grav'd;
'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved;
If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?
Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.
Who lies in this tomb?
Hough, quoth the devil, 'tis my son, John-Combe.

The tradition is that the subject of the last six lines having died,
Shakespeare then composed an epitaph as follows:

Howe'er he lived, judge not,
John Combe shall never be forgot,
While poor hath memory, for he did gather
To make the poor his issue; he their father,
As record of his tilth and seed,
Did crown him, in his latter need.

This is said to have been composed of a brother of John-a-Combe:

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 blacksmith is said to have accosted Shakespeare with,--

Now, Mr. Shakespeare, tell me, if you can,
The difference between a youth and a young man?

To which the poet immediately replied,--

Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple,
The same difference as between a scalded and a coddled apple.

An old tradition reports that being awakened after a prolonged
carouse, and asked to renew the contest, he refused, saying, I have
drunk with

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, and Hungry Grafton
With Dadging Exhall, Papist Wixford
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.

The lines inscribed on the slab above his grave, preventing the
removal of his bones, according to the custom of that time, to the
adjacent charnel-house, are as follows:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spare these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.[28]

Mr. Lee gives a statement as to Shakespeare's propensity to litigation
as follows[29]:

'As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare
should purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on
July 24, 1605, he bought for L440 of Ralph Huband an unexpired
term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety
of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and
Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of L17 to the
Corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease's
expiration, and of L5 to John Barker, the heir of a former
proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most
f