Life of Shakespeare

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Israel Golla.ncz

With Essays by Walter
Bagehot, Leslie Stephen,
Richard Grant White and
Thomas Spencer Baynes

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New York.

Copyright, 1901

By
THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY

Shakespeare's Birthplace, 1769.
(From the Gentleman's Magazine?)

1564. In the Parish Register preserved in the
Church of the Holy Trinity, Straford-on-Avon, War-
wickshire, is enshrined the following brief record of
Shakespeare's nativity — the entry of his baptism, which,
it may be assumed, took place during the first week of
the child's life: —

1564. April 26. Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere.

A fairly old tradition fixes April 22 or 23 as the poet's

birthday; the latter date, the day of St. George, Eng-

(Facsimile of the Registry of Shakespeare's Baptism. )
I

1564 ANNALS OF THE

land's patron saint, is fittingly associated with the birth of
England's national poet.

The researches of generations of students have put us
in possession of many minute facts connected with Shake-
speare's family history, with the environments of his early
life, and with the various elements that may have con-
tributed to the fostering of his mighty intellect.

The " Johannes Shakespeare," William Shakespeare's
father, mentioned in the entry of baptism, was a person
of importance in the borough at. the time of the birth of
his first son and third child. The son of Richard Shake-
speare, a farmer of Snitterfield, a village about three
miles distant, he appears to have settled at Stratford about
1551, and to have traded in all sorts of agricultural prod-
uce and the like. The municipal books attest his grow-
ing prosperity, though the earliest notice, in April 1552,
refers to a fine paid by him for having a dirt-heap before
his house in Henley Street. Successively " ale-taster,"
town councillor, one of the four constables of the court-
leet, affeeror (i.e. an assessor of fines for offences not ex-
pressly penalised by statute), chamberlain, he attained to
the rank of alderman in 1565, head-bailiff in 1568, and
chief alderman in 1571.

John Shakespeare's prosperity seems to date from the
time of his marriage, in 1557, with Mary, youngest daugh-
ter of Robert Arden, a wealthy farmer of Wilmcote, As-
ton Cantlowe, near Stratford, probably distantly con-
nected with the ancient and distinguished Arden family of
Warwickshire. Robert Arden possessed property at
Snitterfield, and among his tenants there was Richard
Shakespeare, John's father. Mary Arden was the young-
est of seven daughters; her father, dying in 1556, left her
the chief property at Wilmcote, called Ashbies, extend-
ing to fifty-four acres, together with a sum of money ;
she had also an interest in some property at Snitterfield ;
with her sister Alice she was appointed executrix of her
father's will.

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

1568-9

On September 15, 1558, their first child, Joan, was bap-
tised in the church of Holy Trinity ; the second, Mar-
garet, on December 2, 1562; both children died in in-
fancy.

Two or three months after the birth of their third
child, William, a terrible plague ravaged Stratford.

The birth-place of the poet was in one of two adjoin-
ing houses in Henley Street, possibly in the room now
shown to reverent pilgrims. Of the two houses upon the

The village of Wilmecote or Wincot in 1852.

north side of the street, the one on the east was pur-
chased by John Shakespeare in 1556, but that on the west
(though there is nothing connecting it with him before
1575) has been known "from time immemorial" as
" Shakespeare's Birthplace," perhaps from the circum-
stance of its being occupied until 1806 by descendants of
the poet.

1568-9. As bailiff, John Shakespeare entertained
actors at Stratford, the Queen's and Earl of Worcester's
companies — evidently for the first time in the history of
the town.

1577=8

ANNALS OF THE

1571. At the age of seven, according to the cus-
tom of the time, William Shakespeare's school-life prob-
ably began : he no doubt entered the Free Grammar
School at Stratford, known as " the King's New School."
The teaching at the school during Shakespeare's school-
course was under efficient control ; Walter Roche, Fel-
low of Corpus Christi College, and rector of Clifford, was
appointed master in 1570, and Thomas Hunt, curate (and
subsequently vicar) of the neighbouring village of Lud-
dington, held the office in 1577.

Court yard of the Grammar School, Stratford.
(From an engraving- by Fair/toll.)

1575. Queen Elizabeth visited the Earl of Leices-
ter at Kenilworth. William may have witnessed the
Kenilworth festivities ; in the next year two accounts
were published (cp. Preface to Midsummer Night's
Dream).

1577-8. About this time William was removed
from school, owing to his father's financial difficulties.
Fourteen was the usual age for boys to leave school and
commence apprenticeship, if they were not preparing for
a scholarly career.

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1577=8

The Stratford records give us the clearest evidence that
John Shakespeare's prosperity had come to an end: his
attendance at the council meetings became more and more
irregular, and he was unable to pay, in 1578, an assess-
ment of fourpence weekly for the relief of the poor levied
on the aldermen of the borough, and in 1579 a levy for
the purchase of weapons. In the former year he was
forced to mortgage " the land in Wilmcote called Ash-
bies " for £40 to Edmund Lambert, his brother-in-law,
to revert if repayment were made before Michaelmas
1580: in the latter year, their interest in the Snitterfield
property was sold for £4.0 to Robert Webbe (Alexander
Webbe was the husband of Agnes Arden, Shakespeare's
aunt). Towards Michaelmas 1580 John Shakespeare
sought to redeem the Wilmcote estate from Edmund Lam-
bert, but his proposal was rejected on the plea that there
were other unsecured debts.

On September 6, 1586, John Shakespeare was deprived
of his position on the council, on the ground that he
" doth not come to the halls when warned, nor hath not
done of long time." About this time he lost an action
brought against him by one John Brown, and it is re-
ported that " predictus Johannes Shackspere nihil habct
unde distringi potest," i.e. " the aforesaid John Shak-
speare has no goods on which distraint can be levied."

There were in all eight children born to John Shake-
speare : — Two daughters who died in infancy ; William ;
Gilbert, baptised October 13, 1566 (living at Stratford in
1609) ; Joan, baptised April 15, 1569, married William
Hart of Stratford (died in 1646) ; Anne, baptised Sep-
tember 28, 1571 (died in 1579) ; Richard, baptised March
n, 1574 (died at Stratford in 1613) ; Edmund, baptised
May 3, 1580 (became an actor, and died in London in
December 1607).

Nothing is definitely known concerning William's oc-
cupation on his withdrawal from school. The oldest local
tradition seems to point to his being apprenticed to " a

1582

ANNALS OF THE

butcher," — perhaps to his own father, who is variously
described as " a dealer in wool," " a glover," " a husband-
man," " a butcher," and the like.

1582. In November of this year William Shake-
speare married Anne Hathaway, who it would seem was
the daughter (otherwise called Agnes) of Richard Hath-
away, husbandman of the little village to the west of
Stratford called Shottery; he had died during the year,
his will, dated September I, 1581, being proved on July
9, i.e. some four months before the marriage.

Anne Hathaway was twenty-seven years old, and Wil-
liam Shakespeare nineteen, when they became man and
wife. The marriage did not take place at Stratford, but

Ann Hathaway's Cottage, 1827.

possibly at Luddington (three miles from Stratford and
one from Shottery), or at Temple Graf ton (about four
miles from Stratford), — the registers of the old churches
have disappeared. It is curious to note that in the Epis-
copal registers at Worcester there is a record of a license
for a marriage between " Willielmum Shaxpere and An-

6

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1587

nam Whateley de Temple Grafton " dated 27th of No-
vember, 1582, where "Whateley" may be an error for
" Hathwey," due to some exceptional accident or in-
tended disguise; possibly (but less likely) the entry re-
fers to some other " William Shakespeare." There is,
however, preserved in the Bishop's Registry at Worcester,
a bond dated November 28, 1582, " against impediments,"
in anticipation of the marriage of Shakespeare and Anne
Hathaway — " William Shagspere one thone parte, and
Anne Hathwey of Stratford in the dioces of Worcester,
maiden " ; by this deed Fulke Sandells and John Rich-
ardson, husbandmen of Stratford (but more specifically
farmers of Shottery, the former being " supervisor " of
Richard Hathaway's will) bound themselves in a surety of
£40 to " defend and save harmless the right reverend
Father in God, John Lord Bishop of Worcester " against
any complaint that might ensue from allowing the mar-
riage between William and Anne with only once asking
of the banns of matrimony. There is no reference to the
bridegroom's parents ; and all considerations seem to
point to the conclusion that the marriage was hastened
on by the friends of the bride.

1583. May 26; under this date we find the bap-
tism of Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare ; on
February 2nd, 1585, were baptised his twin children,
Hamnet and Judith, named after his Stratford friends
Hamnet and Judith Sadler.

1587. On April 23rd of this year was buried Ed-
mund Lambert, the mortgagee of Ashbies ; in Septem-
ber a formal proposal was made that his son and heir,
John, should, on cancelling the mortgage and paying
£40, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute title to the
estate. " Johannes Shackespere and Maria uxor ejus,
simulcum Willielmo Shackespere filio suo," were parties
to this proposed arrangement, which, however, was not
carried out, as we learn from a Bill of Complaint brought

7

1587 ANNALS OF THE

by the poet's father against John Lambert in the Court of
Queen's Bench, 1589. There is no evidence that William
was at Stratford at the time of the negotiations. In this
same year, 1587, no less than five companies of actors
visited Stratford-on-Avon, including the Queen's Play-
ers and those of Lord Essex, Leicester, and Stafford.
Between the years 1576 and 1587, with the exception of
the year 1578, the town was yearly visited by companies
of players.

It may be inferred that these visits of the actors to
Stratford stimulated Shakespeare's latent genius for the
drama, and so caused him, under stress of circumstances,
to seek his fortunes with the London players. Accord-
ing to a well-authenticated tradition, borne out by allu-
sions in his own writings, the direct cause of his leaving
Stratford was the well-known poaching incident — the
deer-stealing from the park of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charle-
cote, about four miles from Stratford. " For this " (ac-
cording to Rowe's account in 1709) " he was prose-
cuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too
severely ; and in order to revenge that ill-usage be made
a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first
essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so
very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him
to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business
and family in Warwickshire and shelter himself in Lon-
don." It is just possible that the lampoon on Lucy may
be more or less preserved in the following rather poor
verses, recorded by Oldys, on the authority of a very aged
gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford,
where he died in 1703 : —

" A parliament member, a justice of peace.
At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse:
If lousy is Lucy, as some volk miscall it,
Then Lucy is lousy, whatever befall it :

He thinks himself great,

Yet an ass in his state

8

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1587

We allow by his ears but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lousy, as some volk miscall it,
Sing lousy Lucy, whatever befall it."

It is noteworthy that Sir Thomas Lucy was a bitter
persecutor of those who secretly favoured the old Faith,
and acted as Chief Commissioner for the County of War-
wick, " touching all such persons as either have been pre-
sented, or have been otherwise found out to be Jesuits,
seminary priests, fugitives, or recusants ... or
vehemently suspected of such." In the second return,
dated 1592, John Shakespeare's name is included among
nine who " it is said come not to church for fear of proc-

A bird's-eye view of Charlecote in 1722.

ess of debt," but he was possibly under suspicion for
some worse fault.

We have no separate information concerning Shake-
speare between 1587 and 1592, and we cannot fix with
absolute certainty the date of his leaving Stratford; but
in all probability it may safely be assigned to 1585-7. He
may have been in London at the time of the national
mourning for Sir Philip Sidney at the end of 1586, and
may even have seen the famous funeral procession. It

1587 ANNALS OF THE

should, however, be noted that, so far as the stage was
concerned, there was no employment in town for Shake-
speare during- 1586, when the theatres were closed owing
to the prevalence of the plague.

The traditional accounts of his first connection with
the theatres are evidently fairly authentic : — In " Au-
brey's Lives of Eminent Men " (c. 1680) it is stated that
" this Wm. being inclined naturally to poetry and acting,
came to London I guesse about 18, and was an actor at
one of the play-houses and did act exceedingly well."
The old parish clerk of Stratford narrated in 1693, being
about eighty years old at the time, that " this Shakespeare
was formerly in this town apprentice to a butcher, but
that he ran from his master to London, and there was re-
ceived into the play-house as a serviture, and by this
means had an opportunity to be what he afterwards
proved." Rowe's account (1709) is even more likely: —
" He was received into the company then in being, at
first, in a very mean rank ; but his admirable wit, and the
natural turn of it to the stage, soon distinguished him, if
not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer."

In 1753 the compiler of the " Lives of the Poets " states
that Shakespeare's " first expedient was to wait at the
door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those that
had no servants, that they might be ready again after the
performance." Rowe does not mention this tradition,
though he is said to have received it from Betterton, who
heard it from D'Avenant. Dr. Johnson elaborated the
story, adding, we know not on what authority, that " he
became so conspicuous for his care and readiness that in
a short time every man as he alighted called for Will
Shakespeare, and scarcely any other waiter was trusted
with a horse while Will Shakespeare could be had. This
was the first dawn of better fortune. Shakespeare, find-
ing more horses put into his hand than he could hold,
hired boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will
Shakespeare was summoned, were immediately to present

10

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1589

themselves : ' I am Shakespeare's boy, sir.' In time
Shakespeare found higher employment ; but as long as
the practice of riding to the play-house continued, the
waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of
Shakespeare's boys." According to another tradition, re-
corded by Malone (1780), " his first office in the theatre
was that of prompter's attendant."

It is assumed that soon after his arrival in London
Shakespeare became connected with one of the two Lon-
don theatres, viz. " The Theatre," in Shoreditch, built
by James Burbage, father of the great actor Richard Bur-
bage, in 1576; or "The Curtain," in Moorfields — the
second play-house, built about the same time (the* name
survives in Curtain Road, Shoreditch : both play-houses
were built on sites outside the civic jurisdiction, the City
Fathers having no sympathy with stage-plays. In all
probability the former was the scene of Shakespeare's
earliest activity, in whatever capacity it may have been.
Shakespeare may have belonged, from the first, to Lord
Leicester's Company, of which we know he soon became
an important member, and with which, under various pa-
trons, his dramatic career was to be associated. It is
noteworthy that in 1587 the Earl of Leicester's men visited
Stratford-on-Avon. In this same year, 1587, when the
Admiral's men re-opened after the plague Marlowe's
Tamberlaine was among the plays produced by them.

1588. In September of this year the Earl of
Leicester died, and his company of actors found a new
patron in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, who became Earl
of Derby on September 25, 1592.

1589. On August 23, Greene's novel " Mena-
phon " was entered on the Stationers' Registers, and was
soon issued, with a preface by the satirist Tom Nash,
containing a reference to " a sort of shifting companions
that run through every art and thrive by none to leave the
trade of Noverint (i.e. scrivener) whereto they were born,

ii

1592 ANNALS OF THE

and busy themselves with the endeavours of art that
could scarcely latinize their neck-verse, if they should
have need : yet English Seneca, read by candle light,
yields many good sentences, Blood in a Beggar, and so
forth ; if you intreat him fair in a frostie morning, he
will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of
tragical speeches, &c." This is the best evidence we have
for the existence of a lost play on " Hamlet " at this early
date: its author was almost certainly Thomas Kyd (born
1558, died 1594), famous as the author of " The Spanish
Tragedy" In Menaphon Greene indulges in his sarcastic
references to Marlowe, which are also found in his Pcrim-
edes the Blacksmith (1588). Peele, on the other hand,
was held up, in Nash's Preface, as primus verborum arti-
fex. It is clear that at this time Greene regarded Mar-
lowe and Kyd as dangerous rivals ; Shakespeare was not
yet an object of fear. Greene was chief writer for the
Queen's men, Marlowe and Kyd for Lord Pembroke's,
Peele was joining Greene's company, leaving the Ad-
miral's.

1591. In this year Florio, subsequently the trans-
lator of Montaigne's Essays, published Second Fruit es — a
book of Italian-English dialogues. A sonnet entitled
Phaeton to his friend Florio may possibly have been writ-
ten by Shakespeare ; but there is no direct evidence.

In this year the Queen's players made their last ap-
pearance at Court ; Lord Strange's men made the first
of their many appearances at Court.

" The Troublesome Raigne of King John," the origi-
nal of King John, was published this year; it was re-
issued in 1611 as written by " W. Sh.," and in 1622 as by
" W. Shakespeare."

1592. On February 19, Lord Strange's men
opened the Rose Theatre on Bankside, erected by Philip
Henslowe, theatrical speculator. It would appear that
they had generally acted at the Cross Keys, an inn-yard

12

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1592

in Bishopsgate Street. They played at the Rose from
February to June. At this time we find the great actor
Edward Alleyn, Henslowe's son-in-law, at the head of
Lord Strange's men, but he was really the Lord Admiral's
man: there was evidently a short-lived combination of
the two companies: but they soon dissolved partnership.

On March 3, 1592, Henry VI. was acted at the Rose
Theatre by Lord Strange's men : it was in all probability
i Henry VI., and was soon after referred to by Nash in his
Pierce Penniless (licensed August 8) : — " How would it
have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to
think that after he had lain two hundred years in his
tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his
bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spec-
tators at least (at several times), who in the tragedian
that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh
bleeding" (cp. iv. 6, 7).

With a short break the theatres were closed on account
of the plague until after Christmas 1593. The company
meanwhile travelled, and we have notices of their visits
to Bristol and Shrewsbury during that year : similar no-
tices of travel are extant for subsequent years.

In this same year, 1592, on September 4, died Robert
Greene ; on the 2oth of the month his Groatsworth of Wit
was published, edited by Chettle. In this work there is
an address to his " quondam acquaintance that spend their
wits in making plays, R. G. wisheth a better exercise and
wisdome to prevent his extremities." Marlowe, Nash,
and Peele, are probably the scholar-playwrights warned
by Greene no longer to trust the players. " Base-minded
men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned :
for unto none of you, like me, sought those burrs to
cleave — those puppets, I mean, that speak from our
mouth, those antics garnished in our colours. Is it not
strange that I, to whom they have all been beholding : is it
not like that you, to whom they have all been beholding,
shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both at

13

1593 ANNALS OF THE

once of them forsaken ? Yes, trust them not : for there
is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with
his Tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide supposes he is
as well able to bombast out a blank- verse as the best of
you : and being an absolute Johannes fac-totum, is in his
own conceit the only shake-scene in a country. O that I
might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more
profitable courses : and let these apes imitate your past
excellence, and never more acquaint them with your ad-
mired inventions. . . . Yet, whilst you may, seek
you better masters ! for it is a pity men of such rare wits
should be subject to such rude grooms."

The original of the travestied line is to be found in 3
Henry VI., " O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide "
(cp. Preface), and there can be no doubt that here we
have the first direct evidence of Shakespeare's growing
pre-eminence as an actor and as a playwright.

In the month of December, following the publication
of Greene's Groatsivorth of Wit we have even more
important evidence of Shakespeare's recognised pre-
eminence as a man of character. In his " Kind Hartes
Dreame " Chettle, the publisher of the attack, penned the
following apology : — " I am as sorry as if the original
fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his (i.e.
Shakespeare's) demeanour no less civil than he excellent
in the quality he professes, besides divers of worship have
reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his
honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves
his art."

Shakespeare probably referred to Greene's death soon
afterwards : —

" The thrice-three Muses, mourning for the death
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary." 1

1593. In this year was published " Venus &
Adonis" dedicated by the poet to Henry Wriothesley,

1 Midsummer Night's Dream (cp. Preface).
14

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1594

third Earl of Southampton as " the first heir of my inven-
tion " (cf. Preface}. It is significant that the printer of
the book was Richard Field, Shakespeare's fellow coun-
tryman. The title-page bore a quotation in Latin from
Ovid's " Amores " : —

" Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua." *

(Seven editions from 1593-1602, cp. Preface.)
Under date " I of June, 1593," the burial register of
the parish church of St. Nicholas, Deptford, contains the
following entry : — " Christopher Marlow, slain by Fran-
cis Archer," whom we know from another source to have
been " a servingman, a rival of his in his lewd love."
Shakespeare subsequently referred to Marlowe in the
famous lines : —

" Dead Shepherd ! now I find thy saw of might,
' Who ever loved that loved not at first sight.' "

1594. At the beginning of the year " Titus An-
dronicus," described as a " new play," was acted by the
Earl of Sussex's men.

Lord Derby died on April 16, and was succeeded as
licenser and patron by Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon,
Lord Chamberlain (he died in 1596, and was succeeded
by his son, who became Lord Chamberlain in 1597).
Shakespeare's company performed ' for a short time at
the new theatre at Newington Butts, and subsequently
between 1598 and 1599 at "The Curtain" and "The
Theatre."

Roderigo Lopez, the Queen's Jewish physician, was
hanged in June (cf. Preface, Merchant of Venice} : Hens-
lowe produced at the Rose on August 25 " the Venesyon

*" Let base conceited wits admire z'ilc things.
Fair Phoebus lead me to the muses springs! "
1 cp. As You Like It, III. v. 81.

15

1594 ANNALS OF THE

Comedy " (probably an early version of " The Merchant
of Venice")

In December of this year Shakespeare performed be-
fore the Queen .at Greenwich Palace ; he is named in the
manuscript accounts of the Treasurer of the chamber : —
" William Kempe, William Shakespeare and Richard
Burbage " ; they acted two comedies or " interludes."

On December 28, when he was thus engaged at Green-
wich, " The Comedy of Errors " was played in the hall
of Gray's Inn. There was considerable confusion
brought about by the students of the Inner Temple : " and
after such sports, a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his
Menechmus, was played by the players ; so that night
was begun and continued to the end in nothing but con-
fusion and errors, whereupon it was ever afterwards
called the Night of Errors."

In this year " The Taming of a Shreiu " — the original
of Shakespeare's " The Taming of the Shrew " — was
printed for the first time ; and " The first part of the Con-
tention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and
Lancaster" (cp. 2 Henry VL), was surreptitiously pub-
lished.

Shakespeare's second volume of verse, " Lucrece," was
published this year, printed by Richard Field, and dedi-
cated to the Earl of Southampton. (Five editions, 1594-
1616; cp. Preface.)

Soon after the publication of " Lucrece" " Willobie his
Aviso " appeared, with a laudatory address referring to
Shakespeare by name: "And Shake-speare paints poor
Lucrece' rape" (the poem, re-published in 1596, 1605,
1609, is of interest in connection with the " Sonnets," cp.
Preface).

A similar reference is perhaps found in " Epicedium, a
funeral song, upon the vertuous life and godly death of'
the right worshipful the lady Helen Branch " : —

" You that have writ of chaste Lucretia
Whose death was witness* of her spotless life."

16

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1595

Michael Drayton, in the same year, referred to the poem
in his " Legend of Mathilda the Chaste " : —

" Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long,
Lately reviv'd to live another age ; " etc.

(found also in the 1596 edition, but expunged in later
copies), while the pious poet Robert Southwell, executed
Feb. 20, 1594-5, in his " St. Peters Complaint, with other
poems," alluded to " Venus and Adonis " : —

" Still finest wits are 'stilling Venus' rose,
In paynim toys the sweetest veins are spent,
To Christian works few have their talents lent."

In this year Spenser possibly referred to our poet in
" Colin Clout's Come Home Again " as " Action," i.e.

Eaglet :—

" And there, though last not least is Aetion ;

A gentler shepherd may no where be found
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth like herself heroically sound."

1595. In a curious volume " Polimanteia," pub-
lished at Cambridge, there is a marginal reference to " All
praise worthy Lucretia \ Szveet Shakespeare \ Wanton
Adonis."

A more valuable contemporary allusion is John Wee-
ver's sonnet " ad Gulielmnm Shakespeare," possibly be-
longing to the year 1595-6, though first printed in 1599 in
" Epigrams in the oldest cut, and newest fashion. A
twice seven hours (in so many weeks} study. No longer
(like the fashion") not unlike to continue": —

" Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them and none other,
Their rosy-tainted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother :
Rose-cheek'd Adonis with his amber tresses,
Fair fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
Chaste Lucretia virgin like her dresses,
Proud lust-stung Tarquin seeking still to prove her :

17

1596 ANNALS OF THE

Romeo, Richard: more whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues, and power-attractive beauty,
Say they are saints, although that saints they shew not,
For thousands vow to them subjective duty:
They burn in love : thy children, Shakespeare, het1 them :
Go, woo thy muse : .more nymphish brood beget them."

Weever, like the author of the previous work, was " a
Cambridge man " — " one weaver fellow ... els
could he never have had such a quick sight into my vir-
tues."

Another reference belonging to 1595 is in Thomas Ed-
wards' U Envoy to " Cephalus and Procris " : —

" Adon deftly masking thro'
Stately troops rich conceited,
Shew'd he well deserved too

Love's delight on him to gaze :
And had not Love herself entreated,

Other nymphs had sent him bays."

About this time Richard Carew wrote : " Will you read
Virgil'? Take the Earl of Surrey. Catullus t Shake-
speare, and Mario w's fragment."

" The True Tragedie of Richard, Duke of York, and
the death of good King Henry the Sixth, as it zvas sun-
dry times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his servants "
(cp. 3 Henry VI.) issued from the press during the year.

On Dec. i, " Edzvard III.," the pseudo-Shakespeare
play (with its "lilies that fester smell far worse than
weeds," cp. Sonnets, xciv) was licensed and was published
the following year.

1596. August ii. Hamnet, the poet's only son,
was buried in the parish church of Stratford. We may
assume, but there is no evidence, that Shakespeare was
present.

In this year, John Shakespeare — probably in accord-
ance with the wishes of his son — made application to the

1 i.e. heated.
18

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1596

College of Heralds for a coat-of-arms, stating that he
had already, in 1568, applied to the College, and obtained
a pattern. Two copies of the draft of the grant proposed
to be conferred on John Shakespeare, in reply to his ap-
plication, in the year 1596, are preserved at the College
of Arms. In the margin are the arms and crest, with the
motto " Non sans droict." After a preamble it is stated
that being by " credible report informed that John
Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon in the county of
Warwick, whose parents and late antecessors were for
their valiant and faithful service advanced and rewarded
by the most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of fa-
mous memorie, sithence which time they have continued
at those parts in good reputation and credit ; and that
the said John having married Mary, daughter and one of
the heirs of Robert Arden of Wilmcote, in the said coun-
ty, gent.2 In consideration whereof, and for the encour-
agement of his posterity to whom these achievements
might descend by the ancient custom and laws of arms, I
have therefore assigned, granted, and by these presents
confirmed this shield or coat of arms; viz., gold, on a
bend sable, a spear of the first, the point steeled, proper,
and for his crest or cognisance a falcon, his wings dis-
played argent, standing on a wreath of his colours, sup-
porting a spear gold steeled as aforesaid, set upon a hel-
met with mantles and tassles as hath been accustomed and
more plainly appeareth depicted on this margent"

The draft was not executed this year.

At the end of the year James Burbage purchased from
Sir William More a. large portion of a house in the Black-
friars, formerly belonging to Sir Thomas Cawarden,
Master of the Revels, and afterwards converted it into a
theatre: it was subsequently leased by his sons, Richard
and Cuthbert, to Henry Evans for the performances of
the " Children of the Chapel " (cp. 1610).

At this time Shakespeare was probably lodging near

' " grandfather," in second draft. :! " esquire " in second draft.

19

1598 ANNALS OF THE

" The Bear-Garden in Southwark," and possibly soon
after in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. The
name is found in a list of residents there in 1598, but there
is no definite evidence of identity.

1597. Henry Brooke succeeded to the title as
eighth Lord Cobham ; the family claimed descent- from
Sir John Oldcastle, the Lollard chief. Probably owing
to Lord Cobham's objections, the character " Oldcastle "
was at this time changed to " Falstaff."

On May 4, Shakespeare purchased (for sixty pounds)
New Place, a mansion with about an acre of land in the
centre of Stratford-on-Avon (the final legal transfer be-
ing made five years later) ;'many years passed before he
himself settled there ; meanwhile he let the house or part
of it, and generally improved the property.

In this year another effort was made to get back the
mortgaged estate of Ashbies, but without success.

The first Quarto imperfect copy of " Romeo and Juliet "
was surreptitiously published (cp. Preface).

" Richard II." and " Richard III." were published
anonymously ; the Deposition Scene was omitted from the
previous play (cp. Preface), and so, too, in the next edi-
tion, published in the following year. The 3rd and 4th
editions, 1608 and 1615, supply the omissions. "Richard
III." was re-published in 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612.

1598. This year was published Francis Meres'
" Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury, being the second part
of Wit's Common-wealth," containing the most important
reference to Shakespeare's achievements up to that
date : —

" As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in
Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mel-
lifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, witness his
Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred sonnets among
his private friends, &c.

As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Com-

20

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1598

edy and Tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare
among the English is the most excellent in both kinds
for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of
Verona, his Errors, his Love's Labour 's Lost, his Love's
Labour 's Won, his Midsummer-Night's Dream, and his
Merchant of Venice ; for Tragedy, his Richard the II.,
Richard the III., Henry the IV., King John, Titus An-
dronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet.

As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speak with
Plautus' tongue, if they would speak Latin ; so I say that
the Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine-filed
phrase, if they would speak English.

As Ovid saith of his work : —

Jamque opus exegi quod nee Jovis ira, nee ignis,
Nee potent ferrum, nee edax abolore vetustas.

And as Horace saith of his: — Exegi monumentum cere
perennius; Regalique, situ pyramidum altius; Quod non
imbcr edax, non aquilo impotens possit diruere; aut in-
numcrabilcs annorum series, &c., so say I severally of
Sir Philip Sidney's, Spenser's, Daniel's, Drayton's, Shake-
speare's and Warner's works."

[It is significant that Meres omits Henry VI. from his
list of plays, but includes Titus Andronictis.]

The following is the approximate chronological order
of plays mentioned by Meres (cp. Prefaces to individual
plays) : — Love's Labour 's Lost (c. 1591), The Two Gen-
tlemen of Verona (c. 1591), Comedy of Errors (1592),
Romeo and Juliet (1592-6, subsequently revised), Richard
II. (1593), Richard III. (1593), Titus Andronicus
(1594),' Merchant of Venice (1594, subsequently re-
vised), King John (1594), Midsummer-Night's Dream
(c. 1593-5, perhaps subsequently revised), the earlier

1 The close connexion between the date of Titus and Peele's
Honour of the Garter, to which Mr. Charles Crawford has re-
cently called attention, inclines me to place the play after June,
1593. I do not accept Mr. Crawford's general conclusions (cp.
Jahrbuch dcr d. Shak. Gesell. xxxvi.).

1598

ANNALS OF THE

draft of All's Well that Ends Well (i.e. Love's Labour
Won) (before 1595), Henry IV. (1597).

In this same year we have "A Remembrance of some
English Poets," probably by Richard Barnfield. Spenser
is praised for his Fairy Queen, Daniel for his Rosamond
and that " rare work " The White Rose and the Red,
Drayton for his well-written " Tragedies and sweet epis-
tles " :—

" AndShakespearc thoti, whose honey-flowing vein
(Pleasing the world) thy praises doth obtain:
Whose Venus and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste,
Thy name in Fame's immortal Book hath placed.
Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever,
Well may the body die, but Fame dies never."

According to a tradition preserved by Rowe " Queen
Elizabeth was so well pleased with the admirable char-
acter of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry IV. that she
commanded Shakespeare to continue it for one play more,
and to show him in love " ; and an-
other tradition (cp. Dennis' dedication
to The Comical Gallant, 1702) states
that it was finished in fourteen days.
(Cp. Epilogue, 2 Henry IV.} The
play of The Merry Wives may
therefore safely be dated 1597. Jus-
tice Shallow with his " dozen white
luces " was intended to suggest Sir
Thomas Lucy of Charlecote.

The only other of Shakespeare's
. P1^8 already written by the date of
From the monument in Meres Pallodis Tamia was probably

Lharlecote Church. TI T • £ ±1 or 1 LI

1 lie 1 aming of the shrew, remarkable
for the many allusions to Stratford and the neighbourhood
in the Inductions * (cp. Preface).

^e.g. "Old Sly of Burton Heath" (=Barton-on-the-Heath) ;
Marian Hacket of Wincot ; " Old John Naps of Greece " ( =
Greet, in Gloucestershire) ; similarly in 2 Henry IV . " William

22

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

1598

The following allusion to Shakespeare appeared in John
Marston's " Scourge of Villainie" published this year : —

" Luscus, what's played to-day? Faith, now I know,
I set thy lips abroad, from whence doth flow
Nought but pure Juliet and Romeo.
Say, who acts best? Drusus or Roscio?
Now I have him, that ne'er of ought did speak
But when of plays or players he did treat.
'Hath made a common-place book out of plays,
And speaks in print : at least whate'er he says,
Is warranted by Curtain1 plaudeties.
If e'er you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes ;
Say, courteous sir, speaks he not movingly,
From out some new pathetic tragedy?
He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts what not,
And all from out his huge long-scraped stock
Of well-penned plays."

Soon after the publication of Marston's " Scourge of
Villainie," the author
of " The Return from
Parnassus " (probably
John Day)2 was at
work on the second of
his three plays, which
was probably acted at
St. John's College,
Cambridge, at Christ-
mas, 1599. The fol-
lowing extracts sug-

Bas-relief in plaster, formerly in Shakespeare's
birth-place. It represents David and Goli-
ath, and formerly bore the date 1606.

gest the character of
Luscus : —

Visor of Woncot " ( = Woodmancote) and " Clement Perks of
the Hill " ( = Stinchcombe Hill) are specific references to persons
and places in Gloucestershire ; so, too, " Will Squele, a CoLswold
man."

1 Perhaps a quibbling allusion to the " Curtain " theatre.

2 v. " Return from Parnassus," edited by the present writer.

23

1598 ANNALS OF THE

" Gullio. Pardon, fair lady, though sick-thoughted Gullio makes
amain unto thee, and like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo
thee.1

Ingenioso. (We shall have nothing but pure Shakespeare and
shreds of poetry that he hath gathered at the theatres.)

Gullio. Pardon me, moi mistressa, as I am a gentleman, the
moon, in comparison of thy bright hue 's a mere slut, An-
thonio's Cleopatra a black-brow'd milkmaid, Helen a dowdy.

Ingenioso. (Mark, Romeo and Juliet!2 O monstrous theft!
I think he will run through a whole book of Samuel
Daniels!)3

Gullio. Thrice fairer than myself — thus I began — " 4
*****
" O sweet Mr. Shakespeare ! I '11 have his picture in my
study at the court."

*****
" Let the duncified age esteem of Spenser and Chaucer,
I '11 worship sweet Mr. Shakespeare, and to honour him
will lay his Venus and Adonis under my pillow, as we
read of one (I do not well remember his name, but I am
sure he was a king) slept with Homer under his bed's
head."

The revised Love's Labour's Lost was published this
year, with Shakespeare's name for the first time on the
title-page of a play

1 cp. " Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,

And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him."

Venus and Adonis, st. i.

3 cp. Romeo and Juliet, II. iv.

* Evidently Daniel's debt to Shakespeare was recognised (cp.
Preface. Richard II.) V/>. Venus and Adonis, st. ii.

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

1598

PLEASANT

Conceited Comedie

CALLED,

Loues labors loft.

As it was prdfented before her Higlmes
this laft Chriftnm

Newly corrc&ed and augmented
By W. Shake/fire.

Imprinted at LoncfontytfW.

1598 ANNALS OF THE

Robert Tofte's " The Month's Mind of a Melancholy
Lover " appeared this year, with important allusions to
this play : —

" Love's Labour Lost, I once did see a play
Y-cleped so, so called to my pain," etc.

(cp. Preface to Love's Labour's Lost}.

The First Part of Henry IV. was issued this year (and
a revised edition, " newly corrected," the following year,
and again in 1604, 1608, 1615).

Shakespeare acted in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His
Humour, produced in September by the Lord Chamber-
lain's Company. According to a tradition recorded by
Rowe, Shakespeare was answerable for the acceptance of
the piece. His name is placed first in the list of original
performers of the play.

Some interesting correspondence directly mentioning
Shakespeare belongs to this year: — (i.) from Abraham
Sturley, formerly bailiff, to his brother or brother-in-law
in London, containing these w.ords — " This is one special
remembrance from our father's motion. It seemeth by
him that our countryman, Mr. Shakespeare, is willing to
disburse some money upon some odd yardland or other
at Shottery, or near about us : he thinketh it a very fit
pattern to move him to deal in the matter of our tithes.
By the instruction you can give him thereof, and by the
friends he can make therefore, we .think it a fair mark
for him to shoot at, and would do us much good " ; (ii.)
from the same writer to Richard Ouiney (father of
Thomas Quiney, afterwards Shakespeare's son-in-law),
at the time (November 4) staying in London, negotiating
local affairs, probably seeking to obtain relief for Strat-
ford from some tax. Sturley writes that Quiney's letter
of October 25 had stated " that our countryman Mr. Wm.
Shak. would procure us money," " which I like," he con-
tinues, " as I shall hear when, and where, and how ; and
I pray let not go that occasion if it may sort to any indif-
ferent conditions "; (iii.) on the very day when Quiney
had written the letter which called forth this reply from

26

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

1598

Sturley, he had also addressed a communication " to my
loving good friend and countryman Mr. Wm. Shake-
speare " — the only letter addressed to Shakespeare which
is known to exist : —

1599 ANNALS OF THE

" Loveinge countryman, I am bolde of yow as of a ff rende,
craveinge yowr helpe with xxx£ Uppon Mr. Bushells and my
securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come
to London as yeate, and I have especiall cawse. Yow shall
ffrende me muche in helpeing me out of all debettes I owe in Lon-
don, I thancke God, and much quiet my mynde, which wolde not
be indebted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer
for the dispatche of my buysenes. Yow shall nether loase cred-
dytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge ; and nowe butt per-
swade yowrselfe soe, as I hope, and yow shall nott need to feare,
butt, with all heartie thanckfullenes, I wyll holde my tyme, and
content yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, yow shal be the
paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hestene to an ende,
and soe I commit thys [to] yowr care and hope of yowr helpe. I
feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste.
The Lorde be with yow and with vs all, Amen ! Ffrom the Bell
in Carter Lane, the 25 October 1598.

" Yowrs in all Kyndeness,

"RlC QUYNEY."1

1599. In the early part of this year Shakespeare
was at work on Henry V. In the Prologue of Act V.
(lines 30-35) he alluded directly to Essex, "the general
of our gracious empress," who left London on March 27
of this year for Ireland to suppress Tyrone's rebellion : —

" Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him ! "

Essex returned on September 28, and was put on his
trial for neglect of duty, and imprisoned. At the time
when Shakespeare wrote the Prologue in question it was

1 The new Post Office Savings Bank has been built on the site
of the Bell Inn in Carter Lane. A tablet has been placed on the
building commemorating Quiney's stay there when he wrote this
letter — " the only letter extant addressed to Shakespeare, and the
original is preserved in the Museum at his birthplace, Stratford-
upon-Avon. This tablet was placed upon the present building
by leave of the Postmaster-General, 1899."

28

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1599

not yet foreseen that the expedition would fail. The
Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's friend, accompanied
Essex.

Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert built up,
from the ruins of the old " Theatre," the " Globe The-
atre " on the Bankside, to which Shakespeare probably
referred in the opening chorus of Henry V. (this wooden
O). Between 1595 and 1599 we have notices of Shake-
speare's Company acting at u the Curtain " and " the The-
atre."

Shares in the receipts of the Globe were leased out, for
twenty-one years, to " those deserving men, Shakespeare,
Hemings, Condell, Philips, and others."

Another application was made this year to the College
of Heralds — this time for a " recognition " of the arms
formerly assigned, and for permission to impale and
quarter the coat of the Ardens of Wilmcote. The object
of the petition was evidently to link the Ardens of Wilm-
cote with the great Arden family of Warwickshire. This
was refused, and the arms of another Arden family — of
Cheshire — were suggested. Shakespeare and his family
ultimately assumed the Shakespeare arms without adding
the Arden coat.

The second quarto — the true version — of " Romeo and
Juliet" " newly corrected, augmented and amended " was
issued this year (re-issued in two editions in 1609).

William Jaggard published the piratical " Passionate
Pilgrim" " by W. Shakespeare" (cp. Preface). "I
know " wrote Heywood in his " Apology for Actors "
(1612) "he was much offended with M. Jaggard that
(altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold
with his name." (In this year, 1612, a ' third edition '
appeared, with Shakespeare's name omitted from the title-
page of some copies. )

1599. A play on the subject of " Troilus and Cres-
sida " was taken in hand by Dekker and Chettle for the
Earl of Nottingham's company.

