Shakespeare tendered the mortgage money due to Lambert, but was unable or unwilling to pay other debts due at the same time, and Lambert continued to occupy the premises. A Chancery suit was instituted for the recovery of the estate in 1597-most likely by the advice and with the assistance of the poet, who was then popular as an actor and dramatist, but no decree in the case has been found. In the proceedings of the corporation of Stratford, and the registry of the Court of Record, we have further evidence of John Shakespeare's pecuniary difficulties. In 1578, when his brother-aldermen agreed to pay each 6s. 8d. towards furnishing a quota of pikemen, billmen, and archers, he was required to pay only 38. 4d.; he was exempted from payment of a weekly sum of fourpence for relief of the poor; and he appears as a defaulter, to the amount of 38. 4d., in an account of money levied for the purchase of armour and defensive weapons. In January 1586, the return made to a warrant of distress was that he had no goods on which distraint could be levied; in February, and again in March, a capias was issued against him, and in September of the same year he was deprived of his alderman's gown, by reason that 'Mr Shaxpere doth not come to the halls when warned, nor hath not done of long time.' Indeed, he had scarcely been once present for a period of nine years. In country occupations, or in hiding from creditors, John Shakespeare had ceased to take interest in borough affairs. A climax seems to have been reached in March 1587, when he produced in the Stratford Court of Record a writ of habeas corpus, shewing that he was then in custody or imprisoned for debt. Five years later we find a document of greater importance, but of the same painful character. A return, dated September 1592, relating to the hundred of Barlicheway parish of Stratford, contains the names of all such recusants as have been heretofore presented [the former presentment has not been found] for not coming monthly to church, according to her majesty's laws, and yet are thought to forbear the church for debt and for fear of process, or for some other worse faults, or for age, sickness, or impotency of body.' The names of six women and nine men, including that

of 'Mr John Shackespere' are given, and opposite to them is written-'It is said that these last nine come not to church for fear of process for debt.' This is a somewhat perplexing document. John Shakespeare appears as an inveterate absentee from church; yet in July and August of this year 1592, instead of being afraid of appearing publicly in consequence of debt, he is found engaged with others in making inventories of the goods of two citizens of Stratford deceased. Could he have lapsed into the old Romish faith? As high-bailiff he had taken the customary oath given to all Protestants, and his children were all baptised in the Established Church. But whether debt, wilful recusancy, 'impotency of body,' or mere carelessness, kept him from church, must in the present state of our information be matter purely of conjecture. His illustrious son we believe to have been a Protestant, though venerating and loving whatever was 'good in all creeds and sects; and he appears to have indicated his own faith, when, in his historical drama of Henry the Eighth, he made Cranmer predict that in those happy days of Elizabeth, 'God should be truly known.'

In the midst of his troubles and embarrassments, John Shakespeare was able to retain his freehold houses in Henley Street, which on his death descended to his son the poet. The two tenements would seem to have been then occupied as one residence, forming in all probability the dwelling-house of the family-the home of Shakespeare's youth, and, according to tradition, the place of his birth-and now the shrine of pilgrimvisitors from all lands.1

A numerous family was born to John and Mary Shakespeare.

1 'The house has been restored to its original state in Shakspere's time, and been separated from the surrounding buildings, and the garden planted with all the flowers the poet sings of so lovingly in his plays. The house is one of the old timbered houses that may still be seen standing in many parts of the county, with their great beams checkering the walls with squares, and their high-pitched gable roofs and dormer windows.'-Shakspere, his Birthplace, &c., by John R. Wise, 1860.

The baptisms of eight children are recorded in the Stratford register:

1558, September 15, Joan [Died in infancy].

1562, December 2, Margaret [Died in the following year, 1563].

1564, April 26, WILLIAM.

1566, October 13, Gilbert [Was living at Stratford in 1609]. 1569, April 15, Joan [Married William Hart of Stratford and is mentioned in Shakespeare's will. She died in 1646].

1571, September 28, Anne [Died in 1579].

1574, March 11, Richard [Died at Stratford in 1613. Nothing is known of his history].

1580, May 3, Edmund [Became an actor, and died in London in December 1607].

