“Shakespeare, you know, had quietly settled himself in his father’s trade of a wool-dealer, and to insure greater steadiness in his pursuit of business, had taken unto himself a wife, the daughter of one Hathaway, in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Good-nature or incaution, however, led him into the society of some idle youths, who committed occasional depredations in the parks of the surrounding gentry. Being detected in a nocturnal adventure of this kind upon the property of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Chalcot, near Stratford, he was prosecuted for the offence; and irritating the prosecutor to a still greater degree of violence, by an abusive ballad, he was under a necessity of avoiding the effects of the criminal process, by quitting his business and family at Stratford, and hiding himself in the Metropolis. Some instances of his poetical sarcasms are upon record, but local tradition confirms the assertion now made of their just application. They are written on John Coombe and his brother Tom, both notorious for penury and usury. The former, in a party at which Shakespeare was present, had sportively observed, that he apprehended the poet meant to write his epitaph in case he outlived him, but as he should lose the benefit of the composition if it were deferred till his death, he begged it might be done whilst he lived, that he might admire the tribute, and thank the writer; Shakespeare immediately presented him with the following lines:—
Ten in the hundred lies here engrav’d, Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav’d; If any man ask, ‘Who lies in this tomb?’ Oh! Oh! quoth the Devil, ’tis my John a Coomb.
“The epitaph upon the brother, whether called for or not, I cannot say, is of a similar spirit:
Thin in beard, and thick in purse, Never man beloved worse; He went to the grave with many a curse; The devil and he had both one nurse.
“A flat stone, lying on the pavement over the place of his interment, has this inscription, said to have been written by Shakespeare for his own monument:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.”
There is another also ascribed to him quoted in “Shakspere’s Poetry,” No. 6, Bacon Society Journal, p. 245, which, with the Goliath, makes up the number to five.