PART II. THE APPEAL TO HISTORY. (continued 2)
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The gentlemen above mentioned, believe the author of the plays to have been a romanist, not because the reverend Richard Davies, writing soon after 1685, distinctly says "he died a Papist," (for any statement made anywhere within a hundred years of William Shakespeare's lifetime is "mere gossip," and it is only the biographies we write now-a-days that are to be relied upon), but mainly because the liturgy and priesthood of that church are invariably treated with respect in the plays, while dissenting parsons are poked fun at without stint. Doubtless, in the modern drama the same rule will be perceived to obtain. The imperious liturgy and priesthood of the roman or of the stately anglican church appear to be beyond the attempts of travesty; while the snivel and preach of mere puritanism has always been too tempting an opportunity for "Aminadab Sleek" and his type—to be resisted, and such a fact would justify very little conclusion either way. Besides, there is no call to insist that the stage, in epitomizing life into the compass of an hour, shall preserve every detail; nothing less than a Chinese theater could answer a demand like that. There is a dramatic license even broader than the license accorded to poetry, and we would doubtless find the drama a sad bore if there were not. William Shakespeare, during his managerial career, appears to have understood this as well as any body; nor have the liberties he took with facts and chronology befogged any body, except the daily lessening throng of investigators, who believe him to be the original of the masterpieces he cut into play-hooks for his stage.
But did William Shakespeare ever try his hand at verse-making? There is considerable rumor to the effect that, during the leisure of his later life, no less than in the lampooning efforts of his vagrom youth, he did turn his pen to rhymes. And the future may yet bring forth a Shakespearean honest enough to collect these verses—as they follow here—and to entitle them—
THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
EPITAPH ON ELIAS JAMES. *
When God was pleased, the world unwilling yet,
Elias James to nature paid his debt,
And here reposeth; as he liv'd he dyde;
The saying in him strongly verified—
Such life, such death; then, the known truth to tell,
He lived a godly lyfe, and dyde as well.
EPITAPH ON SIR THOMAS STANLEY. **
Ask who lyes here, but do not weepe:
He is not dead, he doth but sleepe;
This stony register is for his bones,
His fame is more perpetual than these stones,
And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
Shall live when earthly monument is none.
* On the authority of "a MS. volume of poems by Herrick and others, said to be in the handwriting of Charles I., in the Bodleian Library. ** On the authority of Sir William Dugdale ("Visitation Book"), who says, "The following verses were made by William Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian." This appears to be our author's longest and most ambitious work.
Not monumental stone preserves our fame
Nor skye aspyring pyramids our name;
The memory of him for whom this stands
Shall outlive marble and defacer's hands,
"When all to Time's consumption shall be given;
Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven.
EPITAPH OX TOM-A-COMBE, OTHERWISE THIXBEARD. *
Thin in beard and thick in purse,
Never man beloved worse;
He went to the grave with many a curse,
The Devil and he had both one nurse.
WHOM I HAVE DRUNKEN WITH. **
Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillsborough and hungry Grafton;
With dancing Exhall, Papist Wixford,
Beggarly Bloom and drunken Bidford.
DAVID AND GOLIATH. ***
Goliath comes with sword and spear,
And David with a sling;
Although Goliath rage and swear
Down David doth him bring.
ON JOHN COMBE, A COVETOUS RICH MAN, MR. WILLIAM SHAKE-SPEARE WRIGHT THIS ATT HIS REQUEST WHILE HEE WAS YETT LIVEING FOR HIS EPITAPHE. ****
Ten in the hundred lies here engraved;
' Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved;
If any one asks, "Who lies in this tomb?"
"Hoi hoi" quoth the Devil, "'tis my John a Combe."——
* On the authority of Peck, "Memoirs of Milton," 4to, 1740 ** On the authority of John Jordan. There is a strong poetic license here—according to the well-known legend, William had really only drunk with Bidford; the quantrain is probably the work of Jordan and not Shakespeare. *** On the authority of Stratford local tradition. **** Aslimolean MS., cited by Halliwell. The pun is on the Warwickshire pronunciation, "Ho! ho!" quoth the Devil, "'tis my John has come!" See Aubrey's version: "Ten in the hundred the Devil allows, But Coombs will have twelve he swears and vows," etc.
——BUT BEING DEAD, AND MAKING THE POOR HIS HEIRES, HEE AFTER WRIGHTES THIS FOR HIS EPITAPHE. *
Howere he lived judge not,
John Combe shall never be forgott
While poor hathe memmorye, for he did gather
To make the poor his issue, be their father,
As record of his tilth and seedes,
Did crown him in his later needes.
Finis. W. Shak.
