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AMONG the vexed questions that have engaged the
literary world during the last thirty or forty years, that of
Shakespeare's sonnets has held a conspicuous place. After having been
all but forgotten for more than a century, these sonnets, when
republished, so far from awakening admiration, seem to have been viewed
by the blundering, self-conceited critics of George the Third's days
actually with disgust, Steevens declaring that 'the strongest Act of
Parliament would not be strong enough to compel their being read,' while
Malone oracularly pronouces them 'a jumble of affectation, pedantry,
circumlocution, and nonsense!' It was reserved for the deeper
feeling, the clearer insight of the poet, to recognize and welcome these
exquisite gems; and Wordsworth and Coleridge rejoiced as over the
discovery of long-buried treasure, at the reappearance of Shakespeare's
sonnets.
By both these true poets the sonnets seem to have been
viewed as a miscellaneous collection. Dr. Drake, some sixty years
ago, was the first to adopt what has been called 'the personal theory,'
and it was he, too, who pointed out the Earl of Southampton as the
'friend' to whom the greater number were addressed. Mr. Boaden,
who also advocated the personal theory, considered that the Earl of
Pembroke was the friend, and in this opinion he is joined by Mr.
Hallarn. The discoveries, as Mr. Gerald Massey truly remarks,
'reached their climax' when Mr. Charles Armitage Brown's strange work
appeared in 1838, in which he asserts the sonnets to be strictly
autobiographical, and devoted to the praiseworthy purpose of celebrating
Shakespeare's intrigue with a married woman, whom he, in the sequel,
kindly resigns to his friend; 'a theory,' as Mr. Massey indignantly
remarks, 'adduced without one atom of proof; assuming that Shakespeare
was a self-debaser and self-defamer, of a species that has no previous
type, no after copy.'
It is strange to remember how eagerly this revolting
theory was seized upon by some of the critics of that day, and it is
strange to see how many commentators, even in the present, still uphold
it, although all the careful research of Messrs. Hunter, Dyce, Collier,
and Halliwell, have found not the slightest evidence for its support.
We cannot but smile when we find some of these later writers, influenced
probably by the direct testimony to Shakespeare's moral character,
amiably conceding that if he sinned, he also very properly repented, and
therefore we must not censure him too severely; while going yet further,
a German critic, Dr. Ulrici, considers that with marvellous self-denial,
Shakespeare, having fallen, 'set the matter forth as a warning to the
world, and offered himself up for the good of others,' although why he
did not make this
amende in the more tangible form of a pamphlet, like poor Green's
'Groat's worth of Wit bought by a Million of Repentance,' instead of a
series of sonnets, which have been stumbling-blocks to so many—a
complete riddle, it is hard to understand.
In the work before us, Mr. Gerald Massey, after a very
interesting, though too laudatory memoir of the Earl of Southampton, for
whom, and at whose request, he thinks the greater part of the sonnets
were written, proceeds to class them as 'personal' and 'dramatic.' The
'personal' are those addressed by Shakespeare to the Earl; the
'dramatic,' those of the Earl to Elizabeth Vernon, of Elizabeth to him;
and lastly, 'the dark story of the sonnets,' which he interprets as an
intrigue between William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, and Lady
Rich, the Stella of Sidney's exquisite poems. In all this, Mr.
Massey has shown much ingenuity, and displayed much eloquent
argumentation; but we cannot accept his conclusions. That the
first seventeen, and many of the subsequent sonnets, are addressed to
Lord Southampton, we readily concede; but that those which are assigned
to Southampton, were written in his name, we can scarcely allow, nor
those written for his lady love, Elizabeth Vernon. Few young men
would lament so pathetically the death of a father twelve years after,
as to talk of 'weeping afresh love's long since cancelled woe,' nor
would the nobleman, who on every journey was followed by a crowd of
livened retainers, represent himself alone as he 'plods dully on,' or
his steed— always the young nobleman's pride—as 'the beast that bears
me,' 'my dull bearer,' 'the jade.' The very homeliness of so many
of these sonnets proves to us that several were written for persons in
Shakespeare's own rank of life. Among those which Mr. Gerald
Massey thinks were written for Elizabeth Vernon, we find some that could
not be addressed to her lover. In the thirty-fourth, the line,
'Ah! but those tears are pearls which thy love sheds,' is simply
ridiculous as addressed to a young man, and one about to go to the wars,
but addressed by a lover to his lady, it is graceful enough; and
prettily, too, in the following sonnet does he condone her passing
inconstancy by the remark that, 'roses have thorns, and silver fountains
mud.'
With regard to the 'dark lady of the sonnets,' we
cannot accept Mr. Gerald Massey's interpretation. William Herbert,
although the son of a most excellent and gifted woman, we know scarcely
inherited even her beauty, much less her virtues. He was quite
capable of forming a reckless attachment to a married woman, but there
are insuperable objections to that woman being Lady Rich. That she
was old enough to be his mother, may not be a sufficient reason, but
that she was the lost lady love of his gifted uncle, Sir Philip Sidney,
looked upon—ere her liaison with Mountjoy—by Lady Pembroke as a very
sister, must have made it difficult for the young boy to view her save
as his aunt. And then, although faithless to the memory of
peerless Sidney, she was ever believed to be true to Mountjoy; nor
did even the scandal of the times ever point out another lover.
There is some most splendid writing in the chapter relating to this
unfortunate beauty, who seems to have exercised a strangely witching
spell, even from the tomb, over our author, although he never palliates
her conduct; and he paints her gorgeous beauty, laying on touch after
touch, until she stands before us in glowing loveliness, as though fresh
from the hand of Giorgione or Titian. We cannot, however, help
thinking with Mr. Dyce and Mr. Charles Knight, that after all, there is
no secret history concealed beneath Shakespeare's sonnets, but that they
were composed on different subjects, often under an assumed character,
and that after having been widely circulated in manuscript, they were at
length collected together and published.
We thank Mr. Gerald Massey for his spirited vindication
of Shakespeare. It is, indeed, strange that in the one case, upon
such slight grounds, in the other on really no grounds at all, merely on
bare conjecture, Shakespeare should have been represented as unhappy in
his marriage, and then as engaged in a disgraceful intrigue with a
married woman. Now, all the circumstances of his life, so far as
we can trace them, refute both views, especially if we look at them in
the light of his own times. It is, indeed, for want of close
acquaintance with these times, that so many of Shakespeare's biographers
have sadly blundered; and it is this acquaintance that renders Mr
Charles Knight's views of him, in many respects, far more correct.
We think, however, that by carefully re-examining the details, though so
few, of Shakespeare's domestic life, we may obtain a yet clearer view of
him, and perhaps a new and unexpected light may be cast on his family
relations.
It is about the middle of the sixteenth century that
the name of 'John Shakespeare' first meets us in the records of the good
town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Homely enough are the entries, for in
the one he is represented as proceeded against for the recovery of a
debt of some eight pounds, and in the other he is fined, together with
his neighbours, for neglecting to remove the dirt near his house in
Henley-street. Much conjecture has been expended as to his
calling, but as in the action against him he is expressly termed a
glover, there is no doubt that at this time such was his trade.
That subsequently, when through his marriage he became a farm-owner, and
kept sheep, he became also a woolstapler, is very likely too. In
1557, John Shakespeare married a maiden of ancient family, although her
father is designated merely as a husbandman,—Mary Arden, seventh and
youngest daughter of Robert Arden, of Wilmecote, who died the year
before, bequeathing to her what, in those days, might be considered a
considerable amount of landed property.
