Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters, Volume I. | Page 4

and proved December 17th, of that year,
he makes special bequests to his "youngest daughter Mary," and also
appoints her and another daughter, named Alice, "full executors of this
my last will and testament." On the whole, it is evident enough that he
was a man of good landed estate. Both he and Richard Shakespeare

appear to have been of that honest and substantial old English
yeomanry, from whose better-than-royal stock and lineage the great
Poet of Nature might most fitly fetch his life and being. Of the Poet's
grandmother on either side we know nothing whatever.
Mary Arden was the youngest of seven children, all of them daughters.
The exact time of her marriage is uncertain, no registry of it having
been found. She was not married at the date of her father's will,
November, 1556. Joan, the first-born of John and Mary Shakespeare,
was baptized in the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon, September 15,
1558. We have seen that at this time John Shakespeare was well
established and thriving in business, and was making good headway in
the confidence of the Stratfordians, being one of the constables of the
borough. On the 2d of December, 1562, while he was chamberlain, his
second child was christened Margaret. On the 26th of April, 1564, was
baptized "WILLIAM, son of John Shakespeare." The birth is
commonly thought to have taken place on the 23d, it being then the
usual custom to present infants at the Font the third day after their birth;
but we have no certain information whether it was observed on this
august occasion. We have seen that throughout the following Summer
the destroyer was busy in Stratford, making fearful spoil of her sons
and daughters; but it spared the babe on whose life hung the fate of
English literature. Other children were added to the family, to the
number of eight, several of them dying in the mean time. On the 28th
of September, 1571, soon after the father became head-alderman, a
fourth daughter was baptized Anne. Hitherto the parish register has
known him only as John Shakespeare: in this case it designates him
"Master Shakespeare." Whether Master was a token of honour not
extended to any thing under an ex-bailiff, does not appear; but in all
cases after this the name is written with that significant prefix.
Nothing further is heard of Mrs. Mary Shakespeare till her death in
1608. On the 9th of September, that year, the parish register notes the
burial of "Mary Shakespeare, widow," her husband having died seven
years before. That she had in a special degree the confidence and
affection of her father, is apparent from the treatment she received in
his will. It would be very gratifying, no doubt, perhaps very instructive
also, to be let into the domestic life and character of the Poet's mother.
That both her nature and her discipline entered largely into his

composition, and had much to do in making him what he was, can
hardly be questioned. Whatsoever of woman's beauty and sweetness
and wisdom was expressed in her life and manners could not but be
caught and repeated in his susceptive and fertile mind. He must have
grown familiar with the noblest parts of womanhood somewhere; and I
can scarce conceive how he should have learned them so well, but that
the light and glory of them beamed upon him from his mother. At the
time of her death, the Poet was in his forty-fifth year, and had already
produced those mighty works which were to fill the world with his
fame. For some years she must in all likelihood have been more or less
under his care and protection; as her age, at the time of her death, could
not well have been less than seventy.
And here I am minded to notice a point which, it seems to me, has been
somewhat overworked within the last few years. Gervinus, the German
critic, thinks--and our Mr. White agrees with him--that Shakespeare
acquired all his best ideas of womanhood after he went to London, and
conversed with the ladies of the city. And in support of this notion they
cite the fact--for such it is--that the women of his later plays are much
superior to those of his earlier ones. But are not the men of his later
plays quite as much superior to the men of his first? Are not his later
plays as much better every way, as in respect of the female characters?
The truth seems to be, that Shakespeare saw more of great and good in
both man and woman, as he became older and knew them better; for he
was full of intellectual righteousness in this as in other things. And in
this matter it may with something of special fitness be