that John and Mary Shakespeare had ten children; and he attributes to the circumstance of their being burdened with so large a family the father's inability to afford the poet a better education than his own employment. Rowe's mistake arose from his confounding the children of another John Shakespeare then living at Stratford with those of the father of the dramatist. The second John Shakespeare was a shoemaker, and in no way connected with our John Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is generally believed to have been born at the house in Henley Street, still preserved, where his father resided during the whole of his Stratford life. While yet an infant, his native town was desolated by the plague, which broke out there with such fearful virulence, that in the short space of six months it swept away one-seventh of the inhabitants. "A poetical enthusiast will find no difficulty in believing that, like Horace, he reposed secure and fearless in the midst of contagion and death, protected by the Muses, to whom his future life was to be devoted—
' Sacra
Lauroque, collatâque myrto,
Non sine diis animosus infans.' "—Malone.
Strange to say, this is almost the only fact of importance connected with Shakespeare and his birth-place at that time which has come down to us. The keenest curiosity and the most untiring diligence, have failed to recover for us a single authenticated particular in his own history, from the day of his baptism to the period, eighteen years later, when he led Anne Hathaway to the altar. That his parents availed themselves of the free grammar-school at Stratford to furnish him with the general rudiments of education, and that there he acquired the "small Latin and less Greek," which in after years Ben Jonson ascribed to him, is hardly to be doubted. The masters of this school, from 1572 to 1578, during which period Shakespeare, if at all, may be presumed to have been a scholar there, were Thomas Hunt and Thomas Jenkins. To these gentlemen his early history must have been well known. Did they leave no record, no memorial of the youthful life of a man afterwards so famous? Aubrey, in his pleasant gossiping manuscripts (Mus. Ashmol. Oxon.), relates, on the authority of a Mr. Beeston, that Shakespeare understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country. From this statement it has been conjectured, with no violation of probability, that he was employed by the master of the school at one time, monitorially, in the tuition of the lesser boys.
There was a custom prevalent in provincial towns in those days which ought not to be forgotten, since it is likely to have exercised an important influence upon the poet's subsequent career. This was the practice of giving theatrical performances at the cost of the municipal body. The usage appears to have been that when a company of players entered a country town they waited on the mayor or bailiff, as the case might be, and telling him to what nobleman they belonged, begged permission to act publicly in the place. If the magistrate were taken with the actors, or were desirous to show respect to the lord in whose service they were employed, he bespoke and paid for the first play, the townsfolk being privileged to witness it gratuitously. The entries in the chamberlain's accounts at Stratford prove that itinerant players were frequent in their visits there; and it is noticeable that the first reference to theatrical performances occurs in 1569, the year when John Shakespeare was bailiff of the town. The entry in question is—"1569, paied to the Quenes players, 9s. Item, for the Quenes provysion, 3s. 4d. Item, to the Erie of Worcester's players, 12d." There are many similar entries in the same accounts down to the period when it is supposed William Shakespeare left the place. That he was a charmed observer of these entertainments who can doubt? That they, as well as the world-famed Coventry pageants, which he must have been present at with his father, may have had much to do in determining the bent of his surpassing genius, it would be irrational to deny. Bishop Percy, indeed, delighted to imagine that he was a spectator of the "princely pleasures" which the great favourite, Leicester, welcomed his royal mistress with at Kenilworth in 1575; and as Shakespeare was then eleven years of age, and Stratford not more than a dozen miles distant, there is nothing extravagant in the supposition. The opinion of Malone, that after Shakespeare was withdrawn from the grammar-school he spent some time in an attorney's office, has gained many adherents of late years. There is a passage, too, in the epistle of Thomas Nash, prefixed to Green's Menaphon 1589, which is thought to have been directly aimed at our poet and his early occupation in the law:—"It is a common practice now-a-dayes, amongst a sort of shifting companions, that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of noverint whereto they were borne, and busie themselves with the indevours of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good sentences, as Bloud is a beggar, and so forth; and if you intreate him faire in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls of tragical speeches." By "English Seneca" Nash points, we presume, to Seneca's Ten Tragedies, translated by various hands, and published in 1581; but our labour in the often perusal of these monotonous productions has not been rewarded by the discovery of the passage he cites, although we have no doubt, from many expressions in them, that they were familiar to Shakespeare. There is one objection to Malone's theory which is entitled to consideration, in the fact that the late Mr. Wheler of Stratford, taking advantage of the opportunities afforded him as a solicitor, examined hundreds of local deeds of Shakespeare's time, and could never find his signature to one of them.
Leaving for a moment the region of conjecture and probabilities, in 1582, or thereabouts, we come upon an all-important and undoubted incident in the poet's life—his marriage. About the year just mentioned we have pretty clear evidence that he took to wife Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a yeoman in the neighbouring hamlet of Shottery. The evidence in question consists not of the register of the marriage, or the name of the church where the ceremony was performed, for neither has ever been discovered; it is a bond, brought to light by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1833, from the registry at Worcester, by which two husbandmen, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, bind themselves in £40 for the security of the bishop on his granting license for the solemnization of marriage between "William Shakspere and Anne Hathway," with only once asking of the banns. The date is November 28th—25th of Elizabeth, 1582—and the conditions of the obligation are thus expressed:—"That if hereafter there shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment, by reason of any precontract, consanguinitie, affinitie, or by any other lawfull means whatsoever, but that William Shagspere the one partie, and Anne Hathwey, of Stratford, in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solennize matrimony together, and in the same afterwards remaine and continew like man and wiffe, according unto the lawes in that behalf provided: and moreover, if there be not at this present time any action, sute, quarrel, or demaund, moved or depending before any judge, ecclesiastical or temporal, for and concerning any suche lawfull lett or impediment: and moreover, if the said William Shagspere do not proceed to solemnization of marriadg with the said Anne Hathwey, without the consent of her frinds: and also if the said William do upon his owne proper costs and expenses defend and save harmles the Right Reverend Father in God, Lord John Bushop of Worcester, and his offycers, for licensing them, the said William and Anne, to be married together with once asking of the bannes of matrimony between them, and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion thereof; that then the said obligation to be void and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in full force and vertue." This is certainly a remarkable instrument. It is generally supposed to be connected with the fact, that before the 26th of May following, Shakespeare's wife presented him with a daughter; but it may also in some way relate to the mysterious entry which we find in the Stratford register of marriages three years before:—"January 12, 1578-9. William Wilsonne and Anne Hathaway of Shotterye." In any case it is at variance with the pleasant fancies which the bridal of such a man would naturally elicit. At the time of these nuptials the lady must have been eight years older than her spouse; but as she was born before any register of the special religious offices performed in the parish of Stratford was kept, we have no record of her baptism. She is conjectured to have been the daughter of Richard Hathaway, whose family have held property in Shottery from the middle of the sixteenth century to the present day. The offspring of this union were a daughter, Susanna, who was born in May, 1583, and a boy and girl, twins, named Hamnet and Judith, whose baptism took place on the 2nd of February, 1584-5. The received impression among those who have busied themselves with his biography is, that Shakespeare left Strat-
