Page:A life of William Shakespeare (IA lifeofwilliamsha02lees).pdf/17

of the poet's father which belongs to nearly contemporary gossip, and is the only personal reminiscence of him that has yet been discovered. That John Shakespeare should have been 'a merry cheeked old man' fully harmonises with all we know of the son's faculty for gaiety. That father and son should have cracked jests with one another, and that the older man should have reckoned himself a match in repartee for the younger, sets their mutual relations. in an amiable light. There is testimony of a sort to the poet's character in his father's reported description of him as 'a good honest fellow.'

The second new reference concerns the earlier years of Shakespeare's sojourn in London. Early in March 1904 a more thorough search at the Public Record Office than had yet been undertaken into the accounts of the Commissioners for the collection in London of a subsidy granted to Queen Elizabeth by one of her later Parliaments, revealed a new mention of Shakespeare's name in the capacity of taxpayer, and finally settled a doubt as to his early place of residence in the metropolis. A document was already known, showing that one William Shakespeare, inhabitant of a tenement in the parish of St. Helen's, in Bishopsgate, stood indebted to the tax-collectors in October 1598 to the amount of 13s. 4d., which sum was levied on goods valued at 5l.