Yet an asse is his state:
We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
Sing, O lowsie Lucy, whate'er befalle it.
Some lampoon was affixed by young William to Sir Thomas Lucy's park gate, and enraged the baronet to such a degree that—according to Capell—he directed a lawyer at Warwick to commence a prosecution against the lad. The Lucy note, however, makes no mention of the lawyer, only stating that young Shakespeare deemed it prudent to quit Stratford, "at least for a time." The long ballad of six stanzas (which we give in the foot-note) was written by John Jordan, a harmless rustic who lived at Stratford in the days of Malone and Ireland, i. e. in the last years of the eighteenth century, and went about claiming to have inherited the mantle of Shakespeare. The "Piping Pebworth" verses, and perhaps the whole story was written by him.
* According to Capell, Oldys, and Grant White. (See Mr.
White's Shakespeare, Vol. I. p. xxxviii.) Oldys leaves out
the "O" in the fourth and eighth lines. Mr. Fullom (cited
above) declares this version to be spurious. (See note 3, p.
121.)
At any rate, he seems to have succeeded in obtaining immortality by mixing his own efforts so successfully with the Shakespearean remains as to make them all one in the local traditions. The above, with the
INSCRIPTION FOR HIS OWN TOMB.
Good frend, for Jesvs' sake forbeare,
To digg ye dust encloased here.