His Life and Genius i r 5 



lived before he was born — was stored the latent 

 energy which, reincarnate in him, was actualized 

 in his life. For assuredly the instincts and 

 aptitudes of genius import a fund of unconscious 

 ancestral acquisition silently accumulated which, 

 working subconsciously in the individual mind, 

 it knows not why nor how, arrives at conscious 

 inflorescence there. Such basis of justification 

 is there at the bottom of theories of successive 

 reincarnations and of the ceremonial worship of 

 ancestors. 



Educated at the Free Grammar School of 

 Stratford, he there learnt writing, arithmetic, 

 u a little Latin and less Greek." The qualifica- 

 tions required for admission were to be resident 

 in the town, seven years old, and able to read. 

 Seeing that he was only thirteen years old when 

 his father was in debt, paid no taxes, and mort- 

 gaged his wife's inheritance, it is pretty certain 

 that he left school when he was comparatively 

 young, either to assist in his father's business or 

 to be put to some other occupation. The Parish 

 Clerk of Stratford, who was then eighty years old, 

 said (in 1693) that he was apprenticed to a 

 butcher and ran away from his master to London. 

 That was the tradition in his native town ; and 

 as it is not contrary to any evidence, and is more- 

 over inherently probable, it is, in the absence of 

 any reason to doubt it, foolish to try to discredit 

 it only because ardent adorers, tuning belief to 

 liking, dislike to believe that Shakspeare was ever 



