mentioned in his will of which he was not possessed in 1605, supposing that the two houses in Henley street were inherited by him on his father's dying intestate in 1601, and there is every reason for believing that to have been the case. Shakespeare's property has been differently valued. According to Gildon, his income was £300 a year, but Malone computes it at £200, not having all the evidence before him that has now been made attainable. An exact opinion on this subject is difficult to form, for a portion of his property was perhaps employed before his death in making provisions for those members of his family who have been thought by some biographers to have been neglected by him in his will.

The exact period at which Shakespeare retired from the stage is not known, but he was one of the original actors in Ben Jonson's Sejanus, which was produced in 1603, and in a letter, hereafter quoted, supposed to have been written in 1608, he is described as " till of late an actor of good account in the cumpanie." His name also occurs in a list of the king's company appended to a letter dated April 9th, 1604, found by Mr. Collier at Dulwich College, but I have some doubt whether he might not have been retained in such a list as long as he continued to possess an interest in the profits of the theatre, even although he had relinquished his profession as an actor. It seems evident, from the curious document quoted at p. 208, that, in 1604, Shakespeare was occupied in pursuits of quite a different kind at Stratford, and the transactions there mentioned are of a character to lead us to believe he was then a resident in that town, especially as they are spread over a considerable period; but it must be kept in mind that the evidence in this respect is not sufficiently complete to enable us to decide with certainty the period of his permanent establishment at Stratford, for Aubrey's assertion that "he was wont to

goe to his native countrey once a yeare" sufficiently explains the circumstances above alluded to, if we can venture to adopt the opinion of a writer whose other statements are so improbable.

It is beyond doubt that Shakespeare made, for those days, frequent journeys between Stratford and London. In the Corn-market, Oxford, a very few yards from Carfax church, may yet be seen an inn which has for centuries been known by the sign of the Crown. Its front is now quite modernised, but from a yard at the back may still be accurately traced considerable portions of the older building, and sufficiently distinct to enable the observer to bring to his mind the portraiture of a large rambling substantial hostelry of the Elizabethan period. The present frequenters of this establishment are little aware of the associations that have been conferred upon it by the antiquarian gossips of the seventeenth century. It was here, according to Anthony

Oxford was in the high road between London and Stratford, the route passing through Islip. Shakespeare was probably well acquainted with Oxford

Wood, that Shakespeare lodged "in his journies between Warwickshire and London." The tavern was then kept by John Davenant, father of Sir William, and the hostess, says Wood, "was a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children but by this William." Aubrey agrees with this account, but in his hands the story, as might be expected, is considerably improved upon, as the following extract from the life of Davenant in his manuscript collections in the Ashmolean Museum will show :

Sir William Davenant, knight, poet-laureate, was borne about the end of February in . . . . street in the city of Oxford, at the Crowne Taverne : baptized 3. of March, A. D. 1605-6. His father was John Davenant, a vintner there, a very grave and discreet citizen: his mother was a very beautifull woman, and of a very good witt, and of conversation extremely agreable. . . . . Mr. William Shakespeare was wont to goe into Warwickshire once a yeare, and did commonly in his journey lye at this house in Oxon, where he was exceedingly respected. I have heard Parson Robert say that Mr. W. Shakspeare has given him a hundred kisses. Now Sir Wm. would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glasse of wine with his most intimate friends, e. g. Sam Butler (author of Hudibras) &c. say that it seemed to him that he writt with the very spirit that Shakespeare [did], and was contented† enough to be thought his son; he would tell them the story as above. Now, by the way, his mother had a very light report. In those days she was called a trader.

The passages marked in italics have been carefully cancelled by a late hand, but the writing can with some difficulty be deciphered. All that can be gathered from

and Islip. The following is an account of some Stratford people who went to London on the business of the corporation :

Charges leayd out when we went to the courte. [1592.]

And for our horsemeate the same night at Iselipp

They third day for our bayt and our horses at Hooke Norton

And for walkinge our horses at Tetseworth and elsewhere

*Seemd interlined.

+ Contentended, MS.

Som for this jorney, xj.s. j.d.

Aubrey of a credible nature is the existence of an obscure tradition, about 1680, that Davenant was Shakespeare's son, and that Sir William appears to have preferred the credit of an illegitimate descent from the great poet to an humbler though more honest pedigree. There is no authority of much weight for the truth of Aubrey's narrative, but Oldys, in his MS. collections for a life of Shakespeare, repeats the tale, with some variations, as it was related to him by Pope.

If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. John Davenant, (afterwards mayor of that city) a grave melancholy man; who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Davenant (afterwards Sir William), was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman, observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, to see his god-father Shakspeare. There's a good boy, said the other, but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain. This story Mr. Pope told me* at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's monument then newly erected in Westminster Abbey; and he quoted Mr. Betterton the player for his authority. I answered, that I thought such a story might have enriched the variety of those choice fruits of observations he has presented us in his preface to the edition he had published of our poet's works. He replied, There might be in the garden of mankind such plants as would seem to pride themselves more in a regular production of their own native fruits, than in having the repute of bearing a richer kind by grafting; and this was the reason he omitted it.

with Davirant

"The story of his visiting Shakespear when a boy, as Mr. Pope told me."Oldys, MS. notes to Langbaine.

The reader will observe that Anthony Wood is our earliest authority for the Crown Inn having been Shakespeare's hostelry in his travels between the metropolis and his native town,* and Warton tells us that "it was always a constant tradition in Oxford that Shakspeare was the father of Davenant the poet," adding that he had seen the circumstance expressly mentioned in some of Wood's papers. The evidence here adduced cannot, however, be said to substantiate Aubrey's statement; but some writers have attacked Shakespeare's character on much more questionable grounds, relying solely on an entry in the Stratford baptismal register for 1600,"Wilhelmus filius Wilhelmi," for attributing another circumstance of the same kind to Shakespeare. This opinion is as little entitled to credit as the anecdote related by Oldys, which is a common one in early jest-books, and has been attributed to several individuals.†

Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna, was married at Stratford, on June 5th, 1607, to John Hall, and the poet was most likely present at the nuptial ceremony, for that the union met with his special approval may be inferred from the position she occupies in her father's will. In the following December Shakespeare lost his brother Edmund, and, before another year had elapsed, his mother, who had

* Wood's words, speaking of Davenant, are,-"His mother was a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children but by this William. The father, who was a very grave and discreet citizen (yet an admirer and lover of plays and playmakers, especially Shakespeare, who frequented his house in his journies between Warwickshire and London), was of a melancholick disposition, and was seldom or never seen to laugh, in which he was imitated by none of his children but by Robert his eldest son, afterwards fellow of St. John's College, and a venerable doctor of divinity."

"A boy, whose mother was noted to be one not overloden with honesty, went to seeke his godfather, and enquiring for him, quoth one to him, who is thy godfather? The boy repli'd, his name is goodman Digland the gardiner. Oh, said the man, if he be thy godfather, he is at the next alehouse, but I feare thou takest God's name in vaine."-Taylor's Workes, ed. 1630, ii. 184.