MR. KNIGHT has on two occasions, the latter in his _Stratford Shakspeare_
just published, called attention to what he concludes is an oversight of
mine in not drawing any conclusion from a deed in which certain lands are
mentioned as "heretofore _the inheritance_ of William Shakspeare, Gent.,
deceased." These words are supposed by MR. KNIGHT to imply that the lands
in question came to Shakspeare by descent, as heir-at-law of his father.
This opinion appeared to me to be somewhat a hasty one: believing that no
conclusion whatever is to be drawn from the phrase as there used, and
relying on the ordinary definition of _inheritance_ in the old works on
law, I did not hesitate, some time since, to declare a conviction that the
lands so mentioned were bought by Shakspeare himself. As the question is of
some importance in the inquiry respecting the position of the poet's
ancestry, perhaps one of your legal readers would kindly decide which of us
is in the right. I possess an useful collection of old law-books, but there
are few subjects in which error is so easily committed by unprofessional
readers. In the present instance, however, if plain words are to be relied
upon, it seems certain that the term _inheritance_ was applied, to use
Cowell's words, to {76} "every fee simple or fee taile that a man hath by
his purchase." (See _The Interpreter_, 1637.)