sted to him for carriage. As your wife hath not the gift of
writing, she does desire that I convey to you her thanks for the
sundry contents of the hamper. She hath also confided to me as her
spiritual adviser that she did diligently ply John Naps with
questions as to his visit to you in London, and that said John Naps,
under her interrogatories, has revealed to her much that doth make
her sick at heart and weary of life.

_Item_. He doth report that you do pass among men as a bachelor,
and, with sundry players and men of that ilk, do frequent a house of
entertainment kept by one Doll Tearsheet, and do kiss the barmaid
and call her your sweetheart.

_Item_. He doth also report that you did give to the daughter of the
publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and
did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her
lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with the said damsel.

_Item_. He doth further report of you that you did visit, with one
Ben Jonson, on the Sabbath-day, a place of disrepute, where were
cock-fights and the baiting of a bear, and that with you were two
brazen women, falsely called by you the wife and sister of Ben
Jonson.

These things do overmuch grieve Anne, who hath been to you a loyal
wife and a true, and she desires that you do forthwith renounce your
evil ways and return to the new house at Stratford, and in ashes and
sackcloth repent of your wanderings from the straight and narrow
way.

Thus far have I spoken to you as the mouthpiece and vicegerent of
Anne, your wife, who is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason
of your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my flock, I should be
unworthy my high and sacred calling did I not lift up also my
rebuking voice as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you to
beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, which unceasingly do war
upon the human soul. Thinkest thou to touch pitch and remain
undefiled?

The next letter is from the firm of Coke &
Dogberry, lawyers in London.

INNER TEMPLE, March 8, 1609.

To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:

We have been retained by Mistress Anne Page as her solicitors to
bring against you an action, for that you have not fulfilled and in
sooth cannot fulfil with her a contract of marriage, and to seek
against you under the laws of this r