The long interval during which Shakespeare's writings lay
in comparative neglect has spread its shadow over his history,
and it is his good or evil lot that scarcely anything remains to
his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures.
The sexton and his companion had been employed as carpenters on
the preparations for the celebrated Stratford Jubilee, and they
remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who
superintended the arrangements, and who, according to the sexton,
was "a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John Ange had
assisted also in cutting down Shakespeare's mulberry tree, of
which he had a morsel in his pocket for sale; no doubt a
sovereign quickener of literary conception.
I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very
dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakespeare house.
John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her valuable and
inexhaustible collection of relics, particularly her remains of
the mulberry tree; and the old sexton even expressed a doubt as
to Shakespeare having been born in her house. I soon discovered
that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to
the poet's tomb, the latter having comparatively but few
visitors.
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