25

1600 ANNALS OF THE

In November of this year English actors visited Scot-
land, and were received by the King. Their chiefs were
Laurence Fletcher and Martin (the former belonged to
Shakespeare's company in 1603). The visit was repeated
in 1 60 1. There is no evidence that Shakespeare was one
of these travellers to Scotland.

1600. In March of this year Shakespeare recov-
ered in London the sum of £7 from one John Clayton.

On August 4, a memorandum was made in the Sta-
tioners' Register to the effect that " As You Like It,
Henry V., Every Man in His Humour, and Much Ado
About Nothing " were " to be stayed." On the I4th
Every Man in His Humour was duly licensed ; and on
the 23rd, Much Ado About Nothing and 2 Henry IV.,
" with the humours of Sir John Falstaff, written by
Master Shakespeare." Henry V . was printed, imper-
fectly, without license by Thomas Creede. As You Like
It was not issued from the press during the poet's life-
time ; it was probably written during the previous year ;
to the same year Much Ado may safely be assigned. In
the quarto edition, William Kemp's name is prefixed to
some of Dogberry's speeches, and Cowley to some of
Verges' (cp. IV. ii.). In this year or 1599 "the new
map of the world with the Augmentation of the Indies "
was first issued with Hakluyt's Voyages ; Shakespeare
was evidently at work on Twelfth Night about this time,
and referred to the map (III. ii. 83). According to the
entry in the Diary of a barrister, Manningham, this piece
was produced at Middle Temple Hall, Feb. 2, 1601-2 (cp.
Preface).

The same Diary about this time recorded the following
contemporary story : — " Upon a time when Burbage
played Richard III., there was a citizen gone so far in
liking with him, that before she went from the play she
appointed him to come that night unto her by the name
of Richard III. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclu-
sion, went before, was entertained, and at his game ere

30

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1601

Burbage came. The message being brought that Richard
III. was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be
made that William the Conqueror was before Richard
III."

" The Merchant of Venice" and " Midsummer Night's
Dream " were published for the first time this year, two
editions in each case, the former being printed from two
independent copies. To this year belongs, too, the only
quarto edition of " Titus."

" The Second part of Henry IV " was printed this year,
with the reference in the Epilogue to the change of char-
acter from " Oldcastle " to " Falstaff "— " Oldcastle died
a martyr, and this is not the man." About the same time
a poor play on the subject of " Sir John Oldcastle " was
published in two editions, one having Shakespeare's name
on the title-page.

John Weever, in " The Mirror of Martyrs, or the life
and death of Sir John Oldcastle, Knight, Lord Cobman,"
referred to " Julius Caesar" evidently Shakespeare's
play :-<

" The many-headed multitude were drawn
By Brutus' speech, that Caesar was ambitious,
When eloquent Mark Antony had shown
His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious?
Man's memory, with new, forgets the old,
One tale is good, until another's told."

1601. On February 5 a play on " Richard II."
(probably Shakespeare's) was acted at the Globe The-
atre (cp. Preface to Richard II.).

February 8 was the day fixed by Essex for stirring up
a rebellion in London.

On February 17 Sir Gilly Meyricke was examined in
connexion with the Essex Rebellion : — " He sayeth that
upon Saturday last was sennight he dined at Gunter's
in the company of the Lord Monteagle, Sir Christopher
Blunt, Sir Charles Percy, Ellis Jones, and Edward Bush-
ell, and who else he remembereth not and after dinner

1601 ANNALS OF THE

that day and at the motion of Sir Charles Percy and the
rest they all went tog-ether to the Globe over the water
where the Lord Chamberlain's men use to play, and were
there somewhat before the play began, Sir Charles telling
them that the play would be of Harry the IVth. Whether
Sir John Daviss were there or not this examinate cannot
tell, but he said he would be there if he could. He can-
not tell who procured that play to be played at that time
except it were Sir Charles Percy, but as he thinketh it
was Sir Charles Percy. Then he was at the same play
and came in somewhat after it was begun, and the play
was of King Harry the IVth, and of the killing of King
Richard the second played by the L. Chamberlain's play-
ers."

Next day, February i8th, Augustine Phillipps, servant
unto the Lord Chamberlain and one of his players, was
examined : — " He sayeth that on Friday last was sen-
night, on Thursday Sir Charles Percy, Sir Joselyn Percy
and the Lord Monteagle with some three more spake to
some of the players in the presence of this examinate to
have the play of the Deposing and Killing of King Rich-
ard the second to be played the Saturday next promising
to get them XI. shillings more than their ordinary to
play it. Where this examinate and his fellows were de-
termined to have played some other play, holding that
play of King Richard to be so old and so long out of use
as that they should have small or no company at it. But
at their request this examinate and his fellows were con-
tent to play it the Saturday and had their XI. shillings
more than their ordinary for it and so played it accord-
ingly."

On February iQth, Essex, with Southampton, were
brought to trial on a capital charge of treason. Both
were convicted and condemned to death. Essex was exe-
cuted on the 25th ; Southampton's sentence was com-
muted to imprisonment for life (he was set free in 1603
by King James on his accession, cp. Preface to Sonnets).

32

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1601

In April there died one Thomas Whittington of Shot-
tery, who was evidently identical with " my shepherd,"
mentioned by Richard Hathaway in 1581. In a will
drawn up in May, Whittington bequeathed " unto the
poor people of Stratford XLs. that is in the hand of Anne
Shaxspere, wife unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxspere, and is due
debt unto me, being paid to mine executor by the said
Wyllyam Shaxspere or his assignees according to the
true meaning of this my will."

John Shakespeare, the poet's father, died, and was
buried on September 8. The Henley Street property
passed to his eldest son.

Robert Chester's Love's Martyr, containing the Turtle
and Phoenix (cp. Preface} was first published in this year.

In " The Return from Parnassus " — the third play of
the Parnassus trilogy — acted by the students of St.
John's College, Cambridge, probably at their Christmas
festivities this or next year, Burbage and Kemp were in-
troduced, the former referring to his role of Richard
III. :—

" Kempe. Few of the university pen plays well, they
smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer
Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and
Juppiter. Why here 's our fellow Shakespeare puts
them all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben
Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving
the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given
him a purge that made him bewray his credit.

Burbage. He's a shrewd fellow, indeed: I wonder
these scholars stay so long, they appointed to be here
presently that we might try them : oh, here they come.
******

I like your face, and the proportion of your body for
King Richard III. I pray, Mr. Philomusus, let me see
you act a little of it.

Philomusus. ' Now is the winter of our discontent/
&c."

33

1603 ANNALS OF THE

In the same play a character Judicio passed this judge-
ment on " William Shakespeare " :

" Who loves not Adon's love, or Lucrece rape?
His sweeter verse contains heart-throbbing line,
Could but a graver subject him content,
Without love's foolish, lazy languishment." l

The allusion in The Return from Parnassus to Ben
Jonson's " purge " cannot be satisfactorily explained ; it
can only be understood in its connexion with the Stage-
Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters
(cp. Preface to Troilus and Cressida}. About this time,
too, the boy-actors became exceedingly popular (cp.
Hamlet ii. 2). They performed Cynthia's Revels, 1600,
and The Poetaster, 1601.

1602. On May I Shakespeare purchased from
William and John Combe one hundred and seven acres of
arable land, which he added to New Place, also, on Sep-
tember 28, a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane held from
the manor of Rowington. Shakespeare was not in Strat-
ford at the former date : the conveyance was made to his
brother Gilbert.

An imperfect version of The Merry Wives was pub-
lished this year by Thomas Creede.

Under the date July 26, 1602, was entered in the Sta-
tioners' Registers, " The Revenge of Hamlet Prince of
Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamber-
leyne his sen'auntes."

1603. On Feb. 2 Shakespeare's company per-
formed before the Queen at Richmond.

On February 7 a license obtained by James Roberts for
" the booke of Troilus and Cressida as yt is acted by my
Lord Chamberlens men " (probably Shakespeare's play,

1 Other editions, " Who loves Adonis' love, or Lucrece rape,"
" heart-robbing life," and omit " lazy."

34

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1603

perhaps before revision ; but the book was not published
this year).

March 26th. Death of Queen Elizabeth. Henry Chettle
in England's Mourning Garment (published after the
burial, 28th of April) taxed the poets for not penning
elegies : —

" Nor doth the silver-tongued Meliccrt
Drop from his honied muse one sable tear,
To mourn her death that graced his desert,
And to his lays opened her royal ear.
Shepherd, remember our Elisabeth,
And sing her rape, done by that Tarquin, death."

On May 7 King- James arrived in London ; on May igth
a license was granted to Shakespeare, Burbage and other
members of the Lord Chamberlain's Company to perform
stage plays " within their now usual house called the
Globe " and anywhere else in the kingdom. They were
henceforth to be " The King's Servants."

London was visited by the plague this year, the theatres
were closed, and " the King's Players " went on tour,
being forbidden " to present any plays publicly in or near
London by reason of great peril that might grow through
the extraordinary concourse and assembly of people to a
new increase of the plague."

On December 2, the court being at that time at Wilton,
the seat of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, the
company by royal command, performed there, and re-
ceived £30 " by way of his Majesty's reward.'' Subse-
quently they were summoned to appear at Hampton Court
and Whitehall. Nine plays in all were acted at the Christ-
mas and New Year festivities.

John Davies of Hereford in " Microcosmos: the dis-
covery of the Little World, ivith the government thereof "
1603, addressed the players, and more particularly " W.
S. R. B." (i.e. William Shakespeare and Richard Bur-
bage), in the following eulogistic lines:

35

1604 ANNALS OF THE

" Players, I love ye and your Quality,
As ye are men that pass time not abused:
And 1 some I love for 2 painting, poesie,
And say fell Fortune cannot be excused
That hath for better uses you refus'd :
Wit, courage, good shape, good parts, and all good,
As long as all these goods are no worse used.
And though the stage doth stain pure gentle blood,
Yet * generous ye are in mind and mood."

This year were published the the first quarto of Hamlet,
surreptitiously printed (cp. Preface} ; Ben Jonson's Se-
janus, with Shakespeare's name in the list of actors ; and
Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays (cp. Preface
to Tempest).

1604. On February 8th, owing- to the continuance
of the plague, £30 was given to Burbage " for the main-
tenance and relief of himself and company." On March
1 5th King James made his formal entry into London:
nine actors belonging to the King's company walked in
the procession, each being presented with four yards and
a half of scarlet cloth. The nine actors named were
" William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillipps, Laurence
Fletcher, John Hemmings, Richard Burbage, William
Slye, Robert Armyn, Henry Condell, Richard Cowley."
Dekker's description of " The Magnificent Entertain-
ment " with the speeches and songs ran through three or
four issues during the year.

On April Qth a letter was sent by the King to the
Mayor and Justices ordering them to permit playing by
the King's men at the Globe, and the Queen's and Prince's

1 " W. S. R. B." : in the margin.

'" Simonides saith that painting is a dumb Poesy, and Poesy a
speaking painting " : in the margin.

*" Roscius was said for his excellency in his quality, to be only
worthy to come on the stage, and for his honesty to be more
worthy than to come thereon " : in the margin.

36

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1604

men at " their usual houses," viz., the Fortune and the
Curtain, respectively.

In June Shakespeare must have been at Stratford : on
the 25th of the month he lent the sum of two shillings
to one Philip Rogers, who already owed him £i. 195. lod.
for malt supplied between March 2/th and the end of
May. He paid six shillings off the debt. In July Shake-
speare sued him in the local court at Stratford for the
balance of £i. 155. lod.

The following letter from Sir Walter Cope to " The
Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cranborne at the
Court," belongs to this year: —

" SIR, — I have sent and been all this morning hunting for play-
ers, jugglers, and such kind of creatures, but find them hard to
find, wherefore leaving notes for them to seek me, Burbage is
come, and says there is no new play that the Queen hath not seen,
but they have revived an old one, called Love's Labour Lost,
which for wit and mirth he says will please her exceedingly. And
this is appointed to be played to-morrow night at my lord of
Southampton's, unless you send a writ to remove the Corpus cum
causa to your house in Strand. Burbage is my messenger ready
attending your pleasure, — Yours Most Humbly, WALTER COPE."

In August every member of the company was sum-
moned to be in attendance at Somerset House, on the
occasion of the visit of the Spanish Ambassador to Eng-
land, but there is no evidence that their professional serv-
ices were required.

The King's Company acted at court on November I
and 4, December 26 and 28. It is almost certain' that
Othello was acted on November i, and Measure for
Measure on December 26.

Other performances by the company were given on the
following January 7 and 8, February 2 and 3, and on
Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday.

In January of this year " The Children of the Chapel "
became " The Children of Her Majesty's Revels."

In this year the second Quarto of Hamlet was pub-

37

1607 ANNALS OF THE

lished — " Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as
much again as it was, according to the new and perfect
copy."

A tragedy of Gowry twice acted by the King's Players,
" with exceeding concourse of people " gave offence, and
is noticed towards the end of the year: — " Whether the
matter or manner be not well handled, or that it be
thought unfit that princes should be played on the stage
in their lifetime, I hear that some great councillors are
much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall be
forbidden" (Chamberlain to Winwood).

On December 26, Measure for Measure was produced
for the first time at Whitehall.

1605. Augustine Phillipps bequeathed "to my fel-
low, William Shakespeare, a thirty-shillings piece of
gold."

On March 3, at Oxford, was baptised William D'Ave-
nant (afterwards Sir W. D'Avenant), son of John
D'Avenant, landlord of the Crown Inn, Shakespeare act-
ing as godfather.

According to Aubrey : — " Mr. William Shakespeare
was wont to go into Warwickshire once a year, and did
commonly in his journey lie at this house in Oxon.,
where he was exceedingly respected."

In this year Shakespeare bought the unexpired lease of
a moiety of the Stratford tithes.

1606. Macbeth was probably completed this year
(cp. Preface}.

On December 26 King Lear was produced, for the
first time, before the Court at Whitehall.

1607. Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was mar-
ried on June 5, of this year, to John Hall, who subse-
quently became " very famous " as a physician (cp. " Se-
lect Observations on English bodies, or cures both em-
perical and historical, performed upon very eminent per-
sons in desperate diseases, first written in Latin by Mr.

38

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1608

John Hall, physician, living at Stratford-upon-Avon, in
Warwickshire, where he was very famous, as also in the
counties adjacent, as appeares by these Observations,"
etc., London, 1657).

In this year The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watling
Street was published, containing- a direct reference to
Banquo's Ghost — " Instead of a jester we '11 have a ghost
in a white sheet sit at the upper end of the table."

Shakespeare was probably at work on Antony and
Cleopatra.

In this year was published Mirrha, the Mother of
Adonis, or Lustes Prodegies, by William Barksted, con-
taining the following concluding lines : —

" But stay, my Muse, in thine own confines keep,
And wage not war with so dear lov'd a neighbour;
But having sung thy day-song, rest and sleepe;
Preserve thy small fame and his greater favour.
His song was worthy merit ; — Shakespeare, he
Sung the fair blossom, thou, the withered tree ;
Laurel was due to him ; his art and wit
Hath purchased it ; cypress thy brow will fit."

On November 26 King Lear was entered on the " Sta-
tioners' Registers."

1608. Two quartos of King Lear issued from the
press (cp. Preface).

On February 21 Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's only
grand-daughter, was baptised in the church of the Holy
Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon.

On September 9, Shakespeare's mother was buried.

On October 16, of this year, Shakespeare stood god-
father to William, son of Henry Walker, mercer and
alderman, Stratford-on-Avon.

Timon of Athens was probably being prepared for the
stage during this year.

On May 20 Edward Blount entered in the " Stationers'
Registers" "a booke called Anthony and Cleopatra"
(but no quarto edition was issued).

39

1610 ANNALS OF THE

George Wilkins published in this year a novel, avow-
edly based on the acted drama of Pericles, with the fol-
lowing title-page : — " The Painful Adventures of Per-
icles, Prince of Tyre. Being the true History of Pericles,
as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient Poet,
John Gower."

1609. Two editions of the play of Pericles were
issued, " by William Shakespeare " [but evidently only in
part by him, otherwise by George Wilkins : though re-
issued in 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635, the play was not
included in either the first or second folios, cp Preface],

1609. On January 28 Richard Bonian and Henry
Walley obtained a license for " a booke called the history
of Troylus and Cressida," i.e. Shakespeare's play, which
soon after was published as a quarto, (i.) with a title-
page stating that the play was printed " as acted by the
King's Majesties servants at the Globe," and (ii.) with a
title-page omitting this reference, and adding a preface
to the effect that the play was " never staled with the
stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vul-
gar," etc. (cp. Preface).

On May 20 a license for the publication of " Shake-
speare's Sonnets " was granted to the publisher, Thomas
Thorpe; the volume was shortly afterwards published
(cp. Preface).

Coriolanus probably belongs to this year (cp. Preface).

At the end of the year, Shakespeare's Company took
possession of the Blackfriars Theatre after the departure
of the Children of the Chapel.

1610. [possibly an error for 1611]. On April
20 of this year Dr. Simon Forman was present at a per-
formance of Macbeth at the Globe, and recorded the fact,
with observations, in his " Book of Plays."

Dr. Simon Forman saw Cymbeline acted either this
year or the next (the Diary contains reports of Shake-

40

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

1610

spearian representations in 1610-1611, but no date is as-
signed to the Cymbeline entry, cp. Preface).

An interesting pamphlet was published this year by
Sylvester Jourdain, entitled A Discovery of the Ber-
mudas, otherwise called the lie of Devils; by Sir Thomas
Gates, Sir George Sommers, and Captayne Newport, and
divers others. (William Strachey's fuller account of the
matter was printed in 1612, Preface to Tempest}.

John Davies of Hereford's The Scourge of Folly, con-
sisting of satirical Epigrams and others in honour of
many noble and worthy persons of our land, contains the
following verses addressed " To our English Terence,
Mr Will : Shake-speare " :—

" Some say, good Will, which I, in sport, do sing,
Had'st thou not played some kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst been a companion for a king,
And been a King among the meaner sort.
Some others rail, but rail as they think fit,
Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit ;
And honesty thou sow'st, which they do reap,
So to increase their stock which they do keep."

New Place, Stratford, 1702.

There is no authentic record of the appearance of the house as it was
in Shakespeare s time.

41

1613

ANNALS OF THE

In April Shakespeare purchased from the Combes 20
acres of land (cp. 1602).

'1611. On May 15 Dr. Forman witnessed the per-
formance of A Winter's Tale at the Globe Theatre — evi-
dently a new play at the time (cp. Preface}.

Malone stated, on evidence no longer accessible, that
The Tempest was in existence in this year.

Shakespeare's name is found on the margin of a sub-
scription list started at Stratford-on-Avon 'on September
11, " towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parlia-
ment for the better repair of the highway." By this time
he had probably settled at New Place.

1613. On February 4 Shakespeare's third brother,
Richard, was buried in the parish church, Stratford-upon-
Avon. Soon afterwards Shake-
speare was in London, and pur-
chased a house, as an investment,
in Blackfriars. The purchase-
deed, dated March 10, with the
poet's signature, is preserved in
— the Guildhall Library, London.
Next day a mortgage-deed rela-
ting to the purchase was signed :
this is also extant, and is now in
the British Museum.

To this year, July 15, belongs
an entry by the Registrar of the
Ecclesiastical Court of Worcester,
concerning an action for slander
brought by Shakespeare's eldest
daughter, Susanna Hall, against a
person of the name of Lane,
signature of Shakespeare from Robert Whatcott, Shakespeare's

the deed mortgaging his .... . , f .

house in Blackfriars, on mend, was the chief witness on
S n° 'e behalf of the plaintiff, whose char-
42

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1613

acter was vindicated, and the defendant, who did not ap-
pear in court, was excommunicated.

The Tempest, one of a series of nineteen plays, was
performed at the festivities in celebration of the marriage
of Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Frederick.

Besides The Tempest, six more of Shakespeare's plays

were produced on this occasion : — Much Ado, Tempest,

Winter's Tale, Sir John Falstaff (i.e. Merry Wives),

Othello, Julius Cccsar, and Hotspur (probably I Henry

IV.).

In the same list occurs the lost play of cardenno or
card.enna, which on September 9, 1653, was entered on
the " Stationers' Registers " as " by Fletcher and Shake-
speare," but was never published.

On June 29th of this year the Globe Theatre was
burned down during the performance of a play on the
subject of Henry VIII. (cp. Preface}.

" A Sonnet upon the pitiful burning of the Globe play-
house in London " was composed by one who was well
acquainted with the details of the fire: —

" Now sit ye down, Melpomene,
Wrapt in a sea-cole robe,
And tell the doleful tragedy,
That late was played at Globe ;
For no man that can sing and say
Was scared on St. Peter's daye.

Oh sorrow, pitiful sorrow, and yet all this is true.

Out run the knights, out run the lords,

And there was great ado ;

Some lost their hats and some their swords,

E'en out-run Burbidge too ;

The reprobates though drunk on Monday,

Prayed for the fool and Henry Condye.

Oh sorrow, pitiful sorrow, and yet all this is true.

The perriwigs and drum-heads fry,

Like to a butter firkin,

A woful burning did betide

To many a good buff jerkin.

43

1614

ANNALS OF THE

Then will swoll'n eyes, like drunken Flemminges,
Distressed stood old stuttering Hemminges.

Oh sorrow, pitiful sorrow, and yet all this is true."

1614. Ben Jonson in the Introduction to his Bar-
tholomew Fair, first acted in this year, alluded to The
Tempest: — "If there be never a Servant-monster i' the
Fair, who can help it, he says? nor a nest of Antics.

He is loth to make na-
ture afraid in his Plays,
like those that beget
Talcs, Tempests, and
such like Drolleries."

In July of this year
John Combe died, leav-
ing Shakespeare a leg-
acy of £5.

In the autumn an
attempt was made by
William Combe, John
Combe's heir to enclose

piece of glass, W.A.S. (William and Anne tne Common fields
Shakespeare?) supposed to have come from about his estate at Wei-
New Place. 011 >

combe. Shakespeare s

interest as landowner and leaseholder of tithes would
have suffered if the project had been carried out. On
October 18, Replingham, Combe's agent, agreed to give
him full compensation for injury by " any inclosure or
decay of tillage," and accordingly he did not oppose the
inclosure. The Corporation, however, maintained its op-
position.

In November Shakespeare went to London, and his
cousin, Thomas Greene, town clerk of Stratford, visited
him there to discuss the matter on behalf of the Corpora-
tion. On December 23, the Corporation addressed a
formal letter to Shakespeare, supported by a private note
to " my cousin " from T. Greene, asking him to support
their opposition to the inclosure, which if carried out

44

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1616

would cause great inconveniences. The whole project
was ultimately abandoned.

1615. In Thomas Greene's diary there is the fol-
lowing entry : — " Sept. Mr Shakespeare telling J. Greene
that I was not able to beare the encloseing of Welcombe."

1616. Early in this year Francis Collins, a solicitor
of Warwick, prepared the draft of Shakespeare's will ;
the engrossment was evidently to have been signed on
January 25th, but after many interlineations and erasures,
it was not finally signed until March. The signature was
appended to each of the three sheets of the will; these
three signatures, together with the two referred to above,
are the only undisputed autographs of the poet.

Shakespeare's Will— signatures of the testator and witnesses.

In the interval, Judith, the poet's younger daughter,
was married on February loth, at Stratford Church, to

45

1616

ANNALS OF THE

Thomas Quiney, vintner and wine-merchant, son of Rich-
ard Quiney, whose letter to the poet is extant (cp. 1598).

The marriage was somewhat irregular ; and the parties
were summoned a few weeks afterwards to the Ecclesi-
astical Court at Worcester, and fined for getting married
without a license.

It would seem that at the time of revising and signing
the will, the poet was seriously ill. According to a local
tradition, recorded in the Diary of the Rev. John Ward,
vicar of Stratford-on-Avon (1662), " Shakespeare, Dray-
ton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and, it seems,
drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there
contracted," but it is quite clear that already, at the be-
ginning of the year, the poet recognised his health was
failing.

On April 23 (May 3, new style) he died, having com-
pleted his fifty-second year — the death-day in all prob-
ability being on his birthday.

Two days after his death, on the 25th of April, the re-
mains of the poet were interred in the chancel of Strat-
ford Church. On a flat stone over the grave the following
words were subsequently inscribed : —

G OOD FREN.D FOR lESVS SAKE FORBEARE ,

TO DlGlG TIE DVST ENCLOA,SED PEARE:
E T

BLEST BE Y MAN Y 5 PARES TiE,S£ TONES,
AMD CVR£T BEHEYMOVE£ MY BONES-

[A letter written in the year 1694 by William Hall, an
Oxford graduate, to his intimate friend, Edward
Thwaites, the eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar, contains the
following noteworthy passage : —

" I very greedily embrace this occasion of acquainting

46

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1616

you with something- which I found at Stratford-upon-
Avon. That place I came unto on Thursday night, and
the next day went to visit the ashes of the great Shake-
spear, which be interr d in that church. The verses which
in his life-time he ordered to be cut upon his tombstone,
for his monument have others, are these which follow,
' Reader, for Jesus's sake forbear, etc.' The little learn-
ing these verses contain would be a very strong argument
of the want of it in the author, did not they carry some-
thing in them which stands in need of a comment. There
is in this church a place which they call the bone-house,
a repository for all bones they dig up, which are so many
that they would load a great number of 'waggons. The
poet, being willing to preserve his bones unmoved, lays a
curse upon him that moves them, and having to do with
clerks and sextons, for the most part a very ignorant
sort of people, he descends to the meanest of their ca-
pacities, and disrobes himself of that art which none of
his co-temporaries wore in greater perfection. Nor has
the design missed of its effect, for, lest they should not
only draw this curse upon themselves, but also entail it
upon their posterity, they have laid him full seventeen
foot deep, deep enough to secure him."]

On June 22 the will was proved in London by John
Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law and joint-executor (see
Appendix).

Some years after (before 1623) the monument, exe-
cuted by Gerard Johnson, was erected against the north
wall of the chancel ; beneath the famous bust of Shake-
speare is the following inscription : —

Judicio Pylium. genio Socratem. ante Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast ?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast
Within this monument ; Shakespeare with whome
Quick nature dide ; whose name doth deck ys tombe

47

1619 ANNALS OF THE

Far more than cost ; sith all y' he hath writt
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt.

Obiit Ano Do* 1616
Mtatis 53, die 23 Ap.

Shakespeare's widow died on August 6, 1623, and was
buried near the poet inside the chancel; Mrs. Susanna
Hall, the elder daughter, died on July n, 1649, an^ was
buried beside her husband, who pre-deceased her in 1635 5
the inscription on her tombstone (cp. accompanying illus-
tration) is especially noteworthy; Judith, the younger
daughter, died at Stratford on February 9, 1661-2; Eliza-
beth, the poet's only grandchild, was married in 1626 to
Thomas Nash, who died in 1647, an<^ after his death, to
Sir John Barnard of Abingdon, near Northampton ; she
died on the i/th of February, 1669-70, leaving no issue by
either marriage. The three children of Judith Shake-
speare died young: no one of them attained to man's
estate. On the death of Lady Barnard the heir to the
Henley Street property was Thomas Hart, the grandson
of the poet's sister Joan — the last of the Hart family, in
the male line, being John Hart, who died in 1800.

1619. In this year died Richard Burbage, the fa-
mous actor, Shakespeare's life-long friend. An elegy
" on Mr Richard Burbage an excellent both painter and
player" composed soon after his death, recorded his chief
Shakespearian roles : —

" Some skilful limner aid me; if not so,
Some sad tragedian help to express my woe ;
But, oh ! he 's gone, that could the best both limn
And act my grief; and it is only him
That I invoke this strange assistance to it,
And on the point intreat himself to do it;
For none but Tully Tully's praise can tell,
And as he could no man could do so well
This part of sorrow for him, nor here show
So truly to the life this map of woe,

48

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

Inscriptions

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Hi

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49

1623 ANNALS OF THE

That grief's true picture which his loss hath bred.

He 's gone, and with him what a world is dead,

Which he revived ; to be revived so

No more : young Hamlet, old Hieronimo,

King Lear, the grieved Moor, and more beside

That lived in him, have now for ever died.

Oft have I seen him leap into the grave,

Suiting the person (that he seemed to have)

Of a sad lover with so true an eye,

That then I would have sworn he meant to die.

Oft have I seen him play this part in jest

So lively, that spectators and the rest

Of his sad crew, whilst he but seemed to bleed,

Amazed thought even that he died indeed.

And did not knowledge check me, I should swear

Even yet it is a false report I hear,

And think that he that did so truly feign

Is still but dead in jest, to live again ;

But now he acts this part, not plays, 'tis known ;

Others he played, but acted hath his own."

In this year were published a second edition of Merry
Wives and a fourth edition of Pericles.

1622. Othello first printed, as a quarto, and new
editions (the sixth) of Richard III. and i Henry IV.

1623. In this year, under the editorship of Shake-
speare's fellow-actors and friends, John Heming and
Henry Condell, appeared The First Folio, containing
twenty hitherto unprinted plays: — The Tempest, The
Two Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, Taming of the
Shrew, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All's Well,
Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, King John, I, 2, 3 Henry
VI., Henry VII I., Coriolanus, Tinion, Julius Caesar, Mac-
beth, Antony and Cleopatra and Cymbclinc.

The play of Troilus and Cressida, though included in
the First Folio, was omitted in the table of contents (cp.
Preface to Troilus and Cressida}.

The editors evidently purposely omitted Pericles (first

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1623

included, together with six pseudo-Shakespeare plays, in
the Third Folio of 1663).

[The Two Noble Kinsmen was first published in 1634,
as being- " by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr
John Fletcher and Mr William Shakespeare, gentle-
men."]

The prefatory matter of the First Folio will be found in
Vol. I. of the present edition ; it should be noted that Ben
Jonson in his lines " I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or
Spenser, or Lord Beaumont lie," etc., directly refers to
William Basse's elegy on Shakespeare, then circulating
in manuscript (first printed in the first edition of Donne's
collected poems, 1633) : —

ON MR WM. SHAKESPEARE.
He died in April 1616.

" Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your three-fold, four-fold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until Doomsday, for hardly will a fift,
Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slain,
For whom your curtains will be drawn again.
If your precedency in death doth bar
A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
Under this carved marble of thine own,
Sleep, rare Tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone ;
Thy unmolested peace, unshared cave,
Possess as Lord, not Tenant, of thy grave,

That unto us and others it may be

Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

(From Lansdowne MS. temp. James I.,
modernised.)

Among the commendatory verses prefixed to the First
Folio are some lines by Leonard Digges : another poem by
the same author is found prefixed to the edition of Shake-
speare's poems published in 1640, but as the author died

1623 ANNALS OF THE

in 1635, it is quite possible that the poem then first
printed was originally intended for the 1623 Folio, and
this is borne out by the general tone of the lines : —

" Poets are born not made, — when I would prove
This truth, the glad remembrance I must love
Of never-dying Shakespeare, who alone
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a poet none would doubt,
That heard th' applause of what he sees set out
Imprinted ; where thou hast — I will not say,
Reader, his Works for to contrive a play
To him 'twas none, — the pattern of all wit,
Art without Art unparalleled as yet.
Next Nature only helped him, for look thorough
This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borrow
One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate,
Nor once from vulgar languages translate,
Nor plagiary-like from others glean ;
Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene
To piece his Acts with ; all that he doth write,
Is pure his own ; plot, language exquisite.
But oh ! 'what praise more powerful can we give
The dead, than that by him the King's Men live,
His players, which should they but have shared the fate,
All else expired within the short term's date,
How could the Globe have prospered, since, through want
Of change, the plays and poems had grown scant ?
But, happy verse thou shalt be sung and heard,
When hungry quills shall be such honour barred. ,
Then vanish, upstart writers to each stage,
You needy poetasters of this age ;
Where Shakespeare lived or spake, vermin, forbear,
Lest with your froth you spot them, come not near ;
But if you needs must write, if poverty
So pinch, that otherwise you starve and die,
On God's name may the Bull or Cockpit have
Your lame blank verse, to keep you from the grave :
Or let new Fortune's younger brethren see,
What they can pick from your lean industry.
I do not wonder when you offer at
Blackfriars, that you suffer : 'tis the fate

52

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1623

Of richer veins, prime judgments that have fared

The worse, with this deceased man compared.

So have I seen, when Caesar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were,

Brutus and Cassius, oh how the audience

Were ravished ! with what wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious, though well laboured, Catiline ;

Sejanus too was irksome, they prized more

Honest lago or the jealous Moor.

And though the Fox and subtle Alchemist,

Long intermitted, could not quite be missed,

Though these have shamed all the ancients, and might raise

Their author's merit with a crown of bays,

Yet these sometimes, even at .a friend's desire

Acted, have scarce defrayed the seacoal fire

And doorkeepers : when, let but Falstaff come,

Hal, Poins, the rest, — you scarce shall have a room,

All is so pestered : let but Beatrice

And Benedick be seen, lo, in a trice

The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full

To hear Malvolio, that cross-gartered gull.

Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book,

Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look,

Like old coined gold, whose lines in every page

Shall pass true current to succeeding age.

But why do I dead Shakespeare's praise recite,

Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write;

For me 'tis needless, since an host of men

Will pay, to clap his praise, to free my pen."

The Second Folio, reprinted from the First, was printed
in 1632; it contained, by way of new prefatory matter,
sundry verses by various writers, a fine eulogy, signed I.
M. S., and, as a golden link between the poets, John
Milton's anonymous Epitaph on the Admirable Dra-
maticke Poet, W. Shakespeare, written in 1630, prac-
tically the young poet's first appearance in print : —

" What need my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,

53

1623

ANNALS OF SHAKESPEARE

Or that his hallow'd Reliques should be hid

Under a stary-pointed Pyramid?

Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,

What needst thou such dull witness of thy Name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hath built thyself a lasting monument

For whil'st, to the shame of slow-endeavouring Art,

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued Book

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took

Then thou, our fancy of herself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving,

And so, sepiilcher'd in such pomp dost lie

That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die."

Shakespeare's Birth-place, 1899.

54

APPENDIX.

I.

License to FLETCHER, SHAKESPEARE, and others to play
comedies, &c., 17 May, 1603 .

By the King. — Right trusty and wel beloved Coun-
sellour, we greete you well, and will and commaund you
that, under our Privie Scale in your custody for the time
being, you cause our lettres to be directed to the Keeper of
our Create Scale of England, comaunding him that under
our said Create Scale he cause our lettres to be made
patentes in forme following. — James, by the grace of
God King of England, Scotland, Fraunce and Irland, De-
fender of the Faith, &c., to all justices, maiors, sheriffes,
constables, hedboroughes, and other our officers and
loving subjectes greeting. Know ye that we, of our
speciall grace, certaine knowledge and meere motion,
have licenced and authorized, and by these presentes doo
licence and authorize, these our servantes, Lawrence
Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Au-
gustine Phillippes, John Henninges8, Henry Condell, Wil-
liam Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowlye and the rest
of their associates, freely to use and exercise the arte
and facultie of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, en-
terludes, moralles, pastoralles, stage-plaies, and such
other, like as they have already studied or heerafter shall
use or studie, as well for the recreation of our loving
subjectes as for our solace and pleasure when we shall
thinke good to see them, during our pleasure. And the
said comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, morall8,
pastoralles, stage-plaies, and such like, to shew and exer-
cise publiquely to their best commoditie, when the infec-

55

Malone's Memoranda APPENDIX

tion of the plague shall decrease, as well within their now
usuall howse called the Globe within our countie of Sur-
rey, as also within any towne-halles or mout-halles, or
other convenient places within the liberties and freedome
of any other cittie, universitie, towne or borough whatso-
ever within our said realmes and dominions, willing and
comaunding you and every of you, as you tender our
pleasure, not only to permit and suffer them heerin with-
out any your lettes, hinderances, or molestacions during
our said pleasure, but also to be ayding and assisting to
them, yf any wrong be to them offered, and to allowe
them such former courtesies as hath bene given to men
of their place and qualitie. And also, what further favour
you shall shew to these our servantes for our sake we shall
take kindely at your handes. In witness whereof &c.
And these our lettres shall be your sufficient warrant and
discharge in this behalf. Given under our Signet at our
Manner of Greenwiche the seavententh day of May in the
first yeere of our raigne of England, Fraunce and Irland,
and of Scotland the six and thirtieth. — Ex : per Lake. —
To our right trusty and wel beloved Counsellour, the
Lord Cecill of Esingdon, Keeper of our Privie Scale for
the time being.

II.

MALONE'S MEMORANDA (in the Bodleian Library) from
the accounts at the Revels at Court for 1604 and 1605 ;
the original source of the information (formerly at the
Audit Office in Somerset House} cannot nozv be found.
Cunningham's list, printed in 1842, was probably based
on Malone's document: —

1604 & 1605 — Edd. Tylney — Sunday after Hallowmas
— Merry Wyves of Windsor perfd by the K's players —
Hallamas — in the Banquetting ho8, at Whitehall the Moor
of Venis — perfd by the K's players — on S* Stephens Night
— Mesure for Mesur by Shaxberd — perfd. by the K's

56

APPENDIX Deed to Henry Walker

players — On Innocents night Errors by Shaxberd perfd.
by the K's players — On Sunday following " How to Learn
of a Woman to wooe by Hewood, perfd. by the Q's play-
ers— On New Years Night — All fools by G. Chapman
perfd. by the Boyes of the Chapel — bet New yrs. day and
twelfth day — Loves Labour lost perfd. by the K's p : re — •
On the 7th Jan. K. Hen. the fifth perfd. by the K.'s Prs—
On 8th Jan — Every one out of his humour — On Candle-
mas night Every one in his humour — On Shrove Sunday
the Marchant of Venis by Shaxberd — perfd. by the K's
Prs — the same repeated on Shrove tuesd. by the K's
Commd.

III.

The deed from SHAKESPEARE and Trustees to HENRY
WALKER, by which the Blackfriars Estate was mortgaged
to the latter, nth March, 1612-13 (in the British Mu-
seum).

