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-ation of the time.
ms to have been, of
e may have prized
thout it. William
tune began to ebb,
d, from his native
up to that time

ould make him the
s 'twas ministered,

ey, who died about ston, that "Shakehe had been in his ntry." The state

inasmuch as perted with the stage rwards. And it is ime, have been an atford. Nor does states that John ol for some time; eed of help forced Though writing ful, and what he arches have estabse of fortune. He ive him no better ohn Shakespeare, agriculture as to I sure but the anlest son might be terwards accomLool or university legal terms and arians learned in 1 for some time a deed difficult to

understand how he could have spoken as he often does,
without some study in the law; but, as he seems thoroughly
at home in the specialties of many callings, it is possible his
knowledge in the law may have grown from the large part
his father had, either as magistrate or as litigant, in legal
transactions. I am sure he either studied divinity or else
had a strange gift of knowing it without studying it; and
his ripeness in the knowledge of disease and of the healing
art is a standing marvel to the medical faculty.

Knight has speculated rather copiously and romantically
upon the idea of Shakespeare's having been a spectator of
the more-than-royal pomp and pageantry with which the
Queen was entertained by Leicester at Kenilworth in 1575.
Stratford was fourteen miles from Kenilworth, and the Poet
was then eleven years old. That his ears were assailed and
his imagination excited by the fame of that magnificent dis-
play cannot be doubted, for all that part of the kingdom was
laid under contribution to supply it, and was resounding with
the noise of it; but his father was not of a rank to be sum-
moned or invited thither, nor was he of an age to go thither
without his father. Positive evidence either way on the
point there is none; nor can I discover any thing in his
plays that would fairly infer him to have drunk in the
splendour of that occasion, however the fierce attractions
thereof may have kindled a mind so brimful of poetry and
life. The whole matter is an apt theme for speculation,
and for nothing else.

The gleanings of tradition apart, the first knowledge that has reached us of the Poet, after his baptism, has reference to his marriage. Rowe tells us that "he thought fit to marry while he was very young," and that "his wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford." These statements are borne out by later disclosures. The marriage took place in the Fall of 1582, when the Poet was in his nineteenth year. On the 28th of November, that year Fulk Sandels and John Richardson subscribed a bond

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whereby they became liable in the sum of £40, to be feited to the Bishop of Worcester in case there should found any lawful impediment to the marriage of Willi Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, of Stratford; the obj being to procure such a dispensation from the Bishop would authorize the ceremony after once publishing banns. The original bond is preserved at Worcester, w the marks and seals of the two bondsmen affixed, and a bearing a seal with the initials R. H., as if to show t some legal representative of the bride's father, Richa Hathaway, was present and consenting to the act. Th was nothing peculiar in the transaction; the bond is ju the same as was usually given in such cases, and sever others like it are to be seen at the office of the Worcest registry.

The parish books all about Stratford and Worcester ha been ransacked, but no record of the marriage has been d covered. The probability is, that the ceremony took pla in some one of the neighbouring parishes where the registe of that period have not been preserved.

Anne Hathaway was of Shottery, a pleasant village sit ate within an easy walk of Stratford, and belonging to t same parish. No record of her baptism has come to ligh but the baptismal register of Stratford did not begin t 1558. She died on the 6th of August, 1623, and the i scription on her monument gives her age as sixty-seve years. Her birth, therefore, must have been in 1556, eigl years before that of her husband.

From certain precepts, dated in 1566, and lately foun among the papers of the Stratford Court of Record, it ap pears that the relations between John Shakespeare an Richard Hathaway were of a very friendly sort. Hath: way's will was made September 1, 1581, and proved Jul 19, 1582, which shows him to have died a few months be fore the marriage of his daughter Anne. The will make good what Rowe says of his being "a substantial yeoman. He appoints Fulk Sandels one of the supervisors of hi

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of £40, to be forse there should be rriage of William atford; the object om the Bishop as e publishing the t Worcester, with 1 affixed, and also ; if to show that ; father, Richard > the act. There the bond is just ases, and several of the Worcester

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will, and among the witnesses to it is the name of William
Gilbert, then curate of Stratford. One item of the will is:
"I owe unto Thomas Whittington, my shepherd, £ 4 6 s. 8 d."
Whittington died in 1601; and in his will he gives and be-
queaths "unto the poor people of Stratford 40 s. that is in
the hand of Anne Shakespeare, wife unto Mr. William
Shakespeare." The careful old shepherd had doubtless
placed the money in Anne Shakespeare's hand for safe
keeping, she being a person in whom he had confidence.

