art is only equalled by the profoundness of his pathos. As a moral teacher he takes precedence of all other uninspired writers. Vice never looks so odious, nor crime so execrable, as when placed under the burning light of his indignation; the simplest virtue, the humblest effort to.do good, never shine so fair as when breathed upon by him. The endless multiplication of editions of Shakespeare is the natural consequence of the effect he produces and the benefits he confers. These benefits were felt in his lifetime, and have been acknowledged at all times since with an ever-increasing enthusiasm. It is a mistake to suppose, as some writers have done, that Shakespeare was at any period little read or lightly estimated. No doubt, as education and habits of reading came to be more widely diffused, the demand for his works increased; but among those who did read, in the latter half of the sixteenth century and downwards, Shakespeare was from the first and continuously felt to be a new power and a new delight. All his most distinguished, contemporaries regarded him with love and admiration. His plays speedily attained the highest favor at Court; Queen Elizabeth and her successor James openly declared their preference for them. When Shakespeare died, Charles I. was Prince of Wales and Milton was a school-boy. One of the favorite amusements of the prince was to witness representations of the Shakesperian drama at Whitehall; and Milton, unfettered by that Puritanism which rejected as evil everything connected with the stage, dedicated to the great poet who had preceded him one of the noblest sonnets in our language. Dryden followed Milton, and Pope came after Dryden, and in the day and generation of both Shakespeare's star shone conspicuous, worshipped by none more than by the authors of the “ Religio Laici" and the "Dunciad." In the year 1623, within seven years of Shakespeare's death, a complete edition of his plays was published, with a glowing dedication to his friends, the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. A second edition, in folio like the first, was brought out in 1632, a third in 1664, and a fourth in 1685. Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century there appeared at least once every ten years a fresh edition. Among others may be named Rowe's in 1709, Pope's in 1725, Theobald's in 1733, Sir Thomas Hanmer's in 1744, Warburton's in 1747, Dr. Johnson's in 1765, Steevens' in 1766, Dr. Hugh Blair's in 1771, Malone's in 1790, and Reed's in 1793. During the present century, in which a taste for reading and general literature has been so largely cultivated, there have been editions and editors without number. Beginning with Boydell in 1802, who was folLowed by Chalmers, Bowdler, and Boswell, we come down to Collier, Dyce, Campbell, Singer, Halliwell, Knight and Staunton. Shakespeare's fame has broadened, and his genius has been more universally felt as centuries have rolled on, but he took his place among England's foremost poets even in his own lifetime, and there never has been a period when that place was forgotten or disputed by his countrymen. Whilst Shakespeare's mind thus endures, and its creations are a portion of our intellectual possessions ever present to our daily thoughts,Shakespeare, the individual man,-Shakespeare" in his habit as he lived," mysteriously withdrawn from us, and is destined to remain little more tnan a nominis umbra. It is not yet two hundred and fifty years since he died; we have full and accurate biographies of many who lived centuries. before him; but all that we know definitely concerning the details of his life can be stated in a few lines. No private letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, scarcely any authentic personal reminiscence of him by contemporaries remain. Laborious enthusiasts, who have raked up every possible scrap of information, have been delighted to "fringe an inch of fact with acres of conjecture," many of which are self-evidently false. Most men who have written so much have furnished some clue to themelves in their own writings, but Shakespeare is the least egotistical of all great thinkers. In creating others he forgot himself. His mind appears to us in his works in isolation from his person. He suppresses individual consciousness, that he may the better bring before us the broad features of universal humanity. In his sonnets alone, which were written for the most part when he was a young man, we are able to find some slight indications of personal history or feelings, but these are meagre and uncertain. We discover occasional touches of sadness, occasional intimations that his state or way of life was not what he could have wished; but we also find in them a wonderful delight in the strength of friendship, and a noble scorn of all base desires and unworthy deeds. We trace, on the whole, a modest, cheerful, and contented spirit, little affected by the outward show of things, but prone to dwell upon their inward and essential virtues. Like all truly great men, Shakespeare was more disposed to use and enjoy his own powers than to think of turning them to worldly account. He was unvexed by any craving