happiness, while the applause of all that was most noble and talented among his countrymen crowned his immortal labours. To the time when he finally established himself at New Place (the purchase of which has been already noticed) we cannot well assign a later date than 1613. How he occupied himself in this dignified retirement, no account has reached us; but the truth of Rowe's assertion is not to be doubted, that "his pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood."* An anecdote which appears to refer to this period of the poet's life, is related by the same biographer. "It is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury. It happened that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakespeare in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately; upon which Shakespeare gave him these four verses:

Ten in the hundred lies here engrav'd;

'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd:

If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?

Ho! ho! quoth the Devil, tis my John-a Combe."

* Life of Shakespeare.

But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it." 80 The story is evidently a fabrication; we find that Combe left a legacy of five pounds to Shakespeare as a mark of esteem, and that our

so Life of Shakespeare.-Aubrey gives a different version of the epitaph, and says it was written after Combe's death. MSS. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. In all probability Brathwaite was its author. The verses occur in a variety of shapes in our old Miscellanies. See Boswell's note on Malone's Life of Shakespeare, (Shak. ii. 500.)

The next piece of trash is scarcely worth transcription. As Shakespeare was one day leaning over a mercer's door, in his native town, a drunken blacksmith with a carbuncled face accosted him thus:

"Now, Mr. Shakespeare, tell me, if you can,

The difference between a youth and a young man:

Our poet immediately answered,

"Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple,

The same difference as between a scalded and a coddled

apple."

"This anecdote," says Malone, "was related near fifty years ago to a gentleman at Stratford, by a person then above eighty years of age, whose father might have been contemporary with Shakespeare." Hist. Acc. of English

Stage, 133. (Shak, by Boswell, iii.)

In a MS. vol. of Poems, by Herrick and others, among Rawlinson's Collections in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is the following

EPITAPH.

"When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet,

Elias James to nature payd his debt,

And here reposeth: as he liv'd, he dyde;

The saying in him strongly verefide,

poet bequeathed his sword to Mr. Thomas Combe, the nephew of the money-lender.

On the 10th of February, 1616, his youngest daughter, Judith, was married to Thomas Quyney, a vintner at Stratford. On the 25th of the fol

Such life, such death: then, the known truth to tell,
He liv'd a godly life, and dyde as well.

WM. SHAKSPEARE."

A monumental inscription, said to be written by our author, is preserved in a collection of Epitaphs at the end of the Visitation of Salop, taken by Sir William Dugdale in 1664, now remaining in the College of Arms, C. 35. fol. 20. Sir William thus describes a monument in Tongue church, erected in memory of Sir Thomas Stanley, Knight, who died probably about 1600: "On the north side of the chancel stands a very statelie tombe, supported with Corinthian columnes. It hath two figures of men in armour, thereon lying. the one below the arches and columnes, and the other above them, and this epitaph upon it:

"Thomas Stanley, Knight, second son of Edward, Earle of Derby, Lord Stanley and Strange, descended from the famielie of the Stanleys, married Margaret Vernon, one of the daughters and coheires of Sir George Vernon of NetherHaddon, in the county of Derby, Knight, by whom he had issue two sons, Henry and Edward. Henry died an infant; Edward survived, to whom those lordships descended: and married the lady Lucie Percie, second daughter of the Earle of Northumberland; by her he had issue seaven daughters. She and her foure daughters, Arabella, Marie, Alice, and Priscilla, are interred under a monument in the church of Waltham, in the county of Essex. Thomas, her son, died in his infancy, and is buried in the parish church of Winwich, in the county of Lancaster. The other three, Petronilla, Frances, and Venesia, are yet living.

lowing March, her father made his will "in perfect health and memory;" but his existence was drawing to a close; for he died on the 23rd of the ensuing April, the anniversary of his birth, having exactly completed his fifty-second year.

Concerning the nature of the disease which removed this mighty spirit from the earth, no record exists; even tradition is silent. His sonin-law,82 Dr. Hall, who most probably attended him during his illness, left a note-book contain

"These following verses were made by William Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian:

Written upon the east end of this tombe.

"Aske who lyes here, but do not weepe;
He is not dead, he doth but sleepe.
This stony register is for his bones,

His fame is more perpetual than these stones:
And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
Shall live, when earthly monument is none."

Written upon the west end thereof.

"Not monumental stone preserves our fame,
Nor skye-aspiring pyramids our name.
The memory of him for whom this stands,
Shall outlive marble, and defacers' hands.

When all to time's consumption shall be given,

Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." This epitaph (as Malone observes) must have been composed after 1600, as Venetia Stanley, afterwards wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was born in that year.

81 It appears to have been drawn up on the 25th of [Janu ary,] though not executed till the 25th of March. See note on the Will, Appendix ii.

82 See p. xlvi. He was married to Susanna Shakespeare, 5th June, 1607.

ing cases of various patients; but it unfortunately affords no information on the interesting subject of Shakespeare's death, none of the memoranda being dated earlier than 1617.

His body was interred on the 25th of April, on the north side of the chancel of the great church, at Stratford. On his grave-stone is this inscription:

"Good Frend for Iesus SAKE forbeare

To diGG T-E Dust EncloAsed HERE

A monument was subsequently erected there to
his memory, at what time is not known, but cer-
tainly before 1623, as it is mentioned in the
verses by Leonard Digges, prefixed to the folio
of Shakespeare's Dramatic Works published in
that year.
It represents him 83 seated under an
arch, with a cushion spread before him, his right
hand holding a pen, his left resting on a scroll of
paper. Immediately below the cushion is the
following distich:

"Judicio Pylivm, genio 84 Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, popvlvs mæret, Olympvs habet."

88 The bust is as large as life, and was originally painted over in imitation of nature: the eyes were light hazel; the hair and beard auburn; the doublet, or coat, scarlet; the loose gown, or tabard, without sleeves, black; the upper part of the cushion green, the under half crimson; and the tassels gilt. Its colours were renewed in 1748; but Malone caused it to be covered over with one or more coats of white paint in 1793.

84 As the first syllable in "Socratem" is here made short,