essive gradations of
leet juror, constable, and alderman to high bailiff in 1568, although
unable to write his own name. He married, in 1557, Mary Arden, the
daughter of his father's landlord, who brought him as dower about
sixty acres of land and the equivalent of $200 in money. His pride was
apparently inflamed by political success, and he applied to the
Herald's College for a grant of arms, which was refused. From this
time his fortunes rapidly declined. He mortgaged his property,
squandered his wife's inheritance, was sued for debt, disregarded his
social and religious obligations, and became so indifferent to decency
that he was fined by the town authorities for neglecting to remove the
filth and refuse of his household from the street in front of his own
door. He died in 1601, his later years having been passed in honor and
comfort through the efforts of his son, who had already acquired
wealth and fame.

The homestead of John Shakespeare, in which he lived and carried on
his business, still stands on Henley Street, in Stratford, much the
same as it was four hundred and fifty years ago. It is a paltry hovel
of two low stories, half timbered, with meagre windows, and must have
been a squalid abode even in its prime. It is built flush with the
sidewalk, having neither vestibule nor entry, and the rough broken
pavement of the kitchen is sunken a step lower than the street. A huge
open fireplace of unhewn gray stones yawns rudely in the wall to the
right, and a narrow door leads to a smaller apartment in the rear.
Immediately above, reached by a precipitous stairway, is the bleak and
barren chamber, dimly lighted, the legendary birthplace of the poet.
The dwelling is more like the cavern of a savage than the residence of
civilized man. Making due allowance for the conditions of domestic
life and architecture in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, it is
difficult to imagine a home more rude and primitive, more destitute of
comfort and convenience, more indicative of poverty and social
inferiority. The rough-hewn oak of the frames and timbers and the
coarse mortar of the plastered spaces show no more decoration or
ornament than the frontier dug-out on the plains of Dakota or the
miner's cabin in the gulches of Montana.

In this environment William Shakespeare, the third child and eldest
son of eight children, was born and lived till the age of eighteen
years. Of his companions, his studies, his pleasures nothing is kno