1564. The record of the baptism is given in the register preserved in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Stratford: "1564. b. April 26, Gulielmus, filius Johannes Shakspere." "In Henley Street, in what was for those days an unusually large and commodious residence for a provincial tradesman, and upon or almost immediately before the twenty-second day of April, 1564, but most probably on that Saturday, the eldest son of John and Mary Shakespeare, he who was afterwards to be the national poet of England, was born. An apartment on the first floor of that house is shown to this day, through unvarying tradition, as the birth-room of the great dramatist, who was baptized on the following Wednesday, April the twenty-sixth, receiving the Christian name of William. He was then, and continued to be for more than two years, an only child, - two girls, daughters of the same parents, who were born previously, having died in their infancy. De Quincey was the first to conjecture that the 22d of April, corresponding to our present 4th of May, is the real birthday. The suggestion was derived from the circumstance of the poet's only grandchild having been married to Thomas Nash on the 22d of April, 1626; and few things are more likely than the selection of her grandfather's birthday for such a celebration. Only ten years had elapsed since his death, and that he had been kind to her in her childhood may be safely inferred from the remembrances in the will. Whatever opinion may be formed respecting the precise interpretation of the record of the age under the monumental effigy, the latter is a certain evidence that Shakespeare was not born after the 23d of April. It may also be fairly assumed that the event could not have happened many days previously, for it was the almost universal practice amongst the middle classes of that time to baptize children very shortly after birth. The notion that Shakespeare died on his birthday was not circulated until the middle of the last century, and it is completely devoid of substantial foundation. Had so unusual a circumstance occurred, it is all but impossible that it should not have been numbered amongst the early traditions of Stratford-on-Avon, and there is good evidence that no such incident was known in that town at the close of the seventeenth century." (H.-P. ii. 332.) 6 "There is no doubt that Stratford-on-Avon was considered, from very early Shakespearean times, to have derived its celebrity from its having been the birth-town of the great dramatist. 'One travelling through Stratford-upon-Avon, a towne most remarkeable for the birth of famous William Shakespeare' (A banquet of Jests, or Change of Cheare, 1639). William Shakespear, the glory of the English stage, whose nativity at Stratford-uponAvon is the highest honour that town can boast of' (Theatrum Poetarum, 1675). 'I say not this to derogate from those excellent persons, but to perswade them, as Homer and our Shakespear did, to immortalize the places where they were born' (Dedication to Virtue Betrayed, 1682). Throughout the seventeenth century, however, the gravestone and effigy appear to have been the only memorials of the poet that were indicated to visitors; and no evidence has been discovered which represents either the birth-place or the birth-room as an object of commercial exhibition until after the traditions respecting them are known to have been current. There is not a word about the two latter in Richardson's popular edition of 'De Foe's Tour,' 1769, nor in any of the earlier guidebooks or itineraries, although several of those works notice other matters of Shakespearean interest. There is, indeed, little doubt that the birth-place did not become one of the incentives for pilgrimage until public attention had been specially directed to it at the time of the Jubilee, while it was not then generally known that the birth-room could be identified. A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, writing from Lichfield in July, 1769, observes: 'I do not know whether the apartment where the incomparable Shakespeare first drew his breath can at this day be ascertained or not; but the house of his nativity, according to undoubted tradition, is now remaining." (H.-P. i. 386.) "Upon the north side of Henley Street is a detached building, consisting of two houses annexed each other, the one on the west having been known from time immemorial as Shakespeare's birth-place; and that on the east, a somewhat larger one, which was purchased by his father in the year 1556. It may fairly be assumed that in the latter the then 'considerable dealer in wool' deposited no trifling portion of his stock." (H.-P. i. 377.) "The two buildings are collectively mentioned as the house where Shakespeare was born' in Winter's plan of the town, 1759, - the attribution being therein casually noticed amongst other well-known established facts; and in Greene's view, which was engraved in 1769, they are described together as a 'house in Stratford-upon-Avon in which the famous poet Shakespear was born.' This view was published in anticipation of Garrick's Jubilee, and identified the building with the one named in the accounts of that celebration; but up to this period no intimation is anywhere given as to which of the then two houses was considered to be the birth-place. The latter deficiency is fortunately supplied by Boswell, who was present at the Jubilee, and informs us that amongst the embel. lishments displayed on that occasion was a piece of painting hung before the windows of the room where Shakespeare was born, representing the sun breaking through the clouds' (London Magazine, September, 1769, p. 453). It is true that the locality of the room is not particularized, but it would be the merest foppery of scepticism to doubt that it is the apartment which is now exhibited as 6 the birth-room; and, indeed, the testimony of my late friend R. B. Wheler, whose father was at the Jubilee, and who had perfect knowledge of the local reports of that commemoration, should in itself exclude a misgiving on the subject. The stranger is shewn a room over the butcher's shop, in which our bard is said to have been born; and the numberless visitors, who have literally covered the walls of this chamber with names and other memorials, sufficiently evince the increasing resort to this hallowed roof' (Wheler's Guide to Stratford-upon-Avon, 1814, p. 12). There can, therefore, be no doubt that from the earliest period at which we have, or were likely to have, a record of the fact, it was the tradition of Stratford that the birth-place is correctly so designated." (H.-P. i. 385.) "The house in which Shakespeare was born must have been erected in the first half of the sixteenth century, but the alterations that it has since undergone have effaced much of its original character. Inhabited at various periods by tradesmen of different occupations, it could not possibly have endured through the long course of upward of three centuries without having been subjected to numerous repairs and modifications. The general form and arrangement of the tenement that was purchased in 1556 may yet, however, be distinctly traced; and many of the old timbers, as well as pieces of the ancient rough stone-work, still remain. There are also portions of the chimneys, the fireplace surroundings, and the stone basement-floor, that have been untouched; but most, if not all, of the lighter wood-work belongs to a more recent period. It may be confidently asserted that there is only one room in the entire building which has not been greatly changed since the days of the poet's boyhood. This is the antique cellar under the sitting-room, from which it is approached by a diminutive flight of steps. It is a very small apartment, measuring only nine by ten |