the plague, in the last six months of the year 1564, carried off more than a seventh part of them. Fortunately for mankind, it did not reach the house where the infant Shakspeare lay: for not one of that name appears in the dead list. A poetical enthusiast will find no difficulty in believing that, like Horace, he reposed secure and fearless in the midst of contagion and death, protected by the Muses to whom his future life was to be devoted:

sacrâ

Lauroque, collatâque myrto,

Non sine diis animosus infans 5.

If I were to acquiesce in the tradition communicated to Mr. Rowe, in the beginning of the last century, I should now, in due order, and in imitation of all the biographers who have implicitly followed him on the same subject, inform my readers, that our poet's father, John Shakspeare, "was a considerable

four hundred and fifty-seven. If we reckon five to each house, the inhabitants were then 2285. By the returns made to Parliament in 1811, it appears that the inhabitants in Stratford amounted to 2842, whereof 1340 were males, and 1502 were females, and that the inhabited houses were 548, and the uninhabited 13.

5 Hor. lib. iii. ode iv.

6 Jacob's Lives of the Poets, 8vo. 1720. Pope's Edition of Shakspeare's Plays, 4to. 1725. Theobald's Edition, 8vo, 1733. General Dictionary, folio, 1739. Hanmer's Edition of Shakspeare's Plays, 4to. 1744. Warburton's Edition, 8vo. 1747. 11lustrious Heads, 1748. Cibber's Lives of the Poets, 12mo. 1753. Biographia Britannica, folio, 1747. Biographical Dictionary, 8vo. 1760. Biographia Dramatica, 1780, &c. &c.

dealer in wool, and had so large a family, ten children in all, that though he was his eldest son, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it is true (continues Mr. Rowe), for some time, at a free school, where it is probable he acquired what Latin he was master of; but the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of his assistance at home, forced him to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language "

7

It is somewhat remarkable, that in Rowe's Life of our author, there are not more than eleven facts mentioned ; and of these, on a critical examination,

7 So Rowe's second edition. In the first, "that little Latin he was master of."

8 Rowe's Life of Shakspeare.

9 These facts are:

1. That he was the son of John Shakspeare, and born at Stratford, in April, 1564.

2. That he died there in 1616.—These are both true, and were furnished by the parish register.

3. That his father had ten children.

4. That his father was a woolman.

5. That when the poet came to London " he was received into the company of actors then in being," as if there was then but one company.

6. That he was but an indifferent actor.

7. That Falstaff was originally called Oldcastle, and that the poet was obliged to change the name of that character.

8. That Lord Southampton gave him 1000l. to complete a purchase.

9. That he left three daughters.

10. That he was driven to take shelter in London in consequence of stealing deer from Sir Thomas Lucy's park.

The preceding eight facts will all be shown to be false.

eight will be found to be false. Of one (of very little. importance) great doubt may be justly entertained; and the two remaining facts, which are unquestionably true (our poet's baptism and burial), were furnished by the register of the parish of Stratford.

We have already seen that one part of the foregoing account is not true. John Shakspeare, it has been proved, never had but eight children; and only five of them lived to be any burthen to their father, with respect to their education'. This circumstance, were we reduced to the necessity of conjecture, might suggest some doubts concerning such other parts of this relation as are not supported by better evidence, particularly that which concerns the occupation of his father. But on the subject of the trade of John Shakspeare, I am not under the necessity of relying on conjecture; being enabled, after a very tedious and troublesome search, to shut up this long agitated question for ever. In a manuscript account of our author, written above a century ago, by Mr. Aubrey, an ingenious man, and a most careful, laborious, and zealous collector of anecdotes relative to our English poets and other celebrated writers of his native country, our author's father is said to have been a butcher. Mr. Rowe, we have just now seen, about thirty years afterwards, was informed, from oral tradition,

11. That he introduced Ben Jonson to the stage, may certainly be considered as extremely doubtful. This tale probably took its rise from Shakspeare's having assisted Jonson in writing Sejanus. In the printed play, however, the author omitted whatever our poet had contributed to that piece.

Now, though both these

that he was a woolman. accounts are equally false, I do not think it necessary or becoming to throw any ridicule on either of these gentlemen; nor shall I represent them as foolish gossips, because they have transmitted to us such accounts, on this subject, as they could procure. And I shall particularly abstain from ridiculing Mr. Aubrey (whose name ought never to be mentioned by any friend to English literature without respect), on account of the tradition which he has transmitted, lest the weapon pointed at that learned antiquary should recoil against the breast of him who levelled it; for, strange to tell! we shall presently find that Ralph Cawdrey, one of the aldermen of Stratford, at the time our poet was born, was a butcher 2, and was

2 This fact is proved by a deed among the archives of Stratford, which begins thus:

"This Indenture made the xxth day of April in the first and second yere of the reigne of Phylip and Mary [1555], by the grace of God kynge and quene, &c. between Will". Whatley, nowe Justice of the peace, hy bely of the burrow of Stratford upon Avon, in the county of Warr. George Whatley, now Justice of y peace and hye alderman of the same toune, Richard Lord, W". Smyth mercer, John Jefferies, Thomas Wynfyld, Thomas Dixon, Thomas Phyllipps, Henry Bydyll, Thomas Gilbard, Robert Mors, Robert Pratt, Raf Cawdrey, and Adrean Quyny, aldermen, John Burbage, William Mynster, Daniel Phyllypps, Robert Perot, Laurence Beyuton, Roger Sadler, Humphrey Plymley, Richard Harentone, W. Smyth corvizar, Frauncis Harbage, George Turnor, Richard Symons, John Wheler, and Lewes ap Williams, Capital burgesez ther of thone party, and Raf Cawdrey of Stratford aforesaid, Bocher, of the other party: Witnessethe, &c. that the befor named hy bely, aldermen and capital burgesez, with one assent, consent, agreement, for them & ther successors, have demyzed, graunted, set, and to ferme let, and by theis pre

bailiff of the borough the very year before Mr. John Shakspeare filled that office. So much for this monstrous and incredible story, to which, we have been told, no one but a man who believed in preternatural appearances could, for a moment, give any credit 3.

It is an old and just observation, that omnis fabula fundatur in historia; the most fictitious accounts sents do demyse, graunt, and to ferme let over unto the said Raf Cawdrey, on tenement in Stratford aforsaid, in Burge Street, late in the holdynge of Richard Marchell ther callyd The Aungell," &c.

3 Ralph Cawdrey kept a butcher's shop in Stratford so early as 1541. He died in May, 1588.

See Mr. Steevens's Advertisement, vol. i. p. 254.

I shall in another place * have occasion to speak more particularly on this subject, and shall show the sources from whence Mr. Aubrey derived the various and valuable intelligence which he communicated to Antony Wood in the latter part of the last century, while that laborious antiquary was employed in compiling his Athenæ Oxonienses. At present, it is only necessary to observe, that if the representation attempted to be given of this ingenious and unfortunate gentleman, were just and well founded; if it were true that every man who is weak in one place must necessarily be weak in all; that all those persons who in the last century were idle enough to put their faith in judicial astrology, and to give credit to stories of preternatural appearances of the dead, were fools, and their judgment or testimony of no value on any subject whatsoever, however unconnected with these weaknesses; then in this large list of ninnies must we class, with Mr. Aubrey, the accomplished and literate Charles the First, the grave and judicious Clarendon, the witty Duke of Buckingham, the fertile and ingenious Dryden, and many other names of equal celebrity. They must all "bench by his side," and must be set down as persons incapable of forming a true judgment on any matter whatsoever presented to them, and wholly unworthy of credit.

* See Appendix.