nor until seven years after his death. His heirs and executors made no
claim to supervision nor ownership. He took no apparent interest in
them, nor corrected, nor revised them for publication. He left no
indication by which the genuine could be discerned from the spurious,
and was apparently indifferent to literary reputation. Unlike many of
his great contemporaries in that luminous epoch, there was little of
the Bohemian in Shakespeare. He attended strictly to business, and
grew in prosperity as he increased in fame. Marlowe, Massinger, Ford,
Decker, Middleton, Webster, and others of his associates led
precarious and irregular lives as hack-writers for the stage, but
Shakespeare, in his triple functions as actor, author, and shareholder
of the Blackfriars and the Globe, rapidly acquired a fortune. As early
as 1597, after ten years in London, at the age of thirty-four, he had
amassed enough to enable him to buy New Place, the largest mansion in
Stratford, built by Sir Hugh Clopton, and from time to time he added
to his possessions by the purchase of real estate and tithes, till he
became the wealthiest citizen of his native town. He was also the
owner of improved property in London, near St. Paul's Cathedral,
bought three years before his death. No doubt the bitter recollections
of the privations of his childhood, and the humiliations resulting
from his father's heedless improvidence, stimulated his purpose to
retrieve the misfortunes of his family, establish them in comfort and
dignity amid the familiar scenes of his youth, and retire from the
scene of his triumphs to the shadowy forests and sylvan vistas of the
Avon, where his life began.
The "Great House" in New Place, where Shakespeare led the life of a
country gentleman after breaking the magician's wand, like the other
residences in Stratford, must have stood even with the street, for the
brick arches of part of the foundation, and fragments of the side and
cross walls remain, being covered with iron gratings to prevent
depredation. The curb and canopy of the well from which he drank are
draped with clustering vines. It was a modest domain of small area,
and is now a grassy lawn surrounded by an iron paling. After the death
of Shakespeare's granddaughter, Lady Bernard, in 1670, the house was
sold to a descendant of its original owner, and finally became the
property of Rev. Francis Gastrell, who, in 1756, cut down the
mulberry-tree planted by Shakespeare, because he was annoyed by the
curiosity of visitors, and in 1759 razed the house to the ground on
account of some controversy about taxes with the local authorities.
The museum of relics and curiosities in the rooms adjoining the
kitchen and chamber above, in the house of John Shakespeare, contains
early editions of the plays, unimportant engravings, a ring with the
initials W. S., a chair, and a sword supposed to have belonged to the
poet, some contemporary deeds and writings, and a letter to him from a
neighbor entreating the loan of thirty pounds. Few traces of his
closing days in Stratford remain. He was an exacting creditor, had
some trivial transactions with the corporation, and took an active
interest in municipal affairs. He died suddenly, April 23, 1616. His
son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, the husband of Susanna, was the leading
physician of Stratford, and a practitioner of considerable repute. He
left notes of important cases in which he officiated, and their
treatment. He would naturally have attended Shakespeare in his last
illness, but he makes no mention of the case, nor of the cause of his
death. Reverend John Ward, who was vicar of Stratford nearly fifty
years afterward, wrote in his diary--"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben
Jonson had a merie meeting and it seems drank too hard, for
Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted." The old sanctuary in
which he was buried is a noble specimen of decorated gothic
architecture, a cruciform structure of yellowish-gray stone, with low
eaves and broad sheltering roof, from the midst of which rises a
square battlemented tower with slender pointed spire. It is approached
by a paved stone path bordered with limes, leading from the highway
through the graveyard where, beneath a twilight of shade, many
generations of the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Along the
venerable aisles of the nave and in the transept, are effigies and
memorial tablets disclosed in the dim religious light. The chancel is
disproportionately spacious and has high stained-glass windows at the
sides and end. In front of the altar, beneath slabs of gray stone, are
the graves of Shakespeare and his family. The widow, who survived him
seven years, lies nearest the wall, and on the other side Susanna and
her husband, Dr. Hall. The removal of the dust to Westminster Abbey
has been prevented by the profane imprecation of the inexplicable
epitaph by which the tenant of the tomb, as if in anticipation of the
irreconcilable mysteries posterity would discover in his history,
bequeathed an undying curse to him who should disturb his repose.
