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diff --git a/29611-8.txt b/29611-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..780d808 --- /dev/null +++ b/29611-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3019 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of William Shakespeare, by Samuel Levy Bensusan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: William Shakespeare + His Homes and Haunts + +Author: Samuel Levy Bensusan + +Illustrator: A. Forrestier + +Release Date: August 5, 2009 [EBook #29611] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** + + + + +Produced by Florian Hofmann, Stephanie Eason and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(Illustration images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + + +THE PILGRIM BOOKS + + + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE + + + + + THE PILGRIM BOOKS + + _General Editor_-- + + S. L. BENSUSAN + + 1. SHAKESPEARE + 2. LAMB + 3. WORDSWORTH + + _Others in Preparation_ + + + +=THE ELY PALACE PORTRAIT AT SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE= + + + + + WILLIAM + SHAKESPEARE + + HIS HOMES AND HAUNTS + + + BY + S.L. BENSUSAN + + WITH TWELVE DRAWINGS IN CRAYON BY + A. FORRESTIER + AND FOUR PORTRAITS + + LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. + AND EDINBURGH + + + + + HUNC LIBELLUM + + REVERENDISSIMO + + M. GASTER, PH.D. + + VIRO ERUDITISSIMO + + PRAECEPTORI PERITISSIMO + + AMICO FIDELISSIMO + + MAGNA CUM REVERENTIA + + D.D.D. + + OLIM DICIPULUS + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. STRATFORD-ON-AVON 1 + + II. THE POET'S YOUTH 8 + + III. NATURE ROUND STRATFORD AND SHOTTERY 15 + + IV. FIRST DAYS IN LONDON 20 + + V. SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON 24 + + VI. THE STAGE IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY 28 + + VII. SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY PLAYS 35 + + VIII. THE ELIZABETHAN TAVERNS 41 + + IX. THE MIDDLE PERIOD 46 + + X. THE LATEST PLAYS 50 + + XI. BACK AGAIN IN STRATFORD 55 + + XII. THE POET'S DOMESTIC LIFE 64 + + XIII. STRATFORD AS IT WAS 72 + + XIV. THE CLOSE OF LIFE 81 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE ELY PORTRAIT AT SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE _Frontispiece_ + + THE HOME OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE, SNITTERFIELD _Facing p._ 4 + + ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE--INTERIOR " 12 + + MARY ARDEN'S COTTAGE " 16 + + THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON " 20 + + ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE " 24 + + GUILD CHAPEL AND SCHOOL " 28 + + HOLY TRINITY CHURCH AND THE AVON, STRATFORD " 32 + + BEN JONSON " 36 + + CHARLECOTE HALL " 40 + + INTERIOR OF ST. SAVIOUR'S AT SOUTHWARK " 44 + + THE FIRST GLOBE THEATRE " 48 + + MICHAEL DRAYTON " 52 + + THE MERMAID INN " 64 + + SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON " 72 + + SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON " 80 + + + + +PREFACE + + +In telling the story of Shakespeare's life and work within strict limits +of space, an attempt has been made to keep closely to essential matters. +There is no period of the poet's life, there is no branch of his +marvellous work, that has not been the subject of long and learned +volumes, no single play that has not been discussed at greater length +than serves here to cover the chief incidents of work and life together. +If the Homes and Haunts do not claim the greater part of the following +pages, it is because nobody knows where to find them to-day. Stratford +derives much of its patronage from unsupported traditions, the face of +London has changed, and though we owe to the painstaking researches of +Dr. Chas. Wm. Wallace the very recent discovery that the poet lodged +with a wig-maker named Mountjoy at the corner of Silver and Monkwell +Streets in the City of London, much labour must be accomplished before +we shall be able to follow his wanderings between the time of his +arrival in and departure from the metropolis. + +For the purposes of this little book many authorities have been +consulted, and the writer is specially indebted to the researches of Dr. +Sidney Lee, the leading authority of our time on Shakespeare, and the +late Professor Churton Collins. + + + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE + + + +CHAPTER I + +STRATFORD-ON-AVON + + +To read the works of a great master of letters, or to study the art of a +great painter, without some first-hand knowledge of the country in which +each lived and from which each gathered his earliest inspiration, is to +court an incomplete impression. It is in the light of a life story and +its setting, however slight our knowledge, that creative work tends to +assume proper proportions. It is in the surroundings of the author that +we find the key to the creation. For, as Gray has pointed out in his +"Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," there are many in the dust and +silence whose hands "the rod of Empire might have swayed, or waked to +ecstasy the living lyre." + +We know that it is not enough to have the creative force dormant in the +mind; environment must be favourable to its development, or it will +sleep too long. We see in the briefest survey of the lives of the poet, +the statesman, the soldier and the artist, that there are many great +ones who would have been greater still were it not that then, as now, +"man is one and the fates are three." + +To study the life history of a man and to consider its setting is to +understand why he succeeded and how he came to fail, and our wonder at +his success will not be lessened when we find that some simple event, +favourable or untoward, was the deciding factor in a great life. The +hour brings the man, but circumstances mould him and chance leads him to +the fore, unless it be true that "there's a Divinity that shapes our +ends, rough hew them how we will." In our own time we have seen how the +greatest empire-builder of Victorian history, Cecil John Rhodes, came +into prominence because he was sent to South Africa for the cure of weak +lungs. And, looking back to the life and times of William Shakespeare, +who has summed up for so many of his fellow-countrymen, and still more +strangers, the whole philosophy of life, we shall see that he became +articulate through what he may have reasonably regarded as mischance. + +Out in the autumn fields, the pigeon and the squirrel, to say nothing of +other birds and beasts, hunt for acorns to eat or store. On the road to +roost or storehouse many are dropped. Of these no small number fall on +waste ground; a few take root, only to be overgrown or destroyed before +they reach the beginnings of strength. But here and there an acorn drops +on favourable soil; the rich earth nourishes it; the germ, when it has +lived on all the store within the shell, can gather its future needs +from the ground. Little roots and fibres pierce the soil; a green twig +rises to seek the sun; there are long years of silent precarious growth, +and then the sapling stage is passed and a young tree sends countless +leaves to draw nourishment from air and sky. Following this comes the +time when no storm can uproot the tree that a hungry rabbit might have +destroyed in days past--something has come to complete maturity and has +developed all the possibilities that were equally latent in so many +million acorns to which growth was denied. As it is with plants, so it +is with men, and thus it becomes permissible to compare literature with +a forest wherein are so many trees, so many saplings, and so much dense +undergrowth, from which trees of worth and beauty may one day spring. In +our national forest there is an oak that first saw life in the year +1564. There are many older trees of splendid worth, but this is the one +which stands alone. What manner of soil nourished it? Whence came its +strength? This little work is a brief attempt to set the well-known +answer down again in a form that may offer a certain convenience in +point of size and selection to lovers of a great poet. + +When we read Shakespeare's plays for the first time, it is at once +apparent that the poet was a countryman. He has the knowledge, founded +upon close observation, that we associate with the highly intelligent +dweller in the countryside, the man or woman from whom the poet differs +merely in his supreme capacity for expression. We turn again to his +scenes of city life to find he is no less at home there. It is quite +another world, but he has fathomed it; quite another company of men, but +he has gauged their strength and weakness, the pathos and humour of +their lives. He deals with rulers and courts, and his touch is as sure +and faithful as before; his genius has taught him that kings and queens +are men and women like the rest of us, that environment cannot alter +fundamental characteristics, that royalty is swayed by the same forces +that rule the lives of lesser men. + +Only when he deals with foreigners the poet of Avon is often an +unconscious humorist, for his store of geography is inadequate to meet +the small demands upon it, and some of his simple errors, such as "the +seashore of Bohemia," excite our kindly laughter now. But it is easy to +see that the poet's habit of accurate observation was established in the +country and that he applied to the larger life of London the self-taught +methods he had acquired in the little town of his birth. + +It is on this account that the minds of his admirers turn to +Stratford-on-Avon, and the footsteps of enthusiasts are directed, year +in, year out, to the pleasant county of Warwickshire. In and around +Stratford we can keep company with the poet in his earliest and latest +days; nor can the bustling crowds of tourists from all parts, the +clamour of innkeepers and coach-drivers, the ever-present determination +to turn a national genius to profitable account, stir our deep content. +Men and public places have changed, but the country is as it was when +William Shakespeare, poor and little known, was gathering the stores of +knowledge and habit of thought that were to lift him to heights no +following Englishman has scaled. + + +=THE HOME OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE--SNITTERFIELD= + + +The wayfarer coming into Stratford for the first time to pay his mute +tribute to the poet who seems destined to live as long as our +civilisation, will enjoy a pleasant impression if he chance to have +chosen a fine day and to have reached the town by the road. Stratford +lies on the right bank of the river Avon, a beautiful river whose waters +flow peacefully over the level land on their way from Naseby to the +Severn. The town was happily planned of old time, and owed its inception +to the establishment of a monastery shortly after the Anglo-Saxon began +to take an interest in Christianity. It is clear that Stratford enjoyed +three centuries of comparative peace, if not of substantial progress, +before Norman William and Saxon Harold met at Senlac; echoes of that +fray could not have pierced to the little town on Avon's banks. Nor have +the subsequent centuries done much to disturb its natural seclusion. + +The hand of the builder has raised streets of prosperous shops and +new-built villas; small hotels abound; there is a bustling railway and a +sleepy canal. A Memorial Theatre overlooks the river, and cyclists pass, +not singly but in battalions, along peaceful roads leading to Birmingham +or Warwick. Throughout the summer season Stratford-on-Avon becomes a +metropolis "whereunto the tribes of men assemble." To "do Stratford" is +an article of faith with American visitors, even if they have no more +than a week in which to master the wonders of Great Britain and Ireland. +Germany sends many admirers, for nowhere is Shakespeare's genius more +widely recognised, more highly esteemed, than in that country. London +and the big midland towns of England send visitors daily. + +Let it be suggested, with all due respect to those who think otherwise, +that there is no reward for those who seek to discover Shakespeare's +land in the course of a few hours' hurried travel. They will see +Shakespeare's alleged birthplace, and the room in which he is said, +without much authority, to have been born. They will pass through the +Museum, Library, and Picture Gallery; they may even admire the rather +poor monument in Holy Trinity Church, and perhaps a few other sights +that the town affords; and then, with a welter of confused impressions, +will return whence they came. There is no reward for this frenzied +exercise; it is impossible to gather any impression of the scenes in +which the poet passed his early and later days, from a hurried scamper +through the town and a frank acceptance of local traditions, concerning +which some of our leading Shakespearian scholars have much destructive +critical comment to offer. He who wishes to establish some manner of +association with the poet must enter Stratford as the poet left it--by +the road. He should leave the railway and walk in from Warwick, find +quiet lodgings, of which there is no lack, in the town, and visit in +turn the highways and by-ways of Stratford, Snitterfield, Wilmcote, +Aston Clinton, Shottery, Wotten Wawens, Charlecote, and a dozen other +points of interest, of which he will learn when he has definitely left +the ranks of excursionists and has made friends among the people of +Shakespeare's countryside. He will not add a jot to our knowledge of +country or people--a hundred pens have said all there is to say--but he +will come away with a measure of appreciation and recognition that will +make the significance of the poet, as an interpreter of a life that +never changes, far more vital and true. Here is no small reward for a +truly delightful holiday in country full of the best traditions of rural +England. And the intelligent visitor will be one with the great lovers +of Shakespeare, living and dead, from Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and +Milton down to Matthew Arnold and our own contemporaries, even though +his contribution to the poet's praise be no more than a little note in a +private diary. His journey will open a fresh field of literary research, +if he be not already a student of Elizabethan literature. He will be +enrolled on the long and unexhausted list of pilgrims to the shrine of +the country's greatest poet, the man whose thoughts have lost nothing of +their depth and beauty in the slow passage of three eventful centuries. