The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3039]
The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585, but it may be questioned whether Shakespeare, on fleeing from Lucy's persecution, at once sought an asylum in London.'
Halliwell gives the following traditions of Shakespeare's sharp encounters or exchanges of wit[]:
Mr. Ben Jonson and Mr. Wm. Shakespeare being merry at a tavern, Mr. Jonson having begun this for his epitaph,—
Here lies Ben Jonson, that was once one,
he gives it to Mr. Shakespeare to make up, who presently writes,
Who while he lived was a slow thing
And now being dead is nothing.
Another version is:
Here lies Jonson,
Who was one's son
He had a little hair on his chin,
His name was Benjamin!
an amusing allusion to his personal appearance, as any one may see who will turn to Ben's portrait.
Jonson. If but stage actors all the world displays
Where shall we find spectators of their plays?
Shakespeare. Little or much of what we see we do;
We are all both actors and spectators too.
Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd;
'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved;
If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?
Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.
Who lies in this tomb?
Hough, quoth the devil, 'tis my son, John-Combe.
The tradition is that the subject of the last six lines having died, Shakespeare then composed an epitaph as follows:
Howe'er he lived, judge not,
John Combe shall never be forgot,
While poor hath memory, for he did gather
To make the poor his issue; he their father,
As record of his tilth and seed,
Did crown him, in his latter need.
This is said to have been composed of a brother of John-a-Combe:
Thin in beard, and thick in purse,
Never man beloved worse,
He went to the grave with many a curse,
The devil and he had both one nurse.
A blacksmith is said to have accosted Shakespeare with,—
Now, Mr. Shakespeare, tell me, if you can,
The difference between a youth and a young man?
To which the poet immediately replied,—
Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple,
The same difference as between a scalded and a coddled apple.
An old tradition reports that being awakened after a prolonged carouse, and asked to renew the contest, he refused, saying, I have drunk with
Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, and Hungry Grafton
With Dadging Exhall, Papist Wixford
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.
The lines inscribed on the slab above his grave, preventing the removal of his bones, according to the custom of that time, to the adjacent charnel-house, are as follows:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spare these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.[]
Mr. Lee gives a statement as to Shakespeare's propensity to litigation as follows[]:
'As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he bought for £440 of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of £17 to the Corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease's expiration, and of £5 to John Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most favorable circumstances, no more than an annuity of £38; and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to the Corporation led that body to demand from the poet payments justly due from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard Lane of Awston, and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all