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and publick writings relating to that town, were of good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His father, who was a confiderable dealer in wool,' had fo large a family, ten children.

2 His father, who was a confiderable dealer in wool,] It appears that he had been officer and bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon; and that he enjoyed fome hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his grandfather's faithful and approved fervices to King Henry VII. See the Extract from the Herald's Office. THEORALD.

The chief magiftrate of the Body Corporate of Stratford, now diftinguished by the title of Mayor, was in the early charters called the High Bailiff. This office Mr. John Shakspeare filled in 1569, .s appears from the following extracts from the books of the corporation, with which I have been favoured by the Rev. Mr. Davenport, Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon.

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Jan. 10, in the 6th year of the reign of our fovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, John Shakspeare paffed his Chamberlain's ac

counts.

"At the Hall holden the eleventh day of September, in the eleventh year of the reign of our fovereign lady Elizabeth, 1569, were prefent Mr. John Shakfpeare, High Bailiff." [Then follow the names of the Aldermen and Burgefles.]

"At the Hall holden Nov. 19th, in the 21ft year of the reign of our fovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, it is ordained, that every Alderman fhall be taxed to pay weekly 4d. faving John Shakspeare and Robert Bruce, who fhall not be taxed to pay any thing; and every burgefs to pay 2d."

At the Hall holden on the 6th day of September, in the 28th year of our fovereign lady Queen Elizabeth.

"At this hall William Smith and Richard Courte are chofen to be Aldermen in the places of John Wheler, and John Shakspeare, for that Mr. Wheler doth defire to be put out of the company, and Mr. Shakfpere doth not come to the halls, when they be warned, nor hath not done of long time."

From thefe extracts it may be collected, (as is obferved by the gentleman above-mentioned, to whofe obliging attention to my inquiries I am indebted for many particulars relative to our poet's family,) that Mr. John Shakspeare in the former part of his life was in good circumitances, fuch perfons being generally chosen into the corporation; and from his being excufed [in 1579] to pay 4d. weekly, and at a fubfequent period (1586) put out of the corpora tion, that he was then reduced in his circumftances.

It appears from a note to W. Dethick's Grant of Arms to him in

ment.

in all, that though he was his eldest fon, he could give him no better education than his own employHe had bred him, it is true, for fome time at a free-school,' where, it is probable, he acquired what Latin he was mafter of: but the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of his affistance at home, forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language. It is without controversy, that in his works we fcarce find any traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of the ancients. The delicacy of his tafte, and the natural bent of his own great genius, (equal, if not fuperior, to fome of the best of theirs,) would certainly have led him to read and study them with fo much pleafure, that some of their fine images would naturally have infinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; fo that his not copying at leaft fomething from them, may be an argument of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a difpute: for though the knowledge of them might have made him more correct, yet it is not improbable but that the re

1596, now in the College of Arms, Vincent, Vol. 157, p. 24, that he was a juftice of the peace, and poffeffed of lands and tenements to the amount of 500l.

Our poet's mother was the daughter and heir of Robert Arden of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who, in the Mf. above referred to, is called "a gentleman of worship." The family of Arden is a very ancient one; Robert Arden of Bromwich, efq. being in the lift of the gentry of this county, returned by the commiffioners in the twelfth year of King Henry VI. A.D. 1433. Edward Arden was Sheriff of the county in 1568.-The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern; afterwards foftened to Arden. Hence the name. MALONE.

3 He had bred him, it is true, for fome time at a free-fchool,] The free-fchool, I prefume, founded at Stratford. THEOBALD.

gularity and deference for them, which would have attended that correctnefs, might have reftrained fome of that fire, impetuofity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakspeare: and I believe we are better pleased with those thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination fupplied him fo abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful paffages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was poffible for a master of the English language to deliver them.

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Upon his leaving fchool, he feems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father propofed to him; and in order to fettle 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," faid to have been

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into that way of living which his father proposed to him ;] I believe, that on leaving fchool Shakspeare was placed in the office of fome country attorney, or the fenefchal of fome manor court. See the Efay on the order of his plays, Article, Hamlet. MALONE.

