"Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."
Shirley lived in Gray's Inn when he was writing his plays, and he was fortunate in the favour of queen Henrietta Maria, wife to Charles the First; but when the Puritan times arrived he fell into misfortune and poverty and became a school-teacher in Whitefriars. In 1666 he was living in or near Fleet Street, and his home was one of the many dwellings that were destroyed in the great fire. Then he fled, with his wife, into the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, where, overcome with grief and terror, they both died, within twenty-four hours of each other, and were buried in the same grave.
