In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, we may presume that Shakespeare retired from the actor's profession in 1611, on or before the completion of "The Tempest," into the closing act of which he would seem to have put a reflection of his own inmost thought. Of all the rich and varied emotions to which such a mind must have responded, there could have been none more stirring than the thought that his life-work had brought the reward he most desired. To the town from which he had fled as an outcast he was returning a man of substance and repute; to the failing fortunes of those he had left behind he had become a sure support. Father, mother, one brother, Edmund, and the little son Hamnet had gone before him "to that bourn from which no traveller returns," but there were two loving daughters and a granddaughter waiting to welcome him home, one sister, Joan, and two brothers, Gilbert and Richard. There was Michael Drayton, author of the "Shepherd's Garland," the man after his own heart, to whose charming sonnets he was indebted for some of the beauty of his own, and it may be that some of his old companions of the stage could be lured to New Place in the intervals of their touring. For one who knew as well as Shakespeare the changes and uncertainties of life, there must have been a keen consciousness that balance of fortune was in his favour when he rode out from London on to the Oxford-Stratford road, only to return to look after his vested interests as occasion should demand.