Rowe and Aubrey about his father's occupation have been already considered: and here I need hardly remark what an amusing variety of business has been crowded by tradition and conjecture into the poet's earlier years, he was a wool-stapler, a butcher, a schoolmaster, and an attorney's clerk !38 thus: "The clarke that shew'd me this church [Stratford church] is above 80 years old: he says that this Shakespear [the dramatist] was formerly in this towne bound apprentice to a butcher, but that he run from his master to London," &c.—“The singular statement in Aubrey's account that Shakespeare, 'when he kill'd a calfe, he would doe it in a high style, and make a speech,' has been supposed by Mr. Raine to allude to an old semi-dramatic entertainment, called Killing the Calf, played by a person who was concealed from the spectators behind a curtain," &c. Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 78, folio ed. A stranger "supposition" cannot well be. 39 After giving an account of a play performed by the men of Coventry at Kenilworth Castle in July 1575, during Leicester's magnificent entertainment of the Queen,-Percy continues: "Whatever this old play or 'storiall show' was at the time it was exhibited to Q. Elizabeth, it had probably our young Shakespeare for a spectator, who was then in his twelfth year, and doubtless attended with all the inhabitants of the surrounding country at these 'Princely pleasures of Kenelworth,' whence Stratford is only a few miles distant. And as the Queen was much diverted with the Coventry play, 'whereat her Majestie laught well,' and rewarded the performers with 2 bucks and 5 marks in money: who, 'what rejoicing upon their ample reward, and what triumphing upon the good acceptance, vaunted their play was never so dignified, nor ever any players before so beatified:' but especially if our young bard afterwards gained admittance into the castle to see a play, which the same evening, after supper, was there 'presented of a very good theme, but so set-forth by the actors' well-handling, that pleasure and mirth made it seem very short, though it lasted two good hours and more,' we may imagine what an impression was made on his infant mind. Indeed, the dramatic cast of many parts of that superb entertainment, which continued nineteen days, and was the most splendid of the kind ever attempted in this kingdom; the addresses to the Queen in the personated characters of a Sybille, a Savage Man, and Sylvanus, as she approached or departed from the castle; and, on the water, by Arion, a Triton, or the Lady of the Lake, must have had a very great effect on a young imagination, whose dramatic powers were hereafter to astonish the To turn from uncertainties to facts. While under the age of nineteen, Shakespeare took to wife Anne Hathaway, who was about eight years older than himself.39 Neither the date of the marriage, nor the place where it was celebrated,40 have been discovered: but the following preliminary bond, preserved in the registry at Worcester, was given Nov. 28th, 1582, for the security of the bishop of the diocese in licensing the parties to be married with once asking of the banns: 41 "Noverint universi per præsentes nos Fulconem Sandells de Stratford in comitatu Warwici agricolam, et Johannem Rychardson ibidem agricolam, teneri et firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin generoso, et Roberto Warmstry notario publico, in quadraginta libris bonæ et legalis monetæ Angliæ solvend. eisdem Ricardo et Roberto, hæred. execut. vel assignat. suis, ad quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter faciend. obligamus world." On the Origin of the English Stage, p. 143,-Reliques of Anc. Eng. Poet. i. ed. 1794. 39 According to the brass-plate over her grave in Stratford Church, she died "the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares.”— In a note on Shakespeare's xciiid Sonnet, Malone writes: "Mr. Oldys observes in one of his manuscripts, that this and the preceding Sonnet 'seem to have been addressed by Shakespeare to his beautiful wife on some suspicion of her infidelity.' He must have read our author's poems with but little attention; otherwise he would have seen that these, as well as the preceding Sonnets, and many of those that follow, are not addressed to a female." Steevens subjoins: "Whether the wife of our author was beautiful or otherwise, was a circumstance beyond the investigation of Oldys, whose collections for his life I have perused." 40 There is a tradition that the marriage-ceremony was performed in the chapel of Luddington, a hamlet of the parish of Stratford, not far from Shottery. 