The Poet's match was evidently a love-match: whether
the love was of that kind which forms the best pledge of
wedded happiness, is another question. It is not unlikely
that the marriage may have been preceded by the ancient
ceremony of troth-plight, or handfast, as it was sometimes
called; like that which almost takes place between Flori-
zel and Perdita in The Winter's Tale, and quite takes
place between Olivia and Sebastian in Twelfth Night.
The custom of troth-plight was much used in that age,
and
for a long time after. In some places it had the force and
effect of an actual marriage. Serious evils, however, some-
times grew out of it; and the Church of England did wisely,
no doubt, in uniting the troth-plight and the marriage in
one and the same ceremony. Whether such solemn be-
trothment had or had not taken place between William
Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, it is certain from the
parish register that they had a daughter, Susanna, baptized
on the 26th of May, 1583.

Some of the Poet's later biographers and critics have supposed he was not happy in his marriage. Certain passages of his plays, especially the charming dialogue between the Duke and the disguised Viola in Act ii., scene 4, of Twelfth Night, have been cited as involving some reference to the Poet's own case, or as having been suggested by what himself had experienced of the evils resulting from the wedlock of persons "misgraffed in respect of years." There was never any thing but sheer conjecture for this notion. Rowe mentions nothing of the kind; and we may be sure

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that his candour would not have spared the Poet, had t tion offered him any such matter. As for the passag question, I know no reason for excepting them from acknowledged purity and disinterestedness of the P representations; where nothing is more remarkable more generally commended, than his singular aloofnes self, his perfect freedom from every thing bordering u egotism.

Our Mr. White is especially hard upon the Poet's worrying up the matter against her, and fairly tormen the poor woman's memory. Now the facts about the riage are just precisely as I have stated them. I con they are not altogether such as I should wish them have been; but I can see no good cause why prur inference or speculation should busy itself in going bel them. If, however, conjecture must be at work on th facts, surely it had better run in the direction of cha especially as regards the weaker vessel. I say weaker sel, because in this case the man must in common fair be supposed to have had the advantage at least as muc natural strength of understanding as the woman had years. And as Shakespeare was, by all accounts, a v attractive person, it is not quite clear why she had no good a right to lose her heart in his company as he had lose his in hers. Probably she was as much smitten a was; and we may well remember in her behalf, that lo "favourite seat is feeble woman's breast"; especially as th is not a particle of evidence that her life after marriage ever otherwise than clear and honourable. And indee will do no hurt to remember in reference to them b how

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d the Poet, had trad As for the passages in pting them from the edness of the Poet's more remarkable, or singular aloofness of hing bordering upon upon the Poet's wife, ind fairly tormenting facts about the mar ted them. I confess ould wish them to cause why prurient self in going behind e at work on those direction of charity, weaker ves I say in common fairness at least as much in the woman had in all accounts, a very why she had not as pany as he had to much smitten as he - behalf, that love's especially as there after marriage was And indeed it ce to them both,

e.

ays, rolled

ges, among other which Leontes, in st his wife, in Act

23 i. scene 2, of The Winter's Tale. He thinks the Poet could not have written that and other strains of like import, but that he was stung into doing so by his own bitter experience of "sorrow and shame"; and the argument is that, supposing him to have had such a root of bitterness in his life, he must have been thinking of that while writing those passages. The obvious answer is, To be sure, he must have been thinking of that; but then he must have known that others would think of it too; and a reasonable delicacy on his part would have counselled the withholding of any thing that he was conscious might be applied to his own domestic affairs. Sensible men do not write in their public pages such things as would be almost sure to breed or foster scandal about their own names or their own homes. The man that has a secret cancer on his person will naturally be the last to speak of cancers in reference to others. I can hardly think Shakespeare was so wanting in a sense of propriety as to have written the passages in question, but that he knew no man could say he was exposing the foulness of his own nest. So that my inferences in the matter are just the reverse of Mr. White's. As for the alleged need of personal experience in order to the writing of such things, why should not this hold just as well in regard, for instance, to Lady Macbeth's pangs of guilt? Shakespeare's prime characteristic was, that he knew the truth of Nature in all such things without the help of personal experience.

Mr. White presumes, moreover, that Anne Shakespeare was a coarse, low, vulgar creature, such as, the fascination of the honeymoon once worn off, the Poet could not choose but loath and detest; and that his betaking himself to London was partly to escape from her hated society. This, too, is all sheer conjecture, and rather lame at that. That Shakespeare was more or less separated from his wife for a number of years, cannot indeed be questioned; but that he ever found or ever sought relief or comfort in such separation, is what we have no warrant for believing. It was

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