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A pleasanter residence than Stratford, independent of all the early associations which endeared it to the heart of Shakspere, would have been difficult to find as a poet's resting-place. It was a town, as most old English towns were, of houses amidst gardens. Built of timber, it had been repeatedly devastated by fires. In 1594 and 1595 a vast number of houses had been thus destroyed; but they were probably small tenements and hovels. New houses arose of a better order; and one still exists, bearing the date on its front of 1596, which indicates something of the picturesque beauty of an old country town before the days arrived which, by one accord, were to be called elegant and refined-their elegance and refinement chiefly consisting in sweeping away our national architecture, and our national poetry, to substitute buildings and books which, to vindicate their own exclusive pretensions to utility, rejected every grace that invention could bestow, and in labouring for a dull uniformity lost even the character of proportion. Shakspere's own house was no doubt one of those quaint buildings which were pulled down in the last generation, to set up four walls of plain brick, with equi-distant holes called doors and windows. His garden was a spacious one. The Avon washed its banks; and within its

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enclosures it had its sunny terraces and green lawns, its pleached alleys and honeysuckle bowers. If the poet walked forth, a few steps brought him into the country. Near the pretty hamlet of Shottery lay his own grounds of Bishopton, then part of the great common field of Stratford. Not far from the ancient chapel of Bishopton, of which Dugdale has preserved a representation,

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and the walls of which still remain, would he watch the operation of seed-time and harvest. If he passed the church and the mill, he was in the pleasant meadows that skirted the Avon on the pathway to Ludington. If he desired to cross the river, he might now do so without going round by the great bridge; for in 1599, soon after he bought New Place, the pretty foot-bridge was erected which still bears that date. His walks and his farm-labours were his recreations. But they were not his only pleasures. It is at this period that we can fix the date of Lear. That wonderful tragedy was first published in 1608; and the title-page recites that "It was plaid before the King's Majesty at WhiteHall, uppon S. Stephen's Night; in Christmas Hollidaies." This most extraordinary production might well have been the first fruits of a period of comparative leisure; when the creative faculty was wholly untrammelled by petty cares, and the judgment might be employed in working again and again upon the first conceptions, so as to produce such a masterpiece of consummate art without after labour. The next season of repose gave birth to an effort of genius wholly different in character; but almost as wonderful in its profound sagacity and knowledge of the world, as Lear is unequalled for its depth of individual passion. Troilus and Cressida was published in 1609. Both these publications were probably made without the consent of the author; but it would seem that these plays were first produced before the Court, and there

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might have been circumstances which would have rendered it difficult or impossible to prevent their publication, in the same way that the publication was prevented of any other plays after 1603, and during the author's life-time.* We may well believe that the Sonnets were published in 1609, without the consent of their author. That the appearance of those remarkable lyrics should have annoyed him, by exposing, as they now appear in the eyes of some to do, the frailties of his nature, we do not for a moment believe. They would be received by his family and by the world as essentially fictitious; and ranked with the productions of the same class with which the age abounded.+

The year 1608 brought its domestic joys and calamities to Shakspere. In the same font where he had been baptized, forty-three years before, was baptized, on the 21st of February, his grand-daughter, "Elizabeth, daughter of John Hall." In the same grave where his father was laid in 1601, was buried his mother, "Mary Shakspere, widow," on the 9th of September, 1608. She was the youngest daughter of Robert Arden, who died in 1556. She was probably, therefore, about seventy years of age when her sons followed her to the "house of all living." Whatever had been the fortunes of her early married life, her last years must have been happy, eminently happy. Her eldest son, by the efforts of those talents which in their development might have filled her with apprehension, had won his way to fame and fortune. Though she had parted with him for a season, he was constant in his visits to the home of his childhood. His children were brought up under her care; his wife, in all likelihood, dwelt in affection with her under the same roof. And now he was * See Introductory Notice to Troilus and Cressida, p. 72.