after success, setting probably no high value on what is familiarly understood by success, It seems extremely likely, as Guizot has well remarked, that he "retained, even at the end of his career, some remains of ingenuous ignorance of the marvellous riches which he scattered so lavishly in every direction." Yet there were moments when a presage of immortality stirred within him, and he knew that he uttered truth when he wrote "Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;" "Your monument shall be my gentle verse, You still shall live,-such virtue has my pen, Where breath most breathes-even in the mouths of men. Large books professing to be biographies of Shakespeare have been written; but if we separate their chaff from their wheat, we shall find that the former is in larger proportion to the latter than Falstaff's sack was to his bread. Steevens has said truly, that when we have told that Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, that he married and had children there, that he went to London when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, that he became an actor and wrote plays, that he returned to Stratford when he was approaching the age of fifty, resided there two or three years, made his will, died, and was buried, we have told all that can be told with certainty. One reason, perhaps, why so many records of him which must have existed have now disappeared, is, that twenty-six years after his death that great civil war commenced which divided England into hostile factions, setting family against family, and led to the extinction of many traditions and memorials. Shakespeare belonged to a profession which the Roundheads hated and the Cavaliers looked down upon. Add to this, that three years before his death the Globe Theatre, with which he had been long connected, was burned to the ground; that a great fire afterwards occurred in Stratford; and finally, that the house of his friend and admirer Ben Jonson, was also burned. It is by no means improbable that many papers bearing reference to Shakespeare were thus destroyed. One of the most remarkable evidences of antiquarian uncertainty is to be found in the doubt which so long existed, and which is not even yet altogether dissipated, as to the manner in which our poet's name should be spelled, or, rather, as to what the name really was. It has been written Chacksper, Shaxpere, Shakspere, Shakespere, Shakespeyre, Schakespeire, Schackspere, Shackspeare, Shakspeare, and Shakespeare. Malone stood out for Shakspeare, and was followed by Steevens, Bowdler, Drake, De Quincey, Guizot, and others. Knight adopted Shakspere, but was not successful in making that spelling popular. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Dr. Johnson, Hazlitt, Dyce, and Halliwell preferred Shakespeare as at once the most correct and most euphonious orthography. This spelling is supported by the following authentic documents, which seem to put its accuracy beyond a doubt:-First. A certificate which was presented in the year 1589 to the Privy Council by her Majesty's Players and "Sharers in the Blackfriars' Play-house," which bears the signature inter alios of William Shakespeare; Second, In 1596 the same company presented a Petition to the Privy Council, which contains the same signature; Third, In a preface to one of the plays published in 1598 it is written-"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for tragedy and comedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; " Fourth, The patent of James I., dated at Westminster, 19th May, 1603, in favor of the players acting at the Globe, is headed Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare, et aliis; Fifth, Among the papers in Dulwich College there is a letter of Mrs Edward Alleyn, dated 20th Oct. 1603, in which she writes,-" About a weeke agoe, there came a youthe who said he was known unto you and Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe; "Sixth, In Lintot's edition of the Poems, which appeared in 1709, the Editor says,—“ That most learned prince and great pattern of learning, King James the First, 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 William Davenant, as a credible person now living can testify;" Seventh, In the Diary of the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, which extends from the year 1648 to 1679, there is this Memorandum:-"Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays, and bee much versed in them, that I may not bee ignorant in that matter; Eighth, In an indenture executed by the poet himself in 1613, he is described as 66 William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the countie of Warwick, gentleman;" Ninth, In the dedication to the "Venus and Adonis" and the "Rape of Lucrece," printed in the poet's lifetime, and under his own superintendence, the signature is William Shakes peare; and the name is so spelt in the three folio editions of his plays, in Ben Jonson's verses under the portrait in these editions, in all the plays published separately during his lifetime, and in almost every work in which it occurs in the course of the seventeenth century; Lastly, In the original