Shakespeare's Will.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 208, 2 September 1893, Page 3 (Supplement)

Shakespeare's Will.

It is nob generally known fchab Shakespeare realised a competency by his industry as a dramatic writer cind theatrical manager, and retired in 1613 or 1614 to Bpend the evening of his days ab his native town at Stratford, where he had acquired no small prooerty in housos and land, His wifo, Anne Hathaway, who had remained in Stratford during the twenty-four years which he spent, in London, and who was eight years his senior, still lived, and he had fcivo surviving children, Susanna and Judith, the former of whom was married to a man named Hall,

In his will, dated in March, 1616, aboub a month before his death, Shakespeare lefb the bulk of his property in houses and lands fco hia elder daughter, Susanna; three hundred pounds to his younger daughter, under certain conditions : to his sister, monav, wearing apparel, and tho lifo-ronb of tho house in which sho lived ; to his nephows, five pounds each ; to his granddaughter, his plate : to the poor, ten pounds; to various friends, money, rings and his sword. To Susanna and her husband, Hall, he bequeathed all tho reab of his goods and chattels, excepting his ' second-beak bod, with the furniture,' which he directed to be jriven to hia wife.

So romarkablo a circumstance haR nob escaped tho notice of bia mnny commontators, find most of them have spoken oE ib with pain, n proof thab Shakespeare, while generous to his children and his friend, treated bin wife with contempt. There wai tho more force in this view, when tho long estrangement of the pair was considered. For many years, oven lawyers failed to dotecb a lq.'al circumstance calculated to ftivo a totally different view ot Uio caso. Mrs Shakespenro required no ppneial provisions in her husband's will, beyond some such souvenir aa the second' best bed, for she wa? entitled, as the lefjal nbr.ise i?, fo dower. The law gave her tho life interosf to a-third part of nil tho property which Shnlcspearg bad acquirer] in his lifetime, and she would liavo tho enmo infiorapt in the houeeg and purdenf" which her husband inherited from his father, as soon as the father should die. Tliur slid would bo extremely well off by tho more operation of the En?;lif>h 'aw nffccHnjj freehold property : and tho notion that she wns cut off with an old bed falls to the ground,