Ward reported from local
conversation six important details, viz., that Shakespeare retired to
Stratford in his elder days; that he wrote at the most active period
of his life two plays a year; that he made so large an income from his
dramas that "he spent at the rate of L1000 a year"; that he
entertained his literary friends Drayton and Jonson at "a merry
meeting" shortly before his death, and that he died of its effects.
Oxford, which was only thirty-six miles distant, supplied the majority
of Stratford tourists, who, before Betterton, gathered oral tradition
there. Aubrey, the Oxford gossip, roughly noted six local items other
than those which are embodied in Ward's diary, or are to be gleaned
from Beeston's reminiscences, viz., that Shakespeare had as a lad
helped his father in his trade of butcher; that one of the poet's
companions in boyhood, who died young, had almost as extraordinary a
"natural wit"; that Shakespeare betrayed very early signs of poetic
genius; that he paid annual visits to his native place when his career
was at its height; that he loved at tavern meetings in the town to
chaff John Combe, the richest of his fellow-townsmen, who was accused
of usurious practices; and finally, that he died possessed of a
substantial fortune.
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