John Shakespeare brought home his young bride to
Henley-street, and here, little dreaming of the glory which should
hereafter rest upon that lowly dwelling, they resided many years; and
here their eight children were born; the third, immortal William, was
born on April 23rd, 1564. For many years the career of John
Shakespeare seems to have been prosperous. He was high bailiff in
1569, and became chief alderman in 1571; but it will probably surprise
many of our readers, that the father of our greatest poet, the burgess
who attained the highest municipal offices, was unable even to sign his
name. It is true, this inability was shared by the majority of his
brother aldermen, for of the nineteen who sign the document given in
Charles Knight's 'Pictorial Shakespeare,' only six write their names,
while the rest make their marks. We must not, however, too hastily
conclude from this that these men were uneducated, strange as it may
appear; for we must bear in mind that grammar schools were plentiful,
and in these every boy was put through a course of Latin, which would
rather astonish the master of a 'classical academy' in the present day.
Lylly's capital Latin grammar was commanded on royal authority (Henry
VIII.) 'to be all and everywhere used,' and competent judges have
declared that the grammar schools of the sixteenth century supplied the
elements of a scholarship to which later times can lay no claim.
But they were 'grammar schools,' and in them—as will be seen in our
public schools—no provision for teaching writing was made, and thus John
Shakespeare, although uninitiated in even 'pot-hooks and hangers,' was
probably able to parse Yirgil. [1]
The inability of Shakespeare's father to write his name
becomes, however, of importance in reference to the suggestion so
authoritatively made by some, that he was a Roman Catholic. Now
the common mark, even to the present day, is a cross. This was the
customary sign then; can we, therefore, imagine that an adherent of the
ancient faith would reject the only opportunity legally offered of
making that sign which he would gladly use on all occasions? But
John Shakespeare makes a kind of figure which, perhaps, resembles a
great A more than anything else, and this is used in his subsequent
signatures. His wife, too, 'made her mark,' but she rejected the
cross, and the signature resembles a very badly formed M, probably the
initial of her baptismal name. Now, is it not more likely that
John Shakespeare was a firm adherent of the reformed faith? one of those
anxious to “do away with every remnant of Babylon,' and to whom,
therefore, crosses, as we learn from the records of those times, were
objects, under every form, of especial abhorrence? [2]
But whatever were John Shakespeare's motives, there were plenty of his
brother aldermen to follow his example, for of the twelve who are
'marksmen,' only three make the sign of the cross. This seems to
us as though the feeling of attachment to the reformed faith was strong
among the inhabitants of the good town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Nor
is this unlikely: Coventry and Banbury, the very nests of early
Puritanism, were within an easy distance, while the great Earl, second
in power only to the Queen, and who dwelt in royal state at Kenilworth,
had already proclaimed himself the protector of those who had
unavailingly entered their protest against 'an unfinished Reformation.'
The argument against John Shakespeare's adherence to the ancient faith
may be further strengthened by the remembrance of the large acquaintance
with the Scriptures our Shakespeare exhibits—not a mere textual
knowledge, but an extensive acquaintance, especially with the historical
portions. Were not these learnt in early boyhood from Cranmer's
Bible, that most cherished possession of the Protestant, who, not many
years before, had seen men led to the stake for merely using it?
And here in the pleasant though homely dwelling in
Henley-street might the poet of all time be seen, some three hundred
years ago in his nurse's arms; and then in his go-cart; and then able to
trot by his proud father's side—for Willie was his son and heir and for
more than two years his only child. Who that looked upon that
pretty boy, with his bright hazel eyes and noble expanse of
forehead, dreamt then of his world-wide fame!
And then, after an interval of some years,—for
precocious learning was always denounced by our wiser forefathers,— came
the days of the hornbook and primer; and then the school days, when,
under the rule of Thomas Hunt, he became a scholar in the grammar school
of his native town. Ere long, Hunt was succeeded by Thomas
Jenkins. The name is Welsh —was this Jenkins the prototype of
choleric, good cheerloving Sir Hugh Evans of the 'Merry Wives of
Windsor?' the schoolmaster who so rigidly examined Willie Page in his
accidence and his 'nominatve big, hag, hog—pray you mark.' Very
possibly, we think; and many another quaint and humourous character we
doubt not was photographed by that wondrous boy, and stored away in his
mind to come forth fresh and vivid many years after.
We have referred to the competent instruction afforded
in the grammar schools of the sixteenth century; the notion, therefore
of Shakespeare being uneducated is wholly unfounded. That Jonson
spoke slightingly of his learning may be easily accounted for. It
was an age of profound scholarship, and Ben Jonson took high place, and
was celebrated as much for his learning as his poetry. Thus, when
he remarks, and it is in no unkind spirit,—
'And tho' thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,'
he simply means that classical learning was not Shakespeare's
'specialty,' but that he had far higher gifts than a mere university
education could bestow. Be it remembered, that what in the present
day would pass for a fair amount of classical learning, would, in
Shakespeare's time, be small indeed.
How pleasant would it be if we could recover some
traces of the glad boyhood of our greatest poet. It was a stirring
age, full of great marvels, of unlooked-for events. 'Old things'
had not as yet passed away, although there was so much that was new.
The old traditions, the old romance that beautified so many a spot,
still lingered, and the wild and wonderful of past ages mingled not
inharmoniously with the wild and wonderful of a present time when the
old world was convulsed to its centre, and a new world had been found.
Many a solemn old-world story, many a quaint ballad, must the boy have
listened to,—many a tale of the red rose and the white, told by men
whose fathers fought at Bosworth hard by; and many a tale of adventure
in far-off lands told by the maimed wayfarer, as he waited the renewal
of his 'pass.' It has been conjectured that the 'princely
pleasures of Kenilworth' were displayed before the boy Shakespeare's
eager eyes. We doubt much if children so young would have been
allowed to accompany the worshipful aldermen of Stratford-upon-Avon; but
much talk was there, doubtless, of that gorgeous series of pageants; and
the boy was doubtless no unheedful listener. Dramatic exhibitions
must, however, have been familiar to young Shakespeare. There were
the Coventry plays,—for many generations the boast of that ancient city,
and considered of importance enough to be performed at Kenilworth before
the queen. And as early as 1569, when John Shakespeare was high
bailiff, 'the queen's players ' performed in the good town of
Stratford-upon-Avon, and received nine shillings from the corporation.
Much misapprehension has existed as to the status of
these early players, some writers having considered them as mere
vagabonds, wandering from town to town like the gypsies,— lawless men,
only to be kept in awe by the stocks and the whipping-post. And yet,
although many were objectionable in character, some were well respected,
and decent men. The case really is, that when at the Reformation
the acting of miracle plays by the trade companies ceased, the calling
of the actor became recognized; and many a scholar who boasted a
university education became one of a 'company' to perform those
interludes and moralities, which did such good service in promoting it.
As in those days it was necessary that every man should either belong to
some trade-guild, or, to some noble household, these players associated
themselves under the patronage of some powerful nobleman, and, like the
minstrels and trouvères of the Middle Ages, travelled from town to town.
Their mode of proceeding, is described in a curious old Puritan book,
entitled 'Mount Tabor.' 'It is the manner when players come to
town, they first attend the mayor to inform him what nobleman's servants
they are, and so get a license for their public playing; and if the
mayor like the actors, or would show respect to their lord and master,
he appoints them to play their first play before himself and the
aldermen; and that is called the mayor's play, where every one that will
comes in without money, the mayor giving the players a reward as he
thinks fit, to show respect to them.'
Strange, doubtless, may it seem to some readers, that
John Shakespeare, whom we have represented as ultra-Protestant, should
have encouraged stage players; but his very encouragement is another
proof that he was no adherent of the ancient faith, for the early stage
was distinguished by fierce hostility to it. It is, indeed,
curious to mark the extreme Protestantism of these earliest dramatic
specimens—the interludes. Earnest exhortations to the spectators
not to be 'cozened by lying prestes,' to search the Bible for
themselves, to frequent sermons, and 'godly converse,' abound in them;
while in many the ridicule cast upon saints' days, 'corner-caps,' but
especially the surplice, almost anticipates the times of Martin
Marprelate. The early drama fought a good fight in the cause of
religious freedom, and not until late in Elizabeth's reign was the stage
viewed as antagonistic to the pulpit. Mr. Charles Knight is wrong
in charging the Puritans with beginning the strife, for the earliest
denouncers of stage-plays are Northbrooke and Gosson, both of whom held
livings in the Established Church. More truly, he remarks, that it
is in these rude interludes that we must seek for the foundation of the
English drama, for it was not 'created,' even by Shakespeare and his
great contemporaries, but was 'formed by a course of steady progress,
not by rapid transition.' The authorities of the good town of
Stratford-upon-Avon seem to have welcomed the visits of these wondering
players, for there are many entries in the accounts of payments
made to them in the course of the following years; and doubtless, from
these rude essays did the great poet of all time receive his first
lessons.
