recent period some original documents have been brought to light, and, among them, his will, which give us a peep into his family concerns.  It betrays more than ordinary deficiency of critical acumen in Shakespeare’s commentators, that none of them, so far as we know, has ever thought of availing himself of his sonnets for tracing the circumstances of his life.  These sonnets paint most unequivocally the actual situation and sentiments of the poet; they make us acquainted with the passions of the man; they even contain remarkable confessions of his youthful errors.  Shakespeare’s father was a man of property, whose ancestors had held the office of alderman and bailiff in Stratford; and in a diploma from the Heralds’ Office for the renewal or confirmation of his coat of arms, he is styled gentleman.  Our poet, the oldest son but third child, could not, it is true, receive an academic education, as he married when hardly eighteen, probably from mere family considerations.  This retired and unnoticed life he continued to lead but a few years; and he was either enticed to London from wearisomeness of his situation, or banished from home, as it is said, in consequence of his irregularities.  There he assumed the profession of a player, which he considered at first as a degradation, principally, perhaps, because of the wild excesses[18] into which he was seduced by the example of his comrades.  It is extremely probable that the poetical fame which, in the progress of his career, he afterward acquired, greatly contributed to ennoble the stage and to bring the player’s profession into better repute.  Even at a very early age he endeavored to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Adonis and Lucrece.  He quickly rose to be a sharer or joint proprietor, and also manager, of the theatre for which he wrote.  That he was not admitted to the society of persons of distinction is altogether incredible.  Not to mention many others, he found a liberal friend and kind patron in the Earl of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex.  His pieces were not only the delight of the great public, but also in great favor at court; the two monarchs under whose reigns he wrote were, according to the testimony of a contemporary, quite “taken” with him.[19] Many plays were acted at court; and Elizabeth appears herself to have commanded the writing of more than one to be acted at her court festivals.  King James, it is well known, honored Shakespeare so far as to write to him with his own hand.  All this looks very unlike either contempt or banishment into the obscurity of a low circle.  By his labors as a poet, player, and stage-manager, Shakespeare acquired a considerable property, which, in the last years of his too short life, he enjoyed in his native town in retirement and in the society of a beloved daughter.  Immediately after his death a monument was erected over his grave, which may be considered sumptuous for those times.