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE POET'S YOUTH + + +In these days, when biographies of nobody in particular are as the sand +upon the seashore for multitude, and the demand for personal paragraphs +is seemingly well-nigh as great as the supply, we have some occasion to +regret the absence of similar craving in the spacious times of Queen +Elizabeth. If there had been a daily, weekly, or monthly publication +that submitted famous men to the ordeal of the interview, we might +pardon the glut of our latter day. Unhappily for our desire to know what +manner of man Shakespeare was, the available records are exceedingly +scanty, or are at least insufficient for our legitimate needs, and we +are face to face with the initial difficulty that in the sixteenth +century Shakespeare's name was quite common. From Cumberland down to +Warwickshire there was probably no county in which a William Shakespeare +could not have been found for the searching, and this fact is +accountable for many curious mistakes that have been made by students +and biographers. In Warwickshire alone there were more than a score of +families bearing the surname in the sixteenth century, and half as many +again in the following century, when the name was one to conjure with. +The poet's father, John Shakespeare, who was a native of Snitterfield +and moved to Stratford in the middle of the sixteenth century, to carry +on what would seem to have been the business of a big store-keeper, +applied for a right to bear arms towards the century's close, and made +certain claims on behalf of ancestors. But the opinion of competent +critics is that John Shakespeare was as capable of drawing the long-bow +as he was of selling general stores, and that he was closely connected, +from a mental standpoint, with the successful tradesmen of our day who, +having proved fortunate business men, seek to confer upon themselves +such advantage as a dubious pedigree may assure. We cannot, then, accept +the version of his family history that satisfied the complaisant +Heralds' College. + +The chief difference between our modern Arms-seekers and John +Shakespeare is that they are moneyed tradesmen and he was not. The early +days of his commercial career were comparatively prosperous, and he +found time to serve the borough of Stratford in many offices, including +those of ale-taster, burgess, petty constable, borough chamberlain, and +chief alderman. He married Mary Arden of Wilmcote near Stratford, the +marriage taking place in Wilmcote's parish church at Aston Clinton, and +William was the third child of the union. The poet's registration in the +parish records at Stratford is dated April 26, 1564. The place of his +birth is generally assumed to be the house in Henley Street purchased by +John Shakespeare a year before his marriage, and we are told that he +was born in a certain room on the first floor. Here again contemporary +criticism may make some people regret the loss of the sixpence that was +demanded before the scene of the birth could be surveyed; but, after +all, there is much saving grace in a tradition, and whether the place be +all it is alleged to be or less, little harm is done. Suffice it that +thousands, gifted with faith and sixpences, have visited the room, +ceilings and windows bear countless traces of the desire that besets the +most commonplace people to deface walls with their uninteresting names. +Shakespeare's alleged birthplace is a charming little residence enough, +with dormered roof and penthouse entrance, and sixpence is a small price +to pay for a pleasant illusion. + +In the very early days of the poet's life the _res angusta domi_ had not +yet begun to trouble his father, who was appointed Bailiff of the +Stratford Corporation in 1568, and Chief Alderman three years later. In +1575 he bought a house in Henley Street, and no less an authority than +Dr. Sidney Lee, whose researches command the respect of all, believes +that this house is the one in which the poet is now said to have been +born. It would seem that John Shakespeare's prosperity received a rude +shock soon after the date of their purchase, for in 1578 and 1579 he was +mortgaging his wife's property at Wilmcote and Snitterfield, and +gradually the once wealthy man fell from power and place. Creditors +pursued him, and he lost his standing in the Corporation. + +In the meantime William was receiving his early training at Stratford +Grammar School, and picked up more than a smattering of French and +Latin, with perhaps a little Italian as well. That his school life or +home life was closely associated with Bible reading and study is proved +by the readiness with which he turns to Scripture for graphic and +concise expression of a thought, or for the purpose of an apt +comparison. But he was destined to learn in a larger and rougher school +than that of King Edward's foundation at Stratford. His leisure came to +an abrupt end when he had just entered his teens and his father told him +to look after one of his failing businesses. So the brightest genius of +English poetry became, while yet a boy, a butcher or a butcher's +assistant, and for some four or five years passed an uneventful life in +Stratford under conditions that might well have coarsened and spoilt +him. Happily the exquisite surroundings of the little town, and his own +response to them, made a somewhat sordid occupation possible; but of his +daily life and steady growth in the most impressionable period of his +career no reliable details have reached us. + +To his associates in the old Warwickshire home he was no more than the +clever, precocious eldest son of an alderman who had seen better days. +He went his own way, and may be supposed to have lived a somewhat free +life, for before he was nineteen he appears to have found himself +compelled to marry one Anne Hathaway of Shottery in the parish of Old +Stratford. Her father had died rather more than a year before her +marriage; she was twenty-six years of age, and had inherited by will a +sum amounting in the currency of the day to a little less than £7, +rather more than £50 of our money. The marriage would seem to have been +hurried and irregular, and though it may have followed a formal and +binding betrothal of a kind that had more sanction then than now, the +poet's first child--his daughter Susanna--was born less than six months +later. It was not a fortunate union. Twins were born to William and Anne +Shakespeare in 1585, and then all record of the home life closes for a +long period. Some of Shakespeare's biographers think that the poet had +run away to London before the year closed, and that for more than a +decade he did not return to the town without taking care that his +presence should not be noticed. We do not know how strained his marital +relations had become, but we may assume that his home was not a happy +one, for in the early days of his union he ran risks that most young +married men would avoid for the sake of wife and family. + +It seems clear that the story of his poaching expeditions in Charlecote +or Fulbroke Parks is not a mere legend unsupported by facts. Sir Thomas +Lucy, the owner of Charlecote Park, was of course a game preserver, and +Shakespeare must have thought that poaching was a reasonable pastime +enough. He dared "do all that may become a man," and the penalty of +exciting the wrath of a great landowner and game preserver was no less +then than now. Sir Thomas was angry; the poet is said to have written a +vulgar, bitter lampoon, still preserved, and affixed a copy to the +gates of Charlecote. The response was a persecution that made Stratford +too hot to hold a greater man than all the big sportsmen from Nimrod's +day to ours, and William Shakespeare left wife and children and vanished +from the old town's ken. Some think he lived in neighbouring towns or +villages awhile, and found work as a schoolmaster. There was an idea +that he went for a time as a soldier to the Low Countries under the Earl +of Leicester, whose splendid pageants in honour of a visit from Queen +Elizabeth may have inspired some of the fantasy of "A Midsummer Night's +Dream." + + +=ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE--INTERIOR= + + +Doubtless there was a Shakespeare or two in Lord Leicester's regiment; +the name was a common one enough; but it was no part of the poet's +experience "to trail a pike in Flanders." Directly or indirectly, he was +on the high road to London, and Sir Thomas Lucy was to find his claim to +immortality in the pursuit of a young poacher and in the poacher's +creation of Mr. Justice Shallow of Gloucestershire, whose foolishness, +suggested in "Henry IV." (Part II., Act iii. sc. 2), is still further +emphasised in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," where he figures as one who +has come to make a Star Chamber matter out of Sir John Falstaff's +poaching. His complaint will be remembered. "Knight, you have beaten my +men, killed my deer, and broken open my lodge ... the council shall know +this." + +There has been no lack of determined effort among the poet's countless +biographers to give the lie direct to every story that does not cast +credit upon his youth. Because he was a great man, many people require +his history to be written in a fashion that shall lessen, ignore, or +deny his weaknesses. There can be no valid reason for pursuing such a +course, for we know that the rule of art is not the rule of morals, and +that while a very good poet may be a very bad man, a very worthy man may +be a vile poet. The apologists have picked out the finest moral thoughts +in the plays and poems and declared that he who could conceive them +could not have been less than a saint. They might as well pick out the +countless villains of the tragedies and declare that he who presented +them must have been a sinner. Truth to tell, the question is one of no +importance. Shakespeare was in some respects a man like the majority of +men; in other regards he stands alone. Only in this latter aspect have +we any occasion to consider him. We have neither the right, the +capacity, nor the data by which to sit in judgment; but it is hardly +honest to withhold reports, that seem to be well founded, because they +do not flatter the youthful career of a great man. In his own "Henry +IV." and "Henry V." Shakespeare shows how the recklessness of youth is +not incompatible with sound living and a high standard of morality and +common sense in the days of responsibility. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +NATURE ROUND STRATFORD AND SHOTTERY + + +We find Shakespeare, just out of his teens, travelling on the road to +London, and it is worth while to see what equipment and what resources +he is taking to the metropolis. It is safe to assume that he has no +money, and that his local reputation is not one of the very best, though +the worst to be urged against him is that he has loved not wisely but +too well--and this fault has not been too clearly substantiated--and +that he has ignored the game laws, as so many men had done before, have +done since, and will do as long as these laws exist. + +The early life of a truly imaginative man had been passed in the most +beautiful surroundings that rural England can provide, and by reason, +perhaps, of the lack of restrictions, had helped him to enlarge his +experiences and develop all the facets of a luminous mind. The +expression is chosen deliberately. Man's mind is like a diamond, and +experience is the lapidary. Every action, every stroke of good fortune +or of bad, leaves its definite mark; every association does the same. As +a boy Shakespeare lived in close touch with Nature. His father's +business would have brought him into contact with farmers, given him +the freedom of their fields, taught him the significance of the seasons. +Even now, when glimpses of Elizabethan England are few and far between, +we are touched by the supreme peace that still broods over land on which +the old-time houses, with their thatched roofs or well-worn tiles, their +ingle nooks, their dormer windows, their oak rafters and their many +gables, tell of a time when the jerry-builder was not and the suburban +villa had not yet come into being. It was an age of beauty, and the +walks round Stratford remain beautiful to this hour, despite the growth +of villadom and the advent of the railway line. + +We can follow the roads that Shakespeare knew, to the woods of his +poaching exploits, and the meadows over which he passed to thatched, +half-timbered Shottery, where the village inn was still standing when +men, now middle-aged, were born. Rustic gardens, white-blossomed +orchards, tiny brooks beloved by the kingfisher, trees that may have +seen the courting of the poet and his wife, still remain to tell the +story of England's unchanging charm. In the spring and early summer +there is such an atmosphere about the countryside as George Meredith has +created in his "Richard Feverel" when Richard and Lucy meet in "the very +spring-tide of their youth." Doubtless there are other regions in +plenty, scattered through the length and breadth of our fascinating +English country, wherein the attractions are hardly less than here; but +Shakespeare's genius has hallowed Stratford for us, because that +particular countryside made him a poet and sent him to London, full of +such inspiration as has not fallen to any other Englishman even in times +when the literary activity of the age has been at its highest point. + + +=MARY ARDEN'S COTTAGE= + + +It may be suggested in passing that much of the early romance associated +with Anne Hathaway's cottage is spurious, and the worthy people who tell +of the poet's courtship there overlook the fact that his relations with +his wife were clandestine and his marriage almost a secret union. But +the cottage itself is beautiful enough to account for the enthusiastic +departure from the path of truth, if not to justify it. + +Lying on the left as you come out of Stratford to Shottery, past the +post-office, to the "Bell Inn," where the road has crossed a stream, we +see the cottage, and, _horribile dictu!_ a row of modern brick-built +cottages for background! Long, thatched and creeper-covered, built upon +slabs of stone, with timber and plaster above, with tiny windows under +the thatch, surrounded by a well-filled and carefully tended garden, the +place makes a quick and enduring appeal to the imagination, even though +the legends associated with it are, for the most part, legends and +nothing more. It is easy to realise the supreme beauty of the scene that +Shakespeare knew, to understand how the lovers' secret meetings were +made all the more memorable by reason of their surroundings. The scene +and the associations went to the making of the poet; they were among the +treasures he carried up to London when he was compelled to leave +Stratford behind him and time and distance were smoothing all the little +troubles that had beset his short and uneventful life. He must have +heard Stratford and Shottery calling to him in the heart of the town, +for when his name was made and his future assured, he came back to home, +wife, and little ones to enjoy the "poor remains" of life. + +On his road to and from Shottery, he would have passed "under the shade +of melancholy boughs" and watched the "guest of summer, the +Temple-haunting martlet," that built under the eaves of Anne Hathaway's +house. Doubtless to his mood of elation or depression, and to his quick +and intimate response to the wild life round him, we owe those clear +impressions that connect certain scenes and phases of our life with his +more familiar utterances. To hear the cuckoo and the nightingale to-day +in the woods round Shottery and Wilmcote is to recall some of the poet's +most inspired moods. But it is not the familiar birds alone that caught +the poet's eye and stimulated his imagination. In the days of his youth, +before he went to London, he must have studied bird life closely and +accurately. Nearly fifty wild birds find mention in his plays and poems, +and for the most part they are birds he would not have seen in London, +though in his day the metropolis was small enough, and the outer London +of his time was well-nigh as wild and wooded as the least frequented +parts of Warwickshire to-day. The halcyon or kingfisher, the +white-breasted water-ouzel, the skylark, the "ruddock" or +robin-redbreast, the wren, the green plover, the woodcock--these serve +for some of his moods; but he mentions eagle, kite, hawk, buzzard, owl, +falcon, cormorant, and a number of others, always with discretion and +with the full measure of knowledge vouchsafed to his time. Classical +lore and country superstitions are sometimes found in his references, +but the most of them point to the poet's own loving observation at a +time when there was no widespread interest in birds or beasts, unless +they had a part to play in hunting. Shakespeare's references to the +chase are accurate and suggest first-hand observation, coupled with the +keen instincts of the sportsman, and it is easy to see that the +extraordinary receptivity of his mind enabled him to take impressions +from every aspect of life. