Sir Edward Greville, Sir Edward Conway, and other the said parties before named, and to the said Henry Barber . . . thereby commanding them and every of them at a certain day and under a certain pain therein to be limited to be and personally appear before your good Lordship in his Highness’ most honorable Court of Chancery, fully, perfectly, and directly to answer to all and every the premisses, and to set forth the several yearly values of the several premises so by them enjoyed, and to show good cause why a commission should not be awarded forth of the said most honorable court for the examining of witnesses to the several values aforesaid, and for the assessing, taxing and rating thereof, that thereupon it may appear how much every of the said parties . . . ought in reason proportionably to pay for the same towards the said residue of the said yearly rent of xxvij li. xiij s. iiij d. . . .
Endorsed: Lane, Greene et Shakspeare contra W. Combe et alios respondentes.
Note. This paper bears no date and is variously ascribed to the years between 1609 and 1612, but internal evidence indicates, I think, that it was drawn up between January and March, 1609. The document presents Shakespeare not only in a shrewd and foresighted, but also in a courageous and public-spirited attitude. There is little doubt that the tyrants of his native fields whom he was withstanding yielded and that an arrangement fairer to the poet and his associates was arrived at. There is an answer to the complaint by William Combe, one of the defendants, which is in conciliatory tone. He asserts that he does pay five pounds yearly as his share of the common rent on his moiety of the Old Stratford,
