whole of them had been withdrawn from him by the duchess. Previous to that event he had, in company with her grace and Mrs. Wraxall, opened a large chest or coffer at the top of the house (Knowle) filled with old letters and papers, of which he drew out a few, but whether anything of Shakspeare mingled with them he had never since been permitted to ascertain.
A second letter from Malone produced another from the same gentleman with slight additions to his previous report. The petition alluded to consisted of about twenty lines requesting succour for her necessities; no note is made, as on several others, whether relief was rendered; no intimation supplied whether spinster or widow; but highly probable that she was widow or wife of Gilbert Shakspeare; date of the petition he thinks 1623.
A zealous antiquary is not easily baulked on a favourite topic. Animated by hopes from the “coffer” in question, Malone induced Mr. Windham to write to Lord Whitworth, then in Paris, for information whether anything of Shakspeare had been found among its contents. The reply (March 1803) was a negative. They had withdrawn the papers he said “from the plagiaristick hands of Mr. Wraxall,” and believed they contained nothing of public interest. “For my own part I will confess to you that, from what I have seen of it, this may be comprised in a very small compass.” Wraxall, with whom some quarrel had evidently taken place, and who tells Malone that if annoyed by newspaper paragraphs from that family, he will publish the whole of the cir-
