Shakespeare overheard the rendezvous,
anticipated his fellow's visit, and met Burbage on his arrival with the
jibe that "William the Conqueror came before Richard III." The lightness
is no doubt as characteristic of Shakespeare as the impudent humour.
There is another fact in Shakespeare's life which throws almost as much
light on his character as his marriage. He seems to have come to riches
very early and very easily. As we have seen, he was never able to paint
a miser, which confirms Jonson's testimony that he was "of an open and
free nature." In 1597 he went down to Stratford and bought New Place,
then in ruinous condition, but the chief house in the town, for L60; he
spent at least as much more between 1597 and 1599 in rebuilding the
house and stocking the barns with grain. In 1602 we find that he
purchased from William and John Combe, of Stratford, a hundred and seven
acres of arable land near the town, for which he paid L320; in 1605,
too, he bought for L440 a moiety of the tithes of Stratford for an
unexpired term of thirty-one years, which investment seems to have
brought him in little except a wearisome lawsuit.
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