SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 



HIS LAST WORK 



Dr. W.J. Rolfe's Contribution to 

 theYoath's Companion Appeared 

 Shortly Before His Death. 



Dr. Willi 



i J. Rolfe was always in- 

 teresting when writing on Shakespeare, 

 but added interest is given to an arti- 

 ' cle which appeared in the louth's Com- 

 panion'of June 23, only two weeks be- 

 fore his death, as it is piro'oably his 

 last public writing. 



Shakespeare as a Family Man. 



We have very little positive infor- 

 mation concerning Shakespeare's per- 

 sonal history before he became a "fam- 

 ily man." 



Between his birth in 1564 and his 

 l marriage in 1582 the only recorded 

 facts discovered are those of his bap- 

 tism, on April 26, 1564, and of the bond 

 authorizing his marriage to Anne 

 Hathaway, bearing the date of No- 

 vember 2S, 1582, the former still ex- 

 tant in the parish register at Strat- 

 ford-on-Avon, and the latter in the 

 Episcopal records at Worcester, the di- 

 ocese to which Stratford belonged. 

 The earliest mention of Anne Hatha- 

 way that has been discovered occurs 

 in this bond, which authorizes her 

 marriage with "William Shakespeare," 

 with "once asking of the bannes of 

 matrimony." 



The bondsmen for the sum of forty 

 pounds are Pulk Sandells and John 

 Richardson, inhabitants of the little 

 hamlet of Shottery, which was inc. Lid- 

 ded in the parish of Stratford. The 

 bond was given to "defend and save 

 harmless the right reverend Father in 

 God, Lord John Bishop, of Worcester" 

 in case any impediment to the lawful- 

 ness of the marriage should afterward 

 appear. 



It is possible, as some believe, that 

 William and Anne had already been 

 married some months earlier under the 

 illegal forms of the Catholic Church, 

 and that her relatives were anxious 

 for the marriage to be acknow.edged. 



It is far more probable, hovvever, 

 ■that William and Anne had been for- 

 mally betrothed or "contracted" some 

 months before the legal marriage li- 

 censed by the bond of November 21, 

 1582. This ancient betrothal was gen- 

 erally a solemn ceremony performei 

 before a priest or in the presence of 

 witnesses, with the interchangemen t 

 of rings and kisses, and the immedi- 

 ate concurrence of all the parents; but, 

 as HalliwelJ-Phiilipps proves, "it was 

 at times informally conducted sera- 

 rately by the betrothing parties, evi- 

 dence of the fact conveyed by them 

 to independent persons having been 

 held, at least in Warwickshire, to con- 

 fer a sufficient legal validity on the 

 transaction. 



Aside from other reasons for their 

 desire to be married with once ask- 



ing the bans, there was one not men- 

 tioned by the biographers and critigs, 

 and so far as I am aware not noticed 

 by any writer until very recently; 

 namely, that one of the periods in 

 the year during which the publication 

 of bans and marriage in church were 

 prohibited by ecclesiastical law was 

 about to begin — that is, "from Advent 

 to the Octave of the Epiphany, or Jan- 

 uary 12, exclusive." 



In 1582 Advent Sunday fell on Decem- 

 ber 1, so there was only .lost time to 

 get the bans called on St. Andrew's 

 Day, the last day of November (bans 

 could then be called on holidays); and 

 even then the wed«iing in church could 

 not take place until Jaunary 13. 

 With the regular thrice calling of the 

 bans, it would haive been two weeks 

 later. 



It has been generally assumed that 

 Anne was about twenty-six years old 

 when married to William, who was 

 then between eighteen and nineteen; 

 but there is no reojrdl «f her birth or 

 baptiam, and no evidence whatever as 

 to her age except the, .inscription on 

 her tombstone, stating that she died 

 "the 6th day of August, 1623, being of 

 the age of 67 years" But all the 

 Shakespeare tombstones were in a di- 

 lapidated eondatiiHr more than a century 

 ago, and were replaced by new slabs 

 then or af jerward. Portions of some o.' 

 the inscriptions were entirely obliter- 

 ated in 1790, and others had "nearly 

 perished" in 1824. 



THE DIM INSCRIPTIONS. 

