Decline
Stow's literary labours did not prove very remunerative, but he accepted poverty in a cheerful spirit. Ben Jonson relates that once when walking with him Stow jocularly asked two mendicant cripples "what they would have to take him to their order." In March 1604 James I authorized him and his deputies to collect "amongst our loving subjects their voluntary contributions and 'kind gratuities'," and himself began "the largesse for the example of others." If the royal appeal was successful Stow did not live long to enjoy the increased comfort resulting from it. He was buried in the London church of St Andrew Undershaft, where the monument erected by his widow, a terracotta figure of him, still remains.
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