ALLEGED LETTER FROM THE KING 59 1604,1 and Ben Jonson had already (1599) spoken of Sir John in his Every Man out of his Humour. Burbage took the part of Macilente, which suited his spare figure very well. Jonson would not beg of the audience "a plaudite for God's sake: but if you, out of the bounty of your good liking, will bestow it, why, you may make lean Macilente as fat as Sir John Falstaff." He appears to include both parts of Henry IV. in his reference to the popular favourite. Lowin doubtless succeeded to the post very early after joining the company, and would know how Shakespeare wished it to be played; and Taylor in the same way learned what the poet meant by the distinction between the whirlwind of passion, with smoothness, and the same passion torn into tatters.3 = VI William Oldys showed in a note on his Fuller's Worthies, now in the British Museum, that the story of the King writing to Shakespeare came through Davenant to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, an authority of some distinction in literature. In his commonplace book the Duke wrote: "King James the First honoured Shakespeare with an epistolary correspondence, and I think Sir William Davenant had either seen or was possessed of His Majesty's letter to him." Oldys, who referred to the preface in Lintot's edition of Shakespeare's Poems (1709), where 1 A. W. Ward, u.s., ii. 137, says: "There is . . . no proof that he (Lowin) was the original performer of the part, and it is hardly likely to have been allotted to so young a man (he was born in 1576)." This opinion is further confirmed by the words of Roberts, the actor, in 1729, quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps, u.s., i. 243: "I am apt to think, he (Lowin) did not rise to his perfection and most exalted state in the theatre till after Burbage, tho' he play'd what we call second and third characters in his time, and particularly Henry the Eighth originally; from an observation of whose acting it in his later days Sir William Davenant conveyed his instructions to Mr. Betterton." 2 Every Man out of his Humour, v. 7. 3 See Hamlet, iii. 2, 1–16. it was said that "King James the First was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakespeare; which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William Davenant, as a credible person, now living, can testify." This person was doubtless the Duke of Buckinghamshire, who died in 1721. Dr. Farmer tried to guess what was in the letter-something such as thanks for compliments in Macbeth; but all such attempts are useless. As to the custody of the document, we may fairly suppose that it belonged to Lady Barnard about the time of Davenant's death in 1668. It would have passed under Shakespeare's will to Mr. and Mrs. Hall, remaining with Mrs. Hall on her husband's death. Mr. Hall tried to make a verbal will, but did not name an executor; he intended Thomas Nash to have his professional manuscripts: "I would have given them to Mr. Boles," he said, "if hee had been here; but forasmuch as hee is not heere present, yow may, son Nash, burne them, or doe with them what yow please."1 Mrs. Hall administered the estate, with a record of the imperfect gift as part of her authority; but there is no reason to think that she gave up the letter in question. Elizabeth Nash, two years after her husband's death, married Mr. Barnard, afterwards knighted, and on succeeding to her mother's property, lived at New Place for a time. In 1742, Sir Hugh Clopton told Mr. Macklin, the actor, when he visited Stratford in company with Garrick, that Lady Barnard, on leaving the town, "carried away many of her grandfather's papers." Others remained at Stratford, and came with the probate of Lady Barnard's will into the possession of Mr. R. B. Wheler, who printed some of them in the appendix to his History. 1 Nuncupative will of John Hall, printed by Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 61. ORIGIN OF NAME-PREHISTORIC REMAINS: PATHLOW AND THE TRATFORD, as its name implies, marks the point to a passage across the Avon. At first there was only a ford; in later ages, as Leland1 tells us, a poor wooden bridge was set up, which must have spoiled the old access, and yet was a danger in itself. "There was no causeway to come to it," says the historian, "whereby many poor folks either refused to come to Stratford when the river was up, or coming thither stood in jeopardy of life"; until at last Lord Mayor Clopton, in the reign of Henry VII., made "the great and sumptuous bridge" with "fourteen great arches and a long causeway, made of stone, well walled on each side, at the west end of the bridge." The neighbourhood had been inhabited in prehistoric times by the tribes that made the barrows and stone circles. Several of the great "lowes," or "graves," 1 See Leland's Itinerary, ed. Hearne, 1710-12, vol. iv. part ii. pp. 52-3, for notices of Stratford quoted in these pages. |