The Globe Theatre was burned on the 29th of June, 1613, when "filled with people to behold the play, viz., of Henry the Eighth," and the cause of the fire was a "peale of chambers"—that is, a discharge of small cannon. There can he little doubt that the play was Shakespeare's Henry TM., in which, according to the original stage direction (iv. 1 ), we have "chambers discharged" at the entrance of the King to the "mask at the Cardinal's house." It was probably written or finished in 1612 or early in 1613. From the in ternal evidence of metre and style it is quite clear that portions of the play are John Fletcher's. The peculiarities of the metre were noted by Rod erick as early as 1765: and about 1850 Spedding and Hickson, working independently, divided the play between Shakespeare and Fletcher in the same manner. Several years earlier Tennyson had pointed out to Spedding the resemblance to Fletcher's style in parts of the play; and it is an interesting fact that Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his lecture on Shakespeare (written several years before it was published in 1850), also noted the metrical evidences of two hands in ficary and assumed that Shakespeare had worked upon an earlier play, written by a man "with a vicious ear." He adds: "See \\'olsev's soliloquy and the following scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shakespeare. whose secret is that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best bring out the rhythm, here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmis takable traits of Shakespeare's hand. and some passages are like autographs." The passages that Emerson mentions are among those which Sped ding and others decide to be Fletcher's. In ex plaining the double authorship the critics differ, as in other eases of the kind; but the majority believe that Fletcher completed an unfinished play by Shakespeare.
Besides the six spurious plays in the third folio, sundry others were ascribed to Shakespeare dur ing his life by unscrupulous publishers, or after wards by injudicious critics. With somewhat better reason he has been supposed to have bad a band in the anonymous Edward III., and a few German critics think it is entirely his. It is difficult to ascribe the best portions of the play to any other dramatist of the time; but, as Fur nivall says, "there were doubtless one-play men in those days, as there have been one-book men since." During the latter half of 1606 the King's Com pany were playing in the provinces; but in De cember they had returned to London, and in the Christmas holidays performed Lear before King James at Whitehall. The year 1607 was an eventful one in the poet's domestic annals. On the 5th of June his eldest daughter, Susanna, then twenty-four years of age (baptized May 26, 1583), was married at Stratford to Dr. John Hall. who attained to considerable eminence as a physician. In his early days Hall had traveled on the Continent, and had become proficient in the French After he settled in Strat ford his services and advice were sought by the best people there and elsewhere. He was sum moned several times to attend the Earl and Countess of Northampton, at Ludlow Castle, more than forty miles off—no trilling journey in those days. After his death, his medical case book, written in Latin, was translated and pub lished in London (1657), and other editions ap peared in 1679 and 1683. Dr. John Bird, the Oxford professor. says of the book: "The learned author lived in our own times, and in the of Warwick, where he practiced many years and in great fame for his skill, far and wide. Those who seemed highly to esteem him, and whom, by God's blessing, he wrought those cures upon, von shall find to be, among others, persons noble, rich, and learned. And this T take to be a great sign of his ability, that such who spare not for cost , , . nay, such as bated him for his religion [he
was an earnest Puritan] often made use of hint." He died November 25, 1635, at the age of sixty. In December, 1607. Shakespeare's brother, Ed mund, died in London. and. was buried in the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark. "with a fore noone knell of the great bell." His burial in the church was a mark of respect seldom paid to an actor, and the service in the morning was proba bly arranged in order that the members of the Globe Company might be able to attend it. Ed mund was in his 28th year when he (lied. He had doubtless come to London and entered that theatre through his brother's influence, but of his record as an actor nothing is known. Elizabeth, the only child of the Halls, was baptized on the 21st of February. 160S, the poet thus becoming a grandfather about two months before he was for ty-four. She appears to have inherited his shrewd business ability, and she lived to be his last lineal descendant. She was married in 1626 to Thomas Nash. a citizen of Stratford. who had been a student of Lincoln's Inn, London. He died in /647, and two years afterwards his widow mar ried Sir John Barnard, of Abington Manor, near Northampton. She had no children by either husband. She died and was buried at Abington, February 17, 1669: but no monument of any kind preserves her memory. In September, 1608, Shakespeare lost his mother, her burial being re corded on the 9th of the month in the parish reg ister thus: "Maury Shaxpere, wydowe." lle was probably in Stratford at the time of the funeral, and may not have returned to London until after the 16th of October, when he was the principal godfather at the baptism of the William Walker (son of a local alderman) to whom, in 1616, he bequeathed "twenty shillings in gold." In 1610 Shakespeare bought twenty acres of pasture land, adding them to the 107 acres bought in 1602. In February, 1612, the town council of Stratford resolved that plays were unlawful "and against the example of other well-governed cities and boroughs." Ten years later (16221 the King's Company were actually bribed by the coun cil to leave the town without playing the town records showing that six shillings were "payd to the. Kings players for not playinge in the hall." This was doubtless out of deference to the King, and not because it was Shakespeare's old com pany. In the neighboring town of Henley-in-Ar den, in October, 1616, an order was unanimously passed that no other actors should have the use of the town ball. In the Stratford parish regis ter, under date of February 3, 1612, we find the record of the burial of "Gilbertus Shakespeare, adoleseens." It probably refers to the poet's brother, Gilbert, though (having been baptized October 13, 1566) he would have been at the time more than forty-five years old. In 1597 be w•as a haberdasher in London ; but in 1602 he was in Stratford, acting for his brother, William, in a conveyance of land, and in 1609 he- was a wit ness to a local deed. There is no record of his marriage or of the birth of a son; and no son of Gilbert is mentioned in the poet's will. It is probable, therefore, that the 'adolescens' was a slip of the scribe who made the entry from the sexton's notes. In February, 1613. Richard, prob ably the poet's last surviving brother (baptized March 11, 1574), also died. Joan (baptized April 11, 1569) was the only child of John and Mary Shakespeare. except William, who was now left. She married William Hart. and survived her famous brother thirty years. Her husband died in April, 1616, his burial taking place on the 17th, only eight days before that of the dramatist. In March, 1613, Shakespeare bought a house in London. near the Blackfriars Theatre, for £140, of which £60 remained on mortgage. He soon leased it to John Robinson, one of the persons that had violently opposed the establishment of the theatre.