The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1898-12-09
END OF THE BARD os AVON.
1t Is Said Shakespeare's Death Was
Ascribed to a 'Merry Meeting"
with JOnsOn and DraytOn.

with JOnsOn and DraytOn.
The work of the one hundred and
Medical society was begun on Monday
evening at the rooms of the society, in
Chandos street, by a short Introductory
address from the president, Edmund
Owen, surgeon to st. Mary's hospital,
who remarked that among the many
treasures of their library were Is vol
umes of manuscript which formed the
diary or commonplace book of Rev.
John Ward, VI. A., Dixon, who was vicar
of Stratford-on-Avon from 1862 to 1851.
Having taken his NJ. A. degree in 1862,
Ward left Oxford for London to study
anatomy at the Barber-Chyrurgeons'
hall, in Monkwell street (where DR..
Scarborough, the friend of Harvey, was
giving demonstrations, and to acquire
a general knowledge of the healing art.
Not very many years ago it was quite
usual for the professions of divinity and
medicine to be combined in the one indi-
vidual. and it was to be admitted that
of certain Wears and vicaresses, who
were unable to keep themselves from
Gabbling in parochial medicine and
quack remedies. Not few country vii
lagos still contained such unorthodoX
practitioners, who dispensed medical
advice to the peril of their too-confd
ing parishioners and often to the an
noyance of the local doctor.
But Rev. John Ward was not an en-
piric of this sort. He had worked dill
igently to acquire knowledge of the
medical profession, and was doubtless
well fitted to practice it under the Ii
cense which he probably received from
his bishop at the time that he entered
upon his clerical duties. In his diary
Ward asked himself specially to re-
member that he must study such dis
eases as are peculiar to women and also
to children, so as to be ready at them
when l come into the country" He
evidently meant to be good, all-round
man.
But the point to which Mr.. Owen spe-
cially referred was that on taking up
his work in Stratford-on-Avon in the
fOrty-siXth year after Shakespeare's
death, Ward must, both as vicar and
doctor, have been told of many facts
concerning the bard by those who had
been intimately acquainted with him.
Unfortunately he did not record much
about him in those memorandum
books; what he did say had been seized
upon by the industrious Halliwell-Phil-
lips and duly recorded in his Life of
Shakespeare"
This was one of the extracts, and,
coming as it did from highly educated
man, vino had lived in the village of the
Shakespeare, it was of undoubted BIZ
ographical value: Il nave heard that
Mr.. Shakespeare was a natural wit,
without any art at all; he frequented
the plays all his younger time. but in his
elder days lived at Stratford and sup
piled the stage with two plays every
year, and for that had an allowance so
large that he spent at the rate of 900
year"-which in those times was
very considerable amount, correspond
ing perhaps to 6 5000 or G 1000 of to-
day.
Another extract ran as follows:
shakespeare. Drayton and Ben JON
son had merry meeting, and, it seems,
drank too hard, for Shakespeare died
Of feavour there contracted" In
those times, said Mr.. Owen, it was Gus
tomary to call obscure diseases ''feav-
ours" just as they are now called lin
fluenzas" or "neuroses." but whatever
the actual cause of Shakespeare
death might have been it was evident
that local tradition ascribed it, rightly
or wrongly, to the effects of that ''mer-
~ meeting" One had only to think of
those three CHEEKY friends together,
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Dray-
ton, to be assured that it was. \ pity,
however, that Ward, unperceived, could
not have been there with his notebook.
London Chronicle.