playing as aforesaid, or be adjudged uncapable or unfitt to Act as aforesaid, or shall dye, which of them shall first happen, shall be freed and discharged of and from all debts and sumes of money contracted, borrowed, or taken up, or at any tyme or tymes hereafter to be contracted, borrowed, or taken up, for the use of the said Company in relacōn to their acting or playing as aforesaid.

And that they, the said Thomas Killigrew, Robert Lewryght, John Dryden, Charles Hart, Michaell Mohun, John Lacy, William Wintershall, William Cartwright, Robert Shatterall, and Edward Kynaston, and the Survivors and Survivor, shall and will from tyme to tyme, and at all tymes from and after such notice given, or such adjudging uncapable or unfitt, or such dyeing, which of them shall happen, save and keepe harmlesse and indemnified the said Nicholas Burt, his executors and administrators respectively, from and against all such debts and sumes of money, and all bonds, contracts, and securities, of what nature soever, given, entered into, or made by the said Nicholas Burt, as one of the said Company, by himselfe alone, or together with any other or others of the said Company, for the same or for any other matter or thing relating to the said Company. The Covenants herein and in the said recyted Indenture conteyned on the part and behalfe of the said Nicholas Burt, his Executors and administrators, to be performed and kept alwayes excepted.

In witnesse whereof, the parties to these presentes have to the same interchangably sett their handes and seales the day and yeare first above written, &c.

I have already alluded to the Prologue by Dryden on the opening of the house, and I may add that the Epilogue on the same occasion was by him also, and both may be seen in the ordinary editions of his works. I am in possession, however, of several prologues and epilogues by the same great

poet, which are not included in any impression of his plays or poems, and are not mentioned by Malone in his Life of Dryden. One or two of these are in print, having been sold as broadsides at the doors of the theatre, while others are in manuscript; and for the next volume of "The Shakespeare Society's Papers" I will have copies of them made, that they may be preserved in a more permanent form, than when they are in the hands of a private individual, and necessarily exposed to the danger of being mislaid or destroyed. I have never been afflicted with that species of literary avarice which would prevent the publication of valuable relics of the kind, in order that the owner might have the credit (or discredit I would call it) of exclusive possession. In some cases this is the only chance of celebrity for such persons, and they are the true "swine with rings of gold in their snowts:" they just know that they own something valuable, but in what its value consists most of them are utterly ignorant.

Kensington, January 16, 1849.

J. PAYNE COLLIER.

PS. Hart and Mohun were actors before the suppression of the Stage in 1647, so that they belong to the period to which the illustrations of the Shakespeare Society usually apply.

ART. XIX.-Will of Samuel Daniel, the poet, Shakespeare's rical and contemporary.

It has been, I think, fortunate for the illustration of our earlier literature, and the lives and writings of many of Shakespeare's eminent contemporaries, that the objects of the Society which bears the name of our greatest poet are not confined to his life and works alone, but that the funds of the Society are occasionally spent in printing (when there is lack of real Shakesperian matter) such new facts and materials, illustrative of the poets and poetry of his period, as the industry of its members can bring to light. The works of the Society contain occasionally so much that is curious on points of literary and biographical importance, that I am willing to hope the copy of the unpublished document which I now enclose (the will of no less a poet than Samuel Daniel) may not be thought out of place if inserted in some future volume of the "Shakespeare Society's Papers."

[From the original in the Will Office of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.]

T. SAMUELIS In the name of God, Amen! I, Samuell DANYELL Danyel, sick in bodie, but well in mynde, make heer my last will and testament.

First, I comitt my soule unto God, trusting to be saved by the pretious bloud and deathe of my Redemer, Jesus Christe; and my body to the earth, to be interred in the parishe church where I dye.

Item, I bequeathe to my sister, Susan Bowre, one feather bed, and wth the furniture thearto belonging, and such lynnen as I shall leave at my house at Ridge.

Item, I bequeathe to Samuell Bowre x".

Item, to Joane Bowre x.

Item, to Susan Bowre x1.

Item, to Mary Bowre, x1.

For the disposing of all other things, I referre them to my faithfull brother, John Danyel, whome I here ordaine my sole executor, to whose care and conscience I comitt the performance thereof,

And I likewise appoynt and ordayne my loving friend, Mr. Simon Waterson, and my brother in lawe, John Phillipps, to be overseers of this my last will and testament, whereunto I have set my hand and seal. Dated the 4th daye of September, 1619.

SAMUEL DANYEL.

Witnesses of this my last will and testament:

Umphery Aldemes mark.

William x Wheatlyes mark.

The original will is written on one side of a sheet of foolscap paper, and signed by the poet himself, in a neat but rather tremulous hand, "Samuel Danyel." The words "Witnesses of this my last will and testament," are also in the poet's handwriting. His brother and executor, John Daniel, superintended the publication of the poet's works in 1623; and the volume, and it is a very handsome one, was published by Simon Waterson, the poet's "loving friend," and one of the overseers of his will. "Ridge," where the poet's house was, is a hamlet in the parish of Beckington, in Somersetshire. The church of Beckington contains a monument to his memory, erected at the expense of the famous Anne Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery, to whom he had been tutor.

Daniel held the appointment of Master of the Revels to Anne of Denmark, queen of James I. Shakespeare and Drayton were candidates for this appointment at the same time with Daniel; and in the interesting letter to the Lord Keeper Egerton, which Mr. Collier's industry brought to light, the new Master of the Revels observes to his patron,

by whose influence he no doubt obtained the appointment, that "the authour of playes now daylie presented on the public stages of London, and the possessor of no`small gaines, and moreover himselfe an actor in the King's Company of Comedians, could not with reason pretend to be Master of the Queen's Majesty's Revels, forasmuch as he would sometimes be asked to approve and allow of his owne writings."1 This author was Shakespeare.

Kensington, February 1, 1849.

PETER CUNNINGHAM.

1 "New Facts regarding the Life of Shakespeare," p. 48, 12mo., 1835.

END OF VOL. IV.