of the latter class, while not beyond question, are at least not improbable, considering the record of the youth Shakespeare at Stratford, while those of the first are certainly improbable on their face, and can be in almost every case traced to their exact source. So the story of his holding horses, while by no means authentic, (Mr White says it was not heard of until the middle of the last century), is by no means improbable, seeing that the lad ran away to London----and Rowe and the old sexton both agree that he began--as self-made men do--at the bottom. The story of Queen Elizabeth's crossing the stage and dropping her glove, which Shakespeare picked up and pre{169}sented with an impromptu, Mr. White himself smiles at, with the remark that "the anecdote is plainly one made to meet the craving for personal details of Shakespeare's life," * and he treats it as he does the "Florio" in the British Museum, supposed to have belonged to William Shakespeare, because that name is written----after his mode--on a fly-leaf; with a pleasant wish that he were able to believe in it. * Far from being of the class that kings delight to honor, it is simply impossible to turn one's researches into any channel that leads into the vicinity of Stratford without noticing the fact that the Shakespeare family left, in the neighborhoods where it flourished, one unmistakable trace familiar in all cases of vulgar and illiterate families; namely, the fact that they never knew or cared, or made an effort to know, of what vowels or consonants their own name was composed, or even to preserve the skeleton of its pronunciation. They answered--or made their marks--indifferently to "Saxpir" or "Chaksper;" or to any other of the thirty forms given by Mr. Grant White, ** or the fifty-five forms which another gentleman of elegant leisure has been able to collect. *** * Shakespeare's Works. Boston, 1865. Vol. L, p. 80, in, and see a note to the same volume, pp. 96-7, as to Ratzei's ghost, surmised to be an allusion to Shakespeare. * Ib., p. 128. ** Shakespeare's Scholar, pp. 478-480. *** George Russel French, Shakespeareana Geologicana. p. 348. {170} In the records of the town council of Stratford, of which John Shakespeare was no unimportant part, the name is written in fourteen different forms, which may be tabulated as follows:---- ~ 4 times written Shackesper. 3 times written Shackespere. 4 times written Shacksper. 2 times written Shackspere. 13 times written Shakespere. 1 time written Shaksper. 5 times written Shakspere. ~~ 17 times written Shakspeyr. 4 times written Shakysper. 9 times written Shakyspere. 69 times written Shaxpeare. 8 times written Shaxper. 18 times written Shaxpere. 9 times written Shaxspeare. ~~~