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mother's funeral, as we know him to have been in Stratford in the following month. His brother Richard died in 1612. His daughter Judith married in 1616 a Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three sons, who all died unmarried.

The last time we hear of Shakespeare as an actor is in 1603 when he performed in Ben Jonson's Sejanus, soon after which he retired from the stage, perhaps in 1604. In 1608 however he was still a sharer in the two theatres. In 1609, we find from a document which has come down to us, that Shakespeare held four shares in the Blackfriars theatre valued at that time at £133 6 s. 8 d. per annum: besides this he was proprietor of the wardrobe valued at £ 500, this we may presume he lent to the company for a certain consideration, and ten per cent. seems a very low rate of payment; if taken however at that sum, it would add £ 50 a year to the £ 133 6 s. 8 d. already mentioned, making £ 183 6 s. 8 d. a year, besides what our great dramatist gained by the profits of his pen. Without including any thing on this account, and supposing the Globe to have been as profitable as the Blackfriars, it is evident that Shakespeare's income could hardly have been less (taking every known source of emolument into view), than £400 a year, a sum equal to £ 2000 a year at the present time. From this period until 1612 we hear very little of our dramatist, when it is probable that he retired permanently to Stratford, having previously disposed of his theatrical property in London. Here, in his native town, he passed the rest of his days in tranquil retirement, and in the enjoyment of the society of his friends, whether residing in the country or occasionally visiting him from the metropolis. "The latter part of his life," says Rowe, "was spent, as all men of sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the society of his friends;" and he adds what cannot be doubted, that "his pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood." He must have been of a lively and companionable disposition; and his long residence in London, amid the bustling and varied scenes connected with his public

life, independently of his natural powers of conversation, could not fail to render his society most agreeable and desirable.

In 1616 he was seized with his last and fatal illness, what this was we have no satisfactory means of knowing, but it was probably not of long duration; for if when he subscribed his will he had really been in health, we are persuaded that at the age of only fifty-two he would have signed his name with greater steadiness and distinctness. All three signatures are more or less infirm and illegible, but he seems to have made an effort to write his best when he affixed both his names at length at the end. "By me William Shakspeare." In regard to his will the request which has attracted most attention is an interlineation in the following words, "Item, I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture." Upon this passage has been founded a charge against Shakespeare that he only remembered his wife as an afterthought, and then merely gave her an "old bed." Our dramatist has of late years been relieved from the stigma, thus attempted to be thrown upon him, by the mere remark, that his property being principally freehold, the widow by the ordinary operation of the law of England would be entitled to, what is legally known by the term dower.

A monument was erected to Shakespeare in Stratford church, and on a tablet below his bust are placed the following inscriptions:

"Jvdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, popvlvs mæret, Olympys habet.

Stay, passenger, why goest thov by so fast?
Read, if thov canst, whom enviovs Death hath plast
Within this monvment, Shakspeare; with whome
Quick natvre dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more then cost; sieh [sith] all yt he hath writt
Leaves living art bvt page to serve his witt.

Obiit Año Doi 1616

Etatis 53, die 23 Ap."

On a flat grave-stone in front of the monument, we read these lines, and tradition speare himself;

says, that they were written by Shake

"Good frend, for Jesvs sake forbeare
To digg the dyst encloased heare:
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yt moves my bones."

We have thus brought into a consecutive narrative the particulars respecting the life of the "myriad-minded Shakespeare" which we have been able, during a long series of years, to collect. Yet, after all, we cannot but be aware how little has been accomplished. "Of William Shakespeare," says Hallam, "whom, through the mouths of those whom he has inspired to body forth the modifications of his immense mind, we seem to know better than any human writer, it may be truly said that we scarcely know anything. We see him, so far as we do see him, not in himself, but in a reflex image from the objectivity in which he is manifested: he is Falstaff, and Mercutio, and Malvolio, and Jacques, and Portia, and Imogen, and Lear, and Othello; but to us he is scarcely a determined person, a substantial reality of past time, the man Shakespeare. The name of Shakespeare is the greatest in our literature, - it is the greatest in all literature. No man ever came near to him in the creative powers of the mind; no man had ever such strength at once, and such variety of imagination."

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If the details of his life be imperfect, the history of his mind is complete; and we leave the reader to turn from the contemplation of "the man Shakespeare" to THE POET SHAKESPEARE.

GLOSSARY.

Apparent, heir-apparent, next claimant.

Apple-John, a shrivelled and withered apple.

Abhominable, abominable.
Abide, to sojourn, to tarry awhile; to Apperil, peril.
answer for, to be accountable for, to
stand the consequences of.
Abodements, forebodements, omens.
Aby, the same as to abide (see its
second sense).
Acture, action.

Adamant, the magnet, the loadstone.
Addiction, inclination; the being ad-
dicted or given to.

Addition, title, mark of distinction;
exaggeration.

Address, to prepare, to make ready.
Admittance, fashion.

Affection, affectation; imagination;
sympathy.
Affectioned, affected.

Affeer'd, confirmed, established.
Affin'd, joined by affinity.

Affront, a meeting face to face, a hostile
encounter.

