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. 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; 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 opinioni 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 year, 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, 6 "The first syllable in Socratem,' says Mr. Steevens, " is here made short, which cannot be allowed. "Perhaps we should read Sophoclem'. Shakspeare is "then appositely compared with a dramatick author 66 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 66 early writers of Latin poetry were uncommonly negli"gent in their prosody, especially in proper names. "The thought of this distich, as Mr. Tollet observes, 66 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 Faery 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 66 monument: "Stay, passenger, why dost thou go so fast? "Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plac'd 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 EncloAsed HERe "Blese be T-E Man spares T-Es Stones 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.7 We have no account of the malady which at no very advanced age closed the life and labours of this unrivalled and incomparable genius. 7 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 lxxxvi. His family consisted of two daughters, and a son named Hamnet, who died in 1596, in the twelfth year of his age. Susannah, the eldest daughter, and her father's favourite, was married, June 5, 1607, to Dr. John Hall, a physician, who died Nov. 1635, aged 60. Mrs. Hall died July 11, 1649, aged 66. They left only one child, Elizabeth, born 1607-8, and married April 22, 1626, to Thomas Nashe, Esq., who died in 1647, and afterwards to sir John Barnard, of Abington, in Northamptonshire, but died without issue by either husband. Judith, Shakspeare's youngest daughter, was married February 10, 1615-16, to a Mr. Thomas Quiney, and died February 1661-62, in her 77th year. By Mr. Quiney she had three sons, Shakspeare, Richard, and Thomas, who all died unmarried, and here the descendants of our poet became extinct. Sir Hugh Clopton, who was born two years after the death of lady Barnard, which happened in 1669-70, related to Mr. Macklin, in 1742, an old tradition, that she had carried away with her from Stratford many of her grandfather's papers. On the death of sir John Barnard, Mr. Malone thought "these must have fallen "into the hands of Mr. Edward Bagley, lady Barnard's "executor, and if any descendant of that gentleman be "now living, in his custody they probably remain." But Mr. Malone, in his last edition, tacitly confesses, that he has been able to make no discovery of such descendant, or such papers. To this account of Shakspeare's family we have now to add, that among Oldys's papers is another traditional story of our illustrious poet's having been the father of sir William Davenant. Oldys's relation is thus given:› "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 66 "of that city,) a grave melancholy man; who, as well 66 as his wife, used much to delight in Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Da"venant, (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 66 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 Shak"speare's monument, then newly erected in West-, ❝minster Abbey." This story appears to have originated with Anthony Wood, and it has been thought a presumption of its being true, that, after careful examination, Mr. Thomas Warton was inclined to believe it. Mr. Steevens, however, treats it with the utmost contempt, but does not perhaps argue with his usual attention to experience when he brings sir William Davenant's "heavy, ❝ vulgar, unmeaning face," as a proof that he could not be Shakspeare's son. In the year 1741 a monument was erected to our poet in Wesminster Abbey, by the direction of the earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martyn. It was the work of Scheemaker (who received 300l. for it), after a design of Kent, and was opened in January of that year, one hundred and twenty-five years after the death of him whom it commemorates, and whose genius appears to have been forgotten during almost the whole of that long period. The performers of each of the London theatres gave a benefit to defray the expences, and the dean and chapter of Westminster took |