Othello, and Lear were rôles in which he gained especial renown. But Burbage and Shakespeare were popularly credited with co-operation in less solemn enterprises. They were reputed to be companions in many sportive adventures. The sole anecdote of Shakespeare that is positively known to have been recorded in his lifetime relates that Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit, and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.''

Such gossip possibly deserves little more acceptance than the later story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William D'Avenant. The latter was baptised at Oxford on March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story of Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant was long current in Oxford, and was at times complacently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare is known to have been a welcome guest at John D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, boasted of the kindly notice which the poet took of him as a child. It is safer to adopt the less compromising version which makes Shakespeare the god

1 Manningham, Diary, March 13, 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39. Cf. Aubrey, Lives; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 43; and art. Sir William D'Avenant in the Dictionary of National Biography.

father of the boy William instead of his father. But the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the assumption that Shakespeare was known to his contemporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue. Ben Jonson and Drayton-the latter a Warwickshire man --seem to have been Shakespeare's closest literary friends in his latest years.

Final set

Stratford.

At Stratford, in the words of Nicholas Rowe,' the latter part of Shakespeare's life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, tlement at retirement, and the conversation of his friends.' As a resident in the town, he took a full share of social and civic responsibilities. On October 16, 1608, he stood chief godfather to William, son of Henry Walker, a mercer and alderman. On September 11, 1611, when he had finally settled in New Place, his name appeared in the margin of a folio page of donors (including all the principal inhabitants of Stratford) to a fund that was raised 'towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of the highways.'

Meanwhile his own domestic affairs engaged some of his attention. Of his two surviving children-both daughters-the eldest, Susanna, had married, on June 5, 1607, John Hall (1575-1635), a rising physician of Puritan leanings, and in the following February there was born the poet's only granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet's Domestic mother was buried in the parish church, and affairs. on February 4, 1613, his third brother Richard. On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall preferred,

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO THE PURCHASEDEED OF A HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS ON MARCH 10, 1612-13.

with her father's assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did not appear, and was excommunicated.

in Black

friars.

In the same year (1613), when on a short visit to London, he invested a small sum of money in a new Purchase property. This was his last investment in of a house real estate. He then purchased a house, the ground-floor of which was a haberdasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre-on the west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the property for 100/. in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613 agreed to pay him 140/. The deeds of conveyance bear the date of March 10 in that year. Next day, on March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum) which stipulated that 60%. of the purchase-money was to remain on mortgage until the following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at Shakespeare's death. In both purchase-deed and mortgage-deed Shakespeare's signature was witnessed by (among others) Henry LAWRENCE, servant' or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the scrivener who drew

'The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell-Phillipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Providence, Rhode Island, U. S. A., in January 1897. That held by the vendor is in the Guildhall Library.