vast difference, however, between the learning and philosophy which the same genius will attain to, in a given time, in any age, with the aid of all existing helps, and that which he may reach without such aid, no man needs to be informed. School, or no school, without books and studies, we know that learning is impossible.

Beyond that primary instruction which could be obtained at the free grammar-school of Stratford-on-Avon, in which Latin was taught by one master, nearly three centuries ago, it is pretty certain that William Shakespeare had no learning from public institutions, or from private tuition. His father, John Shakespeare, a glover by trade, sometime wool-stapler and butcher, at different times constable, high bailiff, and alderman of Stratford-on-Avon, and, at last, a gentleman, by grant of a coat-of-arms from the Herald's College, in 1599, at the instance of his son William, when he had attained to prosperity, was no doubt a respectable burgher of that place, but certainly so illiterate that he could not write his own name, and executed written instruments by making his mark; and the same was the case with his mother, notwithstanding that she was descended of an ancient family of goodly estate. From the manner in which the name was written by members of the family in Warwickshire, it is evident that it was usually pronounced Shaxper, though it seems to have had no fixed spelling among them, not even with William himself, for his autographic signatures to his will appear to have it both Shakspere and Shakspeare; but it was printed in his lifetime, and in the Folio of 1623, and passed into the contemporary literature, as Shakespeare; and so let it remain.1

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, on the 23d day of April, 1564, and according to what is known of his early life, he attended the free grammar-school of that place for some few years and until about the year 1578, when he was taken from school, his assistance being

1 Halliwell's Life of William Shakespeare, London, 1848.

required by his father in his business at home. The occupations in which his father appears to have been engaged, at this time, were those of an ordinary yeoman, including the business of a glover, a wool-stapler, and, as some say, a butcher also; and he was, at the same time, and down to the year 1586, an alderman of the corporation of Stratford. On the 28th day of November, 1582, the son William was married, at the age of eighteen, to Ann Hathaway, some years older than himself, and the daughter of a neighboring farmer. Their eldest daughter, Susanna, was born in May following; but his latest biographer thinks there must have been some preliminary espousals, in accordance with a frequent custom of the time, as early as the summer of 1582. After this date, his father appears to have fallen into embarrassed circumstances. He was superseded in his office of alderman, in 1586, for non-attendance, and was presented as a recusant, in 1592, " for not coming to church for feare of process for debt." There is indubitable evidence that, for several years prior to 1587, different theatrical companies from London occasionally visited Stratfordon-Avon (the native place of some of the actors), in some instances, under the patronage of John Shakespeare and other aldermen; and it is highly probable that the son William would be attracted to their company. There are uncertain traditions also that, during this period, he had been in the habit of drinking beer with the pot-house clubs, hunting coneys for amusement, and poaching on the neighboring deer-parks by way of romance, until he was driven away from Stratford by the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy; but whether from this cause, or driven by stress of poverty, or merely drawn by the attractions of the theatre, it appears that, about the year 1587, he went up to London, carrying with him but a small stock of learning, and became attached to the theatre in a very humble capacity. Ben Jonson informs us that he had "but small Latin

1 Halliwell.

and less Greek"; and "rare Ben" must certainly have known the truth of the matter. Indeed, it is plain his learning must have been little enough, however obtained; and in this, all the traditions concur. Precisely how his time was employed, during these nine years after leaving the grammar-school, of course we cannot certainly know; but there is no intimation in anything that has come down to us, that he was at all given to books, or to studies of any kind. The employments in which it would seem to be almost certain he must have been engaged, the circumstances which surrounded him, and the few details of his life which have been preserved, would all go to exclude the hypothesis of his having given any considerable attention to letters or studies, in this period. There is no written composition of his in existence, belonging to this time, and no proof that there ever was any, except a mere tradition of a lampoon upon Sir Thomas Lucy, of which no scrap has been authentically preserved. The verses which later traditions have attributed to him, whether as fragments of this supposed lampoon, or as epitaphs and epigrams written towards the close of his career, are, as any one may see, but miserable doggerel at best, and might have been written by the sorriest poetaster. With Halliwell and other critics, though immaterial to our purpose, we may safely reject them all as having no reliable basis of authenticity, and as necessarily implying, on the supposition of such basis, "a deterioration of power for which no one has assigned a sufficient reason." The critic who would find a trace of the great poet in these performances, should remember Bacon's caution to the interpreter of nature: "If the sow with her snout should happen to imprint the letter A upon the ground, wouldst thou, therefore, imagine she could write out a whole tragedy as one letter? " 2

1 Halliwell, 270.

"1

2 Interp. of Nat., Works, by Montagu, (London), XV., 101; Temporis Partus Mas., Works, by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, (Boston), VII., 30.

§ 2. EMPLOYMENTS.

That his first employment, on coming to London, was that of a link-boy, holding horses at the door of the theatre, as some traditions represent, would seem to be very questionable; but that it was not in any capacity above that of a mere "servitor," or under-actor, his most careful biographers seem to admit as highly probable, if not quite certain. The first certain knowledge that we have of him in London, however, is of the date of 1592, when there seems to have been a distinct allusion to his name in Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," in which, apparently speaking for himself and other writers for the stage against the actors, "those Anticks garnisht in our colours," Greene says: "Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygres heart, wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his owne conceyt, the only Shake-scene in a countrey." From this it may be inferred that he was beginning to have some kind of reputation as an author of plays, and, in 1593-4, the "Venus and Adonis" and the "Rape of Lucrece" are dedicated to the Earl of Southampton under his name. From this time forward a few scattered notices of him have been gathered up from contemporary records and documents. relating to purchases of lands, his money dealings with his neighbors, and ordinary business transactions; but, abating all merely mythical traditions of uncertain origin, and the impudent forgeries of these later times, no further authentic reference to his position in the theatre occurs until 1598, when his name is mentioned by Meres as the reputed author of several of these plays, and two of them are printed with his name as author on the title-page, in that year. That he was one of the inhabitants of Southwark,

1 See Halliwell's Life, 144.

dwelling near the Bear Garden in 1596, seems to rest upon very questionable authority; but, in 1597, he had purchased New Place, in Stratford-on-Avon, where his family continued to reside until his death. In 1598, we find him lending money to his neighbors, and performing his part on the stage; and in 1599, he had succeeded in obtaining for his father the grant of a coat of arms from the Herald's College, which descended to himself in 1601. And in 1604, when the perfected "Hamlet" had been produced, he had become a leading manager and sharer in the Globe and Blackfriars, and his name stood second only in the list of patentees," His Majesty's Servants." From this date until 1613, the personal notices that remain to us exhibit him as being always very attentive to matters of business, rapidly growing in estate, purchasing farms, houses, and tythes in Stratford, bringing suits for small sums against various persons for malt delivered, money loaned, and the like, carrying on agricultural pursuits and other kinds of traffic, with "a good grip o' the siller," and executing business commissions in London for his Stratford neighbors, while we are to suppose he was, at the same time, producing such plays as the "Hamlet," the "Macbeth," the "Othello," the "Lear," and the "Julius Cæsar"; whence it might certainly be concluded, that he had an excellent capacity for business in addition to his other arts and superhuman gifts; but there is nowhere the slightest note or trace of his literary occupations.

He had now acquired a brilliant reputation and an ample estate. It seems probable that he quit acting upon the stage about the year 1608, and that, in 1610, he finally retired from any active participation in the affairs of the theatre, though he may have still continued to receive for a time his share of the income as one of the largest proprietors; but how long, it is not certainly known. It would seem probable, however, that he had parted with his interest in the theatres sometime before the 30th of June, 1613,