by a single name which raises either curiosity or interest, I do not transfer it to these pages, and I am not so fortunate as to have discovered any additional fact for myself, by which the table might be rendered more complete or additional weight of authority be given to any of its statements. Yet it may be proper to select and place in these genealogical Prolusions the more material facts. The first Hart was a hatter, and the marriage must have taken place about the year 1599. The registry of it has not been found. Mrs. Hart lost her husband and her brother in the same month, April, 1616, the husband being buried on the 17th, and the brother on the 25th. She herself is kindly and liberally noticed in the poet's will. She survived him more than thirty years, being buried at Stratford, November 4, 1646. The issue was a daughter named Mary, who died at four years of age, and three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael, to each of whom the poet leaves five pounds. Michael died at ten years of age. It is not known whether William married, but Thomas was the father of Thomas and George Hart, to whom the inn at Stratford, commonly called the Maidenhead, is bequeathed by Lady Bernard, Shakespeare's granddaughter, in 1669. George Hart lived till 1702. He was a tailor at Stratford, and the father of two sons, Shakespeare Hart and George Hart, both of whom married and had issue. From Shakespeare Hart no male issue remains. His granddaughter and heiress, heiress she was, if to nothing else, to the arms of Shakespeare and Arden, married one Bradford of Birmingham, and in her issue, if any, vests the primary representation of the Shakespeares of Stratford. The representative of George, the brother of Shakespeare Hart, in 1806, was William Shakespeare Hart, who was a turner of wood and chair maker living at Tewkesbury, where he exhibited a walking stick

which he alleged to have been Shakespeare's.* He was married and had a large family.

* Other equally dubious relics were in the hands of Mrs. Kingsbury, of Tewkesbury, in 1830, namely, an earthen jug and a pencil case. See Bennett's History of Tewkesbury, 8vo. 1830, p. 374.-There was lately found in the fields near Stratford a gold seal-ring of the poet's period, having for its device the letters W. and S. connected by a knotted thread, which, had there been no other person at Stratford who might have used a seal, the initial letters of whose name were W. and S., might reasonably pass for his; but there were William Smiths at Stratford, and I am informed that an impression from this very seal exists in a document belonging to the Corporation, to which a William Smith is one of the parties.

Respecting these Smiths of Stratford, Mr. Malone conjectures that the first William was godfather of the poet, and gave him his name at the font. It is more probable that William was a family name; but Mr. Malone having offered this conjecture, and his conjectures ought not to be over-lightly dismissed, it may not be improper to give a few particulars of this William Smith and his family from unpublished sources. He was a linen-draper at Stratford from the reign of Henry the Eighth, and was named in the original charter of incorporation of the inhabitants of Stratford in the 7th of Edward the Sixth. His wife was Alice Watson, a sister of the Bishop of Winchester, it is presumed the same Bishop Watson who wrote the play entitled " Absalom," as stated by Meres. Having lived in "good fame and reputation," as it is alleged in a letter from one of his grandchildren, he died in the reign of Elizabeth. In his will, which he made December 4, 1578, and in which he describes himself as "late of Stratford," he desires to be buried in the cathedral-church of Worcester, and distributes property, which was considerable, among his sons; jewels and other personalty he gives to his wife. He had given 1000 marks as a portion to a daughter when she married Richard Palmer, of Compton, esquire. Of the sons, William, the eldest, had the house at Stratford in which his father lived; Richard, the second son, was rector of Motston, in the Isle of Wight; John, the third son, was an alderman of Stratford, and was the father of many sons, of whom Francis was also a Stratford alderman, and William, a person of about the same age as Shakespeare, went to Russia, where he was employed in the service of the emperor. Some of these particulars are derived from a letter from Russia of this William Smith, containing some recollections of his family history, making them the ground of his application to have the arms to which he was entitled transmitted to him. See it in Harl. MS. 1471, f. 98.

THE HATHAWAYS.

Ir does not appear that there was any accession of fortune or valuable connection to the Shakespeares of Stratford by the marriages of either William or Joan, the only children of John and Mary Shakespeare of whose marriages we know anything.

