ford, quod fecit sterquinarium in vico," for making a dunghill, or muckhill, in the street against parochial ordinances; and in 1558 he was fined four pence for not keeping his gutters clean. In 1557 he was sworn an ale-taster, and he was again fined for not attending his duty. Yet he mounted up through other offices till in 1565 he was appointed an alderman, and in 1569 high bailiff, being the chief honour the corporation could bestow. He continued chief alderman till 1572, and, having removed his dunghills and cleaned out his gutters, he enjoyed his repose beneath the full honours of civic gratitude and respect. Probably in 1557 his marriage with Mary Arden took place. They are said to have had ten children. The only one we care about is thus given in the register: "1564. April 26. Gulielmus filius Johannis Shaspere." The father in 1552 lived in Henley Street, and the house where the poet was born in 1564 is supposed to be the same; though Oldys, in his MS. Notes on Langbaine, says that it is recorded that he was born near the churchyard, which is at a considerable distance; and others assert that the Brook House was his birth-place. The matter is, we think, rather doubtful; the vane of tradition shifts about, and points to different quarters; but it is as well to settle down to something fixed and stable, and not to be buffeted about by windy suspicions and eternal dubiosities. The house is now purchased for some considerable pounds of gold, and that concludes the matter. We have nothing whatever to do with George Badger, or the heirs male of his body; but certainly in 1597 they purchased for two pounds a portion of this Henley Street property,-"messuagium sive tenementum cum pertinentiis."*

The affairs of John Shakspere, in the latter part of his life, were not prosperous; he was for ever in the law courts; busy in actions and replevins. There are four pages of cases respecting him in the registry of the Court of Record; till at length the leeches of the law had sucked the good man dry for in Jan. 19, 1586, we read "quod prædictus Johannes Shackspere nihil habet unde distringi potest;" and in the next year Mr. Halliwell observes that "we can conclude with tolerable certainty that he was in custody, or imprisoned for debt." How he came into these afflictions and adversities no evidence is given. We should guess that probably an attorney + had settled in the town at the time; for in 1565 he was in good case, gave twelve pence to the poor of the parish, and again six pence, and again eight pence. This last was on account of the Plague, which visited Stratford in 1564.

"Thus (says Mr. Halliwell) infectious pestilence surrounded the dwelling of the child whose duty it was to place English literature on the summit of all literature, and to be a chief agent in the future mental advancement of his race. Thou

sands yet unborn will breathe their fervent thanks that the lowly roof in Henley Street was one of the favoured spots where the hand of the destroying angel was stayed."

*If anything could prove that there was no settled orthography of proper names at that time, it surely would be the extracts here given, all of which belong to the reign of Mary and Elizabeth; and here the name is spelt Shakyspere, Shakysper, Shakispere, Shakespere, Shakspeyr, Shakesper, Shakspere, Shackspere, Shaxper, Shaxpeare, Shaxkspere, Shaxpere, Shaxberd, Sackesper, and Shagspere. Upon the whole, Shagsberd carries the day, which we earnestly recommend to the new catalogue of the British Museum. REV.

The wisdom and prudence of our ancestors limited the number of these gentlemen by law. We read in Hume that there were only six allowed for the whole county of Norfolk,-a county, says Fuller, where men studied law while following the plough-tail, and Norfolk wiles" became as proverbial as "Suffolk stiles."-Rev.

True for had there been no Shakspere (sc. Shaxsper) there would have been no commentators, and about six-and-twenty gentlemen would have lived and died in vain, finding nothing upon earth to do!

William Shakepere or Shakspere, junior, whom we had nearly forgotten, was now fourteen, A.D. 1578.

"Dates," says the biographer, "are now important; for Rowe tells us, he had bred him for some time at a free school, where, it is possible, he had acquired what Latin he was master of; but the narrowness of his circumstances and the want of his assistance at home forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language.' This statement is well confirmed by the evidence I am about to submit to the reader's careful attention.