The entry of the poet's baptism stands thus in the register: 1564, April 26, Gulielmus, filius Johannes [sic] Shakspere.'1 There is a tradition that Shakespeare was born, as he died, on the 23d of April, the anniversary of St George the patron saint of England. The circumstance, if authentic, would be poetically memorable and interesting, but it is mentioned by none of his contemporaries, or by any early authority, and the inscription. on his monument seems to negative the supposition. It is there recorded that he died on the 23d of April 1616, aged 53; and if he was born on the 23d of April 1564, he had only just completed his 52d year on the day of his decease. The birth had

1 There are, at least, twenty varieties of orthography in the name, but the common pronunciation seems to have been Shaxpere. In his printed works, the poet spells it full, Shakespeare, as did his contemporaries, Camden, Ben Jonson, and his original editors, Heminge and Condell. The signatures to the poet's will are so tremulous and indistinct that it is difficult to say how he wrote the name, though the preponderance is in favour of the short form, Shakspere. There was, perhaps, as Mr Hunter suggests, a rustic and a courtly mode: "The poet himself might be called by his honest neighbours at Stratford and Shottery, Mr Shaxper; while his friends in London honoured him, as we know historically they did, with the more stately name of Shakespeare.'

most likely taken place some days earlier.1 While the poet was in extreme infancy—not three months old-a contagious fever or pestilence broke out with great virulence in Stratford, carrying off in about five months above 200 persons out of a population not exceeding 1500. 'A poetical enthusiast,' says Malone, 'will find no difficulty in believing that, like Horace, Shakespeare reposed secure and fearless in the midst of contagion and death, protected by the Muses, to whom his future life was to be devoted.

'Sacrâ

Lauroque, collâtque myrto,

Non sine Diis animosus infans.'?

At seven years of age, William Shakespeare became eligible for admission to the free or grammar school of Stratford; and that he was sent there, as stated by Rowe, is sufficiently vouched by the fact that his father was then one of the aldermen of the town. Rowe adds, that John Shakespeare withdrew his son from school ere he had attained to much proficiency in Latin, in order that he might be useful at home; and we have seen that the elder Shakespeare's affairs were considerably embarrassed before 1578, when William was in his fourteenth year. The father might also be indifferent to the advantages of classical learning, for it is abundantly proved that neither John nor Mary Shakespeare, although one had officiated as chamberlain and highbailiff, and the other was an heiress of gentle blood, could write their names. With respect to the disputed question as to the

1 See a communication on this point from Mr Bolton Corney in Notes and Queries, 1859. He asks, 'Would Shakespeare's widow and daughters (who erected the monument) authorise a deceptive inscription?'

2 'That safe from bears and adders in such place

I lay, and slumbering smiled,

O'erstrewn with myrtle wild

And laurel, by the gods' peculiar grace

1

No craven-hearted child.'

-THEODORE MARTIN.

Their marks affixed to several deeds are still extant. The mark of

b

extent of Shakespeare's scholarship, we have first the famous line of Ben Jonson :

‘And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek ;'

opposed to which is a remark that Aubrey picked up from a Mr Beeston, connected with the players, that Shakespeare 'understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country.' Jonson's standard of scholarship was high, and he was a severe critic. But Shakespeare could scarcely have remained five or six years at the grammar-schooland the probability is that he was longer there as his education cost nothing-without acquiring, at least, as much learning as would direct and stimulate his further studies. There is no doubt that he read Plutarch in North's translation (copying its errors), and not in the original Greek; but the author who of all others most resembles Shakespeare in universality of genius Sir Walter Scott-must have done the same. When Shakespeare threw himself into the arena of poetry and the drama, contending with university-bred wits and scholars, he must have felt the necessity for varied and intent study; and his two classical poems-the Venus and Adonis and Lucrece-and his earliest dramas, shew that he had imbibed the spirit of the ancients, with as much of their manner as might sit gracefully on a free, original, and inspired poet of the north. There was another school in which Shakespeare was perhaps a still more devoted student-the school of nature. His descriptions of natural scenery and objects-his pictures of hill and valley, rural occupations and festivals-trees, flowers, and streams-every striking bit of colour and form, every insect and animal that met his eye-all attest the eager curiosity, the love and joy with

Mary Shakespeare is a rude imitation of the letter M. The earlier mark of her husband was, as Mr Halliwell describes it, his merchant's mark, representing an instrument used for stretching and opening new gloves. When he became a yeoman, he commenced marking with a The poet's own daughter, Judith, it appears, was unable to write her name.

cross.