Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/61

* SHAKESFEABE, 45 plaining the double authorship the critics differ, as in other cases of the kind; but the majority believe that Fletcher completed au unfinished play by Shakespeare. Besides the six spurious plays in the third folio, sundry others were ascribed to Shakespeare dur- ing his life by unscrupulous publishers, or after- wards by injudicious critics. With somewhat better reason he has been supposed to have had a hand in the anonymous Edtcurd III., and a few German critics think it is entirely his. It is difficult to ascribe the best portions of the play to any other dramatist of the time : but, as Fur- nivall says, "there were doulitless one-play men in those days, as there have been one-book men since." During the latter half of 1606 the King's Com- pany were playing in the provinces ; but in De- cember they had returned to London, and in the Christmas holidays performed Lear before King James at Whitehall. The year 1607 was an eventful one in the poet's domestic annals. On the 5th of June his eldest daughter, Susanna, then twenty-four years of age (baptized ilay 26, 1583), was married at Stratford to Dr. John Hall, who attained to considerable eminence as a physician. In his early days Hall had traveled on the Continent, and had become proficient in the Fmnch l-mguaw. After he settled in Strat- ford his services and advice were sought by the best people there and elsewhere. He was sum- moned several times to attend the Earl and Countess of Northampton, at Ludlow Castle, more than forty miles off — no trifling journey in those days. After his death, his medical case- book, written in Latin, was translated and pub- lished in London (1657), and other editions ap- peared in 1679 and 1683. Dr. John Bird, the Oxford professor, says of the book: "The learned author lived in our own times, and in the County of Warwick, where he practiced many years and in great fame for his skill, far and wide. Those who seemed highly to esteem him. and whom, by God's blessing, he wrought those cures upon, you shall find to be, among others, persons noble, rich, and learned. And this I take to be a great sign of his ability, that such who spare not for cost . . . nay, such as hated him for his religion [he was an earnest Puritan] often made use of him." He died November 25, 1635, at the age of sixtv. In December, 1607, Shakespeare's brother, Ed- mund, died in London, and- was buried in the Church of St. Saviour's. Southwark. "with a fore- noone knell of the great bell." His burial in the church was a mark of respect seldom paid to an actor, and the service in the morning was proba- bly arranged in order that the members of the Globe Company might be able to attend it. Ed- mund was in his 2Sth year when he died. He had doubtless come to London and entered that theatre through his brother's influence, but of his record as an actor nothing is known. Elizabeth, the only child of the Halls, was baptized on the 21st of February. 1608, the poet thus becoming a grandfather about two months before he was for- ty-four. She appears to have inherited his shrewd business ability, and she lived to be his la.st lineal descendant. She was married in 1626 to Thomas Nash, a citizen of Stratford, who had been a student of Lincoln's Inn, London. He died in 1647, and two years afterwards his widow mar- ried Sir John Barnard, of Abington Manor, near SHAKESPEARE. Northampton. She had no children by either husband. She died and was buried at Abington, February 17, 166'J: but no monument of any kind preserves her memory. In September. " 1608, Shakespeare lost his mother, her burial being re- corded on the 9th of the month in the parish reg- ister thus: "Mayry Shaxpcre, wydowe." He was probably in Stratford at the time of the funeral, and may not have returned to London until after the 16th of October, when he was the principal godfather at the baptism of the William Walker (son of a local alderman) to whom, in 1610, he bequcathed "twenty shillings in gold."' In 1610 Shakespeare bought twenty acres of pasture land, adding them to the 107 acres bought in 1602, In February, 1612, the town council of Stratford resolved that plays were unlawful "and against the example of other well-governed cities and boroughs." Ten j-ears later (1622) the King's Company were actually bribed by the coun- cil to leave the town without playing; the town records showing that six shillings were "payd to the Kings pla.yers for not playinge in the hall." This was doubtless out of deference to the King, and not because it was Shakespeare's old com- pany. In the neighboring town of Henley-in-Ar- den, in October, 1616, an order was unanimously passed that no other actors should have the use of the town hall. In the Stratford parish regis- ter, under date of February 3, 1612, we find the record of the burial of "Gilbertus Shakespeare, adolescens." It probably refers to the poet's brother, Gilbert, though (having been baptized October 13, 1566) he would have been at the time more than forty-five years old. In 1597 he was a haberdasher in London; but in 1602 he was in Stratford, acting for his brother, W'illiam, in a conveyance of land, and in 1609 he -was a wit- ness to a local deed. There is no record of his marriage or of the birth of a son ; and no son of Gilbert is mentioned in the poet's will. It is probable, therefore, that the 'adolescens' was a slip of the scribe who made the entry from the sexton's notes. In February. 1613. Richard, prob- aldy the poet's last surviving brother (baptized Jlarch 11, 1574), also died. .Joan (baptized April 11, 1569) was the only child of .John and Mary Shakespeare, except William, who was now left. She married William Hart, and survived her famous brother thirty years. Her husband died in April. 1616, his burial taking place on the 17th, only eight days before that of the dramatist. In JIarch, 1613, Shakespeare bought a house in London, near the Blaekfriars Theatre, for £140, of which £60 remained on mortgage. He soon leased it to John Robinson, one of the persons that had violently opposed the establishment of the theatre. The precise date of Shakespeare's return to Stratford to take up his residence at New Place is unknown : but it was probably as early as 1611, when his name appeared in a list of leading inhabitants of the town who raised a fund to promote the passage of a bill in Parliament "for the better repair of the highways." In the spring of 1614 we find that a Puritan preacher, who had been invited to the town by the corporation, was hospitably entertained at New Place. The town records read : "For one quart of sack and and one quart of claret wine given to a preacher at the New Place, xx. d." Dr. Hall may have been living with Shakespeare at the time, and the