Perhaps the word forced should be written induced. John Shakspere's circumstances began to fail him when William was about fourteen, and he then withdrew him from the parish school for the purpose of obtaining his assistance in his agricultural pursuits. The entries in the registry of the Court of Record shew that John Shakspere's transactions were numerous, necessarily requiring constant vigilance and attention."

Mr. Halliwell then gives a notice from the corporation records on the subject of defensive preparations made for the security of the country, in which Mr. Shakspere is a defaulter to the amount of three shillings and four pence, together with his neighbours, George Badger, already noticed, and Hugh Pyggin; but what is most worthy of notice in this matter is, that, though this extract consists only of about a dozen lines, Mr. Malone has made no less than thirty-one errors, and Mr. Knight, professing to see the value of accuracy on such matters, and to correct his predecessors, falls into twenty-six more, being at the rate consequently of one error for every three words!! O! criticorum gens perfida! may we well cry out. Our confidence in them is gone utterly! and as Lord Chatham says, "confidence is a plant of slow growth," we think it will be not likely to be soon restored. In 1578 and 1579, John Shakspere was mortgaging and selling away in a spendthrift manner; we hope Shakspere junior was not at the bottom of all this, but we have our fears; however, he sold some property in Snitterfield, "cum sexta parte duarum partium duorum mesuagiorum, duorum gardinorum, duorum pomariorum, lx. acrarum terræ, x acrarum prati, et xxx acrarum jampnorum et bruerum, cum pertinentiis," &c.

As regards the repayment of the mortgages due to Lambert, and the result of the chancery suit, as given in p. 60 to 64, nothing determinate of the matter seems to have been advanced. Mr. Collier conjectures on one side, and Mr. Halliwell on the other, et parmi les conjectures la vérité s'echappe. In 1586 he was deprived of his aldermanic gown for nonattendance at the meetings of the corporation. In 1532 he may be seen engaged in the occupation of making inventories of the goods of persons deceased, a task which, the old law books say, should be performed by "four credible men, or more." Mr. Collier has quoted a MS. in the State Paper Office, of importance, relating to this period. In a return from Sir Thomas Lucy and other commissioners, appointed to make inquiries respecting jesuits, priests, and recusants in Warwickshire, dated 25 Sept. 34 Eliz. 1592, in the return from Stratford, occurs a very curious notice of John Shakspere, implying that he was at that time in pecuniary difficulties, not attending the church for fear of a process for debt, his name appearing among the recusants who do not come monthly to church, according to his Majesty's laws. About this time John Shakspere the shoemaker again appears, but is summarily dismissed, and a Roger Shakspere presents himself for the first time under the character of informer

against Cutberd Temple. Manifold as were the pecuniary troubles that afflicted John Shakspere, and quite sufficient, we think, to induce his son to guard against a like calamity, and to secure himself from similar wants and embarrassments, yet there is nothing to show that he ever parted with the two freehold houses in Henley Street, one of which is still regarded as the poet's birth-place; on his death they descended to his son William, and are mentioned in a commission of the Exchequer Court in 1590.

"Johannes Shaspere tenet libere unum tenementum cum pertinentiis per redd. per annum, vid. sect. cur.

"Idem Johannes tenet libere unum tene't. cum pertinentiis per redd. per annum, xiiid. sect. cur."

In 1596, he applied to the Heralds' College for a grant of arms; and Malone, Mr. Collier, and Mr. Halliwell, all agree that this attempt to make John Shakspere a gentleman originated with his son William." This is all guess work; for it might with equal reason be supposed to proceed from the paternal desire to give his son a more advantageous entrée into the world. There are two drafts of the intended grant of 1596 and one of 1599 preserved in the College of Arms; the latter may be seen in p. 79 of the present work. He did not long enjoy his honours, for his heraldic falcon drooped her flagging wings over his grave in September 1601. Mr. Halliwell says, "It would have pleased us better had we found Shakspere raising monuments to his parents in the venerable pile which now covers his remains ;" but Shakspere knew better than to inform the world unnecessarily about himself and family; or to talk to Lord Southampton or Lord Pembroke about his father the glover or his cousin the sutor, or even about Roger the informer. It was a singular and fortunate ambiguity of phrase that enabled Horne Tooke to tell his schoolfellows that his father (the poulterer) was a Turkey merchant. Mr. Halliwell has taken very praiseworthy pains to persuade his readers that John Shakspere the shoemaker was not John Shakspere the glover, or as the German has it, that a maker of hand-shoes was a different man from the fabricator of footshoes, and we are inclined to think he is quite correct in his suppositions. After entering into some necessary particulars on the subject, he says ;—

