thereafter found that there existed any lawful impediment to the solemnization of matrimony between Wilham Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, of Stratford. It is not known where the ceremony was performed, but certainly not at Stratford-upon-Avon,' to which both the parties belonged, where the bondsmen resided, and where it might be expected that it would have been registered. The object of the bond was to obtain such a dispensation from the bishop of Worcester as would authorize a clergyman to unite the bride and groom after only a single publication of the banns; and it is not to be concealed, or denied, that the whole pro

ceeding indicates haste and secresy. However, it ought not to escape notice that the seal used to the bond, although damaged, has upon it the initials R. H., as if it had belonged to R. Hathaway, the father of the bride, and had been used on the occasion with his consent."

Considering all the circumstances, there might be good reasons why the father of Anne Hathaway should concur in the alliance, independently of any regard to the worldly prospects of the parties. The first child of William and Anne Shakespeare was christened Susanna, on 26th May, 1583. Anne was between seven and eight years older than her young husband, and several passages in his plays have been pointed out, which seem to point directly at the evils resulting from unions in which the parties were "misgraffed in respect of years." The most remarkable of these is the wellknown speech of the Duke to Viola, in TWELFTH NIGHT, where he says

Elizabethæ, Dei gratia Angliæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ Reginæ, Fidei Defensoris, etc. 25°.

"The condition of this obligation ys suche, that if hereafter there shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment, by reason of any precontract, consanguinitie, affinitie, or by any other lawfull meanes whatsoever, but that William Shagspere one thone partie, and Anne Hathwey, of Stratford in the Dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together, and in the same afterwards remain and continew like man and wiffe, according unto the lawes in that behalf provided: and moreover, if there be not at this present time any action, sute, quarrel, or demaund, moved or depending before any judge, ecclesiastical

"Let still the woman take
An elder than herself: so wears she to him;
So sways she level in her husband's heart:
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are."

Afterwards the Duke adds

"Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent. "

Whether these lines did or did not originate in the author's reflections upon his own marriage, they are so applicable to his own case, that it seems impossible he

should have written them without recalling the circumstances attending his hasty union, and the disparity of years between himself and his wife. Such, we know, was the opinion of Coleridge, expressed on two distinct occasions in his lectures:-"I cannot hesitate in believ ing," observed Coleridge, in 1815, "that in this passage from TWELFTH NIGHT, Shakespeare meant to give a caution arising out of his own experience; and, but for the fact of the disproportion in point of years between himself and his wife, I doubt much whether the dialogue between Viola and the Duke would have received this turn." It is incident to our nature that

youths, just advancing to manhood, should feel with peculiar strength the attraction of women whose charms have reached the full-blown summer of beauty; but we cannot think that it is a necessary consequence that Anne Hathaway should have possessed peculiar personal advantages. It may be remarked, that poets have often appeared blind to the features and persons of their mistresses, since, in proportion to the strength of their imaginative faculty, they have been able to supply physical deficiencies. Coleridge was aware, if not from his own particular case, from recorded examples, that the beauty of the objects of the affection of poets was sometimes more fanciful than real; and his notion was that Anne Hathaway was a woman with whom the boyish Shakespeare had fallen in love, perhaps from proximity of residence and frequency of intercourse, and that she had not any peculiar recommendations of

ment: and moreover, if the said William Shagspere do not proceed to solemnization of marriadg with the said Anne Hathwey without the consent of her frinds: and also if the said William do, upon his owne proper costs and expenses, defend and save harmles the Right Reverend Father in God, Lord John Bushop of Worcester, and his offycers, for licencing them the said William and Anne to be maried together with once asking of the bannes of matrimony betwene them, and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion thereof, that then the said obligation to be voyd, and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in fulle force and vertue."

The marks and seals of Sandells and Richardson.