LAMPOON ON SIR THOMAS LUCY. **
Sir Thomas was too covetous,
To covet so much deer,
When horns enough upon his head
Most plainly do appear.
Had not his worship one deer left?
What then? He had a wife.
Took pains enough to find him horns
Should last him all his life.
* Ashmolean MS. same as preceding. Both the above are given by Mr. Grant White. Shakespeare, vol. I, p. ci. ** This is given to us by Mr. S. W. Fullom (History of William Shakespeare, Player and Poet; with New Facts and Traditions. London: Saunders, Oatley & Co., 1864, p. 133,) with the following note: "The manner in which this fragment was recovered is not different from that to which we owe so many local ballads, known only to the common people. About 1690, Joshua Barnes, the Greek Professor at Cambridge, was in an inn at Stratford, when he heard an old woman singing these stanzas, and, discerning the association with Shakespeare, offered her ten guineas to repeat the whole ballad. This, however, she was unable to do, having forgotten the remaining portion." Mr. Fullom says these verses "reveal the Shakespearean touch," and alludes to a scandal touching Lady Lucy's infidelity to her husband. The following additional verses were furnished by John Jordan, who altered the above stanza into the same meter, and asserted the whole to be Shakespeare, as unearthed and restored by himself: He's a haughty, proud, insolent knight of the shire At home nobody loves, yet there's many that fear; If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscall it— Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it. To the Sessions he went, and did lowdly complain His park had been robbed and his deere they were slain; This Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miseall it— Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it. He sayd It was a ryot, his men had been beat, His venison was stol'n and clandestinely eat: So Lucy is lowsie as some volke miscall it— Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it. So haughty was he when the fact was confessed He sayd 'twas a wrong that could not be redressed; So Luey is lowsie, as some volke miseall it— Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it. Though luces a dozen he wear on his coat, His name it shall lowsie for Luey be wrote; For Luey is lowsie, as some volke miseall it— We'll sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it. If a juvenile frolic he can not forgive, We'll sing lowsie Lucy as long as we live; And Luey the lowsie a libel may call it— We'll sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it.
Mr. Collier (Shakespeare, R. G. White, Ed. 1854, p. cciii), gives the following four verses as by William Shakespeare:
ON THE KING.
Crown have their compass, length of days their date,
Triumphs their tomb, Felicity her fate;
Of naught but earth can earth make us partaker,
But knowledge makes a king most like his maker.
But gives no other authority for it than "a coeval manuscript."
The world has, very regrettingly, come to look with such suspicion on Mr. Jollier's discoveries, that this relic, until confirmed, will hardly be accepted as genuine.
ANOTHER VERSION OF THE LAMPOON. *
A Parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse;
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befalle it.
He thinks himself greate,
Yet an asse is his state:
We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
Sing, O lowsie Lucy, whate'er befalle it.
Some lampoon was affixed by young William to Sir Thomas Lucy's park gate, and enraged the baronet to such a degree that—according to Capell—he directed a lawyer at Warwick to commence a prosecution against the lad. The Lucy note, however, makes no mention of the lawyer, only stating that young Shakespeare deemed it prudent to quit Stratford, "at least for a time." The long ballad of six stanzas (which we give in the foot-note) was written by John Jordan, a harmless rustic who lived at Stratford in the days of Malone and Ireland, i. e. in the last years of the eighteenth century, and went about claiming to have inherited the mantle of Shakespeare. The "Piping Pebworth" verses, and perhaps the whole story was written by him.
* According to Capell, Oldys, and Grant White. (See Mr. White's Shakespeare, Vol. I. p. xxxviii.) Oldys leaves out the "O" in the fourth and eighth lines. Mr. Fullom (cited above) declares this version to be spurious. (See note 3, p. 121.)
At any rate, he seems to have succeeded in obtaining immortality by mixing his own efforts so successfully with the Shakespearean remains as to make them all one in the local traditions. The above, with the
INSCRIPTION FOR HIS OWN TOMB.
Good frend, for Jesvs' sake forbeare,
To digg ye dust encloased here.
Blesse be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.
(which was originally placed on the stone over William Shakespeare's vault in the chancel of Trinity Church, Stratford—was recut in the new stone which was found necessary fifty years ago, and now appears with the verbal contractions as given above) are all the literary compositions which, according to the local traditions of Stratford, his home, where he was born, lived, and died—where alone, for a century or more after his death his reputation was cherished—William Shakespeare ever produced. There is nothing: in them inconsistent with the record of the man himself; and, so far as we know, have never been rejected by the Shakespeareans themselves. It certainly would not be honest, in our present appeal to history, to insert in this edition—we may fairly call it "The Stratford Edition"—of Master Shakespeare's poetry, all that he edited for the stage; or, worse yet, borrowed and dressed up, and—according to Robert Greene—passed for his own.
