don, and there was received into the playhouse as a servitor, and by this means had an opportunity to be what he afterwards proved. He was the best of his family, but the male line is extinguished: not one, for fear of the curse abovesaid, dare touch his gravestone, though his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with him."

There is little doubt that from this old clerk, directly or indirectly, came Aubrey's assertion that the poet's father was a butcher; and thus we should have not two witnesses to the point, but one speaking by two mouthpieces. Something more than the clerk's word would be required for proof of the authorship of the quoted epitaph, or even that it covered Shakespeare's grave That he was the best of his family, as measured by the standard that clerks use because others do, will be found a probable, indeed established fact: beyond this, it is possible that some truth may be preserved in the term he gives to Shakespeare's first position in the company. Augustine Phillips, who, in 1605, left Shakespeare 30s. in gold, as his " fellow," left legacies of money, musical instruments, and apparel to his apprentice, his late apprentice, and to Christopher Beeston, "his servant," who, as we have seen, became an actor, and also master of the king's and queen's young company in 1637. Phillips, however, was a musician as weli as a comedian, and it may have been in the first capacity that he took apprentices or servants; and as it is uncertain whether anyone ever entered on the stage as a comedian's apprentice, it is scarcely worth conjecturing that the clerk had heard that Shakespeare did so

At last, in 1707, almost a century after the poet's death, appeared his Life, by Rowe, prefixed to an edition of his works, and repeated, somewhat abridged, in 1714; he concludes it with a eulogy on the Shakespearian performances of Betterton, who retired from the stage in 1700, at the age of sixty-five, and cites him in these terms as his authority for the biography :

"I must own a particular obligation to him for the most considerable part of the passages relating to this Life, which I have here transmitted to the public; his veneration for the memory of

Shakespeare having engaged him to make a journey into Warwickshire on purpose to gather up what remains he could of a name for which he had so great a veneration."

Accordingly, it proves that this Life contains details that were manifestly derived from the Stratford register, as well as others that could only, at the time, have been learnt from tradition, though documentary evidence has since confirmed several of them. It is not known at what date Betterton visited the place, but it was probably when he was a younger man than when he left the stage. What is there that is uncontested? Bowman the actor, whose wife had been under the guardianship of Betterton after 1692, is said by Oldys to have been unwilling to allow that his associate had ever made such a journey; with the result of it before us, we can only interpret this hint as a doubt whether it were made so absolutely on purpose, as Rowe complimentarily affirms, and as it were illiberal not to concede.

Traditions are traceable to this source that Rowe did not insert in the Life, probably because he disbelieved them; one is, that Shakespeare began life by holding horses at the door of the playhouse, and advanced by hiring boys to hold them "under his inspection." "In time," it is added, " Shakespeare found higher employment; but as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of Shakespeare's boys." Such a practice certainly existed, and there is nothing incredible about the currency of such an appellation for the boys—the predecessors of the clamorous crowd that now, on the same ground in Playhouse-yard," the open space to turn carriages in," attend and contend for the early copies of the "Times" Newspaper. Granting or assuming this, which would easily be remembered to Betterton's time, we can only say further, that the explanation that is given is not the most likely one, but the one most likely to have been imagined or inferred. This story was reJated by Pope as communicated to him by Rowe,—for he referred to Betterton, who, however, is pro

bably guiltless of anything worse than relating a fiction illustrative of the profanity and gracelessness of D'avenant, to whose scandalous conceit Pope himself ascribed it. "If tradition may be trusted, Shakespeare often baited at the Crown Inn or Tavern at Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. Jno. D'avenant (afterwards mayor of that city), a grave melancholy man, who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shakespeare's pleasant company:" and so the story proceeds to a warning by a townsman to their son, Will. D'avenant, that the boy, in calling Shakespeare godfather, should have a care not to take God's name in vain.

The jest may or may not have been a stock one,— that it is found published in 1630, without names of persons, proves nothing; but without condemning Shakespeare on this and other such corrupt evidence, we may reserve for consideration how far a festive nature and temperament may have left a reputation behind him in London that, at least, was not inconsistent with the calumny.

