worthies could even write their own names, but nearly all tradesmen then reckoned with counters, the results on important occasions being entered by professional scriveners. The poet's father seems to have been an adept in the former kind of work, for in February, 1566, having been elected an alderman in the previous summer, he individually superintended the making up of the

accounts of the Chamberlains for the preceding official year, at which time he was paid over three pounds,

equivalent to more than thirty of present money, that had been owing to him for some time by the Corporation. In the month of October, 1566, another son, who was christened Gilbert on the thirteenth, was born, the poet being then nearly two and a half years old. This Gilbert, who was educated at the Free School, in after life entered into business in London as a haberdasher, returning, however, in the early part of the following century, to his native town, where he is found, in 1602, completing an important legal transaction with which he was entrusted by the great dramatist. His Christian name was probably derived from that of one of his father's neighbours, Gilbert Bradley, who was a glover in Henley Street, residing near the Birth-Place and on the same side of the way.

In September, 1567, Robert Perrot, a brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph Cawdrey, a butcher, were nominated for the office of the High Bailiff, or, as that dignitary was subsequently called, the Mayor. The lastnamed candidate was the one who was elected. It is upon this occasion that the poet's father is alluded to for the first time in the local records as "Mr. Shakspeyr." He had been previously therein mentioned either as John Shakespeare, or briefly as Shakespeare, and the addition of the title was in those days no small indication of an advance in social position. There is, indeed, no doubt that, during the early years of Shakespeare's boyhood, his father was one of the leading men in Stratford-onAvon. On the fourth of September, 1568, John Shakespeare," Mr. John Shakysper," as he is called in that day's record, was chosen High Bailiff, attaining thus the most distinguished official position in the town, after an active connexion with its affairs during the preceding eleven years. The poet had entered his fifth year in the