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FIRST DAYS IN LONDON + + +Three hundred and twenty-four years have passed since William +Shakespeare set out to prove his fortune in London, and in those +far-away days that his genius makes so real for us the journey was long +and at times dangerous. Three days would suffice in fine summer weather, +while four or five might be required in winter time, when rivers were +swollen and fords were dangerous. Not only were roads bad, but bridges +were conspicuous by their absence. To send a letter from Stratford to +London and receive a reply to it would occupy nearly a fortnight, and +if, as some writers believe, Shakespeare had already made a certain name +by his skilled handling of other men's work when touring companies came +to his town, it is quite clear that his best chance of establishing +himself as a playwright would be found in the metropolis. Even if he had +not found trouble in his native place, he could not hope to thrive +there. It is thought that he travelled to town on foot by way of Oxford +and High Wycombe, and that once in the metropolis he sought a friend of +the family, one Richard Field of Stratford, who had left Warwickshire +seven years before, and after serving his apprenticeship to a +printer, had set up an office of his own in Blackfriars. + + +=THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON +In the National Portrait Gallery= + + +It is possible that he owed his introduction to the world of the London +theatre to Field, and that at one of the only two houses in the +metropolis, "The Theatre" in Shoreditch or "The Curtain" in Moorfields, +he served for a time in a very humble capacity, looking after the horses +of the men of fashion who rode to the play. The keen relish with which +he deals with the moods and thoughts of ostlers, stable-boys, and the +lower classes that frequented the stable and the theatre, lends a +certain countenance to the legend. A year later, when his friend Field +had been admitted a member of the Stationers' Company, Shakespeare found +his employment inside one of the two theatres--probably the house in +Shoreditch; some writers have said that his first work there was that of +a call-boy. It is certain, at least, that his apprenticeship was a hard +one, and that in those early days his contributions to the support of +the Warwickshire home must have been few and scanty. + +When Shakespeare came to town there were some half-dozen companies of +licensed actors, that is to say, companies that enjoyed and exercised +their rights under an Act of Parliament (14 Eliz. c. 2). It said that +all actors, save those who held the licence of a peer of the realm or +other person of importance, were to be treated as rogues and vagabonds. +The company to which Shakespeare was admitted derived its rights from +the Earl of Leicester, and soon after he joined, if not before, it +passed under the support of the Earl of Derby, and in later years under +the supreme patronage of King James I., whose admiration for the poet +and his works was very large and real. James Burbage was owner of "The +Theatre," and it was in his time, we may presume, that Shakespeare acted +as ostler and call-boy. But he must have risen up from the ranks at no +small pace when his gifts became well known, for not only do we find him +a regular member of the company, but a friend of the leading members, +men like Richard Burbage, son of the proprietor, and Augustus Phillips. +And at "The Theatre" in Shoreditch he won some fame as a playwright, +though it was not at "The Theatre" but at "The Rose," a new house on the +Bankside at Southwark, that the poet's genius was to "blossom and bud +and fill the face of the world with fruit." + +The close of the sixteenth century was a season of considerable activity +among actors; the destruction of the "galleons of Spain" had relieved +the country of a very real danger. Some of the leading companies +amalgamated for a time when in town; new houses were springing up. In +addition to "The Rose" there was one at Newington Butts, and in 1599 the +Burbages transplanted "The Theatre" to Bankside and called it "The +Globe." Here Shakespeare did the most of his work and made the most of +his reputation, acquiring considerable wealth the while. + +James Burbage built the Blackfriars Theatre, to which Shakespeare +brought his company shortly before he retired to Stratford. He +gradually acquired certain interests in the theatres, so his profits +were not only those of actor and playwright. The wealth that was to be +his was drawn from three sources. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON + + +Of the landmarks that Shakespeare knew, the Great Fire of London +destroyed many, and Time, dealing in rather gentler fashion, has effaced +the most of those that the fire spared. A map made by Peter Van den +Keere in 1593 shows us the old London Bridge, with the Church of St. +Saviour's, then known as "St. Marye Overyes," facing the river on the +Southwark side. This church, which would have been well known to the +poet, is, with the exception of Westminster Abbey, the only ancient +example of pure Gothic architecture in London. Its earliest name would +have been St. Mary Over Rye, rye being perhaps the old name for ferry. +When it was built there could have been no London Bridge, and St. Mary's +was built upon the site of a still older priory founded by two Norman +knights. In this church one finds a stone in the centre aisle marked +"Edmond Shakespeare. Died December 1607." + + +=ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE= + + +This marks the mortal remains of a brother of the poet, said by some to +have been concerned with the business side of his undertakings, and +certainly his companion in London for some time. In St. Mary Over Rye or +St. Saviour's, King James I. of Scotland was married; here the poet +Gower, with whose works Shakespeare was undoubtedly familiar, was +buried, and his monument is a fine one with many inscriptions, including +one that describes him as "Anglorum Poeta celeberrimus." Beyond "St. +Marye Overyes" on Van den Keere's map one sees the famous "Bears House," +and below that the "Play House," and beyond this the town merges into +gardens stretching up to "Lambeth Marsh." Across the river we see "More +Feyldes" and "Spittlefeyldes," big open spaces, and then Islington, but +there is no sign of another theatre. Had the worthy cartographer known +what was to give his map an abiding interest three centuries after its +making, he would doubtless have given more thought to the playhouses. + +To-day the Church of St. Saviour's stands well-nigh smothered by +factories, shops, and small houses. London, a muddy stream, has +overflown its banks and spread on that side far into regions where birds +and beasts of the chase flew or ran in the poet's day. Tradition tells +us that the Thames sometimes rose above its boundaries and flooded the +graveyard of St. Mary's, and in like fashion the town itself has spread +beyond all limits, until the south side, within a very restricted area, +holds more than all London held in the poet's day. Doubtless the old +church fared better at the hands of the river than the town does now, +for three hundred years ago the hands of Father Thames were clean; the +river still ran sparkling under London Bridge, then a comparatively low +structure, with houses on either side of it, like the Ponte Vecchio in +Florence. + +Shakespeare's London held about a quarter of a million souls, on +generous computation, and it is said that about 15 per cent. of the +number found employment and their means of livelihood on the river. The +writ of the civic authorities did not run on the south side of the +Thames, and it is to this that we owe the existence of so many houses of +amusement in Southwark. Nor were they the only ones to be placed for +choice beyond the eye of authority. The river Thames brought foreigners +by the thousand to London, adventurers from all lands, men who said with +ancient Pistol, "The world's my oyster, that I with sword will open." +London held dangerous riverside slums. + +Many associations whose members were banded together for protection +against the lawful authorities throve on the south side of the Thames, +and the numbers increased as the years went past. It is a fascinating +chapter in London's life, this organised revolt against ever-growing +authority, but one with which in this place there is no lawful occasion +to deal at length. We know that when Shakespeare had settled in the +metropolis he lived for a time in Southwark, near the "Bears House" +marked on the map to which reference has been made. But he is also +assessed as the owner of property in St. Helen's, Bishopgate, where a +window given by some anonymous lover of the poet to St. Helen's Church +records the association. It is likely that Shakespeare in his acting +days took part in some of the plays given in the yard of the "Bull +Inn," then the most important hostelry in Bishopgate Street. Old "Crosby +Hall," the subject of such a prolonged discussion in the press a year or +so back, was in Bishopgate Street, and Shakespeare lays one of the +scenes there in his "Richard III." The poet's activity unites Southwark +with St. Helen's, though in his day the distance between the two must +have been regarded as considerable. + +Many attempts have been made to find out what manner of life the poet +lived in London, but the material for a reliable opinion is quite +wanting. Some have imagined that he was a free liver and roysterer, +after the fashion of his time, that he lived as Robert Greene and +Christopher Marlowe and other dissipated writers. There is no more +authority for such a suggestion than there is for the statements on the +other side telling us that William Shakespeare was the personification +of every virtue. We simply do not know; there is no record extant. We +grope with dim eyes through the London of Shakespeare's time, glad to +find any trace of his presence in some favoured spot, and content to +make it a place of pilgrimage for his sake. It is to the history of the +stage itself that we must turn in order to piece together some +fragmentary record of his life in a city so changed by time and +prosperity that if the poet could revisit the glimpses of the moon, and +were to be set down in Bishopgate or Southwark to-day, he would not know +where to turn, and the metropolis of which we are so proud would be no +more to him than "the monstrous fabric of a vision." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE STAGE IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY + + +When Shakespeare was at work the women of the plays were represented by +men or boys. In the highest society the Elizabethan women might take +some part in masques or pageants without rebuke, but the appearance of a +woman on the public stage in Shakespeare's day would have aroused +something like the emotion that would be caused by the appearance of a +Moslem woman unveiled in the chief thoroughfare of a fanatical +Mohammedan city, or a suffragist in the House of Commons. Costumes were +those of the day. Just as the great painters of Italy dressed the heroes +and heroines of Bible story in the contemporary costume, so the actor of +Shakespeare's time did no more than wear the best Elizabethan clothes he +could assume. Scenery was unknown. The front curtain, opening in the +middle, revealed a bare stage with perhaps a balcony at the back. This +was sometimes used by the actors, but where the play did not require a +balcony, visitors to the play would find their places there, just as at +the Queen's Hall, when a piano or violin recital is given, the orchestra +is sometimes added to the auditorium. A trumpet flourish warned +playgoers that the curtain was about to rise, and between the acts a +small company of musicians helped the interval to pass. + + +=GUILD CHAPEL AND SCHOOL= + + +It was not until the celebrated Inigo Jones designed scenery for certain +masques given at the Court of King James that the traditional bareness +of the boards was covered, and it was not until the time of Charles II. +that women began to make their appearance upon the boards and unite the +stage with the second estate. Many writers have emphasised the +difficulties besetting the Elizabethan dramatist; Sir Philip Sidney +himself has apologised to the spectator for the heavy overdraft on his +imagination, and we have but to consider some of the most striking +moments in our poet's work to realise what they must have lost under the +Elizabethan tradition. How could bare boards conjure up a vision of +Juliet's garden, of the wood "outside Athens" in which Titania and +Oberon met, of Prospero's island, of the Forest of Arden? How could any +boy, however smoothly spoken, present a Rosalind, a Juliet, a Miranda, +or Cordelia? While we wonder at these things, it is well to remember +that to those who have never eaten wheat, acorns may prove very +satisfactory fare. The tradition of the theatre being so strictly +circumscribed, nobody could imagine anything better than bare boards, +boy heroines, and modern costumes. There are many sound judges of stage +matters to-day who are very strongly of the opinion that we have +travelled too far in the opposite direction, that by reason of costly +mounting, extravagant costumes, alluring music, and the rest, we are no +longer able to maintain that "the play's the thing." Doubtless the need +for the finest possible expression of thought, and the knowledge that +his words must carry the full burden of success, stimulated not only +Shakespeare, but every dramatist of the great Elizabethan age. + +There was one special advantage attaching to the limitation of stage +equipment--touring was a simple matter. When we remember that three or +even four days were required to travel on horseback from London to +Stratford-on-Avon, owing to the bad tracks that enjoyed the courtesy +title of roads, and the fords that must be crossed out of flood time, it +is easy to see that no part of the cumbersome equipment of the modern +stage could have been taken far out of London without vast and +unremunerative labour. But the Elizabethan actor travelled light, and as +soon as the fine weather came he would leave London for the country, and +tour in all manner of unexpected places until autumn warned him home, +because it was no longer possible to pass from town to town. + +To turn up the old touring list of the Elizabethan companies is to find +special attention given to towns of which no town is on the first +touring list to-day. Saffron Walden (the quaint market-town in Essex, +that opposed the coming of the Great Eastern Railway, and is now served +by a little branch line), Rye in Sussex (then probably a seaport of some +dimensions), Marlborough, Coventry, Oxford, Faversham, Hythe, Bath, New +Romney, Folkestone--here are some of the cities or towns that the +touring companies delighted to honour in the best season of the year. +There is ample evidence to show that some companies crossed the border +into Scotland, and that others went still farther afield--to France, +Germany, Austria, and other countries. Probably these companies were +sent abroad by their patrons and supporters, and were consequently +assured of a hearing and adequate remuneration. It is hardly probable +that the conditions of continental travel would have been favourable +enough, or the security for life and property great enough, to tempt +even third-rate English actors oversea unless they had a definite +programme and an assured welcome. + +Some have thought that Shakespeare in his acting days travelled on the +Continent, or at least into Scotland, but modern expert opinion does not +accept the suggestion; it rather inclines to the belief that the poet +did no more than make a small provincial tour. As far as the Continent +is concerned, his quaint ideas of French pronunciation and European +geography should do much to settle the question with regard to these +countries. His references to Denmark in "Hamlet" are no more than he +could have founded on a brief chat with actors who had been there. Then, +again, the period of his active and sole association with the actor's +profession was brief; he soon became playwright and manager as well, too +busy to stir far beyond the boundaries of London until the time came +when he could enjoy his brief period of well-earned ease. Dr. Sidney Lee +says that the name of Shakespeare does not appear in any known list of +the actors who travelled from England between 1580 and 1630, a period +more than sufficient to cover the debatable years. Against this must be +set the fact that the name appears in certain records of the town of +Aberdeen as that of a member of a travelling company visiting the