But years pass on; the boy's school days are ended; and
many have been the conjectures as to how the interval between quitting
school and his early marriage was spent. That he was apprenticed
to a woolstapler, was employed in a lawyer's office, was assistant in a
school, are some of these; but stupid old Aubrey's assertion that he was
apprenticed to a butcher, and when he killed a calf would do it 'in high
style,' 'and make a speech,' is the most extravagant of all—indeed, it
is revolting. The poet who, by consent of all his contemporaries,
was styled the 'gentle Shakespeare, he, who sympathized so deeply with
the sequestered stag,' whose feelings of pity went forth even to the
'poor beetle which we tread upon,' killing a calf 'in a high style!'
We should not have referred to this contemptible story, were it not that
the testimony of Aubrey is still sometimes quoted in respect to
Shakespeare's early life. Surely it is time that such a witness
should be put out of court.
After carefullest inquiry, none of the many biographers
of Shakespeare can discover more respecting him until his marriage, than
that his father's circumstances had by the years 1578—9 become
embarrassed. We then find John Shakespeare, together with his
wife, mortgaging an estate for £40, and the following year parting with
his wife's interests in two tenements for the sum of £4 (in both these
instances we must take the sums at about four times their value, present
money). From this time the connection of John Shakespeare with the
corporation of Stratford appears to have been seldom. Some time
later we find him assessed toward providing 'pikemen, billmen, and
archers,' only half the sum charged to his brother aldermen; but even
that is eventually unpaid, while he is also exempted from the weekly
payment for the relief of the poor; and at length in 1586 he resigns his
alderman's gown. It seems, therefore, very likely that from some
cause—blameless we are sure, for John Shakespeare never lost the respect
of his townsmen, but dwelt among them to his latest day—our great poet's
father sank into comparative poverty, just when his gifted son was
preparing to enter the world. The family in 1580 consisted of five
children, William being the eldest, and the youngest an infant in arms.
Would that we could find some record, however slight,
of how these years preceding Shakespeare's early marriage were passed.
The deer-stealing tradition, although believed in by Mr. Collier, seems
to us apocryphal. Certainly the doggrel ballad ascribed to
Shakespeare was never written by him. But how natural was it that
the rushes who saw the noble boy wandering among the green solitudes of
that ancient forest, which still stretched along the western boundary of
Warwickshire, should believe that love of the most cherished sport of
our forefathers alone led him thither? Indeed, in love of forest
scenery Shakespeare is loyally true to the old English feeling.
'Merry it is in the fayre forest,' felt our Shakespeare, heartily as the
nameless minstrel of the olden tunes. And what exquisite glimpses
of forest scenery has he given us! How he seems, too, to have
lingered over the remembrance of the haunts of his blithe childhood,
when in one of his later plays he gives the very name, Arden, to the
forest where Jacques wandered, and Rosalind played her pretty
masquerading fancies! It is his marvellous dramatic power, his
magic skill as painter of men, that has thrown into the shade
Shakespeare's exquisite feeling for natural scenery.
Warwickshire was a pleasant county in Shakespeare's
day, when the remains of the great forest of Arden still boasted those
splendid oaks and beeches which had given shelter to so many a
generation of 'bold outlaws;' and the southern part displayed such
pastoral beauty, that Speed, rising almost into poetry, celebrates its
'meadowy pastures with their green mantles so embroidered with flowers,
that from Edgehill we behold another Elen.' And here the poet of
all time, wandering in the blithe springtide of his days along the shady
lanes, the grassy slopes, the leafy glades of pleasant, pastoral
Warwickshire, met his future wife, Anne Hathaway.
Little can we learn when or where they first met,
whether at some merry country feast or bridal, at some family gathering,
or loitering alone some green lanes. Indeed, until very lately,
all we could learn was, that Anne Hathaway dwelt at Shottery, and was
older than Shakespeare. The careful research of Mr. Halliwell has,
however, discovered a copy of her father's will and although this, of
course, throws little light on Shakespeare's courtship, it supplies an
interesting picture of a rural household in the days of Elizabeth.
This is dated September, 1581, and is the will of
'Richard Hathway, of Shottree, in the parish of Stratford-upon-Avon,
husbandman.' He leaves his sons, Thomas and John, £6 13s. 4d.
each, and to William £10. His eldest son, Bartholomew, is left
joint owner, with his mother Joan, of the farm; 'and my will is, that he
shall be a guide to my saide wife in her husbandrye, and also a comforte
to his brethrene and sisters to his power.' The daughters, three
in number, have each £6 13s. 4d.; their names are Agnes, Catherine, and
Margaret. Some difficulty has been felt as to the name 'Anne' not
being found, and it has been thought that she was perhaps, for some
cause or other, not under her father's roof at the time; but when we see
how very arbitrary was the spelling of those days, and the frequent
carelessness of the scribes who were employed to draw up such documents,
we think 'Agnes' might have been inserted by mistake for Anne. [3]
There is a homely kindliness in the subsequent
bequests. Hathaway's god-children are to have 'fourpence a piece,'
his two nieces 'a sheep a piece of them,' and his 'trusty friends and
neighbours, Stephen Burman and Foulke Sandells, my supervisors of this
my last will, to have for their paynes twelve pence a piece of them.'
This will was not proved until the July of the following year, and as in
the preamble, Hathaway states that he is 'sicke in bodye,' his death
must have been preceded by a long illness. It was probably during
this time that young Shakespeare wooed and won Anne. The date of
his 'marriage bond' is in the November following Hathaway's death, and
from the fact of Anne's eldest daughter being born in the following May,
some biographers of Shakespeare have very harshly suggested that Anne
had 'loved not wisely, but too well.' To readers, however,
acquainted with the usages of these times, no vindidiation of
Shakespeare or his bride will be needed, for they well know that during
the sixteenth century, simple 'troth-plight before witnesses' was viewed
as legal wedlock, or, if especial secrecy were desired, the aid of some
'Sir Oliver Martext,' who stood ready to marry any willing couple 'under
a bush like a beggar,' as Jacques irreverently says, could be easily
invoked. Rather suggestive is it to find Shakespeare so frequently
introducing stolen marriages into his plays. Did he, like
Lysander, flee away with his Hermia through the fairy-haunted wood, or
like young Fenton, rejected by the wealthy father, triumphantly bear off
'sweet mistress Anne' from all his rivals?
Meanwhile Hathaway dies; his will is proved; and by its
provisions, proof of his daughter's marriage would become necessary,
that she might receive her legacy. But those furtive marriages,
although recognized as binding, might have been viewed by the family, as
they frequently were, with distrust. What is more likely then,
that mutual friends should suggest a second and more public wedding?
It is to this that the 'marriage bond' doubtless refers, and that no
disgrace was believed to attach to Anne, the long interval between her
father's death in the summer, and her marriage not until late in
November proves; while that the friends of the Hathaways took part with
the young couple is evident from John Richardson, one of the witnesses,
and Foulke Sandells, one of the 'supervisors' of Hathaway's will, being
the two 'bondsmen,' who engage that 'William Shagspere and Anne Hathwey
be maried together with once asking the bannes.' Where this second
marriage took place has not been discovered.