inscription on the gravestone of his widow and daughter the spelling is Shakespeare. These authorities are conclusive. It may be that Shakespeare himself did not adopt a uniform mode of writing his signature, which was no uncommon thing in his time; and the signature to his will is certainly liker Shackspeare than Shakespeare; but, as Halliwell observes, the only method of reconciling inconsistencies is to adopt the name as it was bequeathed to us by his contemporaries and personal friends. A problem more important than that which concerns only the precise letters of his name remains unsolved. His birthday is uncertain. He was baptized, as the parish Register instructs, on the 26th April, 1564; but there is nothing to prove on what day he was born. The two reasons commonly assigned for fixing on the 23d April are both unsatisfactory. The first is, that at that time baptism followed quickly on birth, and that although the second day after might not be too soon, it was not likely that it was delayed after the third. It is plain that this is mere guess-work; and the second reason is still weaker. It is this, that as his monumental inscription records that he was in his fifty-third year on the day of his death, 23d April, 1616, he must have been born on or before 23d April, 1564, seeing that his fifty-third year could not commence sooner than that day in 1616. But there is nothing to indicate that the day of his death was his birthday; and the presumption on the whole matter is that he was not born on the 23d April, but some days sooner. The error, however, if it be one, which has popularly fixed on the 23d, St. George's Day, is very innocent, and it is better perhaps not to disturb it. John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was a burgess of Stratford; but his pursuit or calling is another matter of doubt. The old chronicler Aubrey says he was a butcher; whilst the more authentic opinion seems to be that he was a wool-dealer and glover. He may have been regarded as in some sort a butcher or grazier, since he would no doubt rear sheep for the purposes of his trade. He stood at all events in good estimation; for the Corporation records show that he was not only an alderman, but that in 1568 he rose to the dignity of High Bailiff or first Magistrate. He was a yeoman, and held some landed property, which there is ground for be lieving descended to him from his great-grandfather, who is said to have received a grant of land for military services rendered to Henry VII. John Shakespeare married, in 1557, Mary Arden, daughter and heiress of Robert Arden of Wilmecote, in the county of Warwick, a family of old and good repute. It was her destiny to become the mother of Shakespeare: "how august a title," says De Quincey, "to the reverence of infinite generations, and of centuries beyond the vision of prophecy!" She bore her husband eight children, four sons and four daughters. The first two were daughters, Jone or Joan, and Margaret; the third was William; *The aldermanic dignity had not, in that age, probably, ever been lowered by the peculations, and theivish conspiracies, which are the crying shame of many modern munįcipalities.-ED. then followed Gilbert, another Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmond, who was born in 1580, and was therefore sixteen years younger than William. With the exception of the second Joan, all the poet's sisters died in child hood; but his brothers attained to mature age. William, being the oldest son, and born when his father's fortunes were in the ascendant, was no doubt looked carefully after. The year of his birth was one of terror and of woe in Stratford; for the plague which desolated London in 1563, and still continued there, spread over other parts of England in 1564, and the red cross was seen on many a door in quiet country towns, and was nowhere more alarmingly frequent than in Stratford. But,fortunately for mankind, the plague spared the house of Shakespeare. He lay, like Horace They show the room still in which he was born,-a low-roofed, antique apartment, but yet possessing an air of comfort, the walls of which are, in the words of Washington Irving, "covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature." And when, in happy boyhood, he opened his eyes upon the world, and wandered out into the scenes that surrounded his home, he found them not only full of romantic beauty, but ennobled by old associations and poetical traditions. The immediate neighborhood of Stratford is undulating and varied, with a picturesque variety of hill and dale, wood and meadowland, through which the Avon flows in silver links. Dear was that river to the young poet,-dear no doubt it was to every boy in Stratford; but thoughts came to Shakespeare by its green bank destined to shine as long as its waters run: "Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream." He had "an eye for all he saw.' Under the hedgerow, through the meadows, on the uplands, and in the beautiful bosom of the country, he noted every weed and wildflower. In after years, when buried in the heart of London, he could see, when he listed, "A bank whereon the wild thyme blows, |