city +in the period covered by Dr. Lee's investigations. + +Despite an infinity of research, the figure of William Shakespeare in +London remains very dim. He is reputed to have been a good actor; but +Richard Burbage the tragedian and William Kemp the comedian were greater +actors than he. He played with them before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich +Palace, in a couple of scenes designed to celebrate Christmas. We are +told that he took the part of the Ghost in a performance of his own +"Hamlet" and the part of old Adam in "As You Like It." These very brief +glimpses into his life as an actor are the more unsatisfactory because +he remained a player long after he had achieved greatness as a +playwright. When he left the boards it was to return to +Stratford-on-Avon and live the retired life. It may be taken for +granted, then, that his talents as an actor were not in any way +extraordinary, or those who witnessed his rising fame as a dramatist +would have left some record of his other work. His advice to the players +in "Hamlet" is often and justly quoted in evidence of the attention he +had given to the theory of the acting art, but there is evidence to be +found in the Sonnets to show that he did not admire himself as an actor. +Some very recent research in the Record Office shows that the poet +lodged with a family of French Huguenots named Mountjoy, at the corner +of Monkwell Street and Silver Street, in the City of London, where a +public-house called the Coopers' Arms now stands. + + +=HOLY TRINITY CHURCH AND THE AVON--STRATFORD= + + +As far as we can tell, the poet had been five years in London before he +started upon his life-work, and he entered the arena of the playwright +at the age of twenty-seven. His methods were his own. The stories and +legends that other men had set down, often crudely, in form of +chronicle, or even of a play, he melted in the crucible of his own brain +and gave back in a new and beautiful form. The play can be traced to its +source, whether that source be a _novellino_ of Masuccio, or Holinshed's +"Chronicles," or Plutarch's Lives in North's translation, from which +some passages are copied _in extenso_. The poet himself would seem to +have had but little consciousness of the worth of his own work. In his +time plays were not published. Publication was supposed to destroy the +playgoer's interest in the work presented, and many Elizabethan plays +owe their survival to the happy accident that enabled some unscrupulous +person to collect a set of the actors' parts and print them, in order +either to dispose of the acting rights for private use, or to derive the +ordinary profits of the sale. When a play was written for and bought by +a manager, it became his absolute property. He could request the author +to rewrite or modify passages deemed ineffective; he could even call in +another man to tinker the work, unrestrained and unrebuked. It is +supposed that Shakespeare first showed his great parts as a dramatist in +improving other men's work for Manager Burbage, and that this constant +exercise of talent upon reproductions, the most of which are absolutely +unknown to us, paved the way for the development of his gift upon +original or quasi-original work. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY PLAYS + + +The poet is credited with the authorship of some thirty-seven plays, +though modern criticism has endeavoured to show that he took but a small +part in the making of a few of these, and of the whole thirty-seven +little more than a dozen were published during his life. It is supposed +that his first play was the comedy "Love's Labour's Lost," in which he +would appear to have gone to his own brain for the plot. Here we find a +certain broad outlook upon contemporary life, with many a passing +reference to matters of topical interest, while vivid recollections of +life in Warwickshire among slow-witted rustics account for some of the +humorous episodes. Historians can trace many of the references in the +play, which is supposed to have been written in 1591, five years after +the author left Stratford, revised in 1597, and published a year later. +Cuthbert Burbie, who, like Shakespeare's earliest London friend, Richard +Field, was a member of the Stationers' Company, was the publisher, and +the printer was one William White of "Cow Lane near Holborn Conduit." + +"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" came next, adapted from a Spanish source, +and not published until the author was dead. + +"The Comedy of Errors" is borrowed from Plautus; and then came "Romeo +and Juliet," founded upon a _novellino_ by Masuccio, who had taken the +story from the Greek. It has served for many countries, but nowhere has +the plot found such a magical handling as Shakespeare gave it. There is +internal evidence to suggest 1591 or 1592 as the date, and Shakespeare +was still a young man then, on the sunny side of thirty, and with the +currents of his life no longer turned awry. There is here a ring of +confidence and enthusiasm that three centuries have proved powerless to +dull. After due revision, the play was printed in 1597 by John Danter, a +publisher of rather evil repute. Two years later Burbie published an +authorised edition. + +Oddly enough, the success of "Romeo and Juliet" would appear to have +been eclipsed by that of "King Henry VI." The events set out in the +trilogy were sufficiently familiar to the people to give the work an +interest that is almost fictitious. Criticism has shown that the poet's +part in these productions was but small. Some say that Greene and Peele +were the authors of the plays, that Shakespeare rewrote them perhaps +with a little aid from Marlowe. Certain it is that Greene attacked the +poet furiously when the remodelled work was produced, calling upon his +brother dramatists of repute to beware of upstart puppets and "rude +groomes." But Shakespeare was serenely unmoved by these abusive +epithets, for which Greene's publisher apologised later. He was in +the historical vein, and proceeded to write "Richard III.," in which +Richard Burbage is said to have made a great sensation; the following +play was "Richard II.," and the poet was clearly responsive to the +influence of Marlowe in each of these works. + + +=BEN JONSON +From Painting in the National Portrait Gallery= + + +Shortly after "Richard II." was written and produced the plague visited +London, and the poet sought the country. He may have written a small +part, a very small part, of the "Titus Andronicus," and after that he +picked the stage Jew of Marlowe and the rest out of the gutter, and gave +the world in "The Merchant of Venice" a figure that commands keen +interest not untouched with sympathy. "King John," bearing date 1594, is +another piece of inimitable adaptation. By this time the "Venus and +Adonis" had been published with a dedication to the third Earl of +Southampton, and the poet followed it a year later with "The Rape of +Lucrece," dedicated to the same patron. + +These works created a sensation. Shakespeare the actor was already a +familiar figure, Shakespeare the dramatist was known and admired, but +Shakespeare the poet seems to have taken literary London by surprise. It +is hard to say why, for there are passages in the plays he had already +written that challenge comparison with anything in the poems; but praise +from the great Elizabethans was not to be lightly won, and no poet could +have sought to wear a worthier garland than theirs. Shakespeare was +admitted at once to the most select circles. Queen Elizabeth became his +patron. Greenwich, Whitehall, and Richmond Palaces witnessed +performances of his plays, with their author taking some small part in +them. "The Palace of Nonsuch," a private purchase of Queen Elizabeth's +situated near Richmond, may still be seen in old prints--a charming +place enough. The palace at Greenwich, coming right up to the banks of +the Thames, is also to be seen in old prints, and it says all that is +needed for the state of Father Thames in the poet's time that a royal +palace could be lapped by our great river below London Bridge. + +Shakespeare's capacity for writing makes us realise that the quantity +was almost as remarkable as the worth. He wrote his plays at the rate of +two in a year, with his work as manager and actor thrown in, and his +poems as a thing apart. The quality of "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape +of Lucrece" brought him into the company of the country's great +sonneteers; he was inspired to give attention to the sonnet form and +made it one of the vehicles for the expression of his most beautiful +thoughts. The most were written about the year with which we are now +dealing, 1594. In accordance with the custom of the time, they were not +printed immediately, but were written by the poet and given to his +friends. But by this time the interest aroused by new work from +Shakespeare's pen extended throughout literary circles, and the sonnets +must have been copied and quoted extensively before they were published +by a literary pirate named Thorpe in 1609. + +The dedication of these sonnets to "Mr. W. H." has roused an enormous +controversy, into which there is no need to venture far, as it lies +outside the scope of a brief biography. It should never be forgotten +that the sonnet in the days of Elizabeth was a form overladen with the +conceits of many countries, and that few men would have regarded +seriously the sentiments to which they committed themselves. Suffice it +that many of the sonnets are of a haunting loveliness that defies +praise, and gives to the best-intentioned expressions of admiration a +quality of impertinence. If for W. H. we read H. W. and forget the +prefix "Mr.," the troubles that have agitated generations of critics are +seen to evaporate. H. W. would become Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of +Southampton, to whom in the sonnets constant references occur. A pirated +edition might well have been handled either carelessly or with a view to +suggesting what could not be said openly. + +Next in order of the plays we come to that exquisite fantasy "A +Midsummer Night's Dream," in which we find references to Shakespeare's +supreme patron, Queen Elizabeth, and to the pageants he had seen as a +little lad when the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth at +Kenilworth (1575). In 1595 or 1596 came "All's Well that Ends Well," +taken from an Italian source, and "The Taming of the Shrew," with an +introduction dealing boldly with the Stratford country and some of its +worthies, contemporaries of the poet. In the two-part play of "Henry +IV." that followed we have further references to Shakespeare's +birthplace, and he introduces us to Mr. Justice Shallow, who was to come +into prominence again in the "Merry Wives of Windsor." Clearly the +dramatist was closely concerned at this period of his life with certain +happenings in the place of his birth. These references help us, in place +of authenticated records, to show that Shakespeare still kept in fairly +close touch with his early home. "Henry IV." is famous for its scenes in +the Boar's Head at Eastcheap, and lest the enumeration of plays should +become a little tiresome, let us turn aside for a brief space to +consider the taverns of Queen Elizabeth's day and the company to be met +in them. + + +=CHARLECOTE HALL= + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ELIZABETHAN TAVERNS + + +The London taverns were the clubs of London's literary men, and in +Shakespeare's time the most famous houses were "The Mermaid" in Bread +Street, "The Boar's Head" in Eastcheap, "The Devil" at Temple Bar, "The +Falcon," "The Tabard," "The George," and some few others, situated on +the south side of the river. In the days when he lived by the river-side +at Southwark, Shakespeare would have counted among the members of his +tavern club Edmund Spenser, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, "rare +Ben Jonson," who wrote of his great rival, "I loved the man, and do +honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any"; tribute over +which the mind loves to linger. Fuller tells of the contests of wit that +used to ensue when Shakespeare and Ben Jonson met, "which two I beheld +like a great Spanish galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, +like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in +his performances; Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in +bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and +take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention." +We see in this simile that the lesson of the Spanish Armada had not been +forgotten, and that its appearance was still vividly present in men's +minds. + +Although the taverns were open to all comers, it was easy for small +companies of men, banded together by common interests and devoted to +similar aims, to keep aloof from casual patrons. Strangers who had no +literary interests would not find any excuse for intrusion, and the +landlord, proud of the special patronage of those who claimed respect +outside the tavern, would doubtless grant them such privileges as the +house afforded. At a time when the news of the day was brought to the +taverns, while men of affairs and those who had some _locus standi_ at +Court did not disdain the attractions of a favoured house, there must +have been a certain high standard of conversation, and many a friendly +battle of wits. The ready tongue and fluent pen might make a mark in the +tavern and all London hear of it. Ben Jonson established the Apollo room +at the "Devil Tavern" by Temple Bar and drew up his famous "Convivial +Laws," which, while granting admittance to "learned, urbane merry +goodfellows" and "choice women," forbade horseplay, and concluded "focus +perennis esto." + +Sir Walter Raleigh founded a club at the "Mermaid Tavern," where, in +addition to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, together +with many other dramatists of note, spent their leisure hours. In +Southwark the "Tabard Inn" enjoyed the fame conferred upon it by +Geoffrey Chaucer, as well as the additional honour of his patronage, +before Shakespeare arrived. "The Bell," "The George," and "The White +Hart" were among the "Tabard's" leading competitors; it is likely that +the poet knew them all. We have no record that he spent too much time in +taverns, as poor Ben Jonson did; but he knew them well enough to enter +into the spirit of those who served and those who gave orders, those who +paid promptly, and those who could say with Ancient Pistol, "Base is the +slave that pays." + +Some of Shakespeare's biographers, who, because of their own virtues, +would abolish cakes and ale and forbid ginger to be hot in the mouth, +resent the mere suggestion that Shakespeare used the taverns as his +contemporaries did. There is no reason to suppose that he misused them +after the fashion of Robert Greene, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, but at the +same time the temperance advocate will need to go very carefully through +plays and poems if he is searching for praise of water as opposed to +wine. The power of the Puritan was rising in Shakespeare's time, but the +Puritans did not number the poet among their supporters. A certain +spirit of conviviality marked the Elizabethan age, which enjoyed, among +other advantages, the benefit of wine and spirits that had not been +systematically adulterated. Then again, no playwright could remain +wholly indifferent to the taverns, for it was in the yards of the inns +that the drama was first nourished. The inn yard was to some extent the +forerunner of the theatre. When the companies left London in the summer +and went on tour, they found no small part of their audience in the +country hostelries. The place of the tavern in literary history has not +yet been written. From the "Tabard" of Chaucer to the "Mermaid" of +Shakespeare, through the coffee-houses of a later date, to the "Bohemia" +of Soho, where the free-lances of literature meet to-day, there is a +thread of connection well worth examining. + +Our ubiquitous press tends to restrict the