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 ‘Julius Cæsar,’ and ‘Hotspur’ (doubtless ‘1 Henry IV’) (, ii. 87). Of his actor-friends, one of the chief, Augustine Phillips, died in 1605, leaving by will ‘to my fellowe, William Shakespeare, a thirty-shillings piece of gold.’ With Burbage, Heming, and Condell his relations remained close to the end. Burbage and he were credited with having engaged together in many sportive adventures. The sole anecdote of Shakespeare recorded in his lifetime relates that Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit, and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that ‘William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third’ (, Diary, 13 March 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39). Such gossip deserves little more acceptance than the later story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William D'Avenant [q. v.] The latter was baptised at Oxford on 3 March 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story was long current in Oxford, and was at times complacently accepted by the reputed son. But it is safer to adopt the less compromising version which makes Shakespeare the boy's godfather. He was a welcome guest at John D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, reported the kindly notice which the poet took of him as a child (cf., Lives; , ii. 43; art. ). Ben Jonson and Drayton—the latter a Warwickshire man—seem to have been Shakespeare's chief literary friends in his latest years.

At Stratford Shakespeare in his declining days took a full share of social and civic responsibilities. On 16 Oct. 1608 he stood chief godfather to William, son of Henry Walker, a mercer and alderman. On 11 Sept. 1611, when he had finally settled in New Place, his name appeared in the margin of a folio page of donors (including all the principal inhabitants of Stratford) to a fund that was raised ‘towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of the highways.’

Meanwhile, domestic affairs engaged some of his attention. Of his two surviving children—both daughters—the eldest, Susanna, had married, on 5 June 1607, John Hall (1575–1635) [q. v.], a rising physician of puritan leanings, and in the following February was born the poet's only granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. On 9 Sept. 1608 the poet's mother was buried in the parish church, and on 4 Feb. 1613 his third brother Richard. On 15 July 1613 Mrs. Hall preferred, with her father's assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did not appear, and was excommunicated.

In the same year (1613), when on a short visit to London, he invested a small sum of money in a new property—his last investment in real estate. He purchased a house, the ground-floor of which was a haberdasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre—on the west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the property for 100l. in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613 agreed to pay him 140l. The deeds of conveyance bear the date of 10 March in that year. The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell-Phillipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., in January 1897. That held by the vendor is in the Guildhall Library. Next day, on 11 March, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum) which stipulated that 60l. of the purchase-money was to remain on mortgage until the following Michaelmas, but the money was unpaid at Shakespeare's death. In all three documents—the two indentures and the mortgage deed—Shakespeare is described as ‘of Stratford-on-Avon, in the Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.’ There is no reason to suppose that he acquired the house for his own residence. He at once leased the property to John Robinson, already a resident in the neighbourhood.

In the spring of 1614 a preacher at Stratford, doubtless of puritan proclivities, was entertained at New Place after delivering a sermon. Shakespeare's son-in-law Hall was probably responsible for the civility. In July John Combe, a rich inhabitant of Stratford, died and left 5l. to Shakespeare. The legend that Shakespeare alienated him by composing some doggerel on his practice of lending money at ten per cent. seems apocryphal, although it is accepted by Rowe. Combe's death involved Shakespeare more conspicuously than before in civic affairs. Combe's heir