The same obscurity rests upon Shakespeare's early
married life. Whether by the aid of the £6 13s. 4d. the young couple
entered upon their simple housekeeping—for small as the sum appears,
even taking it at its present value, between twenty and thirty pounds,
it might be sufficient to provide the homely 'plenishing' of those
days—or whether they became inmates of the pleasant cottage at Shottery,
we know not. Probably the latter, for an old settle is still
pointed to, which tradition reports Shakespeare used to occupy outside
the door, and where, 'over canopied by lush woodbines' he might sit,
seeing dimly perchance as yet, those bright and glowing visions, which
ere long should take tangible form, and endure to all ages.
Tradition reports that the young poet's bride was beautiful. It is
little wonder if so, that Shakespeare, ever the worshipper of all
loveliness, heeded not that disparity of years, which some of his
biographers have so bitterly censured. Probably he never thought
of it, for the English woman at twenty-six is in the full glow of her
beauty; and when did ever youth of eighteen look forward to the changes
twenty or thirty years might bring? But on this subject some of
Shakespeare's biographers wax strangely indignant. Mr. De Quincey,
as though just awakened from a grim opium dream, invests poor Anne with
a gratuitous beard, actually quoting Sir Hugh Evans' remark about the
old woman of Brentford's 'great peard,' to prove how bitterly
Shakespeare repented the folly of marrying a wife eight years older than
himself. Far more wisely does Charles Knight remark that, 'the
history of most imaginative minds, probably of most men of great
ability, would show, that in the first loves, and in the early marriages
of this class, the choice has generally fallen upon women older than
themselves.'
That so wayward a writer as De Quincey, or so
imperfectly informed a critic as Malone, should, without any direct
proof, peremptorily determine that Shakespeare's married life was
unhappy, is not surprising but that Mr. Collier should suspect it was
so, while he has not supplied us with any additional evidence, is very
strange. That soon after his marriage our great poet quitted
Stratford for London may be easily accounted for, by his father's
reduced circumstances, and the greater facilities for obtaining
employment there; but it certainly seems unaccountable, if dislike to
his wife drove Shakespeare to London, that he should have striven so
hard to obtain a competency to enable him to return home again,
actually, as Gerald Massey most truly says, 'to live with his rustic
wife, and buy for her the best house in Stratford.'
We think the evidence of Shakespeare's own works may be
appealed to on this subject. Where can we find such a galaxy of
moral loveliness, of sweet and noble womanhood, as he has painted?
What other dramatist ever marshalled so 'goodly a company' of pure and
high-minded women?—Hermione, Cordehia, lmogen, Portia, Isabella—we might
exhaust the reader's patience ere the list was completed: and yet we are
to believe that he, whose mind so dwelt upon these exquisite creations,
had been cheated into a marriage with a cunning woman much older than
himself and was fain to flee away 'from the humiliation of domestic
feuds' into disreputable company in London. Few men whose hearth
has been the seat of daily bitterness dwell with much complacency on
scenes of domestic love; and few poets whose bright vision of youth has
been rudely scattered by the unexpected tempest have cared to call up
that bright vision again. Not so our Shakespeare; he is the poet
of the domestic affections; and when we contemplate his many pictures of
wifely excellence, is it altogether extravagant to believe that he drew
from life?
From the Stratford register of baptisms, we learn that
Shakespeare's eldest child, Susanna, was born in May, 1583; and in
February, 1585, a son and daughter, twins, Hamnet and Judith. No
entry referring to Shakespeare or his family occurs after these for many
years. Thus, ere he became of age, our great poet was the father
of three children, and doubtless it was about this time that he
contemplated his journey to London. We cannot see any reason for
believing that he fled disgracefully away from his native town, either
from unwillingness to support his family, or because, as a very
apocryphal tradition reports, he fell under the displeasure of the
powerful knight of Charlcote for stealing his deer; for in after years
'Master Shakespeare' was always looked upon with respect by his
fellow-townsmen, termed 'oure goode frende,' and recognized quite as 'a
gentleman of worship when, in his prosperous middle age, he returned
again to the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. It was not as the poet
of whom all Eugland might well be proud—for of this the worthy burgesses
had probably no idea—but as the thrifty, successful, and upright man of
business, whose prosperity was a credit to them all, that they welcomed
him. Surely it was misfortune, not disgrace, that drove the young
husband and father so far away. A wife and three little children
looked to the young man of twenty for bread, and the greatest of
England's poets thought it no scorn to set forth and work hard to
maintain them. With his marvellous dramatic genius, what calling
could be so suitable as that of player and playwright; and, as we shall
ere long find, what other calling would be so remunerative? It was
probably in 1585 or 1586 that Shakespeare quitted Stratford. In
the latter year we find the players were there, and about that time 'the
Earl of Leicester's servants' visited the town. To them he
probably attached himself; for Burbage, in whose company we afterwards
find him, was the manager; and he, as well as some of the others, were
Warwickshire men.
There was much in the London of Elizabeth's days to
attract the eye of the young poet, as well as to awaken his deepest
interest; for the ancient city still boasted those beautiful structures
which were her pride in the middle ages—those noble halls of her civic
guilds, with carved roof and sunny oriel, rainbow-tinted with the proud
blazonry of her merchant princes; and all the fine old churches with
their pinnacled towers and spires of fairy fretwork, and the long lines
of picturesque houses, with their quaintly decorated gables. And
then the beautiful river, rolling its ample current, silver clear, as
his own unpolluted Avon, and still displaying those flocks of swans
which challenged the admiration of the Venetian ambassador a hundred
years before; and the stately gardens which now, from the Temple to
Whitehall, stretched to the water's edge. And much was there in
London habits and ways to interest the great painter of men in all ages.
Every rank, every class, had here its representative; every vice, every
virtue, every combination of character in those stirring times; and face
to face with these stood mighty interests claiming the national mind
with stern and commanding force. The times were too earnest for
aught of trifling, and men set about their mere ordinary business, their
very amusements 'with a will,' as they quaintly phrased it; and thus the
salient points of each character were brought out with a force and a
vividness, which we, in a day of stereotyped mannerism, can but faintly
apprehend. Strange blunders are still made about this reign of
Elizabeth, although, thanks to the reprints, and frequent publication of
contemporary documents, we are beginning more truly to estimate it.
But an age which for forty years maintained single-handed the great
battle of the reformed faith against all Catholic Europe, which defied
the mightiest power ever arrayed against us, and saw the proudest
armament dashed helplessly to ruin on our coasts—an age in which the
spirit of discovery went forth to the uttermost parts of the earth,
which bequeathed to us our one only school of music, and a wealth of
literature still unsurpassed, is an era well worthy our deepest study.
It was just at the most stirring period of this most
stirring age that Shakespeare found himself in London. There were
many sights then to be seen in these picturesque old streets. The
long procession, when amid the tears of all London—of the whole land—Sir
Philip Sidney was borne to his grave in old St. Paul's; and then the
blazing bonfires, and joyful psalm-singing and tables set in the streets
to which all comers were welcome, when the discovery of Babington's plot
filled all hearts with gladness; and then the sterner joy, when London
was awakened from midnight slumber, and every bell of her many churches
rung out, at the news that the 'false Duessa'— enemy far more dangerous
to England than to the queen,— was at length headless. And then
followed 'the Armada year,' as it was long after called; and can we
doubt that in all the eager and anxious excitement of the spring and
summer, Shakespeare participated—he, whose inmost heart was so
thoroughly English; he, who in his 'King John' has enshrined so many
bursts of the noblest patriotism? Like the rest of his plays, it
is very uncertain when 'King John' was written; it has always ranked
among his earliest compositions; and we think no one can read its
magnificent outbursts of proud national feeling without believing that
it was when this 'isle set in the silver sea' was menaced by the mighty
Armada, the as yet unknown dramatist summoned his fellow-countrymen to
the rescue in these noble lines —
|
"England hath never yet, and never shall
Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to herself do prove but true." |
What more
fitting motto could we take than these lines for the story of the
defeated Armada?
