John Naps, of Greece, who did recently return to his home here from
London, safely has delivered to Anne, your wife, the package
entrusted to him for carriage. As your wife hath not the gift of
writing, she does desire that I convey to you her thanks for the
sundry contents of the hamper. She hath also confided to me as her
spiritual adviser that she did diligently ply John Naps with
questions as to his visit to you in London, and that said John Naps,
under her interrogatories, has revealed to her much that doth make
her sick at heart and weary of life.
_Item_. He doth report that you do pass among men as a bachelor,
and, with sundry players and men of that ilk, do frequent a house of
entertainment kept by one Doll Tearsheet, and do kiss the barmaid
and call her your sweetheart.
_Item_. He doth also report that you did give to the daughter of the
publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and
did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her
lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with the said damsel.
_Item_. He doth further report of you that you did visit, with one
Ben Jonson, on the Sabbath-day, a place of disrepute, where were
cock-fights and the baiting of a bear, and that with you were two
brazen women, falsely called by you the wife and sister of Ben
Jonson.
These things do overmuch grieve Anne, who hath been to you a loyal
wife and a true, and she desires that you do forthwith renounce your
evil ways and return to the new house at Stratford, and in ashes and
sackcloth repent of your wanderings from the straight and narrow
way.
Thus far have I spoken to you as the mouthpiece and vicegerent of
Anne, your wife, who is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason
of your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my flock, I should be
unworthy my high and sacred calling did I not lift up also my
rebuking voice as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you to
beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, which unceasingly do war
upon the human soul. Thinkest thou to touch pitch and remain
undefiled?
The next letter is from the firm of Coke &
Dogberry, lawyers in London.
INNER TEMPLE, March 8, 1609.
To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
We have been retained by Mistress Anne Page as her solicitors to
bring against you an action, for that you have not fulfilled and in
sooth cannot fulfil with her a contract of marriage, and to seek
against you under the laws of this realm heavy damages and an
imprisonment of the body, in that you have in unholy ways trifled
with her affections, contrary to the statute in such cases provided.
She especially avers that you did, two days before Michaelmas, swear
to her on a parcel gilt goblet that you did love her alone, and did
then give to her a bracelet of price. But yesterday, as she was
bargaining with a yeoman named Christopher Sly, from Stratford, for
the purchase of a spotted pig of his own fattening, the said Sly did
reveal to her that you were his friend, and that you had wife and
children in your native town where he dwelt. We beg you to
straightway name to us your solicitors, that we may confer with them
and attend to the issuance of the writs.
I have aimed to select from the letters sent me only those bearing on
some trouble tending to cause sleeplessness on the part of the poet, but
make an exception in case of a letter of Sir Walter Raleigh, next in
chronological order, which refers to matters of general interest.
The Mermaid, March 20, 1609.
To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
Full well do I know, my dearest Will, that often hast thou wondered
of the fate of thy £50, which, with a hundred times as much of mine
own, was adventured to found an empire in America. Great were our
hopes, both of glory and of gold, in the kingdom of Powhatan. But it
grieves me much to say that all hath resulted in infelicity,
misfortune, and an unhappy end. Our ships were wrecked, or captured
by the knavish Spaniards. Our brave sailors are perished. As I was
blameworthy for thy risk, I send by the messenger your £50, which
you shall not lose by my over-hopeful vision. For its usance I send
a package of a new herb from the Chesapeake, called by the natives
tobacco. Make it not into tea, as did one of my kinsmen, but kindle
and smoke it in the little tube the messenger will bestow. Be not
deterred if thy gorge at first rises against it, for, when thou art
wonted, it is a balm for all sorrows and griefs, and as a dream of
Paradise. And now, my sweet Will, whom my soul loveth, why comest
thou not as of yore to the "Mermaid," that I may have speech with
thee? Thou knowest that from my youth up I have adventured all for
the welfare and glory of our Queen Elizabeth. On sea and on land and
in many climes have I fought the accursed Spaniards, and am honored
recognize thy supreme merit, for daily and hourly are sung to her
the praises of this loveliness until the story is as a tale that is
told and a weariness to the understanding; but thy commendations of
her wisdom will be as fresh and fragrant incense, nor will their
truthfulness be too closely scanned.
