4-11 



SHAH ROKH BEHADIR* 



SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. 



413 



beauty of execution. Notwithstanding this vast expenditure, his 

 finances were so well regulated, that after defraying the cost of his 

 military expeditious, and maintaining an army of 200,000 men, he left 

 the treasure of 24,000,000^. (Khan-Khan), the savings of an annual 

 revenue of from 25,000,0002. to 30,000,0002. But all this prosperity 

 greatly declined under Aurungzebe, whose bigotry led him to renew 

 the oppression of the Hindoos, and whose resources were exhausted 

 by the civil wars to which this gave rise, and by his insatiable thirst 

 for conquest. 



SHAH ROKH BEHADIR, called also SHAHROKH MIRZA (' Behadir' 

 signifying 'a champion,' and 'Mirza' 'a prince'), was the fourth son 

 of Tamerlane. The news of his birth was brought to his father, it is 

 said, while he was playing at chess, and when he had just given check 

 to the king (Shah) with his castle (Rokh) : from these two words the 

 name of the son was formed. He succeeded his father A.H. 807 

 (A.D. 1405), and was engaged during the greater part of his life in wars 

 with Cara Yousuf, a Turcoman prince of the dynasty of the Black 

 Sheep, and with the sons of this potentate. He defeated the father in 

 three different battles, and was equally successful against his two sons 

 Jehanshah and Iskender. He however restored the province of Azer- 

 bijau to Jehanshah, whom he made his tributary, and left Iskender to 

 wander from province to province. In A.H. 818 (A.D. 1416), Shah 

 Rokh restored the famous fortress of the city of Herat, which his 

 father had laid in ruins, employing upon this work 7000 men. He 

 also rebuilt the walls of Herat itself, as well as those of Merou ; the 

 latter had been in ruins since the irruption of Gengis Khan. 



The children of Shah Rokh were : Uleg Beg, who governed Mawaran- 

 nahar, or the country beyond the Oxus ; Abul-fatha Ibrahim, who 

 governed Persia during the lifetime of his father, and died twelve years 

 before him, leaving behind him many public works, amongst others a 

 college; he had deservedly the reputation of a liberal patron of litera- 

 ture ; Mirza Baisankar, or Baisangor, who also died in his father's 

 lifetime, a year before his brother just mentioned, leaving three 

 children, who reigned separately or jointly, and waged the most 

 bloody wars with one another ; Soyurgatinish, who commanded under 

 his father in India and the country of Gazneh, and died A.H. 830 

 (A.D. 1427); and Mirza Mohammed Jouki, who died A.H. 848 (A.D. 1445). 

 The Transoxan provinces given to Ulug Bey had been previously held 

 by Mirza Khalil Sultan, grandson of Tamerlane and nephew of Shah 

 Rokh, who confirmed him hi this government. But of this he was 

 despoiled by a rebel courtier, who kept him prisoner; and on the 

 death of the rebel, the provinces of Persian Irak and Azerbijan were 

 given to the restored prince in lieu of his original territory. Shah 

 Rokh himself died after an illustrious reign of forty-three years, at the 

 age of seventy-one, at Ray in Persia. 



SHAH-ZEMAUN ('King of the Age') became king of Cabul and 

 Afghanistan on the death of his father Tiuiour Shah A.D. 1793 

 (A.H. 1208), in spite of the opposition of his elder brother Humayoon: 

 another brother, Mahmood, was also defeated in battle and driven 

 into Persia. The Doorauni kingdom had fallen into great disorder 

 during the indolent reign of Tiinour ; but instead of bending his efforts 

 to re-establish subordination in his dominions, he became possessed 

 with the ambition of emulating the Indian conquests of his grand- 

 father Ahmed Shah, expelling the Mahrattas from Delhi, and restoring 

 the ascendency of the Moslems. With these views, and encouraged 

 by the invitation of the Rohillas, he three times (in 1795-96-98) 

 invaded the Punjab and occupied Lahore ; but though his movements 

 occasioned considerable alarm to the Mahrattas (who remembered 

 their former defeats by the Afghans), and even to the British in Bengal, 

 who assembled a force on their frontier to check his progress in case 

 of need, he was in each instance recalled by the attacks of the Persians 

 and Uzbeks on the north and west, and by the renewed attempts of 

 his brother Mahmood on the crown. The unpopularity of the vizir 

 Wuffadar Khan detached many nobles from the king's party ; and the 

 desertion of Futteh Khan, the powerful chief of the Barukzyes, 

 enabled Mahmood, in 1800, to possess himself of Candahar. A force 

 sent against him was dispersed ; and Shah-Zemaun, flying towards 

 Cabul, was treacherously seized and given up to his brother, by whom 

 he was blinded and imprisoned. Mahmood now became king, but 

 was dethroned in his turn, after two years, by Shah-Shoojah-al-Mulk 

 (the lately restored prince), who was full brother to Shah-Zemaun. 

 The latter was now released and treated with kindness; but wher* 

 Shoojah was driven from his throne in 1809, the blind Shah-Zemaun 

 accompanied his flight, and died in exile. 