1 Malone conjectured that the marriage took place at Weston or Billesley, but the old registers there having been lost or destroyed, it is impossible to ascertain the fact. A more recent search in the registers of some of the other churches in the neighbourhood of Stratford has not been attended with any success. Possibly, the ceremony was performed in the vicinity of Worcester, but the mere fact that the bond was there executed proves nothing. An examination of the registers at Worcester has been equally fruitless.

2 Rowe tells us, (and we are without other authority,) that Hathaway was "said to have been a substantial yeoman," and he was most likely in possession of a seal, such as John Shakespeare had used in 1579.

The fact is registered in this form :

"1583. May 26. Susanna daughter to William Shakspere."

either way; and when Oldys remarks upon the ninetythird Sonnet, that it "seems to have been addressed by Shakespeare to his beautiful wife, on some suspicion of her infidelity," it is clear that he was under an entire mistake as to the individual: the lines

"So shall I live supposing thou art true
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me," etc.-

were most certainly not applied to his wife; and Oldys could have had no other ground for asserting that Anne Hathaway was "beautiful," than general supposition, and the erroneous belief that a sonnet like that from which we have made a brief quotation had Shakespeare's wife for its object.

We may here remark that the balance of such imperfect information as remains to us, leads us to the opinion

1 We derive this opinion from our own notes of what fell from Coleridge upon the occasion in question. The lectures, upon which he was then engaged, were delivered in a room belonging to the Globe tavern, in Fleet-strcet. He repeated the same sentiment in public in 1818, and we have more than once heard it from him in private society.

that Shakespeare was not a very happy married man. The disparity in age between himself and his wife from the first was such, that she could not "sway level in her husband's heart;" and this difference became more apparent as they advanced in years: may we say also, that the peculiar circumstances attending their marriage, and the birth of their first child, would not tend, even in the most grateful and considerate mind, to increase that respect which is the chief source of confidence and comfort in domestic life. To this may be added the fact (by whatever circumstances it may have been occasioned) that Shakespeare quitted his home at Stratford a very few years after he had become a husband and a father, and that although he revisited his native town frequently, and ultimately settled there with his family, there is no proof that his wife ever returned with him to London, or resided with him during any of his lengthened sojourns in the metropolis. That she may have done so is possible; and in 1609 he certainly paid a weekly poor-rate to an amount that may indicate that he occupied a house in Southwark capable of receiving his family, but we are here, as upon many other points, compelled to deplore the absence of distinct testimony. We put out of view the doubtful and ambiguous indications to be gleaned from Shakespeare's "Sonnets," which do not at all indicate that he was of a domestic turn, or that he found any great enjoyment in the society of his wife.

That such may have been the fact we do not deny, and we willingly believe that much favourable evidence upon the point has been lost: and all we advance on the question is, that what remains is not satisfactory.

A question was formerly agitated, which the marriage bond tends to set at rest. Some of Shakespeare's biographers have contended that Anne Hathaway came from Shottery, within a mile of Stratford, while Malone argued that she was probably from Luddington, about three miles from the borough. There is no doubt that a family of the name of Hathaway had been resident at Shottery from the year 1543, and continued to occupy a house there long after the death of Shakespeare: there is also a tradition in favour of a particular cottage in the village, and, on the whole, we may conclude that Anne Hathaway was of that family. She is, however, described in the bond as "of Stratford," and it would seem that she was resident at the time in the borough, although she may have come from Shottery. Had the parties seeking the license wished to misdescribe her, it might have answered their purpose better to have stated her to be of any other place rather than of Stratford.

1 From an extract of a letter from Abraham Sturley, dated 24 January, 1598, it appears that our great dramatist then contem plated the purchase of "some odd yard-land or other at Shottery." This intention perhaps arose out of the connection of his wife with the village. 23

In the beginning of 1585 Shakespeare's wife produced him twins-a boy and a girl-and they were baptized at Stratford Church on the 2d February in that year. It is a fact not unimportant, with relation to the terms of affection between Shakespeare and his wife in the subsequent part of his career, that she brought him no more children, although in 1585 she was only thirty years old.

