neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost ftill remembered in that country that he had a par Stratford on the fouth fide; and afterwards (in the feventh year of Henry VIII.) Ralph Collingwode inftituted four choristers, to be daily affiftant in the celebration of divine service there. This chantry, fays Dugdale, foon after its foundation, was known by the name of The College of Stratford-upon-Avon. In the 26th year of Edward III." a house of fquare ftone" was built by Ralph de Stratford, bishop of London, for the habitation of the five priests. This houfe, or another on the fame spot, is the houfe of which Mr. Theobald fpeaks. It ftill bears the name of "The College," and at prefent belongs to the Rev. Mr. Fuller ton. After the fuppreffion of religious houses, the fite of the college was granted by Edward VI. to John earl of Warwick and his heirs; who being attainted in the 1ft 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, purchafed the eftate of New-Place, &c. fome time after the year 1685, from Sir Reginald Forfter, Baronet, who married Mary, the daughter of Edward Nash, efq. coufin-german to Thomas Nash, efq. who married our poet's grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall. Edward Nafh bought it, after the death of her fecond husband, Sir John Barnard, knight. By her will, which will be found in a fubfequent page, fhe directed her truftee, Henry Smith, to fell the New-Place, &c. (after the death of her husband,) and to make the firft offer of it to her coufin Edward Nafh, who purchased it accordingly. His fon Thomas Nafh, whom for the fake of diftinction I fhall call the younger, having died without iffuc, in August 1652, Edward Nath by his will, made on the 16th of March, 1678-9, devifed the principal part of his property to his daughter Mary, and her husband Reginald Forfter, efq. afterwards Sir Reginald Forfter; but in confequence of the teftator's only referring to a deed of fettlement executed three days before, without reciting the fubftance of it, no particular mention of New-Place is made in his will. After Sir John Clopton had bought it from Sir Reginald Forfter, he gave it by deed to his younger fon, Sir Hugh, who pulled down our poet's houfe, and built one more elegant on the fame fpot. In May 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. DeJane, vifited Stratford, they were hofpitably entertained under Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, by Sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrifter at law, was knighted by George the Firft, and died in the ticular intimacy with Mr. Combe,' an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and ufury: it 8oth year of his age, in Dec. 1751. His nephew Edward Clopton, the fon of his elder brother Edward, lived till June 1753. The only remaining perfon of the Clopton family now living (1788), as I am informed by the Rev. Mr. Davenport, is Mrs. Partheriche, daughter and heirefs of the fecond Edward Clopton above-mentioned. "She refides," he adds, "at the family manfion at Clopton near Stratford, is now a widow, and never had any iffue. 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 confequence of a difagreement with the inhabitants of Stratford. Every houfe 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. Gaftrell 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 houfe was occupied by his fervants in his abfence, he peevishly declared, that that houfe fhould never be affeffed again; and foon afterwards pulled it down, fold the materials, and left the town. Withing, as it fhould feem, to be " damn'd to everlafting fame," he had fome time before cut down Shakspeare's celebrated mulberrytree, to fave himself the trouble of fhewing it to thofe whose admiration of our great poet led them to vifit the poetick ground on which it flood. 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 prefent refides, fays, he lived when a boy at the next houfe to New-Place; that his family had inhabited the houfe for almoft three hundred years; that it was tranfmitted from father to fon 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 Shakfpeare; 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 preferved in the Clopton family, as well as in his own. There were scarce any trees of this fpecies in England till the happened, that in a pleasant converfation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare year 1609, when by order of King James many hundred thoufand young mulberry-trees were imported from France, and fent into the different counties, with a view to the feeding of filkworms, 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 tranfaction 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 Foreft, "kept greate ftore of English filkworms at Greenwich, the which the king with great pleasure came often to fee them worke; and of their filke he caufed a piece of taffata to be made." Shakspeare was perhaps the only inhabitant of Stratford, whofe bufinefs called him annually to London; and probably on his return from thence in the fpring of the year 1609, he planted this tree. As a fimilar enthufiafm to that which with fuch diligence has fought after Virgil's tomb, may lead my countrymen to vifit 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 NewPlace once flood, is now a Garden belonging to Mr. Charles Hunt, an eminent attorney, and town-clerk of Stratford. Every Englishman will, I am fure, concur with me in wishing that it may enjoy perpetual verdure and fertility. In this retreat our SHAKSPEARE'S godlike mind And Nature here difplay eternal spring! MALONE. that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe,] This Mr. John Combe I take to be the fame, who by Dugdale, in his Antiquities 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 crofs at Stratford, a fair monument is erected, having a statue thereon cut in alabafter, and in a gown, with this epitaph. "Here lyeth interred the body of John Combe, Efq. who departing this life the 10th day of July, 1614, bequeathed by his laft will and testament thefe fums enfuing, annually to be paid for ever; viz. xx. s. for two fermons to be preach'd in this church, and vi. 1. xiii. s. iv. d. to buy ten gownes for ten poore people within the borough in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him; and fince he could not know what might be faid of him when he was dead, he defired it might be done immediately; upon which Shakspeare gave him thefe four verses: "Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd; "'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not fav'd: "Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe."7 of Stratford; and tool. to be lent to fifteen poore tradesmen of the fame borough, from three years to three years, changing the parties every third year, at the rate of fifty fhillings per annum, the which increase he appointed to be diftributed towards the relief of the almes-poor there.' The donation has all the air of a rich and fagacious ufurer. THEOBALD. Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd;] In The more the merrier, containing three fcore and odd headless epigrams, hot, (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 fame as the two beginning lines of this Epitaph on John-a-Combe: FENERATORIS EPITAPHIUM. "Ten in the hundred lies under this ftone, Again, in Wit's Interpreter, 8vo. 3d edit. 1671, p. 298: "Shackled up both hands and feet, "But thus being now of life bereav'n, ""Tis a hundred to ten he's fcarce 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 foule is damn'd." MALONE. STEEVENS. 7 Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.] The Rev. Francis Peck, in his Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, 4to. 1740, p. 223, has introduced another epitaph But the fharpness of the fatire is faid to have ftung the man so feverely, that he never forgave it. 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; "He went to the grave with many a curse: "The devil and he had both one nurfe." STEEVENS. I fufpect that thefe lines were fent to Mr. Peck by fome perfon that meant to impofe upon him. It appears from Mr. John Combe's will, that his brother Thomas was dead in 1614. John devised the greater part of his real and perfonal eftate to his nephew Thomas Combe, with whom Shakspeare was certainly on good terms, having bequeathed him his fword. Since I wrote the above, I find from the Regifter of Stratford, that Mr. Thomas Combe (the brother of John) was buried there, Jan. 22, 1609-10. MALONE. 8 the sharpness of the fatire is faid to have flung the man fo feverely, that he never forgave it.] I take this opportunity to avow my difbelief that Shakspeare was the author of Mr. Combe's Epitaph, or that it was written by any other perfon at the request of that gentleman. If Betterton the player did really vifit Warwickfhire for the fake of collecting anecdotes relative to our author, perhaps he was too eafily fatisfied with fuch as fell in his way, without making any rigid fearch into their authenticity. It appears alfo from a following copy of this infeription, that it was not afcribed to Shakspeare fo 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 fome measure from the latter one published by Mr. Rowe, I fhall not hesitate to transcribe it: Upon one John Combe of Stratford upon Avon, a notable Ufurer, fastened upon a Tombe that he had caufed to be built in his LifeTime: ❝ Ten in the hundred muft 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 obferved that, ftrictly speaking, this is no jocular epitaph, but a malevolent prediction; and Braithwaite's copy is furely more to be depended on (being procured in or before the |