feast of reason and the flow +of soul; men do not care to express themselves too freely, or the +cleverest may wake one morning to find he has made some silent auditor +famous. A very notorious case of this kind occurred in the last decade +of the nineteenth century. But in Shakespeare's time wit seemed to +receive its guinea stamp from the tavern, and we have the records of +many men to show that when Shakespeare was one of the company the +audience had good reason to be content. There are many tributes to the +standard of the conversation. Beaumont, the dramatist, Francis Meres, +the clergyman schoolmaster, Richard Barnfield, the poet, Michael +Drayton, the intimate friend, all testify on behalf of Shakespeare; and +there are many others who must have seen and heard him. The attraction +of the tavern must have been increased to a great extent when their +patrons stood a chance of catching the crumbs that fell from the wit's +table. "To give you total reckoning of it," says Erle, "it is the busy +man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's +sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns a court man's entertainment, +the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study +of sparkling wits, and a cup of canary their book, whence we leave +them." + + +=INTERIOR OF ST. SAVIOUR'S AT SOUTHWARK +(Edmund Shakespeare's Burial-place)= + + +All have passed--the spacious taverns, those who served, and those who +patronised them have gone, never to return. Where great writers and +poets assembled and marked the arrival of travellers from the country, +and listened to stories of "nine men in buckram," where the horseman saw +to the ease of his weary nag before his own, we see crowded +thoroughfares in which the pulse of traffic beats furiously for six long +days out of seven. Of the many changes London has known in the three +centuries that have passed since Shakespeare's time few have been more +drastic. Perhaps the Great Fire destroyed many of the taverns; the +growth of commerce and the coming of new means of locomotion did the +rest. Only in old prints may we find some pleasing recollection of +red-tiled or thatched houses with half timber and half plaster walls, +their ingle nooks, dormer windows, or many gables. Here the men to whom +we still pay tribute spent their hours of ease, unconscious that their +lightest words would be sought for eagerly in generations to come--and +be sought in vain. But the knowledge that the old houses had their +being, and that the great poets of the Elizabethan era frequented them, +hallows many a dusty, dingy street in the city's by-ways now given over +to feverish activity from dawn to dusk, and to silence from dusk to +dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE MIDDLE PERIOD + + +Turning again to the plays, there is reason to believe that "The Merry +Wives of Windsor" followed "Henry IV." The character of Falstaff, first +known as Oldcastle, had taken the town, but the name had been changed at +the instance of the eighth Lord Cobham, a descendant of the great +Lollard, Sir John Oldcastle. Falstaff's humour made ample atonement for +his faults, and the desire to improve his acquaintance is said by +several authorities to have been expressed by Queen Elizabeth herself. +We are told that her Majesty requested the poet to present the fat +knight in love, and that he obeyed instructions in a few weeks. There is +no mistaking the high spirits in which the work is written; they are +still ringing through every line. The poet remembered the old days of +Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, and gave the knight's arms to Mr. Justice +Shallow openly and unrebuked. Under the ægis of royalty, he could afford +to let himself go and hit back at the astonished game-preserver. "The +Merry Wives" was no more to its author than a merry jest, made in +fulfilment of a royal request, a payment of long-standing scores in the +best humour possible, and as soon as it was off his hands the poet +turned to another historical subject and wrote "Henry V." + +With the close of "Henry V." Shakespeare left the arena of English +history, never to enter it again on his own initiative; for, as will be +seen, his share in "Henry VIII." was small. Comedy was for the moment in +his heart. Perhaps it was a relief to him, after the strenuous time he +had passed through, to pass to his lighter muse and express himself in +the brightest vein that could not bear misinterpretation. He turned to +an Italian author, probably Ariosto, for a part of "Much Ado about +Nothing," but he drew the least vital part from the foreign source; the +most of the comedy ran sparkling from his own brain. "As You Like It" +followed "Much Ado," and the date must be about 1600. It is another +clear case of adaptation, and the scenes of the play given to the Forest +of Arden breathe the pastoral spirit in a fashion that we look for in +vain elsewhere. "Twelfth Night" would appear to have been the third +comedy following the sequence of historical plays, and the date would +seem to be 1601. + +About this time the poet found himself in a very delicate situation. He +had referred to the expedition of the Earl of Essex in terms of eulogy, +and when that enterprise failed, Essex revolted against his sovereign, +aided and abetted by the poet's patron, the Earl of Southampton. Part of +the preliminary arrangements for the conspiracy consisted in arranging +for performances of Shakespeare's "Richard II.," in which, of course, +the king is murdered, the object being to show that regicide was of no +very distant date. Shakespeare's company was persuaded to revive the +play at the "Globe" just before the abortive rising in favour of Essex, +who, having lost his head metaphorically, was now to lose it literally. +Happily for England, Shakespeare himself was not involved in the +trouble. Oddly enough, he published in the year of Essex's death and +Southampton's imprisonment a curious poem, "The Phoenix and the +Turtle." Nobody has been able to fathom its meaning, though it may be +that those who connect it with the Essex _débâcle_ may yet find a clue +to the mystery. + +After this year even comedy would seem to have lost its appeal and +savour for a time. The poet had received a shock that we cannot quite +estimate or understand, and turning to Plutarch's Lives for inspiration, +he wrote the famous tragedy "Julius Cæsar," in many respects a work that +must always defy adequate representation on the stage. How it could have +passed muster on the bare Elizabethan boards is a puzzle. Next in order +came the masterpiece by which his name is known to the widest circle of +his followers, "Hamlet," yet another adaptation of a work that had +enjoyed popularity for some years in London and the country. There are +many references in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to contemporary events, +including the triumph of the company of boy actors known as "The +Children of the Chapel," who in a few years had advanced in popular +favour, and were now threatening the receipts of the established houses +and companies. History repeats itself. Then as now there was a demand +for novelty, sensation, and the infant prodigy was in demand. In +"Hamlet," too, Shakespeare shows that technical knowledge of his art to +which reference has been made earlier in this little survey. Richard +Burbage was the first Hamlet, and the tragedy was played in +Shakespeare's time both at Oxford and Cambridge. + + +=THE FIRST GLOBE THEATRE= + + +Dr. Sidney Lee, than whom no greater authority is needed, is inclined to +set "Troilus and Cressida" next in the list of plays, and to give it +date 1603. Some hold that the play hides a satire upon some of the +poet's contemporaries, but there is insufficient evidence to justify the +rather laboured conclusions that uphold the contention, which at least +is of no more than momentary interest. It is easy to find, and difficult +to deny, these hidden meanings in the work of one who left no clue to +any suggestion or satire embodied in his plays. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LATEST PLAYS + + +At this point in Shakespeare's career he lost his first royal patron. +Queen Elizabeth, whose long and fateful reign drew to its appointed +close on March 24, 1603. The poet gave to the world no expression of +grief at her loss. Perhaps he could not do so in loyalty to his first +and well-beloved patron, Henry Wriothesley, who still languished in +prison for his complicity in the Essex rising of two years before. There +had been times in his career when, through no fault of his own, +Shakespeare had been looked upon with suspicion, and it may have been +that the path to royal patronage had been at times a thorny and +difficult one. In any case Elizabeth's generosity had been limited; she +had not intervened to check the attack upon the theatres by the "unco +guid" of London in 1601, when, but for the supineness of the Surrey and +Middlesex magistrates, the poet's financial prosperity might have met +with a serious set-back. Here, as in so many other places, we are too +far from the time to see the truth clearly, and those who seek to fill +in the shadowy outline of the poet's life must rely upon such conjecture +as may have been put forward in good faith by the people who were +nearer to him. King James loved the theatre; Queen Elizabeth tolerated +it; nor must it be forgotten that in the days when the poet's star was +in the ascendant his royal mistress had seen the greater glories of her +reign and was entering upon her declining years, not without many +troubles and much sorrow to mark the last milestones of the road. + +One of the first acts of King James's reign was to confer special rights +upon the Lord Chamberlain's company, of which the poet was a prominent +member. Henceforward he was one of "The King's Servants," and the King +took a special interest in Shakespeare's plays, which were often +performed before him. Unhappily the plague drove the Court from London +in the autumn of 1603 to the Earl of Pembroke's seat at Wilton; but in +1604, when the Court returned to London, Shakespeare was first of the +nine actors who walked in the royal procession, and received a gift of +scarlet cloth for the making of a cloak worthy the occasion. Many other +honours followed. Great State occasions called for plays; Shakespeare's +were chosen, and his company acted them. The scenic art began to receive +a rather belated attention--in short, there was all the requisite +stimulus for a man of genius, and the poet responded to it nobly. + +"Othello" was the first play written by Shakespeare in the reign of King +James, but he seems to have had "Measure for Measure" on the stocks at +the same time, for each was produced at Whitehall towards the close of +1604. "Macbeth," written in 1605 and 1606, was clearly intended as a +compliment to the king, who was a descendant of the unfortunate Banquo +whose royal line Macbeth saw "stretch to the crack of doom." Dr. Lee +makes the shrewd suggestion that inasmuch as this is the shortest of +Shakespeare's tragedies, we may have no more than an abbreviated acting +version. Other critics of note find certain corrupt passages in the text +that go far to justify this contention. We may be sure that Shakespeare, +then at the zenith of his power, would not have stinted the measure of a +work which seems to have taken more of his time than any previous play. +Following closely upon "Macbeth" came "King Lear," produced at Whitehall +for the Christmas festivities of 1606, and founded, like several of its +predecessors, upon Holinshed's Chronicles. + +After this supreme effort the pace of genius faltered for a while. +"Timon of Athens" and "Pericles" are not pure Shakespeare; they do not +show us the master at his best--though the first named is fine enough to +have given enduring reputation to a lesser man. The question of his +collaboration is a difficult one to settle, but leading critics have +picked out the gold and rejected the dross, and their analyses prove +that Shakespeare's part in these works was not predominant. + + +=MICHAEL DRAYTON +In the National Portrait Gallery. (Painter unknown)= + + +It is no function of a simple record like the present to inquire into +this critical question closely; a dozen editions of Shakespeare's plays +published in the last ten years set down the latest researches of +scholars. To not a few of us the tragedy that followed "Pericles" is +among the finest of all that carry Shakespeare's name; surely, in some +passages of sheer undying beauty, "Antony and Cleopatra" stands +well-nigh alone. It dates from 1608, and, like "Coriolanus," the play +that followed (1609), is taken largely from Plutarch (North's +translation). "Cymbeline" is founded on Holinshed, and probably may be +dated 1610. "The Winter's Tale" belongs to 1611, and to this year may be +assigned the poet's moderate part in "Henry VIII."--he is far from being +responsible for the whole play. "The Tempest" belongs, at latest, to +1612. This, the latest and last work of the master-hand, was given with +all its beautiful songs set to music by Robert Johnson, a player and +composer of renown. + +So, leaving Miranda and Prospero to console us, the greatest dramatist +of all time laid down his pen. Many a critic and lover of the poet has +seen in the last words of Prospero, spoken when he gives up his magic +wand, a reflection of the poet's mind. His life-work, too, was done. +Unaided, save by his own genius, he had moved from the obscurity of +Warwickshire's by-ways to a place by the side of the Immortals. In all +the firmament of poetry there was no star to outshine his. It may be he +knew that the years still left to him were likely to be few, and that +his heart turned more from the bustle of a great city's ways to the +quiet fields and lanes wherein his earliest inspiration had come to him. +He had written a few scenes of plays that other men would seem to have +designed and completed, but these fragments are of small importance and +may be passed over here. Whatever he had given to lend a lustre to the +work of his contemporaries would seem to have afforded him little +concern. Henceforward his life was to be spent far from the busy centre +of theatrical life, though he was compelled to come to town at short +intervals in the first two or three years following his retirement, and +there must have been ample atonement for the trouble, in the way of +association with old friends who still laboured in the metropolis. + +When the poet passed into voluntary retirement he had but five years to +live, but his genius was still ripe. Did he elect deliberately to end +his labours before the first touch of weakness could reach them? Had he +realised his ambition, even as Prospero, who moves with such supreme +dignity through the last play? Was he content to have restored the +family fortunes? Was it to do this, to take full rank among the +gentlemen of Warwickshire, that he had striven so long? There is no +satisfactory answer to these questions. The records are silent as the +grave itself, and if the past has proved so silent on all points that +relate to the growth and trend of the poet's mind outside the domain of +his work, what may we hope from the future? + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BACK AGAIN IN STRATFORD + + +In the foregoing review of the poet's life-work, the progress of his +fortunes on the material side has been of necessity overlooked. It would +have been confusing to deal with the two interests side by side, and now +it is time to look for the signs that mark William Shakespeare's +prosperity. We know that he came to London poor and left it +comparatively wealthy, and the change of his state has some very +definite landmarks. No man passes easily from the duties of an ostler to +the position of part proprietor of prosperous theatres, and the first +few years of Shakespeare's sojourn in the metropolis bore but little +fruit. We know that in those lean times his own purse would have been +but ill-lined, and both his father's household and his own were +suffering from the pinch of poverty. His wife was forced