Shakespeare the Boy / With Sketches of the Home and School Life, Games and Sports, Manners, Customs and Folk-lore of the Time

by W. J. Rolfe

Eat more at christenings than bestow.

Formerly when they used to trowl

Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl—

Two spoons at least; an use ill kept:

'T is well now if our own be left."

He insinuates that some of the guests were as likely to steal spoons from the table as to give gilt bowls or "apostle spoons" to the infant.

The boy Shakespeare must have often seen this ceremony of christening. His sister Joan was baptized when he was five years old; his sister Anna when he was eight; his brother Richard when he was ten; and Edmund when he was sixteen.

SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH BIRTH AND BAPTISM.

In the time of Shakespeare babies were supposed to be exposed to other risks and dangers than the infantile disorders to which they are subject. Mary Shakespeare, as she watched the cradle of the infant William, may have been troubled by fears and anxieties that never occur to a fond mother now.