This Indenture made the eleaventh day of March, in
the yeares of the reigne of our Sovereigne Lord James,
by the grace of God, king of England, Scotland, Fraunce
and Ireland, defender of the Faith, &c., that is to saie, of
England, Fraunce and Ireland the tenth, and of Scotland
the six and fortith; betweene William Shakespeare, of
Stratford-upon-Avon in the countie of Warwick, gentle-
man, William Johnson, citizein and vintener of London,
John Jackson and John Hemmyng, of London, gentle-
men, of th'one partie, and Henry Walker, citizein and
minstrell of London, of th'other partie : Witnesseth that
the said William Shakespeare, William Johnson, John
Jackson and John Hemmyng, have dimised, graunted and
to ferme letten, and by theis presentes doe dimise, graunt
and to ferme lett unto the said Henry Walker all that
dwelling-house or tenement, with th'appurtenaunces, situ-
ate and being within the precinct, circuit and compasse
of the late Black Fryers, London, sometymes in the tenure
of James Gardyner, esquiour, and since that in the tenure

57

Deed to Henry Walker APPENDIX

of John Fortescue, gent., and now or. late being in the
tenure or occupacion of one William Ireland, or of his
assignee or assignes, abutting upon a streete leading
downe to Puddle Wharffe on the east part, right against
the Kinges Majesties Wardrobe; part of which said
tenement is erected over a greate gate leading to a pacitall
mesuage which sometyme was in the tenure of William
Blackwell, esquiour, deceased, and since that in the tenure
or occupacion of the right honourable Henry, now Earle
of Northumberland ; and also all that plott of ground, on
the west side of the same tenement, which was lately
inclosed with boordes on two sides thereof by Anne
Bacon, widow, soe farre and in such sorte as the same
was inclosed by the said Anne Bacon, and not otherwise,
and being on the third side inclosed with an olde brick
wall; which said plott of ground was sometyme parcell
and taken out of a great voyde peece of ground lately used
for a garden ; and also the soyle whereuppon the said
tenement standeth, and also the said brick wall and
boordes which doe inclose the said plott of ground, with
free entrie, accesse, ingresse, egresse and regresse, in,
by and through the said great gate and yarde there,
unto the usuall dore of the said tenement ; and also all
and singuler cellours, sollers, romes, lightes, easia-
mentes, profittes, commodities and appurtenaunces what-
soever to the said dwelling-house or tenement belong-
ing, or in any wise apperteyning : to have and to
holde the said dwelling-house or tenement, cellers, sollers,
romes, plott of ground, and all and singuler other the
premisses above by theis presentes mencioned to bee di-
mised, and every part and parcell thereof, with th'appur-
tenaunces, unto the said Henrye Walker, his executours,
administratours and assignes, from the feast of th'an-
nunciacion of the blessed Virgin Marye next comming
after the date hereof, unto th'ende and terme of one hun-
dred yeares from thence next ensuing, and fullie to bee
compleat and ended, without ympeachment of or for any
manner of waste; yeelding and paying therefore yearlie

58

APPENDIX Deed to Henry Walker

during- the said terme unto the said William Shakespeare,
William Johnson, John Jackson and John Hemmyng,
their heires and assignes, a peppercorne at the feast of
Easter yearlie, yf the same bee lawfullie demaunded, and
noe more; provided alwayes that if the said William
Shakespeare, his heires, executours, administratours or as-
signes, or any of them, doe well and trulie paie or cause
to bee paid to the said Henry Walker, his executours, ad-
ministratours or assignes, the some of threescore poundes
of lawfull money of England in and upon the nyne and
tvventith day of September next comming after the date
hereof, at or in the nowe dwelling-house of the said Henry
Walker, situate and being in the parish of Saint Martyn
neere Ludgate, of London, at one entier payment with-
out delaie, that then and from thensforth this presente
lease, dimise and graunt, and all and every matter and
thing herein conteyned, other then this provisoe, shall
cease, determyne, and bee utterlie voyde, frustrate, and of
none effect, as though the same had never beene had ne
made, theis presentes, or any thing therein conteyned to
the contrary thereof, in any wise notwithstanding. And
the said William Shakespeare, for himselfe, his heires,
executours and administratours, and for every of them,
doth covenaunt, promisse and graunt to and with the
said Henry Walker, his executours, administratours and
assignes and every of them, by theis presentes, that
hee, the said William Shakespeare, his heires, exec-
utours, administratours or assignes, shall and will cleer-
lie acquite, exonerate and discharge, or from tyme to
tyme, and at all tymes hereafter, well and sufficientlie
save and keep harmles the said Henry Walker, his execu-r
tours, administratours and assignes, and every of them,
and the said premises by theis presentes dimised, and
every parcell thereof, with th'appurtenaunces, of and
from all and al manner of former and other bargaynes,
sales, guiftes, grauntes, leases, joyntures, dowers, intailes,
statutes, recognizaunces, judgmentes, execucions, and of
and from all and every other charges, titles, trobles and in-

59

The Will APPENDIX

cumbraunces whatsoever by the said William Shake-
speare, William Johnson, John Jackson and John Hem-
myng, or any of them, or by their or any of their meanes,
had, made, committed or donne, before th'ensealing and
delivery of theis presentes, or hereafter before the said
nyne and twentith day of September next comming after
the date hereof, to bee had, made,' committed or donne,
except the rentes and services to the cheefe lord or lordes
of the fee or fees of the premisses, for or in respect
of his or their seigniorie or seigniories onlie, to bee due
and donne. In witnesse whereof the said parties to
theis indentures interchaungablie have sett their scales.
Yeoven the day and yeares first above written. 1612 —
Win. Shakspere. — Wm. Johnson. — Jo: Jackson. — Sealed
and delivered by the said William Shakespeare, William
Johnson, and John Jackson, in the presence of Will : At-
kinson ; Ed. Query ; Robert Andrewes, scr. ; Henry Law-
rence, servant to the same scr.

IV.

SHAKESPEARE'S WILL (preserved at Somerset House).
(The Italics represent interlineations.)

Vicesimo quinto die Januarii Martii, anno regni domini
nostri Jacobi, nunc regis Anglic, &c. decimo quarto, et
Scotie xlix° annoque Domini 1616.

T. Wmi. Shackspeare. — In the name of God, amen ! I
William Shackspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon in the
countie of Warr. gent., in perfect health and memorie,
God be praysed, doe make and ordayne this my last will
and testament in manner and forme followeing, that ys to
saye, First, I comend my soule into the handes of God my
Creator, hoping and assuredlie beleeving, through thonelie
merittes of Jesus Christe, my Saviour, to me made par-
taker of lyfe everlastinge, and my bodye to the earth
whereof yt ys made. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto

60

APPENDIX The Will

my sonne in L daughter Judyth one hundred and fyftie
poundes of lawfull English money, to be paied unto her in
manner and forme followeing, that ys to saye, one hun-
dred poundes in discharge of her marriage porcwn within
one yeare after my deceas, with consideracion after the
rate of twoe shillinges in the pound for soe long tyme as
the same shal be unpaied unto her after my deceas, and
the fyftie poundes residewe thereof upon her surrendring
of, or gyving of such sufficient securitie as the overseers
of this my will shall like of to surrender or graunte, all
her estate and right that shall discend or come unto her
after my deceas, or that shee nowe hath, of, in or to, one
copiehold tenemente with thappurtenaunces lyeing and
being in Stratford-upon-Avon aforesaied in the saied
countie of Warr., being parcell or holden of the mannour
of Rowington, unto my daughter Susanna Hall and her
heires for ever. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto my saied
daughter Judith one hundred and fyftie poundes more,
if shee or anie issue of her bodie be lyvinge att thend of
three yeares next ensueing the daie of the date of this my
will, during which tyme my executours tos paie her con-
sideracion from my deceas according to the rate afore-
saied ; and if she dye within the saied terme without issue
of her bodye, then my will ys, and I doe gyve and be-
queath one hundred poundes thereof to my neece Eliza-
beth Hall, and the fiftie poundes to be sett fourth by my
executours during the lief of my sister Johane Harte,
and the use and proffitt thereof cominge shal be payed
to my saied sister Jone, and after her deceas the saied I.11-
shall remaine amongst the children of my saied sister
equallie to be devided amongst them ; but if my saied
daughter Judith be lyving att the end of the saied three
yeares, or anie yssue of her bodye, then my will ys and soe
I devise and bequeath the saied hundred and fyftie poundes
to be sett out by my executours and overseers for the best
benefitt of her and her issue, and the stock not to be paied
unto her soe long as she shalbe marryed and covert baron
by my executours and overseers ; but my will ys that she

61

The Will APPENDIX

shall have the consideracion yearelie paied unto her during
her lief, and, after her deceas, the saied stock and consid-
eracion to bee paied to her children, if she have anie, and
if not, to her executours or assignes, she lyving the saied
terme after my deceas, Provided that if such husbond as
she shall att thend of the saied three yeares be marryed
unto, or att anie after8, doe sufficientle8 assure unto her
and thissue of her bodie landes awnswereable to the por-
cion by this my will gyven unto her, and to be adjudeged so
by my executours and overseers, then my will ys that the
saied cl.11- shalbe paied to such husbond as shall make
such assurance, to his owne use. Item, I gyve and be-
queath unto my saied sister Jone xx.11- and all my wearing
apparrell, to be paied and delivered within one yeare after
my deceas; and I doe will and devise unto her the house
with thappurtenaunces in Stratford, wherein she dwell-
eth, for her naturall lief, under the yearelie rent of xij.d-
Item, I gyve and bequeath unto her three sonns, William

Harte, Hart, and Michaell Harte, fyve

poundes a peece, to be payed within one yeare after my
deceas to be sett out for her within one yeare after my
deceas by my executours, with thadvise and direccions of
my overseers, for her best proffitt untill her marriage, and
then the same with the increase thereof to be paied unto
her. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto her the saied Eliz-
abeth Hall all my plate except my brod silver and gilt
bole, that I now have att the date of this my will. Item,
I gyve and bequeath unto the poore of Stratford afore-
saied tenn poundes ; to Mr. Thomas Combe my sword ; to
Thomas Russell esquier fyve poundes, and to Frauncis
Collins of the borough of Warr. in the countie of Warn,
gent., thirteene poundes, sixe shillinges, and eight pence,
to be paied within one yeare after mv deceas. Item, I
gyve and bequeath to Mr. Richard Tyler thelder Hamlet
Sadler xxvj.8- viij.d- to buy him a ringe; to William Ray-
noldes, gent., .v.rvj.6- viij.A- to buy him a ring ; to my god-
son William Walker xx.8- in gold ; to Anthonye Nashe
gent, xxvj.8- viij.d-, and to Mr. John Nashe xxvj.8- viija- in

62

APPENDIX The Will

gold, and to my fcllowes, John Hemynges, Richard Bur-
bage and Henry Cnndell, xxi'j.*- z'iij.d- a peece buy them
ringes. Item, I gyve, will, bequeath and devise, unto my
daughter Susanna Hall, for better enabling of her to per-
forme this my will, and tozvardes the performans thereof, all
that capitall messuage or ten emente, with thappurtenaunces,
in Stratford aforesaicd, called the Newe Place, wherein I
nowe dwell, and twoe messuages or tenementes with
thappurtenaunces, scituat lyeing and being in Henley
streete within the borough of Stratford aforesaied ; and
all my barnes, stables, orchardes, gardens, landes, tene-
mentes and hereclitamentes whatsoever, scituat, lieing and
being, or to be had, receyved, perceyved, or taken, within
the townes, hamlettes, villages, fieldes and groundes of
Stratford-upon-Avon, Oldstratford, Bushopton, and Wei-
combe, or in anie of them in the saied countie of Warr.
And alsoe all that messuage or tenemente with thappur-
tenaunces wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, scituat
lyeing and being in the Blackfriers in London nere the
Wardrobe ; and all other my landes, tenementes, and here-
ditamentes whatsoever, To have and to hold all and sin-
guler the saied premisses with their appurtenaunces unto
the saied Susanna Hall for and during the terme of her
naturall lief, and after her deceas, to the first sonne of her
bodie lawfullie yssueing, and to the heires males of the
boclie of the saied first sonne lawfullie yssueinge, and for
defalt of such issue, to the second sonne of her bodie law-
fullie issueinge, and of to the heires males of the bodie of
the saied second sonne lawfullie yssueinge, and for defalt
of such heires, to the third sonne of the bodie of the saied
Susanna lawfullie yssueing, and of the heires males of
the bodie of the saied third sonne lawfullie yssueing,
and for defalt of such issue, the same soe to be and re-
maine to the fourth sonne, fyfth, sixte, and seaventh
sonnes of her bodie lawfullie issueing one after another,
and to the heires males of the bodies of the saied fourth,
fifth, sixte, and seaventh sonnes lawfullie yssueing, in
such manner as yt ys before lymitted to be and remaine

'

The Will APPENDIX

to the first, second and third sonns of her bodie, and to
their heires males, and for defalt of such issue, the saied
premisses to be and remaine to my sayed neece Hall, and
the heires males of her bodie lawfullie yssueing, and for
defalt of such issue, to my daughter Judith, and the heires
males of her bodie lawfullie issueinge, and for defalt of
such issue, to the right heires of me the saied William
Shackspeare for ever. Item, I gyve unto my iviefe my
second best bed -with the furniture. Item, I gyve and
bequeath to my saied daughter Judith my broad silver gilt
bole. All the rest of my goodes, chattels, leases, plate,
jewels, and household stuff e whatsoever, after my dettes
and legasies paied, and my funerall expences discharged,
I gyve, devise, and bequeath to my sonne-in-lawe, John
Hall, gent., and my daughter Susanna, his wief, whom I
ordaine and make executours of this my last will and
testament. And I doe intreat and appoint the saied
Thomas Russell, esquier, and Frauncis Collins, gent., to
be overseers hereof, and doe revoke all former wills, and
publishe this to be my last will and testament. In wit-
nes whereof I have hereunto put my scale hand the^daie
and yeare first above written. — By me William Shak-
speare.

Witnes to the publishing hereof, — Fra : Collyns ; Julius
Shawe ; John Robinson ; Hamnet Sadler ; Robert Whatt-
cott.

64

APPENDIX

V.

"DE SHAKESPEARE NOSTRATI " (Of Shakespeare, our
fellow-countryman), from Ben Jonson's " Timber, or Dis-
coveries, being Observations on Men and Manners,"
printed 1641 ; but the entry was probably ^vritten about
1620 (cp. Ben Jonson's " Timber" in the " Temple Clas-
sics " ; and Notes to " Julius C&sar ").

1 remember the players have often mentioned it as an
honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever
he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath
been, " Would he had blotted a thousand," which they
thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity
this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance
to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted ; and
to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do
honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any.
He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature ;
had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle ex-
pressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that some-
times it was necessary he should be stopped. " Sumami-
nandus erat" 1 as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was
in his own power ; would the rule of it had been so, too !
Many times he fell into those things, could not escape
laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one
speaking to him, " Csesar, thou dost me wrong." He re-
plied, " Caesar did never wrong but with just cause " ;
and such like, which were ridiculous.1 But he redeemed
his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him
to be praised than to be pardoned.

1 " He ought to have been clogged " ; cp. SENECA, Exc. Controv.
iv. Proocm. 7.

2 Cp. Julius Ccrsar, iii. i. 47. where the First Folio reads :
Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause Will he be
satisfied. (Caesar is the speaker.)

65

Shakespeare — the Man.

BY WALTER BAGEHOT.

THE greatest of English poets, it is often said, is but a
name. " No letter of his writing, no record of his
conversation, no character of him drawn with any fulness
by a contemporary," have been extracted by antiquaries
from the piles of rubbish which they have sifted. Yet of
no person is there a clearer picture in the popular fancy.
You seem to have known Shakespeare — to have seen
Shakespeare — to have been friends with Shakespeare.
We would attempt a slight delineation of the popular idea
which has been formed, not from loose tradition or remote
research, not from what some one says some one else said
that the poet said, but from data which are at least un-
doubted, from the sure testimony of his certain works.

Some extreme sceptics, we know, doubt whether it is
possible to deduce anything as to an author's character
from his works. Yet surely people do not keep a tame
steam-engine to write their books ; and if those books
were really written by a man, he must have been a man
who could write them ; he must have had the thoughts
which they express, have acquired the knowledge they
contain, have possessed the style in which we read them.
The difficulty is a defect of the critics. A person who
knows nothing of an author he has read, will not know
much of an author whom he has seen.

First of all, it may be said that Shakespeare's works
could only be produced by a first-rate imagination work-
ing on a first-rate experience. It is often difficult to
make out whether the author of a poetic creation is draw-
ing from fancy, or drawing from experience ; but for art

SHAKESPEARE,

on a certain scale, the two must concur. Out of nothing-,
nothing can be created. Some plastic power is require.d,
however great may be the material. And when such
works as Hamlet and Othello, still more, when both
they and others not unequal, have been created by a single
mind, it may be fairly said, that not only a great imagina-
tion but a full conversancy with the world wras necessary
to their production. The whole powers of man under the
most favourable circumstances, are not too great for such
an effort. We may assume that Shakespeare had a great
experience.

To a great experience one thing is essential, an expe-
riencing nature. It is not enough to have opportunity, it
is essential to feel it. Some occasions come to all men ;
but to many they are of little use, and to some they are
none. What, for example, has experience done for the
distinguished Frenchman*, the name of whose essay is pre-
fixed to this paper? M. Guizot is the same man that he
was in 1820, or, we believe, as he was in 1814. Take up
one of his lectures, published before he was a practical
statesman ; you will be struck with the width of view, the
amplitude and the solidity of the reflections ; you will be
amazed that a mere literary teacher could produce any-
thing so wise ; but take up afterwards an essay published
since his fall — and you will be amazed to find no more.
Napoleon the First is come and gone — the Bourbons of
the old regime have come and gone — the Bourbons of the
new regime have had their turn. M. Guizot has been first
minister of a citizen king ; he has led a great party ; he
has pronounced many a great discours that was well re-
ceived by the second elective assembly in the world. But
there is no trace of this in his writings. No one would
guess from them that their author had ever left the pro-
fessor's chair. It is the same, we are told, with smail
matters : when M. Guizot walks the street, he seems to
see nothing ; the head is thrown back, the eye fixed, and
the mouth working. His mind is no doubt at work, but

* M. Guizot.

THE MAN

it is not stirred by what is external. Perhaps it is the
internal activity of mind that overmasters the perceptive
power. Anyhow there might have been an emente in the
street and he would not have known it ; there have been
revolutions in his life, and he is scarcely the wiser.
Among the most frivolous and fickle of civilised nations
he is alone. They pass from the game of war to the game
of peace, from the game of science to the game of art,
from the game of liberty to the game of slavery, from the
game of slavery to the game of license ; he stands like 3.
schoolmaster in the playground, without sport and with-
out pleasure, firm and sullen, slow and awful.

A man of this sort is a curious mental phenomenon.
He appears to get early — perhaps to be born with — a
kind of dry schedule or catalogue of the universe ; he has
a ledger in his head, and has a title to which he can refer
any transaction ; nothing puzzles him, nothing comes
amiss to him, but he is not in the least the wiser for
anything. Like the book-keeper, he has his heads of ac-
count, and he knows them, but he is no wiser for the
particular items. After a busy day, and after a slow day,
after a few entries, and after many, his knowledge is
exactly the same : take his opinion of Baron Rothschild,
he will say : " Yes, he keeps an account with us " ; of
Humphrey Brown : " Yes, we have that account, too."
Just so with the class of minds which we are speaking of,
and in greater matters. Very early in life they come to
a certain and considerable acquaintance with the world ;
they learn very quickly all they can learn, and naturally
they never, in any way, learn any more. Mr. Pitt is, in this
country, the type of the character. Mr. Alison, in a well-
known passage, makes it a matter of wonder that he was
fit to be a Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three,
and it is a great wonder. But it is to be remembered that
he was no more fit at forty-three. As somebody said, he
did not grow, he was cast. Experience taught him noth-
ing, and he did not believe that he had anything to learn.
The habit of mind in smaller degrees is not very rare, and

SHAKESPEARE,

might be illustrated without end. Hazlitt tells a story of
West, the painter, that is in point : When some one asked
him if he had ever been to Greece, he answered: " No;
I have read a descriptive catalogue of the principal objects
in that country, and I believe I am as well conversant with
them as if I had visited it." No doubt he was just as
well conversant, and so would be any doctrinaire.

But Shakespeare was not a man of this sort. If he
walked down a street, he knew what was in that street.
His mind did not form in early life a classified list of all
the objects in the universe, and learn no more about the
universe ever after. From a certain fine sensibility of
nature, it is plain that he took a keen interest not only in
the general and coarse outlines of objects, but in their
minutest particulars and gentlest gradations. You may
open Shakespeare and find the clearest proofs of this ;
take the following : —

" When last the young Orlando parted from you
He left a promise to return again
Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel ! he threw his eye aside.
And mark what object did present itself:
Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,
A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back : about his neck
A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd
The opening of his mouth ; but suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush : under which bush's shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
When that the sleeping man should stir ; for 'tis
The royal disposition of that beast
To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead :
This seen," etc., etc.*

* As You Like It, IV. iii.

THE MAN

Or the more celebrated description of the hunt : —

" And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles :
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

" Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell ;

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer :
Danger deviseth shifts ; wit waits on fear :

" For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out ;

Then do they spend their mouths : Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.

" By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still :
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

" Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way ;
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never relieved by any." *

It is absurd, by the way, to say we know nothing about
the man who wrote that ; we know that he had been after
a hare. It is idle to allege that mere imagination would
tell him that a hare is apt to run among a flock of sheep,

* Venus and Adonis.

SHAKESPEARE.

or that its so doing disconcerts the scent of hounds. But
no single citation really represents the power of the argu-
ment. Set descriptions may be manufactured to order,
and it does not follow that even the most accurate or suc-
cessful of them was really the result of a thorough and
habitual knowledge of the object. A man who knows
little of Nature may write one excellent delineation, as a
poor man may have one bright guinea. Real opulence
consists in having many. What truly indicates excellent
knowledge, is the habit of constant, sudden, and almost
unconscious allusion, which implies familiarity, for it can
arise from that alone, — and this very species of incidental,
casual, and perpetual reference to " the mighty world of
eye and ear,"* is the particular characteristic of Shake-
speare.

In this respect Shakespeare had the advantage of one
whom, in many points, he much resembled — Sir Walter
Scott. For a great poet, the organization of the latter
was very blunt ; he had no sense of smell, little sense of
taste, almost no ear for music (he knew a few, perhaps
three, Scotch tunes, which he avowed that he had learnt
in sixty years, by hard labour and mental association),
and not much turn for the minutiae of Nature in any way.
The effect of this may be seen in some of the best descrip-
tive passages of his poetry, and we will not deny that it
does (although proceeding from a sensuous defect), in a
certain degree, add to their popularity. He deals with
the main outlines and great points of Nature, never at-
tends to any others, and in this respect he suits the com-
prehension and knowledge of many who know only those
essential and considerable outlines. Young people, espe-
cially, who like big things, are taken with Scott, and
bored by Wordsworth, who knew too much. And after
all, the two poets are in proper harmony, each with his
own scenery. Of all beautiful scenery the Scotch is the
roughest and barest, as the English is the most complex
and cultivated. What a difference is there between the

* Wordsworth : Tintern Abbey.

6

THE MAN

minute and finished delicacy of Rydal Water and the
rough simplicity of Loch Katrine! It is the beauty of
civilisation beside the beauty of barbarism. Scott has
himself pointed out the effect of this on arts and artists.

" Or see yon weather-beaten hind.
Whose sluggish herds before him wind,
Whose tatter'd plaid and rugged cheek
His northern clime and kindred speak ;
Through England's laughing meads he goes,
And England's wealth around him flows ;
Ask, if it would content him well,
At ease in those gay plains to dwell,
Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen,
And spires and forests intervene,
And the neat cottage peeps between ?
No ! not for these would he exchange
His dark Lochaber's boundless range :
Not for fair Devon's meads forsake
Bennevis grey, and Garry's lake.

" Thus while I ape the measure wild
Of tales that charm'd me yet a child,
Rude though they be, still with the chime,
Return the thoughts of early time ;
And feelings, roused in life's first day,
Glow in the line, and prompt the lay.
Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,
Which charm'd my fancy's wakening hour.
Though no broad river swept along,
To claim, perchance, heroic song ;
Though sigh'd no groves in summer gale,
To prompt of love a softer tale ;
Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed
Claim'd homage from a shepherd's reed ;
Yet was poetic impulse given,
By the green hill and clear blue heaven.
It was a barren scene, and wild,
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;
But ever and anon between,
Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green ;
And well the lonely infant knew

SHAKESPEARE,

Recesses where the wall-flower grew
And honeysuckle loved to crawl
Up the low crag and ruin'd wall.

" For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
The classic poet's well-conned task?
Nay, Erskine, nay — On the wild hill
Let the wild heath-bell flourish still ;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
But freely let the woodbine twine,
And leave untrimm'd the eglantine :
Nay, my friend, nay — Since oft thy praise
Hath given fresh vigour to my lays ;
Since oft thy judgement could refine
My flatten'd thought, or cumbrous line ;
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend.
Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
Flow forth, flow unrestrain'd, my Tale."*

And this is wise, for there is beauty in the North as well
as in the South. Only it is to be remembered that the
beauty of the Trossachs is the result of but a few elements
— say birch and brushwood, rough hills and narrow dells,
much heather and many stones — while the beauty of Eng-
land is one thing in one district and one in another ; is
here the combination of one set of qualities, and there
the harmony of opposite ones, and is everywhere made
up of many details and delicate refinements ; all which
require an exquisite delicacy of perceptive organisation,
a seeing eye, a minutely hearing ear. Scott's is the strong
admiration of a rough mind ; Shakespeare's, the nice
minuteness of a susceptible one.

A perfectly poetic appreciation of nature contains two
elements, a knowledge of facts, and a sensibility to
charms. Everybody who may have to speak to some
naturalists will be well aware how widely the two may
be separated. He will have seen that a man may study
butterflies and forget that they are beautiful, or be perfect

* Marmion : Introduction to Canto lil
8

THE MAN

in the '* Lunar theory " without knowing what most peo-
ple mean by the moon. Generally such people prefer the
stupid parts of nature — worms and Cochin-China fowls.
But Shakespeare was not obtuse. The lines —

" Daffodils

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath."*

seem to show that he knew those feelings of youth, to
which beauty is more than a religion.

In his mode of delineating natural objects Shakespeare
is curiously opposed to Milton. The latter, who was still
by temperament, and a schoolmaster by trade, selects a
beautiful object, puts it straight out before him and his
readers, and accumulates upon it all the learned imagery
of a thousand years ; Shakespeare glances at it and says
something of his own. It is not our intention to say that,
as a describer of the external world, Milton is inferior ;
in set description we rather think that he is the better.
We only wish to contrast the mode in which the deline-
ation is effected. The one is like an artist who dashes
off any number of picturesque sketches at any moment ;
the other like a man who has lived at Rome, has under-
gone a thorough training, and by deliberate and conscious
effort, after a long study of the best masters, can produce
a few great pictures. Milton, accordingly, as has been
often remarked, is careful in the choice of his subjects ;
lie knows too well the value of his labour to be very ready
to squander it ; Shakespeare, on the contrary, describes
anything that comes to hand, for he is prepared for it
whatever it may be, and what he paints he paints without
effort. Compare any passage from Shakespeare — for
example, those quoted before — and the following passage
from Milton : —

* The Winter's Tale, IV. iv.
9

SHAKESPEARE,

" Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf'd, for God had thrown
That mountain as His garden mound high raised
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden ; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account ;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bowers. Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view ;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind,
Hung amiable (Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only), and of delicious taste;
Betwixt them lawns or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock ; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose."*

Why, you could draw a map of it. It is not " Nature
boon," but " nice art in beds and curious knots " ; it is
exactly the old (and excellent) style of artificial garden-
ing, by which any place can be turned into trim hedge-
rows, and stiff borders, and comfortable shades ; but there

* Paradise Lost. Book IV.
13

THE MAN

are no straight lines in Nature or Shakespeare. Perhaps
the contrast may be accounted for by the way in which
the two poets acquired their knowledge of scenes and
scenery. We think we demonstrated before that Shake-
speare was a sportsman, but if there be still a sceptic or a
dissentient, let him read the following remarks on dogs : —

. " My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly."*

" Judge when you hear."f It is evident that the man
who wrote this was a judge of dogs, was an out-of-door
sporting man, full of natural sensibility, not defective in
" daintiness of ear," and above all things, apt to cast on
Nature random, sportive, half-boyish glances, which re-
veal so much, and bequeath such abiding knowledge.
Milton, on the contrary, went out to see Nature. He left
a narrow cell, and the intense study which was his " por-
tion in this life," to take a slow, careful, and reflective
walk. In his treatise on education he has given us his
notion of the way in which young people should be fa-
miliarised with natural objects. " But," he remarks, " to
return to our institute ; besides these constant exercises
at home, there is another opportunity of gaining pleasure
from pleasure itself abroad ; in those vernal seasons of
the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an
injury and sullenness against Nature, not to go out and
see her riches and partake in her rejoicing in heaven and
earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of
studying much in these, after two or three years, that they
have well laid their grounds, but to ride out in compan-
ies, with prudent and staid guides, to all quarters of the

* A Midmmmer-yigM's Dream, IV. I. 124. t Ibid., next line.

II

SHAKESPEARE,

land; learning and observing all places of strength, all
commodities of building and of soil, for towns and tillage,
harbours and ports of trade. Sometimes taking sea as
far as our navy, to learn there also what they can in the
practical knowledge of sailing and of sea-fight." Fancy
" the prudent and staid guides." What a machinery for
making pedants. Perhaps Shakespeare would have
known that the conversation would be in this sort : " I
say, Shallow, that mare is going in the knees. She has
never been the same since you larked her over the fivebar,
while Moleyes was talking clay and agriculture. I do
not hate Latin so much, but I hate ' argillaceous earth ' ;
and what use is that to a fellow in the Guards, / should
like to know ? " Shakespeare had himself this sort of
boyish buoyancy. He was not " one of the staid guides."
We might further illustrate it. Yet this would be tedious
enough, and we prefer to go on and show what we mean
by an experiencing nature in relation to men and women,
just as we have striven to indicate what it is in relation
to horses and hares.

The reason why so few good books are written, is that
so few people that can write know anything. In general
an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has
cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and senti-
ments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of
employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to
hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum. The
mental habits of Robert Southey, which about a year ago
were so extensively praised in the public journals, are the
type of literary existence, just as the praise bestowed on
them shows the admiration excited by them among lit-
erary people. He wrote poetry (as if anybody could)
before breakfast ; he read during breakfast. He wrote
history until dinner; he corrected proof-sheets between
dinner and tea ; he wrote an essay for the Quarterly after-
wards ; and after supper, by way of relaxation, composed
the " Doctor " — a lengthy and elaborate jest. Now, what
can any one think of such a life — except how clearly it

12

THE MAN

shows that the habits best fitted for communicating infor-
mation, formed with the best care, and daily regulated by
the best motives, are exactly the habits which are likely
to afford a man the least information to communicate.
Southey had no events, no experiences. His wife kept
house and allowed him pocket-money, just as if he had
been a German professor devoted to accents, tobacco, and
the dates of Horace's amours. And it is pitiable to think
that so meritorious a life was only made endurable by a
painful delusion. He thought that day by day, and hour
by hour, he was accumulating stores for the instruction
and entertainment of a long posterity. His epics were to
be in the hands of all men, and his history of Brazil, the
" Herodotus of the South American Republics." As if
his epics were not already dead, and as if the people who
now cheat at Valparaiso care a real who it was that
cheated those before them. Yet it was only by a con-
viction like this that an industrious and caligraphic man
(for such was Robert Southey), who might have earned
money as a clerk, worked all his days for half a clerk's
wages, at occupation much duller and more laborious.
The critic in The Vicar of Wakefield lays down that you
should ahvays say that the picture would have been better
if the painter had taken more pains ; but in the case of
the practised literary man, you should often enough say
that the writings would have been much better if the
writer had taken less pains. He says he has devoted his
life to the subject — the reply is : " Then you have taken
the best way to prevent your making anything of it."
Instead of reading studiously what Burgersdicius and
^•Enoesidemus said men were, you should have gone out
yourself, and seen (if you can see) what they are.

After all, the original way of writing books may turn
out to be the best. The first author, it is plain, could not
have taken anything from books, since there were no
books for him to copy from ; -he looked at things for him-
self. Anyhow, the modern system fails, for where are
the amusing books from voracious students and habitual

13

SHAKESPEARE,

writers? Not that we mean exactly to say that an au-
thor's hard reading is the cause of his writing that which
is hard to read. This would be near the truth, but not
quite the truth. The two are concomitant effects of a
certain defective nature. Slow men read well, but write
ill. The abstracted habit, the want of keen exterior in-
terests, the aloofness of mind from what is next it, all
tend to make a man feel an exciting curiosity and interest
about remote literary events, the toil of scholastic logi-
cians, and the petty feuds of Argos and Lacedaemon ; but
they also tend to make a man very unable to explain and
elucidate those exploits for the benefit of his fellows.
What separates the author from his readers, will make it
proportionably difficult for him to explain himself to them.
Secluded habits do not tend to eloquence ; and the indif-
ferent apathy which is so common in studious persons is
exceedingly unfavourable to the liveliness of narration
and illustration which is needed for excellence in even
the simpler sorts of writing. Moreover, in general it will
perhaps be found that persons devoted to mere literature
commonly become devoted to mere idleness. They wish
to produce a great work, but they find they cannot. Hav-
ing relinquished everything to devote themselves to this,
they conclude on trial that this is impossible. They wish
to write, but nothing occurs to them. Therefore they
write nothing, and they do nothing. As has been said,
they have nothing to do. Their life has no events, unless
they are very poor. With any decent means of subsist-
ence, they have nothing to rouse them from an indolent
and musing dream. A merchant must meet his bills, or he
is civilly dead and uncivilly remembered. But a student
may know nothing of time and be too lazy to wind up his
watch. In the retired citizen's journal in Addison's Spec-
tator, we have the type of this way of spending the time :
Mem. Morning 8 to 9, " Went into the parlour and tied
on my shoe-buckles." This is the sort of life for which
studious men commonly relinquish the pursuits of busi-
ness and the society of their fellows.

14

THE MAN

Yet all literary men are not tedious, neither are they all
slow. One great example even these most tedious times
have luckily given us, to show us what may be done by a
really great man even now, the same who before served
as an illustration — Sir Walter Scott. In his lifetime peo-
ple denied he was a poet, but nobody said that he was
not " the best fellow " in Scotland — perhaps that was not
much — or that he had not more wise joviality, more liv-
ing talk, more graphic humour, than any man in Great
Britain. " Wherever we went," said Mr. Wordsworth,
" we found his name acted as an open sesame, and I be-
lieve that in the character of the sheriff's friends, we
might have counted on a hearty welcome under any roof
in the border country." Never neglect to talk to people
with whom you are casually thrown, was his precept, and
he exemplified the maxim himself. " I believe," observes
his biographer, " that Scott has somewhere expressed in
print his satisfaction, that amid all the changes of our
manners, the ancient freedom of personal intercourse may
still be indulged between a master and an out-of-door
servant ; but in truth he kept by the old fashion, even
with domestic servants, to an extent which I have hardly
ever seen practised by any other gentleman. He con-
versed with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often did,
on the box — with his footman, if he chanced to be in the
rumble. Indeed, he did not confine his humanity to his
own people ; any steady-going servant of a friend of his
was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and was sure
to have a kind little colloquy to himself at coming or
going." " Sir Walter speaks to every man as if he was
his blood relation," was the expressive comment of one
of these dependants. It was in this way that he acquired
the great knowledge of various kinds of men, which is so
clear and conspicuous in his writings ; nor could that
knowledge have been acquired on easier terms, or in any
other way. No man could describe the character of Dan-
die Dinmont, without having been in Lidderdale. What-
ever has been once in a book may be put into a book

IS

SHAKESPEARE,

again ; but an original character, taken at first hand from
the sheepwalks and from Nature, must be seen in order
to be known. A man, to be able to describe — indeed, to
be able to know — various people in life, must be able at
sight to comprehend their essential features, to know how
they shade one into another, to see how they diversify
the common uniformity of civilised life. Nor does this
involve simply intellectual or even imaginative prerequi-
sites, still less will it be facilitated by exquisite senses or
subtle fancy. What is wanted is, to be able to appreciate
mere clay — which mere mind never will. If you will de-
scribe the people, — nay, if you will write for the people,
you must be one of the people. You must have led their
life, and must wish to lead their life. However strong
in any poet may be the higher qualities of abstract thought
or conceiving fancy, unless he can actually sympathise
with those around him, he can never describe those around
him. Any attempt to produce a likeness of what is not
really liked by the person who is describing it, will end
in the creation of what may be correct, but is not living —
of what may be artistic, but is likewise artificial.

Perhaps this is the defect of the works of the greatest
dramatic genius of recent times — Goethe. His works are
too much in the nature of literary studies; the mind is
often deeply impressed by them, but one doubts if the
author was. He saw them as he saw the houses of Wei-
mar and the plants in the act of metamorphosis. He had
a clear perception of their fixed condition and their suc-
cessive transitions, but he did not really (if we may so
speak) comprehend their motive power. So to say, he
appreciated their life, but not their liveliness. Niebuhr,
as is well known, compared the most elaborate of Goethe's
works — the novel Wiihelm Meister — to a menagerie of
tame animals, meaning thereby, as we believe, to express
much the same distinction. He felt that there was a
deficiency in mere vigour and rude energy. We have a
long train and no engine — a great accumulation of excel-
lent matter, arranged and ordered with masterly skill,

16

THE MAN

but not animated with over-buoyant and unbounded play.
And we trace this not to a defect in imaginative power, a
defect which it would be a simple absurdity to impute to
Goethe, but to the tone of his character and the habits of
his mind. He moved hither and thither through life, but
he was always a man apart. He mixed with unnumbered
kinds of men, with courts and academies, students and
women, camps and artists, but everywhere he was with
them, yet not of them. In every scene he was there, and
he made it clear that he was there with a reserve and as
a stranger. He went there to experience. As a man of
universal culture and well skilled in the order and classi-
fication of human life, the fact of any one class or order
being beyond his reach or comprehension seemed an ab-
surdity, and it was an absurdity. He thought that he was
equal to moving in any description of society, and he was
equal to it ; but then on that exact account he was ab-
sorbed in none. There were none of surpassing and im-
measurably preponderating captivation. No scene and
no subject were to him what Scotland and Scotch nature
were to Sir Walter Scott. " If I did not see the heather
once a year, I should die," said the latter; but Goethe
would have lived without it, and it would not have cost
him much trouble. In every one of Scott's novels there
is always the spirit of the old moss trooper — the flavour
of the ancient border ; there is the intense sympathy which
enters into the most living moments of the most living
characters — the lively energy which becomes the energy
of the most vigorous persons delineated. Marmion was
" written " while he was galloping on horseback. It reads
as if it were so.

Now it appears that Shakespeare not only had that
various commerce with, and experience of men, which
was common both to Goethe and to Scott, but also that
he agrees with the latter rather than with the former in
the kind and species of that experience. He was not
merely with men, but of men ; he was not a "thing apart,"*

* Byron : Don Juan, I. cxciv.
17

SHAKESPEARE,

with a clear intuition of what was in those around him ;
he had in his own nature the germs and tendencies of the
very elements that he described. He knew what was in
man, for he felt it in himself. Throughout all his wri-
tings you see an amazing sympathy with common people,
rather an excessive tendency to dwell on the common fea-
tures of ordinary lives. You feel that common people
could have been cut out of him, but not without his feeling
it; for it would have deprived him of a very favourite
subject — of a portion of his ideas to which he habitually
recurred.

Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour ?

Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that

. decerns you nearly.

Leon. Brief, I pray you ; for you see it is a busy time with me.
Dog. Marry, this it is, sir.
Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir.
Leon. What is it, my good friends?
Dog. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter : an

old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I

would desire they were ; but, in faith, honest as the skin

between his brows.
Verg. Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that

is an old man and no honester than I.

Dog. Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.
Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious.
Dog. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor

duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as

tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all

of your worship.

Leon. I would fain know what you have to say.

Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your wor-
ship's presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as
any in Messina.

Dog. A good old man, sir ; he will be talking : as they say,
When the age is in, the wit is out : God help us ! it is a
world to see. Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges : well,
God 's a good man ; an two men ride of a horse, one must

18

THE MAN

ride behind. An honest soul, i' faith, sir ; by my troth he
is, as ever broke bread ; but God is to be worshipped ; all
men are not alike ; alas, good neighbour !

Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

Dog. Gifts that God gives. — etc., etc.*

Stafford. Ay, sir.

Cade. By her he had two children at one birth.

Bro. That 's false.

Cade. Ay, there 's the question ; but I say, 'tis true :

The elder of them, being put to nurse,

Was by a beggar-woman stolen away ;

And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,

Became a bricklayer when he came to age :

His son am I ; deny it, if you can.
Dick. Nay, 'tis too true ; therefore he shall be king.
Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the

bricks are alive at this day to testify it ; therefore deny it ;

not.f

Shakespeare was too wise not to know that for most
of the purposes of human life stupidity is a most valuable
element. He had nothing of the impatience which sharp
logical narrow minds habitually feel when they come
across those who do not apprehend their quick and precise
deductions. No doubt he talked to the stupid players,
to the stupid door-keeper, to the property man, who con-
siders paste jewels " very preferable, besides the ex-
pense " — talked with the stupid apprentices of stupid
Fleet Street, and had much pleasure in ascertaining what
was their notion of King Lear. In his comprehensive
mind it was enough if every .man hitched well into his own
place in human life. If every one were logical and liter-
ary, how would there be scavengers, or watchmen, or
caulkers, or coopers ? Narrow minds will be " subdued
to what " they " work in." The " dyer's hand "J will not
more clearly carry off its tint, nor will what is moulded
more precisely indicate the confines of the mould. A
patient sympathy, a kindly fellow-feeling for the narrow

* Much Ado About Nothing, III. v. f2 King Henry VI., IV. ii.

I Shakespeare : Sonnets, CXI.

19

SHAKESPEARE,

intelligence necessarily induced by narrow circumstances
— a narrowness which, in some degrees, seems to be in-
evitable, and is perhaps more serviceable than most things
to the wise conduct of life — this, though quick and half-
bred minds may despise it, seems to be a necessary con-
stituent in the composition of manifold genius. " How
shall the world be served ? " asks the host in Chaucer.
We must have cart-horses as well as race-horses, dray-
men as well as poets. It is no bad thing, after all, to
be a slow man and to have one idea a year. You don't
make a figure, perhaps, in argumentative society, which
requires a quicker species of thought, but is that the
worse ?

Hoi. Via, goodman Dull ! thou hast spoken no word all this

while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.
Hoi. Allans! we will employ thee.
Dull. I '11 make one in a dance, or so ; or I will play

On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
Hoi. Most dull, honest Dull ! To our sport, away ! *

And such, we believe, was the notion of Shakespeare.

S. T. Coleridge has a nice criticism which bears on this
point. He observes that in the narrations of uneducated
people in Shakespeare, just as in real life, there is a want
of prospectiveness and a superfluous amount of regress-
iveness. People of this sort are unable to look a long
way in front of them, and they wander from the right
path. They get on too fast with one half, and then the
other hopelessly lags. They can tell a story exactly as it
is told to them (as an animal can go step by step where
it has been before), but they can't calculate its bearings
beforehand, or see how it is to be adapted to those to
whom they are speaking, nor do they know how much
they have thoroughly told and how much they have not.
" I went up the street, then I went down the street ; no,
first went down and then — but you do not follow me ; I

* Love's Labour 's Lost, V. i.
20

THE MAN

go before you, sir." Thence arises the complex style
usually adopted by persons not used to narration. They
tumble into a story and get on as they can. This is
scarcely the sort of thing which a man could foresee. Of
course a metaphysician can account for it, and, like Cole-
ridge, assure you that if he had not observed it, he could
have predicted it in a moment ; but, nevertheless, it is too
refined a conclusion to be made out from known prem-
ises by common reasoning. Doubtless there is some rea-
son why negroes have woolly hair (and if you look into a
philosophical treatise, you will find that the author could
have made out that it would be so, if he had not, by a
mysterious misfortune, known from infancy that it was
the fact), — still one could never have supposed it one-
self. And in the same manner, though the profounder
critics may explain in a satisfactory and refined manner,
how the confused and undulating style of narration is
peculiarly incident to the mere multitude, yet it is most
likely that Shakespeare derived his acquaintance with it
from the fact, from actual hearing, and not from what
may be the surer, but is the slower, process of meta-
physical deduction. The best passage to illustrate this is
that in which the nurse gives a statement of Juliet's age ;
but it will not exactly suit our pages. The following of
Mrs. Quickly will suffice : —

Host. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me : your ancient swag-
gerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick,
the debuty, t' other day ; and, as he said to me, 'twas no
longer ago than Wednesday last, ' I' good faith, neighbour
Quickly,' says he ; Master Dumbe, our minister, was by
then ; ' neighbour Quickly,' says he, ' receive those that
are civil ; for,' said he, ' you are in an ill name ' : now a'
said so, I can tell whereupon ; ' for,' says he, ' you are an
honest woman, and well thought on ; therefore take heed
what guests you receive: receive,' says he, ' no swaggering
companions.' There comes none here : you would bless
you to hear what he said : no, I '11 no swaggerers.*

* 2 King Henry IV., II. iv
21

SHAKESPEARE,

Now, it is quite impossible that this, any more than
the political reasoning on the parentage of Cade, which
was cited before, should have been written by one not
habitually and sympathisingly conversant with the talk
of the illogical classes. Shakespeare felt, if we may say
so, the force of the bad reasoning. He did not, like a
sharp logician, angrily detect a flaw, and set it down as a
fallacy of reference or a fallacy of amphibology. This
is not the English way, though Dr. Whately's logic has
been published so long (and, as he says himself, must now
be deemed to be irrefutable, since no one has ever offered
any refutation of it). Yet still people in this country
do not like to be committed to distinct premises. They
like a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say : " It has du-
ring very many years been maintained by the honourable
member for Montrose that two and two make four, and
I am free to say, that I think there is a great deal to be
said in favour of that opinion ; but, without committing
her Majesty's Government to that proposition as an ab-
stract sentiment, I will go so far as to assume two and
two are not sufficient to make five, which with the per-
mission of the House, will be a sufficient basis for all the
operations which I propose to enter upon during the pres-
ent year." We have no doubt Shakespeare reasoned in
that way himself. Like any other Englishman, when he
had a clear course before him, he rather liked to shuffle
over little hitches in the argument, and on that account
he had a great sympathy with those who did so too. He
would never have interrupted Mrs. Quickly ; he saw
that her mind was going to and fro over the subject ; he
saw that it was coming right, and this was enough for
him, and will be also enough of this topic for our readers.

We think we have proved that Shakespeare had an
enormous specific acquaintance with the common people ;
that this can only be obtained by sympathy. It likewise
has a further condition.

In spiritedness, the style of Shakespeare is very like to
that of Scott. The description of a charge of cavalry in

22

THE MAN

Scott reads, as was said before, as if it was written on
horseback. A play by Shakespeare reads as if it were
written in a playhouse. The great critics assure you that
a theatrical audience must be kept awake, but Shakespeare
knew this of his own knowledge. When you read him,
you feel a sensation of motions, a conviction that there is
something " up," a notion that not only is something being
talked about, but also that something is being done. We
do not imagine that Shakespeare owed this quality to his
being a player, but rather that he became a player because
he possessed this quality of mind. For after, and not-
withstanding, everything which has been, or may be,
said against the theatrical profession, it certainly does
require from those who pursue it a certain quickness
and liveliness of mind. Mimics are commonly an elas-
tic sort of persons, and it takes a little levity of dis-
position to enact even the "heavy fathers." If a boy
joins a company of strolling players, you may be sure
that he is not a " good boy " ; he may be a trifle foolish,
or a thought romantic, but certainly he is not slow. And
this was in truth the case with Shakespeare. They say,
too, that in the beginning he was a first-rate link-boy;
and the tradition is affecting, though we fear it is not
quite certain. Anyhow, you feel about Shakespeare that
he could have been a link-boy. In the same way you feel
he may have been a player. You are sure at once that
he could not have followed any sedentary kind of life.
But wheresoever there was anything acted in earnest or
in jest, by way of mock representation or by way of seri-
ous reality, there he found matter for his mind. If any-
body could have any doubt about the liveliness of Shake-
speare, let them consider the character of Falstaff. When
a man has created that without a capacity for laughter,
then a blind man may succeed in describing colours. In-
tense animal spirits are the single sentiment (if they be
a sentiment) of the entire character. If most men were
to save up all the gaiety of their whole lives, it would
come about to the gaiety of one speech in Falstaff. A

23

SHAKESPEARE.

morose man might have amassed many jokes, might have
observed many details of jovial society, might have con-
ceived a Sir John, marked by rotundity of body, but could
hardly have imagined what we call his rotundity of mind.
We mean that the animal spirits of Falstaff give him an
easy, vague, diffusive sagacity which is peculiar to him.
A morose man, lago, for example, may know anything,
and is apt to know a good deal ; but what he knows is
generally all in corners. He knows number i, number 2,
number 3, and so on, but there is not anything continuous,
or smooth, or fluent in his knowledge. Persons conver-
sant with the works of Hazlitt will know in a minute what
we mean. Everything which he observed he seemed to
observe from a certain soreness of mind ; he looked at
people because they offended him ; he had the same vivid
notion of them that a man has of objects which grate on a
wound in his body. But there is nothing at all of this in
Falstaff; on the contrary, everything pleases him, and
everything is food for a joke. Cheerfulness and pros-
perity give an easy abounding sagacity of mind which
nothing else does give. Prosperous people bound easily
over all the surface of things which their lives present to
them ; very likely they keep to the surface ; there arc
things beneath or above to which they may not penetrate
or attain, but what is on any part of the surface, that
they know well. " Lift not the painted veil which those
who live call life,"* and they do not lift it. What is sub-
lime or awful above, what is " sightless and drear "f be-
neath,— these they may not dream of. Nor is any one
piece or corner of life so well impressed on them as on
minds less happily constituted. It is only people who
have had a tooth out, that really know the dentist's wait-
ing-room. Yet such people, for the time at least, know
nothing but that and their tooth. The easy and sym-
pathising friend who accompanies them knows every-
thing ; hints gently at the contents of the Times, and
would cheer you with Lord Palmerston's replies. So, on

* Shelley : Sonnet (1818). t Ibid.

24

THE MAN

a greater scale, the man of painful experience knows but
too well what has hurt him, and where and why ; but the
happy have a vague and rounded view of the round world,
and such was the knowledge of Falstaff.

It is to be observed that these high spirits are not a
mere excrescence or superficial point in an experiencing
nature ; on the contrary, they seem to be essential, if not
to its idea or existence, at least to its exercise and employ-
ment. How are you to know people without talking to
them, but how are you to talk to them without tiring
yourself ? A common man is exhausted in half an hour ;
Scott or Shakespeare could have gone on for a whole day.
This is, perhaps, peculiarly necessary for a painter of
English life. The basis of our national character seems
to be a certain energetic humour, which may be found in
full vigour in old Chaucer's time, and in great perfection
in at least one of the popular writers of this age, and
which is, perhaps, most easily described by the name of
our greatest painter — Hogarth. It is amusing to see how
entirely the efforts of critics and artists fail to naturalise
in England any other sort of painting. Their efforts are
fruitless ; for the people painted are not English people :
they may be Italians, or Greeks, or Jews, but it is quite
certain that they are foreigners. We should not fancy
that modern art ought to resemble the mediaeval. So
long as artists attempt the same class of paintings as
Raphael, they will not only be inferior to Raphael, but
they will never please, as they might please, the English
people. What we want is what Hogarth gave us — a rep-
resentation of ourselves. It may be that we are wrong,
that we ought to prefer something of the old world, some
scene in Rome or Athens, some tale from Carmel or Jeru-
salem ; but, after all, we do not. These places are, we
think, abroad, and had their greatness in former times ;
we wish a copy of what now exists, and of what we have
seen. London we know, and Manchester we know, but
where are all these? It is the same with literature, Mil-
ton excepted, and even Milton can hardly be called a pop-

25

SHAKESPEARE,

ular writer; all great English writers describe English
people, and in describing them, they give, as they must
give, a large comic element ; and, speaking generally, this
is scarcely possible, except in the case of cheerful and
easy-living men. There is, no doubt, a biting satire, like
that of Swift, which has for its essence misanthropy.
There is the mockery of Voltaire, which is based on intel-
lectual contempt ; but this is not our English humour — it
is not that of Shakespeare and Falstaff ; ours is the hu-
mour of a man who laughs when he speaks, of flowing
enjoyment, of an experiencing nature.

Yet it would be a great error if we gave anything like
an exclusive prominence to this aspect of Shakespeare.
Thus he appeared to those around him — in some degree
they knew that he was a cheerful, and humorous, and
happy man ; but of his higher gift they knew less than
we. A great painter of men must (as has been said)
have a faculty of conversing, but he must also have a
capacity for solitude. There is much of mankind that a
man can only learn for himself. Behind every man's ex-
ternal life, which he leads in company, there is another
which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart.
We see but one aspect of our neighbour, as we see but one
side of the moon ; in either case there is also a dark half,
which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner,
but each has a room to himself. And if we would study
the internal lives of others, it seems essential that we
should begin with our own. If we study this our datum,
if we attain to see and feel how this influences and evolves
itself in our social and (so to say) public life, then it is
possible that we may find in the lives of others the same
or analogous features ; and if we do not, then at least we
may suspect that those who want them are deficient like-
wise in the secret agencies which we feel produce them in
ourselves. The metaphysicians assert that people origi-
nally picked up the idea of the existence of other people in
this way. It is orthodox doctrine that a baby says : " I
have a mouth, mamma has a mouth: therefore I'm the

26

THE MAN

same species as mamma. I have a nose, papa has a nose :
therefore papa is the same genus as me." But whether
or not this ingenious idea really does or does not represent
the actual process by which we originally obtain an ac-
quaintance with the existence of minds analogous to our
own, it gives unquestionably the process by which we
obtain our notion of that part of those minds which they
never exhibit consciously to others, and which only be-
comes predominant in secrecy and solitude and to them-
selves. Now, that Shakespeare has this insight into the
musing life of man, as well as into his social life, is easy
to prove ; take, for instance, the following passages : —

" This battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind ;
Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind :
Sometime the flood prevails; and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best ;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered :
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle ; swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God ! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain ;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete ;
How many hours bring about the day ;
How many days will finish up the year ;

27

SHAKESPEARE,

How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times :
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest ;
So many hours must I contemplate ;
So many hours must I sport myself ;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will can ;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece :
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this ! how sweet ! how lovely !
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes, it doth ; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,
i When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him."*

" A fool, a fool ! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool ; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool ;
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.
' Good-morrow, fool,' quoth I. ' No, sir/ quoth he,
' Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune ' :
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, ' It is ten o'clock :
Thus we may see, quoth he, ' how the world wags :
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine ;
And after one hour more, 'twill be eleven ;
*3 King Henry VI., II. v.
28

THE MAN

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot ;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial."*

No slight versatility of mind and pliancy of fancy could
pass at will from scenes such as these to the ward of East-
cheap and the society which heard the chimes at midnight.
One of the reasons of the rarity of great imaginative
works is that in very few case* is this capacity for musing
solitude combined with that of observing mankind. A
certain constitutional though latent melancholy is essential
to such a nature. This is the exceptional characteristic
in Shakespeare. All through his works you feel you are
reading the popular author, the successful man ; but
through them all there is a certain tinge of musing sad-
ness pervading, and, as it were, softening their gaiety.
Not a trace can be found of " eating cares " or narrow
and mind-contracting toil, but everywhere there is, in
addition to shrewd sagacity and buoyant wisdom, a re-
fining element of chastening sensibility, which prevents
sagacity from being rough, and shrewdness from becom-
ing cold. He had an eye for either sort of life : —

" Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, and some must sleep :
Thus runs the world away."f

In another point also Shakespeare, as he was, must be
carefully contrasted with the estimate that would be
formed of him from such delineations as that of Falstaff ,
and that was doubtless frequently made by casual, though
only by casual, frequenters of the Mermaid. It has been
said that the mind of Shakespeare contained within it the

* .4s You Like It, II. vii. t Hamlet, III. ii.

SHAKESPEARE,

mind of Scott ; it remains to be observed that it contained
also the mind of Keats. For, beside the delineation of
human life, and beside ateo the delineation of Nature,
there remains also for the poet a third subject — the de-
lineation of fancies. Of course these, be they what they
may, are like to, and were originally borrowed from,
either man or Nature — from one or from both together.
We know but two things in the simple way of direct ex-
perience, and whatever else we know must be in some
mode or manner compacted out of them. Yet " books
are a substantial world, both pure and good," and so are
fancies too. In all countries, men have devised to them-
selves a whole series of half-divine creations — mythologies
Greek and Roman, fairies, angels, beings who may be,
for aught we know, but with whom, in the meantime, we
can attain to no conversation. The most known of these
mythologies are the Greek, and what is, we suppose, the
second epoch of the Gothic, the fairies ; and it so happens
that Shakespeare has dealt with them both, and in a re-
markable manner. We are not, indeed, of those critics
who profess simple and unqualified admiration for the
poem of Venus and Adonis. It seems intrinsically, as
we know it from external testimony to have been, a juve-
nile production, written when Shakespeare's nature might
be well expected to be crude and unripened. Power is
shown, and power of a remarkable kind ; but it is not dis-
played in a manner that will please or does please the mass
of men. In spite of the name of its author, the poem has
never been popular — and surely this is sufficient. Never-
theless, it is remarkable as a literary exercise, and as a
treatment of a singular, though unpleasant subject. The
fanciful class of poems differ from others in being laid,
so far as their scene goes, in a perfectly unseen world.
The type of such productions is Keats's Endymion.
We mean that it is the type, not as giving the abstract per-
fection of this sort of art, but because it shows and em-
bodies both its excellences and defects in a very marked
and prominent manner. In that poem there are no pas-

30

THE MAN

sions and no actions, there is no art and no life ; but
there is beauty, and that is meant to be enough, and to a
reader of one and twenty it is enough and more. What
are exploits or speeches? what is Caesar or Coriolanus?
what is a tragedy like Lear, or a real view of human
life in any kind whatever, to people who do not know and
do not care what human life is? In early youth it is,
perhaps, not true that the passions, taken generally, are
particularly violent, or that the imagination is in any re-
markable degree powerful ; but it is certain that the fancy
(which though it be, in the last resort, but a weak stroke
of that same faculty, which, when it strikes hard, we call
imagination, may yet for this purpose be looked on as
distinct) is particularly wakeful, and that the gentler
species of passions are more absurd than they are after-
wards. And the literature of this period of human life
runs naturally away from the real world ; away from the
less ideal portion of it, from stocks and stones, and aunts
and uncles, and rests on mere half-embodied sentiments,
which in the hands of great poets assume a kind of semi-
personality, and are, to the distinction between things and
persons, " as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto
wine."* The Sonnets of Shakespeare belong exactly to
the same school of poetry. They are not the sort of
verses to take any particular hold upon the mind per-
manently and for ever, but at a certain period they take
too much. For a young man to read in the spring of the
year among green fields and in gentle air, they are the
ideal. As First of April poetry they are perfect.

The Midsummer-Night's Dream is of another order.
If the question were to be decided by Venus and
Adonis, in spite of the unmeasured panegyrics of many
writers, we should be obliged in equity to hold, that as a
poet of mere fancy Shakespeare was much inferior to the
late Mr. Keats and even to meaner men. Moreover, we
should have been prepared with some refined reasonings
to show that it was unlikely that a poet with so much

* Tennyson : Locksley Hall.
31

SHAKESPEARE,

hold on reality, in life and Nature, both in solitude and in
society, should have also a similar command over un-
reality: should possess a command not only of flesh and
blood, but of the imaginary entities which the self-inwork-
ing fancy brings forth — impalpable conceptions of mere
mind : qucedam simulacra miris pallentia modis ,* thin
ideas, which come we know not whence, and are given us
we know not why. But, unfortunately for this ingenious,
if not profound suggestion, Shakespeare, in fact, pos-
sessed the very faculty which it tends to prove that he
would not possess. He could paint Poins and Falstaff,
but he excelled also in fairy legends. He had such

" Seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends."!

As, for example, the idea of Puck, or Queen Mab, of
Ariel, or such a passage as the following : —

Puck. How now, spirit ! whither wander you ?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale.

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moon's sphere ;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be :

In their gold coats spots you see ;

Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours :

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I '11 be gone:

Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night :

Take heed the queen come not within his sight;

For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

* Lucretius, I. xxiv. \A Midsummer- Night" s Dream, V. i.

32

THE MAN

Because that she as her attendant hath

A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;

She never had so sweet a changeling:

And jealous Oberon would have the child

Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;

But she perforce withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.

And now they never meet in grove or green,

By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,

But they do square, that all their elves for fear

Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow : are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery ;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern.
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm ;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?

Puck. Thou speak'st aright ;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal :
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab ;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me ;
Then slip I from beneath, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough ;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh ;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But, room, fairy? here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!*

* A Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. i.
33

SHAKESPEARE,

Probably he believed in these things. Why not ? Every-
body else, believed in them then. They suit our climate.
As the Greek mythology suits the keen Attic sky, the fair-
ies, indistinct and half-defined, suit a land of wild mists
and gentle airs. They confuse the " maidens of the vil-
lagery " ; they are the paganism of the South of England.

Can it be made out what were Shakespeare's political
views ? We think it certainly can, and that without diffi-
culty. From the English historical plays, it distinctly
appears that he accepted, like everybody then, the Consti-
tution of his country. His lot was not cast in an age of
political controversy, nor of reform. What was, was
from of old. The Wars of the Roses had made it very
evident how much room there was for the evils incident
to an hereditary monarchy, for instance, those of a con-
troverted succession, and the evils incident to an aristoc-
racy, as want of public spirit and audacious selfishness,
to arise and continue within the realm of England. Yet
they had not repelled, and had barely disconcerted, our
conservative ancestors. They had not become Jacobins ;
they did not concur — and history, except in Shakespeare,
hardly does justice to them — in Jack Cade's notion that the
laws should come out of his mouth, or that the common-
wealth was to be reformed by interlocutors in this scene.

Bevis. I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the
commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.

Holl. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was
never merry world in England since gentlemen came up.

Bcvis. O miserable age ! Virtue is not regarded in handi-
crafts-men.

Holl. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.

Bevis. Nay, more, the king's council are no good workmen.

Holl. True ; and yet it is said, labour in thy vocation ; which
is as much to say as, let the magistrates be labouring men ;
and therefore should we be magistrates.

Bevis. Thou hast hit it ; for there 's no better sign of a brave
mind than a hard hand.

Holl. I see them ! I see them !*

* 2 King Henry VI., IV. il.

34

THE MAN

The English people did see them, and know them, and
therefore have rejected them. An audience which, bona
fide, entered into the merit of this scene, would never be-
lieve in everybody's suffrage. They would know that
there is such a thing as nonsense, and when a man has
once attained to that deep conception, you may be sure
of him ever after. And though it would be absurd to
say that Shakespeare originated this idea, or that the dis-
belief in simple democracy is owing to his teaching or
suggestions, yet it may, nevertheless, be truly said, that
he shared in the peculiar knowledge of men — and also
possessed the peculiar constitution of mind — which en-
gender this effect. The author of Coriolanus never be-
lieved in a mob, and did something towards preventing
anybody else from doing so. But this political idea was
not exactly the strongest in Shakespeare's mind. We
think he had two other stronger, or as strong. First, the
feeling of loyalty to the ancient polity of this country —
not because it was good, but because it existed. In his
time, people no more thought of the origin of the mon-
archy than they did of the origin of the Mendip Hills.
The one had always been there, and so had the other.
God (such was the common notion) had made both, and
one as much as the other. Everywhere, in that age, the
common modes of political speech assumed the existence
of certain utterly national institutions, and would have
been worthless and nonsensical except on that assumption.
This national habit appears as it ought to appear in our
national dramatist. A great divine tells us that the
Thirty-nine Articles are " forms of thought " ; inevitable
conditions of the religious understanding: in politics,
" kings, lords, and commons " are, no doubt, " forms of
thought," to the great majority of Englishmen ; in these
they live, and beyond these they never move. You can't
reason on the removal (such is the notion) of the Eng-
lish Channel, nor St. George's Channel, nor can you of
the English Constitution, in like manner. It is to most
of us, and to the happiest of us, a thing immutable, and

35

SHAKESPEARE.

such, no doubt, it was to Shakespeare, which, if any one
would have proved, let him refer at random to any page
of the historical English plays.

The second peculiar tenet which we ascribe to his po-
litical creed, is a disbelief in the middle classes. We fear
he had no opinion of traders. In this age, we know, it is
held that the keeping of a shop is equivalent to a political
education. Occasionally, in country villages, where the
trader sells everything, he is thought to know nothing,
and has no vote ; but in a town where he is a householder
(as, indeed, he is in the country), and sells only one
thing — there we assume that he knows everything. And
this assumption is, in the opinion of some observers, con-
firmed by the fact. , Sir Walter Scott used to relate, that
when, after a trip to London, he returned to Tweedside,
he always found the people in that district knew more of
politics than the Cabinet. And so it is with the mercan-
tile community in modern times. If you are a Chancellor
of the Exchequer, it is possible that you may be acquainted
with finance ; but if you sell figs it is certain that you will.
Now we nowhere find this laid down in Shakespeare. On
the contrary, you will generally find that when a "citi-
zen " is mentioned, he generally does or says something
absurd. Shakespeare had a clear perception that it is
possible to bribe a class as well as an individual, and that
personal obscurity is but an insecure guarantee for po-
litical disinterestedness.

" Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, ,

And to your heirs for ever ; common pleasures,
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar ! when comes such another ? "*

He everywhere speaks in praise of a tempered and or-
dered and qualified polity, in which the pecuniary classes
have a certain influence, but no more, and shows in every

* Julius Cseisar, III. il.
36

THE MAN

page a keen sensibility to the large views and high-souled
energies, the gentle refinements and disinterested desires,
in which those classes are likely to be especially deficient.
He is particularly the poet of personal nobility, though,
throughout his writings, there is a sense of freedom, just
as Milton is the poet of freedom, though with an under-
lying reference to personal nobility ; indeed, we might
well expect our two poets to combine the appreciation of
a rude and generous liberty with that of a delicate and
refined nobleness, since it is the union of these two ele-
ments that characterises our society and their experience.
There are two things — good-tempered sense and ill-
tempered sense. In our remarks on the character of Fal-
staff, we hope we have made it very clear that Shake-
speare had the former ; we think it nearly as certain that
he possessed the latter also. An instance of this might
be taken from that contempt for the perspicacity of the
bourgeoisie which we have just been mentioning. It is
within the limits of what may be called malevolent sense,
to take extreme and habitual pleasure in remarking the
foolish opinions, the narrow notions, and fallacious deduc-
tions which seem to cling to the pompous and prosperous
man of business. Ask him his opinion of the currency
question, and he puts " bills " and " bullion " together in a
sentence, and he does not seem to care what he puts be-
tween them. But a more proper instance of (what has
an odd sound), the malevolence of Shakespeare is to be
found in the play of Measure for Measure. We agree
with Hazlitt, that this play seems to be written, perhaps
more than any other, con amore, and with a relish ; and
this seems to be the reason why, notwithstanding the un-
pleasant nature of its plot, and the absence of any very
attractive character, it is yet one of the plays which take
hold on the mind most easily and most powerfully. Now
the entire character of Angelo, which is the expressive
feature of the piece, is nothing but a successful embodi-
ment of the pleasure, the malevolent pleasure, which a
warm-blooded and expansive man takes in watching the

37

SHAKESPEARE,

rare, the dangerous and inanimate excesses of the con-
strained and cold-blooded. One seems to see Shake-
speare, with his bright eyes and his large lips and buoyant
face, watching with a pleasant excitement the excesses of
his thin-lipped and calculating creation, as though they
were the excesses of a real person. It is the complete
picture of a natural hypocrite, who does not consciously
disguise strong impulses, but whose very passions seem
of their own accord to have disguised themselves and re-
treated into the recesses of the character, yet only to recur
even more dangerously when their proper period is ex-
pired, when the will is cheated into security by their ab-
sence, and the world (and, it may be, the " judicious per-
son " himself) is impressed with a sure reliance in his
chilling and remarkable rectitude.

It has, we believe, been doubted whether Shakespeare
was a man much conversant with the intimate society of
women. Of course no one denies that he possessed a
great knowledge of them — a capital acquaintance with
their excellences, faults, and foibles ; but it has been
thought that this was the result rather of imagination than
of society, of creative fancy rather than of perceptive ex-
perience. Now that Shakespeare possessed, among other
singular qualities, a remarkable imaginative knowledge of
women, is quite certain, for he was acquainted with the
soliloquies of women. A woman we suppose, like a man,
must be alone, in order to speak a soliloquy. After the
greatest possible intimacy and experience, it must still be
imagination, or fancy at least, which tells any man what
a woman thinks of herself and to herself. There will still
— get as near the limits of confidence or observation as
you can — be a space which must be filled up from other
means. Men can only divine the truth — reserve, indeed,
is a part of its charm. Seeing, therefore, that Shake-
speare had done what necessarily and certainly must be
done without experience, we were in some doubt whether
he might not have dispensed with it altogether. A grave
reviewer cannot know these things. We thought indeed

38

THE MAN

of reasoning that since the delineations of women in
Shakespeare were admitted to be first-rate, it should fol-
low,— at least there was a fair presumption, — that no
means or aid had been wanting to their production, and
that consequently we ought, in the absence of distinct evi-
dence, to assume that personal intimacy as well as solitary
imagination had been concerned in their production.
And we meant to cite the "questions about Octavia,"
which Lord Byron, who thought he had the means of
knowing, declared to be " women all over."

But all doubt was removed and all conjecture set to rest
by the coming in of an ably-dressed friend from the ex-
ternal world, who mentioned that the language of Shake-
speare's women was essentially female language ; that
there were certain points and peculiarities in the English
of cultivated English women, which made it a language
of itself, which must be heard familiarly in order to be
known. And he added, " Except a greater use of words
of Latin derivation, as was natural in an age when ladies
received a learned education, a few words not now proper,
a few conceits that were the fashion of the time, and there
is the very same English in the women's speeches in
Shakespeare." He quoted —

" Think not I love him, though I ask for him ;
Tis but a peevish boy ; yet he talks well ;
But what care I for words ? yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth : not very pretty :
But, sure, he 's proud, and yet his pride becomes him :
He '11 make a proper man : the best thing in him
Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall ; yet for his years he 's tall ;
His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well :
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him

39

SHAKESPEARE.

In parcels as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him : but, for my part,

I love him not nor hate him not ; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black ;

And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me :

I marvel why I answer'd not again :

But that 's all one ; " *

and the passage of Perdita's cited before about the daffo-
dils that —

" take

The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath ; "

and said that these were conclusive. But we have not,
ourselves, heard young ladies converse in that manner.

Perhaps it is in his power of delineating women, that
Shakespeare contrasts most strikingly with the greatest
master of the art of dialogue in antiquity — we mean
Plato. It will, no doubt, be said that the delineation of
women did not fall within Plato's plan ; that men's life
was in that age so separate and predominant that it could
be delineated by itself and apart ; and no doubt these re-
marks are very true. But what led Plato to form that
plan?v What led him to select that peculiar argumenta-
tive aspect of life, in which the masculine element is in
so high a degree superior ? We believe that he did it be-
cause he felt that he could paint that kind of scene much
better than he could paint any other. 'If a person will
consider the sort of conversation that was held in the cool
summer morning, when Socrates was knocked up early
to talk definitions and philosophy with Protagoras, he will
feel, not only that women would fancy such dialogues to
be certainly stupid, and very possibly to be without mean-
ing, but also that the side of character which is there pre-

* As You Like It, III. v.
40

THE MAN

sented is one from which not only the feminine but even
the epicene element is nearly, if not perfectly, excluded.
It is the intellect surveying and delineating- intellectual
characteristics. We have a dialogue of thinking facul-
ties ; the character of every man is delineated by showing
us, not his mode of action or feeling, but his mode of
thinking, alone and by itself. The pure mind, purged of
all passion and affection, strives to view and describe
others in like manner ; and the singularity is, that the
likenesses so taken are so good, — that the accurate copy-
ing of the merely intellectual effects and indications of
character gives so true and so firm an impression of the
whole character, — that a daguerreotype of the mind
should almost seem to be a delineation of the life. But
though in the hand of a consummate artist, such a way of
representation may in some sense succeed in the case of
men, it would certainly seem sure to fail in the case of
women. The mere intellect of a woman is a mere noth-
ing. It originates nothing, it transmits nothing, it retains
nothing ; it has little life of its own, and therefore it can
hardly be expected to attain any vigour. Of the lofty
Platonic world of the ideas, which the soul in the old doc-
trine was to arrive at by pure and continuous reasoning,
women were never expected to know anything. Plato
(though Mr. Grote denies that he was a practical man)
was much too practical for that ; he reserved his teaching
for people whose belief was regulated and induced in
some measure by abstract investigations; who had an
interest in the pure and (as it were) geometrical truth it-
self; who had an intellectual character (apart from and
accessory to their other character) capable of being
viewed as a large and substantial existence, Shakespeare's
being, like a woman's, worked as a whole. He was ca-
pable of intellectual abstractedness, but commonly he was
touched with the sense of earth. One thinks of him as
firmly set on our coarse world of common clay, but from
it he could paint the moving essence of thoughtful feel-
ing— which is the best refinement of the best women.

41

SHAKESPEARE,

Imogen or Juliet would have thought little of the conver-
sation of Gorgias.

On few subjects has more nonsense been written than
on the learning of Shakespeare. In former times, the
established tenet was, that he was acquainted with the
entire range of the Greek and Latin classics, and famil-
iarly resorted to Sophocles and ^schylus as guides and
models. This creed reposed not so much on any painful
or elaborate criticism of Shakespeare's plays, as on one
of the a priori assumptions permitted to the indolence of
the wise old world. It was then considered clear, by all
critics, that no one could write good English who could
not also write bad Latin. Questioning scepticism has
rejected this axiom, and refuted with contemptuous facil-
ity the slight attempt which had been made to verify this
case of it from the evidence of the plays themselves. But
the new school, not content with showing that Shake-
speare was no formed or elaborate scholar, propounded
the idea that he was quite ignorant, just as Mr. Croker
" demonstrates " that Napoleon Bonaparte could scarcely
write or read. The answer is, that Shakespeare wrote his
plays, and that those plays show not only a very power-
ful, but also a very cultivated mind. A hard student
Shakespeare was not, yet he was a happy and pleased
reader of interesting books. He was a natural reader;
when a book was dull he put it down, when it looked
fascinating he took it up, and the consequence is, that he
remembered and mastered what he read. Lively books,
read with lively interest, leave strong and living recollec-
tions; the instructors, no doubt, say that they ought not
to do so, and inculcate the necessity of dry reading. Yet
the good sense of a busy public has practically discovered
that what is read easily is recollected easily, and what is
read with difficulty is remembered with more. It is cer-
tain that Shakespeare read the novels of his time, for he
has founded on them the stories of his plays ; he read
Plutarch, for his words still live in the dialogue of the
" proud Roman " plays ; and it is remarkable that Mon-

42

THE MAN

taigne is the only philosopher that Shakespeare can be
proved to have read, because he deals more than any
other philosopher with the first impressions of things
which exist. On the other hand, it may be doubted if
Shakespeare would have perused his commentators. Cer-
tainly, he would have never read a page of this review,
and we go so far as to doubt whether he would have been
pleased with the admirable discourses of M. Guizot, which
we ourselves, though ardent admirers of his style and
ideas, still find it a little difficult to read; — and what
would he have thought of the following speculations of
an anonymous individual, whose notes have been recently
published in a fine octavo by Mr. Collier, and, according
to the periodical essayists, " contribute valuable sugges-
tions to the illustration of the immortal bard " ?

" THE Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
"Acr I. SCENE I.

" P. 92. The reading of the subsequent line has hitherto been
' 'Tis true ; for you are over boots in love ' ;

but the manuscript corrector of the Folio, 1632, has changed it to
' 'Tis true ; but you are over boots in love/

which seems more consistent with the course of the dialogue ; for
Proteus, remarking that Leander had been ' more than over shoes
in love,' with Hero, Valentine answers, that Proteus was even
more deeply in love than Leander. Proteus observes of the fable
of Hero and Leander —

' That 's a deep story of a deeper love,
For he was more than over shoes in love.'

Valentine retorts —

' 'Tis true ; but you are over boots in love.'

For instead of but was perhaps caught by the compositor from the
preceding line."

It is difficult to fancy Shakespeare perusing a volume
of such annotations, though we allow that we admire

43

SHAKESPEARE,

them ourselves. As to the controversy on his school
learning, we have only to say, that though the alleged imi-
tations of the Greek tragedians are mere nonsense, yet
there is clear evidence that Shakespeare received the ordi-
nary grammar-school education of his time, and that he
had derived from the pain and suffering of several years,
not exactly an acquaintance with Greek or Latin, but, like
Eton boys, a firm conviction that there are such languages.
Another controversy has been raised as to whether
Shakespeare was religious. In the old editions it is com-
monly enough laid down that, when writing his plays, he
had no desire to fill the Globe Theatre, but that his inten-
tions were of the following description. " In this play,
Cymbeline, Shakespeare has strongly depicted the frail-
ties of our nature, and the effect of vicious passions on the
human mind. In the fate of the Queen we behold the
adept in perfidy justly sacrificed by the arts she had, with
unnatural ambition, prepared for others; and in review-
ing her death and that of Cloten, we may easily call to
mind the words of Scripture," etc. And of King Lear
it is observed with great confidence, that Shakespeare,
" no doubt, intended to mark particularly the afflicting
character of children's ingratitude to their parents, and
the conduct of Goneril and Regan to each other ; espe-
cially in the former's poisoning the latter, and laying
hands on herself, we are taught that those who want
gratitude towards their parents (who gave them their
being, fed them, nurtured them to man's estate) will not
scruple to commit more barbarous crimes, and easily to
forget that, by destroying their body, they destroy their
soul also." And Dr. Ulrici, a very learned and illegible
writer, has discovered that in every one of his plays
Shakespeare had in view the inculcation of the peculiar
sentiments and doctrines of the Christian religion, and
considers the Midsummer-Night's Dream to be a speci-
men of the lay or amateur sermon. This is what Dr.
Ulrici thinks of Shakespeare; but what would Shake-
speare have thought of Dr. Ulrici? We believe that

44

THE MAN

" Via, goodman Dull," is nearly the remark which the
learned professor would have received from the poet to
whom his very careful treatise is devoted. And yet,
without prying into the Teutonic mysteries, a gentleman
of missionary aptitudes might be tempted to remark that
in many points Shakespeare is qualified to administer a
rebuke to people of the prevalent religion. Meeting a
certain religionist is like striking the corner of a wall.
He is possessed of a firm and rigid persuasion that you
must leave off this and that, stop, cry, be anxious, be ad-
vised, and, above all things, refrain from doing what you
like, for nothing is so bad for any one as that. And in
quite another quarter of the religious hemisphere, we
occasionally encounter gentlemen who have most likely
studied at the feet of Dr. Ulrici, or at least of an equiva-
lent Gamaliel, and who, when we, or such as we, speaking
the language of mortality, remark of a pleasing friend:
"Nice fellow, so and so! Good fellow as ever lived!"
reply sternly, upon an unsuspecting reviewer, with —
" Sir, is he an earnest man ? " To which, in some cases,
we are unable to return a sufficient answer. Yet Shake-
speare, differing, in that respect at least, from the dis-
ciples of Carlyle, had, we suspect, an objection to grim
people, and we fear would have liked the society of Mer-
cutio better than that of a dreary divine, and preferred
Ophelia or " that Juliet " to a female philanthropist of
sinewy aspect. And, seriously, if this world is not all
evil, he who has understood and painted it best must
probably have some good. If the underlying and al-
mighty essence of this world be good, then it is likely that
the writer who most deeply approached to that essence
will be himself good. There is a religion of week-days
as well as of Sundays, of " cakes and ale "* as well as of
pews and altar cloths. This England lay before Shake-
speare as it lies before us all, with its green fields, and
its long hedgerows, and its many trees, and its great
towns, and its endless hamlets, and its motley society, and

* Twelfth Mght, II. iii.
45

SHAKESPEARE,

its long history, and its bold exploits, and its gathering
power, and he saw that they were good. To him, perhaps,
more than to any one else, has it been given to see that
they were a great unity, a great religious object; that if
you could only descend to the inner life, to the deep
things, to the secret principles of its noble vigour, to the
essence of character, to what we know of Hamlet and
seem to fancy of Ophelia, we might, so far as we are
capable of so doing, understand the nature which God
has made. Let us, then, think of him not as a teacher of
dry dogmas, or a sayer of hard sayings, but as —

" A priest to us all,
Of the wonder and bloom of the world " — *

a teacher of the hearts of men and women ; one from
whom may be learned something of that inmost principle
that ever modulates —

" With murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns,
Of night and day and the deep heart of man."f

We must pause, lest our readers reject us, as the Bishop
of Durham the poor curate, because he was " mystical and
confused."

Yet it must be allowed that Shakespeare was worldly,
and the proof of it is, that he succeeded in the world.
Possibly this is the point on which we are most richly
indebted to tradition. We see generally indeed in Shake-
speare's works the popular author, the successful drama-
tist; there is a life and play in his writings rarely to be
found, except in those who have had habitual good luck,
and who, by the tact of experience, feel the minds of their
readers at every word, as a good rider feels the mouth of
his horse. But it would have been difficult quite to make
out whether the profits so accruing had been,, profitably
invested — whether the genius to create such illusions was

* Matthew Arnold : The Youth of Mature. t Shelley : Alastor.

