9. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (+1564-1616+), the greatest dramatist that England ever produced, was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, on the 23d of April-- St George’s Day-- of the year 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a wool dealer and grower. William was educated at the grammar-school of the town, where he learned “small Latin and less Greek”; and this slender stock was his only scholastic outfit for life. At the early age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, a yeoman’s daughter. In 1586, at the age of twenty-two, he quitted his native town, and went to London. 10. +Shakespeare’s Life and Character.+-- He was employed in some menial capacity at the Blackfriars Theatre, but gradually rose to be actor and also adapter of plays. He was connected with the theatre for about five-and-twenty years; and so diligent and so successful was he, that he was able to purchase shares both in his own theatre and in the Globe. As an actor, he was only second-rate: the two parts he is known to have played are those of the _Ghost_ in +Hamlet+, and _Adam_ in +As You Like It+. In 1597, at the early age of thirty-three, he was able to purchase New Place, in Stratford, and to rebuild the house. In 1612, at the age of forty-eight, he left London altogether, and retired for the rest of his life to New Place, where he died in the year 1616. His old father and mother spent the last years of their lives with him, and died under his roof. Shakespeare had three children-- two girls and a boy. The boy, Hamnet, died at the age of twelve. Shakespeare himself was beloved by every one who knew him; and “gentle Shakespeare” was the phrase most often upon the lips of his friends. A placid face, with a sweet, mild expression; a high, broad, noble, “two-storey” forehead; bright eyes; a most speaking mouth-- though it seldom opened; an open, frank manner, a kindly, handsome look,-- such seems to have been the external character of the man Shakespeare. 11. +Shakespeare’s Works.+-- He has written thirty-seven plays and many poems. The best of his rhymed poems are his Sonnets, in which he chronicles many of the various moods of his mind. The plays consist of tragedies, historical plays, and comedies. The greatest of his tragedies are probably +Hamlet+ and +King Lear+; the best of his historical plays, +Richard III.+ and +Julius Cæsar+; and his finest comedies, +Midsummer Night’s Dream+ and +As You Like It+. He wrote in the reign of Elizabeth as well as in that of James; but his greatest works belong to the latter period.