We have remarked that Shakespeare most probably joined
Burbage's company—a band of players, who, strollers during part of the
year, occupied, during the greater part, the playhouse at Blackfriars—a
substantial building, erected by Burbage in 1574, under the express
sanction of the Earl of Leicester. This Blackfriars Theatre was,
for some years, a constant source of annoyance to the city authorities,
and hence writers have hastily concluded that the calling of the actor
was in Elizabeth's days, as it certainly was at the Restoration,
disreputable. This view, like many others, has arisen simply from
ignorance of our ancient municipal arrangements. As we have before
remarked, each company of players was under the protection of some
nobleman; and under his sanction they claimed to set up their stage, and
enact 'playes and enterludes.' On their journeys into the country,
they seem to have treated the 'worshipful mayors' and other civic
authorities with some show of respect; although we fear this was rather
in hopes of the handsome largesse they expected to receive than from any
abstract feeling of honour due to them; but in London the players seem
to have considered themselves in the right of their protectors as
entitled to Court privileges. London was no common city; she
claimed to be and the claim was allowed, an imperium in imperio.
The king's warrant, although verified by the huge hanging seal, was mere
waste parchment within Temple Bar, for 'lyke and after the manner of
olde Troye' — and the crown lawyers, even of the Tudor dynasty, bowed to
the apocryphal authority — the regal city had the right to maintain
unlimited jurisdiction over all within her walls and liberties.
Such were the century chartered rights of old London. Should
certain tradesmen then, be confined to certain localities, should the
handicraftsman ply his calling only under such restrictions as the
corporation might impose, and should men belonging to none of the City
companies, not even free of the City, summon crowds together, merely
because they claimed the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, or even of
the Lord Chamberlain? Hence arose a series of annoying squables;
and in proud defiance of the Court, the City imposed every possible
restriction on the players; while the players, from time to time,
'showed up' these aldermen who had most harassed them in their plays,
and sometimes in scoffing ballads. A comparison of his plays with
those of contemporary playwriters will prove how far above all these
little spites was our greatest dramatist.
Similar misapprehension of the usages of these times
has led to the opinion that the status of the actor was still low and
disreputable. Now, in Shakespeare's days, acting had only just
been recognized as a separate profession. Men were living who
could well recollect the plays performed by the trades' guilds, and
dramatic performances in which they themselves had taken part. It
was the eager thirst of a rapidly advancing age for information that
seems to have led to the establishment of the earliest English theatres.
Great was the popular thirst for historical knowledge, and very
interesting is it to mark how largely the early drama supplied that
want. A simple thing was a dramatic performance in the reign of
Elizabeth— little beyond bare recitation, but appealing far more to the
mind and heart of an imaginative age than the melodramatic shows and
elaborate machinery of modern times. And never did our forefathers
seem tired of witnessing these plays. When a new historical drama
appeared, it was sometimes performed six and eight times in the course
of the day — especially if on a subject connected with English, or with
almost contemporaneous history. Thus the blood of the horrible
slaughter at Paris in 1572 had scarcely dried, ere the massacre of Paris
appeared in a dramatic form on the stage; and scarcely had the welcome
news of the death of hated Guise arrived, ere that fierce, reckless
evildoer, conspicuous with his well-known crimson plume, appeared before
the well-pleased audience, and received the death-bullet amid their
excited shouts. Thus the theatre was viewed, and not unwisely
then, as a great school for the people.
From the character of these plays, it is evident that
low, uneducated men, could not supply them; and thus we find the
majority of writers, most of whom were also actors, were scholars —
university-men, who wrote M.A. after their names, and some of whom had
contemplated taking orders. Many of these, as we find from the
Shakespeare Society's, and Alleyn's papers, were needy and struggling
indeed, but, with very few exceptions, they seem to have been
respectable, family men. The correspondence of Edward Alleyne (the
founder of Dulwich College), and his good wife, Joan, affords, indeed,
as pleasant specimens of domestic affection and homely kindliness as we
can well find; and that the profligacy of Marlowe, and Green's cruel
desertion of his wife and child, should have been so severely
reprehended by their brother dramatists, is proof that as a class, they
were honorable men. We may also here incidentally remark, that the
utter absence of women from the stage was at that early period of the
acted drama most beneficial in a moral point of view.
We have remarked that probably about the year 1585
Shakespeare came to London. Would that we could obtain a glimpse,
however faint, of how his first years were passed. That he became
actor, and was soon after employed in altering or adapting plays for the
stage, and, ere long, in writing new ones, we learn on good authority.
That his gains were small, and perhaps very precarious, is likely
enough; and that during this period, therefore, many of his sonnets were
written, seems to us most probable. From the many curious traits
of society which the 'Shakespeare Society's' publications supply to us,
we learn that nothing was more common than for the poorly-paid
dramatists to add to their slender income by writing, what prosing
Antony à Wood calls 'trite things,' by which he designates short pieces
of poetry, which were then in very general request for almost every
occurrence of domestic life. Most emphatically was the age of
Elizabeth a poetical age. The influence of verse was potent
everywhere, from the first noble of the land, who paid down so willingly
unthought-of gold pieces, that the praises of Oriana 'might be sung in
choicest verse, to 'Tom Butcher,' who actually wept as the rude ballad
of 'Troy Town' was told him. And thus each birthday brought its
tribute of verse; each present was duly accompanied by 'choice poetry,'
written in the' fine Italian hand,' and the farewell to the friend, and
the welcome that greeted his return were alike in rhyme. Now, for
these purposes, the sonnet was most frequently used; and we think we
could point to a score or two of Shakespeare's, which seem to us
obviously intended to accompany presents, or to express friendly or
amatory feeling. Indeed, for every kind of votive offering, the
sonnet seems to have almost superseded every other kind of poem.
Dedications to patrons, prologues to plays, letters, even dramatic
speeches, are frequently regular sonnets. In Kyd's' Cornelia'
(1580-2), Cicero replies to the heroine in a really fine sonnet, and the
reader may be reminded that one in the Shakespeare series made its
previous appearance in one of his earliest plays, 'Love's Labour Lost.'
Now, what is more likely than that Shakespeare, by writing such little
pieces, blamelessly added to an income, as yet slender indeed?
On his first arrival, Shakespeare was doubtless alone
and amidst all the stir and excitement of London scenes, would not his
thoughts often dwell upon the pleasant cottage at Shottery, and Anne,
with the twins on her knee, and little Susanna nestling close beside
her? And then, might not that loveliest of his sonnets have been
poured forth in unpremeditated sweetness?
|
'When in disgrace with Fortune, and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising
Haply I think on thee, — and then my state.
Like the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.' [4] |
We allow that our view of this beautiful sonnet is conjectural, but as
thoroughly conjectural is the theory that Shakespeare fell into the
toils of a bold bad woman, and proclaimed his disgrace in a series of
sonnets. Surely the feelings expressed in this are far more in
character with what we really know of the dramatist who, though so
young, achieved, in three or four short years, a high standing among his
brethren, and a share in the Blackfriars Theatre, and then went on in
prosperity and honour, even to his death, and far more so than is the
other disgraceful view.
It is not until November, 1589, that we again meet with
a direct notice of Shakespeare, but then we find charges were made
against the London companies of 'meddling on the stage with matters of
state and religion,' and in a document signed by sixteen shareholders
'in the Blackfryers play-house,' among whom Shakespeare is the twelfth,
they declare they 'have never given cause of displeasure in that they
have brought into their playes maters of state or religion unfitt to he
handled by them, or to be presented before lewd spectators.' As
the company continued playing, the charges were, doubtless, unsupported.
This document in respect to Shakespeare's religion, is however very
suggestive; for at this time the persecution so bitterly carried on by
Whitgift against the stricter separatists was commencing. There
was, therefore, probably much plain speaking at the Blackfriars' house;
for the actors, true to their traditional low-church views, were always,
during the reign of Elizabeth, ready to attack High Church pretentions,
sure of meeting a hearty response from the well-pleased audience.
