Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

erchant-Birth of William Shakespeare-Rise and Dec

robbery. It is a very long time ago since this malefactor suffered, and perhaps he was one of those very many unfortunate persons who have been in all ages wrongfully convicted. But the name was not in olden times a respectable one. It signified originally one who wielded a spear; not a chivalric and romantic knight warring with the infidel in Palestine, or jousting to uphold the claims to beauty of his chosen lady, but a common soldier, a rough man-at-arms; one who was in great request in his cou

-spreading Forest of Arden, and near it is the village of Rowington, where there still remains the very picturesque fifteenth-century mansion called Shakespeare Hall, which is said to have been in the dramatist's time the residence of a Thomas Shakespear

ge-bond for William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway spells his name "Shagspere," and the dramatist himself spells it in two different ways in the three signatures on his will, which forms to the Baconians conclusive proof of the two following contradictory propositions (1) that he did not know how to spell his own name, and (2) that, the spelling being different, the so-called signatures were writ

eare display could not have earned his living with lawyers and conveyancers. They are signatures, nearly all of them, which might c

e was described at various times as a fell-monger and glover, a woolstapler, a butcher and a dealer in hay and corn. Probably, as a son of the farmer at Snitterfield, he was interested in most of these trades.

ously dirty and insanitary condition of Stratford, endured with fortitude, if not with cheerfulness by the burgesses, we are forced to the conclusion that Mr. John Shakespeare's muck-heap must have been a super muck-heap, an extremely large and offensive specimen, that made the go

Mary Arden, of Wilmcote, three miles from Stratford, daughter of Robert Arden, yeoman farmer of that place, said on insufficient evidence to have been kin to the ancient knightly family of Arden. She had become, on her father's death in December 1556, owner of landed pro

cious year became a member of the town council, a body then newly e

Meanwhile, at the close of November 1562, a daughter, Margaret, was born, who died the next year; and in 1564, on April 26th, his son William was b

ightpence; about twenty-two shillings of our money. It is only by tradition-but that a very old one-that William Shakespeare was born at "the birthplace" in Henley Street; but there is no reasonable excuse for doubting it, unless we like to think that he was born at the picturesque old house in the village of Cliff

orn in 1569. In 1568 and 1571 he attained the highest municipal offices, being elected high-bailiff and senior alderman, and thus, as chief magistrate, is found described in local documents as

aldermen for six shillings and eightpence each and the burgesses at half that amount, two of the aldermen were excused the full pay. One, Mr. Plumley, was charged five shillings, and Mr. Shakespeare was to pay only three and fourpence. The following year he defaul

In the midst of this trouble, his seven-year-old daughter, Anne, died, and another son, Edmund, was horn, 15