Part 19 (1/2)

Judicio Pyliuit, populus oest thou by so fast?

Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast Within this monument; Shakespeare home Quick nature dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe Farart but page to serve his witt

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Personal character

At the opening of Shakespeare's career Chettle wrote of his 'civil de which argues his honesty' In 1601--when near the zenith of his fame--he was apostrophised as 'sweet Master Shakespeare' in the play of 'The Return fro after associated with his name In 1604 one Anthony Scoloker in a poem called 'Daiphantus'

bestowed on him the epithet 'friendly' After the close of his career Jonson wrote of him: 'I loved the man and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much as any He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free nature' {278a} No other contemporary left on record any definite impression of Shakespeare's personal character, and the 'Sonnets,' which alone of his literary work can be held to throw any illuht of one illing to confor the bonds between a poet and a great patron His literary practices and aims were those of contemporary men of letters, and the difference in the quality of his work and theirs was due not to conscious endeavour on his part to act otherwise than they, but to the enius He seemed unconscious of his marvellous superiority to his professional comrades The references in his will to his fellow-actors, and the spirit in which (as they announce in the First Folio) they approached the task of collecting his works after his death, corroborate the description of hi ether by Aubrey depict hiood company, and of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit,'

and there is enial, if not a convivial, teood-huenuine attraction for Shakespeare His extant work attests his 'copious' and continuous industry, {278b} and with his literary power and sociability there clearly went the shrewd capacity of a man of business

Pope had just warrant for the surht, And grew immortal in his own despite

His literary attain the prosaic end of providing perhest a his fellonsmen the family repute which his father's misfortunes had i poets, but Chaucer and Sir Walter Scott, aenius, vie with Shakespeare in the sobriety of their personal aims and in the sanity of their mental attitude towards life's ordinary incidents

XVII--SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

The survivors Mistress Judith Quiney

Shakespeare'sdied on August 6, 1623, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried near her husband inside the chancel two days later Soiacs--doubtless from Dr Hall's pen--were inscribed on a brass plate fastened to the stone above her grave {280} The younger daughter, Judith, resided with her husband, Thoe Street from 1616 till 1652 There he carried on the trade of a vintner, and took part inas a councillor from 1617 and as charew embarrassed, and he left Stratford late in 1652 for London, where he seems to have died a few months later Of his three sons by Judith, the eldest, Shakespeare (baptised on November 23, 1616), was buried in Stratford Churchyard on May 8, 1617; the second son, Richard (baptised on February 9, 1617-18), was buried on January 28, 1638-9; and the third son, Thomas (baptised on January 23, 1619-20), was buried on February 26, 1638-9 Judith survived her husband, sons, and sister, dying at Stratford on February 9, 1661-2, in her seventy-seventh year

Mistress Susannah Hall

The poet's elder daughter, Mrs Susanna Hall, resided at New Place till her death Her sister Judith alienated to her the Chapel Place tenement before 1633, but that, with the interest in the Stratford tithes, she soon disposed of Her husband, Dr John Hall, died on Noveeon in attendance on some Royalist troops stationed at Stratford, visited Mrs Hall and examined manuscripts in her possession, but they were apparently of her husband's, not of her father's, composition {281} Fro from Newark to Oxford, was billeted on Mrs Hall at New Place for three days, and was visited there by Prince Rupert

Mrs Hall was buried beside her husband in Stratford Churchyard on July 11, 1649, and a rhy her as 'witty above her sex,' was engraved on her tombstone The whole inscription ran: 'Heere lyeth ye body of Svsanna, wife to John Hall, Gent ye davghter of William Shakespeare, Gent She deceased ye 11th of Jvly, AD 1649, aged 66

'Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall, So of Shakespere was in that, but this Wholy of hier, ha'st ne're a teare, To weepe with her that ith all?

That wept, yet set herselfe to chere Them up with comforts cordiall

Her Love shall live, her mercy spread, When thou hast ne're a teare to shed'

The last descendant