Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/160





N the year 1564, a little more than three hundred years ago, an infant was born in the town of Stratford, in England, who grew to be one of the most wonderful men who has ever lived. Stratford was a quiet little town on the banks of the river Avon, and none of the people there were very rich or grand. The child of whom we write was called Will Shakespeare; and though his father was a very respectable man and in thriving business, it does not appear that he was rich, and, what seems hard to believe nowadays, he did not know how to write even his own name.

It is not very likely that John Shakespeare, Will's father, thought very much of learning, since he had got along so well himself with so little, and it does not seem that Will had much encouragement to study. But no doubt he was one of those boys to whom everything in Nature is a teacher. He could find—

Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything."