IN the register of baptisms of the parish
church of Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town in
Warwickshire, England, appears, under date of April
26, 1564, the entry of the baptism of William, the
son of John Shakspeare. The entry is in Latin—
"Gulielmus filius Johannis Shakspeare."
The date of William Shakespeare's birth has
usually been taken as three days before his baptism,
but there is certainly no evidence of this fact.
The family name was variously spelled, the
dramatist himself not always spelling it in the same
way. While in the baptismal record the name is
spelled "Shakspeare," in several authentic autographs
of the dramatist it reads "Shakspere," and in the first
edition of his works it is printed "Shakespeare."
Halliwell tells us, that there are not less than
thirty-four ways in which the various members of
the Shakespeare family wrote the name, and in the
council-book of the corporation of Stratford, where
it is introduced one hundred and sixty-six times
during the period that the dramatist's father was a
member of the municipal body, there are fourteen
different spellings. The modern "Shakespeare" is not
among them.Shakespeare's father, while an alderman at
Stratford, appears to have been unable to write his
name, but as at that time nine men out of ten were
content to make their mark for a signature, the fact
is not specially to his discredit.
The traditions and other sources of
information about the occupation of Shakespeare's
father differ. He is described as a butcher, a wool-
stapler, and a glover, and it is not impossible that he
may have been all of these simultaneously or at
different times, or that if he could not properly be
called any one of them, the nature of his occupation
was such as to make it easy to understand how the
various traditions sprang up. He was a landed
proprietor and cultivator of his own land even
before his marriage, and he received with his wife,
who was Mary Arden, daughter of a country
gentleman, the estate of Asbies, 56 acres in extent.
William was the third child. The two older than he
were daughters, and both probably died in infancy.
After him were born three sons and a daughter. For
ten or twelve years at least, after Shakespeare's birth
his father continued to be in easy circumstances. In
the year 1568 he was the high bailiff or chief
magistrate of Stratford, and for many years
afterwards he held the position of alderman as he
had done for three years before. To the completion
of his tenth year, therefore, it is natural to suppose
that William Shakespeare would get the best
education that Stratford could afford. The free
school of the town was open to all boys, and like allthe grammar-schools of that time, was under the
direction of men who, as graduates of the
universities, were qualified to diffuse that sound
scholarship which was once the boast of England.
There is no record of Shakespeare's having been at
this school, but there can be no rational doubt that
he was educated there. His father could not have
procured for him a better education anywhere. To
those who have studied Shakespeare's works without
being influenced by the old traditional theory that he
had received a very narrow education, they abound
with evidences that he must have been solidly
grounded in the learning, properly so called, taught
in the grammar schools.
There are local associations connected with
Stratford which could not be without their influence
in the formation of young Shakespeare's mind.
Within the range of such a boy's curiosity were the
fine old historic towns of Warwick and Coventry,
the sumptuous palace of Kenilworth, the grand
monastic remains of Evesham. His own Avon
abounded with spots of singular beauty, quiet
hamlets, solitary woods. Nor was Stratford shut out
from the general world, as many country towns are.
It was a great highway, and dealers with every variety
of merchandise resorted to its markets. The eyes of
the poet dramatist must always have been open for
observation. But nothing is known positively of
Shakespeare from his birth to his marriage to Anne
Hathaway in 1582, and from that date nothing butthe birth of three children until we find him an actor
in London about 1589.
How long acting continued to be
Shakespeare's sole profession we have no means of
knowing, but it is in the highest degree probable that
very soon after arriving in London he began that
work of adaptation by which he is known to have
begun his literary career. To improve and alter older
plays not up to the standard that was required at the
time was a common practice even among the best
dramatists of the day, and Shakespeare's abilities
would speedily mark him out as eminently fitted for
this kind of work. When the alterations in plays
originally composed by other writers became very
extensive, the work of adaptation would become in
reality a work of creation. And this is exactly what
we have examples of in a few of Shakespeare's early
works, which are known to have been founded on
older plays.
It is unnecessary here to extol the published
works of the world's greatest dramatist. Criticism has
been exhausted upon them, and the finest minds of
England, Germany, and America have devoted their
powers to an elucidation of their worth.
Shakespeare died at Stratford on the 23d of
April, 1616. His father had died before him, in 1602,
and his mother in 1608. His wife survived him till
August, 1623. His son Hamnet died in 1596 at the
age of eleven years. His two daughters survived him,
the eldest of whom, Susanna, had, in 1607, married a
physician of Stratford, Dr. Hall. The only issue ofthis marriage, a daughter named Elizabeth, born in
1608, married first Thomas Nasbe, and afterwards
Sir John Barnard, but left no children by either
marriage. Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, on
the 10th of February, 1616, married a Stratford
gentleman named Thomas Quincy, by whom she
had three sons, all of whom died, however, without
issue. There are thus no direct descendants of
Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's fellow-actors, fellow-dramatists,
and those who knew him in other ways, agree in
expressing not only admiration of his genius, but
their respect and love for the man. Ben Jonson said,
"I love the man, and do honor his memory, on this
side idolatry, as much as any. He was indeed honest,
and of an open and free nature." He was buried on
the second day after his death, on the north side of
the chancel of Stratford church. Over his grave there
is a flat stone with this inscription, said to have been
written by himself:
Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares these stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones.