and other effects of a gentleman of moderate fortune in that age.

SECTION II.

From the loose language employed by Sir William Dethick and Camden, in their grants of arms to John Shakspeare, it might be supposed, and not without some reason, that one of his ancestors had been in the service of King Henry the Seventh, and had obtained from that frugal monarch some profitable grant.

a tomb-stone or a will, they seem to have held, with him, an abomination, and an invasion of the sacred rights of the dead: the genealogies of families preserved in the College of Heralds, the curious notices furnished by the patent and clause rolls, by dormant privy seals, by the Signet, Auditors, and Chirographer's Office, and by the inquisitions taken post mortem, which, from the time of Richard the Third, are preserved in the Chapel of the Rolls (as those antecedent are in the Tower), appear to have been equally objects of their aversion; and the Record Office in the same ancient repository, and the black-book in the Exchequer, they, without doubt, concurred with him in considering as appropriated only to the use of those who profess the black art, and are worthy of an altum Saganæ caliendrum. "Would you wish for better sympathy?" From the specimen above given by this judicious and well-informed critick, it is manifest that he is admirably suited to the literary employment to which he seems to have aspired: and by subjoining to the old inaccurate and imperfect lives of our illustrious men, copious extracts from modern editions of their works (which are in every one's hands), embellished with a few college jokes and that kind of merriment Dr. Johnson has so pointedly described, (Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. i.) I have no doubt he will be able very speedily to furnish his employers with a trim volume of biography perfectly free from any ingenious invention, without a single will, or deed, or anecdote, or any curious or valuable information whatsoever.

6 See the Appendix.

In the confirmation of arms in 1596, this ancestor is only said to have been advanced and rewarded; but in the subsequent confirmation, the nature of the benefit is specifically mentioned, and we are told, that he was rewarded "with lands and tenements given to him in those parts of Warwickshire where he and his successors had continued, by some descents, in good reputation and credit." If such a grant had been made by King Henry the Seventh to any of John Shakspeare's lineal ancestors (for which of them was in the contemplation of the heralds, whether his grandfather, or a more remote progenitor, it is not easy to ascertain "), the first question that may be asked is, how came John Shakspeare, or at least some one of his name, not to be in possession of those lands when these armorial ensigns were a second time assigned to him? Supposing the lands and tenements thus granted, to have been forfeited, or otherwise alienated, by the family, yet still the original record of the donation would not have been annihilated, but would indubitably have appeared on the patent rolls; and

7 The first grant of arms to John Shakspeare was made by Robert Cooke, Clarencius, in 1569 or 1570; but it is not now extant in the Herald's Office. A book of grants of arms made by this herald to persons living in the county of Warwick, is, however, probably somewhere extant, for it was formerly, as I learn from one of Antony Wood's Manuscripts, in Ashmole's Museum, in the possession of Ralph Sheldon, of Weston, in Warwickshire, Esq.

Of the second grant made, by Sir William Dethick, in 1596, there are two drafts in the Herald's Office, Vincent, 157, n. 23 and 24; the latter of which is much mutilated, a considerable part of the sheet having been torn off. The more perfect of the two may be found in the Appendix.

no trace of it being there to be found, after a very careful examination, in the Chapel of the Rolls, during the whole reign of Henry the Seventh, it is absolutely certain, that no such favour was ever conferred by that King on any person of the name of Shakspeare. The heralds, however, were not entirely unfounded in what they have asserted. It has already been mentioned, that our poet's mother was the daughter of Mr. Robert Arden, of Wilmecote, near Stratford; and I have no doubt, that one of his ancestors was the person denoted by the vague words in question, though the lands granted to him did not lie, as they supposed, in the county of Warwick. In the age of Queen Elizabeth, and indeed down to the last century, it was customary (a custom not yet wholly disused) to denominate by the same appellation, relations equally near, whether the relationship arose from consanguinity or affinity. Thus, John Shakspeare, if he had occasion to speak of his wife's grandfather, or great grandfather, would certainly have called him his grandfather, or great grandfather; his wife's uncle, or even grand-uncle, he would have called his uncle; and a still more remote relation, the wife of such grand-uncle, he would have called aunt. Edward Alleyn, the player, constantly styles Philip Henslowe his father, though he was not even his step-father, being only second husband to the mother of Alleyn's wife. In like manner, Thomas Nashe, who married Elizabeth Hall, our poet's granddaughter, calls Mrs. Hall, in his last will, his mother; and if he had had occasion to speak of our poet, he

