few incidents of his life have
descended to posterity, and tho' no doubt the fame of his abilities
made a great noise in the age in which he flourished; yet his station
was not such as to produce many incidents, as it was subject to but
few vicissitudes. Mr. Rowe, who well understood, and greatly admired
Shakespear, has been at pains to collect what incidents were known,
or were to be found concerning him, and it is chiefly upon Mr. Rowe's
authority we build the account now given.

Our author was the son of John Shakespear, and was born at Stratford
upon Avon in Warwickshire, April 1564, at it appears by public records
relating to that town. The family from which he is descended was of
good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His
father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, being incumbred with a
large family of ten children, could afford to give his eldest son
but a slender education. He had bred him at a free school, where he
acquired what Latin he was master of, but how well he understood that
language, or whether after his leaving the school he made greater
proficiency in it, has been disputed and is a point very difficult to
settle. However it is certain, that Mr. John Shakespear, our author's
father, was obliged to withdraw him early from school, in order to
have his assistance in his own employment, towards supporting the rest
of the family. "It is without controversy, says Rowe, that in his
works we scarce find any traces that look like an imitation of the
ancients. The delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own
great genius, equal, if not superior to some of the best of theirs,
would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much
pleasure, that some of their fine images would naturally have
insinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; so
that his not copying at least something from them, may be an argument
of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients
was disadvantageous to him or no, may admit of dispute; for tho' the
knowledge of them might have made him more correct, yet it is not
improbable, but that the regularity and deference for them which would
have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that
fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we cannot
help admiring in Shakespear."

As to his want of learning, Mr. Pope makes the following just
observation: That there is certainly a vas