THE NASHES. It appears in the visitation of Warwickshire, 1619, that Thomas Nash was settled at Old Stratford early in the reign of Elizabeth, and by a certificate inserted in the Harleian copy of the visitation, that he sprung from a family at Woodstock. His wife was a Bulstrode, and her mother a Middlemore, of Edgebaston, near Birmingham, both good families. The issue was three sons and two daughters. Frances, one of the daughters, married, in 1584, John Lane, uncle to Edward Lane, who married, as before shown, Mary Combe. There were families of Lane and Green descended of this marriage living at Stratford in 1619; and also Bushells, at Marston in Gloucestershire. Ann, the other daughter, married William Badger, of Bidford Grange. The sons were Anthony, John, and George. (1.) Anthony; he is described as of Welcombe. This is the Anthony Nash to whom Shakespeare, in 1616, bequeathed a ring. He lived till 1622. His wife was Mary, daughter of Rowland Baugh, of Twining in Gloucestershire, by whom he had: Thomas, baptized June 20, 1593. He was a student of Lincoln's Inn: appeared at the visitation of 1619, and entered his arms and pedigree. In 1626, he married Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaughter, and dying April 4, 1647, he was buried with the Shakespeares in the chancel of the church at Stratford. He had no children. John, baptized October 15, 1588; living in 1619. Mary, baptised April 15, 1592, buried February 10, Anne, who married on June 6, 1609, William, son of (2.) John Nash, the second son of the first Thomas, had also a ring bequeathed to him by Shakespeare. He died in 1623, having had several children, some of whom were entered at the visitation of 1619. His wife is described as the widow of Francis Bellows. He was of Stratford. (3.) George, a London merchant, who by Mary his wife, a daughter of Edward Cox, a cloth-worker in Southwark, had Edward Nash, a captain in the Parliamentary army, father of Mary Nash, who married Sir Reginald Foster, Baronet, and had issue, Jane, wife of Franklin Miller, Esq., who died in 1731, and was buried at Stratford. Thomas Nash, the only member of this family to whom much interest belongs, has a grave-stone and inscription in the church of Stratford, and his will is published by Malone.* Elizabeth, his widow, was married at Billesley near Stratford, on June 5, 1649, to John Bernard, Esquire, residing at Abington, near the town of Northampton, afterwards knighted. * Boswell's Malone, vol. ii. p. 619. No connection has been traced between this family of Nash and either of the Thomas Nashes who are connected with the literature of the period-Thomas Nash, who had the dispute with Gabriel Harvey, or Thomas Nash, the author of a curious volume entitled Quaternio, 4to. 1638. THE BERNARDS. It is not proposed to enter at any length into the genealogy of this family, which has already been investigated in a very satisfactory manner by Mr. Baker of Northampton in his unfortunately incomplete work " The History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton." They were of antient descent, and their alliances had been with families of good account. Suffice it that we proceed at once to Francis Bernard, who died in 1602, and had a very numerous family. The eldest son died before him without issue, so that he was succeeded in the estate at Abington by his second son Baldwin Bernard. This Baldwin married one of the Fulwoods of Warwickshire, a daughter and coheiress of John Fulwood of Ford Hall by Catharine his wife, daughter and coheir of Thomas Dabridgecourt, by whom he had Sir John Bernard, who married Shakespeare's last surviving descendant, and two other children, William and Catharine, of whom little or nothing is known. * Vol. i. p. 8. + The descent from the Dabridgecourts brought the Bernards into connection with Dabridgecourt Belcher, a dramatic writer, on whose death there was an Inquisition taken at Old Stratford, November 23, 19th of James the First, abstracted in Cole's Escheats at the Museum, vol. v. f. 479. His father, William Belcher, brother-in-law of John Fulwood, was a lover of heraldry and a poet, if the name may be allowed to a person of whose compositions all that is known are a few Latin lines prefixed to Gwillim's Heraldry. Armorum primus Winkyn the wordeus artem Baldwin Bernard died in 1610, when his son and heir was only six years of age. The mother took to her second husband Sir Edmund Hampden (an uncle of the famous John Hampden), who lived at Abington, and has a monument in the church. Sir John Bernard was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of Sir Clement Edmunds, who was Clerk of the Privy Council, and his second Shakespeare's granddaughter. The dates are as follows: the first wife died in March, 1642. He married the daughter of Dr. Hall by Susanna Shakespeare, June 5, 1649. She was buried at Abington, February 17, 1669-70, about which time Sir John Bernard sold Abington. He was buried March 6, 1673-4. He was only Mr. Bernard when he married Shakespeare's granddaughter, being knighted on November 25, 1661.* Lady Bernard, when she became a member of this family, found three unmarried daughters, all young, who must have fallen very much under her care; they were coheirs of Sir John Bernard. Eight years passed after she became their mother-in-law before any of them married, but they all married during her life-time; namely, Elizabeth in 1658 to Henry Gilbert of Lockoe, in the county of Derby, Esquire; Mary in 1657 to Thomas Higges of Colesbourne, in the county of Gloucester, Esquire; and Eleanor in 1659 to Samuel Cotton of Henwick, in the county of Bedford, Esquire, all equal and suitable connections. The will of Lady Bernard is printed by Malone,† in which she notices Hatha * A Francis Bernard, gent., resided at Shottery at the time of Sir John Bernard's marriage with Mrs. Nash. His will, dated Feb. 14, 1683, was proved before the Vicar of Stratford, in which he gives to his wife Alice a house in Wood-street, Stratford, a half yard-land in Shottery Field, and 100%. in money. He makes his son Francis Bernard his executor, and names another son, Samuel, and two daughters, Mary Timpson and Priscilla Rogers; also two sisters, Susanna Beddom and Elizabeth. Unfortunately the Stratford register of wills does not commence before 1660. + Boswell's Malone, vol. ii. p. 625. ways and other relations. For her transactions respecting the property she inherited at Stratford I must also refer to Mr. Malone. Lady Bernard had no children, and on her death, in 1670, there was an utter extinction of the progeny of William Shakespeare, which thus endured only fifty-four years after his decease. It is rather a striking fact in the history of the human race, that when there are men preeminently great, the issue, if any, generally becomes soon extinct: -Chaucer, Sidney, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Bacon, Locke, Newton, in fact nearly all the great inventors have no one left to claim them as ancestors. A point which has I think escaped the attention of all persons who have previously written on the character and fortunes of those who were the posterity and personal representatives of the poet is, that there existed among them a strong religious feeling, if they fell not into the ranks of those who constituted what is called the puritan party in the English Church, one of whose principles it was that theatrical entertainments were to be eschewed, and who would not, I fear, have so much philosophy as to draw a broad line of distinction between the drama as administering, when exhibited, to the amusement of thoughtless spectators, and the drama when considered as consisting of noble poems full of wisdom and high instruction presented in its most attractive form, fitted to minister matter for the satisfaction, delight, and careful study of the most serious minds in their private retirements. And it has sometimes occurred to me that the entire disappearance of all manuscript of Shakespeare, so entire that no writing of his remains except his name, and only one letter ever addressed to him, is in some way connected with the religious turn which his posterity took, in whose eyes there would be much to be lamented in what they must I fear have |