schoolmaster in the countrey;" and this is explained on the supposition that he had been employed by the master of the free-school to aid him in the instruction of the younger boys. We know from several writers that such a course was not unusual, and Dr. Forman tells us of something similar respecting himself.* Be this as it may, and were Shakespeare really an able scholar, it is probable education was not considered so essential by his father, for Judith Shakespeare was unable to write her own name. The fac-simile here given is copied from a deed executed in December, 1611, in the possession of Mr. Wheler.

We have thus traced Shakespeare, as well as our sources of information will permit, through the first two stages of life, in his nurse's arms, and then the "whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face." At eighteen years of age he entered on the next,

And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow,

the dark eyebrow of Anne Hathaway, a lovely maiden of the picturesque hamlet of Shottery, her cottage within a walk of

"Howe Simon became a scolmaster before he was eighteen yers old. Simon, percevinge his mother wold doe nothinge for him, was dryven to great extremity and hunger, gave of to be a scoller any longer for lacke of maintenance, and at the priorie of St. Jilles, wher he himself was firste a scoller, ther became he a scolmaster, and taught som thirty boies, and their parentes among them gave him moste parte of his diet. And the money he gote he kept, to the some of som 40s., and after folowinge when he had bin scolmaster som halfe yere and had 40s. in his purse, he wente to Oxford for to get more lerninge, and soe left of from being scolmaster."-MS. Ashmole 208.

Stratford. To her, most probably, were the earliest efforts of Shakespeare's muse addressed, in terms such as these:

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.

and his love-suit was not rejected. The espousals of the lovers were celebrated in the summer of 1582. In those days betrothment or contract of matrimony often preceded actual marriage,

A contract of eternal bond of love

Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthened by interchangement of your rings;

And all the ceremony of this compact

Seal'd in my function by my testimony.

We need not hesitate in believing that this ceremony was passed through by Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and we have the direct testimony of an author of 1543 that in some places it was regarded in all essential particulars as an actual marriage.* Provided marriage was celebrated in a reasonable time, no criminality could be alleged after the contract had been made. This opinion is well illustrated by a passage in the Winter's Tale, act i, sc. 2, expressive of disgust at one who "puts to before her troth-plight." Shakespeare's nuptials took place in the latter part of the year 1582, and "on the granting of licences, bond is to be taken that there is no impediment of pre-contract, consanguinity, &c." The bond which was given on the occasion of Shakespeare's intended marriage is still preserved at

*See Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. 1841, ii. 57. Compare Claudio's speech in Measure for Measure, act i. sc. 3.

† Jacob's New Law Dictionary, fol. Lond. 1762, sig. 5 P.

Worcester, and I here give a copy of it, carefully taken from the original document. There is no peculiarity to be observed in it, nor can I agree with Mr. Collier in admitting "that the whole proceeding seems to indicate haste and secrecy." In fact, the bond is exactly similar to those which were usually granted on such occasions, and several others of a like kind are to be seen in the office of the Worcester registry. It is necessary in these discussions to pay attention to the ordinary usages of the period, and the more minutely we examine them, the less necessity will there be in this case for suggesting any insinuation against the character of the poet.

*

Noverint universi per præsentes nos ffulconem Sandells de Stratford in comitatu Warwici agricolam, et Johannem Rychardson ibidem agricolam, teneri et firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin generoso et Roberto Warmstry notario publico in quadraginta libris bonæ et legalis monetæ Angliæ solvend. eisdem Ricardo et Roberto hæred. execut. vel assignat. suis, ad quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter faciend. obligamus nos et utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid. hæred. executor. et administrator. nostros firmiter per præsentes sigillis nostris sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. anno regni dominæ nostræ Eliz. Dei gratia Angliæ, ffranc. et Hiberniæ reginæ, fidei defensor. &c. 25°

