had "ten children in all;"28 but no more than eight29 are known from the Stratford registers, which give the dates of their baptisms in the following order: Joan, Sept. 15th, 1558; Margaret, Dec. 2d, 1562; William, April 26th, 1564; Gilbert, Oct. 13th, 1566; Joan, April 15th, 1569; Anne, Sept. 28th, 1571; Richard, March 11th, 1573-4; Edmund, May 3d, 1580.—The first Joan must have died an infant, though the entry of her burial has not been discovered in the register. Margaret and Anne were cut off immaturely the former was buried April 30th, 1563, the latter April 4th, 1579. Gilbert, the second Joan, Richard, and Edmund, will afterwards be mentioned in the course of this Memoir. The baptism of William Shakespeare at Stratfordupon-Avon is thus recorded in the register,— “1564, April 26, Gulielmus filius Johannes [sic] but the day on which he first saw the light cannot be exactly fixed. If we trust a faint tradition30 that he 28 Life of Shakespeare. 30 29 See before, p. 16c. Oldys's Ms. Notes on Langbaine.—The inscription on Shakespeare's monument is "Obiit anno Domini 1616, Etatis 53, die 23 Ap.”—It seems unreasonable to question the constant tradition that he was born in the house in Henley-street, to which such crowds have flocked, like pilgrims to a shrine. But alas for the "Shakesperian relics," which are (or at least, when I visited the house, were) exhibited there to all "curious travellers"! They consist of a card-and-dice box, with a pincushion on its top, presented to him by the Prince of Castile; a Toledo; an iron box which enclosed his will; a table-cloth of black velvet, embroidered with gold, the gift of Queen Elizabeth; his wife's shoe; a drinking-glass, made for him in his sickness; a table on which he wrote died on the anniversary of his birth, we are to believe that he was born on the 23d of the month; nor is the interval which this supposes between his birth and baptism inconsistent with the custom of the time.31 his works, &c.-"The most probable supposition is, that John Shakespeare lived in the birth-place during the whole of his residence in Stratford, first as tenant, and afterwards as owner; there being no reason for believing that he ever inhabited any one of his copyhold tenements, which were, in all probability, houses of a very inferior description.” Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 32, folio ed. That in January 1596-7 John Shakespeare was inhabiting what Mr. Halliwell emphatically calls the birth-place, we learn from the deed of conveyance by which he made over to George Badger the small piece of ground already mentioned: see note 26, p. 19. 31 Since the present Memoir first appeared, Mr. Bolton Corney has written as follows in Notes and Queries, Sec. Series, vol. vii. p. 337: "Was Shakspere born on the 23 April, 1564? Did he die on his birthday? The most important evidence on this question, though not in itself decisive of the fact, is the register of baptisms at Stratford. The item is thus given in print :— 'William, son of John Shakspere, was baptized April 26, 1564.' [Malone, 1790.] 1564. April 26. Gulielmus filius Johannes [sic] Shakspere.' [Collier, 1844.] But there is further evidence on this question-evidence which every one has read—which no one seems to have applied in illustration of it. I allude to the monumental inscription, which is as follows: 6 OBIIT ANO. DOI. 1616. ÆTATIS 53. DIE 23. Ap.' [Wheler, 1806.] The monument was in its place before 1623; perhaps in 1616-for Gerard Johnson, the tombe-maker, was then an old man. If Shakspere was born on the 23 April, 1564, he just completed his fifty-second year on the day of his decease. But it is recorded that he died in his fifty-third year. Now, Mrs. Shakespere survived till the 6 August, 1623. Susanna, witty above her sexe, and her husband John Hall, medicus peritissimus, who were joint-executors of the will of the deceased poet, lived to a much later period. So did Judith. Did they authorise a deceptive inscription on the monument? Would they, on such an occasion, sanction an equivoque? I entirely reject the supposition; and believe, on the above evidence, that he was born before the 23 April, 1564. If so, he did not die on his birthday. Should the in When he was only a few weeks old, the plague (which had been making great havoc in London) broke out in his native town; but though it raged there during several months with fatal violence, not a single individual of the name of Shakespeare appears to have become its victim. The fact of his father's being a member of the Corporation sufficiently confirms Rowe's statement that he was sent to the Free-school at Stratford;32 where the successive masters from 1572 to 1578,-the period during which we may assume that Shakespeare attended it, were Thomas Hunt and Thomas Jenkins. What was the extent of our poet's "learning," is a question which has given rise to much discussion, some of it not a little foolish. In opposition to those critics,Gildon, Upton, &c.,-who asserted the wide erudition of Shakespeare, Farmer has incontrovertibly