46

THE MAN

accompanied with the care and judgement necessary to
put out their proceeds properly in actual life. We could
only have said that there was a general impression of
entire calmness and equability in his principal works,
rarely to be found where there is much pain, which usu-
ally makes gaps in the work and dislocates the balance of
the mind. But happily here, and here almost alone, we
are on sure historical ground. The reverential nature of
Englishmen has carefully preserved what they thought the
great excellence of their poet — that he made a fortune.
It is certain that Shakespeare was proprietor of the Globe
Theatre — that he made money there, and invested the
same in land at Stratford-on-Avon, and probably no cir-
cumstance in his life ever gave him so much pleasure. It
was a great thing that he, the son of the wool-comber,
the poacher, the good-for-nothing, the vagabond (for so
we fear the phrase went in Shakespeare's youth), should
return upon the old scene a substantial man, a person of
capital, a freeholder, a gentleman to be respected, and
over whom even a burgess could not affect the least supe-
riority. The great pleasure in life is doing what people
say you cannot do. Why did Mr. Disraeli take the duties
of the Exchequer with so much relish? Because people
said he was a novelist, an ad captandum man, and — mon-
strum horrendwn! — a Jew, that could not add up. No
doubt it pleased his inmost soul to do the work of the red-
tape people better than those who could do nothing else.
And so with Shakespeare : it pleased him to be respected
by those whom he had respected with boyish reverence,
but who had rejected the imaginative man — on their own
ground and in their own subject, by the only title which
they would regard — in a word, as a moneyed man. We
seem to see him eyeing the burgesses with good-humoured
fellowship and genial (though suppressed and half-
unconscious) contempt, drawing out their old stories, and
acquiescing in their foolish notions, with everything in
his head and easy sayings upon his tongue, — a full mind
and a deep dark eye, that played upon an easy scene —

47

SHAKESPEARE, THE MAN

now in fanciful solitude, now in cheerful society ; now
occupied with deep thoughts, now, and equally so, with
trivial recreations, forgetting the dramatist in the man of
substance, and the poet in the happy companion ; beloved
and even respected, with a hope for every one and a smile
for all.

48

Self=Revelation of Shakespeare.

Self=Revelation of Shakespeare.

BY LESLIE STEPHEN.

I AM reluctant to break the rule — or what ought to be
the rule — that no one should write about Shakespeare
without a special license. Heaven-born critics or thor-
ough antiquaries alone should add to the pile under which
his " honoured bones " are but too effectually hidden. I
make no pretence of having discovered a new philo-
sophical meaning in Hamlet, or of having any light to
throw upon the initials " W. H." I confess too that,
though I have read Shakespeare with much pleasure, I
cannot say as much for most of his commentators. I
have not studied them eagerly. I spent, however, some
hours of a recent vacation in reading a few Shakespeare
books, including Mr. Lee's already standard Life and
Professor Brandes's interesting Critical Study. The con-
trast between the two raised an old question. Mr. Lee,
like many critics of the highest authority, maintains that
we can know nothing of the man. He shows that we
know more than the average reader supposes of the ex-
ternal history of the Stratford townsman. But then he
maintains the self-denying proposition that such knowl-
edge teaches us nothing about the author of Hamlet.
Professor Brandes, on the contrary, tries to show how
a certain spiritual history indicated by the works may be
more or less distinctly correlated with certain passages in
the personal history. The process, of course, involves a
good deal of conjecture. It rests entirely upon the as-
sumption that the works, when properly interpreted, reveal
character ; for the facts taken by themselves are a mani-
festly insufficient ground for more than a few negative

SELF-REVELATION

inferences. If, with Mr. Lee, we regard this first step as
impossible the whole theory must collapse. Upon his
showing we learn little from the works except that Shake-
speare, whatever he may have been as a man, had .a mar-
vellous power of wearing different masks. There is no
reason to suppose that his mirth or melancholy, his pa-
triotism or his misanthropy, reveal his own sentiments.
He could inspire his puppets with the eloquence which
would bring down the house and direct money to the till
of the Globe. He could drop his mask and become a
commonplace man of business when he applied for a coat
of arms or requested his debtors to settle their little
accounts.

This raises the previous question of the possibility of
the general inference from the book to the man. Now I
confess that to me one main interest in reading is always
the communion with the author. Paradise Lost gives me
the sense of intercourse with Milton, and the Waverley
Novels bring me a greeting from Scott. Every writer, I
fancy, is unconsciously his own Boswell, and, however
" objective " or dramatic he professes to be, really betrays
his own secrets. Browning is one of the authorities
against me. If Shakespeare, he says, really unlocked his
heart in the Sonnets, why " the less Shakespeare he."
Browning declines for his part to follow the example, and
fancies that he has preserved his privacy. Yet we must,
I think, agree with a critic who emphatically declares that
a main characteristic of Browning's own poetry is that it
brings us into contact with the real " self of the author."
Self-revelation is not the less clear because involuntary or
quite alien to the main purpose of a book. I may read
Gibbon simply to learn facts; but I enjoy his literary
merits because I recognize my friend of the autobiography
who " sighed as a lover and obeyed as a son." I may
study Darwin's Origin of Species to clear my views upon
natural selection ; but as a book it interests me even
through the defects of style by the occult personal charm
of the candid, sagacious, patient seeker for truth. In

OF SHAKESPEARE

pure literature the case is, of course, plainer, and I will
not count up instances because, in truth, I can hardly
think of a clear exception. Whenever we know a man
adequately we perceive that, though different aspects of his
character may be made prominent in his life and his
works, the same qualities are revealed in both, and we
cannot describe the literary without indicating the per-
sonal charm.

Is Shakespeare the sole exception ? There are obvious
difficulties in the way of a satisfactory answer. Shake-
spearian criticism means too often reckless competition in
hyperboles. So long as critics think it necessary to show
their appreciative power by falling into hysterics, all dis-
tinctive characteristics are obliterated. When the poet is
lost in such a blaze of light, we can make no inference to
the man. Sometimes out of reverence for his genius he is
treated like a prophet whose inspiration is proved by his
commonplace character in other moments. The more
colourless the man, the more impossible will be an ex-
planation, and the greater will be the wonder. Some
commentators, again, have displayed their affection by
dwelling upon his proverbial " gentleness," till they make
him a kind of milksop with no more of the devil in him
than there was in the poet of The Christian Year. Others
have been so impressed by the vigour of his fine frenzies,
and the " irregularities " of which our forefathers com-
plained, that they describe him as always on the border
of insanity. Such discords between critics do not prove
necessarily that the man was unknowable, but that to
know him a critic must keep his head and be less anxious
to exhibit his own enthusiasm and geniality than to form
a tolerably sane judgement. The application of sound
methods happily seems to be spreading, and may lead to
more solid results.

One objection, indeed, if it could be sustained, would
make the investigation impossible from the first. Shake-
speare, we are reminded with undeniable truth, was a
dramatist. We cannot assume that he is responsible for

SELF-REVELATION

the opinions which he formulates. It is Orsino, not his
creator, who holds that wives should be younger than
their husbands, and Shakespeare, when speaking through
his puppets, may not have been thinking of Anne Hath-
away. Some of us have personal reasons for hoping that
when his characters express a dislike for the lean or for
the unmusical, their words do not give his deliberate
judgement. If this were a fatal difficulty it would fol-
low that no competent dramatist reveals himself in his
works. Yet, as a matter of fact, I suppose that drama-
tists are generally quite as knowable as other authors.
We learn to know Ben Jonson from his plays, almost as
well as we know his namesake the great Samuel. That
surely is the rule. A dramatist lets us know, and cannot
help letting us know, what is his general view of his fel-
low creatures and of the world in which they live. It is
his very function to do so, and though the indication may
be indirect, it is not the less significant of the observer's
own peculiarities.

But, we are told, Shakespeare does not identify him-
self with any of his characters. He is not himself either
Falstaff or Hamlet. This too applies to most dramatists,
but it certainly suggests a difficulty. The most demon-
strable, though it may not be the highest merit, of Shake-
speare's plays is, I suppose, the extraordinary variety of
vivid and original types of character. The mind which
could create a Hamlet and a Falstaff, and an lago and
a Mercutio and a Caliban, a Cleopatra and a Lady Mac-
beth and a Perdita, must undoubtedly have been capable
of an astonishing variety of moods and sympathies. That
certainly gives a presumption that the creator must have
been himself too complex to be easily described. The
difficulty, again, is increased by the other most familiar
commonplace about Shakespeare, the entire absence of de-
liberate didacticism. Profound critics, it is true, have dis-
covered certain moral lessons and philosophical theories
concealed in his plays. If so, they must also admit that
he concealed them so cleverly that he has had to wait for

OF SHAKESPEARE

a profound critic to perceive them. If he really meant to
enforce them upon the vulgar his attempt must be regarded
as a signal failure. Anyhow, we are without one clue
which is given by the didactic writer. To read Dante is
to know whom he hated and why he hated them, and what,
in his opinion, would be their proper place hereafter. To
Shakespeare good men and bad are alike parts of the order
of Nature, to be understood and interpreted with perfect
impartiality. He gives a diagnosis of the case, not a
judgement sentencing them to heaven or hell. His char-
acters prosper or suffer, not in proportion to their merits,
but as good and bad fortune decides or as may be most
dramatically effective. It does not, indeed, follow that
Shakespeare was without moral sympathies or ideals. It
would be as erroneous as to infer that a physician who
describes a disease accurately is indifferent to the value of
health. Shakespeare no doubt held that lago was a hate-
ful person, and meant him to excite the aversion of his
hearers. Only he did not infer, as inferior writers are
apt to do, that lago ought to be misrepresented. The
devil ought to be painted just as black as he is and not a
shade blacker. A perfectly impartial analysis of charac-
ter is, surely, the true method of showing what is lovable
in the virtuous and hateful in the vicious, and the man
who gets angry with his own creatures, and denounces in-
stead of explaining, is really perverting the true moral.
When Cervantes makes us love Don Quixote in spite of
the crack in his intellect and the absurdity of his career,
he is really setting forth in the most effective way the
beauty of the chivalrous character. That, I take it, is the
true artistic method. It simply displays the facts and
leaves the reader to be attracted or repelled according to
his power of appreciating moral beauty or deformity.
But, undoubtedly, so far as this method is characteristic
of Shakespeare's work, it increases our difficulty. These
are the facts, he says : make what you can of them ; I do
not draw the moral for you, or even deny that many very
different morals may commend themselves to different

SELF-REVELATION

people. No great poet can be without some implicit mor-
ality, though his morality may be sometimes very bad. He
is great because he has a rich emotional nature, and great
powers of observation and insight. He must have his
own views of what are the really valuable elements in
life, of what constitutes true happiness, and what part the
deepest instincts play in the general course of affairs. We
have to translate his implicit convictions into an abstract
theory in order to discover his moral system. To do that
in the case of Shakespeare would no doubt be a specially
difficult and delicate task. He refuses to give us any di-
rect help towards divining his sympathies. Scott, in his
most Shakespearian moods, has something of the same
impartiality. When he describes an interesting person,
Louis XL in Quentin Duru>ard, or James I. in The For-
tunes of Nigel, he shows a power of insight, of making
wicked and weak men intelligible and human, which re-
minds us of Shakespeare's methods. He hated Covenant-
ers like a good Jacobite, and yet he could describe them
kindly and sympathetically. But then he has sympathies
which he cannot conceal. His love of the manly, healthy
type represented in the Dandie Dinmonts and their like
reveals the man, and, without reading Lockhart, we can
see that, unlike Shakespeare, he is clearly identifying him-
self with some of his characters.

My inference then would be, not that Shakespeare can-
not be known, but that a knowledge of Shakespeare must
be attained through a less obvious process. His charac-
ter, we must suppose, was highly complex, and we are
without the direct and unequivocal clues which enable us
to feel ourselves personally acquainted with such men as
Dante or Milton, to say nothing of Wordsworth or Byron.
A distinction, however, must be made before we can esti-
mate the weight of this difficulty. There is such a thing
as knowing a man thoroughly and yet being unable to put
our knowledge into definite formulae. I may know a
man's face and the sound of his voice well enough to
swear to him among a thousand others, and yet I may be

OF SHAKESPEARE

totally unable to describe him in such a way as to enable
a detective to pick him out of a crowd. I can say that
he is six feet high and has a red beard, but I cannot
give the finer marks which distinguish tall red-bearded
men from each other. So I can often divine instinctively
what my friend will say and do and think on a given occa-
sion ; and yet be quite unable to give the reasons for my
expectation. If I am not a trained psychologist, I shall
not have the proper terms, or shall confuse different
terms ; and if I am a trained psychologist, I may too prob-
ably be misled by my own theories, and shall certainly
find that all the common phrases by which we describe
character are too vague and shifting to reflect the vast
variety of delicate shades of emotional temperament which
we can yet recognize in observation. Does not every
critic of Shakespeare claim such a knowledge — vivid and
yet difficult to grasp and analyze ? He professes to recog-
nize Shakespeare's style ; he can tell you confidently which
plays are Shakespeare's own, and which he produced in
collaboration with others ; he can point out the scene and
even the particular speech at which Shakespeare dropped
the pen and Fletcher took it up. Part of this knowledge
is derived, it is true, from " objective " signs. One scene
has a larger percentage than others of verses with eleven
syllables. That observation requires no critical insight.
Yet I do not suppose that any critic would admit that he
was unable to discriminate qualities too delicate to be in-
ferred from counting on the fingers. The point of which
I am speaking corresponds to the distinction made by
Newman in the Grammar of Assent between the " Illative
Instinct " and such formal reasoning as can be put into
syllogisms. He illustrates it by Falstaffs " babbling of
green fields." Some readers, he says, are certain that
this was Shakespeare's phrase, while others hold that
they do not recognize the true Shakespearian ring. The
certitude of either side is therefore not conclusive for the
other. Yet the conviction implies that each reader has
so vivid a conception of certain characteristics that the

SELF-REVELATION

verdict " this is " or " this is not Shakespearian " arises
spontaneously at a particular phrase. " Shakespearian,"
then, must have a definite though not definable meaning.
Something in the term of thought, in the play of humour,
fits in or does not exactly fit in with our image, and we
must therefore have such an image — whether like or un-
like to the reality.

Two difficulties, in fact, are often confounded : the
difficulty of knowing and the difficulty of analyzing and
formulating our knowledge. Language is too rough and
equivocal an instrument to enable us to communicate to
others the finer shades of difference which we can clearly
recognize. Critics, I fancy, were it not for their charac-
teristic modesty, might be induced by a skilful cross-
examination to confess that their knowledge of Shake-
speare is much more precise and distinct than they ven-
ture to claim. If I had the skill required for the most
difficult form of literary art, I should try to surmount
their diffidence by a Socratic dialogue. I should not en-
deavour to reveal new truths to them, but endeavour, like
Socrates, to deliver them of the truths with which their
judgements are already pregnant. Much as critics of the
poetry differ, they show a tendency to converge; there
are certain commonplaces and at least many negations in
which they would agree. As I do not profess to be an
expert, I must limit myself to such generalities. What I
would try to show is that what is accepted about the
poetry really implies certain conclusions about the man.
I must leave it to those who unite more thorough knowl-
edge with greater poetical insight to fill up the rough
outlines which such as I can attempt to indicate.

One remark will be granted. A dramatist is no more
able than anybody else to bestow upon his characters tal-
ents which he does not himself possess. If — as critics
are agreed — Shakespeare's creatures show humour,
Shakespeare must have had a sense of humour himself.
When Mercutio indulges in the wonderful tirade upon
Queen Mab, or Jaques moralizes in the forest, we learn

OF SHAKESPEARE

that their creator had certain powers of mind just as
clearly as if we were reading a report of one of the wit
combats at the " Mermaid." It is harder to define those
qualities precisely than to say what is implied by Johnson's
talk at the " Mitre," but the idiosyncrasy is at least as
strongly impressed upon such characteristic mental dis-
plays. If we were to ask any critic whether such pas-
sages could be attributed to Marlowe or Ben Jonson, he
would enquire whether we took him for a fool. If we
were considering a bit of purely scientific exposition, the
inference to character would not exist. A mathematician,
I suppose, could tell me that the demonstration of some
astronomical theorem was in Newton's manner, and the
remark would not show whether Newton was amiable or
spiteful, jealous or generous. But a man's humour and
fancy are functions of his character as well as of his rea-
son. To appreciate them clearly is to know how he feels
as well as how he argues ; what are the aspects of life
which especially impress him, and what morals are most
congenial. I do not see how the critic can claim an in-
stinctive perception of the Shakespearian mode of thought
without a perception of some sides of his character. You
distinguish Shakespeare's work from his rivals' as con-
fidently as any expert judging of handwriting. You
admit, too, that you can give a very fair account of the
characteristics of the other writers. Then surely you can
tell me — or at least you know " implicitly " — what is the
quality in which they are defective and Shakespeare pre-
eminent.

Half my knowledge of a friend's character is derived
from his talk, and not the less if it is playful, ironical and
dramatic. When we agree that Shakespeare's mind was
vivid and subtle, that he shows a unique power of blend-
ing the tragic and the comic, we already have some indi-
cations of character ; and incidentally we catch revela-
tions of more specific peculiarities. Part of my late read-
ing was a charming book in which Mr. Justice Madden
sets forth Shakespeare's accurate knowledge of field

SELF-REVELATION

sports. It seems to prove conclusively a proposition
against which there can certainly be no presumption. We
may be quite confident that he could thoroughly enjoy a
day's coursing on the Cotswold Hills, and we know by the
most undeniable proof that his sense of humour was
tickled by the oddities of his fellow sportsmen, the Shal-
lows and Slenders. It is at least equally clear that he had
the keenest enjoyment of charms of the surrounding
scenery. He could not have written Midsummer-Night's
Dream or As You Like It if the poetry of the English
greenwood had not entered into his soul. The single
phrase about the daffodils — so often quoted for its magi-
cal power — is proof enough, if there were no other, of a
nature exquisitely sensitive to the beauties of flowers and
of springtime. It wants, again, no such confirmation as
Fuller's familiar anecdote to convince us that Shakespeare
could enjoy convivial meetings at taverns, that he could
listen to, and probably join in, a catch by Sir Toby Belch,
or make Lord Southampton laugh as heartily as Prince
Hal laughed at the jests of Falstaff. Shakespeare, again,
as this suggests, was certainly not a Puritan. That may
be inferred by judicious critics from particular phrases
or from the relations of Puritans to players in general.
But without such reasoning we may go further and say
that the very conception of a Puritan Shakespeare in-
volves a contradiction in terms. He represents, of course,
in the fullest degree, the type which is just the antithesis
of Puritanism ; the large and tolerant acceptance of hu-
man nature which was intolerable to the rigid and strait-
laced fanatics, whom, nevertheless, we may forgive in
consideration of their stern morality. People, indeed,
have argued, very fruitlessly I fancy, as to Shakespeare's
religious beliefs. Critics tell us, and I have no doubt
truly, that it would be impossible to show conclusively
from his works whether he considered himself to be an
Anglican or a Catholic. But a man's real religion is not
to be defined by the formula which he accepts or inferred
even from the church to which he belongs. His outward

OF SHAKESPEARE

profession is chiefly a matter of accident and circum-
stance, not of character. We may, I think, be pretty
certain that Shakespeare's religion, whatever may have
been its external form, included a profound sense of the
mystery of the world and of the pettiness of the little lives
that are rounded by a sleep ; a conviction that we are
such stuff as dreams are made of, and a constant sense,
such as is impressed in the most powerful sonnets, that
our present life is an infinitesimal moment in the vast
" abysm " of eternity. Shakespeare, we know, read Mon-
taigne ; and if, like Montaigne, he accepted the creed in
which he was brought up, he would have sympathized in
Montaigne's sceptical and humorous view of theological
controversialists playing their fantastic tricks of logic be-
fore high Heaven. Undoubtedly, he despised a pedant,
and the pedantry which displayed itself in the wranglings
of Protestant and Papist divines would clearly not have
escaped his contempt. Critics, again, have disputed as to
Shakespeare's politics ; and the problem is complicated
by the desire to show that his politics were as good as his
poetry. Sound Liberals are unwilling to admit that he
had aristocratic tendencies, because they hold that all aris-
tocrats are wicked and narrow-minded. It is, of course,
an anachronism to transplant our problems to those days,
and we cannot say what Shakespeare would have thought
of modern applications of the principles which he ac-
cepted. But I do not see how any man could have been
more clearly what may be called an intellectual aristocrat.
His contempt for the mob may be good-humoured enough,
but is surely unequivocal : from the portrait of Jack Cade
promising, like a good Socialist, that the three-hooped pot
shall have ten hoops, to the first, second and third citizens
who give a display of their inanity and instability in Cori-
olauits or Julius Ccrsar. Shakespeare may be speaking
dramatically through Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida ; but
at least he must have fully appreciated the argument for
order, and understood by order that the cultivated and
intelligent should rule and the common herd have as little

ii

SELF-REVELATION

direct voice in State affairs as Elizabeth and James could
have desired.

When we have got so far, we have already, as it seems
to me, admitted certain attributes, which are as much per-
sonal as literary. If you admit that Shakespeare was a
humourist, intensely sensitive to natural beauty, a scorner
of the pedantry, whether of scholars or theologians, en-
dowed with an amazingly wide and tolerant view of
human nature, radically opposed to Puritanism or any
kind of fanaticism, and capable of hearty sympathy with
the popular instincts and yet with a strong persuasion of
the depth of popular folly, you inevitably affirm at least
some negative propositions about the man himself. You
can say with confidence what are the characteristics which
were thoroughly antipathetic to him, even though it may
be difficult to describe accurately the characteristics which
he positively embodied.

Another point is, it would seem, too plain to need much
emphasis. The author of Romeo and Juliet was, I sup-
pose, capable of Romeo's passion. We may " doubt that
the sun is fire," but can hardly doubt that Shakespeare
could love. In this case, it seems to me, the power of in-
tuition is identical with the emotional power. A man
would surely have been unable to find the most memo-
rable utterance in literature of passions of which he was
not himself abnormally susceptible. It may be right to
describe a poet's power as marvellous, but why should we
hold it to be miraculous ? I agree with Pope's common-
sense remark about Heloisa's " well-sung woes " ; " he
best can paint 'em who can feel 'em most." Surely that
is the obvious explanation, and I am unable to see why
there should be any difficulty in receiving it. When the
blind poet, Blacklock, described scenery which he had
never seen, wise critics puzzled over the phenomenon. It
was explained by the obvious remark that he was simply
appropriating the conventional phrases of other poets.
But when a poet gives originality to the most common-
place of all themes, I infer that he has had the eyesight or

12

OF SHAKESPEARE

felt the emotions required for the feat. We must, no
doubt, be careful as to further differences. If I had read
the poems of Burns or Byron without any knowledge of
their lives, I should be justified, I think, in modestly
inferring that they'were men of strong passions. I could
not suppose that they were merely vamping up old mate-
rial. No inference from conduct could be made more
conclusive than the inference from the fire and force of
their poetry. But it is, of course, doubtful what effect
might be produced on their lives. Byron, brought up
under judicious and firm management, might conceivably
have become an affectionate husband and a respectable
nobleman. Some men have greater powers of self-com-
mand than others, or may be prevented by other qualities
of character from obeying in practice the impulses which
govern their imaginations. It has been said that Moore,
who in early days shocked his contemporaries by immoral
poetry, lived the most domestic and well-regulated of
lives ; whereas Rogers was the most respectable of poets
and a striking contrast to Moore in conduct. The fact,
if it be a fact, may warn us against hasty conclusions.
A man may have very good reasons for keeping some of
his feelings out of his books ; or may, out of mere levity,
affect vices which he does not put in practice. We can
be sure that he has certain propensities ; but, of course,
we cannot tell how far circumstance and other propensi-
ties may not hold them in check. Much smaller men
than Shakespeare are still very complex organisms. We
may judge from this and that symptom that they react,
as a chemist may say, in certain ways to a given stimulus ;
but to put all the indications together, to say which are
the dominant instincts and how different impulses will
modify each other in active life; to decide whether a
feeling which shapes the ideal world will have a corre-
sponding force when it comes into contact with realities,
is a delicate investigation. When an adequate biography
is obtainable, the answer is virtually given. The facts
of Shakespeare's life are as far as possible from adequate ;

13

SELF=REVELATION

but we may ask how far what is known can check or
confirm inferences from the works.

This brings us to the biographical problem. Minute
students of Shakespeare have done one great service at
least. They have established approximately the order of
his works. The plays, when placed in a chronological
series, show probably the most remarkable intellectual
development on record. There is, I suppose, no great
writer who shows so distinctly the growth and varying
direction of his poetical faculty. We watch Shakespeare
from the first period of authorship; beginning as a cob-
bler and adapter of other men's works ; making a fresh
start as a follower of Marlowe, and then improving upon
his model in the great historical dramas. We can com-
pare the gaiety and the ridicule of affectations in the
early comedies with the more serious and penetrative por-
traits of life in the later works ; or trace the development
of his full powers in the great tragedies, and the mellower
tone of the later romantic dramas. If some knowledge
of Shakespeare is implied in a comparison between him
and his contemporaries, there is still more significance in
the comparison with himself. A century ago a critic put
the Two Gentlemen of Verona at the end and The Winter's
Tale at the beginning of his career. Such an inversion,
we now perceive, would make the whole history of his
mental development chaotic and contradictory. That
Shakespeare, whom we know to have been a marvellously
keen observer of life and character, and who lived, as
literary historians so elaborately demonstrate, under the
most stimulating intellectual and social conditions, must
have had his reflections and learnt some lessons about
human life is self-evident. To show how, for example,
Richard II., in which he followed Marlowe, differed from
the Henry IV., in which he has found his own charac-
teristic breadth and strength, is to show what some of
those lessons were, and therefore to throw light upon the
man who learnt them so quickly. We see how certain
veins of reflection become more prominent, how, for ex-

14

OF SHAKESPEARE

ample, humour checks the bombastic tendency, and the
broader and deeper view of life " begets a temperance "
which restrains the " whirlwind " of ungovernable pas-
sions. The critic who can exhibit the growth of a man's
power implicitly exhibits also the character which is
developed; and, in fact, I think that by taking such
considerations into account a clearer perception of the
man has been gradually worked out. The task, no doubt,
would be easier if we could strengthen our case by some
definite biographical data ; and the misfortune is that we
are tempted to construct the required data by the help of
audacious conjectures. The natural failure of such enter-
prises has unduly discredited the value of mere modest
inferences.

The hope of unveiling the man has in particular led to
the controversy over the Sonnets. They are supposed to
show that Shakespeare went through a spiritual crisis,
which is indicated by the bitterness of some of the plays
written at the time ; and the inferences would be appli-
cable if we could safely identify the dark lady with Mis-
tress Fitton and " W. H." with the Earl of Pembroke.
I humbly accept Mr. Lee's chief conclusions. He has
insisted upon the fact that Shakespeare was falling in
with a temporary fashion, or infected by a curious mania
which led poets just at that period to pour out sonnets by
the hundred. The inference that the Sonnets necessarily
imply some personal catastrophe is thus deprived of its
force. If half the early Victorian poets had been writing
" In Memoriams," we might believe that Tennyson had
no special friendship for Arthur Hallam, and had merely
made a pretext of a commonplace attachment. It is
possible, or rather it is highly probable, that Shakespeare
took some real bit of personal history for a text, though
many of the Sonnets are simply variations upon estab-
lished poetical themes. But we cannot say that his emo-
tion must have been caused by some thrilling events when
it is at least equally likely that he merely took a trifling
event as a pretext for expressing his emotions. Shake-

SELF-REVELATION

speare was certainly dramatist enough to discover a mo-
tive for poetry in a commonplace experience. The at-
tempted identifications do little more than illustrate a
common fallacy. The impossibility of conclusively
proving a negative is confounded with the conclusive
proof of the positive. " It is just possible," becomes " it
is certainly true." The whole Pembroke-Fitton hypothe-
sis rests (as Mr. Lee seems to show) upon the interpre-
tation of the famous initials. The fact that a nobleman
had an intrigue with a lady about the time when the
Sonnets, or some of them, may have been written, cannot
prove that they refer to the intrigue. Shakespeare could
hardly have managed to write at a period when some
intrigue was not going on. If, then, " W. H." did not
mean William Herbert, the peg on which the whole argu-
ment hangs is struck out. Now " Mr. W. H." could not
possibly suggest the Earl to any contemporary, and, in
fact, did not suggest him to any one for more than two
centuries. That, Professor Brandes seems to think,
strengthens the case, because the dedication would natu-
rally be reticent. The argument recalls the old retort : —

My wound is great, because it is so small :
Then it were greater were it none at all !

If there had been no dedication, the proof apparently
would have been conclusive, because the reticence would
have been absolute. The true argument is surely simple.
If there were otherwise very strong reasons for believing
in the Pembroke theory, it might be conceivable that the
initials were suggested by association, though it would
still be odd that reticence pushed so far did not go a step
further. In the absence of such reasons, the obscurity
cannot of itself be any ground for conviction. People
forget how frequent are much closer and yet purely acci-
dental coincidences ; but when there is a chance of the
glory of a discovery of such a bit of personal history,
" trifles light as air " become demonstrative to enthusiastic
worshippers.

16

OF SHAKESPEARE

There is a more fundamental objection to the whole
theory. Were it proved that the Sonnets refer to the con-
jectured history, the fact would be interesting, but would
hardly throw much light upon our problem. It is sup-
posed to suggest a cause for Shakespeare's supposed pes-
simistic mood. To take a parallel case, we may find an
explanation of Swift's misanthropy in his long ordeal of
disappointed ambition. There is no doubt whatever that
Swift's writings express a misanthropy as savage as that
of Timon or Thersites ; and on the other side, there is
no doubt that his career was calculated to sour his nature.
Putting the history of the man and his works together,
both become the more intelligible. The fierce indignation
shown by the author is explained and palliated by the
life of the man. If Shakespeare had suddenly retired
from the stage and taken to writing pamphlets like the
Drapier's Letters or the Martin Marprelate tracts, we
might admit the probability of some events which em-
bittered his life. But then the conspicuous fact is that
his life ran on as far as we can tell with perfect smooth-
ness. Nobody can prove that he did not love Mistress
Fitton; but it is quite clear that, if he did, it did not
prevent him from making money, buying New Place,
setting up as a gentleman and continuing a thoroughly
prosperous career. The passion clearly did not dislocate
his career. Therefore, even if the alleged fact be true,
it had no permanent bearing on his life. On the other
side, there is no proof of anything in the works to require
explanation. Critics have indeed shown that at one period
pessimistic sentiments (to speak roughly) become more
prominent than before or afterwards. But we must, in
the first place, make the proper allowance for the dra-
matic condition. He may have continued the " Thersites "
or " Timon " vein because it was popular or because it
suited the acting of one of his " fellows." And in the
next place the whole argument that a man must be
gloomy because he writes of horrors or indulges in misan-
thropical tirades is questionable. Sometimes the opposite

17

SELF=REVELATION

theory is more plausible. When we are young and our
nerves strong we can bear excitement which becomes
painful as our spirits fail ; and in old age we like happy
conclusions and soothing imagery, precisely because we
are less cheerful. In any case, the works admittedly lose
• the pessimistic tone in the later years ; and the presump-
tion is that if Shakespeare suffered from any moral con-
vulsion he was fortunate enough to be thoroughly cured.
The conjectured story is required, if required at all, by
the Sonnets alone. When we make proper allowance for
the degree in which they were suggested by the contem-
porary fashion and were imitations of other poets or
simple variations of commonplace themes, the necessity
for believing in any romance at all vanishes. Thus there
are not two histories, literary and personal, which explain
each other, but two histories, both of which rest upon con-
jecture. Even if the conjecture be accepted in either case,
the one thing that is clear is that the results were transi-
tory. I can therefore accept Mr. Lee's opinion that the
story may be put out of account altogether when we are
trying to understand the man in his works.

The more modest inference however remains. If we
can infer from his poetry that Shakespeare could be in
love, we can surely infer with equal confidence that he
could feel the emotions which embody themselves in pes-
simism. He had, one cannot doubt, satisfied the familiar
condition of acquaintance with the heavenly powers. He
knew what it was to eat his bread with sorrow and pass
his nights in weeping. No one, I suppose, ever read the
famous catalogue of the evils which made him pine for
restful death, or the reference to the degrading influences
of his profession, without feeling that a real man is speak-
ing to us from his own experience. The poetical " intui-
tion," as I must again hold, does not supersede the neces-
sity for assuming the intense sensibility of which it is
surely a product. When Thackeray, in the little poem
Vanitas Vanitatum, almost repeats Shakespeare's cata-
logue of the evils which made him pine for restful death,

18

OF SHAKESPEARE

as a comment upon the saying- of the " Weary King
Ecclesiast," I know from his biography that he had gone
through corresponding trials. I infer that Shakespeare
had felt the emotions which he expressed with unequalled
intensity. When we recall the main facts of his career,
the society in which he had lived, the events of which he
had been a close spectator, and admit, to put it gently,
that he was a man of more than average powers of mind
and feeling, the a priori probability that he had gone
through trying experiences is pretty strong: and though
we know none of the details we can hardly suppose that
he got through life without abundant opportunities for
putting Hamlet's question as to the value of life. This
indeed suggests to some critics that the argument ought
to be inverted. The life so far from explaining the genius
makes it, as some people have thought, a puzzle. " I can-
not," says Emerson, "marry this fact" (the fact that
Shakespeare was a jovial actor and manager) " to his
verse." The best of the world's poets led an " obscure
and profane life, using his genius for the public amuse-
ment." Obscure and profane are perhaps rather harsh
epithets ; but they suggest the problem : Is there any real
incompatibility between Shakespeare's conduct and the
theory of life implied by his writings?

I leave a full answer to the accomplished critic whom I
desiderate but do not try to anticipate. Yet, keeping to
the region of tolerably safe commonplaces, I fancy that
this supposed antithesis really admits of, or rather sug-
gests, a natural mode of conciliation. Emerson laments,
what we all admit, that Shakespeare was not a preacher
with a mission. He had no definite ethical system to
inculcate ; and, moreover, so far as we can define his
morality, it was not such as would satisfy the saint. If
he clearly did not agree with John Knox, we may doubt
whether he would have appreciated St. Francis. Martyrs
and ascetics would have been out of place in his world.
The exalted idealist despises fact : he is impressive pre-
cisely because his doctrine is impracticable : the ideal may

19

SELF-REVELATION

stimulate what is best in us, but it is too refined and
exalted to be accepted by the mass. But Shakespeare
does not idealize in the sense of neglecting the actual.
He is intensely interested in the world as it is, the world
moved by the great forces of love, hate, jealousy, am-
bition, pride, and patriotism. He " idealizes " so far as he
has a keener insight than any one into the corresponding
types of character, but he does not care, so far as we can
see, for the religious enthusiast who retires to a hermitage
or scornfully denounces the world, the flesh, and the
devil. The men in whom he takes an interest have for-
gotten that they ever renounced these powers ; they are
soldiers, courtiers, and statesmen, who give us the secret
of the ideal Raleighs and Essexes and Burleighs of his
own day. The virtues of purity or self-devotion are left
chiefly to the women, who are the most charming by
contrast with the world of force and passion in which
they move ; though now and then a Cleopatra or a Lady
Macbeth shows that a woman can be interesting by join-
ing in the rude struggle. This, of course, is to say that
Shakespeare is able to interpret in the most vivid way the
characteristics of a period of extraordinary intellectual
and social convulsion. But his interpretation shows also
individual peculiarities which distinguish him from others
who experience a similar internal influence. There is, I
think, one distinct moral doctrine even in Shakespeare,
and one which is a corollary from this position. Hamlet
states it in explaining his regard for Horatio, the man

" Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee."

In a world so full of passion and violence, the essential
condition of happiness is the power of keeping your head.
They, as he says in a remarkable sonnet, " who, moving

OF SHAKESPEARE

others, are themselves as stone," are the right inheritors
of " Heaven's graces." The one character who, as com-
mentators agree, represents a personal enthusiasm, is
Henry V., and Henry V.'s special peculiarity is his super-
lative self-command. It is emphasized even at some cost
of dramatic propriety. Critics at least have complained
of the soliloquy [i Henry IV., I. ii.] beginning

" I know you all, and will a while uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness,"

in which the prince expresses a deliberate intention of
throwing off his wild companions. He is talking to the
audience, it is suggested, and should not have so clear a
theory of motives which he would scarcely avow to him-
self. I fancy indeed that many young gentlemen have
indulged in similar excuses for the process of sowing
their wild oats ; and the main peculiarity of Henry V.
is that he really means them and keeps to his resolution.
Shakespeare obviously expects us to approve the exile of
Falstaff, and rather scandalizes readers who have fallen
in love with that disreputable person. A similar moral
is implied in others of the most characteristic plays.
Shakespeare, for example, sympathizes most heartily and
unmistakably with the pride of Coriolanus and the pas-
sionate energy of Mark Antony. They are admirable and
attractive because they have such hot blood in their veins ;
but come to grief because the blood is not " commingled "
with judgement. The really enviable thing, he seems to
say, would be to unite the two characteristics ; to be full
of energy which shall yet be always well in hand ; to have
unbounded strength of passion and yet never to be the
slave of passion.

If this be a characteristic impression it is an obvious
suggestion that it is illustrated by Shakespeare's life. The
young lad from the country had the same temptations as
Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe. He did . not
escape them by any coldness of temperament or inability
to appreciate the pleasures of the town. He may, as two

SELF-REVELATION

or three stories suggest, have given way to weaknesses
which would account for some of the expressions of
remorse in the Sonnets. Anyhow, he had retained enough
prudence and self-command to avoid the fate of a Pistol
or a Falstaff. He became a highly respectable man as
well as a world-poet. If he caught some stains from bad
company, they were, as I may leave the critics to demon-
strate, superficial. The appreciation of pure and lofty
qualities develops instead of declines as years go on. It
surely cannot be said that an eye for the main chance is
inconsistent with the poetical character. The conven-
tional poet, of course, lives in dreamland, and is an inca-
pable man of business. But then it is the specialty of
Shakespeare, that if he could dream, he must have been
most keenly awake to a living world of men. Interest in
and insight into our fellow creatures is surely a good
qualification for business. Voltaire was a superlative
man of business. Goethe knew the value of a good
social position. Pope was a keen and successful money-
maker. Dickens showed a similar capacity. Such cases
may show that men can reconcile literary genius with
business aptitudes. In one respect they may fall short of
the case. They do not imply the actual preference of
"gain" to "glory" attributed to Shakespeare. The
closer parallel is, of course, Scott. If Scott's enjoyment
of Abbotsford led to his ruin, while Shakespeare's more
modest ambition was satisfied by New Place, the differ-
ence may have been that in the earlier period the arts of
manufacturing paper credit were not so well understood.
Still, Scott's estimate of the really valuable element of life
naturally suggests Shakespeare. He held that the man
of action was superior to the man of letters. He wondered
that the Duke of Wellington should condescend to an
interest in the author of a few "bits of novels." He
meant frankly to make money by providing harmless
amusement ; but he did not fancy that the achievements
of a novelist were comparable to the winning of battles
or the making of laws. Shakespeare, we may guess,

22

OF SHAKESPEARE

would have agreed. Like Scott, he held aloof from
literary squabbles, whether from good-nature, or from
worldly wisdom, or a sense of the pettiness of such cal-
culations. He had his literary vanity, but it was to be
satisfied by the poems and by the circulation of the
Sonnets in manuscript. The plays were in the first in-
stance pot-boilers. He could not help putting his power
into them when a situation laid hold of his imagination ;
but the haste, the frequent flagging of interest, the curious
readiness with which he drops an interesting character or
accepts an unsatisfactory catastrophe, tends to show a
singular indifference. In the greatest play, as in Othello,
the inspiration lasts throughout ; but in most he does not
take the trouble to keep up to the highest level.