We think that Shakespeare, as soon as comfortably
settled in London, brought his wife and family thither. We have no
direct proof that he did so, it is true; but, looking at domestic life
in the reign of Elizabeth, we know it would it have been impossible for
him to have maintained a respectable standing, unless he had dwelt as a
'householder,' surrounded by his family. In the present day, we
have little notion of the prestige attached in these days to that
homely name. In the simple domestic arrangements of our
forefathers, lodgings, boarding-houses, chambers (in the modern sense we
mean), were wholly unknown, and to keep house himself, or to sit at his
father's table among the younger children, or dwell as 'hired servant'
with the master to whom he had served his apprenticeship, were the only
alternatives offered to the young man in these times. Society
recognized only 'the family;' and for every one dwelling under the same
roof the 'householder' was responsible; and strict was the
superintendence exercised by municipal and parochial authorities over
him, and proportionably vigilant was his care expected to be.
These remarks are not unnecessary; for the fact that we find most of our
early dramatists householders, proves that they were certainly a far
different class from the strolling vagabonds with whom they have often
been compared.
The first notices we obtain of Shakespeare as a
dramatist are but slight. Spenser's allusion, in his 'Tears of the
Muses' to 'Our pleasant Willie,' has been supposed to refer to him; and
also an allusion of Gabriel Harvey's somewhat later; but the first
undoubted reference to him, and by a brother dramatist, is certainly
that abusive passage in Green's 'Groat's Worth of Wit' bought with a
Million of Repentance.' Green, the writer of some really fine
plays, died, after a sad course of profligacy, in 1592, and in the
above-named tract he bequeaths a warning to his reckless companions to
avoid his vices, and follow more diligently their literary calling.
Under the latter head, the poor dying man, probably chafing under some
pecuniary disappoinment, warns his brethren to beware of 'an upstart
crow, beautified in our feathers, that with his “Tyger's” heart wrapped
in a player's hide, supposes he is as 'well, able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in
his own conceit, the only Shake scene in a country.' This
allusion was plain enough, and Shakespeare very naturally complained; so
a few weeks after, Henry Chettle, by whom the posthumous tract had been
published, very courteously apologized in a tract entitled 'Kinde
Heart's Dream,' declaring that he is 'as sorry as if the original fault
had been mine; because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil, than
he, excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of
worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his
honesty, and his facetions grace in writing that approves his art.'
An important testimony this, both to the superior gifts of Shakespeare,
and to his unblemished moral character.
It is probable that many of Shakespeare's earlier plays
were written between 1585 and 1593. Some of the historical — those
of 'Henry VI.,' the three parts, probably 'Henry lV.,' and we cannot but
add 'King John.' 'Love's Labour Lost,' also, and the 'Two
Gentlemen of Verona,' belong to this period, to which Mr. Charles Knight
would also refer the first sketch of 'Hamlet' and that of 'Romeo and
Juliet.' During 1592 and 1593, England was severely visited by the
plague, and the theatres were shut. Probably it was this temporary
suspension of his ordinary calling that induced Shakespeare to turn his
attention to what would then be considered as a higher order of
literature — the narrative poem; and thus we find he was engaged upon
his 'Venus and Adonis,' which, early in 1593, was published with the
well-known dedication to Lord Southampton. This poem we find was
received with great favour both by his patron and the public, and the
following year saw the publication of his second poem, 'Lucrece.'
That Southampton, for either of these poems, should have bestowed on
Shakespeare, as Rowe tells us, the extravagant sum of £1,000, when money
was nearly fourfold its present value, is not to be believed; but that
the well-pleased young earl paid him 'right royally' we can willingly
allow; and this acquires additional corroboration from the fact that
Shakespeare, early in 1594, joined with Burbage in the proprietorship of
the newly-built 'Globe on the Bank-side.'
We have no authentic information as to the introduction
of Shakespeare to his liberal patron. It was probably through Sir
Thomas Heneage, who had married Southampton's mother, and who, as
Treasurer of the Chamber, would be brought into frequent intercourse
with the Lord Chamberlain's players. We think it very probable
that the sonnets which Shakespeare addressed to Southampton might be
written at the suggestion of the father-in-law, apprehensive of the
dangers which must surround a young, wealthy, and impulsive noble, just
entering upon court-life, and naturally most anxious to see him suitably
married. With Mr. Gerald Massey, we think that they were written
after the 'Venus and Adonis.'
Meanwhile John Shakespeare, now advancing in years,
seems still to have been under difficulties at Stratford. There
appears no reason to doubt that his gifted son aided him to the best of
his power, for we know that in his rising fortunes the father amply
participated. But these were the early days of his career, so the
father still struggled on with poverty. One document, however,
which at first sight seems to prove this, will bear, we think, a far
more important signification. This is a return, dated September,
1592, containing the names of 'all such recusants as have been
heretofore presented for not coming monthly to church, and yet are
thought to forbear the church, for debt or fear of process, or for some
other worse faults, &c.' The names of six women and nine men are
given, including that of 'John Shakespeare,' and opposite is written,
'It is said these last nine come not to church for fear of process for
debt.' This might be likely enough; but another document shows
that John Shakespeare only the month before had been engaged in the good
town of Stratford in making inventories. Religions opinions were,
therefore, doubtless the cause, and their fellow-townsmen, among whom
these nine suspected 'recusants' dwelt, kindly interposing between them
and the harsh penalty of the law, preferred the plea 'fear of process
for debt.' Doubtless John Shakespeare was a Catholic, argues
Malone, and even Mr. Collier. Now, if we look at the date of this
return, we shall find that it is made in the autumn of the very year,
1592, in which the act passed, 'For the punishment of persons
obstinately refusing to come to church, and persuading others to impugn
the Queen's authority in ecclesiastical causes;' an act expressly
directed against Puritanism, and which, as the reader may perhaps
remember, caused so much unwelcome free speaking in the House of
Commons, and led to the imprisonment of poor Mr. Attorney Morrice.
This act was brought in under the express direction of Whitgift, furious
at the spread of Puritan views, and especially at the wide circulation
of the 'Martin Mar Prelate' tracts. As there were now numerous
separatists in the Midland counties, and as several of these tracts had
been printed at Coventry, we learn from many contemporary sources, that
the inquiry after those, who, as the act farther recites, were present
at any unlawful assembly, or conventicle, or meeting, under colour of
any exercise of religion,' was very severe. We have little doubt
that the term 'recusant' misled Malone and Mr. Collier, but from the
time of the rise of Puritanism, especially of the stricter separatists,
we shall find 'recusant' used to signify these latter, and Papists
designated as 'Popish recusants.' Stratford-upon-Avon, indeed, was
most favourably situated in regard to Puritanism. Warwick, where
the great Puritan leader Cartwright dwelt; Banbury, already famous for
its preachers and psalm-singing weavers; Coventry, where Waldegrave
almost openly printed some of the most violent Mar Prelate tracts, were
all within a pleasant walk of some ten or twelve miles; while the lord
of Warwick Castle, Fulke Greville, the early friend of Sidney, was
looked up to as the great protector of the persecuted sect.
Doubtless John Shakespeare was a 'recusant,' but not a 'Popish
recusant.'
These proceedings took place about the close of the
year 1592. John Shakespeare's gifted son was from thenceforward
steadily advancing, and as we find no further notice of the father's
pecuniary difficulties, we have no doubt that the son made ample
provision for the old man. There seems every reason to believe
that Shakespeare's wife and children were still resident with him in
London, for, soon after, he is represented as a householder in
Bishopsgate, near St. Helen's, and subsequently at Bankside; for, as we
have before pointed out, none but a 'family man' could become a
householder. With his rising fortunes, Shakespeare evidently
desired, like Sir Walter Scott, to become the founder of a family; and
this is doubtless why only four years after his appearance as a needy
man, we find John Shakespeare strangely applying to the Heralds' College
for a grant of arms! That this was on account of his son is
evident for the son, as an actor, could not write himself
'gentleman;'—but John Shakespeare had been high bailiff of his native
town. The importance of this fact is, however, in the additional
proof it affords that Shakespeare's father could never have been
suspected of 'Papistry: With Puritanism the Heralds' College had nothing
to do; but the Popish faith was the proscribed religion, and bold must
that recusant have been to challenge that rigid inquiry into his family
and circumstances, which the grant of armorial bearings would involve.
