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The latter part of Shakspeare's life was spent in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had accumulated considerable property, which Gildon (in his "Letters and Essays" in 1694,) stated to amount to 300l. per annum; a sum at least equal to 1000l. in our days; but Mr. Malone doubts whether all his property amounted to much more than 200l. per annum, which yet was a considerable fortune in those times; and it is supposed that he might have derived 200l. per annum from the theatre while connected with it.

He retired about four years (1611 or 1612) before his death, to a house in Stratford, of which it has been thought important to give the history. It was built by sir Hugh Clopton, a younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood. Sir Hugh was sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III., and lord mayor in that of Henry VII. By his will he bequeathed to his elder brother's son his manor of Clopton, &c., and his house by the name of the Great House in Stratford.1 A good part of the estate was in possession of Edward Clopton, Esq. and sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. in 1733. The principal estate had been sold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakspeare became the purchaser; who, having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New Place, which the mansion-house, afterwards erected in the room of the poet's house, retained for many years. The house and lands belonging to it continued in the possession of Shakspeare's descendants to the time of the Restoration, when they were repurchased by the Clopton family. Here in May 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Delane, vi

1 The account of this house in Malone's Shakspeare, 1821, is the same which appeared in his edition of 1790, but which he probably would have corrected, had he seen some further information on the subject, by Mr. Wheler, in Gent. Mag. vol. lxxix. and vol. lxxx.

sited Stratford, they were hospitably entertained under Shakspeare's mulberry-tree by sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrister-at-law, was knighted by king George I., and died in the 80th year of his age, in Dec. 1751. His executor, about the year 1752, sold New Place to the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a man of large fortune, who resided in it but a few years in consequence of a disagreement with the inhabitants of Stratford: as he resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly in the monthly rate towards the maintenance of the poor; but being very properly compelled by 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 showing 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; 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 1,500 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 granddaughter, Mrs. Nash, and her husband.

* "As the curiosity of this house and tree brought inuch 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, 1760. Of Mr. Gastrell and his Lady, see Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. ii. p. 456. edit. 1822. 4 vol.

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. This may readily be believed, for he was entitled to their respect. He had left his native place, poor, and almost unknown. He returned ennobled by fame, and enriched by for

tune.

Mr. Rowe gives us 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 engrav'd,
'Tis an 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 resembled 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 ex

amined. 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 would have been of more consequence, however, to have here recorded the opinion of Mr. Malone, in his first edition, that Shakspeare, during his retirement, wrote the play of Twelfth Night; but unfortunately, in his last edition, he carried the date of this play back to the year 1607.

Shakspeare died on his birth-day, Tuesday, April 23, 1616, when he had exactly completed his fifty-second year6, 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 placed before him, with a pen in 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. Per"haps we should read Sophoclem.' Shakspeare is " then appositely compared with a dramatick author

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among the ancients: but still it should be remem" bered 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 negli

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gent in their prosody, especially in proper names. "The thought of this distich, as Mr. Tollet observes,

6 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."

" might have been taken from the Faëry Queene of " Spenser, B. II. c. ix. st. 48., and c. 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 Ano. 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 Enclosed HERE
"Blese be T-E Man spares T-Es Stones
"And curst be He 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. Shakspeare's remains, however, have been ever carefully protected from injury. *

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

* Mr. Malone's causing the bust to be painted white has been severely censured; he did not live to defend it. See this and other information respecting this bust in Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxv. and Ixxxvi.

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