I need not ask whether the opinions attributed to Scott
and Shakespeare are defensible. Some people, I know,
consider that " devotion to art " is the cardinal virtue, and
that it is better to turn out a good poem and starve than
to write down to the public and pay your bills. That is
an old controversy ; but, at any rate, Shakespeare's view
is characteristic. He was never blind to the humourist's
point of view, and humour has its questionable ethical
quality. It helps some people to see the charm of the
" simple faith miscalled simplicity," and Shakespeare's
cordial appreciation of a fool shows one side of an amiable
disposition. But a saint can hardly be a humourist. It is
his nature to take things seriously, and to believe (bold
as it appears) in the power of sermons. The humourist
sees with painful distinctness the folly of the wise and the
weakness of the hero and the general perversity of for-
tune. He may be capable of enthusiasm, or, at least, sym-
pathy, with the enthusiastic ; but he feels that there is
always a lurking irony in the general order of things.
He is specially conscious of the vanity of his own ambi-
tion, and aware that his highest success makes a very
small ripple on the great ocean of existence. Shakespeare
had the good (though not rare) fortune of living before
his commentators. His head, therefore, was not turned,

23

SELF-REVELATION

and he held, we may suppose, that to defeat the Armada
was a more important bit of work than to amuse the audi-
ence at the Globe. He could feel, indeed, the irony with
which fate treats the great men of action. Masterful
ambitions lead to catastrophes, and in the political world,
where order and subordination are the essentials, even
the ideal hero who can be calm in the storm, and hold his
own amidst the struggling elements, is not much the better
for it personally. Henry V. is still but a man made to
bear the blame of all mishap, and " subject to the breath
of every fool." He has nothing to show for it, " save
ceremony," and cannot sleeo so soundly as the vacant-
minded slave. So the Spanish minister is said to have
told the king: "Your Majesty is but a ceremony," an
essential part, indeed, of the framework of the State, but
not superior in personal happiness to the ordinary human
being.

That, it seems to me, points to the most obvious solu-
tion of the supposed contrast between the man and the
author. Nobody was more keenly alive to every vanity
of enjoyment, or more capable of sympathizing with the
passions and ambitions of all the amazingly vigorous life
that was going on around him. He can be poet and lover1
and sportsman, a boon companion, and watch the great
game that is played in the court or in the wars. He can
act as they come every part in Jaques' famous speech,
always with an eye to the end of the strange, eventful
history ; take everything as it comes, and yet ask, " What
is it worth?" Never forget, he seems to have replied,
that life is very short, and man very small, and the pleas-
ure appropriate to each stage has drawbacks, and will
disappear altogether as the powers decline. And by the
time you are fifty it will be well to have a comfortable
little place of your own in the quiet country town endeared
by youthful memories.

If everything that I have said should be granted there
would be great gaps in our knowledge of Shakespeare.
We could only fill them by the help of data no longer

24

OF SHAKESPEARE

ascertainable. We do not know what scrapes he may
have got into ; only that he must have got out of them :
nor how much he cared for his wife and children, or how
he behaved in business transactions, or whether he was
too obsequious to his patrons. If such questions could
be answered we might know a great deal more of him.
Yet I think also that some very distinct personal qualities
are sufficiently implied. Shakespeare's life suggests a
problem. We have, on the one hand, a man abnormally
sensitive to all manner of emotions, and having an un-
rivalled power of sympathy with every passion of human
nature. On the other hand, though exposed to all the
temptations of a most exciting " environment," he accom-
plishes a prosperous and outwardly commonplace career.
He could emerge from the grosser element, no doubt,
because his powers of intellect and imagination raised
him above the level of the sensualist whose tastes he
sometimes condescended to gratify. But he could not
be a Puritan, because their stern morality was radically
opposed to the aesthetic enjoyment to which he was most
sensitive. He cared little for the aestheticism of a dif-
ferent and more sentimental type, which condemns as
worldly the great passions and emotions which are the
really moving forces of the world. He sympathizes far
too heartily with human loves and hatreds and political
ambitions. But then he cannot, like Marlowe or Chap-
man, sympathize unequivocally with the heroic when it
becomes excessive and overstrained. The power of
humour keeps him from the bombastic and the affected,
and he sees the facts of life too clearly not to be aware
of the vanity of human wishes ; the disappointments of
successful ambition and the emptiness of its supposed
rewards. He is profoundly conscious of the pettiness of
human life and of the irony of fate — of which, indeed, he
had plenty of instances before him. This, I fancy, im-
plies personal characteristics which fall in very well, so
far as they can be grasped, with what we know of the life.
Be a Romeo while you can ; love is delightful when you

25

SELF-REVELATION OF SHAKESPEARE

are young; only think twice before you buy your dram
of poison. As you grow older be a soldier, a hero, or a
statesman, or, if you can be nothing better, be a play-
wright, so long as the inspiration comes with spontaneous
and overpowering force. But always remember to keep
your passions in check, and don't forget that the prize,
even if you win it, may turn to ashes in your mouth. Fate
is always playing ugly tricks, punishing the reckless, and
exposing illusions. The struggle is fascinating while it
lasts because it rouses the energies ; but when the ener-
gies decay the position which it has won loses its charm.
Literary glory, though one may talk about it in sonnets,
is a trifle. Your rivals are many of them very good
fellows, and make excellent society ; it is both pleasant
and prudent to be on good terms with them, and nothing
is so contemptible as the rivalry of authors. But, after
all, success only means a position among jealous depen-
dents of great men, who themselves are very apt to get
into the Tower and even to the scaffold. When youthful
passions have grown feeble, and the delight of being ap-
plauded by the mob has rather palled upon one, the best
thing will be to break the magical wand and sit down
with, we will hope, " good Mistress Hall " for a satis-
factory Miranda, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Though we
can no longer write ballads to our mistress' eyebrow, we
can heartily appreciate gentle, pure, and obedient woman-
hood, and may hope that some specimens may be found,
while we still enjoy a chat and a convivial meeting with
an old theatrical friend. This view of life suggests, I
think, a very real person, and does not go beyond what is
substantially admitted by literary critics.

26

The English Drama.

The English Drama.*

BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

The English drama, like the Greek, has a purely re-
ligious origin. The same is true of the drama of every
civilized people of modern times. It is worthy of par-
ticular remark that the theatre, denounced by church-
men and by laymen of eminently evangelical profession,
as base, corrupting, and sinful, not in its abuse and its
degradation, but in its very essence, should have been
planted and nourished by churchmen, having priests for
its first authors and actors, and having been for centuries
the chief school of religion and of morals to an unlet-
tered people. Theatrical representations have probably
continued without interruption from the time of ^Eschy-
lus. Even in the dark ages, which we look back upon too
exclusively as a period of gloom, tumult, and bloodshed-
ding, people bought and sold, and were married and
given in marriage, and feasted and amused themselves
as we do now ; and we may be sure that among their
amusements dramatic representations of some sort were
not lacking. The earliest dramatic performances in the
modern languages of Europe of which we have any rec-
ord or tradition were representations of the most striking
events recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the
Christian Gospels, of some of the stories told in the
Pseudo Evangelium, or Spurious Gospel, or of legends
of the saints. On the continent these were called Mys-
teries; In England both Mysteries and Miracle-plays.

* An account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama
to the time of Shakespeare.

THE ENGLISH

The ancient Hebrews had at least one play. It was
founded upon the exodus of their people from Egypt.
Fragments of this play in Greek iambics have been pre-
served to modern times in the works of various authors.
The principal characters are Moses, Zipporah, and God
in the Bush. The author, one Ezekiel, is called by Scal-
iger the tragic poet of the Jews. His work is referred by
one critic to a date before the Christian era ; others sup-
pose that he was one of the Seventy Translators ; but
Warton, my authority in this instance, supposes that he
wrote his play after the destruction of Jerusalem, hoping
by its means to warm the patriotism and revive the hopes
of his dejected countrymen.

The Eastern Empire long clung to all the glories to
which its name, its language, and its position gave it a
presumptive title ; and the tragedies of Sophocles and
Euripides were performed after some fashion at Constan-
tinople until the fourth century. At this period Gregory
Nazianzen, archbishop, patriarch, and one of the fathers
of the church, banished the pagan drama from the Greek
stage, and substituted plays founded on subjects taken
from the Hebrew or the Christian Scriptures. St. Gregory
wrote many plays of this kind himself ; and Warton says
that one of them, called XptcrTOs Tlaffxc^^, or Christ's
Passion, is still extant. In this play, which, according
to the Prologue, was written in imitation of Euripides,
the Virgin Mary was introduced upon the stage, making
then, as far as we know, her first appearance. St. Greg-
ory died about A. D. 390. His dramatic productions
more than rivalled his other theological writings in the
favour of the people ; for, as Warton also mentions, St.
Chrysostom, who soon succeeded Gregory in the see of
Constantinople, complained that in his day people heard
a comedian with much more pleasure than a minister of
the gospel. St. Chrysostom held the see of Constanti-
nople from A. D. 398 to A. D. 404. In this quarter also
another kind of dramatic representation — that of mum-
mery or masking — developed itself in a Christian or a

DRAMA

modern form. It is known that many of the Christian
festivals which have come down to us from the dark ages
were the fruits of a grafting of Christian legends upon
pagan ceremonies — a contrivance by which the priests
supposed that they had circumvented the heathen, who
would more easily give up their religion than their feasts
and their holidays. And the introduction of religious
mumming and masking by Theophylact, patriarch of Con-
stantinople, about the year 990, has been reasonably at-
tributed to a design of giving the people a Christian per-
formance which they could and would substitute in place
of the Bacchanalian revels. He is said by an historian of
the succeeding generation to have " introduced the prac-
tice which prevails even at this present day of scandaliz-
ing God and the memory of his saints, on the most splen-
did and popular festivals, by indecent and ridiculous
songs, and enormous shoutings, . . . diabolical
dances, exclamations of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed
from the streets and brothels." The Feast of Fools and
the Feast of Asses — the latter of which was instituted in
honour of Balaam's beast — had this origin. Such ming-
ling of revelry and religion as these Feasts, and of amuse-
ment and instruction in the faith as the Mysteries, suited
both the priestly and the popular need of the time ; and
they soon found their way westward, and particularly into
France. There, not long after, the Feast of Asses was
performed in this manner : The clergy walked on Christ-
mas day in procession, habited to represent Moses, David,
the prophets, other Hebrews, and Assyrians. Balaam,
with an immense pair of spurs, rode on a wooden ass,
which enclosed a speaker. Virgil was one of the proces-
sion, which moved on, chanting versicles and dialoguing
in character on the birth of Christ, through the body of
the church, until it reached the choir. The fairs of those
days, which were the great occasions of profit and amuse-
ment, offered opportunities for the performance of these
" holy farces," or of the soberer mysteries or miracle-
plays, of which the priests did not fail to avail them-

THE ENGLISH

selves ; and thus this rude form of religious drama
spread gradually, but not slowly, throughout Europe.

Warton and his editor Price found that religious plays
were performed in Italy at a period very much earlier
than either Riccoboni or Crescembini, the principal Italian
authorities on this subject, supposed ; in fact, that they
were common as early as 1250. In the natural order of
things this species of performance would pass from Italy
to France and from France to England; and the suppo-
sition that it was brought into the latter country across the
channel is supported by the fact that there is evidence that
the first religious plays performed in England were trans-
lations from the French. Some yet extant have passages
in that language scattered through them — a fact which
can be most reasonably accounted for by the supposition
that these isolated passages are parts of the original, left
untranslated in the manuscripts which have come down
to us. It has even been supposed that the first miracle-
plays produced in England were performed in French.
Possibly this supposition is well founded ; but we may
be sure that these plays soon received an English dress.
For the miracle-plays were used by the priesthood for
the religious instruction, not only of those who could not
read — among whom were the Norman nobles who could
understand French — but also, and chiefly, of the middle
and lower classes, to whom French was almost as in-
comprehensible as the Latin in which their prayers were
vicariously mumbled. Miracle-plays seem to have been,
in some measure at least, the fruit of the same laudable
desire on the part of the Roman Catholic priesthood for
the instruction of their people in religious truth, to
which we owe the rhymed homilies or gospel paraphrases
of the thirteenth century, in which the lesson of the day,
read of course in Latin, was translated, amplified, and
illustrated in octosyllabic rhymes, which were read to the
people by the priest. Six ancient manuscript collections
of these homilies are known to exist ; and in the prologue
to the oldest one of them, which is of the fourteenth cen-

DRAMA

tury, and which has recently been printed, the writer ex-
pressly says that he has undertaken his task of thus
preaching in English that all may understand what he
says, because both clerks and ignorant men understand
English, but all men cannot understand Latin and French.
The earliest performance of a miracle-play in England
of which any record has been discovered took place within
about ten years previous to 1119. The play, founded
upon the legend of St. Catherine, was written by Geoff-
rey, afterwards Abbot of St. Alban's, before he became
abbot, and was performed in Dunstable. So says Mat-
thew Paris in his Lives of the Abbots, which was written
before 1240. Geoffrey, a Norman monk and a member
of the University of Paris, became Abbot of St. Alban's
in 1119. But his miracle-play was no novelty; for
Budaeus, the historian of the University of Paris, tells
us that it was at that time common for teachers and
scholars to get up these performances.* Fitz-Stephen,
Thomas a Becket's contemporary and biographer, also
records that in London, during the life or soon after the
death of that stiff-necked priest, who was put to death in
1170, there were performed in London religious plays
representing the miracles wrought by saints, or the suffer-
ings and constancy of martyrs, f These miracle-plays or
mysteries derived their name from the fact that, whether
founded upon the Old or the New Testament, the spu-
rious Gospel attributed to Nicodemus, or church tradi-
tion, they almost without exception represented a display
of supernatural power. Made the means of teaching not
only religious history, but religious dogmas, these miracle-
plays often represented a display of supernatural power
in the support of those dogmas ; and naturally that one
most in need of such extra-rational aid, transubstantia-
tion, received most of this bolstering. One of the oldest

*I have seen neither Matthew Paris's Historia Major, etc., nor
Budacus's Historia Unirersitatis Parisicnsis. Both are cited by
Markland and Warton. who are my authorities.

f Fitz-Stephens's Description of London, ed. Pegge, 1773, p. 73.

THE ENGLISH

manuscript miracle-plays extant, the manuscript being, in
the judgement of experts, as old as 1460-70, is upon this
subject. It is called The Play of the Blessed Sacrament,
and dramatizes a miracle said to have been worked in the
forest of Aragon in the year 1461 ; but doubtless the tra-
dition is older. Among the characters are Christ, five
Jews, a bishop, a curate, a Christian merchant, and a
physician. The merchant steals the Host and sells it to
the Jews, on condition that they shall become Christians
if they find that it has miraculous powers. To test its
character, they stab it ; it bleeds, and one of them goes
mad at the sight : one attempts to nail it to a post ; he
has his hand torn off : the physician is called in, but after
a comic scene is turned out as a quack. They then boil
the Host, and the water turns to blood. Finally, they
try to consume it in a blazing furnace, when the oven
bursts asunder and an image of Christ arises, before
which the Jews prostrate themselves, and become Chris-
tians on the spot. The bishop now forms a procession,
enters the Jew's house, and addresses the image, which
changes to bread again. He then " improves the occasion "
offered by this comic-pantomime-like performance, in an
epilogue, which is a rhymed homily on transubstantia-
tion.

There were neither theatres nor professional actors in
England, indeed in Europe, at the period when miracle-
plays first came in vogue. Their first performers were
clergymen ; the first stages or scaffolds on which they
were presented were set up in churches. Evidence that
this was the case has been discovered in such profusion
that it is needless to specify it more particularly in this
place, than to remark that councils and prelates finally
found it necessary to forbid such performances, either
in churches or by the clergy. After the exclusion of the
clergy from the religious stage, lay brothers, parish
clerks, and the hangers-on of the priesthood naturally
took the place of their spiritual fathers, under whose su-
perintendence, or, to speak precisely, management, the

DRAMA

miracle-plays were brought out. Excluded from the
church itself, like the strange Danse Macabre, or Dance
of Death, like that dance the miracle-play found fitting
refuge in the churchyard. But it was finally forbidden
within all hallowed precincts, and was then presented
upon a movable scaffold or pageant, which was dragged
through the town, and stopped for the performance at
certain places designated by an announcement made a
day or two before. At last the presentation of these plays
fell entirely into the hands of laymen, and the handi-
craftsmen became their actors; the members of the va-
rious guilds undertaking respectively certain plays which
they made for the time their specialty. Thus the Shear-
men, or Tailors, would represent one, the Cappers an-
other, and so with the Smiths, the Skinners, the Fish-
mongers, and others. In the Chester series Noah's Flood
was very appropriately assigned to the Water Dealers
and Drawers of the Dee. It is almost needless to remark
that the female characters were always played by strip-
lings and young men. Women did not appear upon the
English stage until the middle of the seventeenth century.
It would seem that the priests appeared only as amateurs,
and that their performances were gratuitous. But when
the laymen, or at least when the handicraftsmen, under-
took the business, they were paid, as we know by the
memorandums of account still existing.*

* The following items of account are taken from one of many
memorandums discovered by Mr. Sharp in the archives of Cov-
entry, and published in his Essay on the Coventry Mysteries: —

Md. payd to the players for corpus christi daye
Imprimis, to God ijs

Itm to Cayphas iij8 iiijd

ItmtoHeroude iij8 iiijd
ItmtoPilatt is wyff ij8

Itm to the Bedull iiij8
Itm to one of the knights ij8

Itm to the devyll and Judas xviijd

THE ENGLISH

The oldest manuscript of an English miracle-play
known to exist is that of The Harrowing of Hell, which
is among the Harleian M.SS. in the British Museum.
This manuscript is believed to have been written about
1350; but that date of course does not help us to deter-
mine the period when the play was composed, or give it
priority in this respect to others which have been pre-
served only in more modern writing. The Harrowing of
Hell is supposed with probability to have been one of a
series ; and its subject, the descent of Christ into hell for
the purpose of bringing away thence the saints and
prophets, has its place in collections or series which have
from their completeness greater interest and importance.

The three most important sets of miracle-plays in our
language are known as the Townley, the Coventry, and
the Chester collections. The Townley collection is sup-
posed to have belonged to Widkirk Abbey, and is hence
sometimes called the Widkirk collection. The manu-
script, in the opinion of Mr. Collier, is of the time of
Henry VI.* The Coventry collection is so called because
there is reason to believe that it was the property of the
Gray Friars of Coventry, who were famous for the per-
formance of miracle-plays at the feast of Corpus Christi.
The principal part of the manuscript copy extant was
written in the year 1468, as appears by that date upon one

* The following are the titles of the thirty plays in the Townley
series: I. The Creation and the Rebellion of Lucifer. II. Mac-
tatio Abel. III. Progressus Noae cum Filiis. IV. Abraham. V.
Jacob and Esau. VI. Processus Prophetarum. VII. Pharao.
VIII. Caesar Augustus. IX. Annunciato. X. Salutatio Eliza-
bethan. XI. Pastorum. XII. Alia eorundem. XIII. Oblatio
Magorum. XIV. Fugatio Josephi et Marse in Egiptum. XV.
Magnus Herodus. XVI. Purificatio Marian. XVII. Johannes
Baptista. XVIII. Conspiratio Christi. XIX. Colaphizatio. XX.
Flagellatio. XXI. Processus Crucis. XXII. Processus Talen-
torum. XXIII. Extractio Animarum. XXIV. Ressurectio
Domini. XXV. Peregrini. XXVI. Thomas Judian. XXVII.
Ascensio Domini. XXVIII. Judicium. XXIX. Lazarus. XXX.
Suspensio Judae.

8

DRAMA

page of the volume.* The Chester series, of which there
are three existing manuscript copies, the oldest only of the
year 1600, belonged to the city of Chester. Its author
was one Randle, a monk of Chester Abbey. They were
played upon Whitsunday by the tradesmen of that city,
and Mr. Markam, one of the earliest, and, in the phrase of
his day, most ingenious writers upon this subject has
pretty clearly established that they were first produced
in 1268, four years after the establishment of the feast of
Corpus Christi, under the auspices of Sir John Arneway,
mayor of Chester, f A brief analysis of some of the plays

* The Coventry series contains forty-two plays, upon the fol-
lowing subjects: I. The Creation. II. The Fall of Man. III..
The Death of Abel. IV. Noah's Flood. V. Abraham's Sacrifice.
VI. Moses and the Ten Tables. VII. The Genealogy of Christ.
VIII. Anna's Pregnancy. IX. Mary in the Temple. X. Mary's
Betrothment. XI. The Salutation and the Conception. XII.
Joseph's Return. XIII. The Visit to Elizabeth. XIV. The Trial
of Joseph and Mary. XV. The Birth of Christ. XVI. The
Adoration of the Shepherds. XVII. The Adoration of the Magi.
XVIII. The Purification. XIX. The Slaughter of the Innocents.
XX. Christ disputing in the Temple. XXI. The Baptism of
Christ. XXII. The Temptation. XXIII. The Woman taken in
Adultery. XXIV. Lazarus. XXV. The Council of the Jews.
XXVI. The Entry into Jerusalem. XXVII. The Last Supper.
XXVIII. The Betraying of Christ. XXIX. King Herod. XXX.
The Trial of Christ. XXXI. Pilate's Wife's Dream. XXXII.
The Crucifixion. XXXIII. The Descent into Hell. XXXIV. The
Burial of Christ. XXXV. The Resurrection. XXXVI. The
three Marys. XXXVII. Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen.
XXXVIII. The Pilgrims of Emmaus. XXXIX. The Ascension.
XL. Descent of the Holy Ghost. XLI. The Assumption. XLII.
Doomsday.

t The Chester series contains but twenty-four plays, upon the
following subjects: I. The Fall of Lucifer. II. De Creatore
Mundi. III. De Deluvio Noae. IV. De Abrahamo Melchisedech,
et Loth. V. De Mose et Rege Balak, et Balaam Propheta. VI.
De Salutatione at Nativitate Salvatoris. VII. De Pastoribus
Greges pascentibus. VIII. De Tribus Regibus Orientalibus. IX.
De Oblatione Tertium Regum. X. De Occisione Innocentium.

THE ENGLISH

of the Coventry series will give a correct notion of the
character of these queer compositions.

A prologue, in stanzas, spoken alternately by three
vexillators, tells in detail the subjects of the forty-two
plays. The first, The Creation, is opened by God, who,
after declaring in Latin that he is alpha and omega, the
beginning and the end, goes on in English to assert his
might and his triune existence, and then announces his
creative intentions. A chorus of angels then sing in
Latin the Tibi omnes angeli, etc., of the Te Deum. Luci-
fer next appears, and asks the angels whether they sing
thus in God's honour, or in his, asserting that he is the
most worthy. The good angels declare for God ; the bad
for Lucifer. God then dooms him to fall from heaven
to hell. Lucifer submits to his sentence without mur-
muring, and expresses his emotion only in a manner most
likely to deprive the scene of any dignity it might other-
wise have exhibited. The second play, The Fall of Man,
opens with a speech by Adam and a reply by Eve, in
which they set forth their happy condition and the com-
mand concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent then appears, and tempts Eve to violate this
command. The action, if action it must be called, fol-
lows in the most servile manner, and with no expansion,
the narrative in Genesis ; and Adam and Eve are expelled
from paradise.* It is clear that the representatives of the

XI. De Purificatione Virginis. XII.- De Tentatione Salvatoris.
XIII. De Chelidomo et Resurrectio Lazari. XIV. De Jesu in-
trante Domum Simeonis Leprosi. XV. De Coena Domini. XVI.
De Passione Christi. XVII. De Descensu Christi ad Inferos.
XVIII. De Resurrectione Jesu Christi. XIX. De Christo ad
Castellum Emmaus. XX. De Ascensione Domini. XXI. De
Electione Matthae. XXII. Ezekiel. XXIII. De Adventu Anti-
christi. XXIV. De Judicio Extreme.
* Here is Eve's lamentation : —

Eva. Alas ! alas ! and wele away.

That evyr towchyd I the tre ;
I wende as wrecche in welsome way,
In blake busshys my botire xal be.

10

DRAMA

types of our race appeared upon the stage innocently free
from " the troublesome disguises that we wear " ; and that
they afterward faithfully followed the Hebrew law-
giver's narrative in the use of fig leaves.* In the third
play, Cain and Abel, the only noteworthy points are, first,
that Cain speaks very disrespectfully of Adam and his
counsels, saying that he cares not a hair if he never sees
him ; and next that, when Abel's offering is accepted and
consumed by fire, Cain breaks out into abuse of him, call-
ing him a " stinking losel."f This, by the way, is one of

In paradys is plente of playe,

ffayr frutys ryth gret plente,
The Satys be schet with Godys keye,
My husbond is lost because of me.

Leve spowse now thou fonde,
Now stomble we on stalk and ston.
My wyt awey is fro me gon,
Wrythe on to my necke bon

With hardnesse of thin honde.

* In the Chester miracle-play the stage direction is " Here shall
Adam and Eve stand nackede and shall be not ashamed." In the
Coventry play Adam speaks thus immediately after he has eaten
the apple : —

Adam dicet sic.
Alas ! alas ! ffor this fals dede,

My fleshy frend my fo I fynde,
Schameful synne doth us unhede,

I se us nakyd before and behynde.
Our lordes wurd wold we not drede,
Therefore we be now caytyvys unkynde,
Oure pore prevytes ffor to hede,

Somme ffygge-levys fayn wolde I fynde,

ffor to hyde oure schame.
Womman, ley this leff on thi pryvyte,
And with this leff I xal hyde me,
Gret schame it is us nakyd to se,

Oure lord God thus to grame.

f Cain's speech, which here follows, will give a notion of the
language and the action of the play at the point of highest in-
terest : —

II

THE ENGLISH

the few representations of contemporary manners fur-
nished by these miracle-plays. If we accept them as truth-
ful in this regard, we must credit our forefathers with a
ready resort to foul language when they were angered.
Afterward, in the play on Noah's Flood, Lamech calls a
young man " a stinking lurdane," and in that on the
Woman taken in Adultery, the Scribes and Pharisees call
her forth to be taken to judgement in language more
pharisaic than decent. The Townley mystery, which
represents the first fratricide, is even more grotesque and
indecent than that in the collection which we are ex-
amining. Cain comes upon the stage with a plough and
team, and quarrels with his ploughboy for refusing to
drive the oxen. Abel enters, bids speed the plough to
Cain, and in reply is told to do something quite unmen-
tionable. After Abel is killed, the boy counsels flight
for fear of the bailiffs. Cain then makes a mock proc-
lamation, which his boy blunderingly repeats ; and after
this clownish foolery, Cain bids the audience farewell
before he goes to hell. The personages in the fourth
play, Noah's Flood, are God, Noah and his wife, his three
sons and their wives, an angel, Cain, Lamech, and a
young man. Noah and his family talk pharisaic mo-
rality for about the first third of the play. God then
declares his displeasure, and that he " wol be vengyd " ;
to which end he will destroy all the world, except Noah
and his family. The angel announces the coming flood

Caynt. What? thou stynkyng losel, and is it so?

Doth God the love and hatyht me ?
Thou xalt be ded I xal the slo,

Thi Lord thi God thou xalt nevyr se !
Tything more xalt thou nevyr do,

With this chavyl bon I xal sle.the,
Thi deth is dyht, thi days be go,
Out of myn handys xalt thou not fle,

With this strok I the kylle. —
Now this boy is slayn and dede,
O hym I xal nevyr more han drede.
He xal hereafter nevyr etc brede,

With this gresse I xal him hylle.

12

DRAMA

to Noah, and bids him build a ship to save his house-
hold, and " of every kynds bestes a cowpyl." Noah and
his family go out to build the ship, and Lamech enters
blind and conducted by a young man. In spite of his
infirmity, at the suggestion of his guide, he shoots at a
supposed beast in a bush ; but, like another hapless per-
son known to rhyme who " bent his bow," he hits what
he did not shoot at, and kills Cain, who mysteriously hap-
pens to be in the bush. Aroused to wrath, and moved by
fear of the fate predicted of him who should slay Cain,
Lamech kills the young man who had misled him into
shooting at the beast. He goes out, and Noah comes in
with his ship — " et statim intrat Noe cum navi cantantes
[sic]." This ship, as we learn from the direction in the
corresponding play of the Chester Mysteries, was cus-
tomarily painted over with figures of the beasts supposed
to be within, as if they had struck through, and come out
like an eruption. In that play, too, and also in the corre-
sponding Townley play, Noah's wife refuses to enter the
ark. Indeed, in those plays she is represented as an ar-
rant scold. In the first scene she berates Noah, who gives
her as good as she sends, and both swear roundly by the
Virgin Mary ; and as to going into the ark, the patriarch,
" the secunde fathyr," as he styles himself, edified the
female part of the audience by fairly flogging his wife on
board with a cart-whip. The flood comes on (we have
returned to the Coventry plays) ; Noah and his wife speak
thirty lines of dialogue, and then he says : —

" xlfl days and nightes hath lasted thys rayn,

. And xlu days this grett flood begynnyth to slake ;
This crowe xal I sende out to seke sum playn,
Good tydynges to brynge this message I make."

The crow does not return, and the dove is sent, " qua
redeunte cum ramo riride oliz-ce," as the stage direction
says, Noah and his family leave the ark, singing, " Mare
ridct ct f n git," etc.

The fourteenth play, which represents The Trial of
Joseph and Mary on accusations based upon the latter's

13

THE ENGLISH

mysterious pregnancy, is opened by a crier, who sum-
mons the jurors and people who have causes to come into
court. Although the trial is supposed, of course, to take
place in Palestine before the Christian era, it is presided
over by " my lorde the buschop," and the people sum-
moned are English folk of the lower class, whose sur-
names have plainly been given to them on account of their
occupation or their personal traits.* The crier lets us
into a judge's secret, by warning those who have causes
to be tried to put money in their purses, or their cause
may speed the worse. Plainly there were properties, and
even machinery, upon the stage at this rude and early
period ; and, indeed, the lists of properties ( for they
seem always to have been so called) which have been pre-
served show that no small pains were taken to portray the
glories and the horrors of the various scenes presented.
The seventeenth play, The Adoration of the Magi, intro-
duces the most famous character in these dramas — Herod.
He is always represented in them not only as wicked and
cruel, but as a tremendous braggart. He raves and swag-
gers and swears without stint ; his favorite oath being by
Mahound, i. e., Mohammed ; for in all respects these
miracle-plays set chronology at defiance. The speeches
put into his mouth, more than any others, are written in
the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative style, of which Piers
Ploughman's Vision is a well-known example, f Herod,

* John Jurdon, Geffrey Gile, Malkin Milkdoke, Stephen Sturdy,
Tom Tinker, Peter Potter, Lucy Liar, Miles Miller, etc.

f Perhaps the most characteristic speech of his in every re-
spect is the following from The Slaughter of the Innocents: —
HerodesRex. I ryde on my rowel ryche in my regne,

Rybbys fful rede with rape xal I sende ;
Popetys et paphawkes I xal putten in peyne,

With my spere prevyn, pychen, and to-pende.
The gowys with gold crownys gete thei nevyr ageyn,

To seke tho sottys sondys xal I sende ;
Do howlott howtyn hoberd heyn,
Whan here barnys blede undyr credyl bende ;
Sharply I xal hem shende !

14

DRAMA

in spite of his heathenism, his cruelty, his profanity, and
his braggadocio — perhaps by reason of them — used to be

The knave childeryn that be
In alle Israel countre,
Thie xul have blody ble,

ffor on I calde unkende.
It is told in Grw,
His name xulde be Jhesu

I fownde.

To have hym 3e gon,
Hewe the flesche with the bon.

And gyff hym wownde !
Now kene knyghtes kythe your craflys.

And kyllyth knave childreyn and castyth hem in clay ;
Shewyth on Sour shulderes scheldys and schaftys,

Schapyht amonge schel chowthys ashyrlyng shray;
Doth rowncys rennen with rakynge raftys,

Tyl rybbys be to rent with a reed ray.
Lete no barne beleve on bete baftys,
Tyl a beggere blede be bestys baye,

Mahound that best may ;
I warne Sow my knyghtes,
A barn is born I plyghtes,
Wold clymbyn kynge and kyknytes,

And lett my lordly lay.
Knyghte's wyse
Chosyn ful chyse
Aryse ! aryse !

And take Sour tolle !
And every page
Of ij. Sere age
Or eveyr 3e swage,

Sleythe ilke a fool.
On of hem alle
Was born in stalle
ffolys hym calle

Kynge in crown
With byttyr galle.
He xalle down falle. —
My myght in halle

Xal nevyr go down.

15

THE ENGLISH

a favourite character with young men of spirit and parts
who were stage-struck. Chaucer, it will be remembered,
says, in the Miller's Tale, of his " Absolon, that joly was
and gay " : —

" Sometime to shew his lightness and maistrie
He plaieth Herode on a skaffolde hie."

But more than by the indecency, the coarseness, the bom-
bast, and the vapidity of these miracle-plays, we are as-
tonished and repulsed by the degrading familiarity with
which they treat the most awful and most moving inci-
dents of the Gospel history. The Last Supper was actu-
ally played; the Crucifixion was actually played; and
even the Resurrection was not too sacred or mysterious
a subject to be represented. Conforming both to the re-
ligious spirit and the taste of the time, the clerical dram-
atist spared his audience the sight of no indignity, of no
torture, suffered by Christ, but took delight in represent-
ing all the physical circumstances attending his death
with gross and bald particularity.* And as we close our
examination of the miracle-plays, a reflection of their
mingled childishness and temerity must be uppermost in
the mind of every reader. Had it not been done, it would

* The following passage, it will be seen, shows that the cruci-
fixion was represented even to the minutest of its attendant cir-
cumstances : —

Than xul thei pulle Jhesu out of his clothis, and leyn
togedyr; and then thei xul pullyn hym down and leyn along on
the eras, and after that naylyn hym thereon.

Primus Judceus. Come on now here, we xal asay

Yf the cros for the be mete ;
Cast hym down here in the devyl way,
How long xal he standyn on his fete?
Secundus Judceus. Pul hym down, evyl mote he the

And gyf me his arm in hast ;
And anon we xal se

Here good days thei xul be past !

16

DRAMA

seem almost impossible that such subjects could be so
unworthily treated by men of sense and education, which
the better class of Roman Catholic priests were even in
the days when these plays were written. Here were the
grandest themes handled by authors to whom they were
matters of religious faith and supreme concern ; and all
that was done was to degrade, to belittle, and to make
ridiculous. The rudeness of the people for whose instruc-
tion and pleasure the miracle-plays were produced, and
the gross and material character of religion in that day,
account in a great measure for this shocking contrast be-
tween subject and treatment. But yet it would seem that,
though rude and simple, these compositions might have
preserved some little of the spirit of the Hebrew writers
from whom their subjects were taken, and who themselves
wrote for people only a little advanced beyond the pale
of semi-barbarism. And one subject, by remarkable coin-

Tertius Judceus. Gef hese other arm to me, —

Another take hed to hese feet ;
And anon we xal se

Yf the borys be for hym mete.
Quartus Judceus. This is mete, take good hede ;

Pulle out that arm to the sore.
Pritiius Judceus. This is short, the devyl hym sped,

Be a large fote and more.
Secundus Judceus. ffest on a rop and pulle hym long,

And I xal drawe the ageyn ;
Spare we not these ropys strong,

Thow we brest both flesch and veyn !
Tertius Judceus. Dryve in the nayle anon, lete se,

And loke and the flesch and sennes welle last.
Quartus Judceus. That I graunt, so mote I the;

Lo ! this nayl is dreve ryth wel and fast.
Primus Judceus. ffest a rope than to his feet,

And draw hym down long anow.
Secundus Judceus. Here is a nayl for both good and greet,

I xal dryue it thorwe, I make a vow !
Here xule thei leve of and dazuncyn abowtc the cros shortly

I?

THE ENGLISH

cidence, was treated with a certain degree of simplicity
and pathos by the writers of all of the three great col-
lections of English miracle-plays. This was the story of
Abraham and Isaac. And it is worthy of special remark
that it was a subject of which the interest is purely human,
or at least that part of the subject in question which ex-
hibited paternal love on the one side and filial love and
devotion on the other, which raised all these writers out of
their slough of coarseness and buffoonery into the region
of healthy sentiment. The Coventry series, which we
have been examining, offers the best treatment of this in-
cident ; which in itself, and in the barest relation of it, if
one can repress an outbreak of rebellious indignation and
disbelief, the most pathetic and heart-breaking told in all
the Hebrew Scriptures. With an extract from this com-
position, which I shall put in modern language, I shall
close this notice of English miracle-plays : —

Isaac. All ready, father, even at your will

And at your bidding I am you by,
With you to walk over dale and hill ;

At your calling I am ready.
To the father ever most comely

It behoveth the child ever obedient to be;
I will obey, full heartily,

To every thing that ye bid me.

Abraham. Now, son, in thy neck this fagot thou take,

And this fire bear in thy hand;
For we must now sacrifice go make,

Even after the will of God's command.
Take this burning brand

My sweet child, and let us go ;
There may no man that liveth upon land

Have more sorrow than I have woe.

Isa. Father, father, you go right still ;

I pray now, father, speak unto me.
Abra. My good child, what is thy will?
Tell me thy heart, I pray to thee.

18

DRAMA

Isa. Father, fire and wood here is plenty ;

But I can see no sacrifice ;
What ye will offer fain would I see,
That it were done at best advice.

Abra. God shall that ordain that is in heaven,

My sweet son, for this offering ;
A dearer sacrifice may no man name

Than this shall be, my dear darling.
Isa. Let be, dear father, your sad weeping;

Your heavy looks agrieve me sore.
Tell me, father, your great mourning,
And I shall seek some help therefor.

Abra. Alas, dear son, for needs must me

• Even here thee kill, as God hath sent ;
Thine own father thy death must be, —

Alas, that ever this bow was bent !
With this fire bright thou must be brent ;

An angel said to me right so ;
Alas, my child, thou shalt be shent !

Thy careful father must be thy foe.

Isaac yields to what Abraham tells him is the divine com-
mand, which yet he says makes his heart " cling and
cleave as clay."

Isa. V et work God's will, father, I you pray,

And slay me here anon forthright ;
And turn from me your face away

My head when that you shall off smite.

Abra. Alas ! dear son, I may not choose,

I must needs here my sweet son kill ;
My dear darling now must me lose,

Mine own heart's blood now shall I spill.
Yet this deed ere I fulfil,

My sweet son, thy mouth I kiss.
Isa. All ready, father, even at your will
I do your bidding, as reason is.

19

THE ENGLISH

Abra. Alas ! dear son, here is no grace,

But need is dead now must thou be.

With this kerchief I hide thy face;
In the time that I slay thee,

Thy lovely visage would I not see,
Not for all this world's good.

It is true that the incident here represented is in itself
the most touching that can be conceived ; but the author
of the play has amplified the very brief account in Genesis,
and worked it out in a dialogue, which, rude although it
be, is full of nature and simple pathos. The conditions
of the action are monstrous and incredible, if we leave out
the supernatural element ; and the situation, unrelieved
by the ever-present consciousness that the sacrifice is not
to be made, would be too heartrending for contemplation.
But an unquestioning belief in the supernatural, even to
the literal acceptance of the figurative style and extrava-
gant phraseology of the Orient, was assumed by the wri-
ters of miracle-plays. The son's love, submission, and
self-devotion, and the father's anguish, are expressed with
tenderness and truth. Abraham's silent woe, as they walk
together, is exhibited with really dramatic power in Isaac's
exclamation, " Father, father, you go right still " ; and
Abraham's reply, " Tell me thy heart," and his after ex-
clamation, " Alas, that ever this bow was bent ! " are full
of pathos. And when at last the child tells the father to
work God's will, yet begs him to turn away his face when
he strikes, and Abraham kisses his son, and hides from
his own eyes the boy's lovely visage, the interest is
wrought up to such a pitch that supernatural intervention
is demanded by the holiest instincts of that very nature
which supernatural intervention has so pitilessly outraged.

