poet's once dwelling house, of which I presume Mr. Rowe never was apprized. When the Civil War raged in England, and King Charles the First's Queen was driven by the necessity of her affairs to make a recess in Warwickshire, she kept her court for three weeks in New-Place. We may reasonably suppose it then the best private house in the town; and her Majesty preferred it to the College, which was in the possession of the Combe family, who did not so strongly favour the King's party."

Mr. Theobald is mistaken in supposing that Shakspeare changed the name of this estate. I find from ancient documents that it was called New Place as early at least as 1565. In other points he appears to have been in an error. From his words, the reader may be led to suppose that Henrietta Maria was obliged to take refuge from the rebels in Stratford-upon-Avon : but that was not the case. She marched from Newark, June 16, 1643, and entered Stratford-upon-Avon triumphantly, about the 22d of the same month, at the head of three thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, with one hundred and fifty waggons and a train of artillery. Here she was met by Prince Rupert, accompanied by a large body of troops. After sojourning about three weeks at our poet's house, which was then possessed by his grand-daughter Mrs. Nash, and her husband, the Queen went (July 13) to the plain of Keinton under Edge-hill, to meet the King, and proceeded from thence with him to Oxford, where, says a contemporary historian, " her coming (July 15) was rather to a triumph than a war."

Of the College above-mentioned the following was the origin, John de Stratford Bishop of Winchester, in the fifth year of King Edward III. founded a Chantry consisting of five priests, one of whom was Warden, in a certain chapel adjoining to the church of Stratford on the south side; and afterwards (in the seventh year of Henry VIII.) Ralph Collingwode instituted four choristers, to be daily assistant in the celebration of divine service there. This Chantry, says Dugdale, soon after its foundation, was known by the name of The College of Stratford-upon-Avon.

In the 26th year of Edward III. " a house of square stone" was built by Ralph de Stratford, Bishop of London, for the habitation of the five priests. This house, or another on the same spot, is the house of which Mr. Theobald speaks, and still bears the name of "The College.'

After the suppression of religious houses, the site of the college was granted by Edward VI. to John Earl of Warwick and his heirs; who being attainted in the first year of Queen Mary, it reverted to the

crown.

Sir John Clopton, Knt. (the father of Edward Clopton, Esq. and Sir Hugh Clopton), who died at Stratford-upon-Avon, in April, 1719, purchased the estate of New-place, &c. some time after the year 1685, from Sir Reginald Forster, Bart. who married Mary the daughter of Edward Nash, Esq. cousingerman to Thomas Nash, Esq. who married our poet's grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall. Edward Nash bought it, after the death of her second husband, Sir John Barnard, Knight. By her will, which will be

found in a subsequent page, she directed her trustee, Henry Smith, to sell the New-Place, &c. (after the death of her husband), and to make the first offer of it to her cousin, Edward Nash, who purchased it accordingly. His son, Thomas Nash, whom for the sake of distinction I shall call the younger, having died without issue, in August, 1652, Edward Nash, by his will, made on the 16th of March, 1678-9, devised the principal part of his property to his daughter Mary, and her husband Reginald Forster, Esq. afterwards Sir Reginald Forster; but in consequence of the testator's only referring to a deed of settlement executed three days before, without reciting the substance of it, no particular mention of New-Place is made in his will. After Sir John Clopton had bought it from Sir Reginald Forster, he gave it by deed to his younger son, Sir Hugh, who pulled down our poet's house, and built one more elegant on the same spot.

In May, 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Delane visited Stratford, they were hospitably entertained under Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, by Sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrister at law, was knighted by George the First, and died in the 80th year of his age, in Dec. 1751. His nephew, Edward Clopton, the son of his elder brother Edward, lived till June, 1753.

The New Place was sold by Henry Talbot, Esq. son-in-law and executor of Sir Hugh Clopton, in or soon after the year 1752, to the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a man of large fortune, who resided in it but a few years, in consequence of a disagreement with the

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inhabitants of Stratford. Every house in that town that is let or valued at more than 40s. a year, is assessed by the overseers, according to its worth and the ability of the occupier, to pay a monthly rate toward the maintenance of the poor. As Mr. Gastrell resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly; but being very properly compelled by the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again; and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. Wishing, as it should seem, to be "damn'd to everlasting fame," he had some time before cut down Shakspeare's celebrated mulberry-tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetick ground on which it stood.

That Shakspeare planted this tree, is as well authenticated as any thing of that nature can be. The Rev. Mr. Davenport informed me, that Mr. Hugh Taylor (the father of his clerk,) who was then [1790] eighty-five years old, and an alderman of Warwick, told him that he lived when a boy at the next house to New-Place; that his family had inhabited the house for almost three hundred years; that it was transmitted from father to son during the last and the present century; that this tree (of the fruit of which he had often eaten in his younger days, some of its branches hanging over his father's gar

den) was planted by Shakspeare; and that till this was planted, there was no mulberry-tree in that neighbourhood. Mr. Taylor adds, that he was frequently when a boy at New-Place, and that this tradition was preserved in the Clopton family, as well as in his own.

There were scarce any trees of this species in England till the year 1609, when by order of King James many hundred thousand young mulberrytrees were imported from France, and sent into the different counties with a view to the feeding of silkworms, and the encouragement of the silk manufacture. See Camdeni Annales ab anno 1603 ad annum 1623, published by Smith, quarto, 1691, p. 7; and Howes's Abridgment of Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1618, p. 503, where we have a more particular account of this transaction than in the larger work, A very few mulberry-trees had been planted before; for we are told, that in the preceding year a gentleman of Picardy, Monsieur Forest," kept greate store of English silkworms at Greenwich, the which the king with great pleasure came often to see them worke; and of their silke he caused a piece of taffeta to be made."

Shakspeare was perhaps the only inhabitant of Stratford, whose business called him annually to London; and probably on his return from thence in the spring of the year 1609, he planted this tree,

As a similar enthusiasm to that which with such diligence has sought after Virgil's tomb, may lead my countrymen to visit the spot where our great bard