Introductory material

Shakspeare And His Times

Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke of Shakspeare's genius; and although he spoke of him merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which they considered as crude as they were coarse.

At the present day, all controversy regarding Shakspeare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater question has arisen, namely, whether Shakspeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire.

This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly confined.

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human mind; it is compelled to follow it in its course—to transport itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed; to gain elevation and extension with the ideas which occupy its notice, and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the new state of thought and of society.

My readers will not, therefore, be surprised that, in order properly to appreciate Shakspeare, I find it necessary to make some preliminary researches into the nature of dramatic poetry and the civilization of modern peoples, especially of England. If we did not begin with these general considerations, it would be impossible to keep pace with the confused, perhaps, but active and urgent ideas, which such a subject originates in all minds.

A theatrical performance is a popular festival; that it should be so is required by the very nature of dramatic poetry. Its power rests upon the effects of sympathy—of that mysterious force which causes laughter to beget laughter; which bids tears to flow at the sight of tears, and which, in spite of the diversity of dispositions, conditions, and characters, produces the same impression on all upon whom it simultaneously acts. For the proper development of these effects, a crowd must be assembled; those ideas and feelings which would pass languidly from one man to another, traverse the serried ranks of a multitude with the rapidity of lightning; and it is only when large masses of men are collected together that we observe the action of that moral electricity which the dramatic poet calls into such powerful operation.

Dramatic poetry, therefore, could originate only among the people. At its birth it was destined to promote their pleasures; in their festivities it once performed an active part; and with the first songs of Thespis the chorus of the spectators invariably united.

But the people are not slow to perceive that the pleasures with which they can supply themselves are neither the best, nor the only pleasures which they are capable of enjoying. To those classes which spend their days in toil, complete repose seems to be the first and almost the sole condition of pleasure. A momentary suspension of the efforts or privations of daily life, an interval of movement and liberty, a relative abundance; this is all that the people seek to derive from those festivities which they are able to provide for themselves—these are all the enjoyments which it is in their power to procure. And yet these men are born to experience nobler and keener delights; they are possessed of faculties which the monotony of their existence has allowed to lie dormant in inactivity. If these faculties be awakened by a powerful voice; if an animated narrative, or a stirring scene stimulate these drowsy imaginations, these torpid sensibilities, they will gain an activity which they could never have imparted to themselves, but which they will rejoice to receive; and then will arise, without the co-operation of the multitude, but in its presence and for its amusement, new games and new pleasures which will speedily become necessities.

To such festivities as these the dramatic poet invites the assembled people. He undertakes to divert them, but the amusement which he supplies is one of which they would have been ignorant without his assistance. Æschylus relates to his fellow-citizens the victories of Salamis, the anxieties of Atossa, and the grief of Xerxes. He charms the people of Athens, but it is by raising them to a level with emotions and ideas which Æschylus alone could exalt to so high a point; and he communicates to the multitude impressions which they are capable of feeling, but which Æschylus alone is able to awaken. Such is the nature of dramatic poetry; for the people it calls its creations into being, to the people it addresses itself; but it is in order to ennoble their character, to extend and vivify their moral existence, to reveal to them faculties which they unconsciously possess, and to procure for them enjoyments which they eagerly seize, but which they would not even seek after, if a sublime art did not reveal to them their existence by making them minister to their gratification.

And this work the dramatic poet must necessarily pursue; he must elevate and civilize, as it were, the crowd that he summons to hear his performance. How can he act upon the assembled multitude, except by an appeal to the most general and elevated characteristics of their nature? It is only by going out of the narrow circle of common life and individual interests that the imagination becomes exalted and the heart enlarged, that pleasures become disinterested and the affections generous, and that men can sympathize in those common emotions the expression of which causes the theatre to resound with transports of delight. Religion has, therefore, universally been the source and furnished the primitive materials of dramatic art; at its origin, it celebrated, among the Greeks, the adventures of Bacchus, and, in Northern Europe, the mysteries of Christ. This arises from the fact that, of all human affections, piety most powerfully unites men in common feelings, because it most thoroughly detaches them from themselves; it is also less dependent for its development upon the progress of civilization, as it is powerful and pure even in the most backward state of society. From its very beginning, dramatic poetry has invoked the aid of piety, because, of all the sentiments to which it could address itself, piety was the noblest and the most universal.

Originating thus among the people and for the people, but destined to elevate them by affording them delight, the dramatic art speedily became, in every age and country, and by reason of this very characteristic of its nature, the favorite pleasure of the superior classes.

This was its natural tendency; and in this, also, it has encountered its most dangerous quicksands. More than once, allowing itself to be led astray by its high fortune, dramatic art has lost or compromised its energy and liberty. When the superior classes can fully give themselves up to their position, they fall into the error or misfortune of isolating themselves from their fellows, and ceasing, as it were, to share in the general nature of man, and the public interests of society. Those universal feelings, natural ideas, and simple relationships which constitute the basis of humanity and of life, become changed and enervated in a social condition which consists entirely of exceptions and privileges. In such a state of society, conventionalisms take the place of realities, and morals become factitious and feeble. Human destiny ceases to be known under its most salient and general aspects. It has a thousand phases, it leads to a host of impressions and relations of which the higher classes are utterly ignorant, unless they are compelled to enter frequently into the public atmosphere. Dramatic art, when devoted to their pleasure, finds its domain greatly diminished and impoverished; it is invaded by a sort of monotony; events, passions, characters, all those natural treasures which it lays under contribution, no longer supply it with the same originality and wealth. Its independence is imperiled as well as its variety and energy. The habits of elegant society, as well as those of the multitude, are characterized by their littlenesses, and it is much more capable of imposing these littlenesses as laws. It is stimulated by tastes rather than by necessities; it rarely introduces into its pleasures that serious and ingenuous disposition which abandons itself with transport to the impressions which it receives; and it very frequently treats genius as a servant who is bound to please it, and not as a power that is capable of governing it by the enjoyments which it can supply. If the dramatic poet does not possess, in the suffrages of a larger and more simple public, the means of defending himself against the haughty taste of a select coterie—if he can not arm himself with public approbation, and rely for support upon the universal feelings which he has been able to arouse in all hearts—his liberty is lost; the caprices which he has attempted to satisfy will weigh upon him like a chain, from which he will be unable to free himself; talent, which is entitled to command all, will find itself subject to the minority, and he who ought to guide the taste of the people, will become the slave of fashion.

Such, then, is the nature of dramatic poetry that, in order to produce its most magical effects, and to preserve, during its growth, its liberty as well as its wealth, it must not separate from the people, to whom its earliest efforts were addressed. It languishes, if it is transplanted from the soil in which it first took root. Popular at its origin, it must continue to be national, and it must not cease to comprehend beneath its sway, and to charm with its productions, all classes that are capable of experiencing the emotions from which it derives its power.

All ages of society, and all states of civilization are not equally favorable to calling the people to the aid of dramatic poetry, and insuring its prosperity under their influence. It was the happy lot of Greece that the whole nation grew and developed itself together with literature and the arts, keeping always on a level with their progress, and acting as a competent judge of their glory. That same people of Athens, who had surrounded the chariot of Thespis, thronged to hear the master-pieces of Sophocles and Euripides; and the most splendid triumphs of genius were always, in that city, popular festivals. So brilliant a moral equality has not presided over the destiny of modern nations; their civilization, displaying itself upon a far more extended scale, has undergone many more vicissitudes, and presented much less unity. During more than ten centuries, nothing was easy, general, or simple in our Europe. Religion, liberty, public order, literature—nothing has been developed among us without long-continued effort, in the midst of incessantly-renewed struggles, and under the most diversified influences. Amid this mighty and agitated chaos, dramatic poetry did not possess the privilege of an easy and rapid career. It was not its fate to find, almost at its birth, a public at once homogeneous and various, the constituent members of which, both great and small, rich and poor, in fine, all classes of citizens, should be equally eager for, and worthy of its most brilliant solemnities. Neither epochs of great social disorder nor periods of severe necessity are times in which the masses can devote themselves with enthusiasm to the pleasures of the stage. Literature prospers only when it is so intimately united with the tastes, habits, and entire existence of a people as to be regarded at once as an occupation and a festivity, an amusement and a necessity. Dramatic poetry, more than any other branch of literature, depends upon this deep-seated and general union of the arts with society. It is not satisfied with the tranquil pleasures of enlightened approbation, but it requires the quick impulses of passion; it does not seek men in leisure and retirement that it may furnish agreeable occupation for their hours of repose, but it requires men to hasten and throng around it. A certain degree of mental development and simplicity, a certain community of ideas and habits between the different classes of society, greater ardor than fixity of imagination, greater movement of soul than of existence, a strongly-excited moral activity destitute of any imperious and determined object, liberty of thought and repose of life—these are the circumstances of which dramatic poetry has need, in order to shine with its full splendor. These circumstances never combined so completely or so harmoniously among modern peoples as among the Greeks. But wherever their leading characteristics have been found to exist, the drama has become elevated; and neither have men of genius been failing to the public, nor has the public proved wanting to men of genius.

