life of Shakespeare

IN the register of baptisms of the parish

church of Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town in

Warwickshire, England, appears, under date of April

26, 1564, the entry of the baptism of William, the

son of John Shakspeare. The entry is in Latin—

"Gulielmus filius Johannis Shakspeare."

The date of William Shakespeare's birth has

usually been taken as three days before his baptism,

but there is certainly no evidence of this fact.

The family name was variously spelled, the

dramatist himself not always spelling it in the same

way. While in the baptismal record the name is

spelled "Shakspeare," in several authentic autographs

of the dramatist it reads "Shakspere," and in the first

edition of his works it is printed "Shakespeare."

Halliwell tells us, that there are not less than

thirty-four ways in which the various members of

the Shakespeare family wrote the name, and in the

council-book of the corporation of Stratford, where

it is introduced one hundred and sixty-six times

during the period that the dramatist's father was a

member of the municipal body, there are fourteen

different spellings. The modern "Shakespeare" is not

among them.Shakespeare's father, while an alderman at

Stratford, appears to have been unable to write his

name, but as at that time nine men out of ten were

content to make their mark for a signature, the fact

is not specially to his discredit.

The traditions and other sources of

information about the occupation of Shakespeare's

father differ. He is described as a butcher, a wool-

stapler, and a glover, and it is not impossible that he

may have been all of these simultaneously or at

different times, or that if he could not properly be

called any one of them, the nature of his occupation

was such as to make it easy to understand how the

various traditions sprang up. He was a landed

proprietor and cultivator of his own land even

before his marriage, and he received with his wife,

who was Mary Arden, daughter of a country

gentleman, the estate of Asbies, 56 acres in extent.

William was the third child. The two older than he

were daughters, and both probably died in infancy.

After him were born three sons and a daughter. For

ten or twelve years at least, after Shakespeare's birth

his father continued to be in easy circumstances. In

the year 1568 he was the high bailiff or chief

magistrate of Stratford, and for many years

afterwards he held the position of alderman as he

had done for three years before. To the completion

of his tenth year, therefore, it is natural to suppose

that William Shakespeare would get the best

education that Stratford could afford. The free

school of the town was open to all boys, and like allthe grammar-schools of that time, was under the

direction of men who, as graduates of the

universities, were qualified to diffuse that sound

scholarship which was once the boast of England.

There is no record of Shakespeare's having been at

this school, but there can be no rational doubt that

he was educated there. His father could not have

procured for him a better education anywhere. To

those who have studied Shakespeare's works without

being influenced by the old traditional theory that he

had received a very narrow education, they abound

with evidences that he must have been solidly

grounded in the learning, properly so called, taught

in the grammar schools.

There are local associations connected with

Stratford which could not be without their influence

in the formation of young Shakespeare's mind.

Within the range of such a boy's curiosity were the

fine old historic towns of Warwick and Coventry,

the sumptuous palace of Kenilworth, the grand

monastic remains of Evesham. His own Avon

abounded with spots of singular beauty, quiet

hamlets, solitary woods. Nor was Stratford shut out

from the general world, as many country towns are.

It was a great highway, and dealers with every variety

of merchandise resorted to its markets. The eyes of

the poet dramatist must always have been open for

observation. But nothing is known positively of

Shakespeare from his birth to his marriage to Anne

Hathaway in 1582, and from that date nothing butthe birth of three children until we find him an actor

in London about 1589.

How long acting continued to be

Shakespeare's sole profession we have no means of

knowing, but it is in the highest degree probable that

very soon after arriving in London he began that

work of adaptation by which he is known to have

begun his literary career. To improve and alter older

plays not up to the standard that was required at the

time was a common practice even among the best

dramatists of the day, and Shakespeare's abilities

would speedily mark him out as eminently fitted for

this kind of work. When the alterations in plays

originally composed by other writers became very

extensive, the work of adaptation would become in

reality a work of creation. And this is exactly what

we have examples of in a few of Shakespeare's early

works, which are known to have been founded on

older plays.

It is unnecessary here to extol the published

works of the world's greatest dramatist. Criticism has

been exhausted upon them, and the finest minds of

England, Germany, and America have devoted their

powers to an elucidation of their worth.

Shakespeare died at Stratford on the 23d of

April, 1616. His father had died before him, in 1602,

and his mother in 1608. His wife survived him till

August, 1623. His son Hamnet died in 1596 at the

age of eleven years. His two daughters survived him,

the eldest of whom, Susanna, had, in 1607, married a

physician of Stratford, Dr. Hall. The only issue ofthis marriage, a daughter named Elizabeth, born in

1608, married first Thomas Nasbe, and afterwards

Sir John Barnard, but left no children by either

marriage. Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, on

the 10th of February, 1616, married a Stratford

gentleman named Thomas Quincy, by whom she

had three sons, all of whom died, however, without

issue. There are thus no direct descendants of

Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's fellow-actors, fellow-dramatists,

and those who knew him in other ways, agree in

expressing not only admiration of his genius, but

their respect and love for the man. Ben Jonson said,

"I love the man, and do honor his memory, on this

side idolatry, as much as any. He was indeed honest,

and of an open and free nature." He was buried on

the second day after his death, on the north side of

the chancel of Stratford church. Over his grave there

is a flat stone with this inscription, said to have been

written by himself:

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare

To digg the dust encloased heare:

Blest be ye man yt spares these stones,

And curst be he yt moves my bones.