In the year 1642 one John Shakespeare of Budbrook, near Warwick, considered it a sufficient mark of respect to his father-in-law to leave him "his best boots."

The expression "second-best" has, however, been so repeatedly and so seriously canvassed to the testator's prejudice, it is important to produce evidence of its strictly inoffensive character. Such evidence is to be found in instances of its testamentary use in cases where an approach to a disparaging significance could not have been entertained. Thus the younger Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, in a will made in the year 1600, bequeathed to his son Richard "my second-best horse and furnyture"; and among the legacies given by Bartholomew Hathaway to his son Edmund, in 1621, is "my second brass pott." But there is another example that is conclusive in itself, without other testimony, of the position which is here advocated. It is in the will, dated in April, 1610, of one John Harris, a well-to-do notary of Lincoln, who, while leaving his wife a freehold estate and other property, also bequeaths to her "the standing bedstead in the litle chaumber, with the second-best featherbed I have, with a whole furniture therto belonging, and allso a trundle-bedsted with a featherbed, and the furniture therto belonging, and six payer of sheetes, three payer of the better sorte and three payer of the meaner sorte." This extremely interesting parallel disposes of the most plausible reason that has ever been given for the notion that there was at one time some kind of estrangement between Shakespeare and his Anne. Let us be permitted to add that the opportunity which has thus presented itself of refuting such aspersion is more than satisfactory,—it is a consolation; for there are few surer tests of the want either of a man's real amiability or

of his moral conduct than his incompetence, excepting in very special cases, to remain on affectionate terms with the partner of his choice. And it is altogther impossible that there could have been an exculpatory special case in the present instance.

The conjugal history of Shakespeare would not have been so tarnished had more regard been given to contemporary practices. It has generally been considered that the terms of the marriage-bond favor a suspicion of haste and irregularity, but it will be seen on examination that they are merely copies of the ordinary forms in use at Worcester. We should not inspect these matters through the glasses of modern life. For the gift of a bed let us substitute that of one of its present correlatives, a valuable diamond-ring for example, and we should then instinctively feel not only that the gift was one of affection, but that its isolation was most probably due to the circumstance of a special provision of livelihood for her being unnecessary. This was undoubtedly the case in the present instance. The interests of the survivor were nearly always duly considered in the voluntary settlements formerly so often made between husband and wife, but even if there had been no such arrangements in this case, the latter would have been well provided for by free-bench in the Rowington copyhold, and by dower on the rest of the property.

It is curious that the only real ground for a belief in any kind of estrangement between them should not hitherto have been noticed, but something to favor that impression may be fancied to be visible in Shakespeare's neglect to give his widow a life-interest either in their own residence at New Place or in its furniture. However liberally she may

have been provided for, that circumstance would hardly reconcile us to the somewhat ungracious divorce of a wife from the control of her own household. It is clear that there must have been some valid reason for this arrangement, for the grant of such an interest would not have affected the testator's evident desire to perpetuate a family estate, and there appears to be no other obvious design with which a limited gift of the mansion could have interfered. Perhaps the only theory that would be consistent with the terms of the will, and with the deep affection which she is traditionally recorded to have entertained for him to the end of her life, is the possibility of her having been afflicted with some chronic infirmity of a nature that precluded all hope of recovery. In such a case, to relieve her from household anxieties and select a comfortable apartment at New Place, where she would be under the care of an affectionate daughter and an experienced physician, would have been the wisest and kindest measure that could have been adopted.

It has been observed that a man's character is more fully revealed in a will than in any other less solemn document, and the experiences of most people will tend to favor the impression that nothing is so likely to be a really faithful record of natural impulses. Dismissing, as unworthy of consideration, the possibility of there having been an intentional neglect of his wife, it is pleasing to notice in Shakespeare's indications of the designer having been a conscientious and kind-hearted man, and one who was devoid of any sort of affectation. Independently of the bequests that amply provided for his children and sister, there are found in it a very unusual number of legacies to personal friends, and if some of its omissions, such as those of reference to

the Hathaways, appear to be mysterious, it must be recollected that we are entirely unacquainted with family arrangements, the knowledge of some of which might explain them all. It has, moreover, been objected that “the will contains less of sentiment than might be wished," that is to say, it may be presumed, by those who fancy that the great dramatist must have been, by virtue of his art, of an æsthetic and sentimental temperament. When Mr. West of Alscot was the first, in 1747, to exhibit a biographical interest in this relic, the Rev. Joseph Greene, master of the grammar-school of Stratford-on-Avon, who made a transcript for him, was also disappointed with its contents, and could not help observing that it was "absolutely void of the least particle of that spirit which animated our great poet." It might be thought from this impeachment that the worthy preceptor expected to find it written in blank-verse.

The preponderance of Shakespeare's domestic over his literary sympathies is strikingly exhibited in this final record. Not only is there no mention of Drayton, Ben Jonson, or any of his other literary friends, but an entire absence of reference to his own compositions. When these facts are considered adjunctively with his want of vigilance in not having previously secured authorized publications of any one of his dramas, and with other episodes of his life, it is difficult to resist the conviction that he was indifferent to the posthumous fate of his own writings. The editors of the first folio speak, indeed, in a tone of regret at his death having rendered a personal edition an impossibility; but they merely allude to this as a matter of fact or destiny, and as a reason for the devolution of the task upon themselves. They nowhere say, as they might naturally have done had it been the case, that the poet

himself had meditated such an undertaking, or even that the slightest preparations for it had been made during the years of his retirement. They distinctly assure us, however, that Shakespeare was in the habit of furnishing them with the autograph manuscripts of his plays, so that, if he had retained transcripts of them for his own ultimate use, or had afterwards collected them, it is reasonable to assume that they would have used his materials and not been so careful to mention that they themselves were the only gatherers. It may, indeed, be safely averred that the leading facts in the case, especially the apathy exhibited by the poet in his days of leisure, all tend to the persuasion that the composition of his immortal dramas was mainly stimulated by pecuniary results that were desired for the realization of social and domestic advantages. It has been frequently observed that, if this view be accepted, it is at the expense of investing him with a mean and sordid disposition. Such a conclusion may well be questioned. Literary ambition confers no moral grace, while its possession, as it might in Shakespeare's case, too often jeopardizes the attainment of independence as well as the paramount claims of family and kindred. That a solicitude in these latter directions should have predominated over vanity is a fact that should enhance our appreciation of his personal character, however it may affect the direct gratitude of posterity for the infinite pleasure and instruction derived from his writings.

One more section of the poet's will has yet to be considered, that solemn one which has been so frequently held to express the limits of his faith; but the terms in which the soul was devised were almost invariably those that were thought to reflect the doctrine of the prevailing religion,