The reign of Elizabeth, in England, was one of those decisive epochs, so laboriously attained by modern peoples which terminate the empire of force and inaugurate the reign of ideas. Original and fruitful epochs are these, when the nations flock to mental enjoyments as to a new kind of gratification, and when thought prepares, in the pleasures of youth, for the discharge of those functions which it will be called upon to exercise at a riper age.

Scarcely recovered from the storms with which it had been ravaged by the alternate successes and reverses of the Red and White Roses, before it was again distracted and exhausted by the capricious tyranny of Henry VIII. and the malevolent despotism of Mary, England demanded of Elizabeth, at her accession, nothing but order and peace; and this was precisely what Elizabeth was most disposed to bestow. Naturally prudent and reserved, though haughty and strong-willed, she had been taught by the stern necessities of her youth never to compromise herself. When upon the throne, she maintained her independence by asking little of her people, and staked her policy upon running no risks. Military glory could not seduce a distrustful woman. The sovereignty of the Netherlands, notwithstanding the efforts of the Dutch to induce her to accept it, did not tempt her wary ambition. She resignedly determined to make no attempt to recover Calais, or to retain Havre; and all her desires of greatness, as well as all the cares of her government, were concentrated upon the direct interests of the country which she had to restore to repose and prosperity.

Surprised at so novel a state of things, the people reveled in it with the intoxication of returning health. Civilization, which had been destroyed or, suspended by their dissensions, revived or progressed on every side. Industry brought wealth in its train, and notwithstanding the shackles imposed by the oppressive proceedings of the government, all the historians and all the documents of this period bear testimony to the rapid progress of popular luxury. The chronicler Harrison informs us that he had heard many old men express their surprise at "the multitude of chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor-places of their lords always excepted). 'Our fathers,' they said, 'lay full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow; and if the good man of the house had, within seven years after his marriage, purchased a mattress or stock-bed, and thereto a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town.'" [Footnote 1]

But Elizabeth ascended the throne, and Shakspeare tells us that the busiest employment of the elves and fairies was to pinch "black and blue" those servants who neglected to cleanse the hearth-stone with due regularity. And Harrison informs us that the farmers' houses in his time were well supplied "with three or four feather-beds, as many coverlids and carpets of tapestry, besides a fair garnish of pewter on the cupboard, with a silver salt-cellar, a bowl for wine, and a dozen of spoons to furnish up the suit." [Footnote 2]

More than one generation will pass away before a people will have exhausted the novel enjoyments of such unusual good fortune. The reigns of both Elizabeth and her successor were scarcely sufficient to wear out that taste for comfort and repose which had been fostered by long-continued agitations; and that religious ardor, the explosion of which subsequently revealed the existence of new forces which had lain hid in the bosom of society during the tranquillity of these two reigns, was then spreading itself silently among the masses, without as yet giving birth to any general and decisive movement.

The Reformation, though treated with hostility by the great sovereigns of the Continent, had received from Henry VIII. enough encouragement and support to lessen its ambition and retard its progress for a time. The yoke of Rome had been cast off, and monastic life abolished. By thus granting satisfaction to the primary desires of the age, and turning the first blows of the Reformation to the advantage of material interests, Henry VIII. deterred many minds from inquiring more thoroughly into the purely theological dogmas of Catholicism, which no longer shocked them by the exhibition of its most obnoxious abuses. Faith, it is true, was in a tottering state, and could no longer cling firmly to disputed doctrines. These doctrines, therefore, were fated one day to fall; but the day of their rejection was delayed. At a time when the Catholic defender of the real presence was burned at the stake for maintaining the supremacy of the Pope, and the Reformer who denied the papal supremacy suffered the same punishment for refusing to admit the real presence, many minds necessarily remained in suspense. Neither of the two conflicting opinions afforded to cowardice, which is so plentifully manifested in difficult times, the refuge of a victorious party. The dogma of political obedience was the only one which docile consciences could adopt with any zeal; and among the sincere adherents of either party, the hopes of triumph which so singular a position allowed each to entertain still kept in activity those timidly courageous individuals whom tyranny is obliged to pursue into their last retrenchments, in order to force them to offer any resistance.

The vicissitudes experienced by the religious establishment of England, during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, tended to maintain this disposition. Anxiety for martyrdom had not time, in either party, to nourish and diffuse itself; and though the party of the Reformation—which was already more influential over the public mind, more persevering in its exertions, and more remarkable for the number and courage of its martyrs—was proceeding evidently toward a final victory, yet the success which it had obtained at the accession of Elizabeth had supplied it rather with leisure to prepare for new conflicts than with power to engage in them at once, and to render them decisive.

Though connected, by her position, with the doctrines of the Reformers, Elizabeth had, in common with the Catholic clergy, a strong taste for pomp and authority. Her first regulations in regard to religious matters were, consequently, of such a character that most of the Catholics felt no repugnance to attend the divine worship with which the Reformers were satisfied; and the establishment of the Anglican Church, which was intrusted to the hands of the existing clergy, met with very little resistance, and at the same time very little encouragement, from the general body of ecclesiastics. Religion continued to be regarded, by a great many persons, as a merely political matter. The disputes of England with the Court of Rome and with Spain, a few internal conspiracies and the severities with which they were repressed, successively created new causes for animosity between the two parties. Religious interest, however, had so little influence over public feeling, that in 1569, Elizabeth, the daughter of the Reformation, but far more precious to her people as the pledge of public repose and prosperity, found most of her Catholic subjects zealous to assist her to crush the Catholic rebellion of a part of the north of England.

For still stronger reasons, they willingly agreed to that joyous forgetfulness of all great subjects of dispute which Elizabeth encouraged them to entertain. It is true that, in the depths of the masses of the people, the Reformation, which had been flattered, but not satisfied, murmured indistinctly; and even that voice which was destined soon to shake all England to its centre was heard gradually rising to utterance. But amid that movement of youthful vigor, which had, as it were, carried away the whole nation, the stern severity of the Reformers was still regarded as importunate, and those who had bestowed on it a passing glance quickly turned their eyes in some more agreeable direction; so that the accents of Puritanism, united with those of liberty, were repressed without effort by a power under whose protection the people had too recently been sheltered to entertain any great fear of its encroachments.

No periods are perhaps more favorable to the fertility and originality of mental productions than those times at which a nation already free, but still ignorant of its own position, ingenuously enjoys what it possesses without perceiving in what it is deficient: times full of ardor, but very easy to please, before rights have been narrowly defined, powers discussed, or restrictions agreed upon. The government and the public, proceeding in their course undisturbed by fears or scruples, exist together without any distrustful observance of each other, and even come into communication but rarely. If, on the one side, power is unlimited, on the other liberty will be great; for both parties will be ignorant of those general forms, those innumerable and minute duties to which actions and minds are more or less subjected by a scientifically constructed despotism, and even by a well-regulated liberty. Thus it was that the age of Richelieu and Louis XIV. consciously possessed that amount of liberty which has furnished us with a literature and a drama. At that period of our history, when even the name of public liberties seemed to have been forgotten, and when a feeling of the dignity of man served as the basis neither of the institutions of the country nor of the acts of the government, the dignity of individual positions still existed wherever power had not yet found it necessary to crush it. Beside the forms of servility, we meet with forms, and sometimes even with manifestations of independence. The grand seigneur, though submissive and adoring as a courtier, could nevertheless proudly remember on certain occasions that he was a gentleman. Corneille the citizen could find no terms sufficiently humble to express his gratitude to, and dependence upon, Cardinal Richelieu; but Corneille the poet disdained the authority which assumed to prescribe rules for the guidance of his genius, and defended, against the literary pretensions of an absolute minister, those "secret means of pleasing which he might have found in his art." In fine, men of vigorous mind evaded in a thousand ways the yoke of a still incomplete or inexperienced despotism; and the imagination soared freely in every direction within the range of its flight.

In England, during the reign of Elizabeth, the supreme power, though far more irregular and less skillfully organised than it was in France under Louis XIV., had to treat with much more deeply-rooted principles of liberty. It would be a mistake to measure the despotism of Elizabeth by the speeches of her flatterers, or even by the acts of her government. In her still young and inexperienced court, the language of adulation far exceeded the servility of the adulator; and in the country, in which ancient institutions had by no means perished, the government was far from exercising universal sway. In the counties and chief towns, an independent administration maintained habits and instincts of liberty. The queen imposed silence upon the Commons when they pressed her to appoint a successor, or to grant some article of religious liberty. But the Commons had met, and spoken; and the queen, notwithstanding the haughtiness of her refusal, took great care to give no cause for complaints that might have increased the authority of their words. Despotism and liberty, thus avoiding a meeting instead of seeking a battle, manifested themselves without feeling any hatred for each other, with that simplicity of action which prevents those collisions and banishes those bitter feelings which are occasioned on both sides by continual resistance. A Puritan had had his right hand cut off as a punishment for having written a tract against the proposed marriage of Elizabeth to the Duke of Anjou; and immediately after the sentence had been executed, he waved his hat with his left hand, and shouted, "God save the Queen!" When loyalty is thus deeply rooted in the heart of a man exposed to such sufferings for the cause of liberty, liberty in general must necessarily think that it has no great reason for complaint.

