which were unknown to the English, till, in 1609, Sir John Summers made a voyage to NorthAmerica, and difcovered them: and afterwards invited fome of his countrymen to fettle a plantation there. That he became the private gentleman, at least three years before his decease, is pretty obvious from another circumstance: I mean, from that remarkable and well-known Story, which Mr. Rowe has given us of our author's intimacy with Mr. John Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury and upon whom Shakespeare made the following facetious epitaph.

Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,

'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd; If any man ask who lies in this tomb, Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

This farcaftical piece of wit was, at the gen-. tleman's own request, thrown out extemporally in his company. And this Mr. John Combe I take to be the fame, who, by Dugdale in his anti-quities of Warwickshire, is faid to have died in the year 1614, and for whom at the upper end of the quire, of the guild of the holy cross at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a ftatue thereon cut in alabafter, and in a gown, with this Epitaph." Here lyeth interred the body of

John Combe Efq; who died the 10th of July, " 1614, who bequeathed several annual charities to the parish of Stratford, and 100l. to be lent ❝ to fifteen poor tradesmen from three years to

three

''

"three years, changing the parties every third year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per Annum, "the increase to be diftributed to the almes86 poor there.".”—The donation has all the air of a rich and fagacious ufurer.

Shakespeare himself did not farvive Mr. Combe long, for he died in the year 1616, the 53d of his age. He lies buried on the north fide of the chancel in the great church at Stratford; where a monument, decent enough for the time, is erected to him, and placed against the wall. He is reprefented under an arch in a fitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left refted on a fcroul of paper. The Latin diftich, which is placed under the cushion, has been given us by Mr. Pope, graver, in this manner.

or his

INGENIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem,

Terra tegit, Populus moret, Olympus habet.

I confefs, I don't conceive the difference betwixt ingenio and genio in the first verse. They feem to me intirely fynonomous Terms; nor was the Pylian fage Neftor celebrated for his ingenuity, but for an experience and judgment owing to his long age. Dugdale, in his antiquities of Warwickfhire, has copied this diftich with a diftinétion which Mr. Rowe has followed, and which certainly reftores us the true meaning of the epitaph.

JUDICIO Pylium, Genio Socratem, &c.

In 1614, the greater part of the town of Stratford was confumed by fire; but our Shakespeare's houfe, among fome others, efcaped the flames. This house was firft built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood, who took their name from the manor of Clapton. Sir Hugh was sheriff of London in the reign of Richard IH. and Lord mayor in the reign of King Henry VII. To this gentleman the town of Stratford is indebted for the fine ftone-bridge, confifting of fourteen arches, which at an extraordinary expence he built over the Avon, together with a caufe-way running at the weft-end thereof; as alfo for rebuilding the chapel adjoining to his houfe, and the crofs ifle in the church there. It is remarkable of him, that, though he lived and died a bachelor, among the other extenfive charities which he left both to the city of London and town of Stratford, he bequeathed confiderable legacies for the marriage of poor maidens of good name and fame both in London and at Stratford. Notwithstanding which large donations in his life, and bequests at his death, as he had purchased the manor of Clopton, and all the estate of the family, fo he left the fame again to his elder brother's fon with a very great addition: (a proof, how well beneficence and oeconomy may walk hand in hand in wife

families :)

families:) Good part of which eftate is yet in the poffeffion of Edward Clopton, Efq; and Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. lineally defcended from the elder brother of the first Sir Hugh: Who particu larly bequeathed to his nephew, by his will, his houfe, by the name of his Great-house in Stratford.

The eftate had now been fold out of the Clop ton family for above a century, at the time when Shakespeare became the purchafer: who, having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New-place; which the manfion-house, fince erected upon the fame fpot, at this day retains. The house and lands, which attended it, continued in Shakespeare's defcendants to the time of the Reftoration: when they were repurchased by the Clopton family, and the manfion now belongs to Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. To the favour of this worthy gentleman I owe the knowledge of one particular, in honour of our poet's once dwelling-houfe, of which, I prefume, Mr. Rowe never was apprized. When the civil war raged in England, and King Charles the Firft's Queen was driven by the neceflity of affairs to make a recefs in Warwickshire, the kept her Court for three Weeks in New-place. We may reasonably fuppofe it then the best private house in the town; and her Majesty preferred it to the College, which was in the poffeffion of the Combe-Family, who did not so strongly favour the King's party.

VOL. I.

How

How much our author employed himself in poetry, after his retirement from the ftage, does, not fo evidently appear: Very few pofthumous sketches of his pen have been recovered to afcertain that point. We have been told, indeed, in print, but not till very lately, that two large chefts full of this great man's loofe papers and manuscripts, in the hands of an ignorant baker of Warwick, (who married one of the defcendants from our Shakespeare) were carelessly scattered and thrown about, as garret-lumber, and litter, to the particular knowledge of the late Sir William Bishop, till they were all confumed in the general fire and deftruction of that Town. I cannot help being a little apt to diftruft the authority of this tradition; because as his wife furvived him seven years, and as his favourite daughter Susanna furvived her twenty-fix years, 'tis very improbable, they thould fuffer such a treasure to be removed, and tranflated into a remoter branch of the family, without a fcrutiny first made into the value of it. This, I fay, inclines me to distrust the authority of the relation: but, notwithstanding fuch an apparent improbability, if we really loft fuch a treasure, by whatever fatality or caprice of fortune they came into such ignorant and neglectful hands, I agree with the Relater, the misfortune is wholly irreparable.

To these particulars, which regard his perfon and private life, fome few more are to be gleaned

from