SHAKHOVSKY, PRINCE ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVICH, 

 a prolific and popular Russian dramatic author, was born in 1777, at 

 a village in the government of Smolensk. He entered tho army in 

 1793, but in 1801 obtained the more congenial appointment of one of 

 the directors of the theatre. The war of 1812 recalled him to the 

 army and to the command of a regiment of Cossaks, but after its 

 conclusion he resumed the duties of management. He retired with a 

 pension in 1818, and died in 1846. During his lifetime Prince 

 Shakhovsky, was the most conspicuous of Russian dramatic authors, 

 and was sometimes styled the Russian Kotzebue. The number of 

 his plays is loosely said to have approached a hundred ; many of them 

 were translations and adaptations chiefly from the French. Among 

 them may be found a refashionment of Shakspere's ' Tempest,' and a 

 drama founded on. Walter Scott's 'Black Dwarf.' The original play 



which is considered his best, bears the title of ' Aristophanes,' and is 

 founded on the history of the great Athenian dramatist ; another, a 

 comedy, 'What you don't like don't listen to' ('Ne lyubo ne alushay'), 

 and a third, ' A lesson to Coquettes,' are also of unusual merit. His 

 vaudevilles and light comedies are considered his most successful 

 efforts. 



SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. The controversies about the greatest 

 poet of England begin with the spelling of his name. The three 

 signatures of his will are BO obscure that it is difficult to determine 

 whether he wrote his name SHAKSPERE or SHAKSPEARE. The auto- 

 graph in the copy of Florio'a Montaigne, purchased by the British 

 Museum, is decidedly SHAKSPERE. In a mortgage deed purchased by 

 the Corporation of London it is SHAKSPER. In the Stratford Itegisters 

 of his own baptism and burial, and of tue baptism of his children, it 

 is SHAKSPERE. In the folio of 1623 it is SHAKESPEARE. The most 

 usual mode in which the name was written appears to have been 

 SHAKSPERE. 



Steevens, one of the editors of his works, says " All that is known 

 with any degree of certainty concerning Shakspeare is that he was 

 born at Stratford-upon-Avon married and had children there went 

 to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays 

 returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." This is 

 not " all that is known with any degree of certainty." There is indeed 

 a lamentable deficiency in the materials for Shakspere's life, such as 

 perhaps exists in no similar instance of a man so eminent amongst his 

 contemporaries. Mr. Hallam has justly observed "All that insatiable 

 curiosity and unwearied diligence have detected about Shakspere 

 serves rather to disappoint and perplex us than to furnish the slightest 

 illustration of his character. It is not the register of his baptism, or 

 the draft of his will, or the orthography of his name, that we seek. 

 No letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, no character 01 

 him drawn with any fulness by a contemporary, can be produced." 

 But if we have nothing but registers, and title deeds, and pedigree.?, 

 and wills, we must be content with these ' spoils of time,' in the 

 absence of matters which bring us nearer to the individual. We have 

 however the possibility left of throwing some light upon the obscurity, 

 by grouping the records, amidst the mass of circumstances of which 

 they form so small a part. We have the ' tombstone information,' as 

 such facts have been called ; but we have something more. The life 

 of Shakspere has to us the value above that of all other values in con 

 nection with his writings. Whatever difference of opinion there may 

 be as to the dates of particular works, there is, upon the whole, suf- 

 ficient evidence to enable us to class those works in cycles. This 

 species of inquiry forms no unimportant 'part of the biography of 

 Shakspere ; and new views may, without impropriety, be based upon 

 the new circumstances connected with the poet's literary history 

 which have been opened to us by diligent inquirers during recent years. 



In the register of baptisms of the parish church of Stratford-upon- 

 Avon we find, under the date of April 26, 1564, the entry of the 

 baptism of William, the son of John Shakspere. The entry is in 

 Latin " Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere." The date of William 

 Shakspere's birth has always been taken as three days before his 

 baptism ; but there is certainly no evidence of this fact. Who was 

 John Shakspere, the father of William 1 The same register of baptism 

 shows, it is reasonably conjectured, that he had two daughters baptised 

 in previous years Jone, September 15th, 1558 ; Margaret, December 

 2nd, 1562. Another brief entry in another book closes the record of 

 Margaret Shakspere; she was buried on the 30th of April, 1563. 

 There is very little doubt that the elder daughter, Jone, died also hi 

 infancy ; for another daughter of John Shakspere, also called Jone, 

 was baptised in 1569. William was in all probability the first of the 

 family who lived beyond the period of childhood. From these records, 

 then, we collect, that John Shakspere was married and living in the 

 parish of Stratford in 1558. He was no doubt settled there earlier; 

 for in the archives of the town, by which his course may be traced 

 for some years, we find that he was, in 1556, one of the jury of the 

 Court-leet; in 1557 one of the ale-tasters; at Michaelmas of that year, 

 or very soon afterwards, he was elected a burgess or junior member of 

 the corporation ; in 1558 and 1559 he served the office of constable, 

 which duty appears then to have been imposed upon the younger 

 members of the corporate body; lastly, in 1561, he was elected one 

 of the chamberlains. Here then, previous to the birth of William 

 Shakspere, we find his father passing through the regular gradations of 

 those municipal offices which were filled by the most respectable 

 inhabitants of a country town. 



There have been endless theories, old and new, as to the worldly 

 calling of John Shakspere. There are ancient registers in Stratford, 

 minutes of the Common Hall, proceedings of the Court-leet, pleas of 

 the Court of Record, writs, which have been hunted over with 

 unwearied diligence, and yet they tell us little of John Shakspere ; 

 and what they tell us is too often obscure. When he was elected an 

 alderman in 1565, we can trace out the occupations of his brother 

 aldermen, and readily come to the conclusion that the municipal 

 authority of Stratford was vested, as we may naturally suppose it to 

 have been, in the hands of substantial tradesmen, brewers, bakers, 

 butchers, grocers, victuallers, mercers, woollen-drapers. On rare 

 occasions, the aldermen and burgesses constituting the town-council 

 affixed their signatures, for greater solemnity, to some order of the 