This period, then, was deficient in none of the advantages which it was capable of desiring. There was nothing to prevent the minds of the people from indulging freely in all the intoxication natural to thought when it has reached the age of development—an age of follies and miracles, when the imagination revels in its most puerile as well as in its noblest manifestations. Extravagantly luxurious festivities, splendor of dress, addiction to gallantry, ardent conformity to fashion, and sacrifices to favor, employed the wealth and leisure of the courtiers of Elizabeth. More enthusiastic temperaments went to distant lands in search of adventures, which, in addition to the hope of fortune, offered them the livelier pleasure of perilous encounters. Sir Francis Drake sailed forth as a corsair, and volunteers thronged on board his ship; Sir Walter Raleigh announced a distant expedition, and scions of noble houses sold their goods to join his crew. Spontaneous ventures and patriotic enterprises followed each other in almost daily succession; and, far from becoming exhausted by this continual movement, the minds of men received from it fresh vigor and impulse. Thought claimed its share in the supply of pleasures, and became, at the same time, the sustenance of the most serious passions. While the crowd hurried on all sides into the numerous theatres which had been erected, the Puritan, in his solitary meditations, burned with indignation against these pomps of Belial, and this sacrilegious employment of man, the image of God upon earth. Poetic ardor and religious asperity, literary quarrels and theological controversies, taste for festivities and fanaticism for austerities, philosophy and criticism, sermons, pamphlets, and epigrams, appeared simultaneously, and jostled each other in admired confusion. Amid this natural and fantastic conflict of opposite elements, the power of opinion, the feeling and habit of liberty, were silently in process of formation: two forces, brilliant at their first appearance and imposing in their progress, the first-fruits of which belong to any skillful government that is able to use them, but the maturity of which is terrible to any imprudent government that may attempt to reduce them to servitude. The impulse which has constituted the glory of a reign, may speedily become the fever which will precipitate a people into revolution. In the days of Elizabeth, the movement of the public mind summoned England only to festivities; and dramatic poetry sprang into full being under the master-hand of Shakspeare.

Who would not delight to go to the fountain-head of the first inspirations of an original genius; to penetrate into the secret of the causes which guided his nascent powers; to follow him step by step in his progress; and, in a word, to behold the whole inner life of a man who, after having in his own country opened to dramatic poetry the road which she has never since quitted, still reigns pre-eminent, and with almost undivided sway? Unfortunately, Shakspeare is one of these superior men whose life was but little noticed by his contemporaries, and it has therefore remained obscure to succeeding generations. A few civil registers in which traces of the existence of his family have been preserved, a few traditions connected with his name in the district in which he was born, and the splendid productions of his own genius, are the only means which we possess of supplying the deficiencies of his personal history.

The family of Shakspeare resided at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick. His father, John Shakspeare, derived the greater part of his income, as it would appear, from his business as a wool-stapler. It is probable, however, that he connected with this several other branches of trade; for in some anecdotes collected at Stratford—fifty years, it is true, after Shakspeare's death—Aubrey [Footnote 3] represents him to have been the son of a butcher.

At such a distance of time, recollections handed down through two or three generations might have become somewhat confused in the memory of Shakspeare's fellow-townsmen; but professions were not then so distinct or so numerous as they have become in our times, and nothing could have been less strange, at this period, and especially in a small town, than the union of the various trades connected with the sale of cattle. However this may be, Shakspeare's family belonged to that bourgeoisie which early acquired so much importance in England. His great-great-grandfather had received from Henry VII., "for his valiant and faithful services," a grant of land in Warwickshire. His father filled the office of high bailiff of Stratford in the year 1569; but, ten years afterward, it would seem that he experienced a reverse of fortune, for in 1579 we find, from the registers of Stratford, that two aldermen, of whom John Shakspeare was one, were exempted from paying a small tax paid by their colleagues. In 1586 he was removed from his office of alderman, the duties of which he had for some time ceased to perform. Other causes besides his poverty may have led to his removal. It has been said that Shakspeare was a Catholic; and it appears at least to be certain that such was the faith of his father. In the year 1770, a bricklayer, while mending the roof of the house in which Shakspeare was born, found, between the rafters and the tiling, a manuscript, which had doubtless been hidden there in a time of persecution, and which contained a profession of the Catholic faith in fourteen articles, all of which began with the words: "I, John Shakspeare." The ever-increasing power of the doctrines of the Reformation had, perhaps, rendered the duties of an alderman more difficult of performance to a Catholic, who, as he advanced in age, may also have become more scrupulous in the observance of the rules of his faith.

William Shakspeare was born on the 23d of April, 1564. He was the third or fourth of the nine, ten, or perhaps eleven children who constituted the family of John. William, there is reason to believe, was the first son, the eldest of his father's hopes. Prosperity and respectability undoubtedly belonged, at this period, to his family, as its head became chief magistrate of his native town five years afterward. We may therefore admit that Shakspeare's education, in his earlier years, was in conformity with the circumstances of his father; and when a change in his fortunes, from whatever cause it may have arisen, occasioned an interruption of his studies, he had probably acquired those first elements of a liberal education which are quite sufficient to free the mind of a superior man from the awkwardness of ignorance, and to put him in possession of those forms which he will need for the suitable expression of his thoughts. This is more than enough to explain how it was that Shakspeare was deficient in those acquirements which constitute a good education, although he possessed the elegance which is its usual accompaniment.

Shakspeare was scarcely fifteen years old when he was taken from school to assist his impoverished father in his business. It was then that, according to Aubrey, William exercised the sanguinary functions of a butcher's assistant. This supposition is considered revolting by commentators on the poet at the present day; but a circumstance related by Aubrey does not permit us to doubt its correctness, and at the same time reveals to us that his young imagination was already incapable of subjecting itself to so vile an employment without connecting therewith some ennobling idea or sentiment. "When he killed a calf," said the people of the neighborhood to Aubrey, "he would do it in a high style, and make a speech." Who can not catch a glimpse, in this story, of the tragic poet inspired by the sight of death, even in an animal, and striving to render it imposing or pathetic? Who can not picture to himself the scholar of thirteen or fourteen years of age, with his head full of his first literary attainments, and his mind impressed, perhaps, by some theatrical performance, elevating, in poetic transport, the animal about to fall beneath his ax to the dignity of a victim, or perhaps even to that of a tyrant?

In the year 1576, the brilliant Leicester celebrated the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth by festivities, whose extraordinary magnificence is attested by all the chronicles of the time. Shakspeare was then twelve years old, and Kenilworth is only a few miles from Stratford. It is difficult to doubt that the family of the young poet participated, with all the population of the surrounding country, in the pleasure and admiration excited by these pompous spectacles. What an impulse would the imagination of Shakspeare not fail to receive! Nevertheless, the early years of the poet have transmitted to us, as the only sign of those singularities which may announce the presence of genius, the anecdote which I have just related; and the information which we possess regarding the amusements of his youth gives no hint whatever of the tastes and pleasures of a literary life.

We live in times of civilization, and progress, when every thing has its place and rule, and when the destiny of every individual is determined by circumstances more or less imperious, but which manifest themselves at an early period. A poet begins by being a poet; he who is to become one knows it almost from infancy; poetry has been familiar to his earliest contemplation; it may have been his first taste, his first passion when the movement of the passions awakened in his heart. The young man has expressed in verse that which he does not yet feel; and when feeling truly arises within him, his first thought will be to express it in verse. Poetry has become the object of his existence—an object as important as any other—a career in which he may obtain fortune as well as glory, and which may afford an opening to the serious ideas of his future life, as well as to the capricious sallies of his youth. In so advanced a state of society, a man can not be long ignorant, or spend much time in search of his own powers; an easy way presents itself to the view of that youthful ardor which would probably wander far astray before finding the direction best suited to it; those forces and passions from which talent will issue soon learn the secret of their destiny; and, summed up in speeches, images, and harmonious cadences, the illusions of desire, the chimeras of hope, and sometimes even the bitterness of disappointment, are exhaled without difficulty in the precocious essays of the young man.

In times when life is difficult and manners coarse, this is rarely the case in regard to the poet, who is formed by nature alone. Nothing reveals him so speedily to himself; he must have felt much before he can think he has any thing to portray; his first powers will be spent in action—in such irregular action as may be provoked by the impatience of his desires—in violent action, if any obstacle intervene between himself and the success with which his fiery imagination has promised to crown him. In vain has fate bestowed on him the noblest gifts; he can employ them only upon the single object with which he is acquainted. Heaven only knows what triumphs he will achieve by his eloquence, in what projects and for what advantages he will display the riches of his inventive faculty, among what equals his talents will raise him to the first rank, and of what society the vivacity of his mind will render him the amusement and the idol! Alas for this melancholy subjection of man to the external world! Gifted with useless power if his horizon be less extensive than his capacity of vision, he sees only that which lies around him; and Heaven, which has bestowed treasures upon him with such lavish munificence, has done nothing for him if it does not place him in circumstances which may reveal them to his gaze. This revelation commonly arises from misfortune; when the world fails the superior man, he falls back upon himself, and becomes aware of his own resources; when necessity presses him, he collects his powers; and it is frequently through having lost the faculty of groveling upon earth that genius and virtue rise in triumph to the skies.

