"WITTY ABOVE HER SEXE, BUT THAT'S NOT ALL,
WISE TO SALVATION WAS GOOD MISTRIS HALL,
SOMETHING OF SHAKESPEARE WAS IN THAT, BUT THIS
WHOLLY 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 HERSELF TO CHERE

THEM UP WITH COMFORTS CORDIALL.

HER LOVE SHALL LIVE, HER MERCY SPREAD,
WHEN THOU HAST NERE A TEARE TO SHED.'

Judith, the second daughter to Shakspere, lived till 1662. She was buried on the 9th of February in that year. Her married life must have been one of constant affliction in the bereavement of her children. Her first son, who was named Shakspere, was born in November, 1616, and died in May, 1617. Her second son, Richard, was born in February, 1618, and died in February, 1639. Her third son, Thomas, was born in August, 1619, and died in January, 1639. Thus perished all of the second branch of the heirs male of William Shakspere. His grand-daughter Elizabeth, the only child of his daughter Susanna, was married in 1626, when she was eighteen years of age, to Mr. Thomas Nash, a native of Stratford. He died in 1647, leaving no children. She remained a widow about two years, having married, on the 5th of June, 1649, Mr. John Barnard of Abington, near Northampton. He was a widower, with a large family. They were married at Billesley, near Stratford. Her husband was created a knight by Charles II., in 1661. The grand-daughter of Shakspere died in February, 1670, and was buried at Abington. Her signature, with a seal, the same as that used by her mother, the arms of Hall impaled with those of Shakspere,—is affixed to a deed of appointment in the possession of Mr. Wheler, of Stratford. She left no issue.

We have seen that all the sons of Judith Quiney were Idead at the commencement of 1639. Shakspere's elder daughter and grand-daughter were therefore at liberty to treat the property as their own by the usual processes of law. The mode in which they, in the first instance, made it subservient to their family arrangements is thus clearly stated by Mr. Wheler, in an interesting tract on the birthplace of Shakspere: "By a deed of the 27th of May, 1639, ·

and a fine and recovery (Trinity and Michaelmas Terms, 15th Charles 1st), Mrs. Susannah Hall, Shakspere's eldest daughter, with Thomas Nash, Esq., and Elizabeth his wife (Mrs. Hall's only child), confirmed this and our bard's other estates to Mrs. Hall for her life, and afterwards settled them upon Mr. and Mrs. Nash, and her issue; but in the event of her leaving no family, then upon Mr. Nash. As, however, Mr. Nash died 4th April, 1647, without issue, a resettlement of the property was immediately adopted, to prevent its falling to the heir of Mr. Nash, who had, by his will of the 26th of August, 1642, devised his reversionary interest in the principal part of Shakspere's estates to his cousin Edward Nash. By a subsequent settlement, therefore, of the 2nd of June, 1647, and by another fine and recovery (Easter and Michaelmas Terms, 23rd Charles 1st), Shakspere's natal place and his other estates were again limited to the bard's descendants, restoring to Mrs. Nash the ultimate power over the property." Upon the second marriage of Shakspere's grand-daughter other arrangements were made, in the usua form of fine and recovery, by which New Place, and all the other property which she inherited of William Shakspere, her grandfather, were settled to the use of John Barnard and Elizabeth his wife, for the term of their natural lives; then to the heirs of the said Elizabeth; and in default of such issue, to the use of such person, and for such estate, as the said Elizabeth shall appoint by any writing, either purporting to be her last will or otherwise. She did make her last will on the 29th of January, 1669; according to which, after the death of Sir John Barnard, the property was to be sold. Thus, in half a century, the estates of Shakspere were scattered and went out of his family, with the exception of the two houses in Henley Street, where he is held to have been born, which Lady Barnard devised to her kinsman Thomas Hart, the grandson of Shakspere's sister Joan. Those who are curious to trace the continuity of the line of the Harts will find very copious extracts from the Stratford registers in Boswell's edition of Malone. The descendants of the Harts sold the houses in Henley Street to the Trustees for the Nation, in 1847.

APPENDIX.

I.—THE AUTOGRAPHS OF SHAKSPERE.

