the arms of Arden to be impaled. In these documents it is stated that 'the parents and late antecessors' of John Shakespeare 'were, for their valiant and faithful services, advanced and rewarded by the most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of famous memory;' and that John Shakespeare had 'lands and tenements of good wealth and substance of the value of £500.' No memorial of any honours or rewards bestowed by Henry VII. on the family of Shakespeare can be found, and John Shakespeare was then in distressed circumstances, bearing no higher designation than that of a yeoman. The reference as to ancestry may have been intended to apply to the Ardens, but the whole of the statements regarding this grant of arms appear to be fallacious and deceptive. The application, we have little doubt, originated with the poet, who, as an actor, would have been considered disqualified for heraldic honours, but who was now rising into wealth and distinction. Shakespeare had never separated himself wholly from Stratford. His family is believed to have constantly remained there, and he visited his native place, as Rowe was informed, once every year. He evidently looked forward to his early retirement from the bustle of London. In 1597, he purchased for £60, New Place, one of the best houses in Stratford, and in the following year we have other indications of his prosperity. One of the burgesses of Stratford, Abraham Sturley, writes to a friend in London, January 24, 1598: 'It seemeth that our countryman, Mr Shakspere, is willing to disburse some money upon some odd yard land or other at Shottery;' and as Shottery was the birthplace of Anne Hathaway, and still the residence of her friends, this fact shews that the poet had no painful associations connected with his marriage. Another Stratford man, Richard Quiney-whose son subsequently married Shakespeare's youngest daughter-applies to him for a loan of £30, under no apprehension, apparently, that he would be refused the money, although £30 were then fully equivalent to £120 at the present time.1 We have the same year (1598) evidence of 1 As this is the only document extant, of all the poet's correspondence, Shakespeare's industry and reputation as an author. In a work, entitled Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury, being the Second Part of Wit's Commonwealth, by Francis Meres, there occurs the following glowing eulogium: 'As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete-wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honytongued Shakespeare; witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c. As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his Love Labours Wonne, his Midsummers Night Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard the 2., Richard the 3., Henry the 4., King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet. As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would and as it must have passed through his hands, we subjoin a verbatim copy of the communication: 'Loveinge Contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxxli uppon Mr Bushells and my securytee, or Mr Myttons with me. Mr Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I have especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thanck God, and muche quiete my mynde, which wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatche of my buysenes. Yow shall nether loose creddytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge; and nowe butt perswade yowrselfe soe, as I hope, and yow shall nott need to feare butt with all heartie thanckefullnes I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffreende, and yf we bargaine farther, yow shalbe the paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hasten to an ende, ande soe I committ thys [to] yowr care and hope of yowr helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with yow and with us all, Amen! ffrom the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25 October, 1598. Yowrs in all kyndenes, Ryc. QUYNEY. To my loveinge good ffrende and contreyman Mr Wm. Shackespere deliver thees.' speak with Shakespeares fine filed phrase, if they would speake English.' This is not given by Meres as a complete list of the poet's works at the above date, and he may have written more. A small poetical miscellany, bearing the title of The Passionate Pilgrim, attributed to Shakespeare, but only partly written by him, appeared also in 1598. He was then living, or at least assessed on property, in the parish of St Helen's Bishopsgate, near to Crosby Hall; and in the list of the principal comedians who performed in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, 1598, the name of Shakespeare stands first. 'Many,' says Fuller in his Worthies, 'were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances; Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.' This happy illustration could only have been founded on tradition, for Fuller belonged to a later generation; but that such encounters did take place at the Mermaid Tavern, where Jonson and Shakespeare, with Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Donne, and others, occasionally passed a social hour, can hardly be doubted. Unfortunately the Mermaid wits had no Boswell, and only a few miserable stale jests, of very doubtful authority, have descended to us as the coinage of that golden mint. Jonson's deliberate and manly testimony to the personal merits and genius of his friend is too memorable to be omitted: 'I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand! Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour; for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong," he replied: "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause," and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.' If we add to this the noble verses of Jonson: To the memory of my beloved, the author, Mr William Shakespeare,' we may readily believe that the affection which subsisted between the two great dramatists was deep and sincere, though sometimes clouded, on the part of Jonson, by momentary fits of irritation and spleen. When Shakespeare finally retired from the stage, has not been stated. The latest date at which his name occurs is 1603, when he performed in Ben Jonson's tragedy of Sejanus. That he was never very partial to the sock or buskin may be gathered from his comparatively early withdrawal to Stratford, and also from the tenor of one of his sonnets, which seems to betray considerable personal feeling: 'O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, Than public means which public manners breeds. And almost thence my nature is subdu'd To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.' That he retained his interest in the Blackfriars and Globe Theatres till some years later may be considered certain, and he continued to write for them, after this period, his best and greatest dramas. Jonson has recorded the high appreciation which Queen Elizabeth and her successor King James entertained of the genius of Shakespeare: 'Sweet swan of Avon, what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames That so did take Eliza and our James!' Elizabeth could hardly, as Mr Dyce remarks, have been insensible to the most enchanting compliment ever paid by genius to royal vanity-the allusion to the Virgin Queen in A Midsummer Night's Dream:' 'That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, In maiden-meditation, fancy free.' -Act II. Sc. 1. The allusion in Macbeth to Banquo's 'royal progeny,' and to the union of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland— the 'twofold balls and treble sceptres'-must also have been gratifying to James, who is said to have written with his own hand an 'amicable' or complimentary letter to the poet. That monarch often forgot his high notions of royalty and 'kingcraft,' and here was a rare occasion on which he could shew his wit, and be familiar without loss of dignity. One of the first acts of 1 The letter was said to have been in the hands of Sir William Davenant, and to have been seen by Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. In the Accounts of the Revels we see James's partiality for Shakespeare's plays, but there is no mention of Macbeth being performed before him. The following is a note of entries: 1604, Nov. 1, at Whitehall, The Moor of Venice; Nov. 4, The Merry Wives of Windsor; Dec. 26, Measure for Measure; Dec. 28, Comedy of Errors. 1605, Between New-year's Day and Twelfth-night, Love's Labour's Lost; Jan. 7, Henry V.; March 24, с |