Stratford and Kenilworth Pageants.

33

observed in Hamlet, Coriolanus, Macbeth, Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and more or less in other plays. In fact, the poet appears not to have departed from the method without a special reason. In other respects, the mechanical arrangement of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is somewhat awkward and arbitrary. Of organic structure it has comparatively nothing. There is but little indication of character, and the action grows not out of its development in the personages, whose conduct is as accidental and capricious as the circumstances in which they are placed. All this marks the play as a juvenile production, as do likewise the smoothness and correctness of the metre, which is written with mechanical carefulness, such as betokens the writer to be a learner in the art of versification, not a master of it, who could make free use of all its resources. But it also bears evidence to the writer being a well-educated man, with a certain amount of classical learning, and a very fair command of poetic commonplaces both in imagery and sentiBut of original power there is little promise -little depth of thought or breadth of treatment. There is no daring, but rather a neatness in the ral execution. In fine, we note as yet the timidity of one who depends as much upon imitation and propriety as upon creative impulse. It is rather a work of taste than of genius. It bears evidence, too, of the manner in which the poet had become early acquainted with stage performances in his native town and in Kenilworth, where pantomimes and other scenic displays were common in common in holiday seasons.

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Here is the allusion to such exhibitions, in one of the speeches given to Julia, the heroine:

"At Pentecost,

When all our pageants of delight were played,
Our youth got me to play the woman's part,
And I was trimmed in Madam Julia's gown,
Which served me as fit, by all men's judgment,
As if the garment had been made for me;
Therefore I know she is about my height.
And at that time I made her weep a-good,
For I did play a lamentable part.
Madam, 'twas Ariadne, passioning
For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;
Which I so lively acted with my tears,
That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
Wept bitterly; and, would I might be dead,
If I in thought felt not her very sorrow."

Shakspere himself in such village pageants probably took part; and thus commenced his first leaning towards the stage, and under such influences he composed his first play.

As tradition has uttered many scandals concerning the early period of our poet's life, I will here state all that is known to be fact.

We find as early as 1569 that the Queen's players and the Earl of Worcester's players visited Stratford, and performed in it. The former received nine shillings and the latter twelve pence out of the town's fund for their entertainment. The child Shakspere was thus brought within reach of the stage. Again, in 1573, "the Earl of Leicester's players" received from the Chamberlain of Stratford the sum of six shillings and eight pence. In 1574, "my lord of Warwick's players" are paid seventeen shillings, and the Earl of Worcester's players five shillings and seven

of

John Shakspere's Circumstances.

35

pence. Meanwhile John Shakspere's prosperity continues; and in 1575-(the year in which Queen Elizabeth made her grand historical visit to Kenilworth Castle, only thirteen miles distant from Stratford, and at which William Shakspere, then eleven years age, is supposed to have been present)—he bought two freehold houses in Henley Street. But two years afterwards, his fortunes are supposed to have declined, as he is found to be irregular at the corporation meetings, and to have had one-half of his borough taxes remitted. In 1578 and 1579 matters appear to get worse and worse;*-though the indices in question are capable of another interpretation.

* In 1578, it is found that John Shakespere and Mary, his wife, mortgaged the "land in Wilmecote called Asbies," to one Edmund Lambert, for 401., on condition that it should revert to them if repaid before Michaelmas day 1580. In 1578, and on the 19th November of that same year, it is arranged in the corporation books that John Shakespere and Robert Bratt, in regard to a levy of fourpence a week for relief of the poor, "shall not be taxed to pay any thing;" and it has further been found that in this year the aforesaid Edmund Lambert was security for a debt of 5l., due to Mr. Roger Sadler, of Stratford, by Mr. John Shakespere. It seems, too, that about this time the interests held in the tenements at Snitterfield were parted with. In 1579, the sum, three shillings and fourpence, levied upon John Shakespere by the borough of Stratford, for the furnishing "of pikemen, billmen, and archers," is entered on the corporation books as "unpaid and unaccounted for;" yet, in a deed of the same date, he is designated a yeoman. There is reason, also, for somewhat modifying the conclusion that the family was so much distressed, in the fact that the fee paid this year for the bell and pall on the death of John Shakespere's daughter Anne, namely viijd., was the highest in the list; and, indeed, Mr. Charles Knight questions the conclusion altogether. In his opinion, John Shakespere had now turned his attention to agriculture, and was living less in the borough, though still dwelling in the parish, as proprietor of the lands of Bishopton and Welcombe, which William Shakspere disposes of by his will under the designation of his inheritance.

D

William Shakspere was now fifteen years of age, and had another opportunity of witnessing a theatrical performance; for, in the latter year, the players of Lord Strange and of the Countess of Essex held dramatic entertainments in Stratford, in the hall of the guild, under the patronage of the bailiff. Next year another similar opportunity occurred. The players of the Earl of Derby, in 1580, visited Stratford. The character of the entertainment is described in the document as "set out with sweetness of words, fitness of epithets, with metaphors, allegories, hyperboles, amphibologies, similitudes, with phrases so picked, so pure, so proper, with action so smooth, so lively, so wanton,"-phrases which indicate a poetic drama of some excellence, and also an appreciative taste in the audience, which had already grown critical, and could distinguish the quality of its fare.

It is from this point that the beldame Tradition becomes calumnious. We have nothing evidential until the period of Shakspere's marriage. A citation already given proves that there was an old intimacy between the Hathaways and the Shaksperes; and this, in due time, ripened into affection. There was nothing clandestine or irregular in the love of William Shakspere for Anne Hathaway; but all was done with the consent of friends, who, on both sides, were eminently respectable. Shakspere at no period of his life descended from a higher to a lower level; but his course from the beginning was upward as well as onward, and all the breathings of his spirit were aspirations. His marriage-bond has fortunately been

His Marriage-Bond.

37

found, bearing date 28th November 1582. It states that Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, farmers, of Stratford, became bound in forty pounds "that William Shagspere, one thone partie, and Anne Hathwey, of Stratford, in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize marriage together, . . . with once asking of the bannes." The seal of R. H. (probably Richard Hathaway) is appended to the bond. Notwithstanding this evidence of the perfect and formal legality of the whole proceeding, there are biographers, with "imaginations foul as Vulcan's stithy," who fancy that this faithful couple, who had thus placed themselves under the protection of responsible friends, had nevertheless assumed a license before marriage; not because there is any evidence existing for any such disgusting suspicion, but because the Stratford registers indicate that their townsfolk were frequently guilty of precipitation. Shakspere was as much superior to his townsfolk in this as in other respects. On 26th May 1583, their first child, Susanna, was baptised, and registered as begotten in wedlock. The father was about nineteen years of age, the mother about twenty-six. From the perfect regularity of the whole proceedings, it is probable that they had available means of support, and these appear to have lasted until 1585, February 2d, when their son and daughter, Hamnet and Judith, were baptised. A man with a wife and three children had given hostages to fortune; and a due sense of his responsi

* It was discovered, in 1836, by Sir Thomas Philips, in the Worcester Registry.