"Absey" is one of many old spellings for "A-B-C"—abece, apece, apecy, apsie, absee, abcee, abeesee, etc.
It was not a long walk that our seven-year-old boy had to take in going to school. Turning the corner of Henley Street, where his father lives (compare the map, [page 42] above), he passes into the High Street, on which (though the street changes its name twice before we get there) the Guildhall is situated. The adjoining Guild Chapel is separated only by a narrow lane from the "great house," as it was called, the handsomest in all Stratford.
The child, as he passes that grand mansion, little dreams that, some twenty-five years later, he will buy it for his own residence.
DESK SAID TO BE SHAKESPEARE'S
The school-room probably looks much the same to-day as it did when William studied there, the modern plastered ceiling which hid the oak roof of the olden time having been removed. The wainscoted walls, with the small windows high above the floor, are evidently ancient. An old desk, which may have been the master's, and a few rude forms, or benches, are now the only furniture; for the school was long since removed to ampler and more convenient quarters. A desk, said with no authority whatever to have been used by Shakespeare, is preserved in the Henley Street house.
What did William study in the Grammar School? Not much except arithmetic and Latin, with perhaps a little Greek and a mere smattering of other branches.
His first lessons in Latin were probably from two well-known books of the time, the Accidence and the Sententiæ Pueriles. The examination of Master Page by the Welsh parson and schoolmaster, Sir Hugh Evans, in The Merry Wives of Windsor (iv. 1) is taken almost verbally from the Accidence. Mrs. Page, accompanied by her son and the illiterate Dame Quickly, meets Sir Hugh in the street, and this dialogue ensues:—
"Mrs. Page. How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?