In the course of the following year these arms were
granted, the 'bend sable charged with a spear,' on its golden field.
But it was with a crushed heart that Shakespeare would contemplate them;
for the great sorrow of his life had then fallen upon him. In
August, 1596, his only boy, Hamnet, died, at the age of almost twelve
years. We have no particulars, save the record in the Stratford
register; (for he was probably taken down to his native place to die;)
nor has Shakespeare left any memorial of this sad loss. And yet we
are to believe that, not content with forming a disgraceful attachment
to a married woman, he must needs parade it before his friends in a
series of sonnets! Ben Jonson, far more rugged than 'gentle
Shakespeare,' wrote a tender epitaph on his infant daughter Mary, and
mourned in sweet and saddest verse the death of his darling boy, when
seven years old; but a heavier bereavement visited Shakespeare, and yet
he who, we are told, unveiled his inmost heart in his sonnets, left that
blameless sorrow unsung.
But with the loss of that child, whom he had,
doubtless, looked upon so proudly as his heir, Shakespeare did not
waywardly give up all interest in the future. The following year,
we find him purchasing one of the best houses in Stratford, and
forthwith causing it to be put in complete repair, for the future
residence of his family. He had still two daughters, Susanna, now
fourteen, and Judith, the twin sister of his lost Hamnet. And then
there was the wife. Was she the well-pleased sharer of his
increasing wealth and honours; or the burden of which he would willingly
be rid, and whose very existence he recognized in his 'last will and
testament' merely by the interpolated bequest of 'my second best bed,
with the furniture'? Now, when we bear in mind that the only
records we have of Anne Hathaway are her marriage bond, the register of
the births of her children, and then the notice in the will, followed
seven years after by the entry of her death, we shall really find that,
excepting the strange bequest, there is nothing at all to disprove the
belief that Shakespeare and his wife may have lived most happily
together.
In the epitaph, evidently placed by her elder daughter
on her tomb, and probably written by the husband, Dr. Hall, she is
spoken of, not in terms of inflated eulogy, not in any of the 'stock
phrases' of the Latin epitaph, but as the gentle, pious, affectionate
mother, whom the daughter, although a middle-aged woman, most lovingly
mourns over. [5] 'My mother, thou gavest me life and
milk from thy bosom. Woe to me! for such gifts I can only offer a
stone.' But still she rejoices in the hope that the stone at our Lord's
coming will be rolled away, then 'let the tomb remain closed, for my
mother seeks the skies.' Now, can we believe that a daughter with
such feelings would coolly take possession of house and furniture,
'plate, jewels, and household stuffe whatsoever,' while the real
mistress of the house, her own mother, was thrust into some neglected
corner with her 'second best bed'? It is important to bear in mind
here, that views of the rights of 'mistress of the family,' were very
high in Shakespeare's day, and that one of the most fruitful sources of
conjugal bickering was interference with the wife in her household
management. To 'rule the household,' to have sole possession of
'the keys,' was conceded as her right, even by the bitterest opponents
of feminine sway; to have ignored his wife, therefore, during his
lifetime, and to have 'cut her off in his will with an old bed,' would
have aroused the fury of every old woman in Stratford, and covered the
name of Shakespeare with disgrace.
It has often appeared strange to us, that what seems a
very obvious reason for Shakespeare's conduct has never occurred to his
biographers. It is, that Anne, soon after her marriage, became an
invalid, and, probably ere his death, bedridden. In those days of
imperfect sanitary arrangements, frequent were the instances of even
young people stricken down by palsy, or disabled by chronic rheumatism;
and when we are told that the house Shakespeare occupied about this time
was at Bankside, we cannot wonder if severe illness visited his family.
What, then, more likely than that Shakespeare hastened his departure
from London, hastened the extensive repairs at New Place, that in her
native air, and surrounded by her relatives and friends, his wife might
find her best chance of recovery? Surely this view suits better
with the character of 'gentle Shakespeare,' as given by every
contemporary. But Anne probably continued a helpless invalid; and
then, how natural that the elder daughter should take the government of
the household—still, after her marriage, residing, under her father's
roof, and becoming executrix to his will, just as her mother would had
she not been disabled. And as to specific bequests. What
heeded the invalid—perhaps bed-ridden— 'jewels and plate'? The
'second best bed' was more important; and we cannot but think that deep
affection dictated that interpolation which has hitherto seemed
unfeeling. Beds, during the middle ages, and throughout this
century, were the most important articles of household furniture, for
they were richly carved, and most expensively fitted. They were
always specially bequeathed, and in the minute description of the
'furniture,' which always included 'head-cloth and tester, four
curtains, and counterpane,' mostly of silk or damask, together with the
ample bedding and 'holland sheets,' all most expensive, we perceive how
valuable such bequests were. The 'best bed'—which, indeed, like
most best things, was rather for show than use—was, as Mr. Charles
Knight has pointed out, mostly an 'heirloom,' and as such not
bequeathable; but the second best was that of the master and mistress.
It was, therefore, Anne's own accustomed bed; and with a feeling akin to
that of his daughter, who laments that for all her mother's love, she
can give her only a tomb, might not Shakespeare insert that clause in
his will 'which bequeaths to the wife the only gift of any use in her
helpless state, her bed? The view, we have here taken we allow is
conjectural, but if the chance key be found to fit each ward, it would
be unwise to reject it.
Shakespeare's connection with his native town seems now
to become closer. Abram Sturley, a Stratford alderman, towards the
close of the year 1597, requests his brother-in-law, then in London, to
inquire' whether our countryman, Mr. Shakespeare, is willing to invest
money in farming the tithes of Stratford;' he also again writes that he
thinks Shakespeare would be very likely to 'accommodate them with a
loan.' The brother-in-law, Richard Quiney, meanwhile writes, 'to
my loving goode frende and countryman, Mr. Win. Shackespere,' earnestly
requesting your helpe with £30.' This letter, as well as
Sturley's, is very suggestive, inasmuch as from the phraseology used in
both, the writers are evidently Puritans. Sturley addresses Quiney,
'Most loving and beloved in the Lord,' while Quiney closes his letter to
the actor and playhouse proprietor with 'the Lord be with you, and with
us all, Amen.' Such phraseology would never have been addressed to
Ben Jonson, would scarcely have been addressed to Shakespeare, had the
writer thought him averse to Puritan phraseology, or unaccustomed to its
use; for when men go borrowing they are, of course, most anxious not to
give offence. It is most probable that Quiney obtained his
request, for we subsequently find Shakespeare on friendly terms with
him, and eighteen years after Quiney's son marries Shakespeare's younger
daughter.
In the following year, 1598, the first printed
recognition of Shakespeare's varied skill in poetry appears, and is
important as proving the high rank he then held among writers.
This is in Meeres' 'Palladis Tamia: Wits' Treasury,' which consists of a
very curious collection of extracts, on all subjects, from various
authors. Thrown into the work, without much connection with it, is
'a comparative discourse,' offering criticisms upon different
contemporary writers; and in this, as Mr. Masson by careful search
found, Shakespeare is noticed five times under different heads.
First, generally, and then specially, as among the best English lyric
poets, the best English tragic dramatists, the best English comic
dramatists, and the best English elegiac poets. The 'Discourse,'
while important as giving us the names of Shakespeare's known plays —
for none had as yet been published with his name — is most valuable, as
supplying us with the first hint respecting his sonnets. 'As the
soul of Euphorbus,' says he, 'was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the
sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued
Shakespeare: witness his “Venus and Adonis,” his “Lucrece,” his sugared
sonnets among his private friends.' We think the term 'private
friends' here refers to the sonnets being circulated among his friends
in manuscript, rather than their being addressed to private friends.
