Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare | Page 4

of the world's greatest dramatist.
E. T. R.

A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.

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 woolstapler, 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 was 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 all the 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,
was 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 but the 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