parts of Warwickshire, where they have continued, by some descents, in good reputation and credit." John Shakspeare himself was the fourth in descent from this loyal servant, so royally rewarded, and both he and his immediate predecessors appear to have occupied the posi tion of yeomen, or substantial farmers, at Snitterfield, a village near Stratford. By a marriage with Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of Robert Arden, of Wilmcote, in the parish of Aston Cantlow, also in Warwickshire, John Shakspeare at once augmented his means and aggrandized his position; for the damsel was heiress to her father's land in Wilmcote, called Asbies, a farm of about sixty acres, arable and pasture, with a house, and six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence in money; and she was the descendant of a family that dated back to the time of the Conqueror. Why John Shakspeare quitted Snitterfield does not appear; but it is certain that he went to reside at Stratford, as a tradesman, in or about the year 1551. What precise trade he pursued has been matter of infinite controversy; but he has been traced, by the research of Mr. Halliwell and others, in the various occupations of glover, wool-stapler, and dealer in malt and timber, and the probability would seem to be that his establishment in Stratford served principally as a mart for the produce of his farming, since we find, from a document in 1579, that at that time John Shakspeare continued his occupation as yeoman. His position at Stratford was, for many years, one of great respectability. The records of Stratford, as adduced by Mr. Charles Knight, show him to have gone through the whole regular course of municipal duty. In 1556 he was on the jury of the court leet; in 1557, an ale-taster; in 1558, a burgess; in 1559, a constable; in 1560, an affeeror; in 1561, a chamberlain ; in 1565, an alderman, and in 1568, high bailiff. His worldly possessions were, in the aggregate, considerable, even be fore he augmented them by his marriage with Mary Arden, which took place, it is supposed, in 1557. The result of the union was eight children, of whom three died when quite young. William, the eldest of the sons, was born 23rd April, 1564, and the house in Henley-street, which tradition distinguishes as the place of his birth, still stands. The extent of education attained by our poet has been the subject of the most animated, though by no means animating, controversy: the argument on the one side being, that Shakspeare knew "small Latin and less Greek;" while, on the other hand, it is insisted that he retained of his scholastic training more Latin and Greek than most men. Whatever the amount of the knowledge, it was acquired at the Free Grammar School of Stratford, which he entered about 1571, and which, according to Mr. Halliwell, he left about 1578, his father's circumstances at that period beginning so to fail him, that he needed the gratuitous assistance of his son's services at home. We have no space to develop John Shakspeare's decline and fall, but he appears never to have recovered the commercial position which, there is reason to suppose, he began to lose somewhere about 1578. He died in 1601, two years after having obtained from the Herald's College a grant of arms, in all probability at the instance of his then eminent son. It is morally certain that his latter days were not, at all events, days of destitution; William Shakspeare was not the man to let his father want. The first occupation of Shakspeare himself is matter of dispute. Old Aubrey says: "John Shakspeare was a butcher; and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he (i.e. William Shakspeare) was a boy he exercised his father's trade; but when he killed a calf he would doe it in a high style, and make a speech." The only Shakspeare who has been actually identified in any records with the trade of a butcher in this locality is a Thomas Shakspeare, who was a butcher at Warwick in 1610; but there certainly seems some ground for the supposition that John Shakspeare bound his son William apprentice to a butcher. There is, however, another tradition, reported with equal confidingness by Aubrey, which it is more agreeable to adopt, namely, that Shakspeare was, "in his younger years, a schoolmaster in the country;' which has been explained to mean that he was employed by the master of the Grammar School to aid him in the instruction of the juniors; and this supposition comes in aid of those who advocate the learning of the poet. One species of wisdom, at all events, he had not acquired up to the age of eighteen, at which, being in the year 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of Richard Hathaway, a yeoman, occupying a cottage, which still stands, at Shottery, a village near Stratford. The fruit of this marriage was three children; Susanna, born May 1583; and Hanmet and Judith, twin-children, born 1585 66 the son died in August, 1596; the two daughters survived their father. It has been conjectured that the union was not a happy one, principally on the ground that the wife was eight years older than the husband; but as Mr. Halliwell emphatically puts the matter, for this opinion, not a fragment of direct evidence has been produced." Shakspeare seems to have lived at Stratford, somehow or other, for several years after his marriage. When it was that, "being naturally addicted to poetry and acting, he came up to London," as Aubrey sets forth, remains to be ascertained; but it seems probable that his emigration was hastened by a scrape in which some deer-poaching exploit involved him. "He had," says Mr. Rowe, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and amongst them some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the persecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London." Mr. Charles Knight won't hear of any deer-stealing at all, but the simple case is that deer-poaching was at that time thought little more of, even among the respectable classes, than hare-poaching now by the country fellows. Sir Thomas Lucy is supposed to be the Justice Shallow of the comedies. It is unknown whether Shakspeare, in his journey to London was accompanied by his wife and children. Mr. De Quincy's theory is, that "after four years' conjugal discord," Shakspeare adopted the plan of solitary emigration to the metropolis, "in order to release himself from the humiliation of domestic feuds," a proposition altogether denounced by Mr. Charles Knight, who considers that Shakspeare had, of course, his family around him in London as well as in the country, and that his London life was not that of the ordinary and the tavern. Mr. De Quincy's theory certainly appears a merely gratuitous assumption; but on the other hand the probabilities are that when Shakspeare found himself impelled by adverse circumstances to quit Stratford in search of better fortune, he would not charge himself on the way with the heavy burden of a family, however beloved, who could meanwhile remain much more commodiously and economically where they were, especially at a time when the journey to London from Stratford was a matter of some duration and considerable expense. It seems evident, as Mr. Halliwell observes, that the poet was always intimately associated with his native town, and never made a removal from it of a permanent character. As to the locality in London honoured by his residence, he is identified, in 1596, with a house in Southwark, near the Bear Garden. Shakspeare's debut in the metropolis is stated by several biographers to have been in the humble capacity of horseholder. "I cannot forbear relating a story which Sir William Davenant told Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Rowe; Rowe told it to Mr. Pope, and Mr. Pope told it to Dr. Newton, the late editor of Milton, and from a gentleman who heard it from him, 'tis here related.” The story, floated in upon this tide of authority, runs thus: "Concerning Shakspeare's first appearance in the play-house, when he came to London, he was without money and friends, and being a stranger, he knew not to whom to apply, nor by what means to support himself. At that time, coaches not being in use, and as gentlemen were accustomed to ride to the play-house, Shakspeare, driven to the last extremity, went to the play-house door, and picked up a little money by taking care of gentlemen's horses who came to the play; he became eminent even in that profession, and was taken notice of for diligence and skill in it. He had soon more business than he himself could manage; and at last hired boys under him, who were known by the name of Shakspeare's boys. Some of the players, accidentally conversing with him, found him so acute and master of so fine a conversation, that, struck therewith, they introduced him and recommended him to the house, in which he was first admitted in a very low station, but he did not long remain so, for he soon distinguished himself, if not as an extraordinary actor, at least as a fine writer." The horse-holding portion of this tale may probably be dismissed with a passing smile; the introduction into the Blackfriars theatre is readily explained by the fact that the manager of that theatre, Richard Burbidge, was, as we are told by Lord South ampton, "of one county with Shakspeare, and indeed almost of one town." The position in which Shakspeare was received was probably that of servitor or apprentice, the nature of which may at once be seen from the follow ing memorandum in Henslow's Manuscript Register, in which he states that he "hired as a covenant servant William Kendall, for two years, after the statute of Winchester, with two single pence, and he to give him for his said services every week of his playing in London, ten shillings, and in the country five shillings, for the which he covenanteth for the space of those two years to be ready at all times to play in the house (theatre) of the said Philip, and in no other, during the said term." William Shakspeare was not likely to remain very long a mere servitor, and in point of fact, Mr. Collier's researches among the Ellesmere papers, have furnished documentary proof that in November, 1589, he was already (it does not appear for how long before) a sharer in the theatre, that is, a person sharing in the daily profits of the representations. As to Shakspeare's histrionic powers, Aubrey reports that he "did act exceedingly well;" and the balance of evidence bears out the statement. The first incontestable notice of Shakspeare by a contemporary writer is assigned by Mr. Halliwell to a tract published at the close of the year 1592, and the author of which is supposed by Mr. Collier to have been Henry Chettle, who, however, published it as Greene's Groat'sworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance. In this lucubration, the author denounces to some brother dramatists "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart, wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and, being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country." Mr. Chettle being called over the coals for this and some other pleasantries of the like nature in the Groat'sworth of Wit, took occasion, after Greene's death, to publish an apology, the portion of which relating to Shakspeare runs thus: "The other, whom I did not at the time so much spare as since I wish I had,-that I did not, I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanour, no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of |