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with whom, at the end of three years, his daughter may be 

 found united in wedlock. The clauses of the will (from which 

 these facts are elicited) are fully discussed, and the memory 

 of Shakspere rescued from the charge of " favouritism" or 

 unjust partiality. 



The charge respecting his supposed neglect of his wife is 

 next examined. It rests upon three points : the omission of 

 her name in the first draft of his will ; the neglect of any 

 ostensible provision for her support ; and the interlineation 

 which conveys to her his "second best bed." Malone, fol- 

 lowed by Drake and others, interprets these facts into proofs 

 of the unhappiness of the marriage through life, and the un- 

 friendly feeling with which it closed in death. The last 

 point, in particular, Malone construes into " cutting her oiF," 

 not with a shilling, but an old piece of furniture ; and Moore 

 translates it into " a bitter sarcasm." 



With reference to the first, Mr. Halpin argues that the 

 poet's omission of his wife's name in the first draft of the will, 

 and the subsequent interlineation, no more imply the absence 

 of conjugal love, than the similar omission and interlineation of 

 his friends' and fellows' names (Burbage, Hemings, and Con- 

 dell) intimate his want of friendship for them — an inference 

 which, in their case, the biographers never thought of drawing. 



With reference to the second, Mr. H. concurs, to a certain 

 extent, with Mr. Charles Knight's solution of the point, 

 namely, the provision already made by law, — the widow being 

 entitled to dower, or the third of all her husband's freehold 

 property during her life ; and further suggests, from other 

 provisions of the will, the extreme probability that she and 

 her children had been, previous to her marriage with the 

 poet, provided for by a marriage settlement, and that she 

 consequently had brought him a fortune. 



With respect to the third, the vindication which Stevens 

 suggested is confirmed by reference to the testamentary habits 

 of the times ; and the bequest is proved, by parallel with a 



