drawn across it; and a sort of balcony in the rear enabled the writer to represent his characters at a window, on the platform of a castle, or on an elevated terrace.

To this simplicity, and to these deficiencies, we doubtless owe some of the finest passages in our early plays; for it was part of the business of the dramatist to supply the absence of colored canvas by grandeur and luxuriance of description. The ear was thus made the substitute for the eye, and the

than supplied the place of the painter's brush. Moveable scenery was unknown in our public theatres until after the Restoration; and, as has been observed elsewhere, "the introduction of it gives the date to the commencement of the decline of our dramatic poetry."

Besides Marlowe, Greene, Lodge, Lyly, Peele, and Kyd, there were other dramatists, who may be looked upon as the immediate predecessors of Shakespeare, but few of whose printed works are of an earlier date, as regards composition, than some of those which came from the pen of our great poet. Among these, Thomas Nash was the most distinguished, whose contribution to "Dido," in conjunction with Marlowe, has been before noticed: the portions which came from the pen of Marlowe are, we think, easily to be distinguished from those writ-poet's pen, aided by the auditor's imagination, more ten by Nash, whose genius does not seem to have been of an imaginative or dramatic, but of a satirical and objurgatory character. Henry Chettle, who was also senior to Shakespeare, has left behind him a tragedy called "Hoffman," which was not printed until 1630; and he was engaged with Anthony Munday in producing "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," printed in 1601. From Henslowe's Diary we learn that both these pieces were written subsequent to the date when Shakespeare had acquired a high reputation. Munday had been a dramatist as early as 1584, when a rhyming translation by him, under the title of "The Two Italian Gentlemen," came from the press; and in the interval between that year and 1602, he wrote the whole or parts of various plays which have been lost. Robert Wilson ought not to be omitted: he seems to have been a prolific dramatist, but only one comedy by him has survived, under the title of "The Cobbler's Prophecy," and it was printed in 1594. He seems to have been a low comedian, and his "Cobbler's Prophecy" is a piece, the drollery of which must have depended in a great degree upon the performers.

With regard to mechanical facilities for the representation of plays before, and indeed long after, the time of Shakespeare, it may be sufficient to state, that our old public theatres were merely round wooden buildings, open to the sky in the audience part of the house, although the stage was covered by a hanging roof: the spectators stood on the ground in front or at the sides, or were accommodated in boxes round the inner circumference of the edifice, or in galleries at a greater elevation. Our ancient stage was unfurnished with moveable scenery; and tables, chairs, a few boards for a battlemented wall, or a rude structure for a tomb or an altar, seem to have been nearly all the properties it possessed. It was usually hung round with decayed tapestry; and as there was no other mode of conveying the necessary information, the author often provided that the player, on his entrance, should take occasion to mention the place of action. When the business of a piece required that the stage should represent two apartments, the effect was accomplished by a curtain, called a traverse,

How far propriety of costume was regarded, we have no sufficient means of deciding; but we apprehend that more attention was paid to it than has been generally supposed, or than was accomplished at a much later and more refined period. It is indisputable, that often in this department no outlay was spared: the most costly dresses were purchased, that characters might be consistently habited; and, as a single proof, we may mention, that sometimes more than £20 were given for a cloak, an enormous price, when it is recollected that money was then five or six times as valuable as at present.

We have thus briefly stated all that seems absolutely required to give the reader a correct notion of the state of the English drama and stage at the period when, according to the best judgment we can form from such evidence as remains to us, Shakespeare advanced to a forward place among the dramatists of the day. As long ago as 1679, Dryden gave currency to the notion, which we have shown to be mistaken, that Shakespeare "created first the stage," and he repeated it in 1692: it is not necessary to the just admiration of that noble dramatist, that we should do injustice to his prede cessors or earlier contemporaries: on the contrary, his miraculous powers are best to be estimated by a comparison with his ablest rivals; and if he appear not greatest when his works are placed beside those of Marlowe, Greene, Peele, or Lodge, however distinguished their rank as dramatists, and however deserved their popularity, we shall be content to think, that for more than two centuries the world has been under a delusion as to his claims. He rose to eminence and he maintained it, amid struggles for equality by men of high genius and varied talents; and with his example ever since before us, no poet of any country, has even approached his excellence. Shakespeare is greatest by a comparison with greatness, or he is nothing.

THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER I.

It deserves remark, that although John Shakespeare is often subsequently mentioned in the recNo Shakespeare advanced or rewarded by Henry VII.Antiquity of the Shakespeares in Warwickshire, &c.-ords of the corporation of Stratford, no addition Earliest occurrence of the name at Stratford-upon-Avon, -The Trade of John Shakespeare.-Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, probably father to John Shakespeare, and certainly tenant to Robert Arden, father of John Shakespeare's wife.-Marriage of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden: their circumstances.-Purchase of two houses in Stratford by John Shakespeare.-His progress in the corporation.

IT has been supposed that some of the paternal ancestors of William Shakespeare were advanced, and rewarded with lands and tenements in Warwickshire, for services rendered to Henry VII. The rolls of that reign have been recently most carefully searched, and the name of Shakespeare, according to any mode of spelling it, does not occur in them.

ever accompanies his name. We may presume
that in 1556, he was established in his business,
because on the 30th April of that year he was one
His name in
of twelve jurymen of a court-leet.
the list was at first struck through with a pen, but
underneath it the word stet was written, probably by
the town-clerk. Thus we find him in 1556 acting
as a regular trading inhabitant of the borough of
Stratford-upon-Avon.

ard Rushby and his wife: from Robert Arden the property descended to his son, and it was part of this estate which was occupied by Richard Shakespeare in 1550. We have no distinct evidence upon the point; but if we suppose Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield to have been the father of John Shakespeare of Stratford, who married Mary Arden, the youngest of seven daughters of Robert Arden, it will easily and naturally explain the manner in which John Shakespeare became introduced to the family of the Ardens, inasmuch as Richard Shakespeare, the father of John, and the grandfather of William Shakespeare, was one of the tenants of Robert Arden.

Little doubt can be entertained that he came from Snitterfield, three miles from Stratford; and upon this point we have several new documents before us. It appears from them, that a person of the name of Richard Shakespeare (nowhere before mentioned) was resident at Snitterfield in 1550: he Many Shakespeares were resident in different was tenant of a house and land belonging to Robert parts of Warwickshire, as well as in some of the Arden (or Ardern, as the name was anciently spelt, adjoining counties, at an early date. The register and as it stands in the papers in our hands) of Wilof the Guild of St. Anne of Knolle, or Knowle, be- mecote, in the parish of Aston Cantlowe. By ginning in 1407 and ending in 1535, when it was a conveyance, dated 21st December, 11th Henry dissolved, contains various repetitions of the name, VIII., we find that Robert Arden then became posduring the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., Rich-sessed of houses and land in Snitterfield, from Richard III., Henry VII., and Henry VIII.: we there find a Thomas Shakespere of Balishalle, or Balsal, Thomas Chacsper and John Shakespeyre of Rowington, Richard Shakspere of Woldiche, together with Joan, Jane, and William Shakespeare, of places not mentioned: an Isabella Shakspere is also there stated to have been priorissa de Wraxale in the 19th Henry VII. The Shakespeares of Wroxal, of Rowington, and of Balsal, are mentioned by Malone, as well as other persons of the same name at Claverdon and Hampton. He carries back his information regarding the Shakespeares of Warwick no higher than 1602; but a William Shakespeare was drowned in the Avon near Warwick in 1574, a John Shakespeare was No registration of that marriage has been discovresident on "the High Pavement" in 1578, and aered, but we need not hesitate in deciding that the Thomas Shakespeare in the same place in 1585. ceremony took place in 1557. Mary Arden and The earliest date at which we hear of a Shake- her sister Alicia were certainly unmarried, when speare in the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon is they were appointed "executores" under their 17th June, 1555, when Thomas Siche instituted a father's will, dated 24th November, 1556, and the proceeding in the court of the bailiff, for the recov-probability seems to be that they were on that acery of the sum of £8 from John Shakespeare, who has always been taken to be the father of our great dramatist. Thomas Siche was of Arlescote, or Arscotte, in Worcestershire, and in the Latin record of the suit John Shakespeare is called "glover," in English. Taking it for granted, as we have every reason to do, that this John Shakespeare was the father of the poet, the document satisfied Malone What were the circumstances of John Shakespeare that he was a glover, and not a butcher, as Aubrey at the time of his marriage, we can only conjecture. had affirmed, nor a dealer in wool, as Rowe had It has been shown that two years before that event, stated. We think that Malone was right, and the a claim of £8 was made upon him in the borough testimony is unquestionably more positive and authen-court of Stratford, and we must conclude, either tic than the traditions to which we have referred. that the money was not due and the demand unjust,

