Beaumont and Fletcher, published 1647. The publisher assures the reader, truly or falsely, that he knew which plays were the work of Fletcher unaided, but would not tell; while the dramatist Shirley contributed an "Address to the Reader," couched in hyperbolical praise of his deceased friend's works, but added no word concerning the friend himself. Aubrey was the first man, in England or elsewhere, who systematically raked out personal particulars of remarkable personages, recording that Milton got up at four in summer, but at five in winter, and that Hobbes wore Spanish leather boots laced up at the sides with black ribbon. And in Aubrey's generation a curiosity about Shakespeare arose, sufficiently strong to make the greatest actor of the age journey as far as Stratford-on-Avon to learn his life-story. But he went too late. Half a century earlier such a pilgrimage as Betterton's would have ensured us a full biography of the poet. Now we must satisfy our longings with a meagre repast upon the crumbs left by Aubrey and a few others, whose frequent contradictions justify doubts of their authority. Too many writers have added suppositions, dovetailing their own fancies into the original accounts, to construct if possible a symmetrical edifice in which all unlovely details are obscured. This biography will endeavour to escape from the tangled growth of hypothesis and assumption to the firm open ground of recorded fact; the suggestions I have to make (as the almost certain omission of the word under in Aubrey's account), are given as suggestions only; nor do I build any theory on the fact, hitherto unremarked, that it is in his later works only, that Shakespeare shows intimate knowledge of the sea.

The difficulties, and the unjustifiable assumptions, begin with Shakespeare's parentage, nay even his ancestry. Even his name is capable of 4,000 variations of spelling. But we know certainly that the poet's father was John Shakespeare, who had married Mary Arden. It is probable that John was a son of Richard Shakespeare, a farmer established in 1528 at Snitterfield, where he died in 1560-1. Some years previously, by 1552 at latest, John' had settled in Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon. In 1556 he purchased two houses, one of them in Henley Street, and for about twenty years was a leading citizen of the little town, passing through various civic offices till in 1568 he became bailiff, or. mayor; and in 1571 was chief alderman. Then from some unrecorded cause, probably financial difficulties, his interest in municipal affairs waned; his attendances were rarer and more rare till

"He was a merry-cheeked old man," according to some very random memoranda made by Archdeacon Plume in 1656.

they ceased altogether, and in 1586 another alderman was chosen in his place. He had fallen into poverty.

Absolutely nothing is known of John or Mary Shakespeare, beyond the records in legal, municipal, or parochial documents. Theories of his unpractical character balanced by her shrewd common-sense are absolutely gratuitous; the facts equally justify a belief that she was a foolish woman, whose extravagance prevented his prospering. He apparently had a liking for municipal work, but that liking does not necessarily denote aptitude for personal profit. What is certainly recorded of John Shakespeare tells us that he, after his downfall, frequently appeared in the local court either as plaintiff or defendant; that he dealt in all kinds of agricultural produce, and is often described as a "glover." In 1575 he was still able to buy two more houses, one of them probably what is now shown as the "Birthplace," adjoining the one bought in 1556. Soon afterwards the tide of his affairs, for some unknown reason, turned to ebb; and for nearly twenty years he was continually in low water. The first proof of his poverty was his inability in 1578 to pay fourpence weekly poor-rate, and his contribution to the trainbands. He had then at least five children living; one died in 1579, but another arrived next year.

On November 14, 1578, John mortgaged his wife's property Asbies to her brother-in-law, Edmund Lambert, of Barton-on-theHeath; and in the following October sold her Snitterfield reversions. Next year the Shakespeares rallied a little, and wished to recover Asbies, but Lambert had lent them money, and required all the debts or none. In 1585-7 and 1591 there were repeated and profitless writs of distraint issued against the penniless glover; and in 1592 he was presented as a recusant, with a note that his absence from public worship was probably due to "fear of process for debt." John Shakespeare in his turn pursued any debtors relentlessly, evidently having as good a memory as Strepsiades for the debts owed to him, however forgetful he might be of the debts he owed other people. But in 1595 a sudden change came. March 9 he was, jointly with a chandler and a butcher, sued for a debt of £5; his own calling is not mentioned. After the first hearing his name was omitted from the suit, and never appeared again.

On

Relief from his long distress had come. In 1596 he applied for a grant of arms, claiming that the "pattern" had been given him, by Clarenceux, when he was bailiff; the claim was admitted, and a note in the document declares that the applicant was worth £500 in lands and tenements. In 1599 the claim was renewed; John Shakespeare asked for an exemplification of the coat assigned

him in 1568, and also for an impalement of the arms borne by the great family of Warwickshire Ardens. Garter King-of-Arms, in conjunction with Clarenceux, the antiquary Camden, formally granted John Shakespeare this shield: "Gold, on a bend sable a spear of the first, and for his crest or cognizance a falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear gold steeled as aforesaid." The motto was "Non Sans Droict." But the claim of impalement was evaded; it might have brought the Heralds' College into collision with a great family, and accordingly the impalement granted was that of the Cheshire Ardens, who were not likely to hear of it. The Shakespeares however never used this grant, which was doubtless unacceptable.

John Shakespeare died in 1601, and was buried Sept. 8; his wife survived him just seven years, and was buried Sept. 9, 1608. For them, the changing scenes of life recall their son's familiar sonnet, beginning in prosperity as a glorious morning, then overcast by the basest clouds; but these had opened at last into the resplendence of a golden sunset. Their eldest son, who one thinks had long been the sharpest thorn amidst their sorrows, a clever scapegrace, ne'er-do-well, and runaway, had emerged from the mire of youthful follies, rich, famous, and a gentleman. Let us hope they had some conception of his genius, some grain of the justifiable pride the parents of the greatest among poets might feel, some little enjoyment of his creations. It was during John's mayoralty that companies of players are first mentioned as performing before the mayor and corporation; but this was a legal formality, customary before permission was granted to act publicly, and in no way certifies to the mayor's personal tastes. In general matters John Shakespeare was fairly educated; apparently he could "write and read and cast accompt," though he sometimes made his mark. His wife, as far as is known, always made her mark.

