course, have been great laxity in this respect among the lower orders, as there is now; but Shakefpere's family was rather above the lower orders. The English have always been particularly impatient of any attempt to introduce the canon law of marriage, and the famous "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari" was uttered in oppofition to the attempt of the Pope to make the law of England conformable to the principle of the canon law, that a fubfequent marriage renders children born before wedlock legitimate. This was never admitted by English lawyers. But Shakefpere himself has recorded his own judgment, and therein the judgment of his day, upon fuch an ante-dating of the public ceremony of matrimony. In "The Tempeft," Profpero charges Ferdinand and Miranda

"Then, as my gift, and thine own acquifition
Worthily purchaf'd, take my daughter: But
If thou doft break her virgin knot before
All fanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minifter'd,
No fweet afperfion fhall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-ey'd difdain, and difcord, fhall beftrew
The union of your bed with weeds fo loathly,
That you fball hate it both: therefore, take heed,
As Hymen's lamps fhall light you."

Whether Shakespere's married life were a happy one or not, we have no means of knowing; but certainly

the circumstances under which it commenced were not promifing.

It has been supposed that his bequeathing to his wife only his fecond-best bed is indicative of no very strong affection for her; but it has been well observed by Mr. Knight, that this circumstance does not prove much with respect to the terms on which they lived, because a confiderable part of the property of which he died poffeffed was freehold, and out of this fhe was entitled to her dower and thirds at common law. Still, I cannot help thinking, that had his love for his wife been very ardent or very tender, he would have mentioned her in his will in more endearing terms, and left her some more fignificant token of affection than his secondbeft bed.

Anne Hathaway died in 1623, furviving her husband feven years, and is buried clofe to him in the chancel of the parish church at Stratford. On her gravestone is this infcription, "Here lyeth interred the body of Anne, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 years."

CHAPTER VI.

MARY ARDEN had borne to John Shakefpere two daughters-Joan, born in 1558, the year of Queen Elizabeth's acceffion; fhe probably died young, as a subsequent daughter was christened by the fame name. Margaret, the second child, we know, from the register, to have died foon after her birth. William, therefore, was the eldest surviving child. He was fucceeded by Gilbert, born in 1566; Joan, in 1569; Anne, in 1571; and Edmund, in 1580.

But before the birth of Edmund, John Shakefpere was beginning to experience the ufual lot of those who have many irons in the fire. In 1578, Ashbies, his wife's patrimony, was mortgaged. In the next year, the intereft and reverfion to the estate at Snitterfield was fold. When his brother aldermen were required to contribute fix and eight pence for the equipping of three pikemen, two billmen, and one archer, John Shakefpere was indulgently let off for one half, and

was altogether excufed from contributing fourpence a week, which the others paid, for the relief of the poor, then first becoming chargeable upon the general public in confequence of the diffolution of the monasteries. When, in 1578-9, a rate was levied on the inhabitants for the purchase of armour, he was unable to pay; and because he had no goods to diftrain upon, a capias iffued against him on the 19th of January. And then, of course, his embarraffments came thicker and thicker upon him, till, at a court held on the 6th September, 1586, a more profperous citizen was chofen to fill his place as alderman.

At this time the Poet was twenty-two years of age, and the gall of this indignity probably entered into his foul, and dictated those bitter taunting reflections of Jaques, when he saw the stricken deer deserted by the

herd :

"""Tis right,' quoth he, thus mifery doth part
The flux of company.' Anon a careless herd,

Full of the pafture, jumps along by him,

And never stays to greet him: Ay,' quoth Jaques,

'Sweep on, you fat and greafy citizens;

'Tis juft the fashion; wherefore do you look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'"

The oftenfible reafon of John Shakefpere's degradation from the poft of alderman was, that he "dothe not come to the halles when they be warned, nor

hathe not done of longe time." But, probably, his absence was caufed by his being in prifon, or in hiding for fear of arreft; for, in the next year, he sued out a writ of habeas corpus in the Stratford Court of

Record.

From these pecuniary embarraffiments, and the legal proceedings which sprang out of them, William Shakefpere probably derived that knowledge of legal terms and practice which, appearing in his plays, led Malone to believe that he was bound apprentice to an attorney; and it is but too likely that he then learnt to count the time by the duration of a law-fuit. "I will devise matter enough," fays Falstaff, "out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of fix fashions (which is four terms, or two actions), and he shall laugh without intervallums.”

In these misfortunes it is to be feared that William Shakespere was not a comfort or afliftance to his father. Both from the external evidence of tradition, and the internal testimony of his plays, there is good reafon to suppose that his youth was, as the French fay, ftormy. In the archives of Corpus Chrifti College, Oxford, is a collection of antiquarian papers compiled by the Rev. William Fulman, who died in 1688, and who may therefore have been born fome time before Shakefpere's death. These papers were bequeathed by Mr.