name. this intelligence, which is dated Sept. 27, 1564, the high bailiff, Mr. George Whatley, and three of the aldermen, assented by making their marks. Of the burgesses, one only (William Brace) subscribes his The mark then used by our poet's father, nearly resembles a capital A, and was perhaps chosen in honour of the lady whom he had married. The same mark appears opposite to his name as one of the affeerors, appointed at the court leet, in October, 1559. On the 29th of January, 1588-9, of twentyseven persons who signed a paper in the council-chamber of Stratford, fourteen make their marks; and among the marksmen are found Mr. William Wilson, the high-bailiff, and four of the aldermen. Such, however, was the change, and so great the improvement in this respect, in a short period, that about eight years afterwards, out of twenty-eight persons who sanction another paper, on the 9th of January, 1596-7 (including all the aldermen and burgesses of Stratford), seven only were marksmen ; and of nineteen persons whose signatures are affixed to an order, made on the 27th of Sept. 1598, sir only do not subscribe their names. Our poet's father, however he might be countenanced by a great number of those with whom he lived in intimacy, who were equally deficient in this respect with himself, could not but have had frequent occasions in the course of his business to feel and lament the want of this useful accomplishment, and to life he contented himself with making a cross instead of the A, which he had formerly used. Registr. Burg. Stratford, A. observe the solid advantages derived from literary attainments, even of the lowest class; and therefore, we may be sure, would not neglect the education of his children. Perhaps a deficiency of this kind in a father of a good understanding, is one of the strongest incentives to take especial care that his son shall not labour under the same defect. At Stratford, there had been, long before the charter of incorporation granted by King Edward the Sixth, a free school for the education of youth. By that charter, this school, which was ordered from thenceforth to be called The King's New School of Stratford upon Avon, was confirmed and established 9 Hugh Clonne, scholemaister of Stretford, was admitted into the fraternity of the Guild of the Holy Cross in the year 1430; 9 Henry VI. Registr. Gild. fol. xxxviii. b. The grammar school of Stratford, according to Leland (Itin. vol. iv. p. 2, fol. 167, a.), “was founded by one Jolepe, a Master of Arts, born in Stratford, whereabout he had some patrimony, and that he gave to this schoole." But both he and Dugdale are mistaken in the name of the founder, who was Thomas Jolyffe, as appears by a rent-roll of the lands, &c. of the guild of the Holy Cross, made October 5, 1530 [22 Henry VIII.], and now among the archives of Stratford; the last article of which is "Redditus terrarum et tenementorum Magistri Thome Jolyffe." The land which he bequeathed lay in the hamlet of Dodwell. The whole value of a close there, and of his tenements in the old town, and in Rother-street, amounted at that time only to 21. 17s. 6d. The school seems to have been kept in our author's time in the chapel of the guild; for on the 18th of February, 1594-5, the following order was made by the corporation of Stratford: "At this halle yt ys agreed by the Bayliffe and the greater number of the company nowe present that there shalbe no schole kept in the chapel from this time followinge." for ever, with a salary of twenty pounds a-year to the master. Here, without doubt, our poet was placed; and if we suppose him to have been first made acquainted with the rudiments of literature in the year 1572, when he was eight years old, and to have continued his grammatical studies to the year 1578, his instructors must have been Mr. Thomas Hunt (curate of Luddington, a village in the neighbourhood of Stratford), and Mr. Thomas Jenkins, who were successively masters of the free school during that period'. As it may gratify those persons who are more immediately connected with the town of Stratford, I subjoin as perfect a list as I have been able to form from various loose and unconnected papers, of the successive masters of the free school there, from the latter end of the reign of Henry the Eighth: 1546, William Dalam (not Dalum, as Dugdale has it). * Cambridge Coll. Corp. Christi. 1572, Tho' Acton, conv'. 2dus, matriculated, perhaps the son of Acton, schoolmaster. † Brazen Nose Coll. Alex' Aspinall, Lanc. 20 ann. Oxon. venit 1573. Reg". Matric. So he must have been born in 1553. UNIV. Or WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 101 Of his school-days, unfortunately, no account whatsoever has come down to us; we are, therefore, unable to mark his gradual advancement, or to point out the early presages of future renown, which his extraordinary parts must have afforded; for as it has been observed by a great writer of our own time, all whose remarks on human life are sagacious and profound, 1772, David Davenport. In a paper without date of year, containing a list of contributors of certain sums as "a free and voluntary present to his Majesty, in pursuance to an act of parliament, and a commission thereupon issued, dated the 6th day of August last past;" signed by John Holbech, Rec. I find the name of "Benjamin Beddome Schoole-master;" but I know not to what period he ought to be referred: perhaps to the reign of Edward VI. immediately after William Dalam. During the years 1575, 1576, and part of 1577, in the chamberlain's accounts, from which, during those years, I derive my information, the annual stipend is only stated generally to have been made "to the schoolmaster" without specifying his name; so that it is uncertain whether the office during that period was filled by Mr. Hunt or Mr. Jenkins, though from preceding and subsequent entries, it is certain that it was filled by one or the other of those gentlemen. Mr. Thomas Hunt, who had the honour to be one of our poet's school-masters, was buried at Stratford, April 12, 1612. Mr. Alexander Aspinhall, who was near forty years school-master of Stratford, and was chosen one of the burgesses, married Oct. 28, 1594, Anne, the sister of Julius Shaw, one of the witnesses to Shakspeare's will. William Dalam, the first person in the foregoing list, was one of the five priests of the guild of Stratford, as appears by an ancient deed, executed March 10, 35 Henry VIII. which is preserved among the archives of that corporation. The other four priests at that time were, Roger Egerton, Nicholas Coterel, John Payne, and Thomas Hakyns. "there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour "." Were our poet's early history accurately known, it would unquestionably furnish us with many proofs of the truth of this observation; of his acuteness, facility, and fluency; of the playfulness of his fancy, and his love of pleasantry and humour; of his curiosity, discernment, candour, and liberality; of all those qualities, in a word, which afterwards rendered him the admiration of the age in which he lived. How long he continued at school, or what proficiency he made there, we have now no means of ascertaining. I may, however, with the highest probability assume, that he acquired a competent, though perhaps not a profound knowledge, of the Latin language for why should it be supposed, that he who surpassed all mankind in his maturer years, made less proficiency than his fellows in his youth, while he had the benefit of instructors equally skilful? His friend Mr. Richard Quiney, one of the aldermen of Stratford in his time, who had certainly been bred some years before our poet, at the same school, his family having been long established in Stratford, was so well acquainted with that language, that his brother-in-law, Mr. Abraham Sturley, who was also an alderman, frequently intermixed long Latin paragraphs in his letters to him, several of which I have read; nay, on one occasion I have found an entire Latin letter addressed to him; and Mr. Sturley certainly would not have 2 Dr. Johnson's Life of Sydenham. 3 See Appendix. |