ir names.

At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and
unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged
with the government of the town, thirteen had to "make their mark" in
attesting important documents, because they could not write their names.

Of the first eighteen years of his life _nothing_ is known. They are a
blank.

On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to
marry Anne Whateley.

Next day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway.
She was eight years his senior.

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a
reluctantly-granted dispensation there was but one publication of the
banns.

Within six months the first child was born.

About two (blank) years followed, during which period _nothing at all
happened to Shakespeare_, so far as anybody knows.

Then came twins--1585. February.

Two blank years follow.

Then--1587--he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family
behind.

Five blank years follow. During this period _nothing happened to him_,
as far as anybody actually knows.

Then--1592--there is mention of him as an actor.

Next year--1593--his name appears in the official list of players.

Next year--1594--he played before the queen. A detail of no consequence:
other obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And
remained obscure.

Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then

In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.

Thirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated
money, and also reputation as actor and manager.

Meantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated
with a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the
same.

Some of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no
protest. Then--1610-11--he returned to Stratford and settled down for
good and all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes,
trading in land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings,
borrowed by his wife during his long desertion of his family; suing
debtors for shillings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and
coppers; and acting as confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the
town of its rights in a certain common, and did not succeed.

He lived five or six years--till 1616--in the joy of these elevated
pursuits. Then he made