tures and Lineaments of Character, as we
are from one another in Face or Complexion. But I am unawares lanching
into his Character as a Writer, before I have said what I intended of him
as a private Member of the Republick.

Mr. _Rowe_ has very justly observ'd, that People are fond of discovering
any little personal Story of the Great Men of Antiquity; and that the
common Accidents of their Lives naturally become the Subject of our
critical Enquiries: That however trifling such a Curiosity at the first
View may appear, yet, as for what relates to Men of Letters, the Knowledge
of an Author may, perhaps, sometimes conduce to the better understanding
his Works: And, indeed, this Author's Works, from the bad Treatment he has
met with from Copyists and Editors, have so long wanted a Comment, that
one would zealously embrace every Method of Information that could
contribute to recover them from the injuries with which they have so long
lain o'erwhelm'd.

'Tis certain that if we have first admir'd the Man in his Writings, his
Case is so circumstanc'd that we must naturally admire the Writings in the
Man: That if we go back to take a View of his Education, and the
Employment in Life which Fortune had cut out for him, we shall retain the
stronger Ideas of his extensive Genius.

His Father, we are told, was a considerable Dealer in Wool; but having no
fewer than ten Children, of whom our _Shakespeare_ was the eldest, the
best education he could afford him was no better than to qualify him for
his own Business and Employment. I cannot affirm with any Certainty how
long his Father liv'd; but I take him to be the same Mr. _John
Shakespeare_ who was living in the Year 1599, and who then, in Honour of
his Son, took out an Extract of his Family Arms from the Herald's Office;
by which it appears, that he had been Officer and Bailiff of _Stratford_
upon _Avon_ in _Warwickshire_; and that he enjoy'd some hereditary Lands
and Tenements, the Reward of his Great Grandfather's faithful and approved
Service to King _Henry_ VII.

Be this as it will, our _Shakespeare_, it seems, was bred for some Time at
a Free-School; the very Free-School, I presume, founded at _Stratford_:
where, we are told, he acquired what _Latin_ he was master of: but that
his Father being oblig'd, thro' Narrowness of Circumstance, to withdraw
him too soon from thence, he was thereby unhappily prevented from making
any Proficiency in the Dead Languages: A Point that wil