to borrow +money; his father's affairs went steadily from bad to worse. Nor was +there in all Stratford any help for a family that had fallen from +comparative affluence into the slough of financial troubles. + +We may presume, from the scanty evidence which records have left and +diligent scholarship has discovered, that the poet himself made no +effort to "fling away ambition." In the early years of his sojourn in +London, when visits to Stratford were few and far between and the fear +of the Squire of Charlecote may have compelled him to lie very low +within the boundaries of Warwickshire, he would have seen or heard of +his father's affairs going from bad to worse. The parental honours were +stripped off one by one, debts accumulated, duns were incessant in their +attendance. To a proud and sensitive man this condition of things must +needs have been very galling; but it was not destined to last long. +Quite apart from his considerable receipts as a playwright, the poet's +earnings as an actor were substantial. The purchasing value of a +sovereign in Elizabeth's time would be equal to the value of nearly +eight pounds of our money, and Shakespeare's most learned biographers +are of opinion that he was a careful and a saving man. Member of a +leading company, enjoying the patronage of noblemen and the regard of +his Sovereign, frequently summoned to take part in special performances +at Court, it is likely that the poet's income as an actor was, within +comparatively few years of the start of his career, equal in our modern +currency to a sum nearer a thousand than five hundred a year. In later +years it was still higher. For revising other men's work his fees would +have varied between thirty and forty pounds, modern currency, and for +his own plays he may well have averaged twice as much, or even more. The +"benefit" system was already in vogue, and a dramatist could command an +extra fee if the first-night audience proved very appreciative of his +efforts. Shakespeare wrote his plays at the rate of two a year, and he +would have had something in the way of a royalty on the sale of his +poems, even though the plays brought him nothing as published work. We +may presume, then, that after a year or two he was able to maintain his +wife and children with some approach to comfort, and as the years passed +and reputation grew he found himself able to revisit his birthplace in +security, and to take definite steps to re-establish the family +fortunes, then at so low an ebb. + +We read that after 1596, when the poet returned to Stratford with +London's honours thick upon him and plenty of money in his purse, his +father's debts were no longer the subject of proceedings at the local +court. We may presume, then, that his son had paid them and cleared the +way for John Shakespeare's strange application to the College of Heralds +for a coat of arms. Strange at first thought, but less remarkable if, as +is generally supposed, the father was acting for the son. It was and is +the custom for a coat of arms to be applied for by the eldest male of +the house, and the poet could not have made application in his father's +lifetime. The application may have received some initial support in +London, for arms were assigned with the least possible delay. Garter +King-of-Arms referred to certain (and probably apocryphal) services +rendered "to that most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of famous +memory," and stated, without any recorded blush, that the Shakespeare +family had continued since those days to live in Warwickshire, in good +reputation and credit! He went on to record the undoubted fact that the +applicant had married Mary Arden, daughter and heiress of Robert Arden +of Wilmcote, who is described as a gentleman. In view of these +qualifications, arms were assigned to the applicant, a shield described +in the quaint jargon of heraldry, "Gold, on a bend sable, a spear of the +first, and for crest or cognizance a falcon, his wings displayed argent +standing on a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear gold steeled as +aforesaid." The motto chosen was "Non Sans Droict." + +But though the grant was assigned, the assignment was not completed for +three years, the claim to relationship with the Ardens of Park Hall, +through John Shakespeare's wife, being disallowed, as was indeed +inevitable. Even then the grant was criticised in many quarters, but +William Shakespeare's eminence tended to render all criticism nugatory; +nor was he the first eminent actor to enjoy a coat of arms. It is quite +easy to understand the significance of the application if we turn to +regard the poet as a purchaser of real estate. Some two years before the +assignment was completed, he had impressed upon his fellow townsmen of +Stratford the truth that the period of strained finances had passed. + +New Place, the century-old seat of Sir Hugh Clopton, a man who had done +much for Stratford, his birthplace, and had thriven in London, was now +dismantled and in bad repair; but remained the most imposing house in +the town. It was on the market, and William Shakespeare bought it, with +outbuildings and garden, for the equivalent of about four hundred and +fifty pounds, a large sum in that place and in those days. Some years +passed before the transaction was completed, and then the poet planted +an orchard which contained a famous mulberry tree, that flourished for +more than a hundred and fifty years, and was cut down by the Rev. +Francis Gastrell, whose name and memory are anathema to lovers of +Shakespeare. The poet did not take up his residence at New Place until +he had retired from London, and by that time the repairs were completed +and the place was in good order. It is at least highly probable that the +poet conducted some farming operations in and round New Place, though we +know nothing of his special qualifications for this work. There is a +record that in time of a local famine he had a good store of corn, and +he is known to have bought several lots of arable land. From the date of +the purchase of New Place there could have been none to dispute the +poet's claim to the description of William Shakespeare of Stratford, +Gentleman, and from first to last the total amount of his purchases of +real estate in and round his native town would amount to more than £7000 +modern currency, if we value the Elizabethan pound at eight times our +own. + +At the corner of Chapel Street, Stratford, where it turns into Chapel +Lane, there is an ugly modern house that enjoys the title of New Place +and receives the sixpences of the faithful. The trustees of +Shakespeare's birthplace own New Place and Anne Hathaway's cottage. The +house in which Shakespeare passed his last years does not exist, but +there is not a little about Stratford that calls for sixpences more +readily than it can justify the receipt of them. All that New Place can +offer of true Shakespearian interest is some venerable timbers, a shovel +board, from the old Falcon Inn that rose close by soon after +Shakespeare's death and still stands in receipt of custom, a circular +table inlaid with wood from the mulberry tree that the poet is said to +have planted, and a stone mullion from his own house. There is little +else that can recall the past, although the site of the ancient Clopton +mansion that Shakespeare purchased is undeniably here. The history of +the house that has passed and that of its successors has a very definite +interest. + +Shakespeare left New Place to his favourite daughter, Susanna, and to +her daughter, Elizabeth Nash, in second marriage Lady Barnard. On her +death Sir John Barnard kept the place as a residence until he sold it to +Sir Edward Walker, whose daughter Barbara married Sir John Clopton, +descendant of the man who built the first house at the end of the +fifteenth century. Sir John pulled down the old house, rebuilt it, and +was succeeded by Sir Hugh Clopton. From him in an evil hour it passed +into the hands of a clerical Vandal, Francis Gastrell by name. He was a +wealthy man and mean, so he quarrelled with the Stratford rating +authorities, who assessed him too heavily, or so he said, for the +relief of the poor. He had already cut down the great mulberry tree in +the garden, because his privacy was disturbed by the early pilgrims to +the poet's shrine, and for this act alone his name was an offence to the +lads of Stratford, who broke his windows when opportunity afforded. But +the town had not finished with the reverend gentleman. When the +assessors refused to listen to his claim that he should not pay full +rates to Stratford because he resided for a part of the year at +Lichfield, he vowed that New Place should never be assessed again. He +pulled the place down. Boswell described the cutting down of the +mulberry tree as a piece of "Gothic barbarity," but was silent about the +other act of vandalism. The mulberry, sold for firewood, was bought by +a local clockmaker, who made solemn affidavit that the toys he made of +it were from the genuine sacred tree. When the Rev. Mr. Gastrell had +gone to where he may have met the poet, though this is unlikely, his +widow sold the remains of the estate to a Mr. Wm. Hunt, who in time sold +it to a firm of bankers. In 1827 Miss Smith purchased the site of New +Place with the adjacent house, now the museum. Mr. Edward Leyton and his +daughter, Mrs. Loggin, were the next holders, and in 1861 Mr. J. O. +Halliwell-Phillipps, an enthusiastic student of the poet's history, +established the existing Trust after raising the necessary money by +public subscription. But as far as New Place, so called, is concerned, +it must be remarked, with deference to those whom the reminder may +offend, that the Falcon Hotel, which can be seen from the house, is the +older establishment by centuries--indeed the billiard-room is panelled +with some of the old oak from the New Place that Shakespeare knew. New +Place Museum is really the house adjoining Shakespeare's, and was the +property of Thomas Nash, first husband of Elizabeth, daughter of Susanna +Hall. + +Shortly after his purchase of New Place, the poet found himself in a +better position than ever for increasing his property and gratifying his +passion for real estate. Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, sons of that +James Burbage who owned "The Theatre" in which the poet is said to have +been a servitor, had built the "Globe Theatre" on Bankside. It was an +octagonal wooden building, in which Shakespeare's company was to be seen +year after year; the poet refers to it in the opening part of "Henry V." +The two brothers, from motives of prudence or generosity or both issued +twenty-one-year leases of shares in the profits of the venture. +Shakespeare had a share; so had Condell and Phillips and others of the +company; and later the poet acquired an interest in the "Blackfriar's +Theatre." Each share was proved, in the course of long subsequent +litigation, to have been worth two hundred pounds a year. Setting down +the poet's salary at a like amount, and his author's fees at about a +hundred, we find that he must have been worth nearly £4000 a year, in +our modern currency, from the time when he bought New Place to the year +of his retirement. "The Globe" was burnt down in 1613 during a +performance of "Henry VIII.," and was rebuilt a year later, but before +the disaster occurred Shakespeare's financial position had long been +assured, and it is unlikely that he held his shares when the theatre +suffered. There is a story, unauthenticated but seemingly credited by +many good judges, to the effect that at a moment when Shakespeare was +desirous of making investments either in Stratford or London, his friend +and patron Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, came very generously +to his assistance. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE POET'S DOMESTIC LIFE + + +In 1601 John Shakespeare's arduous life came to an end. Fifty years had +passed since he left Snitterfield for Stratford, to venture into several +business undertakings with temporary success, and achieve municipal +honours for a few years. His decline had been more rapid than his rise, +and, but for his son's success, his ending had been less peaceful. As +far as we can tell, the last four or five years were free from grave +financial trouble, but when he died the houses in Henley Street were the +sole remains of his fortune; the rest had passed to creditors. These +William Shakespeare inherited as eldest son--he let one, and left his +mother in peaceful enjoyment of the other. In the following year he made +more purchases, rather more than one hundred acres of farm-land at three +pounds per acre--a price that would be quite good to-day if we consider +the relative values of money--and a cottage with garden on the boundary +of the New Place grounds. In 1605 he bought the unexpired term of a long +lease of half the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and +Welcombe, the price being £440, which may be taken to stand for more +than £3000 of our money, and a considerable part of a full year's +income in his most prosperous time. It was an unfortunate investment, +and one which led to his frequent recourse to the lawyers. Shakespeare's +knowledge of the law has often puzzled his biographers, and the +correctness of his phraseology has been advanced by upholders of the +grotesque Baconian heresy as one of the reasons why he could not have +written the plays attributed to him. But it is impossible for the plain +man to follow the arguments that the Baconians adduce and affect to +support. + + +=THE MERMAID INN= + + +In later years the poet bought another twenty acres of arable land to +add to his already considerable holding. All these purchases were made +while he was a very busy man--actor, playwright, and manager. Doubtless +he had other investments and interests, of which we may some day know a +little more than we do now. Fresh documents relating to his investments +in the theatrical world were published as recently as the closing months +of 1909, and the records of the reign of Elizabeth and James I. are by +no means fully examined. One truth stands out clearly through the +interesting story of Shakespeare's investments, and that is his love for +the town in which he was born. With so large a share of the world to +choose from, with countless associations that might well have kept him +in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, with friends in Court circles +and acting circles who would scarcely be accessible in a town three, +four, or even five days' journey from London, he seems to have had the +fixed intent of spending his years of ease at home. There is too much +reason to believe that with him marriage was a failure. Reference has +been made already to the birth of his daughter Susanna, who became Mrs. +Hall, and we know that in 1585 his wife bore twins, boy and girl, Hamnet +and Judith, named after Hamnet and Judith Sadler, friends of John +Shakespeare. But the poet saw little of his family or of the three +children of his union, and at the time of his public return to Stratford +little Hamnet Shakespeare died, in his twelfth year. Susanna married, in +1607, the Puritan physician John Hall. Judith the twin married Mr. +Thomas Quiney in the year of her father's death. The poet seems to have +lived on excellent terms with his daughters, but there must be some +justification for the generally accepted story of unhappy married life. +Had he been devoted to his wife, Shakespeare could have sent for her +when he had been a very few years in London; the fact that he did not go +back to her for eleven years has a significance that takes a great deal +of explaining away, nor are the laboured explanations of the people who +assume that the life of genius is perfect, worth the ink and paper +devoted to them. The estrangement might have been the fault of the man, +or his wife, or both; it is a matter that ceased to be important when +one or both had died. We make our conjectures and pass on; others come +to do the same; but the first is likely to be as far from the truth as +the last. We do not find any