THE
LIFE OF S H A K S P E A R E, l)
B T
AUG US TINE SEOTTOTVE,
I'AflifLY variously named Shaxper. Shakespeare, Shaksperc and Shakspeare 2), was spread over 1 1 ic woodland part of Warwickshire in the sixteenth century. „ hey were tradesmen and husbandmen, and their property was at least respectable; different depositories of legal waitings proving it to have been frequently the
subject of judicial controversy and testamentary disposition.
Of that particular branch of the family whence the poet descended, nothing whatever is known beyond his immediate parent 3), John Shakspeare, who was originally a glover 4), and, subsequently, a butcher5), and also a dealer in wool in Sic town of Stratford 6). He filled various municipal offices in the borough; among the records of which his name first appears in 1555, in an account of the proceedings of the haililFs court. In Michaelmas, 1557, or some time very slightly subsequent 7), he was admitted a member ol the corporation. In September, 1561, he was elected one of the chamberlains, and filled that office during two successive years. In 1565 he was invested with an alderman’s gown; and in 1568 he attained the supreme honours ol the borough, by serving as high-bailiff from Michaelmas in that year to the same festival in the following. Two years afterwards, 1571, he was elected and sworn chief alderman for the ensuing year8).
The progress of John Shakspeare in municipal distinctions is an implication of respectability which is supported by other considerations. His charities rank hint in the second class of the townsmen of Stratford!)); a public document, referring to the year of his magistracy, states him to have been possessed of pro-
1) Note A. 2) Note B.
3) Rowe’s account of the family is this: “it appears by the register, and other public writings of Stratford, that the poet’s family were of good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. “ This is extremely inaccurate.
4) A manuscript of the proceedings of the Bailiff’s Court in 1555, which so describes him.
51 Aubrey. 6) Rowe.
7) On Michaelmas day, 1557, John Lewis was the last on the list of burgesses, and there were then four vacancies. The next existing enumeration of burgesses is one dated 1564, in which John Shakspeare stands next but one to Lewis: he, therefore, probably, was elected into one of the vacancies mentioned. On this occasion Malone says, in the text of his Life of Shakspeare, “It appears from a paper inserted below, etc.’’ We look below, and are met by, “See Appendix." We look in the Appendix, and search in vain for the promised document. Similar disappointment is-occasioned in the two succeeding pages, 76, 77.
8) Regist. Burg. Strat. Whatever respectability the corporation of Stratford boasted, their claims to erudition must have been most humble: out of nineteen members of that body who signed a paper in 1564, only seven could write their names, and among the twelve who set their mark, is John Shakspeare ; he is kept in countenance, however, by the then chief magistrate, whose cross is °stentatiously termed “the sign manual of the high baililF.”
9) In a subscription for the relief of the poor in 1564, out of twenty-four persons, twelve Save more, six the same, and six less than John Shakspeare: in a second subscription by fourteen f e rson$, eight gave more, five the same, and one less.
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