Neither the occupations in which Shakspeare seemed destined to spend his life, nor the amusements and companions of his leisure hours, afforded him any materials adapted to affect and absorb that imagination, the power of which had begun to agitate his being. Rushing into all the excitements which he met on his way, because nothing could satisfy him, the youth of the poet gave admission to pleasure, under whatever form it presented itself. A tradition of the banks of the Avon, which is in strict accordance with probability, gives us reason to suppose that he had only a choice of the most vulgar diversions. The anecdote is still related, it is said, by the men of Stratford and of Bidford, a neighboring village, renowned in past ages for the excellence of its beer, and also, it is added, for the unquenchable thirst of its inhabitants.

The population of the neighborhood of Bidford was divided into two classes, known by the names of Topers and Sippers. These fraternities were in the habit of challenging to drinking-bouts all those who, in the surrounding country, took credit to themselves for any merit of this kind. The youth of Stratford, when challenged in its turn, valiantly accepted the defiance; and Shakspeare, who, we are assured, was no less a connoisseur in beer than Falstaff in Canary sack, formed a part of the joyous band, from which, doubtless, he rarely separated. But their strength was not equal to their courage. On arriving at the place of meeting, the champions of Stratford found out that the Topers had set out for a neighboring fair. The Sippers, who, to all appearance, were less formidable opponents, remained alone, and proposed to try the fortune of war. The offer was accepted; but in a short time the Stratford party were thoroughly knocked up, and reduced to the sad necessity of employing their little remaining reason in using their legs as they best might to effect a retreat. The operation was difficult, and soon became impossible. They had hardly gone a mile, when their strength failed, and the whole party bivouacked for the night under a crab-tree, which, travelers tell us, is still standing on the road from Stratford to Bidford, and is known by the name of Shakspeare's Tree. On the following morning, his comrades, refreshed and invigorated by rest and sleep, endeavored to induce him to return with them to avenge the affront they had received on the previous evening; but Shakspeare refused to go back, and, looking round on the villages which were to be seen from the point on which he stood, exclaimed, "No, I have had enough drinking with

'Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton, Dudging [Footnote 4] Exhall, Papist Wicksford, Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.'" [Footnote 5]

This conclusion of the adventure gives rise to the presumption that debauchery had less share than gayety in these excursions of Shakspeare's youth, and that verse, if not poetry, was already the natural language in which he gave expression to his feelings. Tradition has handed down to us some other impromptus of the same kind, but they are connected with anecdotes of less significance. All that we know, however, combines to portray to us his merry and quick imagination disporting itself with complacency amid the uncouth objects of his amusements; and we behold the future friend of Lord Southampton charming the rustic inhabitants of the banks of the Avon with that graceful animation, that joyous serenity of temper, and that benevolent openness of character which every where found or made for itself pleasures and friends.

Meanwhile, amid these grotesque follies, a serious event took place, and that was the marriage of Shakspeare. At the time when he contracted this important engagement, Shakspeare was not more than eighteen years of age, for his eldest daughter came into the world just a month after he had completed his nineteenth year. What motive led him thus early to undertake responsibilities which he seemed as yet but ill calculated to discharge? Anne Hathaway, his wife, the daughter of a farmer, and therefore a little inferior to him in rank, was eight years older than himself. She may, perhaps, have surpassed him in fortune, or perhaps the parents of the poet were anxious to attach him, by an advantageous marriage, to some settled occupation; it does not appear, however, that Shakspeare's marriage added to his worldly prosperity; the contrary, indeed, was the case. Perhaps love led to the union of the young couple; perhaps even it constrained their families to hasten the legitimate accomplishment of their wishes. However this may be, in less than two years after the birth of Susanna, the first-fruit of their marriage, twins were born, a boy and a girl—the last proof of a conjugal intimacy which had at first announced itself under such favorable appearances. According to some indications, which are, in truth, doubtful and obscure, the wife of Shakspeare, who, as we shall presently see, was remembered, or rather forgotten, in a strange manner in his will, was only rarely present to his thoughts in the after part of his life; and this irrevocable engagement, so hastily contracted, seems to have been one of the most fleeting fancies of his youth.

Among the facts and conjectures which have been stored up in reference to this period of Shakspeare's life, we must place the tradition related by Aubrey, which represents him as having for some time filled the office of schoolmaster, though the truth of this anecdote is denied by nearly all his biographers. Some writers, basing their supposition upon passages contained in his works, are inclined to believe that the poet of Elizabeth attempted to subject the powers of his mind to the routine duties of a lawyer's office. According to their conjectures, the new duties of paternity compelled him to seek this employment for his talents, whereas Aubrey places his brief experience as a schoolmaster before his marriage. Nothing is, however, certain or important on these points. Of one thing only we may speak with certainty, and that is, the constant disposition of the husband of Anne Hathaway to vary, by diversions of every kind, whatever occupations might be imposed upon him by necessity. The occurrence which forced Shakspeare to leave Stratford, and gave to England her greatest poet, proves that his position as the father of a family had not effected any great alteration in the irregularity of his habits as a young man.

Jealous preservers of their game, like all gentlemen who are not engaged in war, the possessors of parks were continually under the necessity of defending them against invasions, which, in places so open and unprotected, were as frequent as they were easy. Danger does not always diminish temptation, but frequently even makes it appear less illegitimate. A band of poachers carried on their depredations in the neighborhood of Stratford, and Shakspeare, who was eminently sociable, never refused to engage in any thing that was done in common. He was caught in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, locked up in the keeper's lodge, where he passed the night in no very agreeable manner, and taken the next morning before Sir Thomas, in whose presence, according to all appearance, he did not extenuate his fault by submission and repentance. Shakspeare seems to have retained too merry a recollection of this circumstance of his life for us to suppose that it caused him any thing more than amusement. Sir Thomas Lucy, whom he brought on the stage some years afterward as Justice Shallow, had doubtless taken hold of his imagination less as an object of ill humor than as a pleasant caricature. Whether, in their interview, Shakspeare exercised the vivacity of his wit at the expense of his powerful adversary, and consoled himself by his success for his ill luck, or whether he enjoyed the scene with that mocking pride which is so amusing to the person who displays it, and so offensive to him who has to submit to it, we do not know, but such a supposition is in itself very probable; and the scene in the "Second Part of Henry IV.," in which Falstaff treats with witty insolence Justice Shallow, who threatens to prosecute him for just such an offense, evidently conveys to us some of the repartees of the young poacher. They were not intended, and could not have availed, to mollify the resentment of Sir Thomas. In whatever manner he may have vented his wrath upon the offender who was then in his power, the necessity for vengeance had become reciprocal. Shakspeare composed, and posted on Sir Thomas's gates, a ballad which was quite bad enough to thoroughly divert the public, to whom he then looked for triumph, and to excite to the last degree the anger of the man whose name it held up to popular ridicule. A criminal prosecution was commenced against the young man with such violence, that he found it necessary to provide for his own safety; so he left his family, and traveled to London in search of an asylum and the means of subsistence.

Some of Shakspeare's biographers have supposed that pecuniary difficulties may have occasioned this flight from home. Aubrey attributes it only to his desire to find in London some opportunity for the display of his talent. But, whatever may have been the ulterior results of the poet's adventure with Sir Thomas Lucy, the fact itself can not be called in question. Shakspeare seems to have taken particular pains to state it. Of all Falstaff's follies, the only one for which he is not punished is having "beaten the men and killed the deer" of Shallow—an exploit in far greater conformity to the idea which Shakspeare may have retained of his own youth, than to the description he has given us of the old knight, who is generally vanquished instead of victorious. All the advantage, however, remains with Falstaff in this affair; and Shallow, who is so clearly designated by the arms of the Lucy family, is nowhere so ridiculous as in the scene in which he vents his wrath against the robber of his game. The poet, indeed, takes no further notice of him, but leaves him, when he gets out of Falstaff's hands, as if he had obtained from him all that he intended to extract. The friendly care and complacency with which Shakspeare reproduces in the piece, in reference to Shallow's armorial bearings, the play upon words which formed the basis of his ballad against Sir Thomas Lucy, have quite the appearance of a tender recollection; and assuredly, few historical anecdotes can produce in favor of their authenticity such conclusive moral evidence.

