On the 25th of April his body was consigned to its native earth under the north side of the chancel of the great church at Stratford. A flat stone, covering all that is mortal of the remains of Shakspeare, conveys his benediction to the respecter, and his curse to the violator, of the peace of the grave: "Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased here; Blese be the man that spares these stones, Within seven years a monument, executed with no mean skill by an unknown artist, was erected to his memory.* He is represented under an arch in a sitting posture; a cushion is spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left resting on a scroll of paper. Immediately under the cushion is engraved the Latin distich, "Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, and, on a tablet underneath, "Stay, passenger, why dost thou go so fast, Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plac'd * Leonard Digges published some encomiastic verses on Shakspeare before the expiration of seven years from the poet's death, in which he speaks familiarly of the "Stratford Monument." Within this monument; Shakspeare, with whom * Of the family of Skakspeare something remains to be said. His wife survived him seven years, and died on the 6th of August, 1623, being sixty-seven years of age. I fear that the marriage of the poet was not productive of that long continued bliss which he anticipated. His wife did not reside with him in London; their children were born within the first few years of their marriage; and in his will Shakspeare speaks of her with the cold and brief notice, "I give unto my wife my second-best bed, with the furniture."+ In connection with these circumstances I may mention the story of Shakspeare's gallantry at Oxford, which has been transmitted to us by authority as respectable as any that can be quoted for the traditionary part of the poet's history. In his journeys to and from Stratford and London, the dramatist often baited at the Crown Inn, in Oxford. Mine hostess was beautiful and witty; her husband a grave and discreet citizen, of a melancholy disposition, but a lover of plays * Mrs. Shakspeare's tomb-stone in Stratford church. + Note P. and play-makers, especially of Shakspeare.* The frequent visits of the bard, and the charms of the landlady, gave birth to the surmises which the succeeding anecdote embodies. Young William Davenant, afterwards Sir William, was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would, fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered, "There's a good boy," said the other, "but have a care you don't take God's name in vain."+ "to see his god-father Shakspeare.' 66 The sonnets of Shakspeare proclaim it to have been the misfortune of their author to love where loving he was much forsworn."+ Scarcely less pains are taken to proclaim the worthlessness than the beauty of his enchantress; he "Swore her fair, and thought her bright, "While she was black as hell, and dark as night."§ The affair is worth pursuing to its sequel. With a perversity common in the history of love, the lady slighted the poet, and fixed her affec * Athenæ Oxon. Oldys, on the authority of Pope, who quoted Betterton. tions on a youth of singular beauty, the dear and intimate companion of Shakspeare himself. The participation of the young man in this outrage on love and friendship, is somewhat doubtful, as appears from many passages *, and particularly from the hundred and forty-fourth sonnet, which pretty nearly epitomizes the whole of the hapless tale. "Two loves I have of comfort and despair, And being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out." A breach nevertheless ensued between the bard and his better angel. But the pangs of alienation were intolerable, and, in defiance of suspicion and perplexity, Shakspeare received his friend to his bosom, with an attachment, * Sonnets 40. 42. 132-4. 137-145. apparently strengthened by its temporary abruption.* But to resume our account of the family of the bard. Hamnet, his only son, died in 1596, when he was twelve years old. + t Judith, the twin child with Hamnet, was married in February, 1615-16, the year of her father's death, to Thomas Queeny, a vintner in Stratford. Their children were Shakspeare, 'who died an infant, and Richard and Thomas, both buried in 1638-9; the former in the twenty-first, the latter in the nineteenth year of his age, without leaving any issue. Their mother, Judith, survived till February 1661-2, when she had attained the advanced age of seventy-seven. + The legacies of the dramatist to this, his youngest, daughter, are extremely inconsiderable. One hundred pounds in discharge of her marriage portion; one hundred and fifty vested in trustees, for the benefit of her and her issue; his "broad silver gilt bowl;" and fifty pounds, as a compensation for the surrender of her interest in a copyhold estate to her sister Su sanna. Susanna, the eldest of the poet's family, married, in June, 1607, Dr. John Hall, a phy+ Parish Register. *Note Q. Rowe, Strat. Regist. |