Mr. Arden had, without doubt, frequent occasion to visit Stratford, it being a considerable markettown, and much better furnished with both the necessaries and luxuries of life than Wilmecote. The business of the law also, sometimes, led him there. In an ancient manuscript, containing an account of the proceedings of the Bailiff's Court, at Stratford, in the reigns of Philip and Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, I find a memorial of a suit instituted by him for the small sum of four shillings'. John Shakspeare,

for John, the son of Thomas Shakspeare, was baptized there, March 10, 1581-2.

Our poet's grandfather might, however, have been originally of Ingon, in the parish of Hampton upon Avon, or as it was then called, Bishop Hampton; for a Henry Shakspeare (whether the same person already mentioned, or another, does not appear,) lived at one time in that parish, the register of which contains the following entries:

“1582, June 10, Lettyce, the daughter of Henrye Shakespere, was baptized,

"1585, Oct. 15, Jeames the sonne of Henrye Shakespere was baptized.

“1589, Oct. 25, Jeames Shakspeare of Yngon was buried."

Henry Shakspeare might have lived at one time at Snitterfield, afterwards have moved to Ingon, and finally returned to Snitterfield. Ingon is in the parish of Hampton, but nearer to Snitterfield than Hampton. It is observable that Mr. John Shakspeare, as we shall presently see, held a farm at Ingon; to which he might be attached either as the place of his nativity, or as being in the neighbourhood of Snitterfield, if he was born there.

Though Great Wilmecote, in which Mr. Arden lived, is in the parish of Aston Cantlow, Little Wilmecote, which adjoins it, is in that of Stratford; and this circumstance, together with its vicinity to that town, for it is but two miles distant, necessarily occasioned some intercourse between these places. "Stratford Cur. ibm. tent. vicesimo nono die Novembris,

Cur.

}primo anno regni dnce nostræ Mariæ, &c. [1553.]

being, perhaps, originally of Snitterfield, which is but two miles from Wilmecote, and three from Stratford, found an easy introduction to his daughter; who, after the death of her father, must necessarily, as one of his executors, have had frequent occasion to visit Stratford, for the purpose of settling his affairs, and collecting such sums as were due to him at the time of his death.

Robert Arden, our poet's maternal grandfather, died in December, 1556; and his youngest daughter's marriage certainly took place in the following year. Her portion, I find, from her father's will, was a tract of land called Asbies, and the sum of six pounds, thirteen shillings, and four-pence. Of this land, I, for some time in vain, endeavoured to ascertain the extent and value; no trace of the denomination above-mentioned being, at present, to be found at Wilmecote. But a bill in Chancery, which I discovered in the Record Office, in the Tower, filed by our poet's father, in November, 1597, against John Lambert, son and heir of Edmond Lambert, of Barton on the Heath, in the county of Warwick, to whom, in the year 1578, he had mortgaged the estate which he acquired by his wife, has furnished me with the precise amount of this property, the value of which turns out to have been, within a few pounds, what I had conjectured. It was an estate in fee; and according to the acknowledgment of the son of the mortgagee in his answer, consisted of a messuage, one

Johes Dyckson fatet. accion. quem Robertus Arderne de Wylmecot versus eum pros. sup. dem. iiijs. Id. fiat. leva. et concord. in cur. quod pecunia Pd. solut. fuerit citra prox. cur." Codex MS. in Camera Stratforden.

yard land and four acres, in Wilmecote; but, from a fine levied by John and Mary Shakspeare, in Easter Term, 1579, it appears, more particularly, that this estate consisted of fifty acres of arable land, two acres of meadow, four acres of pasture, and common of pasture for all manner of cattle; the house at Wilmecote being probably let for forty shillings a-year (the usual rent of such a house at that time), this estate, though mortgaged only for the sum of forty pounds, may be estimated as fairly worth one hundred and four pounds, supposing the land to have been let at three shillings the acre, and the common rate of purchase to have been at that time ten years; each of which suppositions I have reason to believe well founded. The fortune, therefore, on the whole, of Mary Arden, was, one hundred and ten pounds, thirteen shillings, and four-pence. Let not this moderate portion be compared with the more ample fortunes of the present age. At that time such a sum was considered a very good provision for a daughter, in a sphere of life much superior to that of our poet's mother. Mr. William Clopton, a man of the greatest estate in the neighbourhood of Stratford, whose manors comprehended several thousand acres, by his

2 A yard land (virgata terræ), from the Saxon gyrd land, varies much in different counties; in some containing twenty-five, in others thirty, in others forty acres. The yard land here mentioned, In the as will be shown hereafter, contained near fifty acres. fields of Old Stratford, where our poet's estate lay, a yard land contained only about twenty-seven acres.