It is unfortunate that we can not say as much with regard to the employment of the early part of Shakspeare's residence in London, to the circumstances which led to his connection with the stage, and to the part which consciousness of his talent may have had in forming the resolution which directed the flight of his genius. But even the best authenticated traditions on these points are deficient alike in probability and in proofs. That craving after astonishment, which is the source of marvelous beliefs, and which will almost always make our faith incline toward the stranger of two narratives, disposes us in general to seek, for all important events, an accidental cause in what we call chance. We then admire, with singular delight, the miraculous shrewdness of that chance which we suppose to be blind, because we are blind ourselves; and our imagination rejoices in the idea of an unreasoning force presiding over the destiny of a man of genius. Thus, according to the most accredited tradition, misery alone determined the choice of Shakspeare's first occupation in London, and the care of holding horses at the door of the theatre was his first connection with the stage—his first step toward dramatic life. But the extraordinary man is always revealed by some outward sign: such was the gracefulness manifested by the newcomer in his humble duties, that soon no one would trust his horse into other hands than those of William Shakspeare or his assistants. Extending his business, this favored servant of the public hired boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will Shakspeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves, as they were certain to be preferred when they declared themselves "Shakspeare's boys"—a title which, it is said, was long retained by the waiters that held horses at the doors of the theatres.

Such is the anecdote related by Johnson, who had it, he said, from Pope, to whom it was communicated by Rowe. Nevertheless, Rowe, Shakspeare's first biographer, has not mentioned it in his own narrative, and Johnson's authority is supported only by Cibber's "Lives of the Poets," a work to which Cibber contributed nothing but his name, and of which one of Johnson's own amanuenses was almost the sole author.

Another tradition, which had been preserved among the actors of the time, represents Shakspeare to us as filling at first the lowest position in the theatrical hierarchy, namely, that of call-boy, whose duty it was to summon the actors, when their time came to appear upon the stage. Such, in fact, would have been the gradual promotion by which the horse-holder might have raised himself to the honor of admission behind the scenes. But, when turning his idea to the theatre, is it likely that Shakspeare would have stopped short at the door? At the time of his arrival in London, in the year 1584 or 1585, he had a natural protector at the Blackfriars' Theatre; for Greene, his townsman, and probably his relative, figured there as an actor of some reputation, and also as the author of several comedies. According to Aubrey, it was with a positive intention to devote himself to the stage that Shakspeare came to London; and, even if Greene's influence had not been able to secure his reception in a higher character than that of call-boy, it is easy to understand the rapid strides with which a superior man reaches the summit of any career into which he has once obtained admission. But it would be more difficult to conceive that, with Greene's example and protection, a theatrical career, or, at least, a desire to try his powers as an actor, would not have been Shakspeare's first ambition. The time had come when mental ambitions were kindling on every side; and dramatic poetry, which had long been numbered among the national pleasures, had at length acquired in England that importance which calls for the production of master-pieces.

Nowhere on the Continent has a taste for poetry been so constant and popular as in Great Britain. Germany has had her Minnesingers, France her Troubadours and Trouvères; but these graceful apparitions of nascent poetry rapidly ascended to the superior regions of social order, and vanished before long. The English minstrels are visible, throughout the history of their country, in a position which has been more or less brilliant according to circumstances, but which has always been recognized by society, established by its acts, and determined by its rules. They appear as a regularly-organized corporation, with its special business, influence, and rights, penetrating into all ranks of the nation, and associating in the diversions of the people as well as in the festivities of their chiefs. Heirs of the Breton bards and the Scandinavian Scalds, with whom they are incessantly confounded by English writers of the Middle Ages, the minstrels of Old England retained for a considerable length of time a portion of the authority of their predecessors. When afterward subjugated, and quickly deserted, Great Britain did not, like Gaul, receive a universal and profound impression of Roman civilization. The Britons disappeared or retired before the Saxons and Angles; after this period, the conquest of the Saxons by the Danes, and of the united Danes and Saxons by the Normans, only commingled upon the soil a number of peoples of common origin, of analogous habits, and almost equally barbarous character. The vanquished were oppressed, but they had not to humiliate their weakness before the brutal manners of their masters; and the victors were not compelled to submit by degrees to the rule of the more polished manners of their new subjects. Among a nation so homogeneous, and throughout the vicissitudes of its destiny, even Christianity did not perform the part which devolved upon it elsewhere. On adopting the faith of Saint Remi, the Franks found in Gaul a Roman clergy, wealthy and influential, who necessarily undertook to modify the institutions, ideas, and manner of life, as well as the religious belief of the conquerors. The Christian clergy of the Saxons were themselves Saxons, long as uncouth and barbarous as the members of their flocks, but never estranged from, or indifferent to, their feelings and recollections. Thus the young civilization of the North grew up, in England, in all the simplicity and energy of its nature, and in complete independence of the borrowed forms and foreign sap which it elsewhere received from the old civilization of the South. This important fact, which perhaps determined the course of political institutions in England, could not fail to exercise great influence over the character and development of her poetry also.

A nation that proceeds in such strict conformity to its first impulse, and never ceases to belong entirely to itself, naturally regards itself with looks of complacency. The feeling of property attaches, in its view, to all that affects it, and the joy of pride to all that it produces. Its poets, when inspired to relate to it its own deeds, and describe its own customs, are certain of never meeting with an ear that will not listen or a heart that will not respond; their art is at once the charm of the lower classes of society, and the honor of the most exalted ranks. More than in any other country, poetry is united with important events in the ancient history of England. It introduced Alfred into the tents of the Danish leaders; four centuries before, it had enabled the Saxon Bardulph to penetrate into the city of York, in which the Britons held his brother Colgrim besieged; sixty years later, it accompanied Anlaf, king of the Danes, into the camp of Athelstan; and, in the twelfth century, it achieved the honor of effecting the deliverance of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. These old narratives, and a host of others, however doubtful they may be supposed, prove at least how present to the imagination of the people were the art and profession of the minstrel. A fact of more modern date fully attests the power which these popular poets long exercised over the multitude: Hugh, first Earl of Chester, had decreed, in the foundation-deed of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, that the fair of Chester should be, during its whole duration, a place of asylum for criminals, excepting in the case of crimes committed in the fair itself. In the year 1212, during the reign of King John, and at the time of this fair, Ranulph, last Earl of Chester, traveling into Wales, was attacked by the Welsh, and compelled to retire to his castle of Rothelan, in which they besieged him. He succeeded in informing Roger, or John de Lacy, the constable of Chester, of his position; this nobleman interested the minstrels who had come to the fair in the cause of the earl; and they so powerfully excited, with their songs, the multitude of outlawed persons then collected at Chester beneath the safeguard of the privilege of St. Werburgh, that they marched forth, under the command of young Hugh Button, the steward of Lord De Lacy, to deliver the earl from his perilous situation. It was not necessary to come to blows, for the Welsh, when they beheld the approach of this troop, thought it was an army, and raised the siege; and the grateful Ranulph immediately granted, to the minstrels of the county of Chester, various privileges, which they were to enjoy under the protection of the Lacy family, who afterward transferred this patronage to the Duttons and their descendants. [Footnote 6]

Nor do the chronicles alone bear witness to the number and popularity of the minstrels; from time to time they are mentioned in the acts of the Legislature. In 1315, during the reign of Edward II., the Royal Council, being desirous to suppress vagabondage, forbade all persons, "except minstrels," to stop at the houses of prelates, earls, and barons, to eat and drink; nor might there enter, on each day, into such houses, "more than three or four minstrels of honor," unless the proprietor himself invited a greater number. Into the abodes of persons of humbler rank even minstrels might not enter unless they were invited; and they must then content themselves "with eating and drinking, and with such courtesy" as it should please the master of the house to add thereto. In 1316, while Edward was celebrating the festival of Whitsuntide, at Westminster, with his peers, a woman, "dressed in the manner of minstrels," and mounted on a large horse, caparisoned "according to the custom of minstrels," entered the banqueting-hall, rode round the tables, laid a letter before the king, and, quickly turning her horse, went away with a salute to the company. The letter displeased the king, whom it blamed for having lavished liberalities on his favorites to the detriment of his faithful servants; and the porters were reprimanded for having allowed the woman to come in. Their excuse was, "that it was not the custom ever to refuse to minstrels admission into the royal houses." During the reign of Henry VI., we find that the minstrels, who undertook to impart mirth to festivals, were frequently better paid than the priests who came to solemnize them. To the festival of the Holy Cross, at Abingdon, came twelve priests and twelve minstrels; each of the former received "fourpence," and each of the latter "two shillings and fourpence." In 1441, eight priests, from Coventry, who had been invited to Maxtoke Priory to perform an annual service, received two shillings each; but the six minstrels who had been appointed to amuse the assembled monks in the refectory had four shillings a piece, and supped with the sub-prior in the "painted chamber," which was lighted up for the occasion with eight large flambeaux of wax, the expense of which is set down in due form in the accounts of the convent.

Thus, wherever festivities took place, wherever men gathered together for amusement, in convents and fairs, in the public highways and in the castles of the nobility, the minstrels were always present, mixing with all classes of society, and charming, with their songs and tales, the inhabitants of the country and the dwellers in towns, the rich and the poor, the farmers, the monks, and the nobles of high degree. Their arrival was at once an event and a custom, their intervention a luxury and a necessity; at no time, and in no place, could they fail to collect around them an eager crowd; they were protected by the public favor, and Parliament often had them under consideration, sometimes to recognize their rights, but more frequently to repress the abuses occasioned by their wandering life and increasing numbers.