count chosen for the office, in preference to their five married sisters. Joan, the first child of John Shakespeare and his wife Mary, was baptized in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon on the 15th September, 1558, so that we may fix their union towards the close of 1557, about a year after the death of Robert Arden.

or that he was unable to pay the debt, and was | therefore proceeded against. The issue of the suit is not known; but in the next year he seems to have been established in business as a glover, a branch of trade much carried on in that part of the kingdom, and, as already mentioned, he certainly served upon the jury of a court-leet in 1556. Therefore, we are, perhaps, justified in thinking that his affairs were sufficiently prosperous to warrant his union with the youngest of seven co-heiresses, who brought him some independent property.

Joan, was born, having been baptized, as already stated, on the 15th September, of that year: she died in her infancy, and as her burial does not appear in the register of Stratford, she was, perhaps, interred at Snitterfield, where Richard Shakespeare, probably the father of John Shakespeare, still resided. In respect to the registers of marriages, baptisms, and deaths, at Stratford, some confusion has been produced by the indisputable fact, that two persons of the name of John Shakespeare, the one a glover, and the other a shoemaker, were living in the town at the same time, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the entries which relate to the one, or to the other.

John Shakespeare was again chosen one of the four affeerors of Stratford in 1561, and the Shakespeare Society is in possession of the original presentation made by these officers on the 4th May in that year, the name of the father of our great dramatist coming last, after those of Henry Bydyll, Lewis ap William, and William Mynske. In September following the date of this report John Shakespeare was elected one of the chamberlains of the borough, a very responsible post, in which he remained two years.

Under her father's will she inherited £6 138. 4d. in money, and a small estate in fee, in the parish of Aston Cantlowe, called Asbyes, consisting of a messuage, fifty acres of arable land, six acres of meadow and pasture, and a right of common for all kinds of cattle. Malone knew nothing of Mary Arden's property in Snitterfield, to which we have already referred, and, without it, he estimated that her fortune was equal to £110 13s. 4d., which seems to us rather an under calculation of its actual value. He also speculated, that at the time of their marriage John Shakespeare was twenty-seven years old, and Mary Arden eighteen; but the truth is that we have not a particle of direct evidence upon the point. Had she been so young, it seems very unlikely that her father would have appointed her one of his executors in the preceding year, and we are inclined to think that she must have been of full age in No-lain. vember, 1556.

It was probably in contemplation of his marriage that, on 2d October, 1556, John Shakespeare became the owner of two copy-hold houses in Stratford, the one in Greenhill-street, and the other in Henley-street, which were alienated to him by George Turnor and Edward West, respectively; the house in Greenhill-street had a garden and croft attached to it, and the house in Henley-street only a garden; and for each he was to pay to the lord of the manor an annual rent of sixpence. In 1557 he was again sworn as a juryman upon the court-leet, and in the spring of the following year he was amerced in the sum of fourpence for not keeping clean the gutter in front of his dwelling. It is a point of little importance, but it is highly probable that John Shakespeare was first admitted a member of the corporation of Stratford in 1557, when he was made one of the ale-tasters of the town; and in September, 1558, he was appointed one of the four constables, his name following those of Humphrey Plymley, Roger Sadler, and John Taylor. He continued constable in 1559, his associates then being John Taylor, William Tyler, and William Smith, and he was besides one of four persons, called affeerors, whose duty it was to impose fines upon their fellow-townsmen (such as he had himself paid in 1557) for offences against the byelaws of the borough.