He was only his wife's step-father.

unquestionably would have called him his grandfather. Viewing the assertion made by the heralds

9 So, also, Sir John Hubaud, of Idlicote, in Warwickshire, in his will, made in 1583, constitutes his cousin George Digby, his brother John Egeock, and his servant Richard Clark, his executors; and Edward Coombe, in 1597, makes Christopher Hales, who had married his sister, and whom he calls his brother, one of his executors. The appellations, father-in-law, and son-in-law, seldom occur in that age. So fond were our ancestors of extending the circle of relations, that they frequently considered a mere connection as a ground of this kind of designation: thus Philip Henslowe was, in fact, no relation whatsoever of Edward Alleyn, though he constantly called him son. Bishop Hall, in the Dedication of his Quo Vadis, in 1617, addressing Lord Denny, calls Lord Hay his noble son, in consequence of his having married Lord Denny's daughter; and Bayle, taking Hall's words in a literal sense, supposed Lord Denny to be actually father to Lord Hay. See Gen. Dict. v. 716, note H. So Lord Strafford, in 1637, writing to the mother of his first wife, styles himself her obedient son (Straff. Lett. ii. 123) and our author, in Julius Cæsar, styles Cassius the brother of Brutus, though, in truth, only his brother-in-law. The term, indeed, of son-in-law, or brother-in-law, rarely occurs in that age. At a subsequent period, Oliver Cromwell, and Waller, the poet, called each other cousins, only because John Hampden was cousin to them both.

:

With respect to the relations of a wife, the husband always addressed them, and spoke of them, as standing in the same degree of relationship to him. Thus Thomas Killigrew dedicates his play, entitled The Princess, to his dear niece the Lady Anne Wentworth, who was in truth only his wife's niece.

It was the constant custom in old times, and the practice is not wholly disused, for a nephew to call his great uncle, only uncle; and the wife's grandfather and grandmother were always considered and called the grandfather and grandmother of the husband; with equal laxity, grandmothers denominated a grandson by the nearer appellation of son. So Joan, Lady Abervagenny, in her will in 1436, calls Sir James Ormond her son, though he was in fact her grandson. From these usages it is clear, that the inter

in this light, all the difficulty vanishes; for the father of that Robert Arden, whose daughter John Shakspeare married, or, in other words, the grandfather of Mary Shakspeare, who, according to the usage abovementioned, was popularly called the grandfather of John Shakspeare also, had been very highly distinguished and rewarded by King Henry the Seventh, as the heralds rightly state the matter, in general terms, in their first draft in 1596'. Sir John Arden,

pretation given in the text, of the ambiguous words in the grant of the heralds to our poet, is by no means fanciful or far-fetched.

I may add, that a similar error to that, which I believe has prevailed for near a century, of supposing Shakspeare to be descended from a paternal ancestor who had been rewarded with a royal grant of lands, instead of a maternal one, has happened in the case of Oliver Cromwell, who was thought by many to be descended from Cromwell, Earl of Essex; because forsooth his wife was descended from a nobleman with that title; not indeed Thomas Cromwell, but William Bourchier, Earl of Essex, See Dugdale's Bar. ii. 132.

' In their subsequent grant, indeed, in 1599, they have deviated from their original statement, and added that he was rewarded with a grant of lands in Warwickshire, which we shall presently see was not the fact. But this slight inaccuracy in the latter instrument cannot affect the present hypothesis, when we recollect, that, after having rightly stated, in the grant of 1596, the degree of his relationship to John Shakspeare (grandfather), his son's place of residence, "Wilmecote," and his grand-daughter's Christian name (Mary), they, in two of these particulars in their grant of 1599, are inaccurate; and the third, they have wholly omitted. I may add, that grants of lands in Warwickshire having been made by King Henry the Eighth to the elder branch of Robert Arden's family (see p. 38, n. 9), the heralds being instructed that Henry the Seventh had been equally liberal to one of the younger branches, might have taken it for granted that the lands conferred on him were in that county, where his family had