As we have seen, when studying "The Merchant of
Venice," the presumption is that he looked upon saving with contempt, and
was himself freehanded to a fault. The Rev. John Ward, who was Vicar
of Stratford from 1648 to 1679, tells us "that he spent at the rate of a
thousand a year, as I have heard."
It is impossible to deny that Shakespeare got rid of a great deal of
money even after his retirement to Stratford; and men accustomed to save
are not likely to become prodigal in old age.
On the 10th March, 1613, Shakespeare bought a house in Blackfriars for
L140; the next day he executed another deed, now in the British Museum,
which stipulated that L60 of the purchase-money was to remain on
mortgage until the following Michaelmas; the money was unpaid at
Shakespeare's death, which seems to me to argue a certain carelessness,
to say the least of it.
Dryasdust makes out that Shakespeare, in the years from 1600 to 1612,
was earning about six hundred a year in the money of the period, or
nearly five thousand a year of our money, and yet he was unable or
unwilling to pay off a paltry L60.
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