sessed the advantage of correcting all they heard from her, and of learning a great variety of other particulars, from the conversation of their father and their mother, and from their own observation, the youngest of these daughters being no less than thirty-two years of age when the poet died, and seven years older at the death of her mother. Shakspeare's daughters, therefore, may reasonably be supposed to have been acquainted with many particulars of his early days, the business, and circumstances of their father and grandfather, their mother's maiden name and condition, and, particularly, the occurrences that drove their father from Stratford to seek his fortune in the metropolis. Of the nature of his occupation in London they must have been well aware; but their notions of his customary habits of life there were, in all probability, general and confused. Every particular relative to his retirement at Stratford must have been as familiar to them as the occurrences of their own lives. The youngest of these ladies survived till 1662, the eldest till 1649, leaving behind her a daughter born in 1607-8.

Familiarised to her mind by personal recollection, and endeared to her by an affectionate remembrance in his will, Elizabeth Hall had every inducement to listen with attention to the history and anecdotes of her illustrious grandfather, of which her relatives were the repositories. It is surely not too much to assume, that in the unusually prolonged intercourse of forty years with her mother, and of fifty-four years with her aunt, Judith Queeny, she became nearly as well informed upon the subject as themselves, and that, consequently,

up to the year 1670, when Lady Barnard died, a history, not only of great credibility, but of undoubted authenticity, existed of a large portion of the poet's life.

Nor were Shakspeare's immediate descendants the only channels through which his history would be transmitted. His sister Joan left three sons, all remembered by legacies in their uncle's will. The second of these sons, Thomas, was the father of George Hart, whose family was remarkably numerous, filling the parish-register of Stratford with an uninterrupted succession of births, marriages, and deaths, through the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In his retirement at Stratford, Shakspeare connected himself with a small circle of intimates, among whom, in the ordinary course of things, detailed portions of his life would from time to time be scattered. Of the various persons not of his own family, to whom he bequeathed legacies, two, Mr. Thomas Coomb, and Shakspeare's godson, William Walker, survived to advanced ages; Mr. Coomb died in 1657, leaving an elder brother, who lived ten years later. William Walker lived till 1679-80.

Up to a late period, therefore, in the seventeenth century, there was undoubtedly much authentic information in Stratford respecting Shakspeare. Some facts, of course, sunk every year into oblivion, and some were perverted by misrepresentation; but when the accumulated and extraordinary means which existed for the propagation and preservation of the truth are reflected upon, it is very difficult to conclude that when Better

ton instituted his inquiries, little more than twenty years after the death of Shakspeare's grand-daughter, fables only remained for him to collect. The facts adduced by Betterton are indeed few; but this leads to the inference that he was. scrupulous, not careless, in his inquiries. The "Picturesque Tourist" to Stratford shewed, nearly a century later, how successful Betterton might have been had he opened his ears to every idle tale. With respect to the authority of Rowe, I am completely at issue with Malone: I think Rowe's account substantially correct, and, consequently, that the modern biographer has not fulfilled his boast, that he would prove to be false eight out of the ten facts which Rowe advances.

The anecdotes related of Shakspeare by Mr. Jones and Mr. Taylor are of the same class of traditionary evidence. Mr. Jones died at Tarbick, a village in Worcestershire, in 1703, upwards of ninety years

old, and is the relator of an anecdote which he remembered to have heard from many old people at Stratford. Mr. Taylor, an alderman of Warwick, was eighty-five old in 1790. When a boy he lived at the next years house to New Place, which his family had occupied almost three hundred years.

About 1680, Mr. Aubrey was engaged in the collection of anecdotes respecting the most eminent English writers. His work was never completed, but his manuscripts are now reposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Aubrey was on terms of intimacy with most literary men of his day, and acquainted with many of the players. His opportunities, therefore, for the col

lection of anecdotes were great; but, unhappily, all he heard he believed, and all he believed he committed to paper. As an authority for any thing relative to Shakspeare, he is by no means to be placed on a footing with Rowe. Rowe and Betterton, apparently, consulted their judgment before they recorded the result of their enquiries: Aubrey had no judgment to consult.

Mr. William Oldys, Norry King at Arms, well known for the share he had in the compilation of the Biographia Britannia, left several quires of paper covered with collections for a regular life of Shakspeare, but they present few circumstances either of novelty or information; and even these must be received with caution. Oldys was a very careful writer, and his insertion of any of these materials in a life of Shakspeare by him, would have stamped them with the character of authenticity, for he would not so have used them without examination. At present they can only be received as evidence unwarranted by any opinion of his own upon their merits; that is, merely as indications of the belief or tradition of the time in which they were collected.

NOTE B.

MANY more varieties might be quoted; for the name of Shakspeare is an extremely apposite instance of the singular forms which sirnames assumed under the loose orthography of our ancestors, who appeared to have followed no guide but sound in their spelling. Shakspeare himself wrote his name variously: there are,

altogether, five signatures, which some writers presume to be genuine autographs: three are indisputably so: one to a mortgage deed executed in 1613,Wm. Shakspe"; a second to a conveyance from Henry Walker to the poet, William Shaksper; and one upon each of the three briefs of his will, William Shackspere, William Shakspere, William Shakspeare. The contractions exhibited by the two first signatures neutralize their evidence, as it is with respect to the last syllable only that any doubt exists; and, in regard to the signatures to the will, a sort of doubt has been cast on the first and second, by the suggestion that they might be the hand-writing of the notary employed on the occasion: the third signature to the will is clear and decisive; in deference to which, the poet's name will, throughout the pages of these volumes, be written Shakspeare.

NOTE C.

THE instrument which first assigned arms to John Shakspeare is no where to be found; but in a note at the bottom of the grant made in 1596 it is stated, that he then produced " a patent thereof under Clarence Cook's hand;" and, in the exemplification made in 1599, that he produced his ancient coat of arms assigned to him while he was bailiff of Stratford. The arms are thus described in the last document: "In a field of gould upon a bend sables a speare of the first, the point upward, hedded argent; and for his crest or cog