"Thenot and Chloris, red-lipped Driope, Shepherds, nymphs, swains, all that delight in field, Up sluggards, learn, the lark doth mounted sing The mavis, blackbird, and the little wren, Up, shepherds, up, your sloth breeds all your shames; The gray-eyed morning with a blustering cheek, Oh, that's well done! I see your cause of stay Honour this time, sweetest of all sweet springs, 333 CHAPTER VII. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. I. HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. STEEVENS, Hallam, and Dyce are unreasonably sceptical and depressing in their summary of "all that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shakespeare." It is our own fault if we are disappointed and perplexed by what antiquarians have discovered, and if we refuse to interpret facts, because they do not illustrate Shakespeare's character in the precise way that we desire. A good deal more is known concerning Shakespeare than that "he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon-married and had children there-went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays-returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." The industry of antiquarians has brought to light many significant facts concerning the poet's family; concerning the public institutions and customs at Stratford during his boyhood; and concerning the life of a player in London when Shakespeare belonged to the profession. To the same industry we are indebted for some suggestive particulars more directly personal: we know some facts about his marriage, his wife, and his children; we have memorials of the effect that his poems and plays produced upon his contemporaries; we know whether he returned to Stratford poor or rich, from necessity or from choice, a broken-down Bohemian or a prosperous and respected townsman; and we know that after his death and burial, a bust was erected to his memory in the church of his native town, and that this bust still exists to show what sort of man he was in outward appearance. Shakespeare died on the 23d of April 1616, and the tradition is that he died on his birthday. The register of his baptism is consistent with this: he was baptised on the 26th of April 1564. But the exact day of Shakespeare's birth is not worth discussing: much more important is it to know what were the surroundings of his childhood, what was his father's business, and the probable condition of his father's household. When the future "myriad-minded" dramatist came into the world, his father's household seems to have been radiant with the good-humour of prosperous industry and enterprise. The son of a substantial farmer at Snitterfield, three or four miles from Stratford, John Shakespeare had some thirteen years before opened a shop in Henley Street, Stratford. What he sold in this shop has been much disputed: he certainly sold gloves, and he probably sold also meat, wool, and barley. It is not uncommon now for farmers' sons in the neighbourhood of towns to set up as corn-merchants or butchers; and there is nothing improbable in supposing that in those days, when there was less trade and less division of labour, John Shakespeare may have retailed farm produce to the townspeople of Stratford, selling them barley, mutton, wool, and sheepskin gloves. But whatever he sold, the important fact is that he had prospered. Three years after he had settled in Stratford he had been able to buy two small copyhold properties. Soon after (probably in 1557) he had married Mary Arden of Wilmecote, daughter of a substantial yeoman or proprietor-farmer in the neighbourhood, and heiress to a small farm called Ashbies. He had mixed with credit in the public affairs of the town: he had been appointed an aletaster and elected a burgess; and before 1564 had filled in 1 Mr Bolton Corney contests this on the ground that Shakespeare is said by the monument to have died in his 53d year. But if he had completed his 52d year, he might have been said to be in his 53d. succession the offices of constable, affeeror (assessor of fines), and chamberlain. Such were the circumstances that Shakespeare was born into. Two little sisters, born before him, had died in infancy; another brother, named Gilbert, was baptised on October 13, 1566; a sister, named Joan, on April 15, 1569; another sister, named Anna (who died in infancy), on September 28, 1571. During this time John Shakespeare continued to prosper and rise in the esteem of the corporation. When little William was seven years old, his father attained the summit of municipal dignity; being on September 5, 1571, elected chief alderman for the ensuing year. 1 Our next question is-What were the provisions for school education in Stratford? A free school had been restored to the town in the reign of Edward VI., and to this in all probability Shakespeare was sent at an early age. Holofernes, the pedantic schoolmaster in "Love's Labour Lost," is said to teach boys the horn-book at the chargehouse on the top of the hill, charge-house meaning freeschool; and Shakespeare's education at the free-school probably began with the alphabet. At any rate, he was probably taught the rudiments of Latin at the free-school, receiving very much the sort of education given to a clever boy at a parish school in the north of Scotland. He learned enough to enter into the humour of Sir Hugh Evans's lesson to Master William Page; to smell Costard's false Latin; and to put jocularly into the mouth of Holofernes the first line of the eclogues of Mantuanus the Carmelite-lines then as familiar to schoolboys as the first lines of Virgil's eclogues are now. Such, so far as his plays afford any warrant, was the extent of Shakespeare's Latin knowledge. Greek was not then taught in these schools. Ben Jonson's saying that he knew small Latin and less Greek, is obviously an epigrammatic way of saying that he knew no Greek at all. 1 Charge-house, because it did not charge fees? Or because it was maintained at the public charge? In the absence of certain knowledge, one would conjecture that the charge-house was a primary school to the free grammar-school. Take Shakespeare next at a point where his schoolboy days are over. How long did he continue at school? There is a tradition that he was withdrawn from school earlier than he might otherwise have been by the narrow circumstances of his father. So far this is substantiated by the ascertained fact that in 1578, when Shakespeare was fourteen years old, his father mortgaged the estate at Ashbies from that date onwards there are unmistakable evidences of poverty gaining upon John Shakespeare's resources. Under such stress of circumstances nothing could be more natural than to withdraw the eldest boy from school to assist in the miscellaneous business of butchering, wool-selling, glove-making, and farming. There is nothing more unlikely, more incongruous, or more derogatory in Shakespeare's helping to kill a sheep, or make a glove, or herd cows in his boyhood, than in Burns's casting peats, pulling turnips, or gauging beer-barrels in his manhood. Such occupations gave strength to their minds as well as to their bodies: it brought home to them the earnestness of the struggle for existence, and widened and deepened their sympathies with the mass of their fellow men. To account for Shakespeare's knowledge of legal terms, Malone conjectured that after leaving school he was articled to an attorney in Stratford. But Shakespeare needed no experience of an attorney's office to awaken his interest in legal terms. He had motive enough without going beyond his father's household. There are no family secrets from the children of the poor. Shakespeare doubtless heard the painful deliberations of his once prosperous parents, knew all their difficulties, and perused the mortgage bond with a boy's grave curiosity and awe. Then, and more than once again, before he established himself and his parents in assured comfort, he received the sharpest of stimulants to make out the exact meaning of legal terms. This, however, is the serious side of our poet's youth. It doubtless had a brighter side. Poverty could not repress such energy, ebullient spirits, and fresh open senses. We |