That Shakespeare quitted his home and his family not long afterwards is certain, but no ground for this step has ever been derived from domestic disagreements. It has been alleged that he was obliged to leave Stratford on account of a scrape in which he had involved himself by stealing, or assisting in stealing deer from the grounds of Charlecote, the property of Sir Thomas Lucy, about five miles from the borough. Rowe, the oldest authority for this story, thus gives it:

He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and among them some, that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him more than once in robbing the park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and, in order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet

1 The registration is, of course, dated 2d February, 1584, as the year 1585 did not at that date begin until after 25th March: it runs thus:

"1584. Feb. 2. Hamnet & Judeth sonne & daughter to Willia Shakspere."

it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London."

Though Rowe is the oldest printed source of this anecdote, his "Life of Shakespeare" having been published in 1709, Malone produced a manuscript of uncertain date, anterior, however, to the publication of Rowe's "Life," which gives the incident some confirmation. Had this manuscript authority been of the same or even of more recent date, and derived from an independent quarter, unconnected with Rowe or his informant, it would on this account have deserved attention; but it was older than the publication of Rowe's "Life," because the Rev. R. Davies, who added it to the papers of Fulman, (now in the library of Corpus Christi College,) died in 1707.1 Rowe obtained some materials from Betterton, the actor, who died the year after Rowe's "Life" came out, and who, it has been repeatedly asserted, paid a visit to Stratford expressly to glean such particulars as could be obtained regarding

1 The terms used by the Rev. Mr. Davies are these:"He [Shakespeare] was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir Lucy, who had him oft whipped and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native country, to his great advancement. But his revenge was so great that he is his Justice Clodpate; and calls him a great man, and that, in allusion to his name, bore three louses rampant for his arms." (Fulman's MSS. vol. xv.) Here we see that Davies calls Sir Thomas Lucy only "Sir Lucy," as if he did not know his Christian name, and he was ignorant that such a character as Justice Clodpate is not to be found in any of Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare. In what year he paid that visit is not known, but Malone was of opinion that it was late in life: on the contrary, we think that it must have been comparatively early in Betterton's career, when he would naturally be more enthusiastic in a pursuit of the kind, and when he had not been afflicted by that disorder from which he suffered severely in his latter years, and to which he owed his death. Betterton was born in 1635, and became an actor before 1660; and we should not be disposed to place his journey to Stratford later than 1670 or 1675, when he was thirty-five or forty years old. He was at that period in the height of his popularity, and being in the frequent habit of playing Hamlet, Lear, and Othello, we may believe that he would be anxious to collect any information regarding the author of those tragedies that then existed in his native town. We therefore apprehend, that Betterton must have gone to Stratford many years before the Rev. Richard Davies made his additions to Fulman's brief account of Shakespeare, for Fulman's papers did not devolve into his hands until 1688. The conclusion at which we arrive is, that Rowe's printed account is in truth older, as far as regards its origin in Betterton's inquiries, than the manuscript authority produced by Malone; and the latter does not come much recommended to us on any other ground. Davies must have been ignorant both of persons and plays; but this very circumstance may possibly be looked upon as in favour of the originality and genuineness of what he furnishes. He does not tell us whence he procured his information, but it reads as if it had been obtained from some source independent of Betterton, and perhaps even from inquiries on the spot. The whole was obviously exaggerated and distorted, but whether by Davies, or by the person from whom he derived the story, we must remain in doubt. Davies died three years before Betterton, and both may certainly have been indebted for the information to the same parties.

In reflecting upon the probability of this incident in Shakespeare's life, it is not to be forgotten, that deerstealing, at the period referred to, was a common offence; that it is referred to by several authors, and punished by more than one statute; neither was it considered to include any moral stain, but was often committed by young men, by way of frolic, for the purpose of furnish

1 We may, perhaps, consider the authority for the story obtained by Oldys prior in point of date to any other. According to him, a gentleman of the name of Jones, of Turbich in Worces tershire, died in 1703, at the age of ninety, and he remembered to have heard, from several old people of Stratford, the story of Shakespeare's robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park; and they added that the ballad, of which Rowe makes mention, had been affixed on the park-gate, as an additional exasperation to the knight. Oldys preserved a stanza of this satirical effusion, which he had received from a person of the name of Wilkes, a relation of Mr. Jones: it runs thus:

"A parliament member, a justice of peace,

At home a poor scare-crowe, at London an asse;
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it:

He thinks himself great,

Yet an asse in his state

We allow by his ears but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscall it,
Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it."