What, then, were the manners of the people who took such enthusiastic delight in these amusements? What leisure had they for the indulgence of their taste? What opportunities, what festive occasions collected these men so frequently together, and provided these popular bards with a multitude ever ready to listen and applaud? That, beneath the brilliant sky of the South, free from the necessity of striving against natural hardships, invited by the mildness of the climate and the genial warmth of the sun to live in the open air beneath the cooling shade of their olive-trees, devolving upon their slaves the performance of all laborious duties, and uncontrolled by any domestic habits, the Greeks should have thronged around their rhapsodists, and, at a later period, crowded their open theatres, to yield their imagination to the charm of the simple narratives or pathetic delineations of poetry; or that even in our own day, under the influence of their scorching atmosphere and idle life, the Arabs, gathering round an animated story-teller, should spend entire days in following the course of his adventures—all this we can understand and explain; there the sky is not inclement, and material life requires none of those efforts which prevent men from giving themselves up to pleasures of this kind; nor are their institutions opposed to their indulgence in such enjoyments, but all things combine, on the contrary, to render their attainment easy and natural, and to occasion numerous meetings, frequent festivities, and protracted periods of leisure. But it was in a northern climate, beneath the sway of a cold and severe nature, in a society partially subject to the feudal system, and among a people living a difficult and laborious life, that the English minstrels found repeated opportunities for the exercise of their art, and were always sure that a crowd would collect to witness their performance.

The reason of this is, that the habits of England, being formed by the influence of the same causes that led to the establishment of her political institutions, early assumed that character of agitation and publicity which calls for the appearance of a popular poetry. In other countries, the general tendency was to the separation of the various social conditions, and even to the isolation of individuals. In England, every thing combined to bring them into contact and connection. The principle of common deliberation upon matters of common interest, which is the foundation of all liberty, prevailed in all the institutions of England, and presided over all the customs of the country. The freemen of the rural districts and the towns never ceased to meet together for the discussion and transaction of their common affairs. The county courts, the jury, corporate associations, and elections of all kinds, multiplied occasions of meeting, and diffused in every direction the habits of public life. That hierarchical organization of feudalism, which, on the Continent, extended from the poorest gentleman to the most powerful monarch, and was incessantly stimulating the vanity of every man to leave his own sphere and pass into the rank of suzerain, was never completely established in Great Britain. The nobility of the second order, by separating themselves from the great barons, in order to take their place at the head of the commons, returned, so to speak, into the body of the nation, and adopted its manners as well as assumed its rights. It was on his own estate, among his tenants, farmers, and servants, that the gentleman established his importance; and he based it upon the cultivation of his lands and the discharge of those local magistracies which, by placing him in connection with the whole of the population, necessitated the concurrence of public opinion, and provided the adjacent district with a centre around which it might rally. Thus, while active rights brought equals into communication, rural life created a bond of union between the superior and his inferior; and agriculture, by the community of its interests and labors, bound the whole population together by ties, which, descending successively from class to class, were in some sort terminated and sealed in the earth, the immutable basis of their union.

Such a state of society leads to competence and confidence; and where competence reigns and confidence is felt, the necessity of common enjoyment soon arises. Men who are accustomed to meet together for business will meet together for pleasure also; and when the serious life of the land-owner is spent among his fields, he does not remain a stranger to the joys of the people who cultivate or surround them. Continual and general festivals gave animation to the country life of Old England. What was their primary origin? What traditions and customs served as their foundation? How did the progress of rustic prosperity lead gradually to this joyous movement of meetings, banquets, and games? It is of little use to know the cause; the fact itself is most worthy of our observation; and in the sixteenth century, when civil discord had been brought to a term, we may follow it in all its brilliant details. At Christmas, before the gates of the castles, the herald, bearing the arms of the family, thrice shouted Largesse!

"Then opened wide the baron's hall To vassal, tenant, serf, and all; Power laid his rod of rule aside, And ceremony doffed his pride. The heir, with roses in his shoes, That night might village partner choose; The lord, underogating, share The vulgar game of 'post and pair.'" [Footnote 7]

Who shall describe the general joy and hospitality, the roaring fire in the hall, the well-spread table, the beef and pudding, and the abundance of good cheer which was then to be found in the house of the farmer as well as in the mansion of the gentleman. The dance, when the head began to swim with wassail; the songs of minstrels, and tales of by-gone days, when the party had become tired of dancing, were the pleasures which then reigned throughout England, when

"All hail'd, with uncontroll'd delight And general voice, the happy night, That to the cottage, as the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down. * * * * 'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year." [Footnote 8]

These Christmas festivities lasted for twelve days, varied by a thousand pleasures, kindled by the good wishes and presents of New Year's Day, and terminated by the Feast of Kings on Twelfth Day. But soon after came Plow Monday, the day on which work was resumed, and the first day of labor also was marked by a feast.

"Good housewives, whom God has enriched enough, Forget not the feasts that belong to the plow,"

says old Tusser, in his quaint rural poems. [Footnote 9]

The spindle also had its festival. The harvest feast was one of equality, and an avowal, as it were, of those mutual necessities which bring men into union. On that day, masters and, servants collected round the same table, and, mingling in the same conversation, did not appear to be brought into contact with each other by the complaisance of a superior desirous of rewarding his inferior, but by an equal right to the pleasures of the day:

"For all that clear'd the crop or till'd the ground Are guests by right of custom—old and young; * * * * Here once a year distinction low'rs its crest, The master, servant, and the merry guest, Are equal all; and round the happy ring The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling, And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place, With sun-burn'd hands and ale-enliven'd face, Refills the jug his honor'd host to tend, To serve at once the master and the friend; Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale, His nuts, his conversation, and his ale. Such were the days—of days long past I sing." [Footnote 10]

Sowing-time, sheep-shearing, indeed, every epoch of interest in rural life, was celebrated by similar meetings and banquets, and by games of all kinds. But what day could equal the first of May, brilliant with the joys of youth and the hopes of the year? Scarce had the rising sun announced the arrival of this festive morn, than the entire youthful population hastened into the woods and meadows, to the river-bank and hill-side, accompanied by the sounds of music, to gather their harvest of flowers; and, returning laden with hawthorn and verdure, adorned the doors and windows of their houses with their spoils, covered with blossoms the May-pole which they had cut in the forest, and crowned with garlands the horns of the oxen which were to drag it in triumph through the village. Herrick, a contemporary of Shakspeare, thus invites his mistress to go a Maying:

"Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colors through the air; Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see The dew bespangling herb and tree. Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east Above an hour since, yet you are not dress'd, Nay, not so much as out of bed; When all the birds have matins said, And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin, Nay, profanation, to keep in, When, as a thousand virgins on this day, Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May. Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark How each field turns a street, each street a park Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how Devotion gives each house a bough Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this, An ark, a tabernacle is, Made up of white thorn neatly interwove, As if here were those cooler shades of love."

The elegance of the cottages on May morning was imitated by the castles; and the young gentlefolks, as well as the lads and maidens of the village, went forth into the fields in search of flowers. Joy is sure to introduce equality into pleasures; the symbols of joy never vary, and are changed as little by difference of rank as by difference of season. Here enjoyment, led by abundance, seems to spend the year in continual festivities. Just as the first of May displays its profusion of verdure, as sheap-shearing fills the streets with flowers, and harvest-home is adorned with ears of corn, so Christmas will decorate the walls with ivy, holly, and evergreen. Just as dances, races, shows, and rustic sports cause the sky of spring to resound with their joyous tones, so games in which

"White shirts supplied the masquerade, And smutted cheeks the visors made,"

will waken the echoes, on the cold December nights, with shouts of gayety; and the May-pole and Christmas log will alike be borne in triumph and extolled in song.

Amid these games, festivals, and banquets, at these innumerable friendly meetings, and in this joyous and habitual conviviality (to use the national expression), the minstrels took their place and sang their songs. The subjects of these songs were the traditions of the country, the adventures of popular heroes as well as of noble champions, the exploits of Robin Hood against the sheriff of Nottingham, as well as the conflicts of the Percies with the Douglas clan. Thus the public manners called for poetry; thus poetry originated in the manners of the people, and became connected with all the interests, and with the entire existence, of a population accustomed to live, to act, to prosper, and to rejoice in common.

