His Life and Genius 1 1 3 



and the expositions of them words void of mean- 

 ing. The man of genius may not be begotten 

 under a specially auspicious star or conjunction 

 of stars, but he is undoubtedly conceived at a 

 lucky moment and from a lucky conspiracy of 

 co-operating conditions. 



Born on April 23, 1564, William Shakspeare 

 was the eldest son of John Shakspeare of Strat- 

 ford-on-Avon, a well-to-do tradesman, who married 

 in 1557 Mary Arden, the daughter of a substantial 

 yeoman, from whom she inherited a small estate 

 called Asbies, consisting of a house and sixty acres 

 of arable land. This land she seems to have 

 farmed herself until her marriage to the Stratford 

 tradesman, with whom she may previously have 

 had dealings in the sale of wool and other farm 

 produce. 



Possessed of this property by his marriage, 

 John Shakspeare entered on the business of a 

 farmer, selling his own grain and wool, and pro- 

 bably killing some of his fat stock and selling the 

 meat at Stratford. At that time, indeed, to a 

 much later date, such mixed business was no 

 unusual thing in country districts ; and the cir- 

 cumstances may explain why he has been differ- 

 ently spoken of as a glover, a wool-merchant, a 

 butcher. He had a large family of ten children, 

 but as some of them died young not more than 

 live alive at the same time. At first his affairs 

 prospered ; he was alderman, high bailiff, and in 

 1571 chief alderman of the borough. But his 

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