25, 1616, received many interlineations and erasures before it was signed
in the ensuing March. Francis Collins, the solicitor of Warwick, and
Thomas Russell, 'esquier,' of Stratford, were the overseers; it was
proved by John Hall, the poet's son-in-law and joint-executor with Mrs.
Hall, in London on June 22 following. The religious exordium is in
conventional phraseology, and gives no clue to Shakespeare's personal
religious opinions. What those opinions were, we have neither the means
nor the warrant for discussing. But while it is possible to quote from
the plays many contemptuous references to the puritans and their
doctrines, we may dismiss as idle gossip Davies's irresponsible report
that 'he dyed a papist.' The name of Shakespeare's wife was omitted from
the original draft of the will, but by an interlineation in the final
draft she received his second best bed with its furniture. No other
bequest was made her. Several wills of the period have been discovered
in which a bedstead or other article of household furniture formed part
of a wife's inheritance, but none except Shakespeare's is forthcoming in
which a bed forms the sole bequest. At the same time the precision with
which Shakespeare's will accounts for and assigns to other legatees every
known item of his property refutes the conjecture that he had set aside
any portion of it under a previous settlement or jointure with a view to
making independent provision for his wife. Her right to a widow's
dower--_i.e._ to a third share for life in freehold estate--was not
subject to testamentary disposition, but Shakespeare had taken steps to
prevent her from benefiting--at any rate to the full extent--by that
legal arrangement. He had barred her dower in the case of his latest
purchase of freehold estate, viz. the house at Blackfriars. {274} Such
procedure is pretty conclusive proof that he had the intention of
excluding her from the enjoyment of his possessions after his death.
But, however plausible the theory that his relations with her were from
first to last wanting in sympathy, it is improbable that either the
slender mention of her in the will or the barring of her dower was
designed by Shakespeare to make public his indifference or dislike.
Local tradition subsequently credited her with a wish to be buried in his
grave; and her epitaph proves that she inspired her daughters with
genuine affection. Probably her ignorance of affairs and the infirmities
of age (she was past sixty) combined to unfit her in the poet's eyes for
the control of property, and, as an act of ordinary prudence, he
committed her to the care of his elder daughter, who inherited, according
to such information as is accessible, some of his own shrewdness, and had
a capable adviser in her husband.
His heiress. Legacies to friends.
This elder daughter, Susanna Hall, was, according to the will, to become
mistress of New Place, and practically of all the poet's estate. She
received (with remainder to her issue in strict entail) New Place, all
the land, barns, and gardens at and near Stratford (except the tenement
in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London, while she and her
husband were appointed executors and residuary legatees, with full rights
over nearly all the poet's household furniture and personal belongings.
To their only child and the testator's granddaughter, or 'niece,'
Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed the poet's plate, with the exception of
his broad silver and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger
daughter, Judith. To his younger daughter he also left, with the
tenement in Chapel Lane (in remainder to the elder daughter), 150 pounds
in money, of which 100 pounds, her marriage portion, was to be paid
within a year, and another 150 pounds to be paid to her if alive three
years after the date of the will. {276a} To the poet's sister, Joan
Hart, whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the testator by only six
days, he left, besides a contingent reversionary interest in Judith's
pecuniary legacy, his wearing apparel, 20 pounds in money, a life
interest in the Henley Street property, with 5 pounds for each of her
three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael. To the poor of Stratford he
gave 10 pounds, and to Mr. Thomas Combe (apparently a brother of William,
of the enclosure controversy) his sword. To each of his Stratford
friends, Hamlett Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash, and John Nash,
and to each of his 'fellows' (_i.e._ theatrical colleagues in London),
John Heming, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell, he left xxvj_s_.
viij_d_., with which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William Walker,
received 'xx' shillings in gold.
The tomb.
Before 1623 {276b} an elaborate monument, by a London sculptor of Dutch
birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel
of the parish church. {277} It includes a half-length bust, depicting
the dramatist on the point of writing. The fingers of the right hand are
disposed as if holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto sheet
of paper. The inscription, which was apparently by a London friend,
runs:
Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.
Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast
Within this monument; Shakespeare with whome
Quick nature dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more than cost; sith all yt he hath writt
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt.
Obiit ano. doi 1616 AEtatis 53 Die 23 Ap.
Personal character.
