SHAKESPEARE 



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SHAKESPEARE 



speare, still. a youth of twenty-one or under, 

 got into difficulty with Sir Thomas Lucy, a 

 local magnate, by reason of some pranks, and 

 felt it safest to leave. 



However that may be, it is certain that in 

 time he drifted to London and joined himself 

 to a company of players. What he did at the 

 outset is not known probably he served in 

 some very minor capacity and only later began 

 to act unimportant parts. One thing, however, 

 is evident: in Warwickshire he had been a 

 countryman, with all sympathy for the quiet 

 rural life about him; in London, just as surely, 

 he became a part of the life of the time, grasp- 

 ing every detail of the stirring happenings 

 about him and storing it up for future use. 



and some time later he added to his estate a 

 considerable tract of farm land. His visits to 

 the town became more and more numerous, 

 and about 1611 he left London permanently 

 and retired to Stratford. 



Last Years and Death. The remainder of his 

 life passed quietly with his family, and so far 

 as can be known he wrote no more plays. In 

 January, 1616, he made his will, in which he left 

 to his wife the "second best bed, with the 

 furniture." This curious bequest may by no 

 means be taken to mean that his wife was not 

 provided for, as by law she would have dower 

 rights in his property. 



Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, of a 

 fever which may have been the result of un- 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF SHAKESPEARE 

 At left, before restoration ; at right, as it appears to-day. 



In 1592 appeared a reference to him in a 

 pamphlet by Robert Greene, a popular play- 

 wrighta spiteful reference which shows that 

 Shakespeare had become successful enough as 

 an adapter and writer of plays to rouse envy. 

 The years that followed brought him honor, 

 the friendship of such men as the learned Ben 

 Jonson and the Earl of Southampton, and a 

 considerable measure of financial success, but 

 not the supreme fame which later generations 

 have conferred upon him. He himself seems 

 to have looked upon his work as merely tran- 

 sient, for he made no attempt to preserve it or 

 to collect it. 



Financial success was grateful to him for one 

 special reason. He became a shareholder in at 

 least two of the most important theaters, but 

 that was not the end of his ambition. All 

 through his busy London life he cherished the 

 desire to return to his native town and lead 

 the life of a country gentleman. In 1597 he 

 bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford, 



sanitary drainage conditions in and about Strat- 

 ford. He was buried in the chancel of Stratford 

 church, and over his grave was placed a slab 

 inscribed with the doggerel lines now famous 

 the world over: 



Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare 

 To digg the dust encloased heare ; 

 Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, 

 And curst be he that moves my bones. 



That Shakespeare himself wrote these lines, as 

 tradition asserts, there is no proof, and cer- 

 tainly they are woefully inadequate as the epi- 

 taph of the world's greatest poet. Later a 

 monument with a bust was set up on the chan- 

 cel wall. 



Anne Hathaway survived her husband for 

 seven years, and his youngest daughter, Judith, 

 wife of Thomas Quiney, lived until 1661. 



Character. Though we have no biography of 

 Shakespeare left by his contemporaries, we have 

 what is almost as valuable a record of the im- 

 pression which he made on one who knew him 