reliable information that can clear the +darkness enshrouding the poet's life; even Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent +Men," in which the poet is described as "handsome and well shaped," was +written more than fifty years after his death, and was founded upon the +gossip of an old actor. + +There is hardly more than one portrait that may be supposed to show the +poet as he was. This was discovered by Mr. Edgar Flower in 1892; it is +painted on an elm panel, with "Wm. Shakespeare, 1609," in the left-hand +corner. Several leading authorities have agreed that it may be the +original from which Martin Droeshout engraved his half-length portrait +for the folio of 1623, a likeness that was accepted as satisfactory by +Ben Jonson, though it was clearly a second-hand work, because the +engraver was no more than fifteen when Shakespeare died. The portrait is +now in the Memorial Gallery at Stratford. Dr. Sidney Lee, in his +fascinating "Life of William Shakespeare," a work that has run into many +editions, tells us that upwards of sixty portraits of Shakespeare have +been offered to the National Gallery since 1856, and that not one of +these has been shown to be authentic. How fortunate, then, that the +deeds and signatures quite beyond suspicion have told the world so much +about the business side of the poet's life. Just as the forgery of +portraits has been of common occurrence, so the forgery of deeds has +been a source of amusement, if not of profit, to many; but happily there +is always a strong critical faculty waiting to deal with startling +discoveries, and those that survive the sifting of the keen intellects +that examine them may be accepted in perfect good faith. + +We have the safe material upon which to base the conclusion that the +poet left Stratford penniless, or well-nigh penniless, in 1585; that +after eleven years of hard work in London, in the course of which he +probably paid brief visits to his home, travelling by way of Oxford and +stopping at the Crown Inn, he returned to restore the family fortunes +and build up his own estate. We know that he bought the best house in +the town, that he planted an orchard, developed his gardens, and made +extensive purchase of farm-lands, some years before he could hope to +settle down in comfort to their enjoyment. It may be that the knowledge +that the new home was ready for him helped to put a period to the London +labours. He did not give any sign of appreciating the full significance +of his own work, or appear to know that he had made a position that +placed him side by side with Geoffrey Chaucer in merit, and still higher +in world renown. He never pushed the advantages that a connection at +Court and the favour of King James might have given him--he was only too +pleased to retire, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," while he +was yet on the sunny side of fifty. Man of affairs sufficiently to seek +the law-courts on the smallest provocation, idealist to the extent of +preferring a simple country life to all the glamour of London, a man +seemingly endowed with all the ambitions of the most sober and +unimaginative middle class--truly he presents strange and baffling +contrasts. + +In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, we may presume that +Shakespeare retired from the actor's profession in 1611, on or before +the completion of "The Tempest," into the closing act of which he would +seem to have put a reflection of his own inmost thought. Of all the rich +and varied emotions to which such a mind must have responded, there +could have been none more stirring than the thought that his life-work +had brought the reward he most desired. To the town from which he had +fled as an outcast he was returning a man of substance and repute; to +the failing fortunes of those he had left behind he had become a sure +support. Father, mother, one brother, Edmund, and the little son Hamnet +had gone before him "to that bourn from which no traveller returns," but +there were two loving daughters and a granddaughter waiting to welcome +him home, one sister, Joan, and two brothers, Gilbert and Richard. There +was Michael Drayton, author of the "Shepherd's Garland," the man after +his own heart, to whose charming sonnets he was indebted for some of the +beauty of his own, and it may be that some of his old companions of the +stage could be lured to New Place in the intervals of their touring. For +one who knew as well as Shakespeare the changes and uncertainties of +life, there must have been a keen consciousness that balance of fortune +was in his favour when he rode out from London on to the +Oxford-Stratford road, only to return to look after his vested interests +as occasion should demand. + +The poet would appear to have taken an active part in developing the +prosperity of his native town, and to have found in that work +sufficient consolation, if any was needed, for his absence from the +scenes of greater activity. In 1611, the year of his retirement, he +supported with his purse and influence a Bill before Parliament for the +better repair of the highways. He had suffered first-hand acquaintance +with their wretched state. Doubtless he took part in much unrecorded +work for the betterment of his own estate, and he was frequently found +indulging in his undeniable passion for litigation. The purchase of a +house in Blackfriars is recorded in 1613, and it led to the seemingly +inevitable lawsuit some two years later. Nicholas Rowe, poet-laureate to +King George I., wrote a life of Shakespeare in the early years of the +eighteenth century, and we owe to him a statement, founded upon such +information as a lapse of a century could validate, that Shakespeare +spent the last years of his life enjoying "ease, retirement, and the +conversation of his friends." We know that Michael Drayton and Ben +Jonson visited him at New Place, and it is a tradition that their visits +were celebrated in convivial fashion. At the same time there would have +been certain restraints upon a very free life, even had the poet been +disposed to lead one. Society in small country towns is notoriously +inclined to be intolerant, and Shakespeare's son-in-law, Dr. Hall, was +one of the great and growing body of Puritans that looked askance at +sensual indulgence in any form. Moreover, there was a strong feeling +against the stage in Stratford; it found expression only a year after +Shakespeare's return, when the Town Council passed a resolution that +stage plays were unlawful, and increased the penalties to which players +might be subjected. It would be a matter of great interest to know how +Shakespeare regarded a resolution that so wantonly decried the +profession by which he had lived and thriven. There is no evidence to +show that the action of the city fathers was symptomatic of any ill-will +towards him, or that he resented it openly. Yet he was a man who could +and would stand up for his rights in and out of season. Perhaps in the +most of his moods he was gentle and affectionate, for more than once in +his career we find his friends leaving him small legacies or gifts or +tokens of their affection. These came alike from actors who had shared +with him the traffic of the stage, and from fellow-townsmen of +Stratford. Even if the recorded references are scanty enough, there is +none that may be held unflattering if we except the attack by Greene, +for which his publisher went out of his way to apologise. It is hard, if +not impossible, to estimate the value of any form of art-work in the +lifetime of the worker, and it may well be that of the thousands who +applauded Shakespeare's plays there were very few who saw them as we do +to-day. The mere fact that they were for the most part new versions of +works that were then quite familiar to playgoers would have told against +them. Theme rather than treatment was best calculated to "tickle the +groundlings." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +STRATFORD AS IT WAS + + +Stratford in Shakespeare's time administered its own affairs in very +complete fashion through the medium of a Guild, which was turned into a +Municipal Corporation by Edward VI. It boasted bailiff, aldermen, +burgesses and chamberlains, and the council met every month in the Guild +Hall. Those who accepted office were liable to be heavily mulcted for +non-attendance, for attending in mufti, for declining promotion to a +more responsible office, or for telling the secrets of the council +chamber to those who had no place in it. The Chapel of the Guild, the +Guild Hall, and the Grammar School, in which boys were taught and +disciplined in fashion that would shock our humanitarian instincts +to-day, still exist. The bailiff or warden of Stratford was at one time +John Shakespeare himself, and at another a subordinate colleague, who +would have sat in judgment upon him in the days when the old man's +liabilities were beginning to get the better of his assets, and he +himself was no longer a man of importance. The rule of the City Guild or +Corporation was paternal in an Elizabethan sense. Just as the +schoolmaster did not spare the rod lest he should spoil the child, so +the magnates of the corporation regarded their fellow-citizens as men +and women to be admonished or encouraged, punished or praised, according +to their behaviour. Food prices were fixed by the corporation; the +adulteration of the people's supplies was made exceedingly difficult and +dangerous. Men who lived ill were fined or expelled from Stratford's +boundaries; scolding wives were sentenced to have their tempers +sweetened by immersion from the ducking-stool in the clear, cold waters +of Avon. Publicans were forced to conform to the local laws carefully +framed to abolish public drunkenness. The stocks were waiting for the +feet of drunkards, brawlers, and offenders against municipal +regulations, and the whipping-post was always in evidence where the +Market House now stands. Apprentices might not be out after nine o'clock +at night. Attendance at church was obligatory, and he who blasphemed or +used foul language found ample reason to regret his indiscretion. In +short, the conduct of Stratford was of a kind more in keeping with the +Puritan tradition than anything we can find in England to-day, but it +was associated with real brotherly love, and a feeling of common +citizenship, that held the town together. Those who have studied the +early records of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in England +in the years following the successful intercession of Manasseh ben +Israel with Oliver Cromwell, will hardly fail to note the striking +similarity between the rules that governed Elizabethan corporations and +those that governed those Jews who returned to England and lived their +prosperous but dignified lives in the east end of London when the +eighteenth century was as young as our own. + + +=SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE--STRATFORD-ON-AVON= + + +There was much to hold communities together in Elizabeth's time, much to +encourage strength of purpose and resignation to troubles that were +regarded as the manifestation of Divine Will, though in truth they were +fruits of the people's ignorance. Unfortunately there was no real +attempt to control them. Sanitation was unknown. The ground floors of +the houses were of hard clay, covered with rushes; chimneys were not +common. Refuse and garbage were placed in the open roads, not always in +the special places appointed by the corporation. Pigs were kept close to +the houses, and though the butchers were supposed to take the refuse of +the slaughter-houses beyond the town, a strong wind would doubtless +bring back infection. The corporation kept certain public places clean, +and doubtless the citizens, or the most of them, did their best; but +they had no knowledge of the price of uncleanliness, and in a town that +was unpaved, undrained, and seldom cleaned, microbes must have enjoyed +their life under conditions only familiar to those of us who have +travelled through some of the remote cities of Africa and Asia, and +known what it is to be literally unable to dismount from a horse. Street +lighting was in its early infancy. In Shakespeare's time every man of +substance was compelled to hang a lighted lantern outside his house +from dusk to curfew, during a few weeks of midwinter, and that was all. + +Of all these defects the lack of cleanliness was the vital one, and the +consequences of the neglect or ignorance of the first laws of sanitation +may be imagined. Plague was never far away. Every few years there would +be a visitation, mild or severe, and there was no effective remedy known +to the people. As in the time of the great plague of London, herbs and +cooling drinks were employed, fresh air was in demand, and there was +much burning of spices. Shakespeare was a baby in arms when a visitation +of the plague gave nearly fifteen per cent. of the town's population to +the graveyard or its substitute, the plague pit. + +Now and again the Avon would overflow its banks and flood the +surrounding country. Not only would such a disaster increase the ague +and rheumatism that are never far removed from dwellers by the +river-side, but a late summer flood might damage the crops on low-lying +lands, or carry away corn that had been cut but not carted, and then, as +Stratford was not readily accessible, the prices of food stuff would +rise despite the corporation's efforts, and actual famine was not +unknown. + +Fires, too, were common. Doubtless a few arose from the overheating of +corn in barns and stacks, and some from the absence of chimneys to so +many houses. The corporation did what it could, but there were no +resources adequate to deal with a conflagration, for all that the Avon +ran at the foot of the town. They came to the conclusion in 1582 that +the absence of chimneys was a fruitful source of disaster, and ordered +every householder to build one. They also ordered every burgess to +provide himself with a bucket. Looking back to the times, it is not easy +to say that the corporation of Stratford was really backward; its +members did all that the people of a little town in the heart of +Warwickshire could have been expected to do, and there would seem to +have been no lack of public spirit, no falling away from continuous +endeavour, no shirking of onerous duties. Every man had his work to do +in the public service, and those who failed were punished. + +When we look round at our busy manufacturing towns in this year of +grace, and remember how much we know of the best tradition of municipal +work, can we say that, _mutatis mutandis_, the advantage is altogether +with us? Plague and fire and flood have been overcome, but men and women +live lives entirely undisciplined. Little or nothing binds the citizen +to the State, and the adulteration of food has become so common that +pure bread and pure beer are the exception, and the supervision of those +who prepare the necessities of our daily life is much less strict than +it was when old John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was Stratford's +ale-taster, empowered to see, _inter alia_, that every baker sold a +whole loaf of true weight for one penny. + +But if the corporation ruled Stratford strictly in Elizabethan times, +it encouraged all kinds of sport, to some of which the poet makes +reference in his plays. Young and old knew the Maypole. Nine Men's +Morris was another popular game, and Falstaff, referring to his +treatment when he escaped from Ford's house disguised as the fat woman +of Brentford, says, "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipp'd +top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, since lately." Goose-plucking +was a particularly barbarous pastime. We know that hockey and football +were played in Elizabethan England, and that the corporation of +Stratford kept a bowling-alley at the municipality's expense for the +free use of the town. Cock-fights were among the less reputable sports +of the time, and bears or bulls were baited. Hunting, hawking, coursing, +fishing, and the rest beguiled the leisure hours of those who had