Unfortunately Meeres supplies no hint whereby we might learn how many,
and which of these sonnets were then in circulation. Thus much is
certain, that Shakespeare was already known and admired for his sonnets,
and that neither he nor his friends felt there was aught in them that
needed palliation or excuse. It is curious, as the same writer
remarks, that immediately after Meeres' very laudatory mention of him,
Shakespeare's name first appears on the title-page of one of his plays,
'Love's Labour Lost,' and from henceforth, those which had been
published anonymously were printed with his name.
Meanwhile repairs went on at New Place, although
Shakespeare does not seem to have wholly resided there till some time
later. Some of the entries which refer to him are very homely.
Thus, a load of stone is purchased of him, for which 10d. is paid; an
inquiry is made as to the quantity of 'corn and malte' possessed by the
chief inhabitants, and Shakespeare is returned as having ten quarters.
He also seems to have still done a little in money-lending. Truly,
our great dramatist was neither idle nor unthrifty. His singular
business habits have been frequently remarked, and much surprise has
been expressed by some writers how the most powerful of dramatists, the
sweetest of poets, should have 'condescended!' to things of every-day
life. Now the case really is, that we may find many parallels—some
in very recent times. The writer of this article was told, on the
best possible authority, that the poet who sang the 'little lowly
celadine,' and so felt 'the witchery of the clear blue sky,' was as
thorough a man of business as any one in London. The ease with
which he would run over a long account, the quickness with which he
would detect a mistake, would have done honour to the sharpest
bookseller 'in the Row.'
Shakespeare was now high, both in literary fame and in
'worship,' among his townsmen. In 1599 and 1600 many of his plays
were published—all with his name—and also that well-known collection of
small poems, the 'Passionate Pilgrim;' while in 1602, in a deed of
purchase of land, as he is styled 'William Shakespeare, of
Stratford-upon-Avon,' we perceive that, although not wholly retired from
the stage, he now looked upon New Place as his home. John
Shakespeare ended his long life in 1601, apparently under his son's
roof, and the mother in 1605. It was in the comparative retirement
of Stratford that Shakespeare's latest, and some of his finest tragedies
were produced. 'Lear,' ' Othello,' probably 'Macbeth' — although
this was not published in his lifetime—and, among others, those
delighful plays, 'As you Like It,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'The Tempest.'
In 1607, we find his eldest daughter married to 'John Hall, gentleman,
physician.' In that age of early marriages, it seems strange that
the daughter of a really wealthy man should not have married until she
had reached the age of twenty-four. Now the helpless state of her
mother would supply a reason; for the affectionate daughter would he
unwilling to leave her. And thus we find that the Halls resided at
New Place, and Shakespeare takes Dr. Hall with him on his visits to
London, as though he had been his own son. Every glimpse we obtain
of Shakespeare after his return to Stratford exhibits him as a worthy
family man.
In the year 1609, a neat little quarto was published by
Thomas Thorpe, simply entitled, 'Shakespeare's Sonnets.' As the
reader knows, they were published without Shakespeare's sanction; and
how they came before the world, and who 'the only begetter of these
ensuing sonnets, Mr. W. H.' really was, have been fruitful sources of
controversy. Mr. Gerald Massey considers William Herbert to have
been the 'Mr. W. H.,' but he was never 'Mr. W. H.'; he was first Lord
Herbert, and then Earl of Pembroke; nor were noblemen in those days
willing to masejuerade as 'plain Misters.' Indeed, the notion that
Southampton, Pembroke, Lady Rich, and Lady Southampton could be called,
under any circumstances, Shakespeare's 'private friends,' argues an
utter ignorance of society in his days. The 'private friends' seem
to us to mean those friends among whom copies had circulated, and from
whom 'Mr. W. H.'—whoever he might be—had obtained them. The book
was published, and all these sonnets, in which Mr. Armitage Brown, more
than two hundred years after, discovered so disgraceful a history, were
exhibited to the world. But we do not find Shakespeare taking any
notice; surely the great dramatist thought that in his sonnets, as in
his plays, he might represent scenes and characters with which he had no
sympathy. Singularly enough, two years before 'Lear' had been
published, and a few months previous to the sonnets, a second edition,
which bore the unusual title, 'Mr. William Shakespeare: His true
Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear.' It was,
therefore, evidently very popular. Now, the reader will recollect
that in this play the horrible scene of blinding the Earl of Glo'ster
occurs. Glo'ster had been guilty of the same sin, which, we are
told on the mere testimony of the sonnets, Shakespeare committed.
'The Gods are just,' says Edgar, 'and of our pleasant vices
'Make instruments to scourge us.'
But had Shakespeare been scourged? Can we believe that he would
have dared to point thus to the vengeance of Heaven, had he been the
breaker of his marriage vow, even as Glo'ster?
We really can see no other solution to this 'much vexed
question' than what has been called 'the dramatic view:' that the
sonnets are a collection of poems, some addressed to Lord Southampton,
some struck off in the mere exercise of fancy,— perhaps intended for
insertion in his plays,—many 'written to order,' but not the less
beautiful on that account; and Meeres' phrase, ' sugared sonnets,' is
suitable enough. The exquisite sweetness, both of thought and
diction, abundantly warrants this phrase, while those that hint at a
darker story, if viewed also as mere exercises of skill—perhaps they are
fragments of an unfinished tragic poem—most forcibly bring out to our
view that wide and marvellous range of imagination which, while it has
charmed us with an Imogen, a Perdita, a 'little dainty Ariel,' has
appalled us with a Lady Macbeth and an Ingo.
Shakespeare's last days seem to have been spent in the
bosom of a happy family. His regard to his eldest daughter and her
husband is forcibly shown in his will. His younger daughter
Judith, of whom there are few records, did not marry until two months
before her father's death; and Thomas Quiney, son to the Puritan Richard
Quiney before mentioned, became her husband. There seems great
reason to believe that both Shakespeare's daughters were Puritans, and
the singular entry in the accounts of the chamberlain of Stratford in
1614, 'Item, for one quart of sack, and one quart of clarett winne,
given to a preacher at the Newe Place XXd,' proves that Puritan
ministers were accustomed to visit Shakespeare's family—an incidental
corroboration this of our belief that his wife was a helpless invalid.
In Puritan memoirs we find frequent instances of ministers, especially
while 'silenced,' going on pastoral visits among those of their friends
who, from age or sickness, were unable to avail themselves of their
public ministrations. The present of the wine shows that the
corporation were favourable to Puritanism, but we think it was purchased
rather on the occasion of a sermon being preached before the high
bailiff and aldermen, when wine and cakes were always provided, than as
a gift. Surely the owner of New Place would himself supply his
guest with wine.
We have little information respecting the last years of
Shakespeare's life, save that they were prosperous and honoured.
Although no longer -personally connected with the stage, he still
continued to write for it; and his fine plays on Roman history, and his
'Timon of Athens,' belong to this his latest period. It is a great
error to suppose that the early Puritans denounced Shakespeare. Milton,
among his earliest poems, has inscribed a most laudatory one to his
memory; and we have found quotations from his works in many religious
treatises. It was not until some twenty or thirty years after, and
then, probably, irritated by Ben Jonson's rabid abuse, the Puritans
denounced 'stage plays,' and among them those of a poet who never made a
mock at religion, never wrote a syllable against them. It were
greatly to be wished that some additional information respecting our
chief poet might be found; meanwhile, rejoiced should we be if these
remarks might do some service in rescuing his memory from the unmerited
charges so recklessly cast upon it, and aid in proving that in his
domestic relations, the 'gentle Shakespeare,' like the knight of
chivalrous romance, was not only above reproach, but beyond suspicion. |
