scraps, miscellaneous papers, &c., of curious interest, but dubious authenticity; and these and other matters have recently excited considerable interest, and aroused a debate of some magnitude and importance. We cannot but think that, if we could in any measure allay this feverish thirst after the (perhaps) unknowable, by bringing fairly and fully before the mind, in their briefest and most coherent -i. e., their chronological form-we might do something useful to the present age, because we should then show, as we believe,-that a great deal more is actually, authentically known regarding Shakespere than regarding very many of the other worthy occupants of niches in the Temple of Fame.

It is true, as Emerson says, that "we are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle, parentage, birth, birthplace, schooling, schoolmates, earning of money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death." It is also a verity that industrious researches have been made by antiquarians regarding these facts of his life-unimportant as they appear to be;-and that, "piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no bookstall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old, yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy poached or not; whether he held horses at the theatre door; whether he kept school; and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Anne Hathaway, his wife;" and we know, by sad experience, that all that these indefatigable men have been able to furnish, are only a few "genealogical details, obscure allusions, identities, disputed readings, chronological arguments, and other matters of a like kind." It is difficult, any one will grant, out of such materials to elicit any strictly coherent and indubitable life-picture, or to reconstruct those diverse and farseparated facts into a well-compacted whole, or to revivify these dry and elemental items of the past into a consecutive life-history; but we may, we think, so place these together as to conduce to the suggestion of a congruous whole, and lead to a truer and more comprehensible estimate of the mere life of Shakespere, as a man, than has been usual. If such a work could be accomplished, it would, we conceive, be useful, inasmuch as it would narrow the range of hypothesis, circumscribe the limits of forgery, afford a readier test of fabrication, at the same time that it would also tend to content a reasonable curiosity regarding this "master of the revels to mankind."

CHAPTER I.

SHAKESPERE'S ANCESTRY.

Honours best thrive

When rather from our acts we them derive,

Than our foregoers."-All's Well that Ends Well.

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I. Paternal. "Breakspear, Shakespear, and the like," says Verstegan, in his "Restitution of Decayed Intelligence " [Antwerp, 1605], “have been surnames imposed upon the first bearers of them for valour and feats of arms." Bosworth field on the 22nd August, 1485, beheld the first of the Tudor dynasty proclaimed—“ King Henry the Seventh." Shortly after this, Henry began to enrich, with possessions and goods, according to their desert and merit, those who had then aided him. 'For his faithful and approved service to the late most prudent prince, King Henry VII., of famous memory," probably Richard Shakespere, of Snitterfield, near Stratford-on-Avon, "was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements given to him in those parts of Warwickshire." He had two sons at least, Henry and John. The latter—born, perhaps, about 1530—became resident in Henley Street, Stratford, prior to 29th April, 1552. In that street, on 2nd October, 1556, he bought the copyhold of a house and garden, as well as that of a house in Greenhill Street, having a garden and a croft―i. e., a small piece of pasture or tillage land-attached to it. A man of business, too, was he then; for on 17th June, 1556, he was sued at court as a glover, and on 19th November, 1556, he impleaded a neighbour for unjustly detaining 18 quarters of barley. Aubrey says he "was a butcher;" Rowe, that he was "a considerable dealer in wool." In 1557 he was a burgess, a member of the corporation (for a charter had been granted to Stratford in 1553), and, by choice of the court-leet, ale-taster for the borough, sworn to look to the assize and goodness of bread, or ale, or beer," within its precincts. In that year (or early in the next ?) he married; for "Joan Shake

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speare, daughter to John Shakespere," was baptized on 15th September, 1558.

II. Maternal. The groom of the chamber to Henry VII. was Robert Arden, a scion of a family of the highest antiquity in Warwickshire. His son, also named Robert, had by his first wife a family-at any rate, of seven daughters; of whom Mary was the youngest. "John Shakespere, having married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden, of Willmecote, in the parish of Aston Cauntlow," became under the will of the said Robert Arden, dated 24th November, 1556, possessed of "land in Willmecote, called Asbies;" as well as of the property in Snitterfield, on which his father had been reared.

The Ardens and Shakesperes were naturally brought together, and the rising burgess of Stratford seems not to have advanced unadmitted claims to the hand of the heiress of Asbies, whose father had died in December, 1556. After this event, if we suffer rather more than a year to elapse, we may fancy that on or about Christmas, 1557, John Shakespere and Mary Arden, suitably attired and attended, arrived in (say?) Aston Cauntlow parish church, with full intent that then and there

"All sanctimonious ceremonies may

With full and holy rite be ministered;"

and that, no opposition being offered to their union, having plighted the full assurance of their faith, the ceremony of their compact was duly solemnized, so that, shortly afterwards, Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon, was musical for many a merry hour.

The young couple may have had a goodly round of visitings to do and to get; and though the world was disturbed by wars, they seemed to enjoy both peace and prosperity at that time. In 1558, John Shakespere was one of the four constables of Stratford, an office then always held by chosen burgesses; and in that year also, as we have said, Joan Shakespere was born. Rising in municipal dignity, in 1559 he became an affeeror-an official whose duty it was to fix and determine the fines leviable for offences against the bye-laws of the borough. In 1560 it is probable his daughter Joan -named after Mrs. Shakspere's [eldest ?] sister-died. He was one

of the municipal chamberlains in 1561. On 2nd December, 1562, his daughter Margaret was baptized; and on 30th April, 1563, she was buried. In 1564 he was a member of the Common-hall of Stratford, and to an important document of that hall in that year, he did (Charles Knight thinks, in writing) affix his name [or mark]. In that same year, his eldest and world-famous son was born— WILLIAM SHAKESPERE.

""Tis always morning somewhere in the world,

And Eos ever rises, circling

The varied regions of mankind. No pause

Of renovation and of freshening rays

She knows, but constantly her love breathes forth

On field and forest, as on human hope,

Health, beauty, power, thought, action, and advance."

CHAPTER II.

SHAKESPERE'S BOYHOOD AND YOUTH.

"This jewel in the world."-Cymbeline.

THE circumstances of a child's parents, and the conditions of life around him, so influence his position, prospects, and progress, as to form a full justification, in all constructive memoirs, for taking these as bases of inference regarding the probabilities of a person's career. Indeed, the circumstances of the parents are the conditioning causes of many of the mental, personal, and social sufferings and exertions of their children, and no complete view of the formative principles of any man's life can be obtained unless we know the environments of his earlier years. For these reasons, as well as in defect of personal anecdote and gossip, the biographers of Shakespere have expended great industry and employed singular care in acquiring, from every accessible source, information regarding the Shakespere family, during the youth of William, their son, in the belief that thence they may infer, with tolerable certainty, the special influences which operated on the destiny of the mighty dramatist. In this, however, they have only been partially successful. The following is, as nearly as possible, a chronological summary of the chief matters that have been learned, and of the deductions sought to be drawn from them, as premises, viz. :—

1564. In the Stratford register of baptisms, under date 26th April, appears the entry [in incorrect Latin], " William, son of John Shakespere." As it was customary in these days to baptize as early as convenient,* a tradition that he was born on the 23rd April, the anniversary of the tutelary saint of England-St. George (equal to 5th May, new style), has been generally acquiesced in, especially as it was put into substantive form by the Rev. Joseph Greene,† master of the Stratford Free School, about a century after

* Edward Alleyn, the player, founder of Dulwich College, was baptized the day after his birth; Oliver Cromwell, four, and John Milton, eleven days.

†There was a Thomas Green, author of "A Poet's Vision and a Prince's Glory," 4to., 1603, who says of himself,