At the opening of Shakespeare's career Chettle wrote of his 'civil
demeanour' and of the reports of 'his uprightness of dealing 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
from Parnassus,' and that adjective was long 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 illumination on a
personal trait, mainly reveal him in the light of one who was willing to
conform to all the conventional methods in vogue for strengthening 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 magic and involuntary working
of his genius. 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 him as a sympathetic friend of gentle,
unassuming mien. The later traditions brought together by Aubrey depict
him as 'very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit,'
and there is much in other early posthumous references to suggest a
genial, if not a convivial, temperament, linked to a quiet turn for
good-humoured satire. But Bohemian ideals and modes of life had no
genuine 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 surmise that he
For gain not glory winged his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
His literary attainments and successes were chiefly valued as serving the
prosaic end of providing permanently for himself and his daughters. His
highest ambition was to restore among his fellow-townsmen the family
repute which his father's misfortunes had imperilled. Ideals so homely
are reckoned rare among poets, but Chaucer and Sir Walter Scott, among
writers of exalted genius, 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's widow died on August 6, 1623, at the age of sixty-seven,
and was buried near her husband inside the chancel two days later. Some
affectionately phrased Latin elegiacs--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,
Thomas Quiney, at The Cage, a house which he leased in Bridge Street from
1616 till 1652. There he carried on the trade of a vintner, and took
part in municipal affairs, acting as a councillor from 1617 and as
chamberlain in 1621-2 and 1622-3; but after 1630 his affairs grew
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 November 25, 1635.
In 1642 James Cooke, a surgeon 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} From July 11 to 13, 1643, Queen Henrietta
Maria, while journeying 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 rhyming inscription, describing 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, A.D. 1649, aged 66.
'Witty above her sexe, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,
Something of Shakespere was in that, but this
Wholy of him with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, passenger, ha'st ne're a teare,
To weepe with her that wept with 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.
Mrs. Hall's only child, Elizabeth, was the last surviving descendant of
the poet. In April 1626 she married her first husband, Thomas Nash of
Stratford (_b._ 1593), who studied at Lincoln's Inn, was a man of
property, and, dying childless at New Place on April 4, 1647, was buried
in Stratford Church next day. At Billesley, a village four miles from
Stratford, on June 5, 1649, Mrs. Nash married, as a second husband, a
widower, John Bernard or Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire, who was
knighted by Charles II in 1661. About the same date she seems to have
abandoned New Place for her husband's residence at Abington. Dying
without issue, she was buried there on February 17, 1669-70. Her husband
survived her four years, and was buried beside her. {282} On her
mother's death in 1649 Lady Barnard inherited under the poet's will the
land near Stratford, New Place, the house at Blackfriars, and (on the
death of the poet's sister, Joan Hart, in 1646) the houses in Henley
Street, while her father, Dr. Hall, left her in 1635 a house at Acton
with a meadow. She sold the Blackfriars house, and apparently the
Stratford land, before 1667. By her will, dated January 1669-70, and
proved in the following March, she left small bequests to the daughters
of Thomas Hathaway, of the family of her grandmother, the poet's wife.
The houses in Henley Street passed to her cousin, Thomas Hart, the
grandson of the poet's sister Joan, and they remained in the possession
of Thomas's direct descendants till 1806 (the male line expired on the
death of John Hart in 1800). By her will Lady Barnard also ordered New
Place to be sold, and it was purchased on May 18, 1675, by Sir Edward
Walker, through whose daughter Barbara, wife of Sir John Clopton, it
reverted to the Clopton family. Sir John rebuilt it in 1702. On the
death of his son Hugh in 1752, it was bought by the Rev. Francis Gastrell
(_d._ 1768), who demolished the new building in 1759. {283}
Shakespeare's brothers.
Of Shakespeare's three brothers, only one, Gilbert, seems to have
survived him. Edmund, the youngest brother, 'a player,' was buried at
St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, 'with a fore-noone knell of the great
bell,' on December 31, 1607; he was in his twenty-eighth year. Richard,
John Shakespeare's third son, died at Stratford in February 1613, aged
29. 'Gilbert Shakespeare adolescens,' who was buried at Stratford on
February 3, 1611-12, was doubtless son of the poet's next brother,
Gilbert; the latter, having nearly completed his forty-sixth year, could
scarcely be described as 'adolescens;' his death is not recorded, but
according to Oldys he survived to a patriarchal age.
XVIII--AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS
Spelling of the poet's surname. Autograph signatures.
