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.
{33}
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.
{34}
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.
{35}
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.
{36}
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.
{37}
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.
{38}
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.
{39}
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.
{40}
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.
{41}
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]
[Footnote 6: During the reign of Elizabeth, when fallen from
their ancient splendor, but still of such importance that the
law, which would no longer protect them, was obliged to pay
attention to them, the minstrels were, by an act of
Parliament, classed in the same category with beggars and
vagabonds; but an exception was made in favor of those
protected by the Dutton family, and they continued freely to
exercise their profession and privileges, in honorable
remembrance of the service by which they had gained them.]
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.
{42}
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.
{43}
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.
{44}
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.
{45}
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.