+ See Illustration of the Sonnets, p. 118.

come to be seldom absent from her; to let her gaze as frequently as she might upon the face of the loved one whom all honoured and esteemed; whose fame she was told was greater than that of any other living man. And this was the child of her earliest cares, and of her humble hopes. He had won for himself a distinction, and a worldly recompense, far above even a mother's expectations. But in his deep affection and reverence he was unchangeably her son. In all love and honour did William Shakspere, in the autumn of 1608, lay the head of his venerable mother beneath the roof of the chancel of his beautiful parish church.*

* Shakspere was at Stratford later in the autumn of 1608. In his will he makes a bequest to his godson, William Walker. The child to whom he was sponsor was baptized at Stratford, October 16, 1608.

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NOTE ON THE COPY OF A LETTER SIGNED H. S., PRESERVED AT BRIDGEWATER HOUSE.

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In the valuable little volume, by Mr. Collier, entitled New Facts regarding the Life of Shakespeare,' published in 1835, the most interesting document that had ever been discovered in connection with the life of Shakspere was first given to the world. Mr. Collier thus describes it :— "It is the copy of a letter signed H. S., and addressed, as we must conclude, to Lord Ellesmere, in order to induce him to exert himself on behalf of the players at Blackfriars, when assailed by the Corporation of London. It has no date, but the internal evidence it contains shows that, in all probability, it refers to the attempt at dislodgement made in the year 1608, and it was in the same bundle as the paper giving a detail of the particular claims of Burbage, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and the rest. The initials, H. S., at the end, I take to be those of Henry Southampton, who was the noble patron of Shakespeare, and who in this very letter calls the poet his especial friend.' It has no direction, and the copy was apparently made on half a sheet of paper; but there can be little doubt that the original was placed in the hands of Lord Ellesmere by Burbage or by Shakespeare, when they waited upon the Lord Chancellor in company." We can sympathize with the enthusiasm of Mr. Collier when he discovered this paper :"When I took up the copy of Lord Southampton's letter, and glanced over it hastily, I could scarcely believe my eyes, to see such names as Shakespeare and Burbage in connection in a manuscript of the time. There was a remarkable coincidence also in the discovery, for it happened on the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death. I will not attempt to describe my joy and surprise." But for some considerations to which we shall presently advert, we should scarcely feel justified in printing this letter at length; for the tract in which it was originally published was limited to a small number of copies, and Mr. Collier has the best claim to an extended publicity. The document is as follows::

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My verie honored Lord,-The manie good offices I haue received at your Lordships hands, which ought to make me backward in asking further favors, onely imbouldens me to require more in the same kinde. Your Lordship will be warned howe hereafter you graunt anie sute, seeing it draweth on more and greater demaunds. This which now presseth is to request your Lordship, in all you can, to be good to the poore players of the Black Fryers, who call them selues by authoritie the Seruaunts of his Majestie, and aske for the protection of their most graceous Maister and Sovereigne in this the tyme of their troble. They are threatened by the Lord Maior and Aldermen of London, never friendly to their calling, with the distruction of their meanes of livelihood, by the pulling downe of theire plaiehouse, which is a private Theatre, and hath neuer giuen ocasion of anger by anie disorders. These bearers are two of the chiefe of the companie; one of them by name Richard Burbidge, who humblie sueth for your Lordships kinde helpe, for that he is a man famous as our English Roscius, one who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most admirably. By the exercise of his qualitye, industry and good behaviour, he hath be come possessed of the Black Fryers playhouse, which hath bene imployed for playes sithence it was builded by his Father now nere 50 yeres agone. The other is a man no whitt lesse deserving favor, and my especiall friende, till of late an actor of good account in the cumpanie, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English playes, which as your Lordship knoweth were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth, when the cumpanie was called uppon to performe before her Matie at Court at Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious Matie King James alsoe, since his coming to the crowne, hath extended his royall favour to the companie in divers waies and at sundrie tymes. This other hath to name William Shakespeare, and they are both of one countie, and indeede almost of one towne: both are right famous in their qualityes, though it

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