be met with anywhere, till in the Admission-Book of SidneySussex College, Cambridge, we come to this,[1]
1616
‘A Festo Annunciationis ad Festum Sancti Michaelis Archangeli, 1616’: such (meaning merely, From New-year’s-day. or 25th March, to 29th September) is the general Heading of the List of Scholars, or Admissi, for that Term;—and first in order there stands, ‘Oliverius Cromwell Huntingdoniensis admissus ad commeatum Sociorum, Aprilis vicesimo tertio; Tutore Magistro Ricardo Howlet’: Oliver Cromwell from Huntingdon admitted Fellow Commoner, 23d April 1616; Tutor Mr. Richard Howlet.—Between which and the next Entry some zealous individual of later date has crowded-in these lines: ‘Hic fuit grandis ille Impostor, Carnifex perditissimus, qui pientissimo Rege Carolo Primo nefariâ cœde sublato, ipsum usurpavit Thronum, et Tria Regna per quinque ferme annorum spatium, sub Protectoris nomine, indomitâ tyrannide vexavit.’ Had the zealous individual specifically dated this entry, it had been a slight improvement,—on a thing not much improvable. We can guess, After 1660, and not long after.
Curious enough, of all days, on this same day Shakspeare, as his stone monument still testifies, at Stratford-on-Avon, died:
Obiit Anno Domini 1616.
Ætatis 53. Die 23 Apr[2]
While Oliver Cromwell was entering himself of Sidney-Sussex College, William Shakspeare was taking his farewell of this world. Oliver’s Father had, most likely, come with him; it is but some fifteen miles from Huntingdon; you can go and come in a day. Oliver’s Father saw Oliver write in the Album at Cambridge: at Stratford, Shakspeare’s Ann Hathaway was weeping over his bed. The first world-great thing that
