have kindled a mind so brimful of poetry and life. The whole matter is
an apt theme for speculation, and for nothing else.

The gleanings of tradition apart, the first knowledge that has reached
us of the Poet, after his baptism, has reference to his marriage. Rowe
tells us that "he thought fit to marry while he was very young," and
that "his wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a
substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford." These
statements are borne out by later disclosures. The marriage took place
in the Fall of 1582, when the Poet was in his nineteenth year. On the
28th of November, that year Fulk Sandels and John Richardson
subscribed a bond whereby they became liable in the sum of £40, to be
forfeited to the Bishop of Worcester in case there should be found any
lawful impediment to the marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne
Hathaway, of Stratford; the object being to procure such a
dispensation from the Bishop as would authorize the ceremony after
once publishing the banns. The original bond is preserved at
Worcester, with the marks and seals of the two bondsmen affixed, and
also bearing a seal with the initials R.H., as if to show that some
legal representative of the bride's father, Richard Hathaway, was
present and consenting to the act. There was nothing peculiar in the
transaction; the bond is just the same as was usually given in such
cases, and several others like it are to be seen at the office of the
Worcester registry.

The parish books all about Stratford and Worcester have been
ransacked, but no record of the marriage has been discovered. The
probability is, that the ceremony took place in some one of the
neighbouring parishes where the registers of that period have not been
preserved.