critics, with reference to this event. He says: "It is scarcely necessary to point out to our readers that the view we have taken presupposes that the licence for matrimony, obtained from the Consistorial Court at Worcester, was a permission sought for under no extraordinary circumstances;—still less that the young man who was about to marry was compelled to urge on the marriage as a consequence of previous imprudence. We believe, on the contrary, that the course pursued was strictly in accordance with the customs of the time, and of the class to which Shakspere belonged. The espousals before witnesses, we have no doubt, were then considered as constituting a valid marriage, if followed up within a limited time by the marriage of the Church. However the Reformed Church might have endeavoured to abrogate this practice, it was unquestionably the ancient habit of the people. It was derived from the Roman law, the foundation of many of our institutions. It prevailed for a long period without offence. It still prevails in the Lutheran Church. We are not to judge of the customs of those days by our own, especially if our inferences have the effect of imputing criminality where the most perfect innocence existed.”

Mr. Halliwell, in that wonderful repository of facts and documents connected with the history of Shakespeare, prefixed to his new folio edition of that poet's works, takes precisely the same view. He says: "The espousals of the lovers were celebrated in the summer of 1582.. In those days, betrothment, or contract of matrimony, often preceded actual marriage; and there need be no hesitation in believing that this ceremony was passed through by Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. There is the direct testimony of an author of 1543 that, in some places, it was regarded, in all essential particulars, as a regular marriage; and, provided the ceremony was cele

*Book i. chap. xvi. p. 274, in the new and beautiful edition of this book published by Messrs. Routledge and Co.

brated in a reasonable time, no criminality could be alleged after the contract had been made. This opinion

is well illustrated by a passage in the 'Winter's Tale,' Act i., Scene 2, expressive of disgust at one who puts to before her troth-plight.' The parish register of Stratford will show it was usual for cohabitation to take place before actual marriage; the existence of a contract fully counteracting any charge of impropriety."*

It will be seen that Mr. William Henry Smith lays great stress upon the supposed poverty of the poet's father, as well as upon the fact that this worthy parent could not write his own name. More importance has been attached to both of these matters than they deserve. John Shakespeare was involved in litigation, and he may have had some motive for wishing to conceal the real state of his affairs. From 1577 till 1586, he did not attend to his duties as an alderman, and was consequently, in the last-mentioned year, struck off the list, in precisely the same way as he had before been excused certain municipal payments. Yet we must not forget that, in two documents recently published, bearing the date of 1580, John Shakespeare is described among the "gentlemen and freeholders," in the first case of the hundred of Barlichway, and in the second, of the county of Warwick. The latter entry occurs in "A Book of the Names and Dwelling-places of the Gentlemen and Freeholders in the county of Warwick, 1580."+ And in this John Shakespeare is assigned to Stratford-uponAvon.

*Halliwell, Life, p. 88.

+See "A Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, 1547-1580, preserved in the State Paper Department of her Majesty's Public Record Office;" edited by Robert Lemon, F.S.A., under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, and with the sanction of her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department. 1857. These valuable historical documents have not been before published, although they have been referred to and quoted by various writers.

The poet was then sixteen years old; and there is no positive evidence that he did not pursue his studies at the Stratford-upon-Avon grammar-school up to this period. So much for the supposed poverty of John Shakespeare. Mr. William Henry Smith dwells with a kind of painful satisfaction upon the fact that John Shakespeare could not write his own name; yet we do not perceive how this can prove that his son was not the most gifted man of the age. In the times in which John Shakespeare lived, it was not by any means so uncommon a thing for a man in good circumstances, and even of gentle parentage, to make his mark. The youth of John Shakespeare was cast in a period of transition; an old system had been broken up and destroyed, and the new one was not completely established in its place. Amid the troubles, the contentions, the revolutions and counterrevolutions that occurred between the reigns of Henry VIII. and of James I.-which eventful interval comprised the Reformation, followed by the re-ascendancy of the Catholic party, and the bloody interlude of Queen Mary's sway, and the re-establishment of pure religion under Elizabeth,—education and the gentler arts were but too often neglected.