"Bearing in mind the very humble station and circumstances of this John Shakspere, the rent of his house being only twelve shillings, and appearing in every way a very obscure person, the period of his residence at Stratford moreover being brought within very narrow limits, and it being clearly seen he obtained no rank in the corporation, is it necessary that the un

fortunate identity of name with Shakspere's father should any longer be a hinderance to our researches respecting the latter? It need be so in reality in very few cases. The parish register makes a distinction between them. MR. John Shakspere being the ex-bailiff, John Shakspere being the shoemaker."

As the history of the father now closes, that of the son begins; but unfortunately more than a century elapsed before any one committed to paper any intelligence on the subject. His contemporaries and immediate. successors, who alone could have told much, passing away without suspecting how earnest would be the curiosity of posterity. Aubrey (Mr. Britton's Aubrey) was the first; and about the year 1680 he made his memoranda on the subject. Aubrey was omnivorous, and opened his mouth to receive all kinds of food that offered; but there is something in his account of Shakspere that looks like truth: he asserts that Shakspere when a boy exercised the trade of a butcher, and Mr. Halliwell says,

"It is a singular circumstance that the parish clerk of Stratford in 1693, a man then 80 years old, asserted that Shakspere was bound apprentice to that trade, and when he killed a calf he would do it in high style, and make a speech; and this is corroborated by the testimony of Mr. Doudall, a native of Stratford, who in

1693 addressed a small treatise, in form of a letter, to Mr. Edward Southwell, in which he asserts that Shakspere was formerly in this town bound apprentice to a butcher; but that he ran from his master to London, and there was received into the playhouse,'" &c.

Mr. Halliwell acknowledges the confusion of all these varying accounts -the Latin education-the apprenticeship to the butcher-the application for armorial bearings. Something is evidently wrong, the critical pack are at fault, and the only solution is that, finding his family in difficulties and distress, Shakspere junior ran away from home, to be "faber suæ fortunæ," and try his hand at the playhouse.

There is little doubt but that Shakspere was educated at the free school at Stratford, and Latin was as certainly taught at all the free schools in the kingdom, which became so numerous that a petition was sent up to reduce their number; but we do not believe that Greek was to be learnt there, and Greek is not a language to be casually picked up in after-life, like a living one.

"That he was acquainted (says Mr. Halliwell) with Italian, sufficiently appears from a very curious entry relating to Twelfth Night in Wrangham's Diary, 1602, and I know not whether it has been observed that the name of one of his characters, Pistol, is taken from the Italian pistolfo, translated by Florio, ed. 1611, p. 384, a roguing beggar, a cant

ler, an upright man that liveth by cosenage.' There can be no reasonable doubt of the fact that Shakspere was a well informed man; but there is a strong probability in favour of Rowe's assertion, that he was removed from school before he had attained a great proficiency in the learned languages."

We think this might have been a little more definite. With Greek it is very improbable that he was at all acquainted. Latin he must in some degree have known, if he was educated at a grammar school; but in after life Shakspere acquired knowledge for the purposes of applying it to the purpose of dramatic instruction: he had to study the living volume of nature, as much as the dead book of language; no doubt that his reading was as necessary as his observation; one often supplied him with the outline and framework, which the other filled up; but the "learned languages," even if once acquired, can only be preserved by constant application; or, if long forsaken or only casually referred to, can only be recovered with difficulty disproportioned to the expected advantage.