We are very far from desiring even to do justice to poor Robert Greene, if in so doing we shall detract a hair's weight from the merits of William Shakespeare. But it is not impossible to say a good word even for Greene. Although his language is not within such bounds of propriety as the Shakespeareans could wish, modern research has amply proved that he told the truth, and that William Shakespeare borrowed, or rather seized upon and adopted, without compensation, the work by which Greene earned his bread. For Greene's language, Chettle, Greene's editor, makes haste, sometime afterward, when William Shakespeare had been taken up by "divers of worship" to apologize, as far as an editor can apologize for an author. We shall see, further on, how William Shakespeare was shrewd enough to make himself useful to these "divers of worship," and in those days, and for a century after, no slavery was so abject as the slavery of letters to patronage. So, of course, Chettle hastened to make his peace with them too. But the truth remains, nevertheless, that poor Greene told only the truth. It is fashionable with the Shakespeareans to sneer at Greene, because he was "jealous" of Shakespeare. He appears to have had reason to be jealous! But no name is bad enough to bestow on him. Mr. Grant White says: "Robert Greene, writing from the fitting deathbed of a groveling debauchee, warns three of his literary companions to shun intercourse with," etc., "certain actors, Shakespeare among the rest." If Robert Greene died from over-debauch, it is no more than Shakespeare himself died of, according to the entry in the diary of the Rev. John Ward. "It is not impossible," says Mr. White, "even that this piece of gossiping tradition is true." Mr. White is right to call it "gossiping tradition," for it is piece and parcel of all the other mention of William Shakespeare of Stratford. If it were not for "gossiping tradition," we had never heard, and Mr. White had never written, of that personage. But Mr. White makes no reservation of "gossiping tradition" in the case of Robert Greene. Greene dies "on the fitting deathbed of a groveling debauchee," because he was jealous of William Shakespeare, and was so injudicious, and so far forgot himself as to call that "jack of all trades" an "upstart crowe, beautified with our feathers," etc. It seems that poor Robert Greene's dying words—if they were his dying words—were his ante-mortem legacy of warning and prophecy to the ages which were to follow him. But they have not been heeded. His "upstart crowe" has not only kept all his borrowed feathers, but is arrayed each passing day with somebody's richer and brighter plumage. If Robert Greene could speak from the dust, he doubtless could tell us—as Jonson and the rest might have told us in their lifetimes, if they only would—whose all this plumage really was and is. But all are dust and ashes together now—dust and ashes three centuries old—and, as Miss Bacon said, "Who loses any thing that does not find" the secret of that dust? However, not a Shakespearean stops to waste a sigh over the memory of poor Robert Greene, * who saw his bread snatched from his mouth by a scissorer of other men's brains, and who was too human to see
* "Robert Greene was a clergyman, and with no less poetry or rhetoric than his fellows (Nash, Peele, and William Shakespeare), was, from his miscellaneous and discursive reading, a very useful man in his coterie." Dr. Latham speaks of his book as "A Groats Worth of Rest, purchased with a Million of Repentance," which certainly makes better sense than "a groat's worth of wit," etc., as usually written. Which is right? Greene died in 1592.
and hold his peace; but over the drunken grave of the Stratford pretender—who was vanquished in his cups at Bidford and Pebworth, and lay all night under the thorn-tree, but who died bravely in them at the last—they weep as for one cut off untimely, as Dame Quickly over the lazared and lecherous clay of Sir John Falstaff: "Nay, sure, he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever a man went to Arthur's bosom.'A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any Christom child." But let us not assume the appearance of unkindness to William Shakespeare. He lived a merry life; and, so far as we can know, wronged nobody except his own wife, poor Robert Greene, and perhaps the delinquent for malt delivered. He loved his own, but that is no wrong. And, we must not forget that, so far as the world can ever know, he claimed not as his, save by his silence, the works a too flattering posterity has assigned him.
The appeal to history not only declines to set aside, but affirms, with costs, the verdict rendered upon the evidence. And the sum is briefly this: If William Shakespeare wrote the plays, it was a miracle; every thing else being equal, the presumption is against a miracle; but, here, every thing else is not equal, for all the facts of history are reconcilable with history and irreconcilable with the miracle; if history is history, then miracle there was none—in other words, if there were one miracle, then there must have been two. If there had lived no such man as William Shakespeare, that "William Shakespeare" would be as good a name as any other to designate the authorship of the Shakespearean page, who will consider it worth while to question? But to credit the historical man with the living page demands, in our estimation, either a willful credulity, or an innocence that is almost physical blindness!