SHAKESPEARE, shfilesper, WILLIAM ( 150-' 1616). An English poet and dramatist, born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the County of Warwick, in April, 1564. He was baptized on April 26 (Old Style) ; and, as it was a common practice to christen infants when three days old, the tra dition which makes his birthday the 23d (May 3d as dates are now reckoned) is generally ac cepted. Of a family of four sons and four daugh ters, William was the third child, but eldest son. His father, John Shakespeare, who had been a farmer in the neighboring of Snit terfield, came to Stratford about 1553 and adopted the trade of a glover. His mother, Mary Arden, belonged to a younger branch of a good old Warwickshire family, and inherited a considerable estate from her father. John Shakespeare was evidently shrewd, energetic, ambitious, and public-spirited. He made money and was popular with his fellow townsmen. After passing through the lower grades of office he was elected alderman, and in 1508 became high bailiff or mayor. In 1556 he bought two houses in Stratford. John Shakespeare. like his fellows in the town council, appears to have been a lover of the drama. When he was high bailiff in 1569 licenses for local performances were granted to two companies of traveling players. John very likely took the five-year-old William to see them act.
When William was seven years old he doubt less entered the Stratford Grammar School. The masters of the school in Shakespeare's boyhood were university men of at least fair scholarship and ability. as we infer from the fact that they rapidly gained promotion in the Church. The studies were mainly Latin, with writing and arithmetic, and perhaps a mere smattering of other branches. A little Greek was sometimes taught in the grammar schools, and this may have been the case at Stratford. Ben Jonson credits Shakespeare with "small Latin and less Greek," which some critics inter pret, as equivalent to "no Greek:" but Ben was not inclined to overstate Shakespeare's classical attainments. Whatever the boy may have learned in the Stratford school during the six or seven years he probably spent there, we may he quite certain that it was all the regular schooling he ever had; and we have no reason to suppose that he kept up his classical studies after leaving school. Attempts have been made to prove Shake
speare a scholar. but a careful examination of his works proves the contrary. His quotations from Latin authors are confined to those then I read in school, and are such as a schoolboy might make. In one instance at least the form of the quotation shows that it was taken from Lilly's Latin Grammar (then used in all English schools) and not from the original play of Ter ence. He makes frequent mistakes in classical names, which a learned man like Bacon, for instance, eould.never have been guilty of. Ba con, indeed, gives some of these very names cor rectly in passages that have been quoted to illustrate the resemblance between his works and Shakespeare's; they really show that the dramatist was ignorant of what the philosopher was familiar with. The training in the gram mar school was, however, an insignitiennt part of Shakespeare's education in the broader sense. The poet is born, not made, says the ancient saw; but the development of his genius largely de pends upon where and under what influences he lives in his childhood and in later years. Shake speare's life was almost entirely spent in Strat ford and London; and in both homes he was eminently fortunate. He was born and lived for twenty years in the country—in the heart of rural England. His manhood was passed in the city—in what was then, as now, the greatest of cities. Stratford was within the limits of the Forest of Arden, which still retained enough of its primitive character to render the youth famil iar with woodland scenery and life and to culti vate his love of nature, which was that of a child for its foster-mother. It was here also that he got the minute knowledge of the practical side of country life which appears in his works. Vol umes have been written on the plant-lore and garden-craft .of the dramatist; and they prove his love of the country and his keen observation of natural phenomena and the agricultural prac tice of the period. Others have shown that he understood hawking and hounds, and had a very wide and loving knowledge of many English birds and other Animals. His acquaintance with angling is apparent in some of his works.