Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

[605:C] On the 12th of July, 1614.—See Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 82.

[607:A] "Preserved," says Mr. Malone, "in a collection of Epitaphs, at the end of the Visitation of Salop, taken by Sir William Dugdale in the year 1664, now remaining in the College of Arms, chap. xxxv. fol. 20.; a transcript of which Sir Isaac Heard, Garter Principal King at Arms, has obligingly transmitted to me."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 90.

The other epitaph alluded to in the text, is from "a Manuscript volume of Poems by William Herrick and others, in the hand-writing of the time of Charles I., among Rawlinson's Collections in the Bodleian Library.

'AN EPITAPH.

'When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet,

Elias James to nature pay'd his debt,

And here reposeth: as he liv'd, he dyde;

The saying in him strongly verifide,—

Such life, such death: then, the known truth to tell,

He liv'd a godly life, and dyde as well.