His second child, Margaret, or Margareta (as the name stands in the register), was baptized on the 2d December, 1562, while he continued chamberShe was buried on 30th April, 1563. The greatest event, perhaps, in the literary history of the world occurred a year afterwardsWilliam Shakespeare was born. The day of his birth cannot be fixed with absolute certainty, but he was baptized on the 26th April, 1564, and the memorandum in the register is precisely in the following form:

"1564. April 26. Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere." So that whoever kept the book (in all probability the clerk) either committed a common clerical error, or was no great proficient in the rules of grammar. It seems most likely that our great dramatist had been brought into the world only three days before he was baptized, as it was then the custom to carry infants very early to the font. A house is still pointed out by tradition, in Henleystreet, as that in which William Shakespeare first saw the light, and we have already shown that his father was the owner of two copy-hold dwellings in Henley-street and Greenhill-street, and we may, perhaps, conclude that the birth took place in the former. John and Mary Shakespeare having previously lost two girls, Joan and Margaret, William was at this time the only child of his parents.

A malignant fever, denominated the plague, broke out at Stratford while William Shakespeare was in extreme infancy: he was not two months old when it made its appearance, having been brought from London, where, according to Stow, (Annales, p. 1112, edit. 1615,) it raged with great violence throughout the year 1563, and did not so far abate that term could be kept, as usual at Westminster, until Easter, 1564. It was most fatal at Stratford between June and December, 1564, and Malone calculated that it carried off in that interval more than a seventh part of the whole population, consisting of about 1,400 inhabitants. It does not uppear that it reached any member of the immediate family of John Shakespeare, and it is not at all unlikely that he avoided its ravages by quitting Stratford for Snitterfield, where he owned some property in right of his wife, and where perhaps his father was still living as tenant to Alexander Webbe,,who,

in 1569, had obtained a lease for forty years from of John Shakespeare,) it can never be entertained his relative, the widow Agnes Arden, of the mes-hereafter, because the Shakespeare Society has been suage in which Richard Shakespeare resided.

66

We are persuaded that when William Shake- | March, 1573-4, as the son of “Mr. John Shakespeare applied to the office in 1596, Garter of that speare." Richard Shakespeare may have been day, or his assistants, made a confusion between the named after his grandfather of Snitterfield, who per'great grandfather" and the "antecessors" of John, haps was sponsor on the occasion. and of William Shakespeare. What is stated, both in the confirmation and exemplification, as to parentage and descent, is true as regards William Shakespeare, but erroneous as regards John Shakespeare. It appears that Sir William Dethick, garter-king-gardens and orchards, in Henley-street. It will not at-arms in 1596 and 1599, was subsequently called to account for having granted coats to persons whose station in society and circumstances gave them no right to the distinction. The case of John Shakespeare was one of those complained of in this respect; and had Clarencieux Cooke really put his name in 1568-9 to any such patent as, it was asserted, had been exhibited to Sir William Dethick, a copy of it, or some record of it, would probably have remained in the office of arms in 1596; and the production of that alone, proving that he had merely acted on the precedent of Clarencieux Cooke, would, to a considerable extent at least, have justified Sir William Dethick. No copy, nor record, was how ever so produced, but merely a memorandum at the foot of the confirmation of 1596, that an original grant had been sent or shown, which memorandum may have been added when Sir William Dethick's conduct was called in question; and certain other statements are made at the bottom of the same document, which would be material to Garter's vindication, but which are not borne out by facts. One of these statements is, that John Shakespeare, in 1596, was worth £500, an error certainly as regarded him, but a truth probably as regarded his son.