Some distance away, and at a considerable height in the north wall of
the chancel, upon a bracket between two windows, is a half-length bust
of Shakespeare with a pedantic Latin inscription. It was placed in
1623 by Dr. Hall, and being so nearly contemporary, may be considered
a portrait. A few years ago the church authorities permitted an
American artist to erect a platform from which to study the work
minutely. He found one cheek-bone higher than the other, and was of
opinion, from the position of the lips and tongue, that it was
modelled from a cast taken after death. It is a beefy, commonplace
countenance, heavy, dull, and vacant, rendered trivial and conceited
by foppish mustaches curled up beneath the nostrils. It bears little
resemblance to the familiar Droeshout portrait engraved for the first
edition of the plays, and still less to the so-called Stratford
portrait exhibited at the museum on Henley Street. This picture was
discovered many years ago in the shop of a London antiquarian by an
unknown person, who thought the upper part of the head resembled
Shakespeare's. The face bore a heavy beard, which was supposed to have
been added to save the work from destruction by the Puritans! As the
incidents are related there is no evidence of its genuineness or
authenticity. One of the chief attractions of the Memorial Museum in
the lovely park near the church, on the banks of the Avon, is a series
of photographs of a plaster cast purporting to be a death-mask of
Shakespeare, now in the possession of some German potentate, which one
of the most eminent English judges declares to be established by
evidence sufficient to maintain any proposition in a court of law. It
should be genuine, if it is not, for it represents the loftiest and
noblest type of the Anglo-Saxon race. The other portraits are vapid,
affected, and conventional, without character or expression; but this
is superb. The broad imperial brow, the firm, aquiline, and sensitive
nose, the mouth proud, humorous, and passionate, the full orbits of
the eyes, and the resolute, massive jaw, all indicate a temperament
and brain of which the greatest deeds in letters, arts, or arms, might
be confidently predicted.
A few weeks before his death Shakespeare made a will, bequeathing all
his landed property in strict entail to his eldest daughter. This
document is preserved at Somerset House, a vast government building in
London, adjoining Waterloo Bridge, between the Strand and the Victoria
Embankment, where the probate records of the kingdom are deposited. It
is locked in a buff leather case with an engraved inscription on a
brass disk on the lid. It is written on three large square separate
sheets of heavy paper, discolored by time. Each sheet is laid flat and
sealed between two plates of clear glass, so that both sides can be
inspected. The handwriting of the scrivener in the body of the
instrument is quite distinct and legible, considering its antiquity.
The signature of Shakespeare appears at the bottom of each sheet. The
chirography of men of genius is proverbially bad, generally from its
fluent facility, but the autographs of Shakespeare are clumsy,
uncouth, and awkward, their disconnected and sprawling letters seeming
to have been formed with difficulty by fingers unfamiliar with the use
of the pen. They may perhaps have been written in an unaccustomed
position, or when the testator was enfeebled by disease. It could not
have been the infirmity of age, for he was but fifty-two when he died.
It is impossible to look at these signatures without receiving the
impression that they were written by an illiterate man. It is not
merely their illegibility, but they have the scrawly curves and
uncertain terminations of the penman who is not certain about the
spelling of his own name. The great collections of London contain many
manuscripts of celebrated authors, ancient and modern, and some that
are hard to decipher, but there is no chirography more hopelessly and
irreclaimably unlettered and unscholarly than that of William
Shakespeare.
At the shrine by the placid Avon, which the centuries have invested
with their pensive and resistless charm, and over which genius has
cast its enchanting spell, an impassable gulf seems fixed between the
Shakespeare of Stratford and the Shakespeare of London. They appear
like two entirely different and almost irreconcilable personalities.
All that is known of either renders all that is claimed for the other
improbable. Many dual lives have been lived before and since, but none
seem so incompatible as these.