Another anecdote on the authority of D'avenant, and another from the Bowman already mentioned, and with these the direct stream of personal tradition of any claim to authenticity is drawn dry. This is from the papers of Oldys-" Old Mr. Bowman, the player, reported from Sir William Bishop that some part of Sir John Falstaff's character was drawn from a townsman of Stratford, who either faithlessly broke a contract or spitefully refused to part with some land for a valuable consideration adjoining to Shakespeare's, in or near that town." William had opportunities of knowing much, for his father was born at Bridgetown, near Stratford, and died in 1673, at the age of eighty-eight, and there is some shadow of confirmation for his report.

Sir

At the conclusion of the advertisement to Lintot's edition of the Poems, in 1709, it is said :-"That most learned prince and great patron of learning, King James the First,

b

was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakespeare, which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir Wm. D'avenant, as a credible person now living can testify." This unnamed witness was Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, according to the note of Oldys.

Occasion will constantly occur, as our summary proceeds, to discuss the traditions recorded by Rowe; as these came down to him from D'avenant and the enquiries of Betterton, they are divided between the local source in Warwickshire and the memoirs that might be gleaned from the reassembled and reorganized companies of players, in every case, therefore, they are worth attention, and while we put together the multifarious collections of later biographers, we must not be unjust to the first.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, then, was born at Stratford on Avon, in Warwickshire, in 1564, the sixth year of Elizabeth; his baptism is recorded on the 26th of April; but his precise birthday cannot be certainly determined; there is a glimmer of tradition, however, that his anniversary was the day of his death; this is recorded on his monument as the 23rd of April. It is quite consistent with the custom of the time that the child should have been carried to the font at three days old, and for the sake of unity in grateful associations, it seems agreed to assume this date-if not more probable than another, it is at least as much so.

The name of Shakespeare was and is widely diffused in Warwickshire and adjoining counties, and occurs in records with indication of every variety of station, gentleman, prioress, butcher, or shoemaker; but it is only by a link of conjecture that we can trace the line of the poet up to his grandfather. Of his father, John Shakespeare, we first catch sight as resident in Henley Street, ratford, in 1552, when he incurred a fine there for a quinarium before his dwelling. In 1556, he was on ry of court leet at Stratford; was sued before John

Burbage, bailiff of the town, for £8, as a glover; sues another to recover barley, and acquired two copyhold tenements, with appurtenances, one of them, in Henley Street, almost as good as freehold. It was either in this year or the next that he was elected upon the corporation, which consisted according to the charter, dated only in 1553, of fourteen aldermen and fourteen burgesses. He duly advanced through the successive offices and dignities of ale-taster, affeeror, constable, chamberlain, was elected an alderman in 1565, when his son William was in his second year, and bore charges in equal proportion with his fellows; in 1568 he became high bailiff of the town, and by virtue and for the duration of his office a justice of the peace, and thereafter was usually styled in the town registers Master John Shakespeare; he was head alderman for the ensuing year. One entry occurs of a payment to him by the corporation for timber; and in 1597, when the poet was fifteen, his father is styled in a deed Johannes Shakespeare "yeoman."

Thus we may safely say, that at the time of the birth of William Shakespeare, and at least for some years afterwards, his father was a substantial burgess of Stratford, taking rank with the best-considered men of the town,— grocers, haberdashers, and butchers though they might be. His transactions indicate common dependence upon trade and agriculture, the town and the farm; just that position, in fact, that has sufficient general agreement with the better account of Rowe, probably obtained through his descendants, that he had considerable dealings in wool, and with the less flattering version of the old parish clerk, that he was a butcher-as most yeomen and farmers, to say nothing of country gentlemen, occasionally are.

That John Shakespeare's family are mentioned in the town records as gentlemen, as implied by Rowe, does not now appear, and, indeed, he himself is the first who appears in them. Neither can implicit reliance be placed upon an extract from the Heralds' Office, which avers that in the year that he was bailiff he obtained a grant