LAST YEARS OF SHAKESPEARE-FROM MY FATHER'S COLLECTION: MACBETH 1902

HIS LAST YEARS.

In this time of prosperity he brought out several of his best plays.The comedies, Much Ado About Nothing(1600), As You Like It (1600), and Twelfth Night(1601) were followed by Julius Caesar,Hamlet and Othello.

Macbeth was completed in 1606,and successfully played before the Court at Whitehall,on the night of December 26 th,1606.After 1611 he seems to have abandoned dramatic composition,and spent greater part of his time at Stratford. 

His health began to fail at the commencement of 1616,but 

the actual cause of death is unknown.His only son,Hanmet,

had died many years before,but his wife and two                      

daughters ,Susannah Hall and Judith Quiney,survived him.He died at the age of fifty-two,and was buried inside the chancel of Stratford Church,with this epitaph inscribed over his grave:-

             "Good Frend,for Jesus' sake forbeare

               To digg the dvst encloased heare,

                Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones,

                And cvrst be he yt moves my bones"

(RIP  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)