The tradition of Stratford was that the poet married early in life Anne Hathaway, whose family lived at the village of Shottery, a short mile from Stratford. The tradition was confirmed by the fact, which appeared on the face of several pieces of documentary evidence, that the descendants of the poet had relations of the name of Hathaway. But there was no positive evidence to the fact of the poet's marriage with an Anne Hathaway, or of the time when it took place, till the discovery in 1833 in the registry at Worcester of the bond which was given for the security of the bishop if he granted license for the marriage, the banns being only once proclaimed.* The appearance indeed of the entry in the parish register of Stratford, of the marriage of one Anne Hathaway of Shottery to William Wilson on January 17, 1579, seemed to cast a shade of suspicion on the tradition, and it still establishes this fact that as there were two John Shakespeares contemporaries at Stratford, so were there also two Anne Hathaways.

* Let honour be given to whom honour is due.-This document, the most valuable contribution which has recently been made to the materials for the poet's life, escaped the research of Mr. Malone, who spent some time on the records of the diocese of Worcester, and was reserved to be brought to light by Sir Thomas Phillipps. It is an earnest that we ought not to despair of other documents being still discovered illustrative of the poet's history.

The parties who were bound by this obligation were Fulk Sandells of Stratford, husbandman, and John Richardson of the same place, husbandman. They bound themselves in 401., conditioned thus:-"That if hereafter there shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment by reason of any precontract, consanguinitie, affinitie, or by any other lawfull meanes whatsoever but that William Shagspere one th' one partie, and Anne Hathway of Stratford, in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together and in the same afterwards remaine and continew like man and wiffe according unto the lawes in that behalf provided; and moreover if there be not at this present time any action, sute, quarrel or demaund moved or depending before any judge ecclesiastical or temporall for and concerning any suche lawfull lett or impediment: and moreover if the said William Shaxpere do not proceed to solemnization of mariadge with the said Anne Hathway without the consent of her frinds and also if the said William do upon his own proper costs and expenses defend and save harmles the Right Reverend father in God Lord John Bishop of Worcester and his offycers for licensing them the said William and Anne to be maried together with once asking of the bannes of matrimony between them and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion thereof, that then the said obligation to be void and of none effect, or els to stand and abide in full force and vertue." The date is November 28, 25th of Elizabeth, 1582.

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It will be perceived that in this instrument the lady is described not as of Shottery, but of Stratford. This will not be thought to invalidate the Stratford tradition, that she was of the village of Shottery, when it is recollected that "Stratford," in this ecclesiastical document, may not represent the borough, but the parish. It is moreover certain

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that there were both Richardsons and Hathaways at Shottery when Anne was in her youth, a William Richardson being assessed there in 6s.; and in the 38th of Henry the Eighth, 1546, John Hathaway, of that village, being assessed at 12d. It must, however, be stated that there was a John Hathway, who may have been the same person, assessed at Old Stratford on goods of the value of 10%., to the relief of the 3rd of Edward the Sixth, 1549-50. In 1572, Alice Hathaway, of Shottery, married Henry Smith, of Banbury, and there was a large family born to one Richard Hathaway, alias Gardiner, of Shottery, between 1561 and 1578.

The mind dwells with delight on the idea of a poet's first love, the fondness of his attachment, the ingenuity with which he prosecutes his suit, the difficulties he may have had to encounter, his triumph over them, and the happy consummation of his marriage: and, doubtless, the fields between Stratford and Shottery may have been traversed by many a votary with his mind full of imaginations concerning the poet and his love. The minute researches of the antiquary may sometimes bring to light facts which are concurrent with such pleasant imaginings, and may even give occasion to them by removing the veil which rested on interesting truths. Sometimes, however, the effect is different, and the severities of truth jostle with these pleasant imaginings; and so it may be feared it is in the present case. Two more unseemly persons to attend at a poet's bridal can hardly be conceived than Sandells and Richardson, two husbandmen, who were unable to write their names, and whose marks are so singularly rude that they betray a more than common degree of rusticity. There is no romance, no poetry in this. Where were the Sadlers, the Quineys, the Reynolds', the friends, at that time, of the family, that the