We quite agree with Mr. Halliwell that Shakspere may have imbibed an early love of the drama from the exhibition of dramatic performances in his native town, which were encouraged by the authorities. The first companies who had the honour of publicly exhibiting their plays in the hall were so favoured when John Shakspere was bailiff in 1569, William being then four years of age, and in all likelihood a spectator of the performance. They were there also in 1573 and 1576, and from that period constantly to 1587.

"In the year last mentioned occur two notices of the Queen's Players, a company to which Shakspere is known to have belonged in Nov. 1589, and we may submit, with considerable probability, that he was connected with it in the former year. I do not know whether the possible cirGENT. MAG. VOL. XXIX.

cumstance of his having previously joined one or more of the travelling provincial bodies of comedians has been ever noticed by any of his biographers; but there has been from time immemorial a tradition preserved at Leicester that Shakspere performed in the Guildhall of that city. 30

Certain it is, that Leicester was a favourite town with our early actors, and Mr. Thompson of that city informs us, that

staples in the beams of the old hall are still pointed out as having been used by them for suspending their scenery."

Mr. Halliwell has concluded his conjectures by extracts from the account books of the chamberlain still preserved at Stratford, shewing the entries of payments made to different companies of players-as the Queen's, the Marquis of Worcester's, the Earl of Leycester's, my Lord of Warwicke's, Lord Bartlite's, Lord Shandowes' (Chandos,) and others, all which, together with other entries relating to pottles of claret, quarts of sacke, and quarters of sugar, besides muscadine at the eating of the doe, and pippins, and beer, and morris-dancers, all by the order of the mayor, prove that Stratford must have been a sort of terra damnata in the judgment of the godly Puritans; a cage of unclean birds to all the faithful brotherhood around, and verily an abomination to the righteous. When he was eighteen years of age, Shakspere walked over to the village of Shottery, and made love to a Mistress Anne Hathaway, who dwelt in a cottage which still exists, and of which Mr. Halliwell has favoured us with a sketch; but whether he means the female figure in front of it for the lovely Anne, we cannot say. She accepted him, and the marriage was celebrated in the summer of 1582. The bond, given at the marriage, (which is still preserved at Worcester,) appears to Mr. Collier to shew that the whole proceeding indicated haste and secrecy." The place where the ceremony took place does not appear; but it is known that the respective families were previously acquainted: a learned gentleman of our acquaintance has arrived at the conclusion, looking at the signatures to the bond by Messrs. Sandels and Richardson, that they might, perchance, have been two parish constables appointed to see that the youthful lover performed his contract. Mr. Halliwell avers that they could not write their names, but then he adds that Shakspere's father could not, nor could any of the principal inhabitants of Stratford write their names, so that it was high time to have grammar schools. He says Richardson was a substantial farmer, and Fowlke Sandalls a kind of appraiser and accountant.

There are certain circumstances relating to this marriage which, out of our great respect to Anne Hathaway, spinster, we do not intend to touch upon, but which has made it necessary for Mr. Halliwell to rest much on the force and power of a contract and betrothment between the parties previous to marriage, by and through which Anne Hathaway's fair fame will come clear out of the furnace of all evil report. To the fact of a contract, though powerless in law, yet prevailing in conscience, possessing a very soft and soothing influence on the female mind, we can give the testimony of our professional experience; but we must not let this portion of the history pass without another quotation. Anne Hathaway, as appears from her monumental inscription in Stratford Church, was born in the year 1556, and was therefore eight years older than her husband (she was in her 27th year). With this fact in view, and relying on very uncertain personal allusions in his plays and sonnets, it has been conjectured that Shakspere's marriage was not productive of domestic happiness. For this opinion not a fragment of direct evidence has been produced; and on equally potent grounds might we prove him to have been jealous, or in fact to have been in his own person the actual representation of all the passions he describes in the persons of his characters. "But his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be layd in the same grave with him," as the clerk informed