In April, 1569, the poet’s sister, Joan, was born. She was baptized on the fifteenth of that month, and, by a prevalent fashion which has created so much perplexity in discussions on longevities, was named after an elder child of the same parents who was born in 1558, and had died some time previously to the arrival of her younger sister. John Shakespeare’s term of office as High Bailiff expired in the September of the same year, 1569, his successor being one Robert Salisbury, a substantial yeoman then residing in a large house on the eastern side of Church Street.

Although there is no certain information on the subject, it may perhaps be assumed that, at this time, boys usually entered the Free School by the age of seven, according to the custom followed at a later period. If so, the poet commence his studies there in the spring of the year 1571, and unless its system of instruction differed essentially from that pursued in other establishments of a similar character, his earliest knowledge of Latin was derived from two well-known books of the time, the Accidence and the Sententæ Puerilles. From the first of these works the improvised examination of Master Page in the Merry Wives of Windsor is so almost verbally remembered, that one might imagine the William of the scene was a resusicitation of the poet at school. Recollections of the same book are to be traced in other of his plays. The Sententæ Puerilles was, in all probability the little manual by the aid of which he first learned to construe Latin, for in one place, at least, he all but literally translates a brief passage, and there are in his plays several adaptations of its sentiments. It was then sold for a penny, equivalent to about our present shilling [in year 1848 money, a year 2026 equivalence would be £2.50–£3], and contains a large collection of brief sentences collected from a variety of authors, with a distinct selection of moral and religious paragraphs, the latter intended for the use of boys on Saint’s Days.

The best authorities unite in telling us that the poet imbibed a certain amount of Latin at school, but that his acquaintanceship with that language was, throughout his life, of a very limited character. It is not probable that scholastic learning was ever congenial to his tastes, and it should be recollected that books in most parts of the country were then of very rare occurence. Lilly’s Grammar and a few classical works, chained to the desks of the Free School, were probably the only volumes of the kind to be found at Stratford-on-Avon. Exclusive of Bibles, Church Services, Psalters, and educational manuals, there were certainly not more than two or three dozen books, if so many, in the whole town. The copy of the black-letter English history, so often depicted as well thumbed by Shakespeare in his father’s parlor, never existed out of the imagination. Fortunately for us, the youthful dramatist had, excepting in the school-room, little opportunity of studying any but a grander volume, the infinite book of nature, the pages of which were ready to be unfolded to him in the lane and field, amongst the copses of Snitterfield, by the side of the river or that of his uncle’s hedgerows.

Henry Shakespeare, the poet’s uncle, resided on a large farm near Snitterfield church. The house has long disappeared, but two of the old enclosures that he rented, Burmans and Red Hill, are still to be observed on the side of the highway to Luscombe, with the ancient boundaries, and under the same names, by which they were distinguished in the days of Shakespeare’s early youth. Nearly every one of the boy’s connections, as well as his uncle Henry, was a farmer.

On March 11, 1574, “Richard, sonne to Mr. John Shakspeer,” was baptized at Stratford. Independently of this new baby, there were now four other children,—Anne, who was in her third, Joan in her fifth, Gilbert in his eighth, and the poet in his tenth year. The father’s circumstances were not yet on the wane, so there is every reason for believing that the eldest son, blessed with, as it has well been termed, the precious gift of sisters to a loving boy, returned to a happy fire-side after he had been tormented by the disciplinarian routine that was destined to terminate in the acquisition of “small Latin and less Greek.”

The defective classical education of the poet is not, however, to be attributed to the conductors of the local seminary, for enough Latin was taught to enable the more advanced pupils to display familiar correspondence in that language. It was really owing to his being removed from school long before the usual age, his father requiring his assistance in one of the branches of Henley Street business. Rowe’s words, published in 1709, are these,—“he had bred him, ’tis true, for some time at a free-school, where ’tis possible he acquir’d that little Latin he was master of; but the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of his assistance at home, forc’d his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language.” John Shakespeare’s circumstances had begun to decline in the year 1577, and in all probabiliity, he removed the dramatist from the school when the latter was about thirteen, allowing Gilbert, then between ten and eleven to continue his studies. The selection of the former for home-work may have partially arisen from his having been the elder and the stronger, but it also exhibits the father’s presentiment of those talents for business which distinguished the latter part of his son’s career.

below, Þe MERRY WIVES of WINDSOR.
Shakespeare appears to sketch himself as a young lad—impressed into service by an oblivious Latin tutor. Nell Quickly to the rescue.

On: Why this came to be •
On: Room for Shakespeare publishing in the present day •
On: The Life of Shakespeare, part one: edge of town •
On: The Life of Shakespeare, part two: a star is born •
On: The Life of Shakespeare, part three: the mysteries •
On: The Life of Shakespeare, part four: haram, horum •
On: Shakespeare's Sources •
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