CHAPTER II.

The Shackspere Monument, Bust, and Portrait.


In the year 1909 Mr. George Hookham in the January number of the
_National Review_ sums up practically all that is really known of the
life of William Shakspeare of Stratford as follows:--

'We only know that he was born at Stratford, of illiterate parents--
(we do _not_ know that he went to school there)--that, when 18-1/2
years old, he married Anne Hathaway (who was eight years his senior,
and who bore him a child six months after marriage); that he had
in all three children by her (whom with their mother he left, and
went to London, having apparently done his best to desert her before
marriage);--that in London he became an actor with an interest in a
theatre, and was reputed to be the writer of plays;--that he
purchased property in Stratford, to which town he returned;--engaged
in purchases and sales and law-suits (of no biographical interest
except as indicating his money-making and litigious temperament);
helped his father in an application for coat armour (to be obtained
by false pretences); promoted the enclosure of common lands at
Stratford (after being guaranteed against personal loss); made his
will--and died at the age of 52, without a book in his possession,
and leaving nothing to his wife but his second best bed, and this
by an afterthought. No record of friendship with anyone more
cultured than his fellow actors.