his death, and seems to be confirmed, or at least to be implied (as it is generally understood), by the inscription on his monument. Little more than two months elapsed before the beat of the hearts of the twice-bereft parents was quickened with anxiety for the life of their eldest son, and now only child; for the plague was in Stratford, and from June 30th to December 31st, the angel of death was busy. Of its inhabitants, 238 perished in that time. No Shakespere occupies that death-list. "Shakespere's home-his boyhood's home," and his birthplace, has never, we believe, been matter of dispute. An undisturbed tradition points out that house in Henley Street, which is now the property of the British nation, as the place in which life dawned upon him. Frequent donations to the poor of the borough seem to prove that the Shakesperes were, at the time of his birth, thankfully enjoying prosperity, were kindly-hearted, and likely, therefore, to be popular among their townsfolk. The following items are the groundwork of this inference, viz. :— In the year of William Shakespere's birth [1564], "the accompt "I prattled poesie in my nurse's arms, And, born, where late our Swan of Avon sung; and of whom Thomas Heywood says, "There was not an actor of his nature, in his time, of better ability in performance of what he undertook, more applauded by the audience, of greater grace at court, or of more general love in the city." He was a native of Stratford-on-Avon. He died before 1618. A Thomas Greene, clerk of the Corporation of Stratford, who speaks of "my cosen (ie., kinsman), who is called Shakspear," is also known; unless they were both the same person. The Thomas Greene, gent., in articles of agreement between William Shakespere and William Replingham, 28th October, 1614, may have been his son; and the above-mentioned Joseph Greene, if the son or grandson of either of these persons, may have known through kinsmanship the precise date. Drayton was a Warwickshire man, as were also, in all probability—judging from the facts brought to light by Malone, Hunter, Collier, &c.,-Burbadge and Heminge. These things should be remembered when we wish to understand Shakespere's going to, getting on in, and attaching himself to the theatres in London. Neither should we forget that a Hathaway was a playwright, and that Shakespere's brother Edmund also became a player. But these are anticipations of futurity in the present stage of our subject. 66 of John Tayler and John Shakspeyr, chamburlens," was rendered, and in it we find, "Item payd to Shakspeyr, for a pec tymbur, iij s;" while on January 26th of the same year, the chambur is found in arrerage, and ys in det unto John Shakspeyre, £1 5s. 8d." On 30th August, 1564, he "payd towards the releeffe of the poore," twelve pence; on Sept. 6th, sixpence; on Sept. 27th, again sixpence ; and on Oct. 20th, eightpence. That at this time, too, John Shakespere was a man esteemed and valued, as a careful, trustworthy accountant, and a man of business capacity, may be inferred from the fact that he was more than once selected as actuary for the Corporation, when the chamberlains were unable to work the accounts themselves, e. g. :- -"Thaccompt of William Tylor and William Smythe, chamburlens, made by John Shakspeyr, the xvth day of February, in the eight yere of the reigne of our Sovereigne Lady Elyzabeth," i. e., 1564. 1565. In this year John Shakespere was elected one of the fourteen aldermen of Stratford. At a hall holden in 1565, there is this- -"Item: payd to Shakspeyr, for a rest of old det, £3 28. 7d. ;" and to this is added these words: "In this accompt the chambur ys in det unto John Shakspeyr, to be payd unto hym by the next chamburlens, 6s. 4d." 1566. His second son, Gilbert, was baptized on 13th October, 1566; and at Michaelmas, 1566, John Shakespere, in two precepts of the Stratford Court of Record, of this year's date, appears as the surety of Richard Hathaway. 1568, he was promoted to the office of borough or high bailiff. 1569. In this year, the Queen's players and the Earl of Worcester's players visited Stratford, and performed in it. The former received nine shillings and the latter twelve pence out of the town's fund for their entertainment. John Shakespere's third daughter, named after her eldest sister (dead) Joan, was baptized on 15th April, 1569; while in 66 1570, he held, under Wm. Clopton, the tenantcy of Ingon Meadow, a parcel of land" of 14 acres in extent, for which, with its appurtenances, he paid an annual rent of £8. 1571. In 1571 he attained the highest civic dignity by being chosen chief alderman, and thus, in the punctilious age of Queen Elizabeth, became entitled to the respectful appellation, which he afterwards gets in the parish registers, of (Mr.) Magister; for "all titles of honour appear to have been originally names of office," and that word primarily signifies a man who rules, governs, or directs either men or businesses. 66 In 1482, Thomas Jolyffe left lands to the Guild of the Holy Cross of Stratford-upon-Avon, provided that they "should find a priest fit and able in knowledge to teach grammar freely to all scholars coming to the school in the said town to him, taking nothing of the scholars for their teaching." That guild was dissolved at the Reformation, and its lands fell to the king. When, however, the town was incorporated, the Charter ordained that the free grammar school for the instruction and education of boys and youth there should be thereafter kept up and maintained as theretofore it used to be." The preliminary qualifications for admission were— residence in the town, being seven years of age, and being able to read. It is therefore held as reasonably probable that, in 1571-the year in which Roger Ascham's "Schoolmaster" was published—ChiefAlderman Shakespere's eldest son, being able to read, had his name enrolled by the then master, Thomas Hunt, also curate of Luddington, as a pupil of the town free grammar-school. School-hours were then lengthy, from daylight till dark in winter, and from six to six in summer, with suitable meal-intervals and play-hours. We are to suppose Master William Shakespere, with "his satchel and shining morning face," wending his way daily to the grammarschool, which then meant a seminary in which instruction was given in Latin [and Greek, French, and Italian ?]