In those unsettled times, the mental training and discipline of richer and more influential men than John Shakespeare did not receive the attention which they deserved, and there were many filling higher positions in society, who were compelled to plead guilty to the charge of want of scholarship, by affixing their mark to whatever documents they were called upon to subscribe. The poet, however, enjoyed advantages denied to his parent; learning had in his day once more regained its rightful position; and at the Stratford-upon-Avon grammar-school he doubtless received the rudiments of a liberal education.

Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. William Henry Smith's account of the change that

occurred in John Shakespeare's circumstances, is correct, and that the extreme degree of importance which he seems to attach to the fact that he could not write his name, is also equally worthy of reception, what does he gain by the concessions? John Shakespeare's poverty and want of education are rotten foundations upon which to build arguments respecting the condition of the son. Neither the indigence of the former, nor his want of gentle accomplishments, will prove that the latter was not the first poet in the universe. The Omnipotent Ruler of the world hath thought fit, in his wisdom, to scatter his benefits freely amongst all classes and conditions, and often crowns the poor man's progeny with the diadem of intellectual superiority. The lengthy and honourable list of those who have emerged from the lower walks of life, into well-merited distinction, need not be inserted here; every student of history knows that all ranks and conditions can boast of their great men; and that while the offspring of mighty and potent monarchs have died in obscurity, the descendants of hewers of wood and drawers of water have climbed the dazzling heights of power. Mental endowments cannot be, like worldly possessions, transmitted from father to son: the intellectual order of merit does not recognize social distinctions.

Starting from these false premises, Mr. Henry William Smith proceeds to draw the erroneous conclusions that "William Shakespeare was a man of limited education, careless of fame, and intent upon money-getting;" neither of which assertions he attempts to prove, probably as fully aware as most reasonable people, that were they all substantiated, his theory would not be thereby advanced. In fact, the whole gist of the pamphlet may be summed up in this manner :-John Shakespeare was poor and ignorant, and could not have given his son a good education; and in addition to this, William Shakespeare cared little for fame, and only thought of money-making; there

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fore he did not write the plays that have so long been received as his productions.

Having settled matters with the poet and his father in this arbitrary manner, Mr. William Henry Smith proceeds to search for a man after his own heart. Lord Bacon suits his idea of a great dramatic author, and is at once advanced to the throne from which poor William, or what M. Ponsard would call " 'poor Williams,' "* has been ruthlessly ejected. Lord Bacon was of noble extraction, and had received a good education; he possessed considerable ability for dramatic composition, and wanted money; in fact, to borrow Mr. William Henry Smith's own words, "His daily walk, letters, and conversation, constitute the beau-ideal of such a man as we might suppose the author of these plays to have been ; and the very absence, in those letters, of all allusion to Shakespeare's plays, is some, though slight, corroboration of his connection with them." +

Was ever theory raised upon such stubble? By adopting this line of argument, the literary reputations of half the great names in our list of authors might be demolished in a few seconds. A single specimen from this medley of inconsistencies will serve to show how obstinately and absurdly their author contradicts himself. One reason which he advances with much gravity as affording satisfactory proof that William Shakespeare did not write these plays, is that he was "careless of fame.”‡

Now let the reader consider for a moment what this

*We have a strong notion that Mr. Henry William Smith and M. Ponsard are one and the same individual, and that this acute critic merely assumed the latter name while lecturing foreign audiences, in order to create for himself a twofold reputation. At any rate, they are kindred spirits, and a night with Ponsard and Mr. William Henry Smith, especially if the conversation happened to turn upon Shakespeare, would be a literary banquet, of which even Athenæus himself could not have formed a conception. Pamphlet, p. 10. + Pamphlet, p. 6.