The increase of John Shakespeare's family seems, for some time, to have been accompanied by an increase of his means, and in 1574 he gave Edmund and Emma Hall £40 for two freehold houses, with be forgotten that he was already the owner of a copyhold tenement in the same street, which he had bought of Edward West, in 1556, before his marriage with Mary Arden. To one of the two lastpurchased dwellings John Shakespeare is supposed to have removed his family; but, for aught we know, he had lived from the time of his marriage, and continued to live in 1574, in the house in Henleystreet, which had been alienated to him eighteen. years before. It does not appear that he had ever. parted with West's house, so that in 1574 he was the owner of three houses in Henley-street.

It is really a matter of little moment whether John Shakespeare did or did not obtain a grant of arms while he was bailiff of Stratford; but we are strongly inclined to think that he did not, and that the assertion that he did, and that he was worth £500 in 1596, originated with Sir W. Dethick, when he subsequently wanted to make out his own vindication from the charge of having conceded arms to various persons without due caution and inquiry.

In 1570, when William Shakespeare was in his seventh year, his father was in possession of a field called Ingon, or Ington, meadow, within two miles of Stratford, which he held under William Clopton. We cannot tell in what year he first rented it, because the instrument proving his tenancy is dated 11th June, 1581, and only states the fact, that on 11th December, 1570, it was in his occupation. The annual payment for it was £8, a considerable sum, certainly, for that time; but if there had been a good dwelling-house and orchard" upon the field, as Malone conjectured, that circumstance would, in all probability, have been mentioned. We may presume that John Shakespeare employed it for agricultural purposes, but upon this point we are without information. That he lived in Stratford at the time we infer from the fact, that on the 28th September, 1571, a second daughter, named Anne, was baptized at the parish-church. He had thus four children living, two boys and two girls, William, Gilbert, Joan, and Anne, but the last died at an early age, having been buried on 4th April, 1579. On the baptism of his daughter Anne, he was, for the first time, called "Magister Shakespeare" in the Latin entry in the Register, a distinction he seems to have acquired by having served the office of bailiff two years before. The same observation will apply to the registration of his fifth child, Richard, who was baptized on 11th

It is, we apprehend, indisputable that soon after this date the tide of John Shakespeare's affairs began to turn, and that he experienced disappointments and losses which seriously affected his pecuniary circumstances. At a borough hall on the 29th January, 1578, it was ordered that every alder man in Stratford should pay 6s. 8d., and every bur gess 38. 4d. toward "the furniture of three pikemen, two billmen, and one archer." Now, although John Shakespeare was not only an alderman, but had been chosen "head alderman" in 1571, he was allowed to contribute only 3s. 4d., as if he had been merely a burgess. In November, 1578, when it was required that every alderman should "pay weekly to the relief: of the poor 4d.," John Shakespeare and Robert Bratt were excepted. Several other facts tend strongly to the conclusion that in 1578 John Shakespeare was distressed for money: he owed a baker of the name of Roger Sadler £5, for which Edmund Lambert, and a person of the name of Cornishe, had become security; Sadler died, and in his will, dated 14th November, 1578, he included the following among the debts due to him:-" Item of Edmund Lambert and Cornishe, for the debt of Mr. John Shacksper, £5." And so severe the pressure of his necessities about this date seems to have been, that in 1579 he parted with his wife's interest in two tenements in Snitterfield to Robert Webbe for the small sum of £4.

It has been supposed that he might not at this time reside in Stratford-upon-Avon, and that for this reason, he only contributed 38. 4d. for pikemen, &c., and nothing to the poor of the town, in 1578. This notion is refuted by the fact, that in the deed for the sale of his wife's property in Snitterfield to Webbe, in 1579, he is called "John Shack spere of Stratfordupon-Avon," and in the bond for the performance of covenants, " Johannem Shackspere de Stratford-uponAvon, in comitat. Warwici." Another point requiring notice in connexion with these two newlydiscovered documents is, that in both John Shakespeare is termed " yeoman," and not glover: per haps in 1579, although he continued to occupy a house in Stratford, he had relinquished his original trade, and having embarked in agricultural pursuits, to which he had not been educated, had been unsuccessful. This may appear not an unnatural mode, of accounting for some of his difficulties. In the midst of them, in the spring of 1580, another son, named Edmund, was born, and christened at the parish church.