. The early instruction was oral, and dealt chiefly with the inflections of the eight parts of speech, the formation of simple sentences, and the engrossing of these neatly in note-books. Esop, Terence, Virgil, Cicero, Sallust, or Cæsar, accompanied with the repetition and application of Lily's Syntax, Horace, and Ovid, with conversational exercises, according to Donatus and Valla, usually finished the school curriculum. If Greek,-Lucian, Aristophanes, Homer, and Xenophon, in this order, were generally the authors. French and Italian were taught by and in conversations. The drill of a free grammar-school in the country, presided over by Curate Hunt, or Thomas Jenkins, his successor—(of which of these was Holofernes a caricature ?), could not equip a pupil with learning like that acquired in the ancient City of Westminster School under Camden-who, by the bye, became master therein in 1571. Ben Jonson's "small Latin and less Greek" is therefore to be taken not only cum grano salis as referring to points on which he prided himself, but as also implying the almost necessary inferiority of rural to civic training in institutions so different in their appointments, and therefore as somewhat resembling Chaucer's jesting saying about French, "After ye maner of Stratford-atteBowe." Aubrey says he "understood Latin pretty well," but his is only hearsay evidence. Capel, in 1768, with reference to, and in refutation of, Farmer's "Essay on the Learning of Shakespere," published in 1767, says on this point :-"It is our firm belief that Shakespere was very well grounded, at least in Latin, at school. It appears, from the clearest evidence possible, that his father was a man of no little substance, and very well able to give him such an education. He engaged early in some of the theatres, and was honoured with the patronage of the Earl of Southampton. His Venus and Adonis' is addressed to that Earl, in a very pretty and modest dedication, in which he calls it The first heire of his invention,' and ushers it into the world with this singular motto [from Ovid]: 'Vilia miretur vulgus, mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua;' and the whole poem, as well as his 'Lucrece,' which followed it soon after, together with his choice of these subjects, are plain marks of his acquaintance with some of the Latin classics at least, at that time." He certainly possessed the power of translating the prime essence of Roman life and thought into the speech of England, and by the wondrous alchemy of his genius, gave to his imaginations the very elixir of immortality. It ought to be noticed, too, that his language is highly Latinized, and that, in many cases, he prefers the Romanic signification to that in use and wont in his own day. On 28th Sept., 1571, the year of his chief magistracy, Mr. John Shakespere's fourth daughter, Anne, was baptized. 1572. The aldermanship of John Shakespere expired 3rd September, 1572. 1573. Richard, third son of Mr. John Shakespere, was baptized 11th March, 1573. "The Earl of Leicester's players" received in 1573 from the Chamberlain of Stratford the sum of six shillings and eightpence; and next year, 1574, the same official pays "my lord of Warwick's players seventeen shillings, and the Earl of Worcester's players five shillings and seven pence. 1575. Two freehold houses in Henley Street were bought by John Shakespere during the year 1575. In the summer of that same year, Queen Elizabeth made her grand historical visit to Kenilworth Castle, and enjoyed the "princely pleasures" which her unworthy favourite the Earl of Leicester had prepared for her reception, and to enliven her stay. As William Shakespere was then about twelve years of age; his father, apparently, in good circumstances ;-Kenilworth is only thirteen miles distant from Stratford; and crowds from all mid-England were collected by the gorgeous spectacles and pageantry with which the Queen was welcomed, it is probable (as Percy, in his "Reliques," 1765, suggests) that he was a spectator of the costly magic of those festivities, and that he lighted the torch of his imagination at the blaze that shone around her Majesty while there. 1577. In this year, Mr. John Shakespere begins to be irregular in his attendance at the meetings of the corporation; and has onehalf of his borough taxes remitted by consent of the municipality. He is reported by Dethick, Garter King of Arms, to have had in this year a pattern of his arms blazoned for him by Clarence Cooke, though he did not bear them till after 1597. 1578. John Shakespere and Mary, his wife, mortgage the "land in Wilmecote called Asbies," to a relative (?) named Edmund Lambert, for £40, on condition that it should revert to them if repaid before Michaelmas Day, 1580. In 1578, and on 19th Nov. of that same year, it is arranged in the corporation books that John Shakespere and Robert Bratt, in regard to a levy of fourpence a week for relief of the poor, "shall not be taxed to pay anything;" and it has farther been found that in this year the aforesaid Edmund Lambert was security for a debt of £5 due to Mr. Roger Sadler, of Stratford, by Mr. John Shakespere. It seems, too, that about this time the interests held in the tenements at Snitterfield were parted with. During this year, it is generally assumed that William Shakespere left or was withdrawn from school. 1579. The sum, three shillings and fourpence, levied upon John Shakespere by the borough of Stratford, in 1579, for the furnishing ́of pikemen, billmen, and archers," is entered on the corporation 66 |