of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occafion, and, in that, to his wifh; and is faid to have spent some years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasureable wit and good

3 He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occafion,) Gildon, without authority, I believe, says, that our author left behind him an estate of 3ool. per ann. This was equal to at least 10001. per ann. at this day; the relative value of money, the mode of living in that age, the luxury and taxes of the present time, and various other circumstances, being confidered. But I doubt whether all his property amounted to much more than 2001. per ann. which yet was a confiderable fortune in those times. He appears from his grand-daughter's will to have poffeffed in Bishopton, and Stratford Welcombe, four yard land and a half. A yard land is a denomination well known in Warwickshire, and contains from 30 to 60 acres. The average therefore being 45, four yard land and a half may be estimated at about two hundred acres. As fixteen years purchase was the common rate at which land was fold at that time, that is, one half less than at this day, we may fuppofe that theselands were let at feven shillings per acre, and produced 70l. per annum. If we rate the New-Place with the appurtenances, and our poet's other houses in Stratford, at 6ol. a year, and his house &c. in the Blackfriars, (for which he pay'd 1401.) at 201. a year, we have a rent-roll of 150l. per annum. Of his perfonal property it is not now possible to form any accurate estimate: but if we rate it at five hundred pounds, money then bearing an interest of ten per cent, Shakspeare's total income was 2001. per ann.* In The Merry Wives of Windfor, which was written foon after the year 1600, Three hundred pounds a year is defcribed as an estate of fuch magnitude as to cover all the defects of its poffeffor:

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"O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults

، Look handsome in three hundred pounds a year."

MALONE.

to have fpent fome years before his death at his native Stratford.) In 1614 the greater part of the town of Stratford was con

* To Shakspeare's income from his real and perfonal property must be added L. 200 per Ann. which he probably derived from the theatre, while he continued on the stage. See Vol. III. p. 179.

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nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of the neighfumed by fire; but our Shakspeare's house, amongsome others, efcaped the flames. This house was first built by Sir Hugh Clopton, a younger brother of an ancient family in that neighbourhood. Sir Hugh was Sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III. and Lord-Mayor in the reign of King Henry VII. By his will he bequeathed to his elder brother's fon his manor of Clopton, &c. and his house, by the name of the Great House in Stratford. Good part of the estate is yet (in 1733) in the poffeffion of Edward Clopton, efq. and Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. lineally defcended from the elder brother of the firft Sir Hugh.

The eftate had now been fold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakspeare became the purchaser: who having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New-Place, which the manfionhouse since erected upon the same spot, at this day retains. The house, and lands which attended it, continued in Shakfpeare's defcendants to the time of the Restoration; when they were re-purchased by the Clopton family, and the manfion now belongs to Sir Hugh Clopton, Knt. To the favor of this worthy gentleman I owe the knowledge of one particular in honor of our poet's once dwelling-house, of which I prefume Mr. Rowe never was apprized. When the Civil War raged in England, and King Charles the First's Queen was driven by the neceffity of her affairs to make a recefs in Warwickshire, she kept her court for three weeks in New-Place. We may reafonably fuppose 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 favor the king's party. THEOBALD.

From Mr. Theobald's words the reader may be led to fuppofe that Henrietta Maria was obliged to take refuge from the rebels in Stratford-upon-Avon: but that was not the cafe. She marched from Newark, June 16, 1643. and entered Stratfordupon-Avon triumphantly, about the 22d of the fame month, at the head of three thousand foot and fifteen hundred horfe, with 150 waggons and a train of artillery. Here she was met by Prince Rupert, accompanied by a large body of troops. After fojourning about three weeks at our poet's house, which was then poffefsed by his grand-daughter Mrs. Nafn, and her hufband, the Queen went (July 13) to the plain of Keinton under Edge-hill, to meet the king, and proceeded from thence with

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bourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost still remembered in that country that he had a particuhim to Oxford, where says a contemporary historian, ،، her coming (July 15) was rather to a triumph than a war.,,

Of the college above-mentioned the following was the origin. John de Stratford, Bishop of Winchester, in the fifth year of King Edward III. founded a Chantry confifting of five priests, one of whom was Warden, in a certain chapel adjoining to the church of Stratford on the fouth fide; and afterwards (in the feventh year of Henry VIII.) Ralph Collingwode instituted four chorifters, to be daily afsistant in the celebration of divine service there. This chantry, fays Dugdale, foon after its foundation, was known by the name of The College of Stratfordupon-Avon.

In the 26th year of Edward III. ،، a house of square ftone,, was built by Ralph de Stratford, bishop of London, for the habitation of the five priests. This house, or another on the same spot, is the house of which Mr. Theobald speaks. It ftill bears the name of ،، The College,,, and at present belongs to the Rev. Mr. Fullerton.