5 he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young.] It is certain he did fo; for by the monument in Stratford church erected to the memory of his daughter, Sufanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that he died on the 2d of July, 1649, aged 66: fo that he was born in 1583, when her father could not be full 19 years old. THEOBALD.

Sufanna, who was our poet's eldest child, was baptized, May 26, 1583. Shakspeare therefore, having been born in April 1564, was nineteen the month preceding her birth. Mr. Theobald was miftaken in fuppofing that a monument was erected to her in the church of Stratford. There is no memorial there in honour of either our poet's wife or daughter, except flat tomb-ftones, by which, however, the time of their refpective deaths is afcertained.-His daugh ter, Sufanna, died, not on the fecond, but the eleventh of July, 1649. Theobald was led into this error by Dugdale. MALONE.

His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway,] She was eight years older than her husband, and died in 1623, at the age of 67 years. THEOBALD.

a fubftantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. In this kind of fettlement he continued for fome time, till an extravagance that he was guilty of forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it feemed at firft to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him, yet it afterwards happily proved the occafion of exerting one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatick poetry. He had by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and amongst them, fome that made a frequent practice of deerftealing, engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was profecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, fomewhat too feverely; and in order to revenge that ill ufage, he made a ballad upon him.' And though

The following is the infcription on her tomb-stone in the church of Stratford :

"Here lyeth interred the body of ANNE, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares."

After this infcription follow fix Latin verfes, not worth preferving. MALONE.

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in order to revenge that ill ufage, he made a ballad upon bim.] Mr. William Oldys, (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the fhare he had in compiling the Biographia Britannica) among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspeare, obferves, that "there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years fince) who had not only heard, from feveral old people in that town, of Shakspeare's tranfgreffion, but could remember the first stanza of that bitter ballad, which, repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preferved it in writing; and here it is neither better nor worse, but faithfully tranfcribed from the copy which his relation very courteously communicated to me."

this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be loft, yet it is faid to have been fo very bitter, that it

"A parliemente member, a juftice of peace,
"At home a poor fcare-crowe, at London an affe,
"If lowfie is Lucy, as fome volke mifcalle it,
"Then Lucy is lowfie whatever befall it :
"He thinks himself greate,

"Yet an affe in his flate

"We allowe by his ears but with affes to mate.
"If Lucy is lowfie, as fome volke mifcalle it,

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Sing lowfie Lucy, whatever befall it."

Contemptible as this performance muft now appear, at the time when it was written it might have had fufficient power to irritate a vain, weak, and vindictive magiftrate; efpecially as it was affixed to feveral of his park-gates, and confequently published among his neighbours.-It may be remarked likewife, that the jingle on which it turns, occurs in the firft fcene of The Merry Wives of Windfor.

I may add, that the veracity of the late Mr. Oldys has never yet been impeached; and it is not very probable that a ballad fhould be forged, from which an undifcovered wag could derive no triumph over antiquarian credulity. STEEVENS.

According to Mr. Capell, this ballad came originally from Mr. Thomas Jones, who lived at Tarbick, a village in Worcestershire, about 18 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, and died in 1703, aged upwards of ninety. "He remembered to have heard from feveral old people at Stratford the ftory of Shak fpeare's robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park; and their account of it agreed with Mr. Rowe's, with this addition, that the ballad written against Sir Thomas Lucy by Shakspeare was tuck upon his park-gate, which exafperated the knight to apply to a lawyer at Warwick to proceed against him. Mr. Jones (it is added) put down in writing the firft ftanza of this ballad, which was all he remembered of it." In a note on the tranfcript with which Mr. Capell was furnished, it is faid, that "the people of thofe parts pronounce lowfie like Lucy." They do fo at this day in Scotland. Mr. Wilkes, grandfon of the gentleman to whom Mr. Jones repeated the ftanza, appears to have been the perfon who gave a copy of it to Mr. Oldys, and Mr. Capell.

In a Manufcript Hiftory of the Stage, full of forgeries and falfehoods of various kinds, written (I fufpect by William Chetwood the prompter) fome time between April 1727 and October 1730, is

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