The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-14

long been credited is greatly e-iaGger-
ated. The mere biographical infOr-
nation accessible is far more definite
and abundant than that concerning
any other dramatist of the day We
know when and where he was born,
and have many dates. The entry of
his baptism may be read today
| april &c, 1860, in the parish church
of Stratford-on-Avon. His father
was fairly well-to-do, and the boy re-
ceived his education at a grammar
school. Mr.. Lee thinks it was fair
| literary education. The boys talked
Latin with their master in simple
| dialogue they translated it into Eng
! fish; they wrote compositions in it.
| Our authority tells us that the COM
| panions of Shakespeare, educated at
! Stratford in the grammar school,
| even If they became grocers or butch
| ers, We're in the habit of correspond
! ing with one another in copious and
| fluent Latin"
He married a woman older than
himself by six or seven years when
I'he was but eighteen. At twenty lone
or twenty-five he went to London, a
city then of some $50, 600 people, with
several small theatres. Without
| friends and without money, he had
set his heart on the twofold quest He
| would become an actor in the me-
| tropolis, and would write the plays in
which he would act Possibly the
/ first thing he did was the rewOrking
| of an old play, and it was a manager
who saw the merit of the workman.
Thenceforth he marched onward"
| There is no little known of his Lon
don life, successes, hard times first,
acquaintances, friends, etc. His writ
! ings became very popular, his accu-
mutations increased and by the time
| he was forty-fiVe he was a rich man
! for his period. He returned to STRAIT
! ford and planned to spend his life in
his native town. But death came and
he passed away at fifty-tWo. The 9TH
er greatest genius of modern times,
| Napoleon, died at the same age. The
| room in which he was born, the
Latin Grammar he studied SO faith
| fully as a lad, "Lillys" is known and
/ copies are preserved. The church in
which he is buried, and the epitaph
written by himself and read of all
men are preserved 1t is very doubt
! full if there is really a good likeness
1 of him, those that appear best being
/ probably spurious. His fortune was
| probably $75, 900 or even more. One
property alone brought him $4,000 a
| year. His death is supposed TO have
! resulted from a carouse with Ben
Jonson and Michael Drayton at a
! tavern. on their way to his home.
! C'New. Place'D, they lay upon the
ground all night, and the result was
shakespeare took a fever of which he
/ died.
| 1t strikes me that authors who
adopt fictitious names are unwise.
| Many writer's with assumed names
| have become famous and almost en-
! tirely lost their own names-those
given to them by their parents. 1t
would take a long list to record the
anonymous names of authors in the
| several countries. Reading an elabor-
ate critical paper but recently, by
| Thomas Carlyle, upon one Of the most
celebrated French authors of the
| eighteenth century. a name known
around the world, Yoltaire, not once
was his real original name, given. His
+! family name, as wei as his own, was
| Arornet, and his whole name was
| Francois Marie Aromet. Then there
! is the greatest woman novelist of the
! English race, known everywhere as
George Eliot But how many people
in the one thousand know that her
true name. her family name. was
Mary Ann Evans2 Take that emin-
ent and remarkable German author,