of the effects in Galen, Shakspere had gone through a course of study in that author to qualify himself for a diploma. He does not use medical terms as frequently legal, because they are not as apposite to the thoughts and situations of his speakers. It is the same with the terms of divinity, which Malone cannot find in such abundance as the terms of law. But if the terms be not there, assuredly the spirit lives in his pure teaching; and his philosophy is lighted up with something much higher than the moral irradiations of the unassisted understanding. Of his manifold knowledge it may be truly said, as he said of his own Henry V.,

"Hear him but reason in divinity,

And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

You would desire the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,—it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle render'd you in music:

Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art and practick part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric."

He

We should have thought it unnecessary to have added anything to the view: which we thus entertained in 1843 (when the original edition of this Biography was published), had the subject not been invested with a new importance, in its treatment by the late Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. In 1859 Lord Campbell published a volume, entitled 'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements considered.' The subject is approached by the learned Judge in a just and liberal spirit, essentially different from that of the Shaksperian critics of the last age. holds "that there has been a great deal of misrepresentation and delusion as to Shakespeare's opportunities when a youth of acquiring knowledge, and as to the knowledge he had acquired. From a love of the incredible, and a wish to make what he afterwards accomplished actually miraculous, a band of critics have conspired to lower the condition of his father, and to represent the son, when approaching man's estate, as still almost wholly illiterate." We are gratified, that in recapitulating the various facts which militate against the vague traditions, and ignorant assumptions, some of which prevailed only a quarter of a century ago, Lord Campbell refers to that most elaborate and entertaining book, Knight's Life of Shakspere,' 1st edit. p. 16." But, of the general argument comprised in our preceding five pages, Lord Campbell does not take the slightest notice. He no doubt weighed well all the points in which, with my own imperfect legal knowledge, I ventured to

doubt whether Shakspere was bred an attorney. He does not overlook the words of Nashe about "the trade of Noverint," and "whole Hamlets," but he thus judicially decides:-"Now, if the innuendo which would have been introduced into the declaration in an action, Shakespeare v. Nash,' for this libel (thereby then and there meaning the said William Shakespeare'-) be made out, there can be no doubt as to the remaining innuendo thereby then and there meaning that the said William Shakespeare had been an attorney's clerk, or bred an attorney." With the most laudable industry Lord Campbell has made a selection from the Plays and Poems, occupying more than two-thirds of his book, to exhibit "expressions and allusions, that must be supposed to come from one that has been a professional lawyer." He also holds that Shakspere's will was in all probability composed by himself, and that "a testator without professional experience, could hardly have used language so appropriate as we find in this will to express his meaning." We should have thought that Lord Campbell, following up his own argument, that in this will, when Shakspere leaves his second best bed to his wife, he showed his technical skill by omitting the word devise, which he had used in disposing of his realty, might have stated that in this bequest Shakspere was aware that his wife was entitled to dower; and yet he does not hesitate to repeat the misrepresentation and delusion" which had been attached to this fact before we had the good fortune to discover that Shakspere on his death-bed did not exhibit a contemptuous neglect of his wife. Our argument is, we venture to hope, not affected by Lord Campbell's judicial sneers and exaggerated inferences :-" The idolatrous worshippers of Shakespeare, who think it necessary to make his moral qualities as exalted as his poetical genius, account for this sorry bequest, and for no other notice being taken of poor Mrs. Shakespeare in the will, by saying that he knew she was sufficiently provided for by her right of dower out of his landed property, which the law would give her; and they add that he must have been tenderly attached to her, because (they take upon themselves to say) she was exquisitely beautiful as well as strictly virtuous. But she was left by her husband without house or furniture (except the second best bed), or a kind word, or any other token of his love; and I sadly fear that between William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway the course of true love never did run smooth." Lord Campbell's plural "idolatrous worshippers" is a gentle form of referring to the one worshipper who originated this new view with regard to dower. That worshipper, in his idolatry, never held up Ann Hathaway as "exquisitely beautiful;" "strictly virtuous" he believed her to have been according to the custom of betrothment which existed in Shakspere's youth. With Lord Campbell's well-known habit of literary appropriation-" convey the wise it call "-did he forbear to adopt this interpretation because it was not discovered by a lawyer? The Chief Justice knew perfectly well that the right to dower totally upset all the inferences about the second best bed, which the Commentators-lawyers as some of them were-set forth, and which were currently accepted up to the time when I presumed to say that lawyers had shut their eyes to the fact

