To turn from uncertainties to facts. While under the age of nineteen, Shakespeare took to wife Anne Hathaway, who was about eight years older than himself.38 Neither the date of the marriage, nor the place where it was celebrated, have been discovered : but the following preliminary bond, preserved in the registry at Worcester, was given Nov. 28th, 1582, for the security of the bishop of the diocese in licensing the parties to be married with once asking of the banns:

"Noverint universi per præsentes nos Fulconem Sandells de Stratford in comitatu Warwici agricolam, et Johannem Rychardson ibidem agricolam, teneri et seem very short, though it lasted two good hours and more,' we may imagine what an impression was made on his infant mind. Indeed, the dramatic cast of many parts of that superb entertainment, which continued nineteen days, and was the most splendid of the kind ever attempted in this kingdom; the addresses to the Queen in the personated characters of a Sybille, a Savage Man, and Sylvanus, as she approached or departed from the castle; and, on the water, by Arion, a Triton, or the Lady of the Lake, must have had a very great effect on a young imagination, whose dramatic powers were hereafter to astonish the world." On the Origin of the English Stage, p. 147,-Reliques of Anc. Eng. Poet. i. ed. 1812. Percy's fancy that the boy Shakespeare was at Kenilworth, utterly improbable as it is, has yet been patronized by several later writers.

According to the brass-plate over her grave in Stratford Church, she died "the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares."In a note on Shakespeare's xciiid Sonnet, Malone writes: "Mr. Oldys observes in one of his manuscripts, that this and the preceding Sonnet 'seem to have been addressed by Shakespeare to his beautiful wife on some suspicion of her infidelity.' He must have read our author's poems with but little attention; otherwise he would have seen that these, as well as the preceding Sonnets, and many of those that follow, are not addressed to a female." Steevens subjoins: "Whether the wife of our author was beautiful or otherwise, was a circumstance beyond the investigation of Oldys, whose collections for his life I have perused."

firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin generoso, et Roberto Warmstry notario publico, in quadraginta libris bonæ et legalis moneta Angliæ solvend. eisdem Ricardo et Roberto, hæred. execut. vel assignat. suis, ad quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter faciend. obligamus nos et utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid. hæred. executor. et administrator. nostros firmiter per præsentes sigillis nostris sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. anno regni dominæ nostræ Eliz. Dei gratia Angliæ, Franc. et Hiberniæ reginæ, fidei defensor. &c. 25o.

"The condicion of this obligacion ys suche, that if herafter 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 solennize matrimony together, and in the same afterwardes remaine 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, quarrell, or demaund, moved or depending before any judge ecclesiasticall or temporall, for and concerning any suche lawfull lett or impediment and moreover, if the said William Shagspere do not proceed to solemnizacion of mariadg with the said Anne Hathwey without the consent of hir frindes: and also, if the said William do, upon his owne proper costes 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 therof, that then the said obligacion to be voyd and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in full force and vertue."

The marks and seals of Sandells and Richardson (one of the seals having the initials R. H.39).

Though not mentioned among his other children in his will, it seems indisputable that Anne Hathaway was the daughter of Richard Hathaway, a "husbandman" 40 or "substantial yeoman, ,"41 of Shottery in the parish of Stratford,42 who had been dead 43 upwards of a twelvemonth when the above bond was executed, and who appears to have been on terms of intimacy with John Shakespeare. The Hathaways were resident at Shottery 45 before the middle of the sixteenth century.

"The seal had probably belonged to the deceased Richard Hathaway. The two bondsmen, Sandells and Richardson, are mentioned in his will: he appoints the former to be one of its supervisors; and the latter is among the witnesses to it. They were his neighbours at Shottery.

So he styles himself in his will.

Rowe's Life of Shakespeare.

Hence in the preliminary bond Anne Hathaway and the two bondsmen are described as "of Stratford."-Shottery is a hamlet about a mile from the town of Stratford.

He was buried at Stratford, Sept. 7th, 1581.

"Two precepts found among the papers of the Court of Record at Stratford seem to show that in 1566 John Shakespeare became security for Richard Hathaway.

"The house occupied by the Hathaways in Shakespeare's time (but now divided into three cottages) is still pointed out.

To free our poet from the imputation which is suggested by a comparison of the date of the preliminary bond (Nov. 28th, 1582) with that of his first child's baptism (May 26th, 1583), some recent biographers have anxiously informed us that in those days betrothment was often regarded as a sufficient warrant for cohabitation before actual marriage. Such may have been the case it by no means follows, however, that Shakespeare saw any excuse for his weakness in the conventional morality of the time.

All things considered, Mr. Hunter perhaps is justified in terming this "a marriage of evil auspices."46 But it is unfair to conclude, as Malone and others have done, from certain passages in our author's plays,47. each of which passages more or less grows out of the incidents of the play, that he had cause to complain of domestic unhappiness: indeed, without taking into account the tradition of his regular visits to Stratford, we have strong presumptive evidence to the contrary in the fact, that the wife of his youth was the compa

nion of his latest years, when he had raised himself to opulence and to the position of a gentleman. Nor assuredly is he to be charged with any want of affection as a husband, because he bequeaths to her only his "second best bed with the furniture;" for (as Mr. Knight first observed, and it is strange that he should not have been anticipated in the remark), Shakespeare's estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement expressly mentioned in his will, were freehold; and his widow was, of course, entitled to what the law terms dower.

Susanna, the first child of William and Anne Shakespeare, was baptized at Stratford, May 26th, 1583. Hamnet and Judith,48 twins, baptized Feb. 2d, 1584-5, were the only other issue of their marriage.

The circumstance next to be noticed in our author's history is one of great importance, inasmuch as, if not the sole cause of his quitting Stratford and putting forth the efforts of his genius, it may at least have contributed to such a result. Having fallen, we are told, into the company of some wild. and disorderly young men, he was induced to assist them, on more than one occasion, in stealing deer from the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, in the neighbourhood of Stratford. For this offence (which certainly, in those days, used to be regarded as a venial frolic) he was treated, he thought,

48 They were doubtless christened after Hamnet Sadler and Judith his wife. Hamnet (or Hamlet) Sadler, a baker at Stratford, was to the last intimate with Shakespeare, who bequeathed him 368. and 8d. to buy a ring.