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at the midmost period of his London career the dramatist resided in Southwark, which was then the chief centre of theatrical life. It is now placed beyond reasonable doubt that he migrated thither from St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, a district within easy walking distance of Shoreditch, which preceded Southwark as the leading theatrical quarter of London.

The third 'new' reference concerns that apparently paradoxical endeavour on the part of Shakespeare's father to obtain, when his affairs were much embarrassed, the unremunerative luxury of a coat-of-arms. It is obvious that the inspirer of the transaction, which involved an unremunerative outlay, was the dramatist, the old man's eldest son. Echoes of the storm of contempt which assailed the Heralds' College on account of its easy-going complacency in granting this and like applications are heard in the pages of Shakespeare's biography. But some manuscript indictments of the college in Shakespeare's day, which have not been hitherto known or consulted, define with greater precision than before the allegations aimed at Shakespeare's heraldic venture, and suggest more plainly its predisposing causes.