Merchant of Venice. - Repositories

XVl INTROD UCTION
Boyhood. — William Shakespeare, born in 1564, was
the oldest of a family of six children. We can easily
imagine what his early years must have been in that
simple country village. Probably he went to the free
grammar school when he was about seven years old.
Here he studied, in addition to the three R's, a little
Latin, perhaps a little Greek. His father suffered a
reverse of fortune when William was thirteen, and it
appears that the boy was soon taken out of school and
apprenticed to learn some trade. School and business,
nevertheless, did not fill the lad's mind to the exclusion
of nature and boyish sports. It is only necessary
to know the poet himself, in order to be sure of this
fact. There was, it is likely, one form of amusement
that he never failed to appreciate. This was seeing
the plays that strolling bands of actors performed in
Stratford and in the neighboring towns. These companies
either brought their rude stage along with them
on wheels, or acted in the yard of the tavern or
in the town hall. Their plays were mostly of the
kind known as Moralities, in which the actors, like
the personages of an allegory, represented the different
virtues and vices. Such plays, perhaps, did not seem
so dull to Shakespeare as they would to us, but even
if they did, there was better acting in the town of
Coventry, only twenty miles from Stratford. This
town was famous for its Miracle plays. The Miracles,