41 Brought to light, in 1836, by Sir Thomas Phillipps, of Middle Hill, Worcestershire. nos et utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid. hæred. executor. et administrator. nostros firmiter per præsentes sigillis nostris sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. anno regni dominæ nostræ Eliz. Dei gratia Angliæ, Franc. et Hiberniæ reginæ, fidei defensor. &c. 25°. The condicion of this obligacion ys suche, that if herafter there shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment, by reason of any precontract, consangui[ni]tie, affinitie, or by any other lawful meanes whatsoever, but that William Shagspere one thone partie, and Anne Hathwey of Stratford in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solennize matrimony together, and in the same afterwardes remaine and continew like man and wiffe, according unto the lawes in that behalf provided: and moreover, if there be not at this present time any action, sute, quarrell, or demaund, moved or depending before any judge ecclesiasticall or temporall, for and concerning any suche lawfull lett or impediment and moreover, if the said William Shagspere do not proceed to solemnizacion of mariadg with the said Anne Hathwey without the consent of hir frindes: and also, if the said William do, upon his owne proper costes and expenses, defend and save harmles the right reverend Father in God, Lord John Bushop of Worcester, and his offycers, for licencing them the said William and Anne to be maried together with once asking of the bannes of matrimony betwene them, and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion therof; that then the said obligacion to be voyd and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in full force and vertue.” The marks and seals of Sandells and Richardson (one of the seals having the initials R. H.42). Though not mentioned among his other children in his will, it seems indisputable that Anne Hathaway was the daughter of Richard Hathaway, a "husbandman,” 43 or "substantial yeoman,' ,"44 of Shottery in the parish of Stratford,45 who had been dead 46 upwards of a twelvemonth when the above bond was executed, and who appears to have been on terms of intimacy with John Shakespeare.47-The Hathaways were resident in Shottery48 before the middle of the sixteenth century. To free our poet from the imputation which is sug 42 The seal had probably belonged to the deceased Richard Hathaway. The two bondsmen, Sandells and Richardson, are mentioned in his will: he appoints the former to be one of its supervisors; and the latter is among the witnesses to it. They were his neighbours at Shottery. 1863. The Rev. Mr. Bellew, in a work entitled Shakespere's Home, &c., after giving the above preliminary bond, observes; "Here follow the signatures, or marks, of the witnesses; the first resembling the attempt that an aged person would make to draw a triangle; the second being a clumsy letter C. Two seals are added: the one is defaced, the other bears the impression 'R. H.'" p. 31. "When it was stated, at p. 31, that there are two seals to Shakespere's marriage-bond, one bearing the impression 'R. H.,' it would have been more correct to say there were,' because the seals have entirely vanished, and there is scarcely a trace of them on the parchment." p. 132. 43 So he styles himself in his will. 44 Rowe's Life of Shakespeare. 45 Hence in the preliminary bond Anne Hathaway and the two bondsmen are described as "of Stratford."-Shottery is a hamlet about a mile from the town of Stratford. 46 He was buried at Stratford, Sept. 7th, 1581.-Yet Mr. Collier (Life of Shakespeare, p. 64, sec. ed.) speaks of Richard Hathaway concurring in the alliance" of Shakespeare and his daughter. 47 Two precepts found among the papers of the Court of Record at Stratford seem to show that in 1566 John Shakespeare became security for Richard Hathaway. 48 The house occupied by the Hathaways in Shakespeare's time (but now divided into three cottages) is still pointed out. 35 gested by a comparison of the date of the preliminary bond (Nov. 28th, 1582) with that of his first child's baptism (May 26th, 1583), some recent biographers have anxiously informed us that in those days betrothment was often regarded as a sufficient warrant for cohabitation before actual marriage. Such may have been the case it by no means follows, however, that Shakespeare saw any excuse for his weakness in the conventional morality of the time. "49 All things considered, Mr. Hunter perhaps is justified in terming this "a marriage of evil auspices." But it is unfair to conclude, as Malone and others have done, from certain passages in our author's plays,50. each of which passages more or less grows out of the incidents of the play, that he had cause to complain of domestic unhappiness: indeed, without taking into account the tradition of his regular visits to Stratford, we have strong presumptive evidence to the contrary in the fact, that the wife of his youth was the companion of his latest years, when he had raised himself to opulence and to the position of a gentleman. Nor |