The fruit of this marriage was three sons, Shakspeare, Richard, and Thomas Quiney; the first dying in his infancy, the second in his twenty-first year, and the third in his twentieth year; so that, as Elizabeth, the daughter of Susanna, by Dr. Hall, had no issue by her two husbands, Thomas Nash, Esq. and Sir John Barnard, she proved the last lineal descendant of her grandfather.
It was very shortly after the marriage of Judith, that our author, being in perfect health and memory, deemed it necessary to make his Will; a document which appears to have been drawn up on the 25th of February, 1616, though not executed until the 25th of the following month.[610:B]
That the event, for which this was a proper preparatory act, should so rapidly have followed, could be little in the contemplation of one who had not reached his fifty-second year, and who, according to his own account, was in perfect health and memory. Yet we may venture to infer, from what tradition has left us of his life and character, that few were better prepared for the transition, that few could be found, over whom, when the event had occurred, with more justice might it be said,—
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well!"
FOOTNOTES:
[604:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 74-76.
[604:B] Wheler's History and Antiquities of Stratford, p. 15.
[605:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 78-80.
[605:B] Letters by Eminent Persons, &c. 1813, vol. iii. p. 307.