After the fuppreffion of religious houfes, the fite of the college was granted by Edward VI. to John earl of Warwick and his heirs; who being attainted in the 1st year of Queen Mary, it reverted to the crown.

Sir John Clopton, knight, (the father of Edward Clopton, efq. and Sir Hugh Clopton,) who died at Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1719, purchased the estate of New-Place, &c. fome time after the year 1685, from Sir Reginald Forster, Baronet, who married Mary, the daughter of Edward Nash, efq. coufingerman to Thomas Nash, efq. who married our poet's granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. Edward Nash bought it, after the death of her fecond husband, Sir John Barnard, knight. By her will, which will be found in a fubfequent page, she directed her trustee, Henry Smith, to fell the New Place, &c. (after the death of her husband,) and to make the first offer of it to her cousin Edward Nash, who purchased it accordingly. His fon Thomas Nash, whom for the fake of diftinction I shall call the younger, having died without issue, in August 1652, Edward Nashby his will, made on the 16th of March, 1678-9, devised the principal part of his property to his daughter Mary, and her husband Reginald Forster, efq. afterwards Sir Reginald Forster; but in confequence of the teftator's only referring to

lar intimacy with Mr. Combe,' an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury: it happened, that in a pleasant conversation amongst their a deed of fettlement executed three days before, without reciting the substance of it, no particular mention of New-Place is made in his will. After Sir John Clopton had bought it from Sir Reginald Forster, he gave it by deed to his younger fon, Sir Hugh, who pulled down our poet's house, and built one more elegant on the same spot.

In May 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Delane, visited Stratford, they were hofpitably entertained under Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, by Sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrister at law, was knighted by George the First, and died in the 8oth year of his age, in Dec. 1751. His nephew Edward Clopton, the son of his elder brother Edward, lived till June 1753.

The only remaining person of the Clopton family now living (1788), as I am informed by the Rev. Mr. Davenport, is Mrs. Partheriche, daughterand heiress of the fecond Edward Clopton above-mentioned. She resides," he adds, at the family manfion at Clopton near Stratford, is now a widow, and never had any issue. "

The New Place was fold by Henry Talbot, efq. fon-in-law and executor of Sir Hugh Clopton, in or foon after the year 1752, to the Rev. Mr. Gaftrell, a man of large fortune, who refided in it but a few years; in consequence of a difagreement with the inhabitants of Stratford. Every house in that town that is let or valued at more than 40s. a year, is affeffed by the Overfeers, according to its worth and the ability of the occupier, to pay a monthly rate toward the maintenance of the poor. As Mr. Gastrell refided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was affeffed too highly; but being very properly compelled by the magiftrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his fervants in his abfence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be affeffed again; and foon afterwards pulled it down, fold the materials, and left the town. Wishing, as it should feem, to be damn'd to everlasting fame," he had fome time before cut down Shakfpeare's celebrated mulberrytree, to fave himself the trouble of shewing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetick ground on which it flood.

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common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him;

That Shafpeare planted this tree, is as well authenticated as any thing of that nature can be. The Rev. Mr. Davenport informs me, that Mr. Hugh Taylor, (the father of his clerk,) who is now eighty-five years old, and an alderman of Warwick, where he at present refides, says, he lived when a boy at the next house to New-Place; that his family had inhabited the house for almost three hundred years; that it was tranfmitted from father to son during the last and the prefent century, that this tree (of the fruit of which he had often eaten in his younger days, fome of its branches hanging over his father's garden,) was planted by Shakspeare; and that till this was planted, there was no mulberry-tree in that neighbourhood. Mr. Taylor adds, that the was frequently, when a boy, at NewPlace, and that this tradition was preferved in the Clopton family, as well as in his own.

There were scarce any trees of this species in England till the year 1609, when by order of King James many hundred thousand young mulberry-trees were imported from France, and fent into the different counties, with a view to the feeding of tilkworms, and the encouragement of the filk manufacture. See Camdeni Annales ab anno 1603 ad annum 1623, published by Smith, quarto, 1691, p.7; and Howes's Abridgment of Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1618, p.503, where we have a more particular account of this transaction than in the larger work. A very few mulberry-trees had been planted before; for we are told, that in the preceding year a gentleman of Picardy, Monfieur Forest, kept greate store of English filkworms at Greenwich, the which the king with great pleasure came often to fee them worke; and of their filke he caused a piece of taffata to be made...

Shakspeare was perhaps the only inhabitant of Stratford, whose business called him annually to London; and probably on his return from thence in the spring of the year 1609, he planted this tree,

As a fimilar enthusiasm to that which with fuch diligence has fought after Virgil's tomb, may lead my countrymen to visit the fpot where our great bard spent several years of his life, and died; it may gratify them to be told that the ground on which The New-Place once stood, is now a Garden belong