citizen of Oxford, and was born in the month of February, 1605; all
the biographers of our poet have observed, that his father was a man
of a grave disposition, and a gloomy turn of mind, which his son did
not inherit from him, for he was as remarkably volatile, as his father
was saturnine. The same biographers have celebrated our author's
mother as very handsome, whose charms had the power of attracting the
admiration of Shakespear, the highest compliment which ever was paid
to beauty. As Mr. Davenant, our poet's father, kept a tavern,
Shakespear, in his journies to Warwickshire, spent some time there,
influenced, as many believe, by the engaging qualities of the handsome
landlady. This circumstance has given rise to a conjecture, that
Davenant was really the son of Shakespear, as well naturally as
poetically, by an unlawful intrigue, between his mother and that great
man; that this allegation is founded upon probability, no reader can
believe, for we have such accounts of the amiable temper, and moral
qualities of Shakespear, that we cannot suppose him to have been
guilty of such an act of treachery, as violating the marriage honours;
and however he might have been delighted with the conversation, or
charmed with the person of Mrs. Davenant, yet as adultery was not then
the fashionable vice, it would be injurious to his memory, so much as
to suppose him guilty.

Our author received the first rudiments of polite learning from Mr.
Edward Sylvester, who kept a grammar school in the parish of All
Saints in Oxford. In the year 1624, the same in which his father was
Mayor of the city, he was entered a member of the university of
Oxford, in Lincoln's-Inn College, under the tuition of Mr. Daniel
Hough, but the Oxford antiquary is of opinion, he did not long remain
there, as his mind was too much addicted to gaiety, to bear the
austerities of an academical life, and being encouraged by some