which tradition has handed down to us, have generally had some little semblance or admixture of truth in them; and thus, gilded by artifice or ignorance, they acquire a currency and reception in the world, which bare and genuine falsehood could never obtain. Of this kind is the tale in question, which, not without a due portion of those minute and embellishing circumstances in which such fables usually abound, was transmitted to Mr. Aubrey, about one hundred and thirty years ago, by some of the old actors, after the Restoration; confounding, it should seem, our great dramatist with a person of the same name and county, who lived at the same period, but moved in a very different sphere; for, on examining the records of the Company of Stationers, I learned from one of their registers, that John Shakspeare, son of Thomas Shakspeare, a butcher, at Warwick, was bound apprentice in March, 1609-10, to William Jaggard, stationer, who, in 1598, had published some of our author's early poetry, and for whom, in conjunction with others, the first folio edition of his plays was printed; and on further inquiry it appeared that this butcher's son was admitted to his freedom, May 22, 1617. Of John Shakspeare, the apprentice of William Jaggard, it is not necessary to say more in this place, though, hereafter, I may have occasion to add a few words concerning him. Unquestionably his name and parentage, however they were confounded with those of his great countryman, fifty years afterwards, were well known, in his own time, among players and stationers; for he served his apprentice

ship to a respectable citizen, appears to have commenced the business of a bookseller on his own account, and was, I believe, the only person of the name of Shakspeare, who migrated from Warwickshire to London, at that period, beside our poet, and his brother Edmond, and Thomas Shakspeare, who was one of the Queen's messengers, in 1577.

John Shakspeare, the father of the illustrious subject of our present narrative, as has been already observed, settled at Stratford, not very long after the year 1550. On April 30, 1556, and September 30, 1558, I find him one of the jury of the court leet; on the 12th of August, 1556, he was summoned on a jury in a civil action; and in June, 1557, he was one of the ale-tasters, an officer appointed and sworn at every leet to take care that the due assize was kept of all the bread, ale, and beer, sold within the jurisdiction of the leet. At the leet, October 6, 1559, he was one of the four affeerors appointed to mulct those who had committed any offence which

4 Restal's Termes de la Ley, in v.

From the following entry it appears that he was fined while invested with this office, for three non-attendances in the bailiff's court, which was held once a fortnight.

}

"Stratford Curia de recordo ibm tent. secundo die Junii, Burgus. anno regnorum Philippi et Mariæ tertio et quarto [2 June, 1557]:

"viiid. de Jōhe Shakspere, uno testator [tentator] servicii burgi pd. quia not venit ad exequend. officium suum iii Cur. Id. in mia. [miserecordia]."

For the oath and duties of an ale-taster, see Kitchen on the Jurisdiction of Courts Leet, p. 96.

was punishable arbitrarily, and for which no express penalty was prescribed by statute; and he was again chosen for the same purpose in May, 1561. It appears from a paper inserted below, that he was not a member of the corporation of Stratford antecedent to Michaelmas day, 1557; but he was certainly chosen a burgess either on that day, or very soon afterwards". In 1558, and the following year, he served the office of constable; which office, as well as that of ale-taster, all the most respectable members of the corporation filled, antecedent to their rising to

5 The oath of an affeeror was this:-" You shall swear, that you will truly and indifferently tax, assess, and affeer all such amerciaments as are presented at this court; wherein you shall spare no man for love, favour, affection, or corruption, nor raise nor inhance upon any man, of malice, more grievous amerciaments than shall be thought reasonable, according to the quality of the offence, and the faults committed, and not otherwise. So help you God," &c. Greenwood on Courts, p. 346.

In some cases the jury of the leet ascertained the amerciaments themselves. So in the proceedings of the leet at Stratford, 30th Sept. 1558: "Mem. yt the xii men did amerce the offenders, and no Ferars [Affeerors] chosen." That they had a right to do so, Sir Edward Coke has shown, 11 Rep. Godfrey's case.

• See Appendix.

7 There were at that time four vacancies of the burgesses then assembled. John Lewes was the last; he being the last who had been elected a burgess; and I find that at a subsequent person period, a few years afterwards (Sept. 6, 1564), the name of John Shakspeare stands the second in the list of burgesses immediately following that of John Lewes; so that it is clear that Shakspeare, together with John Taylor, William Smyth, haberdasher, and John Jones, whose names immediately follow in that list, was elected a burgess in the latter end of the year 1557, or early in 1558, to fill up the four vacancies already mentioned.

higher stations in the borough". Having discovered, among the archives of Stratford, several scattered fragments, containing an account of the proceedings of the court leet, twice a year, from 1554 to 1562, which I have since arranged and bound up together, I am indebted to them for most of these facts; and as some of the orders and presentments made in this court exhibit a curious picture of the times, I shall insert a few of them in their proper places 9.

In September, 1561, Mr. John Shakspeare was elected one of the chamberlains of Stratford, which office he filled during the two succeeding years. On July 4, 1565, about fifteen months after our poet's birth, he was chosen an alderman; and on the 12th of September following he took the usual oath'. The names of the aldermen, when he was chosen, are furnished by the books which contain an account of the proceedings of the corporation in their chamber; but their occupation was not so easily learned,

8 William Tyler was an ale-taster in 1557, and, like John Shakspeare, fined for non-attendance: Richard Hill executed the same office in 1555, William Perrot in 1558, and Thomas Dixon, otherwise Waterman, in 1559. All these persons were soon afterwards aldermen. William Tyler was bailiff in 1563, Richard Hill in 1564. Francis Harbage was constable in 1555, and bailiff in 1557; and Robert Perrot, who was bailiff in 1558, executed the office of constable in 1554, together with Adrian Queeny, who was bailiff in 1559. Humphry Plymley, who was bailiff in 1562, served the office of constable with John Shakspeare in 1558; and William Smith, haberdasher, and William Tyler, who has been already mentioned, together with John Taylor, were joined with him as constables in 1559.

9 See the Appendix.

being scarcely ever noticed in those records, except in the instances already mentioned, for the purpose of distinguishing two persons of the same Christian and surname. However, from various researches for other purposes, I have been enabled to ascertain their several trades; and I subjoin them, as it may tend to make us more intimately acquainted with the state of Stratford at this time. The aldermen, when our poet's father was elected into that body, were, Richard Hill, woollen-draper, who was then bailiff; Lewis ap Williams, ironmonger, and afterwards innholder; William Smith, mercer; George Whateley, woollen-draper; Ralph Cawdrey, butcher; Robert Perrot, brewer; Adrian Quiney, grocer; Roger Sadler, baker; Humphrey Plymley, mercer; Robert Pratt, victualler and tipler; John Wheler, yeoman; William Tyler, grocer; John Jefferies, attorney, and soon afterwards steward or town-clerk of the borough.

In 1568 our poet's father attained the supreme honours of the borough of Stratford, being then elected high bailiff, an office which he held from Michaelmas, 1568, to Michaelmas, 1569; and two years afterwards, September 5, 1571, he was elected and sworn chief alderman for the ensuing year 2.

In the various leases granted by the corporation to several members of their own body, and to others, the occupation of the lessee is always mentioned; but our poet's father never having taken any lease from them (as far as I can find), after a reasonable waste of time, at Stratford, Worcester, and elsewhere, I began to

2 Ibid.