Page:Shakspeare and His Times (1852).djvu/39

 were born, a boy and a girl—the last proof of a conjugal intimacy which had at first announced itself under such favorable appearances. According to some indications, which are, in truth, doubtful and obscure, the wife of Shakspeare, who, as we shall presently see, was remembered, or rather forgotten, in a strange manner in his will, was only rarely present to his thoughts in the after part of his life; and this irrevocable engagement, so hastily contracted, seems to have been one of the most fleeting fancies of his youth.

Among the facts and conjectures which have been stored up in reference to this period of Shakspeare’s life, we must place the tradition related by Aubrey, which represents him as having for some time filled the office of schoolmaster, though the truth of this anecdote is denied by nearly all his biographers. Some writers, basing their supposition upon passages contained in his works, are inclined to believe that the poet of Elizabeth attempted to subject the powers of his mind to the routine duties of a lawyer’s office. According to their conjectures, the new duties of paternity compelled him to seek this employment for his talents, whereas Aubrey places his brief experience as a schoolmaster before his marriage. Nothing is, however, certain or important on these points. Of one thing only we may speak with certainty, and that is, the constant disposition of the husband of Anne Hathaway to vary, by diversions of every kind, whatever occupations might be imposed upon him by necessity. The occurrence which forced Shakspeare to leave Stratford, and gave to England her greatest poet, proves that his position as the father of a family had not effected any great alteration in the irregularity of his habits as a young man.

Jealous preservers of their game, like all gentlemen who