any, +and the harvest festivals would have played their part. There were great +fairs and open markets held at certain seasons of spring and summer. +Within doors, cards and shovel-board would seem to have been the only +kind of amusement that were not directly associated with social +ceremonies. + +Christening, marriage, and burial were all allied in the poet's time to +more public exhibitions than obtain to-day, the wedding being preceded +by a public betrothal ceremony, and the marriage itself being associated +with a great many quaint customs if the contracting parties had the +money wherewith to carry them out. Removed from touch with the outside +world, seeing little of the life of big cities for themselves, the +citizens of Stratford managed to get no small measure of simple and +harmless enjoyment out of life, though even among the town council there +were men whose liking for sack and good ale was notorious. + +Players from London brought some added amusement in the summer, but as +Stratford grew more and more puritanical, a very deliberate effort, +already referred to in the preceding chapter, was made to penalise +actors, and some years after Shakespeare's death it is recorded that the +king's players were bribed by the corporation to leave the town without +giving any performances. The gardens of Stratford were very productive. +They were separated from each other by mud walls, and were carefully +cultivated. Shakespeare delighted in his gardens and his plays speak of +his sound knowledge of the gardener's craft. People who could afford to +plant orchards took a pride in doing so; the poorer folk generally +boasted a few fruit-trees, and gave no small part of their garden plot +to raising herbs and simples for use against the various ailments that +troubled them from time to time. The furniture in the house was +primitive. Table, stools, a chair or two, and a bench would furnish a +living-room. Carpets were not often met with; mattresses, bolsters, and +pillows were stuffed with feathers. Sheets and table-cloths were of flax +or hemp; dishes were of brass or pewter. Wooden trenchers and pewter +spoons were in common use, and most houses held the necessary equipment +for baking bread, brewing ale, and weaving wool. Cooking was primitive; +good cooks were not required unless the occasion was an extraordinary +one. People rose early and retired early; there was no temptation to be +out late in filthy, ill-lighted streets, and bed was the only +comfortable place in a house after nightfall. Doubtless the conditions +were favourable to deep drinking among those who were not limited to the +ale-house, and consequently could escape from the vigilant eye of +authority. + +The apprentice system was in vogue at Stratford in Shakespeare's time, +and though the condition of apprentices was not always creditable to +their employers, the system ensured a thorough knowledge of any business +that a man sought to establish. The apprenticeship was a legal +condition, precedent to setting up in business, and until a lad had +fulfilled his indentures he could not open a shop on his own account or +claim the rights of a freeman. Apprentices had their rights and +privileges, including certain holidays, but they might not carry arms, +might not visit ale-houses, and might not stay out after nine o'clock. +For lads who did not care to settle down in business, or had not the +means to establish themselves in one, there were other ways of securing +a living. They could seek military service--there was always a demand +for strong, athletic young men--or they could enter the big +establishments of the great landowners, who employed scores of +retainers, and, in peaceful times, did not overwork them. The wealthier +lads went to the universities or to the metropolis, where no small +proportion, freed from all restraint, went hopelessly to the bad. In +Shakespeare's time, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Compton, Sir Thomas Lucy +of Charlecote, and a few others, were the chief men in the neighbourhood +of Stratford to keep retainers in large numbers. + + +=SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON= + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE CLOSE OF LIFE + + +When Shakespeare settled down in Stratford to spend the last years of +his life amid its familiar surroundings, he could without a doubt have +aspired to the highest honours in the corporation's gift. He had +restored his father's good name, and John Shakespeare in his palmy days +had been Stratford's chief alderman. The early history of his escapades +had apparently been forgotten; he was on friendly terms with the then +owner of Charlecote Park, while other great landowners who passed a part +of their time at Court were to be found among his acquaintances if not +his friends. But he had not retired from the stress and strife of London +to seek responsibilities that entailed heavy penalties for neglect. It +sufficed him to take a friendly interest in the affairs of the +corporation, and to remain right outside the council chamber. His own +obligations might call him to town at any moment, and his own local +affairs would have taken so much of the rest of his time as he would be +disposed to give to business. Clearly he wished to enjoy his life, and +from the scanty records in our possession there is reason to believe +that he did so. Doubtless he added much to his ample stores of +observation; the few last years could hardly have been wasted; but +apparently he had no wish to set pen to paper when he had left the stage +behind him. It may be that, had he been disposed to work in the later +years, the Gunpowder Plot might have afforded him material for a +stirring play. Ambrose Rookwood, who was closely associated with the +conspiracy, lived in Clopton House near Stratford. + +The Clopton family was closely identified with Stratford's history. Sir +Hugh, of that family, had been Lord Mayor of London in 1492. He it was +who built New Place, the house in which the poet was living. He built +the stone bridge over Avon at Stratford, to take the place of a +worthless wooden structure. He founded exhibitions at Oxford and +Cambridge Universities. In short, Sir Hugh made the reputation of the +family for all time, and the scandal of Rookwood's residence in Clopton +House, which is within easy reach of Stratford, must have been a +considerable one. + +There is a suggestion that the poet had not only given up his work, but +that the taint of landowning under the existing conditions had corrupted +him. As late as 1614 he was assisting one William Combe, a landowner and +son of his old friend John Combe--who had left him five pounds by +will--in an attempt to enclose the common lands round his estate at +Welcombe. In the early days the poet had been a foe of those who +attempted to rob the people, but it may be that by 1614 he was growing a +little intolerant of the Puritans on the corporation council, and quite +ready to vex them if he could. The Clerk to the Council followed +Shakespeare to London, apparently in order to discuss the case against +William Combe, and the corporation in council drew up a letter to the +poet, begging him to aid them against the guilty landowner; but +Shakespeare did not do so, and it was left for the London courts to +settle the matter in favour of the corporation, after much litigation +and long delays. + +The opening days of 1616 saw the marriage of Judith Shakespeare, the +poet's daughter, born with little Hamnet who had died twenty years +before. Two months later the poet entertained Michael Drayton and Ben +Jonson at New Place. Some biographers say that the meeting was +associated with a drinking bout--there is no reason to believe that +either of his distinguished visitors would have been averse from one. +Others believe that the poet fell a victim to the prevailing lack of +sanitation; his house was at the corner of a very dirty lane. Whatever +the cause, there can be no doubt about the result. On the 23rd of April +1616, England's greatest dramatist died in the prime of life--he was +just fifty-two years of age. Two days later he was buried in Stratford +Church, near the north wall of the chancel. Fearful lest his bones +should be added to the grisly burden of the charnel-house close by, he +penned a curse upon those who should disturb his remains. + +The corporation's leading members joined the funeral procession, and a +banquet consoled the mourners. A monument was put up in the chancel a +few years later, the work of a London sculptor living near the "Globe +Theatre." It is not a very pleasing piece of work. By his will, the poet +left substantial legacies to his daughters, a gift to Stratford's poor, +and mementoes to many friends, but to his wife he left his "second best +bedstead" and nothing more. Anne Shakespeare died seven years later, and +was buried close to her husband. His neglect of her by will does not +imply indifference to her future; doubtless he had expressed his wish +that one or other of his daughters should look after her, but it is +clear that he did not hold her in great affection. + +So passed a great man from his world, leaving an imperishable monument +for generations yet to come. The London he knew has passed beyond our +ken; it is a buried city that will never be unearthed. But time has +dealt more gently with Stratford and Shottery, Wilmcote and +Snitterfield, and a large part of the surrounding country that made our +national poet articulate. Much that he loved returns with the yearly +pageant of the seasons, and with this we must be perforce content. + + + + + +INDEX + + + Aberdeen, 32 + + "All's Well that Ends Well," 39 + + Ancient Pistol, 43 + + "Antony and Cleopatra," 53 + + Arden, Forest of, 47 + " Mary, 9, 58 + " Robert, 58 + + Ariosto, 47 + + Arnold, Matthew, 7 + + "As You Like It," 32, 47 + + Aston Clinton, 7, 9 + + Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent Men," 66 + + Avon, 5, 73, 75, 82 + + + Barnard, Lady, 60 + " Sir John, 60 + + Barnfield, Richard, 44 + + Bath, 30 + + "Bear's House," 25, 26 + + Beaumont, 41, 42, 44 + + "Bell, The," 43 + + "Bell Inn," 17 + + Bishopgate, 26, 27 + + Bishopton, 64 + + Blackfriars, 21, 70 + " Theatre, 22, 62 + + Boar's Head, 40, 41 + + "Bohemia," 44 + + Boswell, 61 + + Brentford, 77 + + "Bull Inn," 27 + + Burbage, Cuthbert 62 + " James, 22, 62 + " Richard, 22, 32, 37, 49, 62 + + Burbie, Cuthbert, 35, 36 + + + Cambridge University, 82 + + Chapel of the Guild, 72 + + Charlecote, 7, 12, 46, 56, 80 + " Park, 81 + + Charles II., 29 + + Chaucer, Geoffrey, 43, 44, 68 + + "Children of the Chapel, The," 48 + + Clopton, Sir Hugh, 58, 60, 82 + " Sir John, 60 + " House, 82 + + Cobham, Lord, 46 + + College of Heralds, 57 + + Combe, John, 82 + " William, 82, 83 + + "Comedy of Errors, The," 36 + + Compton, Lord, 80 + + Condell, 62 + + "Convivial Laws," 42 + + Coopers' Arms, 33 + + "Coriolanus," 53 + + Coventry, 30 + + "Cow Lane," 35 + + Cromwell, Oliver, 73 + + "Crosby Hall," 27 + + Crown Inn, 68 + + "Curtain, The," 21 + + "Cymbeline," 53 + + + Danter, John, 36 + + Derby, Earl of, 22 + + "Devil Tavern," 41, 42 + + Drayton, Michael, 7, 44, 69, 70, 83 + + Droeshout, Martin, 67 + + + Eastcheap, 40 + + Edward VI., 72 + + Elizabeth, Queen, 13, 32, 37, 39, 46, 50, 51 + + Essex, Earl of, 47, 48 + + + "Falcon, The," 41, 60, 62 + + Falstaff, Sir John, 13, 46, 77 + + Faversham, 30 + + "Feverel, Richard," 16 + + Field, Richard, 20, 21, 35 + + Fletcher, 41, 42 + + Florence, 26 + + Flower, Edgar, 67 + + Folkestone, 30 + + Fulbroke Parks, 12 + + Fuller, 41 + + + Gastrell, Rev. Francis, 59, 60, 61 + + "George, The," 41, 43 + " I., 70 + + "Globe, The," 22, 48, 62, 84 + + Gower, 25 + + Grammar School, Stratford, 72 + + Gray's "Elegy," 1 + + Greene, Robert, 27, 36, 43, 71 + + Greenwich, 32, 38 + + Guild Hall, 72 + + Gunpowder Plot, 82 + + + Hall, John, 66, 70 + " Susanna, 62, 66 + + Halliwell-Phillipps, Mr. J. O., 61 + + "Hamlet," 31, 32, 48, 49 + + Hathaway, Anne, 11, 17, 18, 60 + + "Henry IV.," 13, 14, 39, 40, 46 + " V.," 14, 47, 62 + " VI., King," 36 + " the Seventh, King, 57 + " VIII.," 47, 53, 63 + + High Wycombe, 20 + + Holinshed's "Chronicles," 33, 52, 53 + + Hunt, Wm., 61 + + Hythe, 30 + + + James I., King, 22, 24, 29, 51, 77 + + Johnson, Robert, 53 + + Jones, Inigo, 29 + + Jonson, Ben, 7, 41, 42, 43, 67, 70, 83 + + "Julius Cæsar," 48 + + + Keere, Peter Van den, 24, 25 + + Kemp, William, 32 + + Kenilworth, 39 + + "King John," 37 + " Lear," 52 + + "King's Servants, The," 51 + + + "Lambeth Marsh," 25 + + Lee, Dr. Sidney, 10, 31, 32, 49, 52, 67 + + Leicester, Earl of, 13, 21, 39, 80 + + Leyton, Edward, 61 + + Lichfield, 61 + + Loggin, Mrs., 61 + + Lollard, 46 + + "Love's Labour's Lost," 35 + + Lucy, Sir Thomas, 12, 13, 46, 80 + + + "Macbeth," 51, 52 + + Manasseh ben Israel, 73 + + Marlborough, 30 + + Marlowe, Christopher, 27, 36, 37, 43 + + Masuccio, 33, 36 + + "Measure for Measure," 51 + + "Merchant of Venice, The," 37 + + Meredith, George, 16 + + Meres, Francis, 44 + + "Mermaid, The," 41, 42, 44 + + "Merry Wives of Windsor," 13, 40, 46 + + "Midsummer Night's Dream, A," 13, 39 + + Milton, 7 + + Miranda, 53 + + Moorfields, 21 + + "More Feyldes," 25 + + Mountjoy, 33 + + "Much Ado about Nothing," 47 + + + Naseby, 5 + + Nash, Elizabeth, 60 + " Thomas, 62 + + Newington Butts, 22 + + New Place, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 82, 83 + + New Place Museum, 62 + + New Romney, 30 + + Nimrod, 13 + + Norman William, 5 + + + Oldcastle, Sir John, 46 + + Old Stratford, 11, 64 + + "Othello," 51 + + Oxford, 20, 30, 68 + + Oxford University, 82 + + + "Palace of Nonsuch, The," 38 + + Peele, 36 + + Pembroke, Earl of, 51 + + "Pericles," 52, 53 + + Phillips, Augustus, 22, 62 + + "Phoenix and the Turtle, The," 48 + + Plautus, 36 + + "Play House," 25 + + Plutarch's "Lives," 33, 48, 53 + + Ponte Vecchio, 26 + + Prospero, 53, 54 + + + Quiney, Mr. Thomas, 66 + + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, 42 + + "Rape of Lucrece, The," 37, 38 + + Rhodes, Cecil John, 2 + + "Richard II.," 37, 47 + + "Richard III.," 27, 37 + + Richmond, 38 + + "Romeo and Juliet," 36 + + Rookwood, Ambrose, 82 + + "Rose, The," 22 + + Rowe, Nicholas, 70 + + Rye, 30 + + + Saffron Walden, 30 + + Saxon Harold, 6 + + Senlac, 5 + + Severn, 5 + + Shakespeare, Edmond, 24, 69 + " Gilbert, 69 + " Hamnet, 66, 69 + " Joan, 69 + " John, 9, 10, 57, 58, 64, 66, 72, 76, 81 + " Judith, 66, 83 + " Richard, 69 + " Susanna, 12, 60, 66 + + Shallow, Mr. Justice, 13, 40, 46 + + "Shepherd's Garland," 69 + + Shoreditch, 21 + + Shottery, 7, 11, 16, 17, 18, 84 + + Sidney, Sir Philip, 29 + + Smith, Miss, 61 + + Snitterfield, 6, 9, 10, 64, 84 + + Southampton, Earl of, 37, 39, 47, 48, 63 + + Southwark, 22, 26, 27, 42 + + Spanish Armada, 42 + + Spenser, Edmund, 41 + + "Spittlefeyldes," 25 + + St. Helen's, 26, 27 + + "St. Marye Overyes," 24, 25 + + St. Saviour's, Church of, 24, 25 + + Stratford Church, 83 + + + "Tabard, The," 41, 42, 43, 44 + + "Taming of the Shrew, The," 39 + + "The Tempest," 53, 69 + + "Theatre, The," 21, 22, 62 + + Thorpe, 38 + + "Timon of Athens," 52 + + "Titus Andronicus," 37 + + "Troilus and Cressida, 49 + + "Twelfth Night," 47 + + "Two Gentlemen of Verona, The," 35 + + + "Venus and Adonis," 37, 38 + + + Walker, Sir Edward, 60 + + Welcombe, 64, 82 + + Westminster Abbey, 24 + + White, William, 35 + + Whitehall, 38, 51, 52 + + "White Hart, The," 43 + + Wilmcote, 6, 9, 10, 18, 58, 84 + + Wilton, 51 + + "Winter's Tale, The," 53 + + Wotton Wawens, 7 + + Wriothesley, Henry, 39, 50, 63 + + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + Edinburgh & London + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + + Illustration captions are indicated by =caption=. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's William Shakespeare, by Samuel Levy Bensusan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** + +***** This file should be named 29611-8.txt or 29611-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/1/29611/ + +Produced by Florian Hofmann, Stephanie Eason and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(Illustration images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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