SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564 1616), was the son of John Shakespeare, a dealer in agricultural products in the town of Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwick shire, England. John, at the height of his fortune, which was probably improved by his marriage with Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do squire, rose to be bailiff or mayor of the town; but later he seems to have had business reverses. The birth of William was presumably a few days previous to April 26, 1564, on which day his baptism was registered in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Strat ford; and this presumption is strength ened by the statement on the monument over his tomb that at his death on April 23, 1616, he was fifty-two years of age. We have no documentary evidence as to his education, hut we know that there was a free gramirtar school in the town, and it is safe to infer that the bailiff's son would be sent to it, and would study there the usual Latin authors. There is a tradition that he left school to help his father at about the age of thirteen. When he was a little over eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior, and who bore to him a daugh ter, Susanna, baptized May 26, 1583, and Hamnet and Judith, twins, baptized in February, 1585.
The statement that he went to London in 1586 is only conjecture, and the stories of his acting as call-boy in a theater and holding horses at the door are uncertain traditions. We know, however, that by 1592 he had become a playwright of sufficient importance to be attacked by a rival, Robert Greene, for plagiarism. The language of Greene's attack, which occurs in Greene's "Groatsworth of Witte," implies that Shakespeare was by this time actor as well as author. Henry Chettle, who prepared Greene's book for the press, in the preface to his own "Kind-Harts Dreame," expresses regret for not having removed the offensive pas sages from Greene's posthumous book, and seems to refer to Shakespeare when he speaks of one of the victims of Greene's spleen as in "demeanour no Jesse civill, than he exclent in the qualitie EL e., pro fession of acting] he professes. Besides divers of worship have reported his up rightnes of dealing, which argues his hon esty, and his facetious grace in writing, that aprooves his Art." In 1593, Shakespeare issued the first publication bearing his name, the poem "Venus and Adonis," dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. This was followed by "Lucrece" in 1594, dedicated to the same nobleman. Seven editions of the first poem and five of the second were published during the poet's lifetime, and complimentary references to them are frequent in the writing of the time.
They are highly wrought retellings of the familiar classical stories, vivid and sen suous in description, and fluent and melo dious in style. It was through them rather than through his plays that Shakespeare achieved a literary reputa tion among his contemporaries.
Meantime he had become a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company of Ac tors, and at Christmas, 1594, he was one of those chosen to play before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich.
The Stratford documents again con tribute to his family history with the record of the death of his son Hamnet on Aug. 11, 1596. In the same year John Shakespeare applied for a grant of arms to the College of Heralds, and a renewed application in 1599 was suc cessful.
In 1597, the poet bought for sixty pounds, New Place, the largest house in his native town, and there is documen tary evidence of a series of real estate and other investments in Stratford and London from this time till 1615. He not infrequently engaged in lawsuits, and let ters of townsmen in the Stratford ar chives contain allusions to him • as a man of means with money to lend. The source of this money was the theater with which he was connected not only as author and actor, but also as shareholder. In 1598 two plays were issued with his name on the title page, and in the same year Fran cis Meres published his "Palladis Tamia," in which he speaks of the "mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare" whom he compares to Ovid, Plautus, and Sen eca, mentioning the two poems already described, and the titles of twelve plays. Meres is only one of many contempo raries to praise the sweetness of Shake speare's verse, and to show by reference or quotation the growing popularity of his dramas. Writing alone, however, would never have made him a rich man. During his first decade of playwriting he turned out about two plays a year on the average, for which at current rates he would receive about £10 each, equiva lent to some $400 in modern values. Prices rose later, so that in his second decade it is calculated he gained from this source about the equivalent of $1,600 a year. From what is known of the pay of actors at that time, Shakespeare would earn about £100 a year, and a single share in the theater brought in more than £200. It is therefore easy to see how a keen business man, such as the dramatist is shown to have been from the records of his lawsuits, could acquire the comfortable fortune which Shake speare possessed at his death.