3 F. levet in Term. Pasch. 20 Eliz. in Officio Finium juxta Medium Templum.

will, made in January, 1559-60, only three years after the period of which I am now treating, gave to his eldest daughter but one hundred pounds, and to his three younger daughters one hundred marks each, that is, sixty-six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence *: I shall subjoin, in the Appendix, the will of our poet's grandfather, which has furnished me

4 Will of William Clopton, proved in Feb. 1599-60. In Off. Cur. Prerog.

s Having taken a journey to Worcester with the hope of finding this, and some other wills, that might throw a light on our author's history, I thought myself fortunate in meeting with the information which has just now been submitted to my readers; but, according to a doctrine maintained in an anonymous work [The Pursuits of Literature], I ought rather to make an apology for taking up their time with such idle prible-prabble, worthy only of Sir Hugh Evans or Master Slender. A modern poet, not wholly without humour, among a great number of notes appended to his verses, of which the object is not very apparent, unless it were to show, that while he inveighs against the supposed folly and absurdity of those who have attempted to illustrate our great poet by their annotations, he can himself occasionally "outherod Herod," has the following sagacious remark: "When I speak of rational men, it passes the bounds of all sagacity to divine by what species of refined absurdity the wills and testaments of actors could be raked up and published to illustrate Shakspeare. (See Malone's edit. vol. ii. p. 186, &c. &c.) A critick for such an ingenious invention should be presented with the altum Saganæ caliendrum, which would not easily fall from his head.--But Mr. M. has redeemed this piece of folly by many valuable excellencies."

As in the course of the present work the reader will find several similar pieces of folly (if this be one) it may not be improper to say a word or two on this subject in limine; and, after acknowledging the courtesy of the concluding words above quoted, to examine how far the preceding charge is well founded.

with several of these facts, and the inventory that accompanied it, as a curious exhibition of the furniture

It has been long since observed, that those who write should read. If this judicious, though much neglected document had been attended to by the writer of the paragraph above quoted, he would not have fallen into the manifest error, I will not say the refined absurdity, with which it is justly chargeable. He would have learned, in the first place, that the wills which he alludes to, were not raked up [i. e. discovered with infinite difficulty and trouble], or published to illustrate Shakspeare, but the History of the Stage, and of the old actors who were fellow comedians with our great poet, which it is humbly conceived they in some small measure do; the number of the testator's wives and children, the fortune which he acquired by his profession, with various other circumstances which are frequently furnished by his will, and the time of his death, which is generally nearly ascertained by the probate, being, it is supposed, of some little consequence in the history of his life. He next would have learned, that though the primary object of the publication of these wills was not, as he has erroneously supposed, to illustrate Shakspeare, they do in fact illustrate the works of this poet; if furnishing the means of ascertaining the genuine copy of an author's writings, and of distinguishing it from spurious and adulterated editions of them, deserves the name of illustration: he would have found from these wills, that the two actors who were editors of the first complete collection of our author's plays in folio, were dead before the end of the year 1630, and thus he would have escaped the refined absurdity of asserting that two dead men "corrected the spurious edition of those plays in 1632."

The truth, however, I believe, is, that when his satire was first published, this writer was an humble candidate to be employed by the booksellers of London, in continuing and completing some of the great biographical works, which for many years past have been given to the publick; the editors of which, however diligent or respectable, seem to have thought, with this anonymous rhymer, that in biographical researches it is quite unnecessary to examine a single manuscript in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, or any other curious repository. To open a parish register, or peruse