We hold, then, that William Shakspere, the son of a possessor and cultivator of land, a gentleman by descent, married to the heiress of a good family, comfortable in his worldly circumstances, married the daughter of one in a similar rank of life, and in all probability did not quit his native place when he so married. The marriage-bond, which was discovered a few years since, has set at rest all doubt as to the name and residence of his wife. She is there described as Anne Hathwey, of Stratford, in the diocese of Worcester, maiden. Rowe, in his Life,' says,-" Upon his leaving school he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him: and in order to settle in the world, after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford." At the hamlet of Shottery, which is in the parish of Stratford, the Hathaways had been settled forty years before the period of Shakspere's marriage; for in the Warwickshire Surveys, in the time of Philip and Mary, it is recited that John Hathaway held property at Shottery, by copy of court-roll, dated 20th of April, 34th of Henry VIII. (1543).* The Hathaway of Shakspere's time was named Richard; and the intimacy between him and John Shakspere is shown by a precept in an action against Richard Hathaway, dated 1576, in which John Shakspere is his pondman. Before the discovery of the marriage-bond Malone had found a confirmation of the traditional account that the maiden name of Saakspere's wife was Hathaway; for Lady Barnard, the grand-daughter of Shakspere, makes bequests in her will to the children of Thomas Hathaway, "her kinsman." But Malone doubts whether there were not other Hathaways than those of Shottery, residents in the town of Stratford, and not in the hamlet included in the parish. This is possible. But, on the other hand, the description in the marriage-bond of Anne Hathaway, as of Stratford, is no proof that she was not of Shottery; for such a document would necessarily have regard only to the parish of the person described. Tradition, always valuable when it is not opposed to evidence, has associated for many years the cottage of the Hathaways at Shottery with the wife of Shakspere. Garrick purchased relics out of it at the time of the Stratford Jubilee; Samuel Ireland afterwards carried off what was called Shakspere's courting-chair; and there is still in the house a very ancient carved bedstead, which has been handed down from descendant to descendant as an heirloom. The house was no doubt once adequate to form a comfortable residence for a substantial and even wealthy yeoman. It is still a pretty cottage, embosomed by trees, and surrounded by pleasant pastures; and

*The Shottery property, which was called Hewland, remained with the descendants of th Hathaways till 1838.

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here the young poet might have surrendered his prudence to his affections: -

"As in the sweetest buds

The eating canker dwells, so eating love

Inhabits in the finest wits of all." *

The very early marriage of the young man, with one more than seven years his elder, has been supposed to have been a rash and passionate proceeding. Upon

the face of it, it appears an act that might at least be reproved in the words which follow those we have just quoted :

"As the most forward bud

Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes."

This is the common consequence of precocious marriages; but we are not therefore to conclude that "the young and tender wit" of our Shakspere was "turned to folly"-that his "forward bud" was "eaten by the canker "-that

*Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I., Scene L

'his verdure was lost "even in the prime," by his marriage with Anne Hathaway before he was nineteen. The influence which this marriage must have had upon his destinies was no doubt considerable; but it is too much to assume, as it has been assumed, that it was an unhappy influence. All that we really know of Shakspere's family life warrants the contrary supposition. We believe, to go no farther at present, that the marriage of Shakspere was one of affection; that there was no disparity in the worldly condition of himself and the object of his choice; that it was with the consent of friends; that there were no circumstances connected with it which indicate that it was either forced or clandestine, or urged on by an artful woman to cover her apprehended loss of character. Taking up, as little as possible, a controversial attitude in a matter of such a nature, we shall shape our course according to this belief.

In the last week of November, in the year 1582, let us look upon a cheerful family scene in the pretty village of Clifford. The day is like a green old age, 'frosty but kindly." The sun shines brightly upon the hills, over which a happy party have tripped from Stratford. It is a short walk of some mile and a half. The village stands very near the confluence of the Stour with the Avon. It is Sunday; and after the service there is to be a christening. The visitors assemble at a substantial house, and proceed reverently to church. The age is not yet arrived when the cold formalities of a listless congregation have usurped the place of real devotion. The responses are made with the earnest voice which indicates the full heart; and the young, especially, join in the choral parts of the service, so as to preserve one of the best characters of adoration, in offering a tribute of gladness to Him who has filled the world with beauty and joy. During the service the sacrament of baptism is administered with a reverential solemnity. William Shakspere had often been so present at its administration, and the ceremonial has appeared to him full of truth and holiness. But the opinions which were earnestly disseminated amongst the people, by teachers pretending to superior sanctity and wisdom, would be also familiar to him; and he would have learnt, from those who were opposed to most ancient ceremonial observances, that the signing with the Cross in baptism was a superstitious relic of Rome-a thing rejected by the understanding, and only preserved as a delusion of the imagination. A book with which he was familiar in after-life was not then written; but on such occasions of controversy it would occur to him that "the holy sign," "imprinted on the gates of the palace of man's fancy," would suggest associations which to Christian men would be "a most effectual though a silent teacher to avoid whatsoever may deservedly procure shame." Through the imagination would this holy sign work; for "the mind, while we are in this present life, whether it contemplate, meditate, deliberate, or howsoever exercise itself, worketh nothing without continual recourse unto imagination, the only storehouse of wit, and peculiar chair of memory. On this anvil it ceaseth not day and night to strike, by means whereof, as the pulse declareth how the

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