by was born
there--the son of John and Mary Shakspere. And on the following
Wednesday, April 26, the baby was carried down to the old church beside
the sleepy Avon and baptized by the name of William.

Little did John Shakspere and the gossips dream, when the baby William's
name was duly inscribed in the register-book with its corners and clasps
of embossed brass, that he was destined to become England's greatest
poet. Little did they dream, honest folk, that the old market town and
the house on Henley street and the meadows across the river, covered in
that pleasant April month with cowslips and daisies and "lady-smocks all
silver-white," would become sacred ground to hundreds of thousands of
people from all quarters of the globe, who should come, year by year, on
reverent pilgrimage to Shakspere's birthplace.

The baby grew up as most babies do; and when he was two and a half years
old, a little brother Gilbert was born. As we walk through the streets
to-day, we can fancy the little lads toddling about the town together,
while father John was minding his glove and wool trade at the old house.
John Shakspere, in those early days, was a well-to-do man. He was a
chamberlain of the borough when little Gilbert was born; and in 1568 he
was elected High Bailiff, or Mayor, of Stratford, although he, in
common with many of his fellow-burgesses, could not write his own name.
He had land, too, at Snitterfield, where his father had lived; and his
wife, Mary Arden, was the owner of Ashbies, the farm at Wilmcote, hard
by.

[Illustration: MARY ARDEN'S HOUSE AT WILMCOTE.]

But, though the parents were illiterate, they knew the value of a good
education. The Free Grammar School had been refounded a few years before
by Edward VI. And although there is no actual record of his school days,
we may take it as certain that little Will Shakspere was sent to the
Free School when about seven years old, as we know his brother Gilbert
was, a little later. The old Grammar School still stands; and boys still
learn their lessons in the self-same room with the high pitched roof and
oaken beams, where little Will Shakspere studied his "A, B, C-book," and
got his earliest notions of Latin. But during part of Shakspere's school
days the schoolroom was under repair; and boys and master--Walter Roche
by name--migrated for a while to the Guild Chapel next door. And this
was surely in the poet's mind when, in later years, he talked of a
"pedant who kee