De Quincy quite surpasses himself in setting us exactly right as to William Shakespeare. And, first, as to the birthday. There has always been a sort of feeling among Englishmen that their greatest poet ought to have had no less a birthday than the day dedicated to their patron saint. The Stratford parish records certifying to the christening of William Shakespeare on the 26th day of April, {158}1564 (which Mr. De Quincy forgets was "old style," and so, in any event, twelve days before the corresponding date in the present or "new style"), and the anniversary of St. George being fixed for celebration on the 23d of April, it had come to be unanimously resolved by the commentators that, in Warwickshire, it was the custom to christen infants on the third day after birth, and that, therefore, William Shakespeare was born on the anniversary of St. George, April 23, 1564. To baptise a three-days-old baby, in an English April, a period five days earlier than, in the mild latitude of Palestine, the Israelites thought it necessary to circumcise their infants, seems a very un-English proceeding. So Mr. De Quincy, who would rather perish than mislead, thinks, after all, the birth might have been a day earlier. "After all," he says, "William _might_ have been born on the 22d. Only one argument," he gravely proceeds, "has sometimes struck us for supposing that the 22d might be the day, and not the 23d, which is, that Shakespeare's sole granddaughter, Lady Barnard, was married on the 22d of April, ten years exactly from the poet's death, and the reason for choosing this day might have had a reference to her illustrious grandfather's birthday, which, there is good reason for thinking, would be celebrated as a festival in the family for generations!" But even Mr. De Quincy appears to concede that, in writing history, we must draw the line somewhere; for he immediately adds, "Still this choice may have been an accident" (so many things, that is to say, are likely to be considered in fixing a marriage-day, besides one's grandfather's birthday!), "or governed merely by reason of convenience. And, {159}on the whole, it is as well, perhaps, to acquiesce in the old belief that Shakespeare was born and died on the 23d of April. We can not do wrong if we drink to his memory both on the 22d and 23d." * * Mr. De Quincy's own estimate of this performance we take from a preface to the article itself, in the American edition of his collected works (Boston: Shepard & Gill, 1873), vol. xv., p. 11: "No paper ever cost me so much labor; parts of it have been recomposed three times over." And again, "William Shakespeare's article cost me more intense labor than any I ever wrote in my life and, I believe, if you will examine it, you will not complain of want of novelty." We should say not.