And the world would doubtless be as well off could we also here take leave of the rest of the Shakespeare-makers. But we are not allowed to do so. From the time of Malone onward, the Shakespeare-making, Shakespeare-mending, and Shakespeare-cobbling have gone on without relaxation. Each fresh rencontre with an emergency in the Shakespearean text has necessitated at least one and often several new Shakes-peares. And they have been prepared and forthcoming as fast as wanted. Was it found that the bard had, of all his worldly goods, left the wife of his bosom no recognition save the devise of a ramshackle old bedstead? A score of gentlemen hurried to the front to prove that, by law, history, logic, custom, and every {090}thing else, in those days a "second-best bed" was really the most priceless of possessions; of fabulous value, and a fortune in itself; and that in no other way could her immortal husband have so testified his tender regard and appreciation of Mrs. Shakespeare--the sweet Ann Hathaway of old, who had thrown herself away on a scapegrace butcher's son! The fact (as it appears, on inspection of the instrument itself, to be) that Mrs. Shakespeare was not even alluded to in the first draft of the testament--her name and the complimentary devise of the precious husband's precious "second-best bed" having been written in as "a poet's after-thought," and not appearing in the first draft at all--does not affect their statements in the least! They have even gone so far as to ascertain that William was no truant lord to willingly desert his lonesome lady. According to the very latest authority we are able to cite, the fault of the separation was wholly her own. We are assured by a very recent explorer that Mrs. Shakespeare "did not accompany her husband to London, objecting to the noise and turmoil of that city." * * "Shakespeare and his Contemporaries." By William Tegg, F. R. H. S. London: William Tegg & Co., 1879. Chapter I., "Sketch of the Life of Shakespeare," p. 4. As every circumstance connected with William Shakespeare and Stratford is of interest in the connection, we may as well note that, according to Mr. Grant White, when William Shakespeare first went to London, he went into the office of a cousin of his, who was an attorney in that city. Like Mr. Tegg, Mr. White gives himself as an authority for this item. See his "Shakespeare" in Johnston's Encyclopaedia.