oblivion have wrapped the bones, the works, and the fame of nine-tenths of those, whose merits are thus trumpeted to the world. Why the very queen herself, the age itself, has drawn more lustre from those writers of plays, and those who had been players themselves, than from the whole long line of titled nobility. But let us not anticipate. All that is to be found in regard to the parentage, education and employment of Shakspeare, is not only exceedingly scattered and confused, but rather matter of inference than of fact. And the course of reasoning adopted, in order to arrive at greater certainty and precision on these subjects, is often much more amusing and ingenious than sound and instructive; and Ben Jonson truly observes, you must see the man, and read his life, in his works. A most learned investigation has been instituted to ascertain whether his father was a butcher or a wool stapler-and whole volumes have been written upon that subject. As if it were of any importance, when it is so perfectly obvious, if I may border a little upon the facetious, that at least he himself was no butcher, and certainly no wool-gatherer, as the world has long since ascertained. His ancestors could impart no glory to him, even if their current of life had crept through scoundrels ever since the flood: and they could deprive him of none. He shone in original, and not in reflected lustre. He was, in his own language, himself alone: self-dependent and self-sufficient; and he filled, and he continues to fill, the universe with the radiance of his intellectual beams. To give us as perfect a notion of his glory as language can convey, it is only necessary again to mention that such are the stupendous powers of the works ascribed to him, that, with a weakness that always doubts what it cannot comprehend, or equal, or approach, it has been suggested that no such man ever lived, or as has been said, that if he did, instead of producing those works which amaze mankind, all the productions of the illustrious men of his day were ascribed to him, and thereby imparted to him a factitious glory-What! Did he write none of these? Is there not a star in this glorious constellation that legitimately bears his name? Were his cotemporaries so affluent in genius, and so indifferent to the fame of such productions, as to allow him to carry off undisputed all their glory? If he wrote any one, he was capable of writing all. If they were written by others, he appropriated all of the same high and distinguished stamp; for none of the age rival those which are imputed to him. There may be some reason for supposing, nay, there are some examples to that effect, that there were hireling poets enough, who were willing to lend their aid to the powerful and the influential and the bountiful. Yet I presume there were none who would doom their offspring to probable beggary and contempt, by selecting so obscure and indigent a man as Shakspeare, who no revenue had, but his good spirits, for their putative paternity.— These plays were written in exile—when driven from his birth-place by poverty and prosecution, to wander in want and distress through the metropolis of England. No account is to be found of his education. Some suppose that he was educated at a free school, others that he was entirely self-taught. But all agree that his course of instruction terminated when he was little more than twelve years of age, and when his services were required by his father. In respect to the nature of his employment after this time, there is a still greater diversity of opinion, than in regard to the sources of his instruction. Some say he was a butcher-some that he was a woolstapler-some that he was a glover—some that he was a schoolmaster—and last, and least-some that he was an attorney's clerk. Even the bare supposi tion is enough to dignify all these vocations, through Let us briefly examine them, as all time to come. becomes the time. Those who allege that Shakspeare was a butcher, in the first place infer it from that being the supposed occupation of his father, although even this is not much more than a supposition. But setting out with that idea, the mode in which they attempt maintaining it, at least to a mind accustomed to weigh and compare evidence, is almost too farcical to be entitled to be gravely considered. In Hamlet, act 5th, scene 2d, occurs this passage in the dialogue between Hamlet and Horatio. "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, From the sentiment thus expressed, which I understand to convey no other idea, than that an overruling Providence governs our objects, whatever may be our own preparation, or the direction designed to be given to them. The learned commentators infer that Shakspeare must have been a butcher, because in their view this passage refers to the skewers used by butchers in selling their meat, and in enforcement of this idea they relate a story to this effect. That a person engaged in similar business, had used, not poetically it is true, nor with the same application, almost the same language. Speaking of his apprentice, "My boy," said he, "can rough hew the skewers very well, but I have always to shape their ends." This looks like a story framed for the occasion-but supposing it to be sooth and that Shakspeare really had this simile in his mind, which is all that the argument can possibly claim, it is very far from establishing the position they assume. Most of his illustrations are drawn from the simplest and humblest materials. He makes one of his mightiest efforts turn upon the disposition of a pocket handkerchief, another upon the influence of fortune telling, a third upon an ordinary family feud. Still further to support this notion, they refer to the second part of King Henry the Sixth, act 3d, scene 1st; the speech of Henry to Margaret, which, so far as relates to our present purpose, runs thus: And as the butcher takes away the calf And binds the wretch and beats it when it strays, |