William Shakespeare was born in the year 1564, at Stratford-on-Avon, in England. Queen Elizabeth was on the throne then, and it was one of the most brilliant periods in all English history. The poems and plays that Shakespeare wrote are the greatest in the English language, and one cannot appreciate the best there is in literature unless he has studied them. It is strange that no one thought, in the time that he lived, of writing his history, so that we might know as much about him and his boyhood as we do of most other great men.

Stratford is in the heart of England, and the stream of Avon winds through a beautiful country. There were two famous old castles near by, which had been peopled by knights in armor, and out of whose great stone gateways they had ridden to battle.

We are sure that Shakespeare loved to listen to the tales of these old battles, for in later years he based several of his great historical plays upon them.

One of these plays is called “Richard III.,” and part of the scenes are laid in the old Warwick Castle, near his home. He tells how the young son of the Duke of Clarence was kept a prisoner in one of the great gloomy towers, by the wicked Duke of Gloucester, who afterward became King Richard III.; and the play ends with the Battle of Bosworth Field, where King Richard is slain.

We know that Shakespeare was fond of the woods and the fields, for his plays are filled with charming descriptions of their beauty. The forest of Arden was near Stratford, and its streams and woods filled him with such delight that when he became a man he made them forever famous by writing a play called “As You Like It,” the most beautiful scenes of which are laid in this forest.

He liked to imagine that fairies dwelt in the Arden woods, and though he could not see them in their frolics, he could picture them in his brain. When he saw the grass and flowers wet with dew, it pleased him to think that this had been a task set by the Queen of the Fairies in the night for her tiny subjects. So in his play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he makes a fairy say:—

Then the fairy tells its companion it must hasten away to its task:—

Shakespeare must have been in the forest of Arden often in the summer mornings and seen the dewdrops clinging to the cowslips and glistening in the sunlight like pearls.

The exact day that Shakespeare was born is not certain, but it was about the 23d of April, and many men who have made a study of the poet’s life accept that as his birthday. The house in which he was born is still standing, although it has, of course, undergone many changes in the last three hundred years.

During the early boyhood of the poet, his father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous tradesman. He was a wool dealer and farmer. When Shakespeare was four years old his father became high-bailiff, or mayor of the town.

The future dramatist was sent to the village school at about the age of seven. He could already read, having learned his letters at home from a very queer primer. It was called the “horn-book,” because it was made of a single printed leaf, set in a frame of wood like our slates, and covered with a thin plate of horn.

The boy remained at school only about six years. His father had failed in many enterprises, and it is probable he needed his son to help him in his work. Just what Shakespeare learned at school we do not know, but his writings show some knowledge of Greek and Latin, for these languages were taught in the schools at that time.

It is certain that Shakespeare’s education went on after he left school. That is, he learned something from everything he saw about him and from all that he read. Even the trees in the forest and the streams in the meadows taught him lessons about nature. And this idea he expresses in his own beautiful way in the play “As You Like It,” when he makes the banished Duke in the forest of Arden say:—

It is quite probable that John Shakespeare unconsciously decided the career of his son, for it was while he was mayor of Stratford that plays were first presented there, and the players must have obtained his consent in order to give their performances.

We can also learn from his writings what games Shakespeare was fond of, or, at least, what sports the boys of his time took delight in. In Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” he refers to the game of football, and in the historical play of “Julius CÆsar,” there is a fine description of a swimming match between CÆsar and Cassius. Cassius tells the story to Brutus of how CÆsar challenged him to leap into the river Tiber, armed as they were for battle:—

Cassius then tells how CÆsar’s strength gave out and he cried for help, and how Cassius brought him safe to land.

Other sports of Shakespeare’s day were archery, wrestling, hunting, and falconry, where a bird called a falcon was let loose into the air to pursue its prey.

When Shakespeare was in his nineteenth year he married Anne Hathaway, and a few years later he set out to seek his fortune in London.

He had played some small parts on the stage at Stratford, and it is not surprising that we soon find him among the players in London, filling such trifling parts as were offered to him, and even, some accounts say, holding horses at the stage door to help support himself and his family.

His leisure time was spent in study. “Plutarch’s Lives” furnished him with material for his plays of “Julius CÆsar,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” and parts, at least, of others.

He was a great student of the Bible, so much so that a learned bishop who made a study of his plays found that Shakespeare in all his writings had in five hundred and fifty different places either quoted from the Scriptures or referred to them.

Shakespeare rose to fame rapidly. He was associated in the building of a new theater called the Globe, where his plays were acted before thousands. Then the Blackfriars Theater was built, and these two houses divided the honor of producing his plays.

He gathered up the history of England, the grandeur of its courts, the beauty of its woods and fields, and the deeds of its people, and told of it all in such masterful dramas that his name leads all other English writers.

The last few years of his life were spent at Stratford-on-Avon, where he had become a large land-owner. He died in the year 1616, at the age of fifty-two.

Nearly every great English writer and poet ever since has referred, in some way or other, to the plays of Shakespeare. The speeches of our statesmen owe much of their strength and beauty to the influence of his writings. It has been said that “Shakespeare is like a great primeval forest, whence timber shall be cut and used as long as winds blow and leaves are green.”