alleging that it would press heavily upon the poorer classes, already distressed by a destructive fire which took place in that town in 1613, but which seems to have left Shakespeare's property untouched. In the autumn of 1614, Thomas Greene was in London about this business; and by one of his memorandums we know that Shakespeare arrived there on the 16th of November of that year, probably upon the same errand. Greene's memorandums show that he was in constant communi

cation with his " cosen Shakespeare" upon this subject, and that the corporation counted much upon their distinguished townsman's influence in the matter.* He remained in London until after the 23d of December in that year: we hear of him from the same authority in the negotiations of 1615, with regard to the same affair, which was not settled until 1618; and this is the last known contemporary record of the life of the great poet of all time.

His younger daughter, Judith, was married on the 11th of February, 161, to Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford, and son of the Thomas Quiney who in 1598 had asked Shakespeare to lend him £30. On the 25th of the following March he executed his will, which an erased date shows that he had intended executing on the 25th of the preceding January; and on the 23d of April, 1616, William Shakespeare, of Stratford on Avon, in the county of Warwick, Gentleman, died.

* "1614. Jovis, 17 No. My cosen Shakspear comyng yesterdy to Town, I went to see him how he did. He told me that they assured him they ment to inclose no further than to Gospell Bush, and so upp straight (leavying out part of the Dyngles to the ffield) to the gate in Clopton hedg, and take in Salisburyes peece; and that they mean in Aprill to survey the land, and then to gyve satisfaccion, and not before; and he and Mr. Hall say they think ther will be nothyng done at all."

"23. Dec. A hall. Lettres wrytten, one to Mr Manyring, another to Mr Shak. spear, with almost all the company's hands to eyther. I also wrytte myself to my cosen Shakspear the coppyes of all our acts, and then also a not of the inconvenyences wold happen by the inclosure."

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Of the cause of his death we only know what Vicar Ward aforesaid heard and noted down half a century after the event. His account is: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merrie meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour ther contracted." We shrink from the thought of such a close of Shakespeare's life. But looking back upon the manners of the time, and especially its convivial habits, and the inordinate quantities of wine and strong ale then drunk by all who could procure them, we must admit that to die of fever after festivity might have been the fate of any man. Men now living can remember when no person entered a house, at any time, the family of which were not very poor, without being offered and expected to drink some spirituous liquor; cake and wine having been brought forward even to our mothers at morning calls. And Spence tells us in his Anecdotes, on the authority of Pope, that Cowley the poet died as Ward says Shakespeare died, but from potations in more reverend, though perhaps not more worshipful company. He and Dean Sprat, afterward Bishop of Rochester, "had been together," Spence says, "to see a neighbor of Cowley's, who (according to the fashion of those times) made them too welcome. They did not set out for their walk home until it was too late, and had drunk so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. The parish still talk of the drunken Dean." And in the Chamberlain's accounts of Stratford, among the frequent charges for sack and sugar, claret and beer, for such worshipful folk as Sir Fulke Greville and Sir Thomas Lucy, and even Lady Lucy, is one in 1614 for "on quart of sack and on quart of clarett wine geven to a preacher at the New Place," Shakespeare's own house. These considerations make the alleged excess at such a

merry meeting of poets as that Ward tells of, a venial sin, and the sad consequences, though uncertain, not improbable.

Shakespeare's remains were interred the second day after his death, the 25th of April, in Stratford church, just before the chancel rail. Above his grave, on the 1orth wall of the church, a monument was erected, at what exact date we do not know; but it was before 1623, as it is mentioned by Leonard Digges in his verses prefixed to the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays. The monument shows a bust of the poet in the act of writing. Upon a tablet below the bust is the following inscription:

The last line of this inscription, and a tradition unheard of until Oldys wrote his notes in Langbaine, have raised the question whether Shakespeare died on the same day of the month on which he is supposed to have been born. But what matter whether he lived a day more or less than fifty-two full years? He had lived long

enough. His work was done, and he had tasted, nay, had drained, life's cup of bitter-sweet. Dugdale tells us that his monument was the work of Gerard Johnson, an eminent sculptor of the period; others have attributed it to Thomas Stanton; and experts have supposed that the face was modelled from a cast taken after death.

Be this as it may, the bust must be accepted as the most authentic likeness that we have of Shakespeare. It was originally colored after life. The eyes were light hazel, the hair and beard auburn, the complexion fair; the doublet was scarlet; the tabard, or loose gown without sleeves thrown over the doublet, black; the neck and wristbands white; the upper side of the cushion green, the under, crimson; its cord and tassels, gilt. The colors were renewed in 1749; but in 1793 Malone, tastelessly and ignorantly classic, had the whole figure painted white by a house-painter. A flat stone covers the grave. Upon it is the following strange inscription :

A Mr. Dowdall, in an existing letter to Mr. Edward Southwell, dated April 10th, 1692, says that these lines were written by the poet himself a little before his death. Dowdall plainly records a tradition which possibly may have been well founded. It is more probable, however, that to prevent the removal of Shakespeare's remains to the charnel-house of the church, when time made other demands upon the space they occupied, in compliance with a custom of the day and place, some member of his family, or some friend, had this rude, hearty curse cut upon his tomb-stone. Tradition, not traceable