of the Inns of Court, that we besought some friends to interest themselves in the prosecution of inquiries tending to produce evidence on this point; but hitherto research has proved unavailing. The Reverend N. J. Halpin entertained a similar persuasion respecting Shakespeare's having been a collegian; supporting it by a quotation from a tract entitled "Polimanteia;" wherein England addresses "her three Daughters, Cambridge, Oxford, Inns of Court," &c., and which contains a marginal mention of Shakespeare, as if he were among those of their offspring to be proudly enumerated. Were the fact to be established that he had been a law-student, sufficient clue would be obtained to the marvellous intimacy which Shakespeare has manifested with legal terms, his frequent adoption of them in illustration, and his curiously technical knowledge of their form and force; thereby giving rise to the belief that he had at one time served in an office as an attorney's clerk. Several attempts have been made to substantiate this belief; which probably originated with a supposed sneering allusion to Shakespeare in a contemporary assertion by Thomas Nash, that "Hamlet" was written by a person who had followed "the trade of noverint," meaning a scrivener or lawyer's clerk, and borne out by other appearances of evidence. The Thomas Greene, who acted as clerk of the corporation in Shakespeare's native town, and was sent up to London on parliamentary business by them in 1614, was apparently son to an attorney of Stratford-upon-Avon, whose burial is recorded in the parish register there, thus:

"Thomas Greene, alias Shakespeare, March 6, 1590." Thomas Greene, the younger, emissary from Stratford, who wrote the note in 1614, mentions his townsman in these words: "My cosen Shakespeare comyng yesterday, I went to see him, how he did." What was the relationship between the Greenes and the Poet, which gave the father a right to his registered "alias," and authorized the son in using the title "cousin," is unknown; it may have been a mere nominal kinship, some playful "adoptious" cousinship, denoting the intimate terms of friendship which united the two families in a closeness like that of consanguinity; but it serves to show Shakespeare's near connection with professional lawyers, . which alone would suffice to account for his legal know

ledge. With such faculties as his, an occasional hour in Greene's office, conversing gaily,-idly, it might seem, with his young "cousin" on what mainly interested the attorney aspirant, would endow him with a degree of proficiency that would demand of another long and studious application. Nevertheless, it is by no means impossible that he may have pursued the legal profession with a view to emolument, in the same way that he may have been assistant-master, or usher, at the grammar-school, as a means of gaining a livelihood, when it became absolutely necessary that he should earn something towards his own support. Aubrey's manuscript, in the Ashmolean Museum, states that," in his younger years Shakespeare had been a schoolmaster in the country;" and if so, it was in all probability at the period when his father's diminished income, together with his own youthful act of independence in taking a wife, rendered some source of gain absolutely indispensable.

Shakespeare's early marriage, he was but eighteen,―in all its circumstances, affords a signal proof of his poetic and ardent temperament. There exists a tradition that Anne Hathaway was very beautiful;-however that may be, she was assuredly so in his eyes. She was in the full bloom of womanhood,-five-and-twenty,-the very period of ripened charms and developed character to win a lad's devoted admiration. From the uniformly noble way in which Shakespeare drew the wifely character, we may feel certain of the esteem as well as affection with which his own wife had inspired him; and the advantage in generosity which he has always assigned to women over men when drawing them in their mutual relations with regard to love, gives us excellent warrant for supposing that he had had reason to know this truth respecting her sex from the mother of his children. The very slenderness of what is known concerning her is one tacit but significant proof of the worth of Shakespeare's wife, and of the integrity of the feeling which bound him to her, for those women of whom least is heard, are ofttimes the best of their sex, while the Poet's silence respecting his affection, witnesses its wealth, by his own lines

"That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere."

In the Sonnets-which afford so remarkable a specimen of an autobiographical outpouring, where nothing is told of circumstance or event, but where the internal nature of the man himself is strikingly revealed; where the artist-soul,-in its struggles of alternate feeling, its humility of conscious imperfection with regality of conscious power, its dejected sense of human frailty with towering aspirations, its noble candours, its affecting generosities, its passionate homage, its self-confession, stands bare to view, while no jot of incident is related: -in these sonnets may be traced tokens that Shakespeare could fully rely on the forbearance of his wife, and upon the unreproachful loving reception which she had ever ready for her Poet-husband. Were a crowning testimony wanting, of the warm attachment between Shakespeare and the woman who was the bride of his youth, as well as the wife to whom he constantly returned amid the excitement of his metropolitan life, it would be amply furnished in the nature of the bequest he left her in his will. The sacredness of the sentiment that united them, is mutely but eloquently expressed in that simple legacy. Things that seem all but meaningless to the eyes of lookers-on, are full of dearest intention to married lovers.

