Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) | Page 5

2d Day of July in the Year 1649, aged 66. So that She was born in 1583, when her Father could not be full 19 Years old; who was himself born in the Year 1564. Nor was She his eldest Child, for he had another Daughter, Judith, who was born before her, and who was married to one Mr. Thomas Quiney. So that Shakespeare must have entred into Wedlock, by that Time he was turn'd of seventeen Years.
Whether the Force of Inclination merely, or some concurring Circumstances of Convenience in the Match, prompted him to marry so early, is not easy to be determin'd at this Distance: but 'tis probable, a View of Interest might partly sway his Conduct in this Point: for he married the Daughter of one Hathaway, a substantial Yeoman in his Neighbourhood, and She had the Start of him in Age no less than 8 Years. She surviv'd him, notwithstanding, seven Seasons, and dy'd that very Year in which the Players publish'd the first Edition of his Works in Folio, Anno Dom. 1623, at the Age of 67 Years, as we likewise learn from her Monument in _Stratford_-Church.
How long he continued in this kind of Settlement, upon his own Native Spot, is not more easily to be determin'd. But if the Tradition be true, of that Extravagance which forc'd him both to quit his Country and way of Living; to wit, his being engag'd, with a Knot of young Deer-stealers, to rob the Park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot near _Stratford_: the Enterprize favours so much of Youth and Levity, we may reasonably suppose it was before he could write full Many. Besides, considering he has left us six and thirty Plays, which are avow'd to be genuine; (to throw out of the Question those Seven, in which his Title is disputed: tho' I can, beyond all Controversy, prove some Touches in every one of them to come from his Pen:) and considering too, that he had retir'd from the Stage, to spend the latter Part of his Days at his own Native _Stratford_; the Interval of Time, necessarily required for the finishing so many Dramatic Pieces, obliges us to suppose he threw himself very early upon the Play-house. And as he could, probably, contract no Acquaintance with the Drama, while he was driving on the Affair of Wool at home; some Time must be lost, even after he had commenc'd Player, before he could attain Knowledge enough in the Science to qualify himself for turning Author.
It has been observ'd by Mr. Rowe, that, amongst other Extravagancies which our Author has given to his Sir John Falstaffe, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, he has made him a Deer-stealer; and that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire Prosecutor, under the Name of Justice Shallow, he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms, which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a Family there. There are two Coats, I observe, in Dugdale, where three Silver Fishes are borne in the Name of _Lucy_; and another Coat, to the Monument of Thomas Lucy, Son of Sir William Lucy, in which are quarter'd in four several Divisions, twelve little Fishes, three in each Division, probably Luces. This very Coat, indeed, seems alluded to in _Shallow_'s giving the dozen White Luces, and in Slender saying, he may quarter. When I consider the exceeding Candour and Good-nature of our Author, (which inclin'd all the gentler Part of the World to love him; as the Power of his Wit obliged the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and polite Learning to admire him;) and that he should throw this humorous Piece of Satire at his Prosecutor, at least twenty Years after the Provocation given; I am confidently persuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving Rancour on the Prosecutor's Side: and if This was the Case, it were Pity but the Disgrace of such an Inveteracy should remain as a lasting Reproach, and Shallow stand as a Mark of Ridicule to stigmatize his Malice.
It is said, our Author spent some Years before his Death, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends, at his Native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain Intelligence, when He relinquish'd the Stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by some, that _Spenser_'s Thalia, in his Tears of his Muses, where she laments the Loss of her Willy in the Comic Scene, has been apply'd to our Author's quitting the Stage. But Spenser himself, 'tis well known, quitted the Stage of Life in the Year 1598; and, five Years after this, we find _Shakespeare_'s Name among the Actors in _Ben Jonson_'s Sejanus, which first made its Appearance in the Year 1603. Nor, surely, could he