Shakespeare must have been in the forest of Arden often in the summer mornings and seen the dewdrops clinging to the cowslips and glistening in the sunlight like pearls.
The exact day that Shakespeare was born is not certain, but it was about the 23d of April, and many men who have made a study of the poet’s life accept that as his birthday. The house in which he was born is still standing, although it has, of course, undergone many changes in the last three hundred years.
During the early boyhood of the poet, his father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous tradesman. He was a wool dealer and farmer. When Shakespeare was four years old his father became high-bailiff, or mayor of the town.
The future dramatist was sent to the village school at about the age of seven. He could already read, having learned his letters at home from a very queer primer. It was called the “horn-book,” because it was made of a single printed leaf, set in a frame of wood like our slates, and covered with a thin plate of horn.
The boy remained at school only about six years. His father had failed in many enterprises, and it is probable he needed his son to help him in his work. Just what Shakespeare learned at school we do not know, but his writings show some knowledge of Greek and Latin, for these languages were taught in the schools at that time.
It is certain that Shakespeare’s education went on after he left school. That is, he learned something from everything he saw about him and from all that he read. Even the trees in the forest and the streams in the meadows taught him lessons about nature. And this idea he expresses in his own beautiful way in the play “As You Like It,” when he makes the banished Duke in the forest of Arden say:—