It is unlikely that the claim of Shakespeare to the authorship of the
dramas that bear his name will ever be overthrown. His title has been
too long conceded to be successfully contested. That he wrote them can
now be neither proved nor refuted, but there are inherent
improbabilities that must always make the Shakespearean legend a
profoundly fascinating subject of psychological consideration.
And were he to be dethroned, to whom should the sceptre and the crown
be given? Lord Bacon had a kingly soul, capacious great thoughts, and
high designs, but no one who has read his metrical translation of the
Psalms of David will be troubled again with doubts whether he was the
writer also of "Macbeth," "Othello," and "Lear." Compared with these
sterile, bald, and mechanical quatrains, the sacred hymns of Isaac
Watts are howling and bacchanalian anacreontics, to be hiccoughed by
drunkards in their most abandoned hours of revelry.
Pondering upon the mystery as I walked up and down beneath the flaring
lights, on the windy platform at Bletchley, waiting, after a day at
Stratford, for a belated train to London, I reflected that genius has
no pedigree nor prescription, and that at last the greatest marvel
was, not that the tragedy of "Hamlet" was written by Shakespeare, but
that it was written at all.
[Signature of the author.]
MOLIERE
Extracts from "Moliere," by SIR WALTER SCOTT
(1622-1673)
[Illustration: Moliere.]
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was christened at Paris, January 15, 1622. His
family consisted of decent burghers, who had for two or three
generations followed the business of manufacturers of tapestry, or
dealers in that commodity. Jean Poquelin, the father of the poet, also
enjoyed the office of valet-de-chambre in the royal household. He
endeavored to bring his son up to the same business, but finding that
it was totally inconsistent with the taste and temper of the young
Jean-Baptiste, he placed him at the Jesuits' College of Clermont, now
the College of Louis-le-Grand. Young Poquelin had scarcely terminated
his course of philosophy when, having obtained the situation of
assistant and successor to his father, in his post of valet-de-chambre
to the king, he was called on to attend Louis XIII. in a tour to
Narbonne, which lasted nearly a year. Doubtless, the opportunities
which this journey afforded him, of comparing the manners and follies
of the royal court and of the city of Paris, with those which he
found still existing in the provincial towns and among the rural
noblesse, were not lost upon the poet by whose satirical power they
were destined to be immortalized.
On his return to Paris, young Poquelin commenced the study of the law;
nay, it appears probable that he was actually admitted an advocate.
But the name of Moliere must be added to the long list of those who
have become conspicuous for success in the fine arts, having first
adopted the pursuit of them in contradiction to the will of their
parents; and in whom, according to Voltaire, nature has proved
stronger than education.
Instead of frequenting the courts, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was an
assiduous attendant upon such companies of players as then amused the
metropolis, and at length placed himself at the head of a society of
young men, who began by acting plays for amusement, and ended by
performing with a view to emolument. His parents were greatly
distressed by the step he had taken. He had plunged himself into a
profession which the law pronounced infamous, and nothing short of
rising to the very top of it could restore his estimation in society.
Whatever internal confidence of success the young Poquelin might
himself feel, his chance of being extricated from the degradation to
which he had subjected himself must have seemed very precarious to
others; and we cannot be surprised that his relations were mortified
and displeased with his conduct. To conciliate their prejudices as
much as possible, he dropped the appellation of Poquelin and assumed
that of Moliere, that he might not tarnish the family name. But with
what indifference should we now read the name of Poquelin, had it
never been conjoined with that of Moliere, devised to supersede and
conceal it! It appears that the liberal sentiments of the royal court
left Moliere in possession of his office, notwithstanding his change
of profession.
From the year 1646 to 1653, it is only known that Moliere travelled
through France as the manager of a company of strolling players. It is
said that with the natural turn of young authors, who are more
desirous to combine scenes of strong emotion than of comic situation,
he attempted to produce a tragedy called "The Thebaid." Its
indifferent success disgusted him with the buskin; and it may be
observed, that in proportion as he affects, in other compositions,
anything approaching to the tragic, his admirable facility of
expression seems to abandon him, and he becomes stiff and flat.