shown that, while composing several of his dramas, he had recourse to North's Plutarch, and to other vernacular books, instead of consulting the ancient authors in the original (which, by the by, even with competent scholarship, he might be excused for doing). The line in Ben Jonson's admirable verses to his memory,— "And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek," ferences be doubted—no one, I am sure, can produce the smallest evidence of an opposite tendency. I consider the current assertions-'He was born on the 23 April, 1564'-' He died on his birthday in 1616'—as improbable conjectures ; and I submit the case to the Stratford Club, to the unprejudiced consideration of future editors of biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias, and of all future editors of the Works of Shakspere." 32 Life of Shakespeare. if taken literally, allows him at least a smattering of the latter language; and perhaps it may be urged that considerable attainments in learning would have appeared slight to Jonson, who, having devoted many a laborious hour to the study of the Classics, had stored his mind with all the treasures of antiquity: I believe, however, Jonson's meaning to be-that to his comparatively slender knowledge of Latin, Shakespeare never added any acquaintance with Greek; and such, I am persuaded, was the case.-Aubrey having related, on the authority of a Mr. "Beeston," that Shakespeare "understode Latine pretty well, for he had been in his "33 Mr. younger yeares a schoolmaster in the countrey, Collier conjectures that he might have been employed by the master of the Free-school at Stratford to aid him in the instruction of the junior boys.34 The conjecture is not very probable: and yet "small Latin" would have qualified him for such a task.-Of French and Italian, I apprehend, he knew but little.35 33 Mss. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. 3 Life of Shakespeare, p. 60, sec. ed. 35 “That Shakespeare was acquainted with Italian sufficiently appears from the very curious entry relating to Twelfth-Night in Manningham's Diary, 1602." Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 83, folio ed. Not so: Manningham's notice that incidents in Twelfth-Night resemble those in the Inganni-or rather, the Ingannati-does not prove Shakespeare's acquaintance with the Italian text of that comedy. Mr. Armitage Brown, in Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems, &c. 1838, concludes from certain passages of his plays that Shakespeare must have visited Italy; but those passages give nothing about Italian manners or places which he might not have obtained by means of books or hearsay. Mr. Brown's first proof of his having been in Italy is singularly unfortunate: "[Taming of the Shrew] Act I. Scene I. A public place. For an open place or a square in a city, this is not a home-bred expression. It may be accidental; yet it is a literal translation of una piazza We are further informed by Rowe that, in consequence of "the narrowness of his father's circumstances," the youthful poet was withdrawn from school his assistance being required at home:-the truth of which account is weakly disputed by Malone;36 who, as unsuccessfully, endeavours to establish, from the frequent occurrence of law-terms in our author's dramas, that he was placed for two or three years in the office of a Stratford attorney. Rowe proceeds to say that upon his leaving school, he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him," meaning that he became a dealer in wool; while Aubrey, to the express assertion that Shakespeare was the son of a butcher, adds, " and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours that when he was a boy he exercised his fathers trade, but when he kill'd a calfe, he wold doe it in a high style, and make a speech.' "37 The conflicting statements of 66 publica, exactly what was meant for the scene." p. 104 :—the words, A PUBLIC PLACE,” are an insertion by the modern editors. Rambling in Italy would have rather interfered with what seems to have been the grand object of Shakespeare from his earliest days,-the acquisition of a fortune, which was to enable him eventually to settle himself as a gentleman at Stratford: besides, I cannot but think that, if he had ever been in Italy, an incidental mention of his peregrination must have reached us from some quarter or other. 36"His brother Gilbert," says Malone, "was little more than two years younger than our poet, and, at the time now under our consideration, was as capable of carrying out parcels of gloves for his father (all that a boy could do) as his elder brother. For this purpose, therefore, it was not necessary to impede the progress of the eldest son's education." Life of Shakespeare, p. 106. But we have seen that, even before the dramatist's birth, John Shakespeare had other occupation besides glove-selling. 37 Mss. Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. And, curiously enough, one Dowdall, in a letter to Mr. Edward Southwell, dated 1693 (and printed 1838), writes |