II. Rude, gross, and childish as were the miracle-
plays, they yet contained the germ of our drama; and
from them its development, for a long time slow, but
never checked, can be traced up to the sudden splendid
maturity of the Elizabethan era. The Coventry series,
which we have just been examining, differs from the

DRAMA

Townley and the Chester series by the introduction of
allegorical personages into some of the plays. In the
earlier miracle-plays the personages all belonged to the
religious history which the plays were written to teach ;
and the author confined his work to the putting of the
scriptural story or saintly legend into the form of dialogue
and soliloquy. But as time wore on, virtues, vices, and
even modes of mental action, were impersonated, and
mingled upon the pageant or the scaffold with patriarchs,
apostles, and saints. Thus the eighth of the Coventry
series, The Barrenness of Anna, is opened with a kind of
prologue or introductory chorus by Contemplation, a char-
acter which reappears in the series ; and in The Salutation
and Conception the Virtues, collectively embodied, with
Truth, Pity, and Justice, perform functions like those of
the Greek chorus. At last, in The Slaughter of the
Innocents, Death (Mors) takes part in the action;
and in some of the other plays impersonal Detractors,
Accusers, and Consolers also appear. In the three Digby
Miracle-plays* there is one formed upon the life of Mary
Magdalen, which is interesting in this respect. And in
the first of the set which represents the Conversion of St.
Paul, it is noteworthy that of two devils which are among
the characters, one is named Belial and the other Mercury !
The first is instructed to enter thus : " Here to enter a
Dyvel with thunder and fyre, and to avaunce hym selfe
saying as folowyth ; and his spech spoken to syt downe
in a chayre." While he is thus making himself comfort-
ably at home in a devilish way, and complaining of the
lack of news, his attendant or messenger comes in, ac-
cording to this direction : " Here shall entyre a nother
devyll, calld Mercury, with a fyering, coming in hast,
cryeing and roryng." After a consultation as to the bad
way their friend Saul appears to be in, to wit, peril of
salvation, body and soul, they both " vanyshe awTay with a

* So called because they are preserved among the Digby MSS.
in the Bodleian Library.

21

THE ENGLISH

fyrye flame and a tempest." The play on The Life of
Mary Magdalen, rather a late miracle-play, was intended
to be a spectacle of unusual attraction. It required four
pageants or scaffolds. Tiberius, Herod, Pilate, and the
Devil — personages of apparently equal dramatic dignity
— had each his own station before the audience ; and the
entrance of the latter is thus directed : " Here shal entyr
the prynce of devylls in a stage, and hell onder neth that
stage." Indeed, the representation of hell, or of hell-
mouth, into which demons and their victims were sent,
was a standing, and, it would seem, a much prized effect
in the performance of the miracle-plays. In the account
books of the expenses of the Coventry plays, there are
many charges for " the repayring of Helmought." To
return to the play of Mary Magdalen : A ship appears
between the scaffolds ; the mariners spy the castle of
Mary, which the Devil and the Seven Deadly Sins besiege
and capture. Lechery addresses the heroine in a speech,
the following extract from which will give a notion of the
style of the composition : —

" Heyl, lady, most lawdabyll of alyauns !
Heyl, orient as the sonne in his reflexite !
Much pepul be comfortyd be your benignaunt affyauns ;
Brighter than the bornyd is your bemys of bewte,
Most debonarious with your aungelly velycyte."

The appearance of the Seven Deadly Sins and of the
Kings of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil in this play
as ten distinct characters, is not only very curious, but is a
noteworthy step toward the next stage of our drama,
which now took the allegorical form of the moral-play.
Of character and action, in a true dramatic sense, the
miracle-plays, with one or two exceptions to be noticed
hereafter, had really none. The personages came upon
the stage and described themselves, giving a dry catalogue
of their qualities, conditions, and relations, and then went
formally through the speech and action prescribed for
them in Scripture or legend. But when allegorical per-

22

DRAMA

sonages began to multiply, as they did in the miracle-plays,
they began also to interfere with and modify this slavish
adherence to Scripture story and church tradition ; until
finally these personages, who, it will be seen upon a mo-
ment's reflection, represent an extraneous human element,
and are, in fact, clumsy embodiments alternately of the
mental conditions of the other characters and of the audi-
ence, obtained possession of the stage, and completely ex-
pelled the angels, saints, and patriarchs, in aid of whose
waning power to interest the people they had been created.
In a moral-play, pure and simple, the personages are
all embodiments of abstract ideas, and the motive of
the play is the enforcement of moral truth as a guide to
human conduct. The abstract ideas may be virtues, as
Justice, Mercy, Compassion ; or vices, as Avarice, Malice,
Falsehood ; or a state, condition, or mode of life, as Youth,
Old Age, Poverty, Abominable Living ; or an embodiment
of the human race, as in the character Every Man in the
moral-play of that name ; or of a part of it, in the play of
Lusty Juventus ; or of the end of all men, for in these
compositions Death itself is not unfrequently embodied.
But there were two prominent, and, so to speak, stock
characters, which were as essential to a moral-play as
Harlequin and Columbine to an old pantomime. These
were the Devil and the Vice ; the former being an inheri-
tance from the miracle-plays, but the latter a new creation.
Exactly why and how this personage came into being with
the moral-play, we do not know; but may it not have
been with the purpose of having ever present an embodied
antithesis to the motive of the play — morality ? That the
name was derived from the nature of the character would
seem manifest without a word, were it not that other
and fantastic derivations have been suggested. The Devil
was represented as the hideous monster evolved by the
morbid religious imagination of the dark ages, having
horns, at least one hoof, a tail, a shag^v body, and a visage
both frightful and ridiculous. The Vice wore generally,
if not always, the costume of the domestic fool, or jester,

23

THE ENGLISH

of the period, which is now worn by clowns of the circus.
He was at first called the Vice ; but as the Vice became
a distinct line of character, as much as walking gentle-
man on our stage, or pere noble on the French, his name
and his functions were afterward those of Infidelity, Hy-
pocrisy, Desire, and so forth. Sometimes the part of a
gallant or bully was written for the Vice, and was named
accordingly ; and sometimes he was called Iniquity.
When he bore this name he would seem to have been not
a mere buffoon or clown, making merriment with gibes
and antics, but a sententious person, with all his fun ; for
Shakespeare (Richard III., III. i.) makes the following
descriptive mention of this kind of Vice : —

" Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word."

But the Vice generally performed the mingled functions
of scamp, braggart, and practical joker. There was a
conventional make-up for his face. Barnaby Rich, in
Adventures of Brnsanns, published 1592, says that a cer-
tain personage had " his beard cut peecke a devant, turnde
uppe a little, like the Vice of a playe." He was armed
with a dagger or sword of lath, with which he beat the
Devil ; that personage having his revenge almost invari-
ably, at the end of the play, by taking his tormenter upon
his back and running off with him into " hellmought."

Moral-plays were first performed upon the pageants or
scaffolds from which they w^re driving the miracle-plays.
But at last it was thought that people might better go to
the play than have the play go to them ; and it was found
that barns and great halls were more convenient for actors
and audience than movable scaffolds. Yet later, people
discovered that best of all available places were inn yards,
where windows, and galleries, and verandas commanded
a view of a court round which the house was built.
Sometimes moral-plays were written to be played in the
interval between a feast or dinner and a banquet; the
banquet having corresponded to what we call the dessert,

24

DRAMA

and having been usually served in another room. Hence
the name of interlude, which was frequently given to these
plays. Yet the name interlude came to be almost con-
fined to a kind of play shorter than a moral-play, and
without allegorical characters or significance, and so better
suited to the occasion for which it was intended. John
Heywood was the master of this kind of play-writing, if
indeed he were not its inventor ; but his proper place is at
a later period of our little history.

The oldest English moral-play yet discovered exists in
manuscript, and is entitled The Castle of Perseverance.
It was written about 1450. The principal character is
Humanum Genus, an embodiment of mankind, whose
moral enemies, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil,
(Mundus, Caro, and Belial,) open the play by a confer-
ence in which they boast of their powers. Mankind (Hu-
manum Genus) then appears, and announces that he has
just come into the world naked ; and immediately a good
and a bad angel present themselves, and assert their claims
to his confidence. He gives himself up to the latter, who,
through the agency of the World, places him in the hands
of Voluptuousness and Folly ( Voluptas and Stultitia — but
let it suffice to say that the characters have Latin names ) .
Backbiter then makes him acquainted with Avarice and
the other deadly sins, of whom Luxury — in these plays
always a woman — becomes his leman. The good angel
sends Confession to him, who is told that he is come too
soon, he having then more agreeable matters in hand than
the confessing of sin. But at last, by the help of Peni-
tence, Mankind is reclaimed, and got off into the strong
Castle of Perseverance in company with the seven Cardi-
nal Virtues. Belial and the Deadly Sins lay siege to the
castle, the leader having first berated and beaten his forces
for having allowed his prey to escape him.* Belial and

* Belial thus incites his followers to the assault : —
" I here trumpys trebelen all of tene :
The wery world walkyth to werre . .
Sprede my penon upon a prene

25

THE ENGLISH

the Sins are defeated, chiefly by the aid of Charity and
Patience, who pelt them with roses from the battlements.
But Mankind begins to grow old, and Avarice undermines
the castle, and persuades him to leave it. Garcio (a boy)
claims all the goods which Mankind has gathered with the
aid of Avarice, when Death and the Soul appear, and the
latter calls on Pity for help. But the bad angel takes the
hero on his back, and sets off with him hellward. The
scene changes to heaven, where Pity, Peace, Justice, and
Truth plead for him with God, and we are left to infer
that Mankind is saved. God speaks the moralizing epi-
logue. A rude drawing on the last leaf of the manu-
script shows the castle with a bed beneath it for Man-
kind, and five scaffolds for God, Belial, the World, the
Flesh, and Avarice. In another play in the same collec-
tion, called Mind Will and Understanding, Anima, the
Soul, also appears, and, having been debauched by the
three personages who give the play its . name, she " ap-
perythe in most horribul wyse, fowler than a fend," and
gives birth to six of the deadly sins according to this
direction : " Here rennyt out from undyr the horrybull
mantyle of the Soul six small boys in the lyknes of dev-
yllys, and so retorne ageyn." Conscious of her degra-
dation, she goes out with her three seducers, and it is
directed that " in the going the Soule syngyth in the most
lamentabull wyse, with drawte notes, as yt ys songyn in
the passyon wyke." In the end, Mind, Will, and Under-
standing are converted from their evil ways, to the great
joy of Anima.

John Skelton, poet-laureate to Henry VII. and his son,
wrote two moral-plays, The Necromancer, and Mag-
nificence. A copy of the latter still exists; and one of

And stryke we fro the now undyr sterre.
Schapyth now your sheldys shene
Yone skallyd skrouts for to skerre
Buske ye now, boys, belyve,
For ever I stond in mekyl stryve
Whyl Mankind is in clene lyve."

26

DRAMA

the former was seen and described by Collins, although
it has since been lost. The characters are a Necromancer,
the Devil, a Notary, Simony, and Avarice ; and the action
is merely the trial of the last two before the Devil. The
Necromancer calls upon the Devil, and opens the court.
The prisoners are found guilty, and are sent straightway
to hell. The Devil abuses the conjurer, and disappears in
flame and smoke. This play, which was played before
King Henry VII., at Woodstock, on Palm Sunday, was
printed in 1504. When Magnificence was produced we
do not know, as its title-page is without date ; but Skelton
mentions it in a poem printed in 1523. Its purpose is to
show the vanity of magnificence. The hero, Magnificence
— eaten out of house and home by a raft of friends called
Fancy, alias Largess, Counterfeit-countenance, Crafty-
conveyance, Cloked-collusion, Courtly-abusion, and Folly
— falls into the hands of Adversity and Poverty, and
finally is taken possession of by Despair and Mischief,
who persuade him to commit suicide, which he is about
to do, when Good-hope stays his hand, and Redress, Cir-
cumspection, and Perseverance sober him down to a
humble frame of mind. The piece is intolerably long,
and much of it is written in that wearisome verse called
" Skeltonic." * To relieve it, some fun is introduced,

* Of which the following passage is an example : —
" For counterfet countenaunce knowen am I.
This worlde is full of my foly.
I set not by hym a fly
That cannot counterfet a lye,
Swere and stare and byde therebye,
And countenaunce it clenly,
And defende it manerly.
A knave will counterfet now a knyght,
A lurdayne lyke a lorde to fyght,
A mynstrell lyke a man of myght,
A tappyster lyke a lady bryght.
Thus make I them wyth thryff to fyght ;
Thus at the last 1 brynge hym ryght
To Tyburne, where they hange on hyght."

27

THE ENGLISH

which is of the coarsest kind, but which was probably
more to the taste of all the poet's audience, high and
low, than his heavy moralizing.* Of pure moral-plays
the reader has probably had quite enough ; but two others
may well be noticed, on account of traits peculiar to them.
In one, called The longer thou livest the more Foole thou
art, the chief character is Moros, a mischievous fool, who
enters upon this direction : " Here entreth Moros, coun-
terfaiting a vaine gesture and a foolish countenaunce,
synging the foote of many songes as fools were wont."
This brings to mind Shakespeare's fools and clowns, who
are always singing the foot of many songs ; and we see
the making them do so was no device of his, but a mere
faithful copying of the living models before him ; though
the lyric sweetness and the art and the wisdom which he
puts into their mouths were in most instances, we may
be sure, his own. The other moral-play in question, The
Marriage of W.it and Science, is remarkable not only for
its very elaborate and ingenious, though equally dull and
wearisome, allegory, but for the fact that it is regularly
divided into acts and scenes, which is not the case with
even many of the early comedies and tragedies by which
the miracle-plays were succeeded. One of the very latest
of the moral-plays was The Three Lords and Three Ladies
of London, which was written after 1588, and printed in

* As for instance, the following passage in which Folly wins a
wager that he will laugh Crafty-conveyance out of his coat : —
[Here foly maketh scmblaunt to take a lowse from crafty

conveyance shoulder}
Fancy. What hast thou found there ?
Foly. By god, a lowse.

Crafty-convey. By cockes harte I trow thou lyste.
Foly. By the masse, a spanyshe moght with a gray lyste.
Fancy. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha !
Crafty-convey. Cockes armes, it is not so, I trowe.

[Here crafty-conveyance puttcth of his gowne.]
Foly. Put on thy gowne agayne for now thou hast lost.
Fancy. Lo, John a bonam, where is thy brayne?

28

DRAMA

1590. But, as its title would indicate, this is in reality a
kind of comedy ; and it is also remarkable as being- writ-
ten for the most part in blank verse.

III. As allegory had crept into the miracle-plays, and,
by introducing the impersonation of abstract qualities, had
worked a change in their structure and their purpose,
which finally produced the moral-play, so personages in-
tended as satire upon classes and individuals, and as rep-
resentations of the manners and customs of the day, took,
year after year, more and more the place of the cold and
stiff abstractions which filled the stage in the pure moral-
play, until, at last, comedy, or the ideal representation of
human life, appeared in English drama. Thus in Tom
Tyler and his Wife, which, according to Ritson, was pub-
lished in 1578, and which contains internal evidence that
it was written about eight years before that date, the per-
sonages are Tom Tyler, his good woman, who is a gray
mare of the most formidable kind, Tom Tailor, his friend,
Desire, Strife, Sturdy, Tipple, Patience, and the Vice.
In The Conflict of Conscience, written at about the same
date, among Conscience, Hypocrisy, Tyranny, Avarice,
Sensual-suggestion, and the like, appear four historical
personages — Francis Spiera, an Italian lawyer, who is
called Philologus, his two sons, and Cardinal Eusebius.
Collier also mentions a political moral-play written about
1565, called Albion Knight, in which the hero, a knight
named Albion, is a personification of England, and the
motive of which is satire upon the oppression of the com-
mons by the nobles. But before this date, and probably
in the reign of Edward VI., Bishop Bale had written his
Kynge Johan, a play the purpose of which was to further
the Reformation, and which partook of the characters of a
moral-play, and a dramatic chronicle-history. Indeed,
neither the reformers nor their opponents were slow to
take advantage of the stage as a means of indoctrinating
the people with their peculiar views ; and as the govern-
ment passed alternately into the hands of Papists and
Protestants, plays were suppressed, or dramatic perform-

29

THE ENGLISH

ances interdicted altogether, as the good of the ecclesias-
tical party in power seemed to require. In the very first
year of Queen Mary's reign, 1558, a politico-religious
moral-play, called Respublica, was produced, the purpose
of which was to check the Reformation. The kingdom of
England is impersonated as Respublica, and, by the au-
thor's own admission, Queen Mary herself figures as
Nemesis, the goddess of redress and correction.

John Heywood, whose interludes have been already
mentioned, produced his first play before the year 1521.
Yet, in turning our eyes back two generations to glance
at his compositions, we may obtain, perhaps, a more cor-
rect view of the gradual development of the English
drama than if we had examined them in the order of time.
Heywood was attached to the court of Henry VIII. as a
singer and player upon the virginals. His interludes were
short pieces, about the length of one act of a modern
comedy. Humorous in their motive, and dependent for
all their interest upon their extravagant burlesque of
every-day life, upon the broadest jokes and the coarsest
satire, they were, indeed, but a kind of farce. That which
is regarded as Heywood's earliest extant production is
entitled A mery play betzveen the Pardoner and the Frere,
the Curate and neybour Pratte. The Pardoner and the
Friar have got leave of the Curate to use his church, the
former to show his relics, the latter to preach ; both having
the same end in view — money. They quarrel as to who
shall have precedence, and at last fight. The Curate,
brought in by this row between his clerical brethren, at-
tempts to separate and pacify them ; but failing to accom-
plish this single-handed, he calls the neighbours to his aid.
In vain, however; for the Pardoner and the Friar, like
man and wife interrupted in a quarrel, unite their forces,
and beat the interlopers soundly. After which they de-
part, and the play ends. In The Four P's, andother of Hey-
wood's interludes, the personages are the Palmer, the Par-
doner, the Poticary, and the Pedlar. In this play there is
little action ; and the four worthies, after gibing at each

30

DRAMA

other's professions for a while, set out to see which can
tell the biggest lie. After much elaborate and ingenious
falsehood the Palmer beats by the simple assertion that
he never saw a woman out of patience in his life ; at which
his opponents " come down " without another word. The
satire in these plays is found in the inconsistency between
the characters of the personages and their professions, and
particularly in the absurd and ridiculous pretensions of
the clergymen as to their priestly functions, and the nature
of their relics. In The Pardoner and the Friar, the Par-
doner produces " the great too of the holy trynyte," and

" of our Ladye a relyke full good.
Her bongrace, which she ware with her French hode,
Whan she wente oute al wayes for sonne bornynge " ;

also, " of all halowes the blessed jaw bone " ; and in The
Four P's there is a " buttocke-bone of Pentecoste." And
yet Heywood was a stanch Romanist.

There are certain passages in Heywood's plays, which,
considering the period at which he wrote, are remarkable
for genuine humour and descriptive power, as well as for
spirited and lively versification.* And coarse and indecent

* See the following description of an alleged visit to hell by the
Pardoner in The Four P's : —

" Thys devyll and I walket arme in arme
So farre, tyll he had brought me thyther,
Where all the dyvells of hell togyther
Stode in a ray, in suche apparell
As for that day there metely fell.
Theyr homes well gylt, theyr clowes full clene,
Theyr taylles wel kempt, and as I wene,
With sothery butter theyr bodyes anoynted;
I never sawe devylls so well appoynted.
The master devyll sat on his jacket,
And all the soules were playinge at racket.
None other rackettes they hadde in hande
Save every soul a good fyre brand ;
Wherewith they played so pretely,
That Lucyfer laughed merely :

THE ENGLISH

as his productions must be pronounced, they exhibit more
real dramatic power than appears in those of any other
playwright of the first half of the sixteenth century.

Hey wood founded no school, seems to have had no
imitators ; there is no line of succession between him
and the man who must be regarded as the first writer of
genuine English comedy. We have seen that plays in
which characters drawn from real life, mingled with the
allegorical personages proper to moral-plays, were writ-
ten as late as 1570. Such were Tom Tyler and his Wife
and The Conflict of Conscience, mentioned above. But
as early as the year 1551, Nicholas Udall, who became
Master of Eton, and afterward of Westminster, had writ-
ten a play divided into acts and scenes, with a gradually

And all the resedew of the feends

Did laugh thereat ful wel like freends.

But of my friende I sawe no whyt,

Nor durst not axe for her as yet.

Anone all this rout was brought in selens,

And I by an usher brought in presens,

Of Lucyfer : then lowe, as wel I could,

I knelyd whiche he so well alowde,

That thus he beckte, and by saynt Antony

He smyled on me well favouredly,

Bendynge his browss as brode as barne durres,

Shakynge his eares as ruged as burres ;

Rolyng his eyes as rounde as two bushels ;

Flashynge the fyre out of his nose thryls;

Gnashinge his teeth so vaynglorously,

That me thought tyme to fall to flatery.

Wherwith I lolde as I shall tell.

0 plesant pycture ! O prince of hell !
Feutred in fashyon abominable

And syns that is inestimable
For me to prayse the worthyly,

1 leve of prayse as unworthy
To geve the prays besechynge the
To heare my sewte, and then to be

So good to graunt the thynge I crave."

32

DRAMA

developed action tending to a climax, and the characters
of which were all ideal representations of actual life; a
play which was, in short, a comedy. The play is named
after its hero, Ralph Roister Doister. The scene is laid
in London, and Ralph, who is a conceited, rattle-pated
young fellow about town, and amorous withal, fancies
himself in love with Dame Custance, a gay young widow
with " a tocher," as he thinks, of a thousand pounds and
more. But upon this point Matthew Merry-greek,* his
poor kinsman and attendant, a shrewd, mischievous, time-
serving fellow, remarks to him, that

" An hundred pounde of marriage money doubtless,
Is ever thirtie pounde sterlyng or somewhat less ;
So that her thousande pounde yf she be thriftie
Is much neere about two hundred and fiftie.
Howbeit wowers and widows are never poore."

Which shows that our ways, in this respect at least, have
not changed much in three hundred years from those of
our forefathers. When the play opens, Custance is be-
trothed to Garvin Goodluck, a merchant who is then at
sea. But Merry-greek crams his master with eagerly
swallowed flattery, and puts him in heart by telling him
that a man of his person and spirit can win any woman.
Ralph encounters three of Custance's hand-maids, old and
young, and by flattering words and caresses tries to bring
them over to his side. He leaves a letter with one of them
for Custance, which is delivered, but not immediately
opened. The next day Dobinet Doughty, the merchant's
servant, brings a ring and token from Master Goodluck
to Dame Custance ; but Madge, having got a scolding for
her pains in delivering Ralph's letter, refuses to carry the
ring and token. Other servants entering, Dobinet intro-
duces himself as a messenger from the dame's betrothed
husband ; and they, especially one Tibbet Talk-a-pace,

* Merry-greek was slang three hundred years ago for what we
now call a "jolly fellow." So in Troilus and Cressida, I. ii. :
" Then she 's a merry Greek indeed."

33

THE ENGLISH

being delighted at the idea of a wedding, and mistaking
the man who is thus to bless the household, fall out as to
who is to deliver Ralph's presents. But Tib triumphs by
snatching the souvenirs and running out with them to her
mistress. A reproof to Tib in her turn ends the second
Act. The third opens with a visit by Merry-greek to
Dame Custance, that he may find out if the ring and token
have worked well for his master's interest. But he only
learns from Dame Custance that she is fast betrothed to
Goodluck, that she has not even opened Ralph's letter,
but knows that it must be from him —

" For no mon there is but a very dolte and lout
That to wowe a widowe would so go about."

She adds that Ralph shall never have her for his wife
while he lives. On receiving this news, Ralph declares
that he shall then and there incontinently die; when
Merry-greek takes him at his word, pretends to think that
he is really dying, and calls in a priest and four assistants
to sing a mock requiem. Ralph, however, like most dis-
appointed lovers, concludes to live ; and Merry-greek ad-
vises him to serenade Custance, and boldly ask her hand.
So done ; but Custance snubs him, and produces his yet
unread letter, which Merry-greek reads to the assembled
company with such defiance of the punctuation that the
sense is perverted, and all are moved to mirth except
Ralph, who in wrath disowns the composition. Dame
Custance retires, and Merry-greek, again flattering his
master, advises him to refrain himself awhile from his
lady-love, and that then she will seek him, for, as to
women, —

" When ye will they will not ; will not ye, then will they."

Ralph threatens vengeance upon the scrivener who copied
his letter ; but when the penman reads it with the proper
pauses, he finds out who is the real culprit ; and thus the
third Act ends. The fourth opens with the entrance of
another messenger from Goodluck to Dame Custance.

34

DRAMA

While he is talking to the lady Ralph enters, ostentatiously
giving orders about making ready his armor, takes great
airs, calls distance his spouse, and tells Goodluck's mes-
senger to tell his master that " his betters be in place now."
The angered Dame Custance summons maid and man, and
turns Ralph and Merry-greek out of doors ; but the latter
soon slips back, and tells her that his only purpose is to
make sport of Ralph, who is about returning armed, " to
pitch a field " with his female foes. Roister Doister soon
enters armed with pot, pan, and popgun, and accompanied
by three or four assistants. But the comely dame, who
seems to be a tall woman of her hands, stands her ground,
and, aided by her maids, " pitches into " the enemy, and
with mop and besom puts him to ignominious flight ; in
which squabble the knave Merry-greek, pretending to
fight for his rich kinsman, manages to belabor him
soundly. At the beginning of the fifth Act Garvin Good-
luck makes his appearance, and Sim Suresby tells him of
what he saw and heard at his visit to Dame Custance.
Goodluck is convinced of the lady's fickleness. She ar-
rives, and would welcome him tenderly ; but of course
there is trouble. Finally, however, on the evidence of
Tristram Trusty, she is freed from suspicion ; and Ralph,
petitioning for pardon, is invited to the wedding supper,
and the play is at an end. It is rather a rude perform-
ance ;* but it contains all the elements of a regular comedy

* The following extract' from the opening of the third Scene of
the fourth Act of this comedy is a fair example of its style : —

Custance. What mean these lewde felowes thus to trouble me stil ?
Sym Suresby here, perchaunce, shal thereof deme som yll,
And shall suspect me in some point of naughtinesse,
And they come hitherward.

Sym Suresby. What is their businesse?

Cnst. I have nought to them, nor they to me, in sadnesse.

Sure. Let us hearken them ; somewhat there is, I feare it.

Ralph Roister. I will speake out aloude best, that she may heare it.

Merry-greek. Nay, alas ! ye may so feare hir out of hir wit.

Roister. By the crosse of my sworde, I will hurt hir no whit.

35

THE ENGLISH

of the romantic school ; and it must be confessed that
many a duller one has been presented to a modem audi-
ence.

Yet ruder and coarser than Ralph Roister Doister, and

Merry. Will ye doe no harme in deede ? Shall I trust your worde ?

Roister. By Roister Doister's fayth, I will speak, but in horde.

Sure. Let us hearken them ; somewhat there is, I feare it.

Roister. I will speake out aloude, I care not who heare it. —
Sirs, see that my harnesse, my tergat, and my shield,
Be made as bright now as when I was last in field,
As white as I shoulde to warre againe tomorrowe —
For sicke shall I be but I worke some folke sorrowe.
Therefore see that all shine as bright as sainct George,
Or as doth a key newly come from the smith's forge.
I woulde have my sworde and harnesse to shine so bright
That I might therewith dimme mine enimies sight ;
I woulde have it cast beames as fast, I tell you playne,
As doth the glittering grass after a showre of raine.
And see that, in case I shoulde have to come to arminge,
All things may be ready at a moment's warning.
For such a chaunce may chaunce in an houre, do ye heare?

Merry. As perchaunce shall not chaunce againe in seven yeare.

Roister. Now draw we neare to hir, and heare what shal be sayde.

Merry. But I woulde not have you make hir too muche afrayde.

Roister. Well founde, sweete wife (I trust) for al this your soure
looke

Cust. Wife! Why cal ye me wife?

Sure. Wife ! this geare goeth acrook.

Merry. Nay, Mistresse Custance, I warrant you our letter
Is not as we redde e'en nowe, but much better ;
And where ye half stomaked this gentleman afore,
For this same letter ye wyll love him nowe therefore ;
Nor it is not this letter though ye were a queene
That shoulde breake marriage betweene you twaine, I weene.

Cust. I did not refuse hym for the letter's sake.

Roister. Then ye are content me for your husbande to take.

Cust. You for my husbande to take ! Nothing lesse truely.

Roister. Yea, say so sweete spouse, afore strangers hardly.

Merry. And though I have here his letter of love with me.
Yet his rings and his tokens he sent keepe safe with ye.

Cust. A mischief take his tokens, and him, and thee too.

36

DRAMA

less amusing, is Gammer Gurton's Needle, which, until
1818, was supposed to be the earliest extant English
comedy, but which was not written until about thirty
years later than Udall's play, it having been first per-
formed, as Malone reasonably concludes, at Christ Col-
lege, Cambridge, in 1566. Its author was John Still,
afterward Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was born in
1543. The personages in this play are all, with two or
three exceptions, rustics, and their language is a broad,
provincial dialect. The plot turns upon the simple inci-
dent of Gammer Gurton's loss of her needle while she is
mending her servant Hodge's breeches. Sharp is the
hunt through five acts after this needful instrument —
Hodge even pretending to have an interview with the
Devil upon the subject. But the needle is not found until
Hodge, having on the mended garment, is hit " a good
blow on the buttocks " by the bailiff, whose services have
been called in ; when the clown discovers that Gammer
Gurton's needle, like Old Rapid's in the Road to Ruin,
does not always stick in the right place. The second Act
of this farrago of practical jokes and coarse humour opens
with that jolly old drinking-song beginning,

" I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good,"

which may be found in many collections of lyric verse.

IV. Whether it was that moral-plays satisfied for a
long time our forefathers' desire for serious entertain-
ments, and furnished them sufficient occasion for that re-
flection upon the graver interests and incidents of human
life which it is tragedy's chief function to suggest, or
whether the public, wearied by the sententious gravity of
the moral-plays (which, however, their authors had often
sought to retrieve by humorous character and incident),
demanded, on the introduction of real life into the drama,
that only its light and merry side should be presented, it

37

THE ENGLISH

is certain that comedy entered upon the English stage
much in advance of her elder sister. It is barely possible
that a play upon the story of Romeo and Juliet was per-
formed in London before the year 1562; but the earliest
tragedy extant in our language is Ferrex and Porrex, or
Gorboduc, all of which was probably written by Thomas
Sackville, Earl of Dorset, but to the first three acts of
which Thomas Norton has a disputed claim. This play
is founded on events in the fabulous chronicles of Britain.
The principal personages are Gorboduc, King of Britain,
about B. C. 600, Videna, his wife, and Ferrex and Porrex,
his sons. But nobles, councillors, parasites, a lady, and
messengers make the personages number thirteen. The
first Act is occupied with the division of the kingdom by
Gorboduc to his sons, and the talk thereupon. The sec-
ond, with the fomenting of a quarrel between the brothers
for complete sovereignty. The third, with the events of a
civil war, in which Porrex kills Ferrex. In the fourth,
the queen, who most loved Ferrex, kills Porrex while he
is asleep at night in his chamber ; the people rise in wrath
and avenge this murder by the death of both Videna and
Gorboduc. The fifth Act is occupied by a bloody sup-
pression of this rebellion by the nobles, who, in their
turn, fall into dissension ; and the land, without a rightful
king, and rent by civil strife, becomes desolate. This
tragedy was written for one of the Christmas festivals of
the Inner Temple, to be played by the gentlemen of that
society ; and by desire of Queen Elizabeth it was per-
formed by them at White-hall on the i8th of January,
1561. It is plain that the author of this play meant to be
very elegant, decorous, and classical ; and he succeeded.
Of all the stirring events upon which the tragedy is built,
not one is represented ; all are told. Even Ferrex and
Porrex are not brought together on the stage, and Videna
does not meet either of them before the audience after the
first act. Each act is introduced by a dumb show, in-
tended to be symbolical of what will follow — a common
device on our early stage which was ridiculed by Shake-

33

DRAMA

speare in the third Act of Hamlet ;* and each act, except
the last, is followed by a moralizing and explanatory
chorus recited by " four ancient and sage men of Britain."
Fcrrex and Porrex is remarkable as being the first Eng-
lish play extant in blank verse, and probably it was the
first so written. It is to be wondered that even in this
respect it was ever taken as a model. For although Sir
Philip Sidney in his Defence of Poesy, finding fault with
F err ex and Porrex for its violation of the unities of time
and place, admits that it is so " full of stately speeches and
well sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca
his stile, and full of notable morality, which it doth most
delightfully teach," yet it may be safely said that another
play so lifeless in movement, so commonplace in thought,
so utterly undramatic in motive, so oppressively didactic
in language, so absolutely without distinction of charac-
ter among its personages, cannot be found in our dramatic
literature. From Ferrex and Porrex we turn even to the
miracle-plays and moral-plays with relief, if not with
pleasure. Some notion of its tediousness may be gath-
ered from the fact that it closes with a speech one hun-
dred lines in length, and that the first act is chiefly occu-
pied with three speeches by three councillors, which to-

* " The Order and Signification of the Domme Shew before the
fourth Act.

" First the musick of howeboies began to playe, during which
came from under the stage, as though out of hell, three furies,
Alecto, Megera, and Ctisiphone clad in blacke garmentes
sprinkled with bloud and flames, their bodies girt with snakes,
their heds spred with serpentes in stead of heire, the one bearing
in hand a snake, the other a whip, and the third a burning fire-
brand ; ech driving before them a king and a queene, which moved
by the furies unnaturally had slaine their owne children. The
names of the kings and queenes were these, Tantalus, Medea,
Athamas, Ino, Cambises, Althea ; after that the furies and these
had passed about the stage thrise, they departed, and than the
musick ceased : hereby was signified the unnatural murders to
follow, that is to say. Porrex, slaine by his owne mother ; and of
king Gorboduc and queene Videna, killed by their owne subjects."

39

THE ENGLISH

gather make two hundred and sixty verses.* This play
demands notice because it is our first tragedy, our first

* The following passage, in which the death of Porrex is an-
nounced, is a favourable example of the style of this play : —
Marcella. Oh where is ruth or where is pitie now?

Whether is gentle hart and mercy fled?

Are they exiled out of our stony brestes,

Never to make returne? is all the world

Drowned in blood and sonke in crueltie?

If not in woman mercy may be found

If not (alas) within the mother's brest

To her owne childe to her owne flesh and blood ;

If ruthe be banished thence, if pitie there

May have no place, if there no gentle hart

Do live and dwell, where should we seek it then?
Gorboduc. Madame (alas) what means your wo full tale?
Marcella. O silly woman I ! why to this houre

Have kinde and fortune thus deferred my breath,

That I should live to see this dolefull day?

Will ever wight beleve that such hard hart

Could rest within the cruell mother's brest,

With her owne hande to slaye her only sonne?

But out (alas) these eyes behelde the same,

They saw the driery sight, and are become

Most ruthfull recordes of the bloody fact.

Porrex (alas) is by his mother slaine,

And with her hand and wofull thing to tell ;

While slumbering on his carefull bed he restes,

His hart stabde in with knife is reft of life.
Gorboduc. O Eubulus, oh draw this sword of ours,

And pearce this hart with speed ! O hateful light,

O lothsome life, O sweete and welcome death,

Deare Eubulus, worke this we thee besech !
Eubulus. Pacient your grace, perhappes he liveth yet,

With wound receaved, but not of certain death.
Gorboduc. O let us then repayre unto the place,

And see if Porrex live, or thus be slaine.
Marcella. Alas he liveth not, it is to true,

That with these eyes of him a perelesse prince,

Sonne to a king and in the flower of youth,

Even with a twinkle a senselesse stock I saw.

40

DRAMA

play written in blank verse, but for no other reason. It
had no perceptible effect upon the English drama, and
marks no stage in its progress. In that regard it might
as well have been written in Greece and in Greek, or in
ancient British by Gorboduc himself ; for in either case
its motive and plan could not then have been more foreign
to the genius of English dramatic literature. And it is
now proper to say that translated plays adapted from
Greek and Latin authors, of which there were many per-
formed in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, are here
passed by without notice, not merely because they were
translations and adaptations, but because, not being an
outgrowth of the English character, they were entirely
without influence upon the development of the English
drama, in an account of which they have no proper place.
The Supposes translated from Ariosto by George Gas-
coigne, and acted at Gray's Inn in 1566, must be men-
tioned as the earliest extant play in English prose. The
fact is significant indeed, that none of the many plays
written especially for the court and for the learned soci-
eties and the elegant people of that day have left any
traces even of a temporary influence upon our stage. The
English drama, unlike that of France, had its germ in
the instincts, and its growth with the growth, of the whole
English people.

Up to, and even past, the Elizabethan era, the English
drama was rude in style and in construction, gross in
sentiment and in language. Its personages had little
character or keeping, its incidents little probability or
connection. A true dramatic style, by which character
is evolved and emotion revealed, was yet unformed. The
cultivated people of that time saw these defects, except
the last, but devised for them the wrong remedy. With
their heads full of the ancient classics, they judged their
own theatre by a foreign standard, to which they would
have forced it to conform.* In this English drama, rude,

* George Whetstone, in the dedication of his " Promos and Cas-
sandra," the incidents of which Shakespeare used in his Measure

41

THE ENGLISH

coarse and confused, there was yet an inherent vitality.
It was native to the English mind, and it sought to pre-
sent even in tragedy an idealized picture of real life which
had never yet been attempted.

for Measure, and which was published in 1578, gives us the fol-
lowing criticism upon the English drama of that day : " The
Englishman in this qualitie is most vaine, indiscreete, and out of
order : he first groundes his worke on impossibilities : then, in
three howers, ronnes he throwe the worlde : marryes, gets chil-
dren, makes children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder
monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heaven, and fetcheth divils
from Hel. And (that which is worst) their ground is not so
imperfect as their workinge indiscreete ; not waying, so the peo-
ple laugh, though they laugh them (for their follies) to scorn.
Manye tymes, to make myrthe, they make a clowne companion
with a Kinge : in theyr grave Councils they allow the advice of
fools; yea, they use one order of speach for all persons, a grose
Indecorum," etc.

Sir Philip Sidney, in a passage of his Defence of Poesy (writ-
ten about 1583) which has been often quoted, but which is too
important to be omitted here, says : " Our Tragedies and Come-
dies are not without cause cried out against, observing rules
neither of honest civilitie nor skilfull Poetrie. Excepting Gor-
boduck (againe I say of those that I have scene) which notwith-
standing, as it is full of statelie speeches, and well sounding
phrases, climing to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of
notable moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so
obtaine the verie end of Poesie, yet in truth it is very defectious
in the circumstances, which grieves me, because it might not re-
maine as an exact modell of all Tragedies. For it is faulty in
place and time, the two necessarie companions of all corporall
actions. For where the Stage should alway represent but one
place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it, should be both
by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day, there is
both many dayes and manie places artificially imagined. But if
it bee so in Gorboduck, how much more in all the rest, where you
shall have Asia of the one side, and Africk of the other, and so
many other under kingdoms, that the Player, when he comes in,
must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not
be conceived. Now you shall have three ladies walke to gather
flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By

42

Our drama, advancing through centuries, had slowly
reached this stage of growth, where if its development
had been stayed, its history would have been almost with-
out interest, except to the literary antiquary, when sud-
denly its homely, uncouth bud burst into flower so sweet,
of beauty so glorious, so perennial, as ever after to glad-
den, to perfume, and to adorn the ages. The rapidity of
this transition is astonishing. It is almost like magical
transformation. In less than twenty years from the time
when the best plays yet produced by English authors were
intrinsically unworthy of a place in literature, the English
stage had become illustrious.

This change was brought about by the great and in-
creasing taste of the day for dramatic performances,
which called into the service of the theatre every needy
hand that held a ready pen. A crowd of young men left
the learned professions in London, or abandoning rustic
homes, flocked thither to make money by writing plays.
Among these men seven attained distinction ; and yet not

and by we hear newes of a shipwrack in the same place ; then we
are to blame if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of
that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then
the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while,
in the meantime, two armies flie in, represented with four swords
and bucklers, and then what hard hart will not receive it for a
pitched field? Now, of time they are much more liberal; for
ordinarie it is that two young Princes fall in love : after many
traverses she is got with child, delivered of a fair boy ; he is lost,
groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child,
and all this in two houres' space; which how absurd it is in
sense, even sense may imagine and art hath taught, and all
ancient examples justified, and at this daye the ordinarie players
in Italic wil not erre in ... But besides these grosse absurdi-
ties how all their Playes be neither right Tragedies nor right
Comedies, mingling Kings and Clownes not because the matter
so carieth it. but thrush in the Clowne by head and shoulders, to
play a part in Majestical matters with neither decencie nor dis-
cretion ; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor
right sportfulness is by their mongrel Tragi-comedy obtained."

