[Pontiac]

He wasn’t a very nice man in many ways – it’s always very shocking, that. The late Shakespeare was hoarding grain and buying up property in Stratford – it was not terribly attractive.”

Spoken like a true Marxist.

He was investing in real estate and grain futures. He was a (gasp) capitalist!!!

[Little Bill]

I had family several miles down the Avon, who were hording grain, buying property, and charging high interest. They were rather High Church though.

[Cronos]

I'm not so sure about the goodness of hoarding grain, but then I need to read on whether there was food shortages, on whether Will actually DID this (concrete proof) and on whether he did this for his own extended family as well (remember that until the 1800s folks who "made it" would support their extended families and poorer relatives too.

About real estate buying -- come on, a guy writing plays probably thought that he never knew when the money would dry up, whereas if you had land, you could always have some money or goods coming in -- that's how the nobility had survived and quite frankly how most survived in the pre-Industrial era. What was wrong with him buying up property to ensure his and his descendents future?