Much controversy has arisen over the spelling of the poet's surname. It
has been proved capable of four thousand variations. {284} The name of
the poet's father is entered sixty-six times in the council books of
Stratford, and is spelt in sixteen ways. The commonest form is
'Shaxpeare.' Five autographs of the poet of undisputed authenticity are
extant: his signature to the indenture relating to the purchase of the
property in Blackfriars, dated March 10, 1612-13 (since 1841 in the
Guildhall Library); his signature to the mortgage-deed relating to the
same purchase, dated March 11, 1612-13 (since 1858 in the British
Museum), and the three signatures on the three sheets of his will, dated
March 25, 1615-16 (now at Somerset House). In all the signatures some of
the letters are represented by recognised signs of abbreviation. The
signature to the first document is 'William Shakspere,' though in all
other portions of the deed the name is spelt 'Shakespeare.' The
signature to the second document has been interpreted both as Shakspere
and Shakspeare. The ink of the first signature in the will has now faded
almost beyond decipherment, but that it was 'Shakspere' may be inferred
from the facsimile made by Steevens in 1776. The second and third
signatures to the will, which are also somewhat difficult to decipher,
have been read both as Shakspere and Shakspeare; but a close examination
suggests that whatever the second signature may be, the third is
'Shakespeare.' Shakspere is the spelling of the alleged autograph in the
British Museum copy of Florio's 'Montaigne,' but the genuineness of that
signature is disputable. {285} Shakespeare was the form adopted in the
full signature appended to the dedicatory epistles of the 'Venus and
Adonis' of 1593 and the 'Lucrece' of 1594, volumes which were produced
under the poet's supervision. It is the spelling adopted on the
title-pages of the majority of contemporary editions of his works,
whether or not produced under his supervision. It is adopted in almost
all the published references to the poet during the seventeenth century.
It appears in the grant of arms in 1596, in the license to the players of
1603, and in the text of all the legal documents relating to the poet's
property. The poet, like most of his contemporaries, acknowledged no
finality on the subject. According to the best authority, he spelt his
surname in two ways when signing his will. There is consequently no good
ground for abandoning the form Shakespeare, which is sanctioned by legal
and literary custom. {286}
Shakespeare's portraits. The Stratford bust. The 'Stratford' portrait.
Aubrey reported that Shakespeare was 'a handsome well-shap't man,' but no
portrait exists which can be said with absolute certainty to have been
executed during his lifetime, although one has recently been discovered
with a good claim to that distinction. Only two of the extant portraits
are positively known to have been produced within a short period after
his death. These are the bust in Stratford Church and the frontispiece
to the folio of 1623. Each is an inartistic attempt at a posthumous
likeness. There is considerable discrepancy between the two; their main
points of resemblance are the baldness on the top of the head and the
fulness of the hair about the ears. The bust was by Gerard Johnson or
Janssen, who was a Dutch stonemason or tombmaker settled in Southwark.
It was set up in the church before 1623, and is a rudely carved specimen
of mortuary sculpture. There are marks about the forehead and ears which
suggest that the face was fashioned from a death mask, but the
workmanship is at all points clumsy. The round face and eyes present a
heavy, unintellectual expression. The bust was originally coloured, but
in 1793 Malone caused it to be whitewashed. In 1861 the whitewash was
removed, and the colours, as far as traceable, restored. The eyes are
light hazel, the hair and beard auburn. There have been numberless
reproductions, both engraved and photographic. It was first
engraved--very imperfectly--for Rowe's edition in 1709; then by Vertue
for Pope's edition of 1725; and by Gravelot for Hanmer's edition in 1744.
A good engraving by William Ward appeared in 1816. A phototype and a
chromo-phototype, issued by the New Shakspere Society, are the best
reproductions for the purposes of study. The pretentious painting known
as the 'Stratford' portrait, and presented in 1867 by W. O. Hunt, town
clerk of Stratford, to the Birthplace Museum, where it is very
prominently displayed, was probably painted from the bust late in the
eighteenth century; it lacks either historic or artistic interest.
Droeshout's engraving.
The engraved portrait--nearly a half-length--which was printed on the
title-page of the folio of 1623, was by Martin Droeshout. On the
opposite page lines by Ben Jonson congratulate 'the graver' on having
satisfactorily 'hit' the poet's 'face.' Jonson's testimony does no
credit to his artistic discernment; the expression of countenance, which
is very crudely rendered, is neither distinctive nor lifelike. The face
is long and the forehead high; the top of the head is bald, but the hair
falls in abundance over the ears. There is a scanty moustache and a thin
tuft under the lower lip. A stiff and wide collar, projecting
horizontally, conceals the neck. The coat is closely buttoned and
elaborately bordered, especially at the shoulders. The dimensions of the
head and face are disproportionately large as compared with those of the
body. In the unique proof copy which belonged to Halliwell-Phillipps
(now with his collection in America) the tone is clearer than in the
ordinary copies, and the shadows are less darkened by cross-hatching and
coarse dotting. The engraver, Martin Droeshout, belonged to a Flemish
family of painters and engravers long settled in London, where he was
born in 1601. He was thus fifteen years old at the time of Shakespeare's
death in 1616, and it is consequently improbable that he had any personal
knowledge of the dramatist. The engraving was doubtless produced by
Droeshout very shortly before the publication of the First Folio in 1623,
when he had completed his twenty-second year. It thus belongs to the
outset of the engraver's professional career, in which he never achieved
extended practice or reputation. A copy of the Droeshout engraving, by
William Marshall, was prefixed to Shakespeare's 'Poems' in 1640, and
William Faithorne made another copy for the frontispiece of the edition
of 'The Rape of Lucrece' published in 1655.
