We do not know the precise date of William Shakespeare's birth. That of his baptism is recorded in the parish register at Stratford as the 26th of April, 1564. It was a common practice then to baptize infants when they were three days old, and it has therefore been assumed that William was born on the 23d of April; but the rule, if rule it can be called, was often varied from, and we have not a particle of evidence that it was followed in this instance. It should, moreover, be understood that the 23d of April, as dates were then reckoned in England, corresponded to our 3d of May. It would be pleasant to think that the poet made his first appearance on the stage of human life on that particular day, for it was Saint George's day, a great holiday and time of feasting throughout the kingdom, Saint George being the patron saint of England. There is a book with which Shakespeare was doubtless familiar when he grew up--a collection of ancient stories made by Richard Johnson--in which Saint George figures as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom." From this book, as Mr. A. H. Wall tells us, we learn "how Saint George was imprisoned by the black King of Morocco, after he had fought so miraculously against the Saracens, and slain a frightful dragon, which had destroyed entire cities by the poison of its breath, and had every day devoured a beautiful virgin. Escaping from prison, he carried off a princess he had rescued from the monster, whom neither sword nor spear could pierce, and brought her to England, where the twain 'lived happily ever after,' in Warwickshire, where, sometime in the third century they died. The war-cry of England was 'Saint George!' as that of France was 'Montjoye Saint Denis!'; and to this day 'by George!' is an exclamation derived from the ancient custom of swearing by that Saint. "The ancient ballad of Saint George and the Dragon (printed in the Percy _Reliques_) tells us that the shire in which he died was that in which he first saw the light; that his mother expired while giving him birth; that a weird lady of the woods stole him when an infant and educated him by magic power to become a great warrior; and that on his person, prophetic of his future career and greatness, were three very mysterious marks--on one shoulder a cross, on the breast a dragon, and round one leg a garter. Their meanings were revealed when he fought so astoundingly as a crusader in the Holy Land, when he killed the magic dragon in Egypt, and rescued the King's daughter, Silene or Sabra, and, after his death, when Edward III. founded the knightly Order of the Garter, and made Saint George its patron.