 The verses on the stone of Mrs. Hall 

 (Susanna Shakespeare) had been re- 

 moved; to mak-a noomi for record of the 

 death of one Richard Watts, which 

 s erased in ls44, and the verses re- 

 stored,, having been- preserved in Dug- 

 dale's "Warwickshire," 1656. Bui Dug- 

 dale was not infallible, for the inscrip- 

 tion as he gives it states that Susanna 

 deceased the 2 day of July, anno 

 1644,:'' the "2" being oobviously an e - 

 ror, for her burial,, according to the 

 parish register, occcuiredi July 16," 

 ; "67" on Anne's stone may have 

 bean an error (iter £1?) in opying 

 the indistinct figures; 



It is curious, at any rate, if she was 

 almost eight years older than her hus- 

 band, that the fact; sltoitld not be men- 

 tioned in any of the early traditions. 

 All that is said about her in Rowe s 

 "Life of ShaKajgxeaxii,"' 1709 (the earli- 

 est worthy of the name), is that "in 

 arfler to settle in the world, he (Wi - 

 .Htm) thought fit to marry while he 

 W as yet. very young." and that "his 

 w.fe was tj-.e daughter of one' Hath- 

 away, said tO' hawe- been a substantial 

 yoo.'nah .u the neighborhood of Strat- 

 ford." 



Malone, in iris more elaborate "Life," 



says, 

 poet 



ipp; 



"A:i 



Hll 



who 



1582 



tv, 



s-half years older 

 The date of the- 

 g, and her age— the 

 to it, I believe — wasi 

 ied from the figures 



The "Anne Hathawav Cottage"— real- 

 ly a substantial farmhouse of the Eliz- 

 abethan period, divided in the eight- 

 eenth, century in'.o two tenements, and 



later into three — was purchased in 1892 

 as a, national memorial by the trustees 

 of the birthplace for about five times 

 its market value; but all that is known 

 of its' history is of comparatively mod- 

 era date. 



Of the history of William and his 

 wife after the marriage we know b it 

 ftttfe. Their first child, Susanna, was 

 baptized on Sunday, May 26, 15S3 

 fO. S.), and twin children, Hamriet i I 

 Judith, February 2, 1585, about thr— 

 months before their father was twen- 

 ty-one. 



GETTING A LIVING. 

 How h-e managed to support his fa~i- 

 ily we have no means of kn owi r g 

 There are traditions that he taufch 

 school for a time, and that he wf„ 

 clerk in an attorney's office. The 

 clerkship has been supposed to be con- 

 firmed by the familiarity with legal 

 technicalities shown in his works, 1 and 

 several books have been written to 

 prove that he must have studied law 

 somewhat thoroughly; but this the- 

 ory has been completely refuted by 

 Judge Charles Allen of the Massachu- 

 setts Supreme Court in his "Notes on 

 the Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy", 

 where he prows that contemporary 

 dramatists show equal knowledge of 

 law, while Shakespeare makes many 

 mistakes of which a lawyer or law 



student could not be guilty. 



William could not have made his 

 home with, his father, who was in fi- 

 nancial difficulties, and whose family 

 had been increased by four more 

 children, born in 1566, 1569, 1574 and 158) 

 A daughter born in 1571 had died in 

 1579. 



It is extremely probable that William 

 and his family resided with Anne's 

 mother in the large farmhouse at 

 Shottery. At the death of her hus- 

 band in 1581, she had been left with 

 a considerable estate, and her married 

 /daughter, with hier young dhildren. 

 would doubtless have been an added 

 comfort, rather than a burden to her 

 widowhood; and with her they very 

 likely remained when William went 

 to seek his fortune in London in 1585 

 to 1586. According to the tradition of 

 his poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy's 

 grounds, and his prosecution by the 

 knight for the offense — sufficiently 

 confirmed by the obvious allusions to 

 Lucy as Master Shallow in the "Merry 

 Wives" and other circumstantial evi- 

 dence—his departure for the metropo- 

 lis may have been hastened by that 

 experience. Poaching was then re- 

 garded, except by the victims of it, as 

 a venial offense. 



Of the first six or seven years of 

 his life in London we have no definite 

 information. The tradition that he 

 first found employment in holding 

 horses at the door of the theatre is not 

 improbable; but he soon got inside the 

 theater,— in a menial capacity as 

 "prompter's attendant," tradition says, 

 —and later became an actor and began 

 his literary career by revising old plays 

 for a new lease of life on the stage. 

 The earliest mention of him in London 

 (1592) is a satirical one in a pamphlet 

 by a disappointed and dying play- 

 wright, Robert Greene. 



