* A complaint must have been made from some quarter that this application had no sufficient foundation, for we have, in the Herald's college, a manuscript which purports to be "the answer of Garter and Clarencieux, kings of arms, to a libellous scrowl against certain arms supposed to be wrongfully given in which the writers state, under the head "Shakespeare," that "the person to whom it was granted had borne magistracy, and was justice of peace, at Stratford- upon-Avon; he married the daughter and heir of Arden, and was able to maintain that estate." The whole of this transaction is involved in considerable, and, perhaps, to a great extent, intentional obscurity; and it still seems doubtful whether any grant was actually made in the year 1596. In the year 1599, the application must have been renewed in a somewhat altered form. Under that date, there exists a draft of another grant, by which John Shakespeare was further to be allowed to impale the ancient arms of Arden. In this document a statement was originally inserted to the effect that "John Shakespeare showed and produced his ancient coat-of-arms, heretofore assigned to him whilst he was her Majesty's officer and bailiff of that town." But the words "showed and produced" were afterward erased, and in this unsatisfactory manner the matter appears to have terminated. It is manifest that the entries we have quoted contain a number of exaggerations, one even of positive misstatements. The "parents and antecessors" of John Shakespeare were not advanced and rewarded by Henry VII.; but the maternal ancestors, or, more probably, some more distant relatives of William Shakespeare, appear to have received some favors and distinctions from that sovereign. The pattern of arms given, as it is stated, under the hand of Clareneieux (Cooke, who was then dead), is not found in his records, and we can place no faith in his allegation. John Shakespeare had been a justice of the peace, merely ex officio, and not by commission, as is here insinuated; in all probability he did not possess "lands and tenements of the value of five hundred pounds;" and Robert Arden, of Wilmecote, was not a "gentleman of worship."--(Kenny, "Life and Genius of Shakespeare," p. 38. London: Longmans, 1854.)