How could dramatic poetry have remained unknown to a people of such a character, so frequently assembling together, and so fond of holidays? We have every reason to believe that it was more than once introduced into the games of the minstrels. The ancient writers speak of them under the names of mimi, joculatores, and histriones. Women were frequently connected with their bands; and several of their ballads, among others that of "The Nut-brown Maid," are evidently in the form of dialogue. The minstrels, however, rather formed the national taste, and directed it to the drama, than originated the drama itself. The first attempts at a true theatrical performance are difficult and expensive. The co-operation of a public power is indispensable; and it is only in important and general solemnities that the effect produced by the play can possibly correspond to the efforts of imagination and labor which it has cost. England, like France, Italy, and Spain, was indebted for her first theatrical performances to the festivals of the clergy; only they were, it would appear, of earlier origin in that country than elsewhere. The performance of Mysteries in England can be traced back as far as the twelfth century, and probably originated at a still earlier period. But in France, the clergy, after having erected theatres, were not slow to denounce them. They had claimed the privilege in the hope of being able, by the means of such performances, to maintain or stimulate the conquests of the faith; but ere long they began to dread their effects, and abandoned their employment. The English clergy were more intimately associated with the tastes, habits, and diversions of the people. The Church, also, took advantage of that universal conviviality which I have just described. Was any great religious ceremony to be celebrated? or was any parish in want of funds? A Church-ale [Footnote 11] was announced; the church-wardens brewed some beer, and sold it to the people at the door of the church, and to the rich in the interior of the church itself.

Every one contributed his money, presence, provisions, and mirth to the festival; the joy of good works was augmented by the pleasures of good cheer, and the piety of the rich rejoiced to exceed, by their gifts, the price demanded. It often happened that several parishes united to hold the Church-ale by turns for the profit of each. The ordinary games followed these meetings; the minstrel, the morris-dance, and the performance of Robin Hood, with Maid Marian and the Hobby-horse, were never absent. The seasons of confession, Easter and Whitsuntide, also furnished the Church and the people with periodical opportunities for common rejoicings. Thus familiar with the popular manners, the English clergy, when offering new pleasures to the people, thought less of modifying them than of turning them to account; and when they perceived the fondness of the people for dramatic performances, whatever the subject might be, they had no idea of renouncing so powerful a means of gaining popularity. In 1378, the choristers of St. Paul's complained to Richard II. that certain ignorant fellows had presumed to perform histories from the Old Testament, "to the great prejudice of the clergy." After this period, the Mysteries and Moralities never ceased to be, both in churches and convents, a favorite amusement of the nation, and a leading occupation of the ecclesiastics. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, an Earl of Northumberland, who was a great protector of literature, established, as a rule of his household, that the sole business of one of his chaplains should be to compose interludes. Toward the end of his reign, Henry VIII. forbade the Church to continue these performances, which, in the wavering state of his belief, were displeasing to the king, and offended him sometimes as a Catholic and sometimes as a Protestant. But they reappeared after his death, and were sanctioned by such high authority, that the young king, Edward VI., himself composed a piece against the Papists, entitled "The Whore of Babylon;" and Queen Mary, in her turn, commanded the performance; in the churches, of popular dramas favorable to Popery. Finally, in 1569, we find the choristers of St. Paul's, "clothed in silk and satin," playing profane pieces in Elizabeth's chapel, in the different royal houses; and they were so well skilled in their profession, that, in Shakspeare's time, they constituted one of the best and most popular troops of actors in London.

Far, therefore, from opposing or seeking to change the taste of the people for theatrical representations, the English clergy hastened to gratify it. Their influence, it is true, gave to the works which they brought on the stage a more serious and moral character than was possessed in other countries by compositions dependent upon the whims of the public, and cursed by the anathemas of the Church. Notwithstanding its coarseness of ideas and language, the English drama, which became so licentious in the reign of Charles II., appears chaste and pure in the middle of the sixteenth century, when compared to the first essays of dramatic composition in France. But it did not the less continue to be popular in its character, ignorant of all scientific regularity, and faithful to the national taste. The clergy would have lost much by endeavoring to suppress theatrical performances. They possessed no exclusive privilege; and numerous competitors vied with them for applause and success. Robin Hood and Maid Marian, the Lord of Misrule and the Hobby-Horse, had not yet disappeared. Traveling actors, attached to the service of the powerful nobles, traversed the counties of England under their auspices, and obtained, by favor of a gratuitous performance before the mayor, aldermen, and their friends, the right of exercising their profession in the various towns, the court-yards of inns usually serving as their theatre. As they were in a position to give greater pomp to their exhibitions, and thus to attract a larger number of spectators, the clergy struggled successfully against their rivals, and even maintained a marked predominance, but always upon condition of adapting their representations to the feelings, habits, and imaginative character of the people, who had been formed to a taste for poetry by their own festivals and by the songs of the minstrels.

Such were the condition and tendency of dramatic poetry, when, at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, it appeared threatened by a two-fold danger. As it daily became more popular, it at last awakened the anxiety of religious severity and fired the ambition of literary pedantry. The national taste found itself attacked, almost simultaneously, by the anathemas of the Reformers and the pretensions of men of letters.

If these two classes of enemies had united in their opposition to the drama, it would, perhaps, have fallen a victim to their attacks. But while the Puritans wished to destroy it, men of letters only desired to get it into their own hands. It was, therefore, defended by the latter when the former inveighed against its existence. Some influential citizens of London obtained from Elizabeth the temporary suppression of stage-plays within the jurisdiction of the civic authorities; but, beyond that jurisdiction, the Blackfriars' Theatre and the court of the Queen still retained their dramatic privileges. The Puritans, by their sermons, may have alarmed some few consciences, and occasioned some few scruples; and perhaps, also, some sudden conversions may here and there have deprived the May-day games of the performance of the Hobby-Horse, their greatest ornament, and the special object of the wrath of the preachers. But the time of the power of the Puritans had not yet arrived, and, to obtain decisive success, it was too much to have to overcome at once the national taste and the taste of the court.

Elizabeth's court would well have liked to be classical. Theological discussions had made learning fashionable. At that time it was an essential part of the education of a noble lady to be able to read Greek, and to distill strong waters. The known taste of the queen had added to these the gallantries of ancient mythology. "When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility," says Warton, "at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. The pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs. When she rode through the streets of Norwich, Cupid, at the command of the mayor and aldermen, advancing from a group of gods who had left Olympus to grace the procession, gave her a golden arrow, which, under the influence of such irresistible charms, was sure to wound the most obdurate heart: 'a gift,' says Holinshed, 'which her majesty, now verging to her fiftieth year, received very thankfully.'" [Footnote 12]

But the court may strive in vain; it is not the purveyor of its own pleasures; it rarely makes choice of them, invents them even less frequently, and generally receives them at the hands of men who make it their business to provide for its amusement. The empire of classical literature, which was established in France before the foundation of the stage, was the work of men of letters, who derived protection from, and felt justly proud of, the exclusive possession of a foreign erudition which raised them above the rest of the nation. The court of France submitted to the guidance of the men of letters; and the nation at large, undecided how to act, and destitute of those institutions which might have given authority to its habits and influence to its tastes, formed into groups, as it were, around the court. In England the drama had taken precedence of classic lore; ancient history and mythology found a popular poetry and creed in possession of the means of delighting the minds of the people; and the study of the classics, which became known at a late period, and at first only by the medium of French translations, was introduced as one of those foreign fashions by which a few men may render themselves remarkable, but which take root only when they fall into harmonious accordance with the national taste. The court itself sometimes affected, in evidence of its attainments, exclusive admiration for ancient literature; but as soon as it stood in need of amusement, it followed the example of the general public; and, indeed, it was not easy to pass from the exhibition of a bear-baiting to the pretensions of classical severity, even according to the ideas then entertained regarding it.

The stage, therefore, remained under the almost undisputed government of the general taste; and science attempted only very timid invasions of the prerogative. In 1561, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, procured the representation, in presence of Elizabeth, of his tragedy of "Grorboduc," or "Forrex and Porrex," which critics have considered as the dramatic glory of the time preceding Shakspeare. This was, in fact, the first play which was properly divided into acts and scenes, and written throughout in an elevated tone; but it was far from pretending to a strict observance of the unities, and the example of a very tiresome work, in which every thing was done by means of conversation, did not prove very alluring either to authors or actors. About the same period, other pieces appeared on the stage, in greater conformity to the natural instincts of the country, such as "The Pinner of Wakefield," and "Jeronimo, or the Spanish Tragedy;" and for these the public openly demonstrated their preference. Lord Buckhurst himself was able to exercise no influence over the dominant taste, except by remaining faithful to it. His "Mirrour for Magistrates," a collection of incidents from the history of England, narrated in a dramatic form, passed rapidly into the hands of all readers, and became an inexhaustible mine for poets to draw from. Works of this kind were best suited to minds educated by the songs of the minstrels; and this was the erudition most relished by the majority of the gentlefolks of the country, whose reading seldom extended beyond a few collections of tales, ballads, and old chronicles. The drama fearlessly appropriated to itself subjects so familiar to the multitude; and historical plays, under the name of "Histories," delighted the English with the narrative of their own deeds, the pleasant sound of national names, the exhibition of popular customs, and the delineation of the mode of life of all classes, which were all comprised in the political history of a people who have ever taken part in the administration of their national affairs.

