He was in love with the ideal and
would not confine it to any country.
There is little to tell of his life after he met Mary Fitton, or rather
the history of his life afterwards is the history of his passion and
jealousy and madness as he himself has told it in the great tragedies.
He appears to have grown fat and scant of breath when he was about
thirty-six or seven. In 1608 his mother died, and "Coriolanus" was
written as a sort of monument to the memory of "the noblest mother in
the world." His intimacy with Mary Fitton lasted, I feel sure, up to his
breakdown in 1608 or thereabouts, and was probably the chief cause of
his infirmity and untimely death.
It only remains for me now to say a word or two about the end of his
life. Rowe says that "the latter part of his life was spent as all men
of good sense will that 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.
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