What is called a "complete copy of the verses," contained in “Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell," is evidently not genuine.

ing a feast, and not with any view to sale or emolu ment. If Shakespeare ever ran into such an indiscretion, (and we cannot discredit the story,) he did no more than many of his contemporaries; and one of the ablest, most learned, and bitterest enemies of theatrical performances, who wrote just before the close of the sixteenth century, expressly mentions deer-stealing as a venial crime of which unruly and misguided youth was sometimes guilty, and couples it with carousing in taverns and robbing orchards.'

It is possible, therefore, that the main offence against Sir Thomas Lucy was, not stealing his deer, but writing the ballad, and sticking it on his gate; and for this Shakespeare may have been so "severely prosecuted” by Sir Thomas Lucy, as to render it expedient for him to abandon Stratford "for some time." Sir Thomas Lucy died in 1600, and the mention of deer-stealing. and of the "dozen white laces" by Slender, and of " the dozen white lowses" by Sir Hugh Evans, in the opening of the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR seems too obvious to be mistaken, and leads us to the conviction that the comedy was written before the demise of the Sir Thomas Lucy, whose indignation Shakespeare had incurred. True it is, that the coat of arms of Sir Thomas Lucy contained only "three luces (pike-fishes) hariant, argent;" but it is easy to imagine, that while Shakespeare would wish the ridicule to be understood and felt by the knight and his friends, he might not desire that it should be too generally intelligible, and therefore multiplied the luces to a “dozen," instead of stating the true number. We believe that the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR was written before 1600, among other rensons, because we are convinced that Shakespeare was too generous in his nature to have carried his resentment beyond the grave, and to have cast ridicule upon a dead

1 Dr. John Rainolds, in his “Overthrow of Stage Playes." 4to. 1599. His words are these: "Time of recreation is necessary, I grant; and think as necessary for scholars, that are scholars indeed, I mean good students, as it is for any yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at stool-ball among wenches, nor at mum-chance or maw with idle loose companions, nor at trunks in guild-halls, nor to dance about may-poles, nor to rifle in alehouses, nor to carouse in taverns, nor to steal deer, nor to rob orchards."

This work was published at the time when the building of a new theatre, called the Fortune, belonging to Henslowe and Alleyn, was exciting a great deal of general attention, and particular animosity on the part of the Puritans. To the same import as the above quotation we might produce a passage from Forman's Diary. One of the most curious illustrations of this point is derived from a MS. note by Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in a copy of Roper's "Life of Thomas More," edit. 1642, sold among the books of Horace Walpole. Speaking of Aurelian Townshend, who, he says, was a poor poet living in Barbican, near the Earl of Bridgewater's, he adds that he had "a fine farr daughter, mistress to the Palgrave first, and then afterwards to the noble Count of Dorset, a Privy Councillor, and a Knight of the Garter, and a deer-stealer," etc. It was to William Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Earl of Montgomery, that the player-editors dedicated the folio SHAKESPEARE of 1623; and one of Earl Philip's MS. notes, in the volume from which we have already quoted, contains the following mention of seven dramatic poets, including Shakespeare:-"The full and heightended style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Mr. Jhonson; Mr. Beaumont, Mr. Fletcher, (brother to Nat Fletcher, Mrs. White's servant, sons to Bishop Fletcher of London, and great tobacconist, and married to my Lady Baker)-Mr. Shakespear, Mr. Deckar, Mr. Heywood." Horace Walpole registers on the titlepage of the volume that the notes were made by Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.