A

SELECTION

OF THE

MOST IMPORTANT NOTES

EXTRACTED

FROM

THE BEST COMMENTATORS

TO THE PLAYS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

VOLUME I.

NOTES TO

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Page 2, line 6. His father, who was a conside

rable dealer in wool,] It appears that he had been officer and bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon; and that he enjoyed some hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his grandfather's faithful and approved services to King Henry VII. THEOBALD.

The chief magistrate of the Body Corporate of Stratford, now distinguished by the title of Mayor, was in the early charters called the High Bailiff. This office Mr. John Shakspeare filled in 1569.

It appears from a note to W. Dothick's Grant of Arms to him in 1596, now in the College of Arms, Vincent, Vol. 157, p. 24, that he was a justice of the peace, and possessed of lands and

tenements to the amount of 500.1.

Our poet's mother was the daughter and heir of Robert Arden of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who, in the MS. above referred to, is called,,a gentleman of worship." The family of Arden is a very ancient one; Robert Arden of Bromwich, esq. being in the list of the gentry of this county, returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of King Henry VI. A. D. 1433. Edward Arden was Sheriff of the county in 1568.

The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern: afterwards softened to Arden. Hence the name. MALONE.

P. 2, 1. 10. He had bred him, it is true, for some time at a free-school,] The free-school, I presume, founded at Stratford. THEOBALD.

P. 3, 1. 10. that way of living which his father proposed to him;] I believe, that on leav ing school Shakspeare was placed in the office of some country attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court. See the Essay on the order of his plays, Article, Hamlet. MALONE.

P. 5, l. 12. —, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young.] It is certain he did so; for by the monument in Stratford church erected to the memory of his daughter, Susanna, the wife of John Hall, gentleman, it appears, that she died on the 2d of July, 1649, aged 66: so that she was born in 1583, when her father could not bé full 19 years old. THEOBALD. A

Susanna, who was our poet's eldest child, was baptized, May 26, 1583. Shakspeare therefore, having been born in April 1564, was nineteen the month preceding her birth. Mr. Theobald was mistaken in supposing that a monument was erected to her in the church of Stratford. There is no memorial there in honour of either our poet's wife or daughter, except flat tomb-stoues, by which, however, the time of their respective deaths is ascertained. His daughter Susanna died, not on the second, but the eleventh of July 1649. Theo baid was led into this error by Dugdale. MALONE. P. 3, 1. 13. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway,] She was eight years older than her husband, and died in 1625, at the age of 67 years. THEOBALD.

The following is the inscription on her tomb. stone in the church of Stratford:

,,Here lyeth interred the body of ANNE, wife of William Shakespeare, who departed this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 years. MALONE.

P. 4, 1. 7. at first in a very mean rank,] There is a stage tradition, that his first office in the theatre was that of Call-boy, or prompter's at tendant; whose employment it is to give the per formers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the business of the play requires their appearance on the stage. MALONE.

P. 9, 1. 14. He had three daughters,] In this circumstance Mr. Rowe must have been misinformed. In the Register of Stratford, no mention is made of any daughter of our author's but Susanna and Judith. He had indeed three children; the two already mentioned, and a son, named Hamnet, of whom Mr. Rowe takes no notice. He was a twin child, born at the same time with Judith. Hence probably the mistake. He died in the twelfth year of his age, in 1596. MALONE.

P. 9, 1.15. Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas Quiney,] This also is a mistake. Judith was Shakspeare's youngest daughter. She died at Stratford-upon-Avon a few days after she had completed her seventy seventh year, and was buried there, Feb. 9, 1661-62. She was married to Mr. Quiney, who was four years younger than herself, on the 10th of February, 1615-16, and not, as Mr. West supposed, in the year 1616-17. MALONE.

P. 9, 1. 17. and Susanna who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a physician —] Susanna's husband, Dr. John Hall, died in Nov.