representations of the "Game at Chess," and the amount of profit derived from them to the company, nobody seems to have adverted to a passage in Sir W. Davenant's "Playhouse to be Let," which was performed in 1663, and to which date the memory of the money taken at the doors on the repeated performance of "Gondomar" (for so Davenant styles Middleton's drama, from the most prominent character in it) had survived: an actor brings joyful word to some of the other performers in the "Playhouse to be Let"

"There's such a crowd at doors, as if we had a new play of Gondomar."

This passage affords some confirmation to the notion that, in the whole, £1,500 may have been received in nine days by the company of players, although Malone (Boswell's Shakspeare, iii., 177) contends, on merely conjectural data, that the "takings" could hardly have been more than £150. This sum seems to be quite as much an under-estimate, as the former may have been an over-calculation.

There is no doubt that Thomas Middleton, the dramatist, had a son named Edward, who was nineteen in 1623, and consequently twenty when the "Game at Chess" was brought out, and when it gave such offence to the Court (on the remonstrance of the Spanish ambassador) that the company was for a time silenced. The Rev. Mr. Dyce, in his "Account of Middleton and his works," prefixed to his edition of that author's plays, twice mentions Edward Middleton (I. xiii, xl); and yet, when he comes to quote the registers of the Privy Council, which expressly mention Edward Middleton, and call him the son of Thomas Middleton, he inserts "Thomas" between brackets, after "Edward," as if to correct an error of the Clerk of the Privy Council in making the memorandum. It is a pity in these cases that the original sources of information are not referred to; but the truth seems to be that the

Rev. Mr. Dyce copied Chalmers, to whom he refers (Apol. for the Believers 500) in this decided error.

It appears by the records of the Privy Council, that on the 18th August, 1624, a warrant was issued for bringing "one Middleton" up for examination. He "shifted out of the way;" and, as he could not be found, the Privy Council, on 30th August, issued a second warrant, "to bring one Middleton, sonne to Middleton the poet, before their Lordships to answer." This was unquestionably Edward Middleton, who could be found, although his father had escaped; and on the very same day we find that Edward Middleton "tendered his appearance;" i.e., voluntarily surrendered himself. The original entry in the registers is in this form :

"30th August, 1624.

“This day Edward Middleton, of London, Gent., being formerly sent for by warrant from this Board, tendred his appearance; wherefore his indemnitie is here entred into the Register of Counseil Causes. Nevertheless, he is enjoyned to attend the Board, till he be discharged by order of their Lordships."

If, therefore, anybody petitioned the king in verse for release (Dyce's Middleton, I., xxxv), it was not Thomas Middleton, the father, but Edward Middleton, the son, who ought not to be confounded by biographers.

London, June 25, 1845.

T. HORNBY.

ART. XVI.-The Widow of William Shakespeare.

There is a peculiarity in the entry of Mrs. Shakespeare's burial in the church books of Stratford-on-Avon, which has hitherto passed unnoticed, but which may not, perhaps, be thought altogether undeserving the attention of those who take an interest in the history of our great poet and his family. The register is written thus:

"1623. [Mrs. Shakspeare

August 8.

Anna Uxor Richardi James."

Now, there arises a question here, whether the whole of this entry may not relate to the same individual? It was by no means a common thing, at that time, for two persons to be interred at Stratford on the same day; and, in the event of such a case, it is so improbable that both should have been adults; that, being adults, both should have been women; and that, being women, both should have been named Anne, as to impress me very forcibly with a persuasion of their identity. It seems to me much more likely that Mrs. Shakespeare, after the death of her husband, should have forgotten her allegiance to his memory and become Mrs. James, than that such an extraordinary coincidence should have occurred. Besides, what is the object of the bracket that unites the names? The book affords no similar instance of this mode of entry. On every other occasion, when two funerals have taken place on the same day, the date is either repeated, or left blank; as, in the same page, we find—

but this bracketing the names together-supposing Mrs. Shakespeare and Mrs. James to be different people-is altogether without a parallel. What can be the meaning of this de

parture from the common rule, unless it was intended to show

that the two names constitute one register? Again, with hardly an exception to the contrary, all the entries on the page are in Latin; and it would not only be difficult to account for the deviation into the vulgar tongue in the case of the poet's widow, but to explain why, unless the whole register referred to one individual, the officiating minister, who described one Anna, at full length, as "Uxor Richardi James," should have been content without describing the other Anna at full length also, as Vidua Gulielmi Shakspeare.

But how then is this apparently double entry to be accounted for?-Why thus: the parish books, which now exist, are authentic copies of the original registers. And my conjecture is, that the old documents reported no more than the interment of Anna James; but that, as the lady was better known at Stratford as the wife of our great poet, was so commemorated in the epitaph on her gravestone, and lay buried among his family in the chancel of the church, the “Mrs. Shakspeare" was inserted by the copyist to indicate that Mrs. James was she, and to anticipate the suspicion of a defect in his transcript.1

London, July, 1845.

WILLIAM HARNESS.

1 Shakespeare was acquainted with some people named James, as appears from an epitaph on Elias James, which is ascribed to him in a MS. book in the Bodleian. His widow, perhaps, married one of the family.

ART. XVII.—On a passage in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar.

I observe by the late report of the Shakespeare Society, that the members are invited to communicate to the secretary such incidental circumstances as may in any way illustrate the works and life of our great dramatist.

I am thus encouraged to address you for the purpose of communicating a remark lately made to me on a passage in Julius Cæsar, which, so far as I know, has not been noticed by any of the editors.

The

passage referred to is the well-known one

"You are my true and honourable wife;
As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.”—Act ii., sc. 1.

Now, what I wish to call your attention to in this passage is, that it contains, what I cannot view otherwise, than as a distinct reference to the circulation of the blood, which was not announced to the world, as is generally supposed, until some years after the death of Shakespeare. Harvey is supposed to have brought forward his views as to the circulation of the blood in Lumleian Lectures, in 1618, but their actual publication in one of his works was in 1628. There is, however, a manuscript in the British Museum, dated April, 1616, (the very month Shakespeare died) entitled "De Anatome Universali," in which the germ of his great discovery is to be found. Now, granting that the passage in Julius Cæsar will bear the construction I have put upon it, several very interesting questions arise. 1st., Is it not a material fact as to the time when Julius Cæsar was written? and does it not go far to prove that Mr. Collier is wrong when he places the tragedy so early as 1603?-2d., Granting the force of Mr. Collier's arguments as to the date of production, can his opinion be reconciled with a supposition that