[601:B] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 150.
[601:C] Gildon says that Shakspeare left behind him an estate of 300l. per annum, equal to at least 1000l. per ann. at this day; but Mr. Malone doubts "whether all his property, real and personal, amounted to much more than 200l. per ann. which yet was a considerable fortune in those days." "If," he adds, "we rate the New Place with the appurtenances, and our poet's other houses in Stratford, at 60l. a year, and his house, &c. in the Blackfriars, (for which he paid 140l.) at 20l. a year, we have a rent-roll of 150l. per ann. Of his personal property it is not now possible to form any accurate estimate; but if we rate it at 500l., money then bearing an interest of 10l. per cent. Shakspeare's total income was 200l. per ann."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 73, 74.
PART III.
SHAKSPEARE IN RETIREMENT.
CHAPTER I.
ANECDOTES RELATIVE TO SHAKSPEARE, DURING HIS RETIREMENT AT STRATFORD.
Yes, high in reputation as a poet, favoured by the great and accomplished, and beloved by all who knew him, Shakspeare, after a long residence in the capital, to the rational pleasures of which he had contributed more than any other individual of his age, at length sought for leisure and repose on the banks of his native stream: perhaps wisely considering, that, as he had acquired a competency adequate to the gratifications of a well-regulated mind; life had other duties to perform, to the discharge of which, while health and vigour should remain, he was now called upon to dedicate a larger portion of his time.
The Genius of dramatic poetry may sigh over a determination thus early taken! but who shall blame what, from our knowledge of the man, we may justly conceive to have been his predominating motive, the hope that in the bosom of rural peace, aloof from the dissipations and seductions of the stage, he might the better prepare for that event which awaits us all, and which talents, such as his were, can