GREAT MEN OF MODERN HISTORY. 



thirty-five when the poet was born. The last known of him was 

 in 1 60 1, so that there is a possible age-range from thirty-five 

 to forty-five. The grandfather, Richard, died about four years 

 before Shakespeare was born, and, as the family is known to 

 have been a long-lived one, we can assume two steps of about 

 forty years each in Shakespeare's immediate male ancestry. That 

 the grandfather was probably pretty old may be inferred from the 

 fact that his will was dated seventeen or eighteen years before 

 his death. Shakespeare's mother was Mary Arden, the eighth 

 and youngest child of Robert Arden, who was of a younger branch 

 of the Arden family. From my age table I find that seven- 

 elevenths of eighth children are born in class A, the other four- 

 elevenths being divided between classes B and C. The chances 

 are, therefore, nearly two to one that Shakespeare's mother was 

 born in class A. We also find that Robert Arden was mentioned 

 in an indenture in 1501. If he were fifteen at the time (a prob- 

 able age) we would have seventy-eight years between the birth 

 of Robert Arden and that of William Shakespeare. Dividing this 

 so as to place Mary Arden in class A, we would have thirty-three 

 years for the mother and forty-five years for the maternal grand- 

 father. I also find that husbands average three or four years older 

 than their wives, which would make Shakespeare's father about 

 thirty-six or thirty-seven in 1564. This corresponds well with the 

 previous estimate that he could not very well have been less than 

 thirty-four or thirty-five. The result of this is that Shakespeare 

 was probably born in class C or D, the father in class A or B, 

 and the mother in class A. If this estimate be reasonably accurate, 

 we have all of the elements to account for Shakespeare being a 

 great man, provided his parents were mentally active. The meagre 

 accounts that we have of John indicate that he was a man having 



