abeth. It may be noted that
there was no Mrs. Shakespeare among the recusants. Other wives were
noted, as Mrs. Wheeler.

[133] It remains a fact that John Shakespeare, shoemaker, is heard of no
more in Stratford-on-Avon, and shortly afterwards his house was tenanted
by another man.

[134] Stratford Corporation Records.

[135] Halliwell-Phillips is in error in stating that Gilbert was a
London haberdasher.

CHAPTER VIII

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was thirty-seven when he became head of the family
in 1601. His previous life must have been a stirring one, though we know
only too little about it. Still, certain inferences may be soundly based
on known facts. He must have been educated at the Stratford Grammar
School, free to the sons of the burgesses, a high-class school for the
time. Its head-master had a salary then double that of the Master of
Eton. A taste for learning had certainly imbued William's spirit even in
early years, but he doubtless warmly shared in the difficulties of his
father's life, and knew the anxieties of debt, the oppression of the
strong hand--the "cares of bread," as Mazzini calls it--and the
sickening weariness of the law's uncertainty and delay. Most of his
relatives were farmers, and his actions show that he would gladly have
followed the same course of life, with the relaxation of field sports,
of course, if he could have attained his desire. But the genius within
him was to be welded by fiery trials, and he was driven on a course that
seemed at discord with his nature, and yet led to its own fulfilment. In
the enthusiasm of a first love, he married early, not, it must
emphatically be noted, over-early for the custom of the period, when the
means of support were assured, but over-early, as it would then have
been considered, solely from a financial standpoint. He had no assured
means of support. His hope of securing his inheritance of Asbies was
fading. He did not marry an heiress. Many vials of wrath have been
poured on the devoted head of Anne Hathaway by those who do not consider
all sides of the question. Harrowing pictures of the relations of young
Shakespeare and "his aged wife" are drawn, even by such writers as Dr.
Furnivall. Now, it is a well-known fact that almost all very young men
fancy girls older than themselves, and it is an artistic fact that a
woman under thirty does look younger, and not older, than a man of the
same age, if she has led a natural