John Shakespeare's sudden rise from poverty to prosperity is commonly, and naturally, assumed to be owing to his son's assistance; but the assumption, however probable, is only an assumption. Early speculations, in which he may have looked too far ahead, may have at last yielded the expected fruit.

His eldest son William is conventionally said to have been born in Henley Street, and on April 23, 1564. There is no proof of either assertion. The "Birthplace" was not bought by the Shakespeares till 1575. The register of baptism in the noble parish church of Stratford-on-Avon, must content us.

Gilbert, the second son, baptised Oct. 13, 1566, is reputed to have reached extreme old age. Joan, baptised April 15, 1569,

married Thomas Hart, and lived in Henley Street till 1646. Nothing is known of the third son, Richard, except that he lived from 1575-1613. Of the youngest child, Edmund, nothing is, strictly speaking, known after his baptism in 1580; but it is always, and reasonably, assumed that he was the actor Edmund Shakespeare, who was buried on Dec. 31, 1607, in S. Saviour's, Southwark, "with a forenoone knell of the great bell."

William, born in the time of his parents' prosperity, had a right to free education in the Grammar School when seven years old. Walter Roche was master until 1577. The young genius probably learnt the Latin accidence from Lily's grammar, and began acquaintance with the easier classics, including Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the modern Eclogues of Mantuanus. Nothing else but classics was then, and for long after, taught in grammar schools; Isaac Newton, a century later, had never even opened Euclid till he went to the university. The concentration on one subject, during boyhood, and the invariable employment of Latin for diplomatic intercourse, resulted in a very general knowledge of the language; Oliver Cromwell, trained at a grammar school, but only a few months at a university, was yet able when Protector to talk with foreign ambassadors in Latin. We need not undervalue Shakespeare's learning, and Aubrey plainly tells us that he understood Latin pretty well; but his occasional false quantities show that his acquirements stopped at construing. The advanced pupils in some grammar schools learnt the rudiments of Greek; it is not probable that Shakespeare did. Rowe's assertion that John Shakespeare soon had to withdraw his son from school, is perfectly in accordance with the records of his growing poverty, which had reached an acute stage in 1578.

Did William Shakespeare shrink from his forced plunge into the commonplace routine of mechanical daily labour, and loathe his sordid avocation among dull associates? Or did he rejoice at the escape out of plodding bookwork into free, open, active life? One inclines to the latter alternative. Ben Jonson, a few years younger, thoroughly schooled, and eventually profoundly learned, worked at bricklaying before he enlisted and fought; there is nothing astonishing in the greatest of poets practising a handicraft, any more than in his eating without a fork. And yet many hesitate to realise the creator of Virgilia and Miranda working as a slaughterFor some years, perhaps as many as fourteen, he doubtless followed his trade, serving his apprenticeship; references to butchering are not uncommon in his works, the most remarkable being Rosalind's simile of the washing Orlando's liver as clean as a sound

man.

sheep's heart, and Falstaff's of being carried in a basket like a barrow of butcher's offal.1

All these years, the outside limit of which is about 1576-90, did not pass idly by as regards William Shakespeare's education. Book-learning, indeed, it is commonly supposed was quite unattainable after he left school; but we have no evidence to show whether or not he read the English publications of the day. The probabilities are against it; yet it is perfectly possible he read many of them, and when we have no evidence an unqualified denial is inadmissible. Tottel's "Miscellany" was printed before Shakespeare was born; Chaucer's works still earlier; Edwards' "Paradyse of Daintie Devyces" in 1576; Spenser's first poem and Lyly's "Euphues" in 1579. The lad probably saw none of them, but we cannot positively affirm it. There were doubtless, in HalliwellPhillipps' words, "not more than two or three dozen books, if so many, in the whole town," exclusive of Bibles, etc.; but we have no right to assume that Shakespeare never rode the forty miles to Oxford, and he may have reached the more distant London.

A certain acquaintance with dramatic performances may be reasonably predicated of the young Shakespeare. It is hardly likely that he was invariably absent when touring players performed in the town; this was a frequent occurrence, four different companies acting there in 1587. Nor were the Coventry Mysteries beyond reach. He was only eleven years old when the Earl of Leicester celebrated Queen Elizabeth's visit with the famous pageants that drew the whole countryside to Kenilworth ; but Oberon, describing to Puck the mermaid on a dolphin's back, so depicts the pageant actually shown before the fair vestal throned by the west, that one naturally suspects the boy William Shakespeare was present or heard eyewitnesses' descriptions.

In these years of growth William Shakespeare and the other butcher's son-his equal!—could gather in store of classical learning from the parson's sermons; the good side as well as the coarse side of their untaught associates was daily presented to their insight; and it is important to remember that Stratford-on-Avon was on a

'The Stratford-on-Avon regulation that butcher's offal was to be, not thrown on the "muckhills," but carried out of the town at nine every evening, illustrates this simile.

"Yet more; he may have acted when a schoolboy. Plays were often presented by Grammar School pupils. Compare a descriptive madrigal entitled The Country Cry by Richard Deering:

"O yes! all that can sing or say

Come to the Towne hall and there shall be a play

Made by the Schollers of the Free Schoole,

Where shal be both a devill and a foole :

At 6 a clocke it shall begin :

And you bring not money you come not in."