In the year 1653 Moliere's brilliant comedy of "L'Etourdi" was
performed at Lyons, and gave a noble presage of the talents of its
illustrious author. The piece is known to English readers by a
translation entitled "Sir Martin Marplot," made originally by the
celebrated Duke of Newcastle, and adapted to the stage by the pen of
Dryden. The piece turns upon the schemes formed by a clever and
intriguing valet to facilitate the union betwixt his master and the
heroine of the scene, all of which are successively baffled and
disconcerted by the bustling interference of the lover himself. The
French original has infinitely the superiority; the character of the
luckless lover is drawn with an exquisitely finer pencil. Lelie is an
inconsequential, light-headed, gentleman-like coxcomb, but Sir Martin
Marplot is a fool. In the English drama, the author seems to have
considered his hero as so thoroughly stupid, that he rewards the
address of the intriguing domestic with the hand of the lady. The
French author gave no occasion for this gross indecorum. "L'Etourdi"
was followed by "Le Depit Amoureux," an admirable entertainment;
although the French critics bestow some censure on both for a
carelessness of style to which a foreigner may profess himself
indifferent. Both these performances were received with the greatest
applause by numerous audiences; and as far as the approbation of
provincial theatres could confer reputation, that of Moliere was now
established.
There was, however, a temptation which threatened to withdraw him from
the worship of Thalia. This was an offer on the part of the Prince of
Conti, who had been his condisciple at college, to create Moliere his
secretary. He declined this, on account of his devoted attachment to
his own profession, strengthened on this occasion, perhaps, by his
knowledge how the place had become vacant. This, it seems, was by the
death of Sarrasin (who had held the office), in consequence of _un
mauvais traitement de Monseigneur le Prince de Conti_. In plain
English, the prince had, with the fire-tongs, knocked down his
secretary, who never recovered from the effects of the blow. It is
probable that, notwithstanding the laurel chaplet worn by Moliere, he
had little faith in the _sic evitabile fulmen_.
This was in 1654. He continued to perambulate the provinces with his
company for several years longer; in 1658 he returned to Paris, and at
last, through the influence of his patron the Prince of Conti, was
introduced to Monsieur, the king's brother, and by him presented to
the king and queen. On October 24th, his company performed in presence
of the royal family, and he obtained the royal license to open a
theatre under the title of "Troupe de Monsieur," in opposition to, or
in emulation of, the comedians of the Hotel de Bourgogne. The pieces
which Moliere had already composed were received with great favor, but
it was not until 1659, that he commenced the honorable satirical war
upon folly and affectation which he waged for so many years. It was
then that he produced "Les Precieuses Ridicules."
The piece was acted for the first time November 18, 1659, and received
with unanimous applause. The public, like children admitted behind the
scenes, saw, with wonder and mirth, the trumpery which they had
admired as crowns, sceptres, and royal robes, when beheld at a
distance--thus learning to estimate at their real value the affected
airs of super-excellence and transcendental elegance assumed by the
frequenters of the Hotel de Rambouillet.
On the other hand, the party which was consequently made the
laughing-stock of the theatre were much hurt and offended, nor was the
injury at all the lighter that some of them had sense enough to feel
that the chastisement was deserved. They had no remedy, however, but
to swallow their chagrin and call themselves by their own names in
future. Menage expressed his own recantation in the words of Clovis,
when he became a convert to Christianity, and told his assembled
Franks they must now burn the idols which they had hitherto adored.
The affectation of the period, such as we have described it, received
a blow no less effectual than that which Ben Jonson, by his satire
called "Cynthia's Revels," inflicted on the kindred folly of euphuism,
or as the author of "The Baviad and Maeviad" dealt to similar
affectations of our own day. But Moliere made a body of formidable
enemies among the powerful and learned, whose false pretensions to wit
and elegance he had so rudely exposed.
Two things were remarkable as attending the representation of this
excellent satire: first, that an old man, starting up in the parterre,
exclaimed, "Courage, Moliere, this is real comedy!" and, secondly,
that the author himself, perceiving from the general applause that he
had touched the true vein of composition, declared his purpose
henceforward to read his lessons from the human bosom, instead of
studying the pages of Terence and Plautus.
