er austerity of temper or habits the poets Dante
and Milton may have drawn upon themselves such a fate, it might be
expected that, at least, the "gentle Shakspeare" would have stood exempt
from the common calamity of his brethren. But, among the very few facts
of his life that have been transmitted to us, there is none more clearly
proved than the unhappiness of his marriage. The dates of the birth of
his children, compared with that of his removal from Stratford,--the
total omission of his wife's name in the first draft of his will, and
the bitter sarcasm of the bequest by which he remembers her
afterwards,--all prove beyond a doubt both his separation from the lady
early in life, and his unfriendly feeling towards her at the close of
it.

In endeavouring to argue against the conclusion naturally to be deduced
from this will, Boswell, with a strange ignorance of human nature,
remarks:--"If he had taken offence at any part of his wife's conduct, I
cannot believe that he would have taken this petty mode of expressing
it."]

[Footnote 60: In a small book which I have in my possession, containing
a sort of chronological History of the Ring, I find the name of Lord
Byron, more than once, recorded among the "backers."]

[Footnote 61: Dr. Woolriche, an old and valued friend of mine, to whose
skill, on the occasion here alluded to, I was indebted for my life.]

* * * * *

LETTER. 207. TO MR. MURRAY.

"December 31, 1814.

"A thousand thanks for Gibbon: all the additions are very great
improvements.

"At last I must be _most_ peremptory with you about the _print_
from Phillips's picture: it is pronounced on all hands the most
stupid and disagreeable possible: so do, pray, have a new
engraving, and let me see it first; there really must be no more
from the same plate. I don't much care, myself; but every one I
honour torments me to death about it, and abuses it to a degree
beyond repeating. Now, don't answer with excuses; but, for my sake,
have it destroyed: I never shall have peace till it is. I write in
the greatest haste.

"P.S. I have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to
destroy the print, and have another 'by particular desire.' It must
be d----d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the
original; and he don't know what to say. But do _do_ it: that is,
burn the plate, and emp