The date of his death has not been determined. Malone, in the uncertainty on this point, could only adduce the following passage of Dekker's _Guls Horne-booke_, 1609, from which, he says, "it may be presumed"[ix:3] that Kemp was then deceased: "Tush, tush, Tarleton, _Kemp_, nor Singer, nor all the litter of fooles that _now_ come drawling behinde them, neuer plaid the Clownes more naturally then the arrantest Sot of you all."[ix:4] George Chalmers, however, discovered an entry in the burial register of St. Saviour's, Southwark--"1603, November 2d _William Kempe, a man_;"[ix:5] and since the name of Kemp does not occur in the license granted by King James, 19th May, 1603, to the Lord Chamberlain's Company (who in consequence of that instrument were afterwards denominated his Majesty's Servants) there is great probability that the said entry relates to the comedian, and that he had been carried off by the plague of that year. Two scenes of two early dramas, which exhibit Kemp _in propria persona_, must necessarily form a portion of the present essay. _The Retvrne from Pernassvs: Or The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Johns Colledge in Cambridge_, 1606,[x:1] 4to. furnishes the first extract: "Act 4. Scen. 5. [3.] _[Enter] Burbage [and] Kempe._ "_Bur._ Now, Will Kempe, if we can intertaine these schollers at a low rate, it wil be well; they haue oftentimes a good conceite in a part. "_Kempe._ Its true indeed, honest Dick; but the slaues are somewhat proud, and, besides, it is a good sport, in a part to see them neuer speake in their walke but at the end of the stage, iust as though in walking with a fellow we should neuer speake but at a stile, a gate, or a ditch, where a man can go no further. I was once at a Comedie in Cambridge, and there I saw a parasite make faces and mouths of all sorts on this fashion. "_Bur._ A little teaching will mend these faults, and it may bee, besides, they will be able to pen a part. "_Kemp._ Few of the vniuersity pen plaies well; they smell too much of that writer Ouid, and that writer Metamorphosis,[xi:1] and talke too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I,[xi:2] and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow! he brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill,[xi:3] but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit. "_Bur._ Its a shrewd fellow indeed. I wonder these schollers stay so long; they appointed to be here presently that we might try them: oh, here they come. [_Enter Philomusus and Studioso._] "_Stud._ Take heart, these lets[xi:4] our clouded thoughts refine; The sun shines brightest when it gins decline. "_Bur._ M[aster] Phil. and M. Stud., God saue you. "_Kemp._ M. Pil. and M. Otioso, well met.