The Bacon- Shakespeare Folly 365 



leyghe, Ralegh, and in yet other ways. The talk 

 of the Baconizers on this point is simply ludi- 

 crous. 



Equally silly is their talk about the dirty streets 

 of Stratford. They seem to have just discovered 

 that Elizabeth's England was a badly drained 

 country, with heaps of garbage in the streets. 

 Shakespeare's father, they tell us, was a butcher, 

 and evidently from a butcher's son, living in an 

 ill-swept town, and careless about the spelling of 

 his name, not much in the way of intellectual 

 achievement was to be expected ! In point of fact, 

 Shakespeare's parents belonged to the middle class. 

 His father owned several houses in Stratford and 

 two or three farms in the neighbourhood. As a 

 farmer in those days, he would naturally have cat- 

 tle slaughtered on his premises and would sell wool 

 off the backs of his own flocks, whence the later 

 tradition of his having been butcher and wool 

 dealer. That his social position was good is shown 

 by the facts that he was chief alderman and high 

 bailiff of Stratford, and justice of the peace, and 

 was styled " Master John Shakespeare," or (as we 

 should say) " Mr. ; " whereas, had he been one of 

 the common folk, his style had been "Goodman 

 Shakespeare." A visit to his home in Henley 

 Street, and to Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shot- 



