" Rowe, too,
tells us that it is a story "well remembered in that country, that he
had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted
thereabouts for his wealth and usury; it happened that in a pleasant
conversation amongst their common friends Mr. Combe told Shakespeare, in
a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if
he happened to outlive him; and since he did not know what might be said
of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately; upon
which Shakespeare 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 him."
I have given all this because I want the reader to have the sources
before him, and because the contempt of tradesman-gain and usury, even
at the very end, is so characteristic.
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