It was when Shakespeare had been a husband but bare four years, that, finding himself the father of three children, the means of his parents less prosperous, and his family demanding more lucrative exertion on his part than his native town afforded scope for, that he resolved to go up to London and seek employment there. Many circumstances concurred to render this step one of promising prospect. His acquaintance with the members of those companies of actors who had frequently performed at Stratford,-several of whom were natives of Warwickshire, and his own dominant tastes. for poetry and the theatre, led him to adopt this course, as offering an immediate source of profitable as well as delightful occupation. With his MS. poems, and a few plays already written, besides sketches and floating plans of others innumerable, we behold Shakespeare setting forth-in homely storybook phrase "to seek his fortune." And what a fortune! One surpassing all that has been recorded of wandering princes or fairy heroes. He achieved the fortune of com

manding men's admiring fealty to the end of time, and becoming lord of a boundless realm that shall never know decay or decadence.

It is pleasant to observe how the loving reminiscences of his native village clung perpetually to him, softening and ameliorating with their gentle rural influence the harder urban polishings and experiences. We find him giving the names of neighbour villagers-Fluellen, Bardolph, Audreyto certain of his written character creations. Anne was the

name of one of his sisters, as well as his wife's name; and how well it becomes the pretty yeoman's daughter-" Sweet Anne Page!" His money-help to his parents; his obtaining a grant of arms for his father; his solicitude to support the family-name, to advance its social position and privilege to rank with the gentry, at a time when the profession of actor was held to be incompatible with claims to the title of "Gentleman;" his constant investment of his well-earned gains in landed property on the spot of his birth,--all demonstrate the honourable ambition and fond home-attachment of Shakespeare's nature. In their old age, he brought his father and mother to share the dwelling ("New Place") which his genius had enabled him to purchase; he associated one brother (Edmund) with him in his profitable town avocations; and to another (Gilbert) he intrusted the management of his pecuniary affairs in their native place: all that Shakespeare did in this respect, serves to vindicate the noble privileges attained by well-earned money, and to rescue it from the vulgar supposition of its being a source of low and degrading consideration. Prudence in money-matters gives the right and the ability to indulge in a profuse generosity. He was as practical and provident, as he was poetical, and admirably showed how false is the notion, that the greatest genius is "irregular"-in any way. He was business-like, orderly, and methodical; and, how truly these are consistent with bounty, is avouched in the letter extant (the only one addressed to him known to be in existence) from Richard Quiney, applying to the poet for a loan of £30, (then equal to about £150 of sterling money now,) showing that his character stood well for liberality, in the likelihood entertained of a favourable reply-a belief confirmed by the result. While

maintaining these strong links of sentiment with his native Stratford, he entered into' all the vivacities of London life no less strenuously. It is this mingling of country charm with metropolitan vigour and refinement throughout his sojourn upon earth that so grandly concurred to make Shakespeare the consummately-perfected genius that he was born to be. At the same time that he continued to visit Stratford regularly every year, he freely led a town life while in town. He enjoyed royal favour, had court popularity, possessed the friendship of the worthiest and most distinguished noblemen, was honoured among his brother wits and writers, and was beloved by his fellow-actors. Pre-impressed with the beautiful and pure-joyed images of his country boyhood, he spent his prime of manly reflection amid scenes of intellectual culture and exercise. Everything afforded food to his observation, and faculty for turning it to immortal advantage. His keen perception beheld at once what others gather by studious and lengthened examination. His comradeship with actors—who are a genial, cheerful people—was conducive to good; his intimacies with men of rank, gave ease and familiarity of admission to high-bred associations; his frequenting the company of author-friends was promotive of rapid interchange and expression of thought. How vividly is Shakespeare's manner painted to us by those fervent words of Ben Jonson, [ever blessed be his memory for putting them down for posterity!] "I loved the man, and do honour his memory (on this side idolatry) as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped." What a complete picture of our poet's fertile outpouring of thought in speech, is conveyed in that last sentence! And think of "stopping" him! "Stopping" SHAKESPEARE while he talked!! It precisely confirms the description given by Fuller of the two men, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, in their "wit-combats :" "which two," he says, "I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing,