from a disastrous fire which had broken out the previous summer -no less than 54 houses having been burned-but without touching the Shakespeare property. The town-clerk of Stratford, Thomas Green, went to London on this business, and he there met the poet: 1614, Jovis 17, No. My cosen Shakspear comyng yesterday to town, I went to see him how he did. He told me that they assured him they ment to inclose no further than Gospell Bush, &c. . . . . He and Mr Hall say they think ther will be nothyng done at all.' .... A year afterwards, however, the poet was uneasy on the subject, for Greene writes: '1 Sept. [1615]. Mr Shakspeare told Mr J. Greene that he was not able to beare the enclosing of Welcombe.' The design of the enclosure was ultimately frustrated, but not until the poet had been two years in his grave. In the chamberlain's accounts for 1614, is an entry of a domestic character: ❝Item, for on quart of sack and on quart of clarrett winne given to a preacher at the Newe Place, xxd.' Stratford was then much visited by Puritan divines, whom the corporation were in the practice of rewarding with gratuities and refreshments. Shakespeare's relatives, the Halls and Quineys, appear to have adopted serious views, but we suspect the poet himself was in London when the preacher was entertained in New Place. He might, however, as Mr Dyce conjectures, have 'lent his house on the occasion in compliance with the wishes of some of his family or neighbours, whom he was too liberal-minded to oppose.'1 The reluctance is more likely to have been on the side of the preacher than on that of the poet. 1'Here, too, may be noticed the tradition preserved by the Rev. Richard Davies, that Shakespeare died a papist-which is contradicted by the general tenor of his writings, as well as by the whole history of his life. Nor is it improbable that this tradition originated with the Puritan party at Stratford; for Shakespeare-who could hardly have avoided all discussion on the controverted religious topics of the day-may have incidentally let fall expressions unfavourable to Puritanism, which were afterwards misrepresented as papistical.'-DYCE. On the 10th of February 1616, Judith, the youngest daughter of Shakespeare, was married to Thomas Quiney, a vintner and wine-merchant at Stratford, son of the Richard Quiney whom we have seen in 1598 soliciting a loan of £30 from the poet, and who died bailiff of Stratford in 1602. With a view to this marriage, Shakespeare seems to have prepared his will. The date, as it originally stood, was Vicesimo quinto die Januarii, which, when the will was executed, was changed to Vicesimo quinto die Martii, at which time Shakespeare appears to have been struck with his mortal illness. Mr Hunter conceives that from the smallness of the share of the family fortune given to Judith, and the restrictive clauses accompanying it, the marriage had not the full approbation of the father. Judith was left a sum of £100, and a further sum of £50, on condition of her surrendering a copyhold tenement which she held in Stratford. The life-interest of £150 is also bequeathed to her, with remainder to her children. The object of the poet, by leaving the bulk of his property to Mrs Hall, and strictly entailing it, was evidently to found a family; and his youngest daughter does not appear to have felt herself slighted, as she gave her first child the name of Shakespeare Quiney. One bequest in the will-an interlineation-occasioned a good deal of marvel and censorious criticism: "Item, I give unto my wife my second-best bed, with the furniture." The remarks unfavourable to the poet on this subject were made, as Mr Charles Knight first shewed, in entire ignorance or forgetfulness of the nature of Shakespeare's property and of the operation of the law of England. All the poet's estates, with the exception of the copyhold tenement in London, were freehold, and his widow was entitled to the provision termed dower. She was assured of the life-interest of a third in the houses in Henley Street, of New Place, and of the lands in Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. Even the bequest of the second-best bed may have been designed, according to the fashion of the times, as a special mark of affection. Had there been domestic unhappiness, we should have expected to find the poet shunning Stratford, and sinking into the bitterness of a satirist. But a mind so transcendently endowed and equally balanced—a man so genial, so fortunate and blest in all his environments, could not have lived estranged from the wife and the love of his youth. He who was 'gentle' to all others could not have been unkind to her alone. Shakespeare died on the 23d of April 1616, and according to the diary of the Rev. John Ward, already quoted, the event was precipitated by a symposium held in company with Michael Drayton, the poet―a native of Warwickshire-and Ben Jonson. Ward says: 'Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry-meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.' The 'merry-meeting-one of many-in all probability did take place; but the fatal excess may be merely a vulgar tradition, not recorded until nearly a century after the event. The remains of the poet were interred on the 25th, two days after his decease, in the chancel of Stratford church, and a flat stone over the grave bears the well-known inscription : 'Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare, A person named Dowdall, writing in 1693, states that these lines were written by Shakespeare himself, a little before his death, and 'not one, for fear of the curse abovesaid, dare touch his gravestone, though his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with him.' The first part of this statement may be doubted; but the second part, resting on the authority of the old parish-clerk, has an air of truth, and is a pleasing testimony to the love and veneration borne towards the poet by those who knew him best. To Dr and Mrs Hall we no doubt owe the monument to the memory of the poet in the chancel of Stratford church. From the verses by Leonard Digges prefixed to the folio Shakespeare of 1623, we know that the monument was erected before that time; and the bust of the poet, executed under the auspices of his widow and daughter, must be regarded, in essential points, as an authentic likeness. The sculptor, Gerard Johnson, may not have been able to convey the finer and subtler traits of the poet's expression, but he represents him as in the act of composition-the well-set head and full rounded features, crowned by the dome-like forehead, beaming with good-humour, if not gaiety, and redolent of calm easy strength and native grace. We have in the bust a confirmation of what was told Aubrey, that Shakespeare was 'a handsome well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready, and pleasant, and smooth wit.' Below the bust is this inscription: 'Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, 'Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast? Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death hath plast Obiit Ano Do1 1616, Etatis 53, die 23 Ap.' Of the family of Shakespeare we may subjoin a brief notice. The poet's widow died in 1623, and, like him, was buried two days after death, in Stratford church, close to her husband's grave in the chancel. A brass plate bears the following inscription: 'Heere lyeth interred the Body of Anne, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of Aug. 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares. Ubera tu, mater, tu lac vitamque dedisti : Væ mihi, pro tanto munere saxa dabo. 1 One peculiarity of the bust is the unusual length of the upper lip, a feature also characteristic of Sir Walter Scott. Shakespeare's bust, it is well known, was originally coloured-the eyes light hazel, the hair and beard auburn. But Malone had it painted over white in 1793. The portrait prefixed to the folio of 1623, represents the countenance as longer and thinner, and infinitely more plebeian in expression. Though vouched for by Ben Jonson as a likeness, it is evidently a bad likeness. Quam mallem amoveat lapidem bonus angelus ore, Sed nil vota valent: venias cito, Christe, resurget, Mrs Hall's tombstone is thus inscribed: 'Heere lyeth ye body of Susanna, wife of John Hall, gent; y daughter of William Shakespeare, gent: :shee deceased y 11th of July, Ao 1649, aged 66. Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall: Something of Shakespeare was in that; but this, Wholy of him with whome she's now in blisse. Then, passenger, hast ne're a tear To weepe with her that wept with all? Them up with comforts cordiall. That Mrs Hall was not honoured with a Latin inscription, may be inferred from the fact that her husband had predeceased her. Dr Hall died November 25, 1635, aged sixty, and was buried with the Shakespeares in the chancel of Stratford church. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, married first to Thomas Nashe, and, after his death, to Sir John Bernard of Abington, near Northampton; but by neither marriage had she any issue. The poet's other daughter, Judith, married to Thomas Quiney, died in 1662, aged seventy-seven. She left three sons, but all died without issue; and thus, in fifty-four years, the lineal representatives of Shakespeare had become extinct. His ambition to build up a family that should inherit his name and possessions had perished in the third generation. 'Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Hast built thyself a live-long monument.' -MILTON. With respect to the chronology of Shakespeare's plays, we have |