inhabitants of Stratford.

Every house in that town that is let or valued at more than 40s. a-year is assessed by the overseers, according to its worth and the ability of the occupier, to pay a monthly rate toward the maintenance of the poor. As Mr. Gastrell resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly; but being very properly compelled by the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again; and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. Wishing, as it should seem, to be 'damn'd to everlasting fame,' he had some time before cut down Shakspeare's celebrated mulberry-tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetic ground on which it stood." The cutting down of the mulberry-tree seems to have been regarded as the chief offence in Mr. Gastrell's own generation. His wife was a sister of Johnson's correspondent, Mrs. Aston. After the death of Mr. Gastrell, his widow resided at Lichfield; and in 1776, Boswell, in company with Johnson, dined with the sisters. Boswell on this occasion says "I was not informed, till afterwards, that Mrs. Gastrell's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford-upon-Avon, with Gothic barbarity cut down Shakspeare's mulberrytree, and, as Dr. Johnson told me, did it to vex his neighbours. His lady, I have reason to believe on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what the enthusiasts of our immortal bard deem almost a species of sacrilege." The mulberry-tree was cut down in 1756; was sold for firewood; and the bulk of it was purchased by a Mr. Thomas Sharp, of Stratford-upon-Avon, cloek and watch maker, who made a solemn affidavit some years afterwards, that out of a sincere veneration for the memory of its celebrated planter he had the greater part of it conveyed to his own premises, and worked it into curious toys and useful articles. The destruction of the mulberry-tree, which the previous possessor of New Place used to show with pride and veneration, enraged the people of Stratford; and Mr. Wheler tells us that he remembers to have heard his father say that, when a boy, he assisted in the revenge of breaking the reverend destroyer's windows. The hostilities were put an end to by the Rev. Mr. Gastrell quitting Stratford in 1757; and, upon the principle of doing what he liked with his own, pulling the house to the ground in which Shakspere and his children had lived and died.

There is no good end to be served in execrating the memory of the man who deprived the world of the pleasure of looking upon the rooms in which the author of some of the greatest productions of human intellect had lived, in the common round of humanity-of treading reverentially upon the spot hallowed by his presence and by his labours. It appears to us that this person intended no insult to the memory of Shakspere; and, indeed, thought nothing of Shakspere in the whole course of his proceedings. He bought a house, and paid for it. He wished to enjoy it in quiet. People with whom he could not sympathise intruded upon him to see the gardens and the house. In the gardens was a noble mulberry-tree. Tradition said it was planted by Shakspere; and the professional enthusiasts of Shakspere, the Garricks and the Macklins, had sat under its shade, during the occupation of one who felt that there was a real honour in the ownership of such a place. The Rev. Mr. Gastrell wanted the house and the gardens to himself. He had that strong notion of the exclusive rights of property which belongs to most Englishmen, and especially to ignorant Englishmen. Mr. Gastrell was an ignorant man, though a clergyman. We have seen his diary, written upon a visit to Scotland three years after the pulling down of New Place. His journey was connected with some electioneering intrigues in the Scotch boroughs. He is a stranger in Scotland, and he goes into some of its most romantic districts. The scenery makes no impression upon him, as may be imagined; but he is scandalized beyond measure when he meets with a bad dinner, and a rough lodging. He has just literature enough to know the name of Shakspere; but in passing through Forres and Glamis he has not the slightest association with Shakspere's Macbeth. A Captain Gordon informs his vacant mind upon some abstruse subjects, as to which we have the following record:-" He assures me that the Duncan murdered at Forres was the same person that Shakspeare writes of." There scarcely requires any further evidence of the prosaic character of his mind; and if there be some truth in the axiom of Shakspere, that

"The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,"

we hold, upon the same principle, that the man who speaks in this literal way of the "

person that

Shakspere writes of," was a fit man to root up Shakspere's mulberry-tree, and pull down his house, being totally insensible to the feeling that he was doing any injury to any person but himself, and holding that the wood and the stone were his own, to be dealt with at his own good pleasure.

It is a singular fact that no drawings or prints exist of New Place as Shakspere left it, or at any period before the alterations by Sir Hugh Clopton. It is a more singular fact that although Garrick had been there only fourteen years before the destruction, visiting the place with a feeling of veneration that might have led him and others to preserve some memorial of it, there is no trace whatever existing of what New Place was before 1757. A modern house is now built upon the spot; the gardens are divided: and yet most editions of Shakspere contain a view of New Place. The wood-cut at the head of this note is a fac-simile of an engraving, first published by Malone, and subsequently appended to the variorum editions, which is thus described:-"New Place, from a drawing in the margin of an Ancient Survey, made by order of Sir George Carew (afterwards Baron Carew of Clopton, and Earl of Totness), and found at Clopton, near Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1786." A person resident at Stratford at the period mentioned as that of the finding of the drawing -Poet Jordan, as he was called-an ignorant person, but ready enough to impose upon antiquarian credulity—an instrument perhaps in the hands of others-he sent to Malone this drawing of New Place from the margin of an ancient survey. If it was a survey found at Clopton, it was a survey of the Clopton property in the possession of the Earl of Totness, who was a contemporary of Shakspere. New Place, as Malone knew, had been out of the Clopton family fifty years when Shakspere bought it. The drawing is found on the margin of an ancient survey. It is not described in the margin, or elsewhere, as New Place. Immediately opposite New Place is a house which, though altered, is still a very old house. The gables have been concealed by a parapet, the windows have been modernized; but the gables are still to be traced upon ascending the roof. Restore the gables and windows to their primitive state, and we have the very house represented upon "the margin of an ancient survey." That house, which is now occupied by Mr. Hunt, the town-clerk of Stratford, did belong to the Earl of Totness. But look at Shakspere's arms over the door, the "spear in bend." How do we account for this? There is a letter written by Malone on the 15th of April, 1790, to his convenient friend at Stratford, "good Mr. Jordan," in which the following passage occurs:-" Mr. Malone would be glad to have Shakspeare's house on the same scale as that of Sir Hugh Clopton's. He thinks the arms of Shakspeare a very proper ornament over the door, and very likely to have been there; and neat wooden pales may be placed with propriety before the house." And yet this man was the most bitter denouncer of the Ireland forgeries; and shows up, as he had a just right to do, the imposition of the "View of my Masterre Irelande's House," with two coats-of-arms beneath it.* Good Mr. Jordan, when, in the pride of his heart at having such a correspondent, he gave a copy of Malone's letter to a gentleman at Stratford, admitted that he had, of his own accord, added the porch to the house represented "in the margin of an ancient survey." * See Malone's 'Inquiry,' p. 239.

THERE is a memorandum existing (to which we shall hereafter more particularly advert), by Thomas Greene, a contemporary of Shakspere, residing at Stratford, which, under the date of November 17th, 1614, has this record :-" My cousin Shakspeare coming yesterday to town, I went to see him how he did.” We cite this memorandum here, as an indication of Shakspere's habit of occasionally visiting London; for Thomas Greene was then in the capital, with the intent of opposing the project of an inclosure at Stratford. The frequency of Shakspere's visits to London would essentially depend upon the nature of his connexion with the theatres. He was a permanent shareholder, as we have seen, at the Blackfriars; and no doubt at the Globe also. His interests as a sharer might be diligently watched over by his fellows; and he might only

have visited London when he had a new play to bring forward, the fruit of his leisure in the country. But until he disposed of his wardrobe and other properties, more frequent demands might be made upon his personal attendance than if he were totally free from the responsibilities belonging to the charge of such an embarrassing stock in trade. Mr. Collier has printed a memorandum in the handwriting of Edward Alleyn, dated April 1612, of the payment of various sums "for the Blackfryers," amounting to 5997. 6s. 8d. Mr. Collier adds, "To whom the money was paid is nowhere stated; but, for aught we know, it was to Shakespeare himself, and just anterior to his departure from London." The memorandum is introduced with the observation, "It seems very likely, from evidence now for the first time to be adduced, that Alleyn became the purchaser of our great dramatist's interest in the theatre, properties, wardrobe, and stock of the Blackfriars." Certainly the document itself says nothing about properties, wardrobe, and stock. It is simply as follows:

More than half of the entire sum is paid "again for the lease." If the estimate "For avoiding of the Playhouse," &c.* be not rejected as an authority, the conjecture of Mr. Collier that the property purchased by Alleyn belonged to Shakspere is wholly untenable; for the Fee, valued at a thousand pounds, was the property of Burbage, and to the owner of the Fee would be paid the sum for the lease. Subsequent memoranda by Alleyn show that he paid rent for the Blackfriars, and expended sums upon the building-collateral proofs that it was not Shakspere's personal property that he bought in April 1612. There is distinct evidence furnished by another document that Shakspere was not a resident in London in 1613; for in an indenture executed by him on the 10th of March in that year, for the purchase of a dwelling-house in the precinct of the Blackfriars, he is described as "William Shakespeare of Stratforde Upon Avon in the countie of Warwick gentleman;" whilst his fellow John Hemyng, who is a party to the same deed, is described as "of London, gentleman." From the situation of the property it would appear to have been bought either as an appurtenance to the theatre, or for some protection of the interests of the sharers. In the deed of 1602, Shakspere is also described as of Stratford-uponAvon. It is natural that he should be so described, in a deed for the purchase of land at Stratford; but upon the same principle, had he been a resident in London in 1613, he would have been described as of London in a deed for the purchase of property in London. Yet we also look upon this conveyance as evidence that Shakspere had in March 1613 not wholly severed himself from his interest in the theatre. He is in London at the signing of the deed, attending, probably, to the duties which still devolved upon him as a sharer in the BlackSee Note at the end of this Chapter.

* See page 481.

friars. He is not a resident in London; he has come to town, as Thomas Greene describes, in 1614. But we have no evidence that he sold his theatrical property at all. Certainly the evidence that he sold it to Edward Alleyn may be laid aside in any attempt to fix the date of Shakspere's departure from London.

In the November of 1611 two of Shakspere's plays were acted at Whitehall. The entries of their performance are thus given in the Book of the Revels :'

"By the Kings
Players:
The Kings
Players:

Hallomas nyght was presented att Whithall before ye Kinge
Mate a play called the Tempest.

The 5th of Nouember; A play called ye winters nighte
Tayle."

That The Tempest was a new play when thus performed, it would be difficult to affirm, upon this entry alone. In the earlier part of the reign of James we have seen that old plays of Shakspere were performed before the King; but at that period all his plays would be equally novel to the Monarch and to the Court. According to the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, the performances at Court of the King's players appear to have been so numerous after the year of the accession, that it would be necessary to add the attraction of