William Shack-speyr, player.”  About the same time Ben Jonson wrote to Dick Craven at Canterbury:  “Andrew Wilwhite hath been with us amid great cheer and merriment, the same being that he saith he was the one that discovered our master, Will Shackpur, and that I do for a verity believe, for that Shakspur is vastly beholden unto him, and speaketh of him as he were a twin-brother or one by some great office bounden unto him.”

Wilwhite went on Shakespeare’s bond in 1604, in certain property transfers involving what was then regarded as a considerable sum of money.  The same year an infant Shakespeare was named after Wilwhite, the second daughter in the family having already been christened Elizabeth Wilwhite.  From 1605 up to the time of the poet’s death, eleven years later, nearly every issue of The Tidings bristled with friendly notices of “our eminent townsman,” “our world-famed Shakespeare,” and “our immortal poet.”  Shakespeare lived in Stratford those last years; he was well-to-do; he had prospered, and his last days were passed serenely.  The musty files of that rurally candid little paper bear pleasing testimony to the Arcadian simplicity of the noble bard’s declining years.  They tell us with severe brevity of the trifling duties and recreations that engaged the poet.  We learn that “a new and handsome front gate has been put up on the premises of our famous Shakspear”; that “our honored townsman-poet hath graciously contributed three-and-sixpence toward the mending of the town pump”; that “a gloom hath been cast over the entire community by the bone-felon upon Mr. Shaikspur’s left thumb”; that “our immortal Shakespeere hath well discharged the onerous offices of road-overseer for the year past”; that “our sweete friend, Will Shakespear, will go fishing for trouts to-morrow with his good gossip, Ben Jonson, that hath come to be his guest a little season”; that “Master W. Shackspur hath a barrow that upon the slaughtering did weigh 400 weight”; that “the laylocks in the Shaxpur yard being now in bloom filleth the air with delectable smells, whereby the poet is mightily joyed in that he did plant and nurture the same,” etc., etc.

“Sweet were those declining years,” writes the essayist; “sweet in their homely moderate delights, sweet in their wholesome employments, sweet in their peacefulness and repose.  But sweeter and holier yet were they in the loyalty of a friendship that, covering a long period of endeavor, of struggle and adversity, survived to illumine and to glorify, as it has been a quenchless flame, the evening of the poet’s life.  An o’erturned stone, upon which the ivy seeks to hide the ravages which time has made, marks the spot where Wilwhite sleeps the last gracious sleep of humanity.  Now and again wayfarers, straying thence, wonder whose dust it is that mingles with the warmth of Mother Earth beneath that broken tablet.  And while they wonder there amid the hush, which only the music of the birds profanes, and with the fragrance of wild flowers all around, love is fulfilled and loyalty perfected; for beyond the compass of years they that wrought together and were true abide in sweet companionship eternally.”

  EUGENE FIELD. 
  May 20th, 1891.