THE will of William Shakspere, preserved in the Prerogative Office, Doctors' Commons, is written upon three sheets of paper. The name is subscribed at the right-hand corner of the first sheet; at the left-hand corner of the second sheet; and immediately before the names of the witnesses upon the third sheet. These signatures, engraved from a tracing by Steevens, were first published in 1778. The first signature has been much damaged since it was originally traced by Steevens. It was for a long time thought that in the first and second of these signatures the poet had written his name Shakspere, but in the third Shakspeare; and Steevens and Malone held, therefore, that they had authority in the handwriting of the poet for uniformly spelling his name Shakspeare. They rested this mode of spelling the name, not upon the mode in which it was usually printed during the poet's life, and especially in the genuine editions of his own works, which mode was Shakespeare, but upon this signature to the last sheet of his will, which they fancied contained an a in the last syllable. We give facsimiles of the three signatures to the will, marked 2, 3, 4.

Another autograph of Shakspere was found in a small folio volume, the first edition of Florio's translation of Montaigne, having been sixty years in the possession of the Rev. Edward Patteson, minister of Smethwick, near Birmingham. In 1838 the volume was sold by auction, and purchased by the British Museum for one hundred pounds. We give a fac-simile of this, marked 1.

There is a fifth autograph, being the signature to the counterpart of a mortgage deed, executed by Shakspere on the 11th March, 1613. Here the signature is "WILLIAM SHAKSPER." This document was sold by auction in 1841, and was purchased by the Corporation of London for one hundred and forty-five pounds. The purchase was afterwards denounced in Court of Common Council as "a most wasteful and prodigal expenditure;" but it was defended

upon the ground that "it was not very likely that the purchase of the autograph would be acted upon as a precedent, for Shakspere stood alone in the history of the literature of the world."

II. THE PORTRAITS OF SHAKSPERE.

VOLUMES have been written on the subject of the genuineness of Shakspere's portraits. The bust upon Shakspere's Monument has the first claim to notice. The sculptor of that monument was Gerard Johnson. We learn the name of the sculptor from Dugdale's Correspondence, published by Mr. Hamper in 1827; and we collect from the verses by Leonard Digges, prefixed to the first edition of Shakspere, that it was erected previous to 1623:—

"Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give

The world thy works: thy works by which outlive
Thy tomb thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages."

The fate of this portrait of Shakspere, for we may well account it as such, is a singular one. Mr. Britton, who has on many occasions manifested an enthusiastic feeling for the associations belonging to the great poet, published in 1816, 'Remarks on his Monumental Bust,' from which we extract

the following passage: "The Bust is the size of life; it is formed out of a block of soft stone; and was originally painted over in imitation of nature. The hands and face were of flesh colour, the eyes of a light hazel, and the hair and beard auburn; the doublet or coat was scarlet, and covered with a loose black gown, or tabard, without sleeves; the upper part of the cushion was green, the under half crimson, and the tassels gilt. Such appear to have been the original features of this important but neglected or insulted bust. After remaining in this state above one hundred and twenty years, Mr. John Ward, grandfather to Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kemble, caused it to be 'repaired,' and the original colours preserved, in 1748, from the profits of the representation of Othello.' This was a generous, and apparently judicious act; and therefore very unlike the next alteration

it was subjected to in 1793. In that year Mr. Malone caused the bust to be covered over with one or more coats of white paint; and thus at once destroyed its original character, and greatly injured the expression of the face.' A very beautiful lithographic engraving of the head of this bust has been produced by Mr. Richard Lane, A.R.A., from a drawing by Mr. Thomas Baxter.

A small head, engraved from the little print by WILLIAM MARSHALL, prefixed to the edition of Shakspere's poems in 1640, is considered amongst the genuine portraits of Shakspere. It is probably reduced, with alterations, from the print by MARTIN DROESHOUT, which is prefixed to the folio of 1623. The original engraving is not a good one; and as the plate furnished the portraits to three subsequent editions, it is not easy to find a good impression. The persons who published this portrait were the friends of Shakspere. It was published at a time when his features would be well recollected by many of his contemporaries. The accuracy of the resemblance is also attested by the following lines from the pen of Ben Jonson :

"This figure, that thou here seest put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut:
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life:
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he had hit

His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass.

But, since he cannot, Reader, look

Not on his Picture, but his Book."-B. J.

Under these circumstances we are inclined to regard it as the most genuine of the portraits of Shakspere. It wants that high art which seizes upon a likeness by general resemblance, and not through the merely accurate delineation of features. The draughtsman from whom this engraving was made, and the sculptor of the bust at Stratford, were literal copyists. It is perfectly clear that they were working upon the same original.

The famous CHANDOS picture is now the property of the Earl of Ellesmere; and has recently been engraved for the "Shakespeare Society," by Mr. Cousens. It has a history belonging to it which says much for its authenticity. It