had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe," an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and to pay a monthly rate toward the maintenance of the poor. As Mr. Gastrell resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly; but being very properly compelled by the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again; and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. Wishing, as it should seem, to be "damn'd to everlasting fame," he had some time before cut down Shakspeare's celebrated mulberry-tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetick ground on which it stood. That Shakspeare 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 resides, 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 transmitted from father to son during the last and the present century; that this tree (of the fruit of which he had often eaten in his younger days, some 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 he was frequently, when a boy, at New-Place, and that this tradition was preserved 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 sent into the different counties, with a view to the feeding of silkworms, and the encouragement of the silk 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, Monsieur Forest, "kept greate store of English silkworms at Greenwich, the which the king with great pleasure came often to see them worke; and of their silke he caused a piece of taffata to be made." usury: it happened, that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare in a in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, 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 similar enthusiasm to that which with such diligence has sought after Virgil's tomb, may lead my countrymen to visit the spot 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 belonging to Mr. Charles Hunt, an eminent attorney, and town-clerk of Stratford. Every Englishman will, I am sure, concur with me in wishing that it may enjoy perpetual verdure and fertility: 6 In this retreat our SHAKSPEARE'S godlike mind And Nature here display eternal spring! MALONE. that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe,] This Mr. John Combe I take to be the same, who, by Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, is said 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 statue thereon cut in alabaster, and in a gown, with this epitaph: "Here lyeth interred the body of John Combe, Esq. who departing this life the 10th day of July, 1614, bequeathed by his last will and testament these sums ensuing, annually to be paid for ever; viz. xx. s. for two sermons to be preach'd in this church, and vi. l. xiii. s. iv. d. to buy ten gownes for ten poore people within the borough of Stratford; and 100l. to be lent to fifteen poore tradesmen of the same borough, from three years to three years, changing the parties every third year, at the rate of fifty shillings per annum, the which increase he appointed to be distributed towards the relief of the almes-poor there." The donation has all the air of a rich and sagacious usurer. THEOBALD. he desired it might be done immediately; upon which Shakspeare gave him these four verses: "Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd;" "If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb? "Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe." 7 Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd;] In The More the Merrier, containing Three Score and odd headless Epigrams, shot, (like the Fooles Bolts) among you, light where they will: By H. P. Gent, &c. 1608, I find the following couplet, which is almost the same as the two beginning lines of this Epitaph on John-a-Combe: "FENERATORIS EPITAPHIUM. "Ten in the hundred lies under this stone, "And a hundred to ten to the devil he's gone.” Again, in Wit's Interpreter, 8vo. 3d edit. 1671, p. 298: "Here lies at least ten in the hundred, "Shackled up both hands and feet, "That at such as lent mony gratis wondred, "The gain of usury was so sweet: "But thus being now of life bereav'n, " "Tis a hundred to ten he's scarce gone to heav'n." So, in Camden's Remains, 1614: "Here lyes ten in the hundred, "In the ground fast ramm'd; "'Tis an hundred to ten "But his soule is damn'd." MALONE. STEEVENS. The Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.] Rev. Francis Peck, in his Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, 4to. 1740, p. 223, has introduced another epitaph imputed (on what authority is unknown) to Shakspeare. It is on Tom-a-Combe, alias Thin-beard, brother to this John, who is mentioned by Mr. Rowe: "Thin in beard, and thick in purse; "Never man beloved worse; "He went to the grave with many a curse: STEEVENS. I suspect that these lines were sent to Mr. Peck by some person that meant to impose upon him. It appears from Mr. John But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it." Combe's will, that his brother Thomas was dead in 1614. John devised the greater part of his real and personal estate to his nephew Thomas Combe, with whom Shakspeare was certainly on good terms, having bequeathed him his sword. Since I wrote the above, I find from the Register of Stratford, that Mr. Thomas Combe (the brother of John) was buried there, Jan. 22, 1609-10. MALONE. 9 the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it.] I take this opportunity to avow my disbelief that Shakspeare was the author of Mr. Combe's Epitaph, or that it was written by any other person at the request of that gentleman. If Betterton the player did really visit Warwickshire for the sake of collecting anecdotes relative to our author, perhaps he was too easily satisfied with such as fell in his way, without making any rigid search into their authenticity. It appears also from a following copy of this inscription, that it was not ascribed to Shakspeare so early as two years after his death. Mr. Reed of Staple-Inn obligingly pointed it out to me in the Remains, &c. of Richard Braithwaite, 1618; and as his edition of our epitaph varies in some measure from the latter one published by Mr. Rowe, I shall not hesitate to transcribe it: "Upon one John Combe of Stratford upon Avon, a notable Usurer, fastened upon a Tombe that he had caused to be built in his Life-Time: "Ten in the hundred must lie in his grave,. "But a hundred to ten whether God will him have: "Oh (quoth the divill) my John a Combe." Here it may be observed that, strictly speaking, this is no jocular epitaph, but a malevolent prediction; and Braithwaite's copy is surely more to be depended on (being procured in or before the year 1618) than that delivered to Betterton or Rowe, almost a century afterwards. It has been already remarked, that two of the lines said to have been printed on this occasion, were printed as an epigram in 1608, by H. P. Gent. and are likewise found in Camden's Remains, 1614. I may add, that a usurer's solicitude to know what would be reported of him when he was dead, is not a very probable circumstance; neither was Shakspeare of a disposition to compose an invective, at once so bitter and uncharitable, during a pleasant conversation among the com He died in the 53d year of his age,' and was mon friends of himself and a gentleman, with whose family he lived in such friendship, that at his death he bequeathed his sword to Mr. Thomas Combe as a legacy. A miser's monument indeed, constructed during his life-time, might be regarded as a challenge to satire; and we cannot wonder that anonymous lampoons should have been affixed to the marble designed to convey the character of such a being to posterity.I hope I may be excused for this attempt to vindicate Shakspeare from the imputation of having poisoned the hour of confidence and festivity, by producing the severest of all censures on one of his company. I am unwilling, in short, to think he could so wantonly and so publickly have expressed his doubts concerning the salvation of one of his fellow-creatures. STEEVENS. Since the above observations first appeared, (in a note to the edition of our author's Poems which I published in 1780,) I have obtained an additional proof of what has been advanced, in vindication of Shakspeare on this subject. It occurred to me that the will of John Combe might possibly throw some light on this matter, and an examination of it some years ago furnished me with such evidence as renders the story recorded in Braithwaite's Remains very doubtful: and still more strongly proves that, whoever was the author of this epitaph, it is highly improbable that it should have been written by Shakspeare. over me." 66 The very first direction given by Mr. Combe in his will is, concerning a tomb to be erected to him after his death. My will is, that a convenient tomb of the value of threescore pounds shall by my executors hereafter named, out of my goods and chattels first raysed, within one year after my decease, be set So much for Braithwaite's account of his having erected his own tomb in his life-time. That he had any quarrel with our author, or that Shakspeare had by any act stung him so severely that Mr. Combe never forgave him, appears equally void of foundation; for by his will he bequeaths" to Mr. William Shakspere Five Pounds." It is probable that they lived in intimacy, and that Mr. Combe had made some purchase from our poet; for he devises to his brother George, "the close or grounds known by the name of Parson's Close, alias Shakspere's Close." It must be owned that Mr. Combe's will is dated Jan. 28, 161213, about eighteen months before his death; and therefore the evidence now produced is not absolutely decisive, as he might have erected a tomb, and a rupture might have happened between him and Shakspeare, after the making of this will but it |