Thou knowest that I have taken all knowledge to be my province, and
therefore have I oft and longingly gazed into the flowery fields of
that divine art where to-day in our much-loved England thou art
disporting thyself supremely and alone. But when I consider thy
tragedies, throughout which is diffused the inmost soul of poesy, my
crude yet labored metres seem to me as the body of a maiden, not
indeed devoid of a certain comeliness and grace, yet into whose
waiting bosom hath not yet been breathed the spirit of life.
In thy tragedies thou hast the majestic grace which in the Attic
ages belonged to Sophocles alone; thou hast the stately march and
music of Aeschylus, without in thy themes his ceaseless iteration
of predestined woe which ranks his heroes outside humanity; yet the
sombre hand of fate hath not more inflexibly driven the gentle
Iphigenia to her doom than it hath followed Macbeth to his
foreshadowed crime and end. But in thy canticles it is not an
o'ershadowing, mysterious, and tragic fate, but a gracious and
loving Providence which, as thyself hath phrased it,
"Holds in His hands the shears of destiny,
And has commandment on the pulse of life."
In comedy, Aristophanes is not thy master, yet must I greatly choose
thy tragedies as monuments of thy abiding fame. Funeral dolors
rather than bridal carols inspire even the harp of David, beloved of
the Lord; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost toucheth ever the
shadowed phases of our earthly lives.
I am minded to now advert to another topic from the tale told me by
Southampton that thou wert presently to publish a volume of thy
sugared sonnets. May I pray thee that this collection compass not
the two sonnets written by thee for me in laud of our Queen
Elizabeth, and the one of this morning? As thou knowest, these first
were presented to our gracious Sovereign as mine own, and did so
pleasure her as to chiefly prosper my advancement. Were the true
author now known it might sadly mar my fortunes. In the vastness of
thy riches, the absence of these gems shall not be noted. The loss
of a star dims not the splendor of the constellations. The glorious
sun seeks not to reclaim the lustre his rays have given to the tiny
dewdrop. Withal I have rendered to thee somewhat of recompense as I
have spoken at sundry times to her gracious Majesty and to our
present anointed Sovereign of thy dramas, and fostered as best I
might thy interests when they crossed not mine own. So I trust this
boon may be awarded me, and that my borrowed splendors may not be
stripped away. Thy immeasurable superiority, as again evidenced in
the sonnet to the Lady Mary, has fixed anew my resolve as to my
predestined field of labor. Not for my brow shall be woven the
Poet's garland of bays. Yet abundant self-confidence is mine, and I
augur that in the great work for which I would fain believe the ages
are waiting, will be made clear my award to be the high priest of
Nature. Exact sciences not yet born shall be my servitors and the
augmenters of my fame. By the methods I have discerned shall mankind
discover and apply those beneficent innovations which are the
chiefest births of time. Yet even this hope hath its flavor of
bitterness, as thus guided my pupils may far overpass me and my
memory be lost. But the love of beauty and melody in poesy is of
perennial life, and thy memory shall survive the mutations of time,
and shall be the Nation's heritage while fancy and imagination dwell
in the souls of men.
Anew do I now discern that the meditation of Nature and her laws,
mysterious yet exact, consorteth not with the airy fancies of the
Poet's vision, and that our paths are diverse, yet each guiding to
what is useful and divine.
Farewell! and until the dolors of death are mine shall I remember
thy sweet, loving kindness, and admire thy shining genius where wit
and wisdom guide the flight of a sovereign imagination.
Ever thy friend, FRANCIS BACON.
One special point is notable in this letter from Bacon. His ordinary
correspondence is thickly sprinkled with quotations in the ancient
tongues. As he was well acquainted with Shakespeare, this omission of
his customary Latin phrases would indicate that he recognized
Shakespeare's lack of a thorough classical education.
The next, and the last letter in the collection which seems to have a
bearing upon the sleeplessness of Shakespeare, is also from Rev. Walter
Blaise.
STRATFORD, April 3, 1609.