to have fastened on the
park gates of Charlecote, does not, as Rowe acknowledged,
survive. No authenticity can be allowed the worthless lines
beginning, "A parliament member, a justice of peace," which were
represented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old man
who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. But _such an incident
as the tradition reveals has left a distinct impress on
Shakespearean drama. Justice Shallow is beyond doubt a
reminiscence of the owner of Charlecote._[26] According to
Archdeacon Davies of Saperton, Shakespeare's "_revenge_ was so
great" that he caricatured Lucy as "Justice Clodpate," who was
(Davies adds) represented on the stage as "a great man" and as
bearing, in allusion to Lucy's name, "three louses rampant for
his arms." Justice Shallow, Davies's "Justice Clodpate," came to
birth in the Second Part of _Henry IV._ (1598), and he is
represented in the opening scene of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_
as having come from Gloucestershire to Windsor to make a
Star-Chamber matter of a poaching raid on his estate. The "three
luces hauriant argent" were the arms borne by the Charlecote
Lucys, and the dramatist's prolonged reference in this scene to
the "dozen white luces" on Justice Shallow's "old coat" fully
establishes Shallow's identity with Lucy.

The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585, but it may be
questioned whether Shakespeare, on fleeing from Lucy's
persecution, at once sought an asylum in London.'

Halliwell gives the following traditions of Shakespeare's sharp
encounters or exchanges of wit[27]:

Mr. Ben Jonson and Mr. Wm. Shakespeare being merry at a tavern, Mr.
Jonson having begun this for his epitaph,--

Here lies Ben Jonson, that was once one,

he gives it to Mr. Shakespeare to make up, who presently writes,

Who while he lived was a slow thing
And now being dead is nothing.

Another version is:

Here lies Jonson,
Who was one's son
He had a little hair on his chin,
His name was Benjamin!

an amusing allusion to his personal appearance, as any one may see who
will turn to Ben's portrait.

_Jonson._ If but stage actors all the world displays
Where shall we find spectators of their plays?

_Shakespeare._ Little or much of what we see we do;
We are all both actors and spectators too.
Ten in the hundred lies here in