Affront, to meet, to encounter.
Affy, to betroth; to trust, to confide.
Aglet-baby, a small image or head cut
on the tag of a point or lace.
Agnize, to acknowledge, to avow.
Aim, guess, conjecture; · -to cry aim,
to encourage; to give aim, to direct;
-to aim, to aim at; to guess, to con-
jecture.
Alderliefest, dearest of all.
Ale, alehouse.
Aleven, eleven.

All-hallown summer, late summer.
Allow, to approve; to license, to privilege.
Amaimon, the name of a demon.
Ames-ace, both aces,

upon the dice.

the lowest throw

Amiss, misfortune; fault.
Amort (All), dejected, dispirited.
Anchor, an anchorite, hermit.
Ancient, a standard; a standard-bearer,
an ensign-bearer.

Angel (An ancient), an old worthy.

Approbation, proof; probation, novi-
tiate.

Approof, approbation; proof.
Approve, to prove; to ratify, to confirm ;
to recommend to approbation.
Aquilon, the North Wind.
Arabian bird, the phoenix.
Arch, chief, leader.

Argier, the old name for Algiers.
Argo, a vulgar corruption of the Latin
word ergo.

Argosy, a ship of great bulk and burden,
fit either for merchandise or war.
Argument, conversation, discourse;
subject, matter.

Articulate, to enter into articles; to
exhibit in articles.
Aspersion, sprinkling.

As's, a quibble between as the con-
ditional particle, and ass the beast of
burden.

Assinego, a silly, a stupid fellow.
Atomies, atoms.

Atomy, a corruption of anatomy, a
skeleton.

Atone, to agree, to unite; to reconcile.
Attask'd, taxed, blamed.
Attorney, an advocate, a pleader; a
substitute, a deputy.

Aunt, a good old dame; a cant term
for a loose woman.

Awkward, distorted; adverse.

Baccare, a cant exclamation, signifying "Go back."

Baffle, to treat ignominiously, to use contemptuously.

Bajazet's mute; the allusion in this passage (where the original reads male) has not yet been explained.

Baldrick, a belt.

Bale, sorrow, evil.

Balk'd, piled up in balks or ridges.
Ballast, the contracted form of ballased
or ballaced, ballasted.
Balm, the oil of consecration.
Ban, a curse; to curse.
Band, a bond.

Ban-dogs, properly band-dogs, so called because on account of their fierceness they required to be bound or chained. Banquet, dessert.

Barbason, the name of a demon.
Barbed steeds, steeds equipped with
military trappings and ornaments.
Baring, shaving.
Barm, yeast.

Barson, a corruption of Barston, a
village in Warwickshire.
Base, a rustic game.

Basilisk, an imaginary creature (called also cockatrice), supposed to kill by its very look; a huge piece of ordnance, carrying a ball of very great weight. Basta, enough.

Bastard, a sweetish wine.
Bate, strife, contention.

Bate, to flutter, to flap the wings; to
abate, to diminish, to lessen; to grow
less; to except; to blunt.
Batlet, a bat for beating clothes in
washing.

Batten, to grow fat.

Bavin, a faggot of brushwood.
Bavin wits, flashing wits.

Beadsman, one who prays for the welfare of another.

Bear in hand, to keep in expectation,
to flatter one's hopes, to amuse with
false pretences.
Beautified, beautiful.

Become, to adorn, to set-off, to grace.
Be-mete, to be-measure.
Benison, blessing.

Besmirch, to be-smut.
Besort, attendance, train.
Besort, to suit, to befit, to become.
Bestow, to stow, to lodge, to place; to
carry, to show.

Bestraught, distraught, mad.
Beteem, to give in streaming abundance;
to suffer, to permit.
Bewray, to discover.
Bid, to invite.
Bid, endured.

Bilbo, a sword.

Bilboes, a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it.

Bill, a sort of pike or halbert, or rather a kind of battle-axe affixed to a long staff; a forest-bill, an implement carried by foresters; a placard posted by public challengers; à billet, a note. Bin, been.

Bird-bolt, a short thick arrow with a blunted extremity, for killing birds without piercing them. Birthdom, birthright. Bisson, blind; blinding.

Blench, to start off, to fly off, to shrink, to flinch.

Blenches, starts, or aberrations from rectitude.

Blent, blended.

Block, the shape or fashion of a hai,— properly the mould on which felt hats were formed; the hat itself. Blood, disposition, inclination, temperament, impulse; to be in blood, to be in good condition, to be vigorous. Blue-coats, the common dress of serv ing-men in Shakespeare's time. Bob, a taunt, a scoff. Bob, to cheat. Bodg'd, botch'd. Bodkin, a small dagger. Bollen, swollen. Bolted, sifted.

Bombard, a large leathern vessel for distributing liquor.

Bombast, material for stuffing out dresses.

Book, one's studies, learning; a writing, a paper.

Boot, profit, gain, something added; booty; to benefit, to enrich; to put on boots. Bosky, woody. Bosom, wish, desire.

Bots, worms that breed in the entrails of horses.

Bottom, a low ground, a valley; a ball of thread.

Bottomlit on me, wind it on me, make me the bottom or centre on which it is wound.

Bought and sold, see: buy and sell. Bourn, a limit, a boundary; a brook, a rivulet.

Brabbler, a clamorous quarrelsome

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