SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
403
nearly eleven years, his eldest daughter, Su- sanna, was married to John Hall, a physician, on the 5th of Jane, 1607. With the exception of two or three purchases made hy him at Strat- ford, one of them being that of New Place, which he repaired and ornamented for his future re- sidence, the two entries which we have now extracted from the register, are positively all that we can relate with confidence of our great poet and his family, during the long term of his connexion with the theatre and the metropolis. We may fairly conclude, indeed, that he was present at each of the domestic events recorded by the register : that he attended his son to the grave, and his daughter to the altar. We may believe also, from its great probability, even on the testimony of Aubrey, that he paid an annual visit to his native town'; whence his family were never removed, and which he seems always to have contemplated as the resting place of his declining age.
It is well that we are better acquainted with the rectitude of his morals, than with the sym- metry of his features. To the integrity of his heart ; the gentleness and benignity of his man- ners, we have the positive testimony of Chettle and Ben Jonson. The latter, in his Discoveries, says, "I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, of an open and free nature ; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions," &c. &c. The following lines are taken from a poem written by Jonson.
S<reet swmn of Avon I what a sigrht It were. To see thee in our waters yet appear ; And make those flights upon the banks ai Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James I But stay ; I see thee in this hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there: — Shine forth, thou star of poets ; and with ngt. Or influence, chide, or cheer, the dioopioc stage.
As we are not told the precise time when Shakspeare retired from the stage and the metro- polis to enjoy the tranquillity of life in his native town, we cannot pretend to determine it. As he is said, however, to have passed some years in his establishment at New Place, we may conclude that his removal took place either in 1612 or in 1613, when he was yet in the vigour of life, being not more than forty-eight or forty-nine years old.
The amount of the fortune on which he re- tired from the busy world, has been the subject of some discussion. By Gibbon, who forbears to stat£ his authority, this fortune is valued at £300 a year; and by Malone, who, calculating our poet's real property from authentic documents, assigns a random value to his personal, it is re- duced to £300. Of these two valuations of Sbakspeare's property, we conceive that Gibbon's approaches more nearly to the truth.
On the 2nd of February, 1615-16, he married his youngest daughter, Judith, then in the thirty- first year of her age, to Thomas Quiney, a vint- ner in Stratford ; and on the 26th of the succeed- ing month he executed his will. He was then.
as it would appear, in the full vigour and enjoy- ment of life ; and we are not informed that his constitution had been previously weakened by the attack of any malady. But his days, or rather his hours, were now all numbered ; for he breathed his last on the 23rd of the ensuing April, on that anniversary of his birth which completed his tifty-second year.
On the 26th of April, 1616, two days after his decease, he was buried in the chancel of the church of Stratford ; and at some period within the subsequent seven years (for in 1623 it is noticed in the verses of Leonard Digges) a monument was raised to his memory either by the respect of his townsmen, or by the piety of his relations. It represents the poet with a countenance of thought, resting on a cushion and in the act of writing. Immediately below the cushion is the following distich : —
Judido PyUum; genio Bocratem ) arte Maronem Terra tegit ; populus moeret ; Olympus habet.
On a tablet underneath are inscribed these lines :
stay, passenger, why doat thou go so fsst ? Read, if thou canst, whom envious death has placed Within this monument— Shakspeare ; with whom Quick nature died ; whose name doth deck the tomb Far more than cost ; since all that he has writ LiCaves living art hut page to serve his wit ;
and the flat stone, covering the grave, holds out, in very irregular characters, a supplication to the reader, with the promise of a blessing and the menace of a curse :
Good friend I for Jestis' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones , And CQtst be he that moves my bones.
The last of these inscriptions may have been written by Shakspeare himself under the appre- hension of his bones being tumbled, with those of many of his townsmen, into the charnel-house of the parish.
Shakspeare differs essentially from all other writers; him we may profess rather to feel than to understand ; and it is easier to say, on many occasions, that we are possessed by him, than that we possess him. And no wonder; — ^he scatters the seeds of things, the principles of character and action, with so cunning a hand, yet with so careless an air, and master of our feelings, submits himself so little to our judg- ment, that every thing seems superior. We dis- cern not his course, we see no connexion of cause and effect, we are rapt in ignorant admiration, and claim no kindred with his abilities. All the incidents, all the parts, look like chance, whilst we feel and are sensible that the whole is design. His characters not only act and speak in strict conformity to nature, but in strict relation to us; just so much .is shown as is requisite, just so much as is impressed ; he commands every pas- sage to our heads and to our hearts, and moulds us as he pleases, and that with so much ease, that he never betrays his exertions. He at once blends and distinguishes every thing; every
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