it as a stack of firewood, to the great vexation, loss, and disappointment, of the inhabitants; however, an honest silversmith bought the whole stack of wood, and makes many odd things of this wood for the curious." Letter in Annual Register. Lady, see Boswell's Life of Edit. 1793.

1760. Of Mr. Gastrell and his

Dr. Johnson, Vol. II. p. 356.

but that was not the case. She marched from Newark, June 16, 1643, and entered Stratford triumphantly about the 22d of the same month, at the head of 3000 foot and 1500 horse, with 150 waggons and a train of artillery. Here she was met by Prince Rupert, accompanied by a large body of troops. She resided about three weeks at our poet's house, which was then possessed by his grand daughter Mrs. Nash, and her husband.

During Shakspeare's abode in this house, his pleasurable wit, and good-nature, says Mr. Rowe, engaged him the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Among these Mr. Rowe tells a traditional story of a miser, or usurer, named Combe, who, in conversation with Shakspeare, said he fancied the poet intended to write his epitaph if he should survive him, and desired to know what he meant to say. On this Shakspeare gave him the following, probably extempore:

"Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,

'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd, If any man ask, who lies in this tombe?

Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe."

The sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely that he never forgave it. These lines, however, or some which nearly re

semble them, appeared in various collections both before and after the time they were said to have been composed; and the inquiries of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone satisfactorily prove that the whole story is a fabrication. Betterton is said to have heard it when he visited Warwickshire on purpose to collect anecdotes of our poet, and probably thought it of too much importance to be nicely examined.-We know not whether it be worth adding of a story which we have rejected, that a usurer in Shakspeare's time did not mean one who took exorbitant, but any interest or usance for money, and that ten in the hundred, or ten per cent. was then the ordinary interest of money. It is of more consequence, however, to record the opinion of Mr. Malone, that Shakspeare, during his retirement, wrote the play of Twelfth Night.

He died on his birth-day, Tuesday, April 23, 1616, when he had exactly completed his fiftysecond year, * and was buried on the north side of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed in the wall, on which he is represented under an arch, in a sitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in

*The only notice we have of his person is from Aubrey, who says, "He was a handsome well-shaped man," and adds, "verie good company, and of a very ready, and pleasant and smooth wit."

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his right hand, and his left rested on a scroll of paper. The following Latin distich is engraved under the cushion:

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,

Terra tegit, populus mæret, Olympus habet.

"The first syllable in Socratem, says Mr. "Steevens, is here made short, which cannot be "allowed. Perhaps we should read Sophoclem. "Shakspeare is then appositely compared with a "dramatick author among the ancients: but still "it should be remembered that the eulogium is "lessened while the metre is reformed; and it is "well known that some of our early writers of "Latin poetry were uncommonly negligent in "their prosody, especially in proper names. The "thought of this distich, as Mr. Tollet observes, "might have been taken from The Faery Queene "of Spenser, B. II. c. ix. st. 48, and e. x. st. 3.

"To this Latin inscription on Shakspeare may "be added the lines which are found underneath "it on his monument:

"Stay, passenger, why dost thou go so fast?

"Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plac'd
"Within this monument; Shakspeare, with whom
"Quick nature dy'd; whose name doth deck the tomb
"Far more than cost; since all that he hath writ

"Leaves living art but page to serve his wit."
"Obiit An°. Dni. 1616.

æt. 53, die 23 Apri.

"It appears from the verses of Leonard Digges, "that our author's monument was erected before "the year 1623. It has been engraved by Vertue, " and done in mezzotinto by Miller."

On his grave-stone underneath are these lines, in an uncouth mixture of small and capital letters:

"Good Friend for Iesus SAKE forbeare

"To diGG T-E Dust Enclo Ased HERe

"Blese be T-E Man
"And curst be He

spares T-Es Stones moves my Bones."

It is uncertain whether this request and imprecation were written by Shakspeare, or by one of his friends. They probably allude to the custom of removing skeletons after a certain time, and depositing them in charnel-houses; and similar execrations are found in many ancient Latin epitaphs.

We have no account of the malady which at no very advanced age closed the life and labours of this unrivalled and incomparable genius.

His family consisted of two daughters, and a son named Hamnet, who died in 1596, in the twelfth year of his age. Susannah, the eldest daughter, and her father's favourite, was married to Dr. John Hall, a physician, who died Nov. 1635, aged 60. Mrs. Hall died July 11, 1649, aged 66. They left only one child, Elizabeth,

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