WHAT IS KNOWN.—­William Shakspeare (spelt Shackspeare in the body of his will, but signed Shakspeare) was the third of eight children, and the eldest son of John Shakspeare and Mary Arden:  he was born at the beautiful rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April, 1564.  His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool and leather.  Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover.  He may have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of the town.  Shakspeare’s mother seems to have been of an older family.  Neither of them could write.  Shakspeare received his education at the free grammar-school, still a well-endowed institution in the town, where he learned the “small Latin and less Greek” accorded to him by Ben Jonson at a later day.

There are guesses, rather than traditions, that he was, after the age of fifteen, a student in a law-office, that he was for a time at one of the universities, and also that he was a teacher in the grammar-school.  These are weak inventions to account for the varied learning displayed in his dramas.  His love of Nature and his power to delineate her charms were certainly fostered by the beautiful rural surroundings of Stratford; beyond this it is idle to seek to penetrate the obscure processes of his youth.

MARRIES, AND GOES TO LONDON.—­Finding himself one of a numerous and poor family, to the support of which his father’s business was inadequate, he determined, to shift for himself, and to push his fortunes in the best way he could.

Whether he regarded matrimony as one element of success we do not know, but the preliminary bond of marriage between himself and Anne Hathaway, was signed on the 28th of November, 1582, when he was eighteen years old.  The woman was seven years older than himself; and it is a sad commentary on the morality of both, that his first child, Susanna, was baptized on the 25th of May, 1583.

Strolling bands of players, in passing through England, were in the habit of stopping at Stratford, and setting upon wheels their rude stage with weather-stained curtains; and these, it should be observed, were the best dramatic companies of the time, such as the queen’s company, and those in the service of noblemen like Leicester, Warwick, and others.  If he did not see he must have heard of the great pageant in 1575, when Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, which is so charmingly described by Sir Walter Scott.  Young Shakspeare became stage-struck, and probably joined one of these companies, with other idle young men of the neighborhood.

Various legends, without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and mischievous turn:  among these is a statement that he was arraigned for deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote.  A satirical reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that there is some truth in the story, although certain of his biographers have denied it.