ABSTRACT
In the middle of the sixteenth century Stratford, on the pleasant river Avon in Warwickshire, was a thriving town, probably of some two thousand persons, known both as the center of an agricultural district and as the seat of considerable manufacture of wool. The Church of the Holy Trinity, a fine structure dating in part from the
twelfth century, overtops a wooded bend of the river and forms the central feature of a prospect which is now fa miliar to the mind’s eye of the whole English-speaking world. In this church was baptized, on April 26, 1564, William Shakespeare, son of John and Mary Arden Shake speare, of Stratford. The father was a well-known mer chant of the town,—seemingly a glover or tanner, and dealer in skins and wool,—who at various times won local honors in the offices of burgess, constable, chamberlain, alderman, and bailiff. Perhaps for us modems the most interesting incident of his career is found in the duty he performed in 1568 or 1569, when, as bailiff of Stratford, he welcomed to the Guildhall two visiting companies of players, the Queen’s and the Earl of Worcester’s. It is not to be presumed that his son William enjoyed the privi lege of attending these performances; but there were nu merous others in later years,—for example, in 1573, when the boy was nine, and again in 1577, when he was thirteen, came visits from the Earl of Leicester’s company, with important members of which he was afterwards associated.
