The latter Part of his Life was spent, as all Men of good Sense will wish theirs may be, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends.  He had the good Fortune to gather an Estate equal to his Occasion, and, in that, to his Wish; and is said to have spent some Years before his Death at his native Stratford.  His pleasurable Wit, and good Nature, engag’d him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood.  Amongst them, it is a Story almost still remember’d in that Country, that he had a particular Intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts for his Wealth and Usury:  It happen’d, that in a pleasant Conversation amongst their common Friends, Mr. Combe told Shakespear in a laughing manner, that he fancy’d, he intended to write his Epitaph, if he happen’d to out-live him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desir’d it might be done immediately:  Upon which Shakespear gave him these four Verses.

Ten in the Hundred lies here ingrav’d, ’Tis a Hundred to Ten, his Soul is not sav’d:  If any Man ask, Who lies in this Tomb?  Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, ’tis my John-a-Combe.

But the Sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the Man so severely, that he never forgave it.

He Dy’d in the 53d Year of his Age, and was bury’d on the North side of the Chancel, in the Great Church at Stratford, where a Monument, as engrav’d in the Plate, is plac’d in the Wall.  On his Grave-Stone underneath is,

Good Friend, for Jesus sake, forbear To dig the Dust inclosed here.  Blest be the Man that spares these Stones, And Curst be he that moves my Bones.

He had three Daughters, of which two liv’d to be marry’d; Judith, the Elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three Sons, who all dy’d without Children; and Susannah, who was his Favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a Physician of good Reputation in that Country.  She left one Child only, a Daughter, who was marry’d first to Thomas Nash, Esq; and afterwards to Sir John Bernard of Abbington, but dy’d likewise without Issue.

This is what I could learn of any Note, either relating to himself or Family:  The Character of the Man is best seen in his Writings.  But since Ben Johnson has made a sort of an Essay towards it in his Discoveries, tho’, as I have before hinted, he was not very Cordial in his Friendship, I will venture to give it in his Words.