SHAKSPEARE'S WILL. [By J. N. Brewer.] I LATELY inspected the genuine will of Shakspeare, which is preserved in Doctors' Commons. A fervent admirer of the bard must needs behold the last stroke of his inspired pen with a feeling of respect approaching to awe! His named is signed in three places; and it was with reverential grief that I observed his weakness and extremity of distress to have evidently increased in the short time required for these three signatures. His hand trembled at the first; when he came to the second, the pauses occasioned by lassitude or anguish would appear to be perceptible, from the tremulous breaks in the writing. When his name was to be signed for the last time; when the pen, gifted with powers to instruct and delight all succeeding ages, was to make its last, lingering mark; the spirit of Shakspeare, and all his incalculable energies, appear to have been subdued! The name is almost indistinct, and the eye which guided the hand in its melancholy office seems to have been filmed. The orthography used by Shakspeare in this instance, of course, prescribes the mode in which his name is to be spelt; yet many fearned commentators have erroneously used the e final in regard to the first syllable of the word. The way in which his name was pronounced during his life may be learned from an inspection of his will. The notary (who had been called hastily to the performance of his duty) had no opportunity of correction, and he spelt the name of his immortal client from the recollection of accustomed orthorpy alone, Shackspeare. I presume that I am correct in asserting the signature of the will to be the only specimen extant of Shakspeare's handwriting. SIR, CURIOUS ADVERTISEMENT OF POPE. [From the Universal Magazine.] LOOKING over some loose numbers of the Daily Post, I found the following singular advertisement, and copied it off for the perusal and amusement of your readers. 66 Daily Post, June 14, 1728. "Whereas there has been a scandalous paper cried about the streets, under the title of a Popp upon Pope,' insinuating that I was whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last; this is to give notice that I did not stir out of my house at Twickenham, and that the same is a malicious and ill grounded report. "ALEXANDER POPE." Who the person was that was insinuated to have whipped the poet, I have never heard; but the fact of such an advertisement appearing is another proof, if another were wanting, of the morbid irritability of his character. Would any other man have thought it necessary to repel a charge of being whipped. The only excuse is, that his diminutive and feeble person rendered such a transaction not impossible. Sir, your obedient servant, X. ARMED SKELETON. SOME workmen, while digging lately in an old castle in the Canton of Argovia, (Switzerland,) came to a vault in which was deposited a coffin, containing the skeleton of a knight in full armourin one hand he held a dagger, and in the other a sword. At his feet was placed a cross and a Turkish sabre. From the inscription, it appears that he had commanded in the crusade led by Peter the Hermit. POETRY. TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER By Lord Byron. SWEET girl! though only once we met, Another to the last replies; Perhaps this is not love, but yet Our meeting I can ne'er forget: What though we never silence broke, And hush the mandates of the heart; Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise; Thy form appears through night, through day; In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams; The vision charms the hours away, Which makes me wish for endless night. "May Heaven so guard my lovely Quaker That anguish ne'er may overtake her, But blessed be aye her heart's partaker." Oh, may the happy mortal fated To be by dearest ties related, For her each hour new joys discover, May that fair bosom never know, ADDRESS TO THE SPIRIT OF A DEPARTED FRIEND. By J. Connor. BLEST spirit of my sainted friend, When gloomy Sorrow gives her tear, To tranquillize my troubled soul; When, as calm evening o'er the bowers, I cull the loveliest, sweetest flowers, And, weeping, wreathe them round thy bed; And, when my voice and lyre combine That sounds on high to Zion's lays; When on thy monumental stone I lean, and mourn in accents low, And let me hear thee softly say, "Repress those tears, and hush that sight, "Soon will arrive the happy day, "When here by mine thy dust will lie; "Then in the beams of endless light, "Our blissful spirits will unite." |