Beside these national histories, some few incidents from ancient histories, or the annals of other nations, took their place, commonly disfigured by the mixture of fabulous events. But neither authors nor public felt the slightest anxiety with regard to their origin and nature. They were invariably overloaded with those fantastic details, and those forms borrowed from the common habits of life, with which children so often decorate the objects which they are obliged to picture to themselves by the aid of their imagination alone. Thus Tamburlaine appeared in his chariot drawn by the kings whom he had conquered, and complaining bitterly of the slow pace and miserable appearance of his team. On the other hand, Vice, the usual buffoon of dramatic compositions, performed, under the name of Ambidexter, the principal part in Preston's tragedy of "Cambyses," which was thus converted into a Morality which would have been intolerably tedious if the spectators had not had the gratification of seeing a prevaricating judge flayed alive upon the stage, by means of "a false skin," as we are duly informed by the author. The performance, though almost entirely deficient in decorations and changes of scenery, was animated by material movement, and by the representation of sensible objects. When tragedies were performed, the stage was hung with black; and in an inventory of the properties of a troop of comedies, we find enumerated, "the Moor's limbs, four Turks' heads, old Mahomet's head, one wheel and frame in the siege of London, one great horse with his legs, one dragon, one rock, one cage, one tomb, and one hell's mouth." [Footnote 13] This is a curious specimen of the means of interest which it was then thought necessary to employ upon the stage.

And yet, at this period, Shakspeare had already appeared! and, before Shakspeare's advent, the stage had constituted, not only the chief gratification of the multitude, but the favorite amusement of the most distinguished men! Lord Southampton went to the theatre every day. As early as 1570, one, and probably two, regular theatres existed in London. In 1583, a short time after the temporary victory gained by the Puritans over the performance of stage-plays in that city, there were eight troops of actors in London, each of whom performed three times a week. In 1592, that is, eight years before the time when Hardy at length obtained permission to open a theatre in Paris, which had previously been impossible on account of the useless privilege possessed by the "Brethren of the Passion," an English pamphleteer complained most indignantly of "some shallow-brained censurers," who had dared "mightily to oppugn" the performance of plays, which, he says, are frequented by all "men that are their own masters—as gentlemen of the Court, the Inns of Court, and the number of captains and soldiers about London." [Footnote 14] Finally, in 1596, so vast a multitude of persons went by water to the theatres, which were nearly all situated on the banks of the Thames, that it became necessary considerably to augment the number of boatmen.

A taste so universal and so eager could not long remain satisfied with coarse and insipid productions; a pleasure which is so ardently sought after by the human mind, calls for all the efforts and all the power of human genius, This national movement now stood in need only of a man of genius, capable of receiving its impulse, and raising the public to the highest regions of art. By what stimulus was Shakspeare prompted to undertake this glorious task? What circumstance revealed to him his mission? What sudden light illumined his genius? These questions we can not answer. Just as a beacon shines in the nighttime without disclosing to our view the prop by which it is supported, so Shakspeare's mind appears to us, in his works, in isolation, as it were, from his person. Scarcely, throughout the long series of the poet's successes, can we discern any traces of the man, and we possess no information whatever regarding those early times of which he alone was able to give us an account. As an actor, it does not appear that he distinguished himself above his fellows. The poet is rarely adapted for action; his strength lies beyond the world of reality, and he attains his lofty elevation only because he does not employ his powers in bearing the burdens of earth. Shakspeare's commentators will not consent to deny him any of those successes to which he could possibly lay claim, and the excellent advice which Hamlet gives to the actors at the court of Denmark has been quoted in support of a theory that Shakspeare must have executed marvelously well that which he so thoroughly understood. But Shakspeare showed equal acquaintance with the characters of great kings, mighty warriors, and consummate villains, and yet no one would be likely to conclude from this that he was capable of being a Richard the Third or an Iago. Fortunately, we have reason to believe that applause, which was then so easily obtained, was not bestowed in a sufficient degree to tempt an ambition which the character of the young poet would have rendered it too easy for him to satisfy; and Rowe, his first historian, informs us that his dramatic merits "soon distinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer."

Years nevertheless elapsed before Shakspeare made his appearance on the stage as an author. He arrived in London in 1584, and is not known to have engaged in any employment unconnected with the theatre during his residence in the metropolis; but "Pericles," his first work, according to Dryden, though many of his other critics and admirers have rejected it as spurious, did not appear until 1590. How was it possible that, amid the novel scenes that surrounded him, his active and fertile mind, whose rapidity, according to his contemporaries, "equaled that of his pen," could have remained for six years without producing any thing? In 1593, he published his poem of "Venus and Adonis," which he dedicated to Lord Southampton as "the first heir of his invention;" and yet, during the two preceding years, two dramas which are now ascribed to him had achieved success upon the stage. The composition of the poem may have preceded them, although the dedication was written subsequently to their production; but if the "Venus and Adonis" is anterior to all his dramas, we must come to the conclusion that, in the midst of his theatrical life, Shakspeare's eminently dramatic genius was able to engage in other labors, and that his first productions were not intended for the stage. A more probable supposition is that Shakspeare spent his labor, at first, upon works which were not his own, and which his genius, still in its novitiate, has been unable to rescue from oblivion. Dramatic productions, at that time, were less the property of the author who had conceived them than of the actors who had received them. This is always the case when theatres begin to be established; the construction of a building and the expenses of a performance are far greater risks to run than the composition of a drama. To the founder of the theatre alone is dramatic art indebted, at its origin, for that popular concourse which establishes its existence, and which the talent of the poet could never have drawn together without his assistance. When Hardy founded his theatre at Paris, each troop of actors had its poet, who was paid a regular salary for the composition of plays, just in the same way as the chaplain of the Earl of Northumberland. In the time of Shakspeare, the English stage had made much greater progress, and already enjoyed the facility of selection and the advantages of competition. The poet no longer disposed of his labor beforehand, but he sold it when completed; and the publication of a piece, for permission to perform which an author had been paid, was regarded, if not as a robbery, at least as a want of delicacy which he found it difficult to defend or excuse. While dramatic property was in this state, the share which the self-love of an author might claim in it was held in very low account the success of a work which he had sold did not belong to him, and its literary merit became, in the hands of the actors, a property which they turned to account by all the improvements which their experience could suggest. Transported suddenly into the midst of that moving picture of human vicissitudes which even the paltriest dramatic productions then heaped upon the stage, the imagination of Shakspeare doubtless beheld new fields opening to its view. What interest, what truthfulness might he not infuse into the store of facts presented to him with such coarse baldness! What pathetic effects might he not educe from all this theatrical parade! The matter was before him, waiting for spirit and life. Why had not Shakspeare attempted to communicate them to it? However confused and incomplete his first views may have been, they were rays of light arising to disperse the darkness and disorder of chaos. Now a superior man possesses the power of making the light which illumines his own eyes evident to the eyes of others. Shakspeare's comrades doubtless soon perceived what new successes he might obtain for them by remodeling the uncouth works which composed their dramatic stock; and a few brilliant touches imparted to a ground-work which he had not painted—a few pathetic or terrible scenes intercalated in an action which he had not directed—and the art of turning to account a plan which he had not conceived, were, in all probability, his earliest labors, and his first presages of glory. In 1592, a time at which we can scarcely be certain that a single original and complete work had issued from his pen, a jealous and discontented author, whose compositions he had probably improved too greatly, speaks of him, in the fantastic style of the time, as an "upstart crow, beautified with our feathers; an absolute Johannes Factotum, who is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in the country." [Footnote 15]

It was, we are inclined to believe, while engaged in these labors, more conformable to the necessities of his position than to the freedom of his genius, that Shakspeare sought to recreate his mind by the composition of his "Venus and Adonis." Perhaps even the idea of this work was not then entirely new to him; for several sonnets, relating to the same subject, occur in a volume of poems published in 1596, under Shakspeare's name, and the title of which, "The Passionate Pilgrim," is expressive of the condition of a man wandering, in affliction, far from his native land. The amusement of a few melancholy hours, from which the age and character of the poet had not availed to preserve him at his entrance upon a painful or uncertain destiny—these little works are doubtless the first productions which Shakspeare's poetic genius allowed him to avow; and several of them, as well as the poem of "Venus and Adonis," need to be excused, it must be confessed, by the effervescence of a youth too much addicted to dreams of pleasure not to attempt to reproduce them in all their forms. In "Venus and Adonis," the poet, absolutely carried away by the voluptuous power of his subject, seems entirely to have lost sight of its mythological wealth. Venus, stripped of the prestige of divinity, is nothing but a beautiful courtesan, endeavoring unsuccessfully, by all the prayers, tears, and artifices of love, to stimulate the languid desires of a cold and disdainful youth. Hence arises a monotony which is not redeemed by the simple gracefulness and poetic merit of many passages, and which is augmented by the division of the poem into stanzas of six lines, the last two of which almost invariably present a jeu d'esprit. But a metre singularly free from irregularities, a cadence full of harmony, and a versification which had never before been equaled in England, announced the "honey-tongued poet," and the poem of "Lucrece" appeared soon afterward to complete those epic productions which for some time sufficed to maintain his glory.