before 1623, as it is mentioned in the commendatory verses of Leonard Digges. He is represented under an arch, in a sitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left rested on a scroll of paper. The following Latin distich is engraved under the cushion :

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus mæret, Olympus habet.

In addition to this Latin inscription, the following lines are found on a tablet immediately underneath the cushion on his monument:

dale in the year 1664, now remaining in the College of Arms C 35, fol. 20; a transcript of which Sir Isaac Heard, Garter Principal King at Arms, has obligingly transmitted to me.

Among the monuments in Tongue church, in the county of Salop, is one erected in remembrance of Sir Thomas Stanley, Knight, who died, as I imagine, about the year 1600. In the Visitation-book it is thus described by Sir William Dugdale :

"On the north side of the chancell stands a very statelie tombe, supported with Corinthian columnes. It hath two figures of men in armour, thereon lying, the one below the arches and columnes, and the other above them, and this epitaph upon it.

"Thomas Stanley, Knight, second son of Edward Earle of Derby, Lord Stanley and Strange, descended from the famielie of the Stanleys, married Margaret Vernon, one of the daughters and co-heires of Sir George Vernon of Nether-Haddon, in the county of Derby, Knight, by whom he had issue two sons, Henry and Edward. Henry died an infant; Edward survived, to whom those lordships descended: and married the lady Lucie Percie, second daughter of the Earle of Northumberland: by her he had issue seaven daughters. She and her foure daughters, Arabella, Marie, Alice, and Priscilla, are interred under a monument in the church of Waltham in the county of Essex. Thomas, her son, died in his infancy, and is buried in the parish

Stay, passenger, why dost thou go so fast,

Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plac'd
"Within this monument; Shakspeare, with whom

"Quick nature dy'd; whose name doth deck the tomb
"Far more than cost; since all that he hath writ
"Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.

"Obiit Ano. Dni. 1619, æt. 53, die 23 Apri."

Mr. Granger observes, (Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 259,) that" it has been said there never was an original portrait of Shakspeare, but that Sir Thomas Clarges after his death caused a portrait to be drawn for him from a person who nearly resembled him." This entertaining writer was a great collector of anec

church of Winwich in the county of Lancaster. The other three, Petronilla, Frances, and Venesia, are yet living.

"These following verses were made by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the late famous tragedian:

"Written upon the east end of this tombe.

"Aske who lyes here, but do not weepe;
"He is not dead, he doth but sleepe.

"This stony register is for his bones,

"His fame is more perpetual than these stones:
"And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
"Shall live, when earthly monument is none."

"Written upon the west end thereof.

"Not monumental stone preserves our fame,
"Nor skye-aspiring pyramids our name.
"The memory of him for whom this stands,

"Shall out-live marble, and defacers' hands.

"When all to time's consumption shall be given,

Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." The last line of this epitaph, though the worst, bears very strong marks of the hand of Shakspeare The beginning of the first line," Aske who lyes here," reminds us of that which we

dotes, but not always very scrupulous in enquiring into the authenticity of the information which he procured; for this improbable tale, I find on examination, stands only on the insertion of an anonymous writer in The Gentleman's Magazine, for August, 1750, who boldly "affirmed it as an absolute fact;" but being afterwards publickly called upon to produce his authority, by the Rev. Mr. Green, Rector of Welford, near Stratford, never produced any. There is the strongest reason therefore to presume it a forgery.

"Mr. Walpole (adds Mr. Granger) informs me, that the only original picture of Shakspeare is that which belonged to Mr. Keck, from whom it passed to Mr. Nicoll, whose only daughter married the Marquis of Caernarvon" [now Duke of Chandos.]

have been just examining: "If any man ask who lies in this tomb," &c.-And in the fifth line we find a thought which our poet has also introduced in King Henry VIII.:

"Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be!

"And, when old time shall lead him to his grave,'
"Goodness and he fill up one monument !”

This epitaph must have been written after the year 1600, for Venetia Stanley, who afterwards was the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was born in that year. With a view to ascertain its date more precisely, the churches of Great and Little Waltham have been examined for the monument said to have been erected to Lady Lucy Stanley and her four daughters, but in vain; for no trace of it remains: nor could the time of their respective deaths be ascertained, the registers of those parishes being lost.— Sir William Dugdale was born in Warwickshire, was bred at the free-school of Coventry, and in the year 1625, purchased the manor of Blythe in that county, where he then settled and afterwards spent a great part of his life: so that his testimony respecting this epitaph is sufficient to ascertain its authenticity.