43

THE ENGLISH

only so inferior, but of so little intrinsic enduring interest,
was the work of six of them, that, with one and hardly
one exception, their names would not have been known
outside of purely literary circles, but for the seventh.
They were Thomas Kyd,John Lilly, George Peele, George
Chapman, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, and Wil-
liam Shakespeare. Of the six, the oldest whose age is
known to us was only ten years the senior of the seventh,
and the most eminent, Marlowe, was born but two years
before him.* Shakespeare got to work in London very
early in life. He was using his pen as a dramatic writer
there before he was twenty-four years old. These men
were therefore in both the strictest and in the broadest
sense his contemporaries — his contemporaries as men and
as authors. The mere fact that he found four of them,
Kyd, Peele, Green, and Marlowe, in the front rank of
dramatic writers on his arrival in London, does not prop-
erly entitle them to consideration as his predecessors in
English drama. Being so absolutely contemporaneous
with him in age, they could be justly regarded as his pred-
ecessors only as having been the founders of a school of
which he was an eminent disciple, or to which he had
established a rival or a successor. But he stood to them
in neither of these relations. He and they were all, with
a single exception, of one school, of which neither one
of them was the founder. With this one exception these
men were all striving to do the same thing, at the same
time, in the same way. The time had come when it was
to be done, and the time brought the men who were to
do it, each according to his ability. And not only were
their aims identical, but there is the best reason, short of
competent contemporary testimony, for believing that four
of them, including Shakespeare, were colaborers upon
still existing works.

* Lilly was born about 1553, Peele about the same year. Chap-
man in 1559, Greene about 1560, Marlowe about 1562. Shakespeare
in 1564. The date of Kyd's birth can only be conjectured.

44

DRAMA

The exception to this unity of purpose was John Lilly,
the author of Euphues. Lilly is known in dramatic litera-
ture as the author of eight comedies written to be per-
formed at the court of Elizabeth.* They are in all re-
spects opposed to the genius of the English drama. They
do not even pretend to be representations of human life
and human character, but are pure fantasy pieces, in
which the personages are a heterogeneous medley of Gre-
cian gods and goddesses, and impossible, colourless crea-
tures with sublunary names, all thinking with one brain,
and speaking with one tongue — the conceitful, crotchety
brain and the dainty, well-trained tongue of clever, witty
John Lilly. They are all in prose, but contain some
pretty, fanciful verses called songs, which are as unlyrical
in spirit as the plays in which they appear are undramatic.
From these plays Shakespeare borrowed a few thoughts ;
but they exercised no modifying influence upon his genius,
nor did they at all conform to that of the English drama,
upon which they are a mere grotesque excrescence.
Chapman, one of the elder and the stronger of the six
above named, is not known as the author, even in part,
of any play older than Shakespeare's earliest perform-
ances He probably entered upon dramatic composition at
a somewhat later period in life than either of the others ;
and as a dramatist he is properly to be passed over in
this place, as not even having been Shakespeare's prede-
cessor, in the mere order of time, by even that very brief
period which may be admitted in the cases of Peele,
Greene, and Marlowe. The styles of these three dram-
atists are commented upon, and extracts from their
plays are given, in an Essay upon the Authorship of

* Lilly's Plays are Endimion, Campaspc, Sapho and Phaon,
Gallathea, Mydas, Mother Bombie, The Woman in the Moonc,
and Love's Metamorphosis. The Maid's Metamorphosis, which
was published anonymously in 1600, has been attributed to him,
as also was A Warning for Fair Women, which was published
anonymously in 1599; but neither of them bears traces of his
style.

' 45

THE ENGLISH

King Henry the Sixth, where they are particularly
considered in their relation to Shakespeare. I will,
however, notice here the opinion generally received,
that Marlowe's talents were very far superior to those
of either Greene or Peele — a judgement to which I
cannot entirely assent, as far as Peele is concerned.
Peele's plays, it is true, lack some of Marlowe's fire
and fury ; but they are also without much of his fustian.
Peele's characters are less strongly marked that Mar-
lowe's ; but they are also less absurd and extravagant,
and, in my opinion, they are equally well discriminated,
though that is little praise. Peele's David and Bathshcba
is a play which for the genuineness of its feeling, if not
for the harmony of its verse, Marlowe might have been
glad to own ; and The Battle of Alcansar is in the same
furious, bloody vein with his Tambnrlaine, and equal, if
not superior, to it in sense and keeping. It is also note-
worthy that the Prologue to Peele's Arraignment of Paris,
which was published in 1584, when Marlowe was but
twenty years old, and before he had taken his Bachelor's
degree at Cambridge, is, for its union of completeness of
measure with variety of pause, unsurpassed by any dra-
matic blank verse, that of one play excepted, which was
written before the time of Shakespeare. The critical
reader who is familiar with Marlowe's works must con-
stantly remember that there is every reason for believing
that Edward IL — his best play in versification no less
than in style, sentiment, and character — was written after
1590, and after the production of The First Part of the
Contention and The True Tragedy.

With regard to these dramatists there only remains to
be noticed the claim which has been set up for one of
them, Marlowe, that he was the first who used blank verse
upon our public stage, and " the first who harmonized it
with variety of pause." As to which I will only say,
briefly, that although it is probably true that he in his
Tamburla'me made one of the earliest efforts to bring
blank verse into vogue in plays written for the general

46'

DRAMA

public, and to substitute the roll and flow of measured
rhythm for the feebler and more monotonous music of
rhyme in dramatic poetry intended for uncultured as well
as cultured ears, I cannot find in this endeavor reason for
giving him the credit due to an innovator, much less that
which belongs to an inventor. Blank verse, as we have
seen, was used in plays produced for special occasions and
audiences many years before Marlowe wrote; and he,
writing only for the general theatre-going public, seems
merely to have used, and somewhat improved, an instru-
ment which he found made to his hand. Among the dram-
atists who preceded Marlowe in the use of blank verse
on the public stage is one who, in my judgement, wrote it
with a spirit and a freedom which Marlowe himself hardly
excelled. This dramatist is the author of Jeronimo. A
continuation of this play, called The Spanish Tragedy, or
Hieronimo is mad again, which we know, upon Thomas
Heywood's testimony, was written by Thomas Kyd, was
one of the most popular plays of the Elizabethan era.
Hitherto it has been assumed that Kyd was also the au-
thor of Jeronimo. But a comparison of the two plays
shows them to be so unlike in all respects — in versification,
in language, in dramatic characterization, and in all dis-
tinctive poetic traits — that it seems very clear that the fact
that Kyd did write The Spanish Tragedy is conclusive
evidence against his authorship of the elder play. It
would be difficult for two contemporary dramatic poets,
in their treatment of the same or a very similar subject,
to produce two works more unlike in all particulars. The
Spanish Tragedy had been written, as we know upon Ben
Jonson's testimony, long enough before 1587 to be then
an old story. We may be equally sure that the play of
which it is a continuation had preceded it some years.
In structure Jeronimo bears strong traces of the pre-
Elizabethan era. It opens with a dumb show explana-
tory of the situation of the characters before the action
commences ; the action does not " grow to a point," and
the play consequently reads less like a tragedy than an

47

THE ENGLISH

episode of history dramatized with little art; quite one
half of the play is in rhyme ; and among its dramatis per-
sona one is allegorical — Revenge. This personage and
the Ghost of Andrea, the slain lover who appears with
him in the last scene of Jeronimo, are also used by Kyd
in The Spanish Tragedy ; but in that they merely form a
chorus, and neither mingle in nor influence the action.
The traits of Jeronimo just mentioned, and particularly
the first and last, are indicative of a period earlier than
that known as the Elizabethan era ; while the versification
and characterization belong to that era, and indeed would
disgrace none of its dramatists except Shakespeare him-
self, and are hardly unworthy of his prentice hand.
Dumb shows went out as Elizabethan dramatists began to
occupy the stage ; and allegory is the distinctive trait of
the period of the moral-plays, although, as we have seen,
it yielded place gradually to real life. The use of dumb
show, and especially the introduction of an allegorical
character among the dramatis persona of a tragedy of
real life written in blank verse, of which no other example
is known to me, distinctly mark the transitional type of
Jeronimo, which may be regarded as a fine and character-
istic example of English tragedy in the stage of its devel-
opment immediately preceding that which produced
Shakespeare. And indeed this play and its continuation,
in spite of the crudeness of both and the childishness of
the latter, seem to have left stronger traces of influence
upon Shakespeare's works than any other, or than all
others, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries.
The English drama, and not the stage and the theatres,
before the time of Shakespeare, is the subject of this
account ; but it may be fitly closed with a very brief de-
scription of the playhouses and the theatrical management
of his early years. The general use of inn-yards as places
of dramatic amusement has been already mentioned in
the course of remarks upon the moral-play ; and when
Shakespeare arrived in London, at least three inns there
— the Bull, the Cross Keys, and the Bell Savage — were

48

DRAMA

thus regularly occupied. But, by a striking coincidence,
with the Elizabethan era of our drama came theatres
proper, buildings specially adapted to the needs of actors
and audiences. Shakespeare found three such in the me-
tropolis— four, if to The Theatre, The Curtain, and Black-
friars, we are to add Paris Garden, where bear-baiting
shared the boards with comedy. All the theatres of
Shakespeare's time were probably built of wood and
plaster. Of the three above mentioned, the Blackfriars
belonged to the class called private theatres — we know not
why, unless because the private theatres were entirely
roofed in, while in the others the pit was uncovered, and
of course the stage and the gallery exposed to the external
air. A flag was kept flying from a staff on the roof dur-
ing the performance. Inside there were the stage, the
pit, the boxes and galleries, much as we have them now-
adays. In the public theatres, the pit, separated from
the stage by paling, was called the yard, and was without
seats. The price of admission to the pit or yard varied,
according to the pretensions of the theatre, from two-
pence, and even a penny, to sixpence ; that to the boxes
or rooms from a shilling to two shillings, and even, on
extraordinary occasions, half a crown.

The performances usually commenced at three o'clock
in the afternoon ; but the theatre appears to have been
always artificially lighted, in the body of the house by
cressets and upon the stage by large rude chandeliers.
The small band of musicians sat, not in an orchestra in
front of the stage, but, it would seem, in a balcony pro-
jecting from the proscenium. People went early to the
theatre for the purpose of securing good places, and
while waiting for the play to begin, they read, gamed,
smoked, drank, and cracked nuts and jokes together.
Those who set up for wits, gallants, or critics, liked to
appear upon the stage itself, which they were allowed to
do all through the performance, lying upon the rushes
with which the stage was strewn, or sitting upon stools,
for which they paid an extra price.

49

THE ENGLISH

Pickpockets, when detected at the theatre, seem to have
been put in an extempore pillory on the stage, among the
wits and gallants, at whose tongues, if not whose hands,
they doubtless suffered. Kempe, the actor, in his Nine
Dates' Wonder, A. D. 1600, compares a man to " such a
one as we tye to a poast on our stage for all the people to
wonder at when they are taken pilfering."

Certain very peculiar dramatic companies should not
be passed by entirely without notice. They were com-
posed altogether of children. The boys of St. Paul's
choir, those of Westminster school, and a special com-
pany called the Children of the Revels, were the most
important. The first two acted under the direction of
the Master of St. Paul's choir and of the school, the
last under that of the Master of the Revels. Their per-
formances were much admired, and the companies of
adult actors at the theatres were piqued, and perhaps
touched in pocket, by the public favour of these youn-
kers. Shakespeare shows this by a speech which he puts
into Rosencranz's mouth (Hamlet, II. ii.). Their audi-
ences were generally composed of the higher classes, and
they acted plays of established reputation only. This ap-
pears from the following passage in Jack Drum's Enter-
tainment, published in 1601, which was itself played by
the children of Paul's, as appears by its title-page : —

Sir Edward. I sawe the Children of Pawles last night,

And troth they pleas'd me prettie, prettie well.

The Apes in time will do it handsomely.
Planet. F faith I like the Audience that frequenteth there,

With much applause. A man shall not be choakte

With the stench of Garlicke, nor be pasted

To the barny lackett of a Beer-brewer.
Brabant, Jn. 'Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope the Boyes

Will come one day into the Courte of Requests.
Brabant, Sig. I, and they had good playes, but they produce

Such mustie fopperies of antiquitie

As do not sute the humorous ages backs

With cloathes in fashion.

50

DRAMA

The performance was announced by three flourishes of
trumpets. At the third sounding, the curtain, which was
divided in the middle from top to bottom, and ran upon
rods, was drawn, and after the prologue the actors en-
tered. The prologue was spoken by a person who wore
a long black cloak and a wreath of bays upon his head.
The reason of which costume was, that prologues were
first spoken by the authors of plays themselves, who wore
the poetical costume of the middle ages, such as we see
it in the old portraits of Ariosto, Tasso, and others.
When the authors themselves no longer appeared as pro-
logue, the actors who were their proxies assumed their
professional habit. Poor Robert Greene, the debauched
playwright and poet, begged upon his miserable death-
bed that his coffin might be strewed with bays ; and the
cobbler's wife, at whose house he died, respected this
clinging of the wretched author to his right to Parnassian
honors, and fulfilled his last request. In the earlier part
of the Elizabethan era it was common for all the actors
who were to take parts in the play to appear in character
and pass over the stage before the performance began.
This was a relic of the days of the miracle-plays and
moral-plays. In the course of the play he who played
the clown would favor the audience with outbreaks of
extemporaneous wit and practical joking, in virtue of a
time-honoured privilege claimed by the clowns to " speak
more than was set down for them." Indeed, extempore
dialogue seems to have been permitted to, if not expected
from, the representatives of comic characters. Such stage
directions as the following from Greene's Tu quoque
(A. D. 1614) are not uncommon : " Here they two talke
and rayle what they list; then Rash speakes to Staynes."

"All spcake. Ud's foot dost thou stand by and do
nothing? come talke and drown her clamors. Here they
all talke and Joyce gives over weeping and Exit"

Between the acts there was dancing and singing; and
after the play, a jig, which was a kind of comic solo
sung, said, acted, and danced by the clown to the accom-

51

THE ENGLISH

paniment of his own pipe and tabor. Each day's exhi-
bition was closed by a prayer for the Queen, offered by
all the actors kneeling.

The stage exhibited no movable scenery. It was hung
with painted cloths and arras ; when tragedy was played,
the hangings were sometimes, at least, sable; over the
stage was a blue canopy, called " the heavens." Although
there was no proper scenery, there was ample provision of
rude properties, such as towers, tombs, dragons, painted
pasteboard banquets, and the like. Furniture was used,
of course, and was, in many cases, the only means of in-
dicating a change of scene, which, indeed, in most cases
was left to the imagination of the audience, helped, it
might be, as Sir Philip Sidney says, if the supposed scene
were Thebes, by " seeing Thebes written in great letters
on an old door." * Machinery and trap-doors were freely
used, and gods and goddesses were let down from and
hoisted up to the heavens in chairs moved by pulleys and

* Such stage directions as the following show how very rude
were the devices for indicating a change of scene in the latter
part of the i6th and the early part of the I7th centuries: —
" Enter Sybilla lying in child bed with her child lying by her."

Heywood's Golden Age, 1611.

"Enter a shoemaker sitting on the stage at work. Jenkins to
him."

Greene's George-a-Greenc, 1599.

In the following passage the audience were evidently expected
to " make believe " that a few steps across the stage was a going
to the town's end : —

Shoemaker. Come, sir, will you go to the town's end now, sir?
Jenkins. Ay sir, come. — Now we are at the town's end ; what say
you now?

Idem, ut supra.

In the plays of that period, after a murder or killing in com-
bat, the direction is generally to the survivor, " Exit with the
body." There was no device by which the dead body could be
shut out from the audience, that the next scene might go on
without its presence.

52

DRAMA

tackle that creaked and groaned in the most sublunary and
mechanical manner. At the back of the stage was a bal-
cony, which, like the furniture in the Duke Aranza's cot-
tage served '" a hundred uses." It was inner room, upper
room, window, balcony, battlements, hill side, Mount
Olympus, any place, in fact, which was supposed to be
separated from and above the scene of the main action. It
was in this balcony, for instance, that Sly and his attend-
ants sat while they witnessed the performance of The
Tinning of the Shrew. The wardrobes of the principal
theatres were rich, varied, and costly. It was customary
to buy for stage use slightly worn court dresses and the
gorgeous robes used at coronations. Near the end of the
last century, Steevens tells us, there was " yet in the ward-
robe of Covent Garden Theatre a rich suit of clothes that
once belonged to James I." Steevens saw it worn by the
performer of Justice Greely in Massinger's New Way to
pay Old Debts. The Allen papers and Henslowe's Diary
inform us fully upon this point. In the latter there is a
memorandum of the payment of £4 145., equal to $120,
for a single pair of hose ; and by the former we see that
£16, equal to $400, was the price of one embroidered vel-
vet cloak, and £20 ios., equal t° $512, that of another.
Costume of conventional significance was also worn ; for
Henslowe records the purchase at the large price of
£3 ios. of " a robe for to goo invisibell."

A comparison of the prices paid for dresses, with those
paid for the plays in which they were worn, shows us that
the absence of scenery and of stage decoration, to which
it has been supposed we owe much of the rich imagery
in the Elizabethan drama, was due only to poverty of
resource, and not to the higher value set by the public,
and consequently by the theatrical proprietors, upon the
intellectual part of their entertainment. The highest sum
which Henslowe records as having been paid by him be-
fore 1600, as the full price of a play, is £& — not half what
was given for a cloak that might have been worn in it ;
the lowest sum is £4. — not as much as the hero's hose

53

THE ENGLISH DRAMA

might have cost. By 1613, theatrical competition had
raised the price of a play by a dramatist of repute to £20,
which, being equal to $500 of the present day, was per-
haps quite as much as the proprietors could afford, and
was not an inadequate payment for such plays as went
to make up the bulk of the dramatic productions of the
day. Happily, nearly all of these have perished; and
of those which have survived, the best claim the attention
of posterity only because Shakespeare lived when they
were written.

54

Culmination of the Drama in
Shakespeare.

Culmination of the Drama in
Shakespeare.

BY THOMAS SPENCER BAYNES.

The dramatic conditions of a national theatre were, at the
outset of Shakespeare's career, more complete, or rather
in a more advanced state of development, than the play-
houses themselves or their stage accessories. If Shake-
speare was fortunate in entering on his London work
amidst the full tide of awakened patriotism and public
spirit, he was equally fortunate in finding ready to his
hand the forms of art in which the rich and complex life
of the time could be adequately expressed. During the
decade in which Shakespeare left Stratford the play-
w'right's art had undergone changes so important as to
constitute a revolution in the form and spirit of the na-
tional drama. For twenty years after the accession of
Elizabeth the two roots whence the English drama sprang
— the academic or classical, and the popular, developed
spontaneously in the line of mysteries, moralities and in-
terludes— continued to exist apart, and to produce their
accustomed fruit independently of each other.

The popular drama, it is true, becoming more secular
and realistic, enlarged its area by collecting its materials
from all sources — from novels, tales, ballads, and histories,
as well as from fairy mythology, local superstitions, and
folk-lore. But the incongruous materials were, for the
most part, handled in a crude and semi-barbarous way,
with just sufficient art to satisfy the cravings and clamours
of unlettered audiences. The academic plays, on the

CULMINATION OF

other hand, were written by scholars for courtly and cul-
tivated circles, were acted at the universities, the inns of
court, and at special public ceremonials, and followed for
the most part the recognised and restricted rules of the
classic drama. But in the third decade of Elizabeth's
reign another dramatic school arose intermediate between
the two elder ones, which sought to combine in a newer
and higher form the best elements of both. The main
impulse guiding the efforts of the new school may be
traced indirectly to a classical source. It was due, not
immediately to the masterpieces of Greece and Rome, but
to the form which classical art had assumed in the con-
temporary drama of Italy, France, and Spain, especially
of Italy, which was that earliest developed and best known
to the new school of poets and dramatists. This southern
drama, while academic in its leading features, had never-
theless modern elements blended with the ancient form.
As the Italian epics, following in the main the older ex-
amples, were still charged with romantic and realistic ele-
ments unknown to the classical epic, so the Italian drama,
constructed on the lines of Seneca and Plautus, blended
with the severer form, essentially romantic features.
With the choice of heroic subjects, the orderly develop-
ment of the plot, the free use of the chorus, the observ-
ance of the unities, and constant substitution of narrative
for action were united the vivid colouring of poetic fancy
and diction, and the use of materials and incidents de-
rived from recent history and contemporary life.

The influence of the Italian drama on the new school
of English playwrights was, however, very much re-
stricted to points of style and diction of rhetorical and
poetical effect. It helped to produce among them the
sense of artistic treatment, the conscious effort after
higher and more elaborate forms and vehicles of imagina-
tive and passionate expression. For the rest, the rising
English drama, in spite of the efforts made by academic
critics to narrow its range and limit its interests, retained
and thoroughly vindicated its freedom and independence.

THE DRAMA

The central characteristics ot the new school are suffi-
ciently explained by the fact that its leading representa-
tives were all of them scholars and poets, living by their
wits and gaining a somewhat precarious livelihood amidst
the stir and bustle, the temptations and excitement, of
concentrated London life. The distinctive note of their
work is the reflex of their position as academic scholars
working under poetic and popular impulses for the public
theatres. The new and striking combination in their
dramas of elements hitherto wholly separated is but the
natural result of their attainments and literary activities.
From their university training and knowledge of the an-
cients they would be familiar with the technical require-
ments of dramatic art, the deliberate handling of plot,
incident, and character, and the due subordination of parts
essential for producing the effect of an artistic whole.
Their imaginative and emotional sensibility, stimulated by
their studies in southern literature, would naturally
prompt them to combine features of poetic beauty and
rhetorical finish with the evolution of character and ac-
tion ; while from the popular native drama they derived
the breadth of sympathy, sense of humour, and vivid con-
tact with actual life which gave reality and power to their
representations.

The leading members of this group or school were Kyd,
Greene, Lodge, Nash, Peele, and Marlowe, of whom, in
relation to the future development of the drama, Greene,
Peele, and Marlowe are the most important and influential.
They were almost the first poets and men of genius who
devoted themselves to the production of dramatic pieces
for the public theatres. But they all helped to redeem
the common stages from the reproach their rude and bois-
terous pieces had brought upon them, and make the plays
represented poetical and artistic as well as lively, bustling
and popular. Some did this rather from a necessity of
nature and stress of circumstance than from any higher
aim or deliberately formed resolve. But Marlowe, the
greatest of them, avowed the redemption of the com-

CULMINATION OF

mon stage as the settled purpose of his labours at the out-
set of his dramatic career. And during his brief and
stormy life he nobly discharged the self-imposed task.
His first play, Tamburlaine the Great, struck the authentic
note of artistic and romantic tragedy. With all its ex-
travagance, and overstraining after vocal and rhetorical
effects, the play throbs with true passion and true poetry,
and has throughout the stamp of emotional intensity and
intellectual power. His later tragedies, while marked by
the same features, bring into fuller relief the higher char-
acteristics of his passionate and poetical genius.

Alike in the choice of subject and method of treatment
Marlowe is thoroughly independent, deriving little, ex-
cept in the way of general stimulus, either from the classi-
cal or popular drama of his day. The signal and far-
reaching reforms he effected in dramatic metre by the
introduction of modulated blank verse illustrates the stri-
king originality of his genius. Gifted with a fine ear for
the music of English numbers, and impatient of " the
gigging veins of rhyming mother wits," he introduced
the noble metre which was at once adopted by his con-
temporaries and became the vehicle of the great Eliza-
bethan drama. The new metre quickly abolished the
rhyming couplets and stanzas that had hitherto prevailed
on the popular stage. The rapidity and completeness of
this metrical revolution is in itself a powerful tribute to
Marlowe's rare insight and feeling as a master of musical
expression. The originality and importance of Marlowe's
innovation are not materially affected by the fact that one
or two classical plays, such as Gorboduc and Jocasta-, had
been already written in un rhymed verse. In any case
these were private plays, and the monotony of cadence and
structure in the verse excludes them from anything like
serious comparison with the richness and variety of vocal
effect produced by the skilful pauses arid musical inter-
linking of Marlowe's heroic metre.

Greene and Peele did almost as much for romantic
comedy as Marlowe had done for romantic tragedy.

THE DRAMA

Greene's ease and lightness of touch, his freshness of feel-
ing and play of fancy, his vivid sense of the pathos and
beauty of homely scenes and thorough enjoyment of Eng-
lish rural life, give to his dramatic sketches the blended
charm of romance and reality hardly to be found else-
where except in Shakespeare's early comedies. In special
points of lyrical beauty and dramatic portraiture, such as
his sketches of pure and devoted women and of witty and
amusing clowns, Greene anticipated some of the more
delightful and characteristic features of Shakespearian
comedy. Peek's lighter pieces and Lyly's prose comedies
helped in the same direction. Although not written for
vthe public stage, Lyly's court comedies were very popular,
and Shakespeare evidently gained from their light and
easy if somewhat artificial tone, their constant play of
witty banter and sparkling repartee, valuable hints for
the prose of his own comedies.

Marlowe again prepared the way for another character-
istic development of Shakespeare's dramatic art. His
Edward II. marks the rise of the historical drama, as dis-
tinguished from the older chronicle play, in which the an-
nals of a reign or period were thrown into a series of
loose and irregular metrical scenes. Peele's Edward I.,
Marlowe's Edward II., and the fine ananymous play of
Edward III., in which many critics think Shakespeare's
hand may be traced, show how thoroughly the new school
had felt the rising national pulse, and how promptly it
responded to the popular demand for the dramatic treat-
ment of history. The greatness of contemporary events
had created a new sense of the grandeur and continuity
of the nation's life, and excited amongst all classes a vivid
interest in the leading personalities and critical struggles
that had marked its progress. There was a strong and
general feeling in favour of historical subjects, and espe-
cially historical subjects having in them elements of tragi-
cal depth and intensity. Shakespeare's own early plays —
dealing with the distracted reign of King John, the Wars
of the Roses, and the tragical lives of Richard II. and

CULMINATION OF

Richard III. — illustrate this bent of popular feeling. The
demand being met by men of poetical and dramatic genius
reacted powerfully on the spirit of the age, helping in turn
to illuminate and strengthen its loyal and patriotic sym-
pathies.

This is in fact the keynote of the English stage in the
great period of its development. It was its breadth of
national interest and intensity of tragic power that made
the English drama so immeasurably superior to every
other contemporary drama in Europe. The Italian drama
languished because, though carefully elaborated in point
of form, it had no fulness of national life, no
common elements of ethical conviction or aspiration,
to vitalise and ennoble it. Even tragedy, in the
hands of Italian dramatists, had no depth of human
passion, no energy of heroic purpose, to give higher
meaning and power to its evolution. In Spain the
dominant courtly and ecclesiastical influences limited the
development of the national drama, while in France it
remained from the outset under the artificial restrictions
of classical and pseudo-classical traditions. Shake-
speare's predecessors and contemporaries, in elevating the
common stages, and filling them with poetry, music, and
passion, had attracted to the theatre all classes, including
the more cultivated and refined ; and the intelligent inter-
est, energetic patriotism, and robust life of so representa-
tive an English audience supplied the strongest stimulus
to the more perfect development of the great organ of
national expression. The forms of dramatic art, in the
three main departments of comedy, tragedy, and historical
drama, had been, as we have seen, clearly discriminated
and evolved in their earlier stages. It was a moment of
supreme promise and expectation, and in the accidents
of earth, or, as we may more appropriately and gratefully
say, in the ordinances of heaven, the supreme poet and
dramatist appeared to more than fulfil the utmost promise
of the time.

By right of imperial command over all the resources of

THE DRAMA

imaginative insight and expression Shakespeare combined
the rich dramatic materials already prepared into more
perfect forms, and carried them to the highest point of
ideal development. He quickly surpassed Marlowe in
passion, music, and intellectual power; Greene in lyrical
beauty, elegiac grace, and narrative interest ; Peele in
picturesque touch and pastoral sweetness ; and Lyly in
bright and sparkling dialogue. And having distanced
the utmost efforts of his predecessors and contemporaries
he took his own higher way, and reigned to the end with-
out a rival in the new world of supreme dramatic art he
had created. It is a new world, because Shakespeare's
work alone can be said to possess the organic strength and
infinite variety, the throbbing fulness, vital complexity,
and breathing truth of Nature herself. In points of artis-
tic resource and technical ability — such as copious and
expressive diction, freshness and pregnancy of verbal
combination, richly modulated verse, and structural skill
in the handling of incident and action — Shakespeare's su-
premacy is indeed sufficiently assured. But, after all, it
is of course in the spirit and substance of his work, his
power of piercing to the hidden centres of character, of
touching the deepest springs of impulse and passion, out
of which are the issues of life, and of evolving those issues
dramatically with a flawless strength, subtlety, and truth,
which raises him so immensely above and beyond not only
the best of the playwrights who went before him, but the
whole line of illustrious dramatists that came after him.
It is Shakespeare's unique distinction that he has an abso-
lute command over all the complexities of thought and
feeling that prompt to action and bring out the dividing
lines of character. He sweeps with the hand of a master
the whole gamut of human experience, from the lowest
note to the very top of its compass, from the sportive
childish treble of Mamillius and the pleading boyish tones
of Prince Arthur, up to the spectre-haunted terrors of
Macbeth, the tropical passion of Othello, the agonised
sense and tortured spirit of Hamlet, the sustained ele-

CULMINATION OF

mental grandeur, the Titanic force, and utterly tragical
pathos of Lear.

Shakespeare's active dramatic career in London lasted
about twenty years, and may be divided into three toler-
ably symmetrical periods. The first extends from the
year 1587 to about 1593-94; the second, from this date
to the end of the century ; and the third, from 1600 to
about 1608, soon after which time Shakespeare ceased to
write regularly for the stage, was less in London and more
and more at Stratford. Some modern critics add to these
a fourth period, including the few plays which from inter-
nal as well as external evidence must have been amongst
the poet's latest productions. As the exact date of these
plays are unknown, this period may be taken to extend
from 1608 to about 1612. The three dramas produced
during these years are, however, hardly entitled to be
ranked as a separate period. They may rather be re-
garded as supplementary to the grand series of dramas
belonging to the third and greatest epoch of Shakespeare's
productive power. To the first period belong Shake-
speare's early tentative efforts in revising and partially
rewriting plays produced by others that already had pos-
session of 'the stage. These efforts are illustrated in the
three parts of Henry VI., especially the second and third
parts, which bear decisive marks of Shakespeare's hand,
and were to a great extent recast and rewritten by him.
It is clear from the internal evidence thus supplied that
Shakespeare was at first powerfully affected by " Mar-
lowe's mighty line." This influence is so marked in the
revised second and third parts of Henry VI. as to induce
some critics to believe Marlowe must have had a hand
in the revision. These passages are, however, sufficiently
explained by the fact of Marlowe's influence during the
first period of Shakespeare's career. To the same period
also belong the earliest tragedy, that of Titus Andronicus,
and the three comedies — Love's Labour 's Lost, The Com-
edy of Errors, and the Tivo Gentlemen of Verona. These
dramas are all marked by the dominant literary influences

• 8

THE DRAMA

of the time. They present features obviously due to the
revived and widespread knowledge of classical literature,
as well as to the active interest in the literature of Italy
and the South. Titus Andronicus, in many of its char-
acteristic features, reflects the form of Roman tragedy
almost universally accepted and followed in the earlier
period of the drama. This form was supplied by the
Latin plays of Seneca, their darker colours being deepened
by the moral effect of the judicial tragedies and military
conflicts of the time. The execution of the Scottish queen
and the Catholic conspirators who had acted in her name,
and the destruction of the Spanish Armada, had given
an impulse to tragic representations of an extreme type.
This was undoubtedly rather fostered than otherwise by
the favourite exemplars of Roman tragedy. The Medea
and Thyestes of Seneca are crowded with pagan horrors
of the most revolting kind. It is true these horrors are
usually related, not represented, although in the Medea
the maddened heroine kills her children on the stage.
But from these tragedies the conception of the physically
horrible as an element of tragedy was imported into the
early English drama, and intensified by the realistic ten-
dency which the events of the time and the taste of their
ruder audiences had impressed upon the common stages.
This tendency is exemplified in Titus Andronicus, obvi-
ously a very early work, the signs of youthful effort being
apparent not only in the acceptance of so coarse a type of
tragedy but in the crude handling of character and mo-
tive, and the want of harmony in working out the details
of the dramatic conception. Kyd was the most popular
contemporary representative of the bloody school, and in
the leading motives of treachery, concealment, and re-
venge there are points of likeness between Titus Androni-
cus and The Spanish Tragedy. But how promptly and
completely Shakespeare's nobler nature turned from this
lower type is apparent from the fact that he not only never
reverted to it but indirectly ridicules the piled-up horrors
and extravagant language of Kyd's plays.

CULMINATION OF

The early comedies in the same way are marked by
the dominant literary influences of the time, partly classic,
partly Italian. In The Comedy of Errors, for example,
Shakespeare attempted a humorous play of the old classi-
cal type, the general plan and many details being- derived
directly from Plautus. In Love's Labour's Lost many
characteristic features of Italian comedy are freely intro-
duced : the pedant Holofernes, the curate Sir Nathaniel,
the fantastic braggadocio soldier Armado, are all well-
known characters of the contemporary Italian drama. Of
this comedy, indeed, Gervinus says: ' The tone of the
Italian school prevails here more than in any other play.
The redundance of wit is only to be compared with a simi-
lar redundance of conceit in Shakespeare's narrative poems,
and with the Italian style which he had early adopted."
These comedies display another sign of early work in the
mechanical exactness of the plan and a studied symmetry
in the grouping of the chief personages of the drama. In
the Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, as Prof. Dowden points
out, " Proteus the fickle is set against Valentine the faith-
ful, Silvia the light and intellectual against Julia the ar-
dent and tender, Launce the humourist against Speed the
wit." So in Lore's Labour }s Lost the king and his three
fellow students balance the princess and her three ladies,
and there is a symmetrical play of incident between the
two groups. The arrangement is obviously more artificial
than spontaneous, more mechanical than vital and organic.
But towards the close of the first period Shakespeare had
fully realised his own power and was able to dispense with
these artificial supports. Indeed, having rapidly gained
knowledge and experience, he had before the close written
plays of a far higher character than any which even the
ablest of his contemporaries had produced. He had
firmly laid the foundation of his future fame in the direc-
tion both of comedy and tragedy, for, besides the comedies
already referred to, the first sketches of Hamlet and Ro-
meo and Juliet and the tragedy of Richard III. may prob-
ably be referred to this period.

10

THE DRAMA

Another mark of early work belonging to these dramas
is the lyrical and elegiac tone and treatment associated
with the use of rhyme, of rhyming couplets and stanzas.
Spenser's musical verse had for the time elevated the
character of rhyming metres by identifying them with the
highest kinds of poetry, and Shakespeare was evidently at
first affected by this powerful impulse. He rhymed with
great facility, and delighted in the gratification of his
lyrical fancy and feeling which the more musical rhyming
metres afforded. Rhyme accordingly has a considerable
and not inappropriate place in the earlier romantic come-
dies. The Comedy of Errors has indeed been described
as a kind of lyrical farce in which the opposite qualities of
elegiac beauty and comic effect are happily blended.
Rhyme, however, at this period of the poet's work is not
restricted to the comedies. It is largely used in the trage-
dies and histories as well, and plays even an important
part in historical drama so late as Richard II.

Whatever question may be raised with regard to the
superiority of some of the plays belonging to the first
period of Shakespeare's dramatic career, there can be no
question at all as to any of the pieces belonging to the
second period, which extends to the end of the century.
During these years Shakespeare works as a master, hav-
ing complete command over the materials and resources
of the most mature and flexible dramatic art. " To this
stage," says Mr. Swinburne, " belongs the special faculty
of faultless, joyous, facile command upon each faculty
required of the presiding genius for service or for sport.
It is in the middle period of his work that the language of
Shakespeare is most limpid in its fulness, the style most
pure, the thought most transparent through the close and
luminous raiment of perfect expression." This period in-
cludes the magnificent series of historical plays — Richard
II., the two parts of Henry IV., and Henry V. — and a
double series of brilliant comedies. The Midsummer-
Night's Dream, All 's Well that Ends Well, and The Mer-
chant of Venice were produced before 1598, and during

ii

CULMINATION OF

the next three years there appeared a still more com-
plete and characteristic group, including Much Ado About
Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. These
comedies and historical plays are all marked by a rare
harmony of reflective and imaginative insight, perfection
of creative art, and completeness of dramatic effect. Be-
fore the close of this period, in 1598, Francis Meres paid
his celebrated tribute to Shakespeare's superiority in lyri-
cal, descriptive, and dramatic poetry, emphasising his un-
rivalled distinction in the three main departments of the
drama — comedy, tragedy, and historical play. And from
this time onwards the contemporary recognitions of
Shakespeare's eminence as a poet and dramatist rapidly
multiply, the critics and eulogists being in most cases well
entitled to speak with authority on the subject.

In the third period of Shakespeare's dramatic career
years had evidently brought enlarged vision, wider
thoughts, and deeper experiences. While the old mastery
of art remains, the works belonging to this period seem to
bear traces of more intense moral struggles, larger and
less joyous views of human life, more troubled, complex,
and profound conceptions and emotions. Comparatively
few marks of the lightness and animation of the earlier
works remain, but at the same time the dramas of this
period display an unrivalled power of piercing the deepest
mysteries and sounding the most tremendous and perplex-
ing problems of human life and human destiny. To this
period belong the four great tragedies — Hamlet, Macbeth,
Othello, Lear; the three Roman plays — Coriolanns, Julius
Ccesar, Antony and Cleopatra; the two singular plays
whose scene and personages are Greek but whose action
and meaning are wider and deeper than either Greek or
Roman life — Troiltis and Cressida and Timon of Athens;
and one comedy — Measure for Measure, which is almost
tragic in the depth and intensity of its characters and inci-
dents. The four great tragedies represent the highest
reach of Shakespeare's dramatic power, and they suffi-
ciently illustrate the range and complexity of the deeper

12

THE DRAMA

problems that now occupied his mind. Timon and Meas-
ure for Measure, however, exemplify the same tendency to
brood with meditative intensity over the wrongs and
miseries that afflict humanity. These works sufficiently
prove that during this period Shakespeare gained a dis-
turbing insight into the deeper evils of the world, arising
from the darker passions, such as treachery and revenge.
But it is also clear that, with the larger vision of a noble,
well-poised nature, he at the same time gained a fuller
perception of the deeper springs of goodness in human
nature, of the great virtues of invincible fidelity and un-
wearied love, and he evidently received not only consola-
tion and calm but new stimulus and power from the fuller
realisation of these virtues. The typical plays of this
period thus embody Shakespeare's ripest experience of
the great issues of life. In the four grand tragedies the
central problem is a profoundly moral one. It is the
supreme internal conflict of good and evil amongst the
central forces and higher elements of human nature, as
appealed to and developed by sudden and powerful temp-
tation, smitten by accumulated wrongs, or plunged in over-
whelming calamities. As the result, we learn that there
is something infinitely more precious in life than social
ease or worldly success — nobleness of soul, fidelity to
truth and honour, human love and loyalty, strength and
tenderness, and trust to the very end. In the most tragic
experiences this fidelity to all that is best in life is only
possible through the loss of life itself. But when Desde-
mona expires with a sigh and Cordelia's loving eyes are
closed, when Hamlet no more draws his breath in pain
and the tempest-tossed Lear is at last liberated from the
rack of this tough world, we feel that, Death having set
his sacred seal on their great sorrows and greater love,
they remain with us as possessions for ever. In the three
dramas belonging to Shakespeare's last period, or rather
which may be said to close his dramatic career, the same
feeling of severe but consolatory calm is still more appar-
ent. If the deeper discords of life are not finally resolved,

CULMINATION OF THE DRAMA

the virtues which soothe their perplexities and give us
courage and endurance to wait, as well as confidence to
trtfet the final issues — the virtues of forgiveness and gen-
erosity, of forbearance and self-control — are largely illus-
trated. This is a characteristic feature in each of these
closing dramas, in The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The
Tempest. The Tempest is supposed, on tolerably good
grounds, to be Shakespeare's last work, and in it we see
the great magician, having gained by the wonderful ex-
perience of life, and the no less wonderful practice of his
art, serene wisdom, clear and enlarged vision, and bene-
ficent self-control, break his magical wand and retire from
the scene of his triumphs to the home he had chosen
amidst the woods and meadows of the Avon, and sur-
rounded by the family and friends he loved.

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