After an unsuccessful effort at a serious piece ("Don Garcie de
Navarre, ou Le Prince Jaloux"), Moliere resumed his natural bent; and
in "L'Ecole des Maris" presented one of his best compositions, and at
once obliterated all recollection of his failure. It was acted at
Paris with unanimous applause, and again represented at the
magnificent entertainment given by the superintendent of finances,
Fouquet, to Louis XIV. and his splendid court.
"L'Ecole des Femmes" was Moliere's next work of importance. It is a
comedy of the highest order. An old gentleman, who had been an
intriguer in his youth and knew (as he flattered himself) all the
wiles of womankind, endeavors to avoid what he considers as the usual
fate of husbands, by marrying his ward, a beautiful girl, simple
almost to silliness, but to whom nature has given as much of old
mother Eve's talent for persuasion and imposition as enables her to
baffle all the schemes of her aged admirer and unite herself to a
young gallant more suited to her age. The "Country Wife" of Wycherly
is an imitation of this piece, with the demerit on the part of the
English author of having rendered licentious a plot which, in
Moliere's hands, is only gay.
Although this piece was well received and highly applauded, it was at
the same time severely criticised by those who had swallowed without
digesting the ridicule which the author had heaped on the Hotel de
Rambouillet in the "Precieuses Ridicules," and on the various conceits
and follies of the court in "Les Facheux." Such critics having shown
themselves too wise to express the pain which they felt on their own
account, now set up as guardians of the purity of the national morals
and language. A _naive_ expression used by Agnes was represented as
depraving the one; a low and somewhat vulgar phrase was insisted upon
as calculated to ruin the other. This affected severity in morals and
grammar did not impose on the public, who were quite aware of the
motives of critics who endeavored to ground such formidable charges on
foundations so limited. The celebrated Boileau drew his pen in defence
of his friend, in whose most burlesque expression there truly lurked a
learned and useful moral: "Let the envious exclaim against thee," he
said, "because thy scenes are agreeable to all the vulgar; if thou
wert less acquainted with the art of pleasing, thou wouldst be enabled
to please even thy censors." Moliere himself wrote a defence of
"L'Ecole des Femmes," "in which," says M. Taschereau, "he had the good
fortune to escape the most dangerous fault of an author writing upon
his own compositions, and to exhibit wit where some people would only
have shown vanity and self-conceit."
In the evening of the same day which saw his next comedy, "Le Mariage
Force," there came out as a part of the royal fete, the three first
acts, or rough sketch, of the celebrated satire, entitled "Tartuffe,"
one of the most powerful of Moliere's compositions. It was applauded,
but from the clamor excited against the poet and the performance, as
an attack on religion, instead of its impious and insidious adversary,
hypocrisy, the representation was for the time interdicted; a
fortunate circumstance, perhaps, since in consequence the drama
underwent a sedulous revision, given by Moliere to few of his
performances.
"Le Festin de Pierre"--the Feast of the Statue--well known to the
modern stage under the name of "Don Juan," was the next vehicle of
Moliere's satire. The story, borrowed from the Spanish, is well known.
In giving the sentiments of the libertine Spaniard, the author of
"Tartuffe" could not suppress his resentment against the party, by
whose interest with the king that piece had been excluded from the
stage, or at least its representation suspended. "The profession of a
hypocrite," says Don Juan, "has marvellous advantages. The imposture
is always respected, and although it may be detected, must never be
condemned. Other human vices are exposed to censure and may be
attacked boldly. Hypocrisy alone enjoys a privilege which stops the
mouth of the satirist, and enjoys the repose of sovereign impunity."
This expression, with some other passages in the piece (the general
tenor of which is certainly not very edifying), called down violent
clamors upon the imprudent author; some critics went so far as to
invoke the spiritual censure and the doom of the civil magistrate on
Moliere as the atheist of his own "Festin de Pierre." He was, however,
on this as on other occasions, supported by the decided favor of the
king, who then allowed Moliere's company to take the title of
"Comediens du Roi," and bestowed on them a pension of 7,000 livres,
thereby showing how little he was influenced by the clamors of the
poet's enemies, though attacking his mind on a weak point.