The 'Droeshout' painting.
There is little doubt that young Droeshout in fashioning his engraving
worked from a painting, and there is a likelihood that the original
picture from which the youthful engraver worked has lately come to light.
As recently as 1892 Mr. Edgar Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon, discovered in
the possession of Mr. H. C. Clements, a private gentleman with artistic
tastes residing at Peckham Rye, a portrait alleged to represent
Shakespeare. The picture, which was faded and somewhat worm-eaten, dated
beyond all doubt from the early years of the seventeenth century. It was
painted on a panel formed of two planks of old elm, and in the upper
left-hand corner was the inscription 'Willm Shakespeare, 1609.' Mr.
Clements purchased the portrait of an obscure dealer about 1840, and knew
nothing of its history, beyond what he set down on a slip of paper when
he acquired it. The note that he then wrote and pasted on the box in
which he preserved the picture, ran as follows: 'The original portrait of
Shakespeare, from which the now famous Droeshout engraving was taken and
inserted in the first collected edition of his works, published in 1623,
being seven years after his death. The picture was painted nine [_vere_
seven] years before his death, and consequently sixteen [_vere_ fourteen]
years before it was published. . . . The picture was publicly exhibited
in London seventy years ago, and many thousands went to see it.' In all
its details and in its comparative dimensions, especially in the
disproportion between the size of the head and that of the body, this
picture is identical with the Droeshout engraving. Though coarsely and
stiffly drawn, the face is far more skilfully presented than in the
engraving, and the expression of countenance betrays some artistic
sentiment which is absent from the print. Connoisseurs, including Sir
Edward Poynter, Mr. Sidney Colvin, and Mr. Lionel Cust, have almost
unreservedly pronounced the picture to be anterior in date to the
engraving, and they have reached the conclusion that in all probability
Martin Droeshout directly based his work upon the painting. Influences
of an early seventeenth-century Flemish school are plainly discernible in
the picture, and it is just possible that it is the production of an
uncle of the young engraver Martin Droeshout, who bore the same name as
his nephew, and was naturalised in this country on January 25, 1608, when
he was described as a 'painter of Brabant.' Although the history of the
portrait rests on critical conjecture and on no external contemporary
evidence, there seems good ground for regarding it as a portrait of
Shakespeare painted in his lifetime--in the forty-fifth year of his age.
No other pictorial representation of the poet has equally serious claims
to be treated as contemporary with himself, and it therefore presents
features of unique interest. On the death of its owner, Mr. Clements, in
1895, the painting was purchased by Mrs. Charles Flower, and was
presented to the Memorial Picture Gallery at Stratford, where it now
hangs. No attempt at restoration has been made. A photogravure forms
the frontispiece to the present volume. {290}
Of the same type as the Droeshout engraving, although less closely
resembling it than the picture just described, is the 'Ely House'
portrait (now the property of the Birthplace Trustees at Stratford),
which formerly belonged to Thomas Turton, Bishop of Ely, and it is
inscribed 'AE. 39 x. 1603.' {291a} This painting is of high artistic
value. The features are of a far more attractive and intellectual cast
than in either the Droeshout painting or engraving, and the many
differences in detail raise doubts as to whether the person represented
can have been intended for Shakespeare. Experts are of opinion that the
picture was painted early in the seventeenth century.
Early in Charles II's reign Lord Chancellor Clarendon added a portrait of
Shakespeare to his great gallery in his house in St. James's. Mention is
made of it in a letter from the diarist John Evelyn to his friend Samuel
Pepys in 1689, but Clarendon's collection was dispersed at the end of the
seventeenth century and the picture has not been traced. {291b}
Later portraits.
Of the numerous extant paintings which have been described as portraits
of Shakespeare, only the 'Droeshout' portrait and the Ely House portrait,
both of which are at Stratford, bear any definable resemblance to the
folio engraving or the bust in the church. {291c} In spite of their
admitted imperfections, those presentments can alone be held indisputably
to have been honestly designed to depict the poet's features. They must
be treated as the standards of authenticity in judging of the genuineness
of other portraits claiming to be of an early date.
The 'Chandos' portrait.