The condicion of this obligacion ys suche, that if herafter there shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment, by reason of any precontract, consangui[ni]tie, affinitie, or by any other lawful meanes whatsoever, but that William Shagspere one thone partie, and Anne Hathwey, of Stratford in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together, and in the same afterwardes remaine and continew like man and wiffe, according unto the lawes in that behalf provided: and, moreover, if there be not at this present time any action, sute, quarrell or demaund, moved or depending before any judge, ecclesiasticall or temporall, for and concerning any suche lawfull lett

*Susanna Shakespeare, his eldest daughter, was born in May, 1583. The truth of what I have advanced in the text will appear from the following entries in the Stratford register, the same year in which Shakespeare was married: 1582, June 14, Robert Hawle and Jone Atford; bapt. Nov. 5, 1582, Elizabeth, daughter to Robert Hawle Marr. 1582, Oct. 14, John Smith and Mary Masonne; bapt. Jan. 22, 1582-3, John sonne to John Smith. Mr. Knight's opinion on the subject is fully confirmed by the evidence here adduced. It may be added, that illegitimacy is always carefully noted in the register by the addition of bastard or notha.

:

or impediment and, moreover, if the said William Shagspere do not proceed to solemnizacion of mariadg with the said Anne Hathwey without the consent of hir frindes and also, if the said William do, upon his owne proper costes and expenses, defend & save harmles the right reverend Father in God, Lord John Bushop of Worcester, and his offycers, for licencing them the said William and Anne to be maried together with once asking of the bannes of matrimony betwene them, and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion therof, that then the said obligacion to be voyd and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in full force and vertue.

Де R

No entry of Shakespeare's marriage occurs in the Stratford register, and he must therefore have been married elsewhere in the diocese of Worcester, unless we suppose that when the copy of that register was made in 1600, the original entries not being now extant, some may have been accidentally omitted. This conjecture is mentioned with diffidence, for the authenticity of every page of the register up to that period is attested by the signatures of the vicar and churchwardens. It is also possible he was married at a village where the early registers have been lost, for a letter I addressed to the clergy of the parishes in Warwickshire, where those as early as 1582 are preserved, did not succeed in producing the desired information.

The subsidy rolls mention the Hathaways as residing at Shotterey before the middle of the sixteenth century,* and also a John Hathewey of Olde Stretforde, assessed in 1549 in goods of the value of x.li. In a subsidy roll of 1593,

*The earliest notice of the name I have met with occurs in a MS. of the seventeenth century, in the collection of the late Captain Saunders,—Fuit carta per Willelmum Hathewy facta Willelmo Archer clerico de terris in Overton quæ jacent inter terram Willelmi Gill ex una parte, et terram Willelmi le Archer ex altera parte, quam emit de Rogero Coyle, data anno Domini 1301, et anno Ed. primi xxix!

John Hathwaye of Olde Stratforde is assessed on goods of the value of iij.li.; and a will dated 1601 mentions Thomas Hathaway, son of Margaret Hathaway of Old Stratford, then deceased. Many mistakes have arisen in considering these families, but there can be little doubt of the fact that Anne Hathaway was the daughter of a person who is described in the Stratford register as Ricardus Hathaway alias Gardner de Shotery. Rowe says that her father was a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford," and the circumstance of his being the first to record the maiden name of Shakespeare's wife, shows that he had had access to a correct source of information. Two children at least of this Richard Hathaway were born before the Stratford register commences (1558), Bartholomew and Anne. Bartholomew Hathaway,* who afterwards (April, 1610) possessed the Shottery estate, died in 1624, and one of the overseers of his will was Dr. Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law. Lady Barnard, in her will dated 1669, mentions "her kinsman Thomas Hathaway, late of Stratford," whom I suppose to have been a grandson of Richard Hathaway of Shottery, settled at Stratford, and nephew of

The inho. So John h Cathway

Anne Shakespeare. The John Hathaway of Shottery mentioned in the Stratford register in 1626 and 1628, was one of the sons of Bartholomew just alluded to. In 1590,

* In a Subsidy Roll, 16 April, 19 Jac. I. 1621, occur the following assessments,Old Stratford cum membris.