^STUDIES IN 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 {First Series) 
 
 HOMER B. S PRAGUE 
 
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 iiiiMi>miii
 
 ITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 
 
 Other Works 
 by 
 
 Homer B. Sprague, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 History of the Thirteenth Connecticut 
 Infantry Regiment. 
 
 Treatise on Voice and Gesture. 
 
 Shakespeare's Alleged Blunders in Legal 
 Terminology. 
 
 Mystery of Undeserved SufTering in the 
 Light of Evolution. 
 
 Metrical Version of The Book of Job. 
 
 Lights and Shadows in Confederate 
 Military Prisons. 
 
 Annotated English Masterpieces.
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 (First Series) 
 
 By 
 HOMER B. SPRAGUE, M.A., PH.D., LL.D. 
 
 Sometime Principal of the Public High School, 
 Worcester, Mass. and the Adelphi Academy, 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. Nine years Head Master of 
 the Girls' High School, Boston, Mass. President 
 of Mills College, California 
 
 Also 
 
 STUDENT 
 
 PROFESSOR 
 
 AND PRESIDENT IN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITIES of 
 
 YALE, CORNELL AND 
 NORTH DAKOTA 
 
 respectively 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
 
 Copyright 1916 
 By Homer B. Sprague 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 BOSTON
 
 r ■ 
 
 0^ 
 
 To the 
 many thousands 
 S> of students still using my 
 
 M annotated texts or who during 
 
 * the last forty years have listened 
 
 patiently to my talks on the higher 
 
 English Literature 
 
 this little book is 
 affectionately 
 
 2 dedicated 
 
 oc 
 S 
 u. 
 O 
 
 t 
 
 ■434567
 
 Preface 
 
 What need of adding another book on Shake- 
 speare to the thousands that already cumber our 
 Hbrary shelves? None indeed, unless something 
 should be stated or emphasized that is either not 
 well enough known or not sufficiently appreciated. 
 Both considerations move the present author to 
 offer these four Studies. 
 
 1. Of the foundations of Shakespeare's greatness 
 we cannot claim that there have been new dis- 
 coveries; but a careful grouping of the ascertained 
 facts in regard to his father's family and his own 
 early environment warrants the assertion that the 
 first twelve or fifteen years of the boy's life were 
 passed in the midst of influences calculated to 
 awaken and foster his ambition. Reasoning from 
 effect to cause, we have a right to infer that he 
 was from childhood an intense worker, and soon a 
 book student of extraordinary diligence. 
 
 2. Such a youth — a mind omnivorous and all- 
 assimilating — impelled by a threefold motive of 
 knowledge, culture, and expression — moving in a 
 realm of the highest ideals — is especially liable to 
 be fascinated by female beauty. Hence his marriage 
 to a woman seven or eight years his senior, a step 
 proper enough provided either had the means of 
 supporting a family. Incidentally a law student, 
 
 [9]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 good evidence is given that he became a sort of 
 schoolmaster. The suggestion is made that Anne 
 was his private pupil, matrimonial ' conjugation ' 
 supervening as naturally as when Lucentio in The 
 Taming of the Shrew taught the beautiful Bianca. 
 No myth nor miracle nor external aid needed in 
 the solution of the Shakespeare problem. 
 
 3. The soldier stage comes next after the lover's. 
 The evidence that young Shakespeare was clerk 
 at headquarters and otherwise saw much of military 
 life is cumulative, and the documentary proof is 
 almost if not quite conclusive. 
 
 4. The study of the plays reveals the fact that 
 his superiority consists not at all in the originality 
 of the plots, but largely, if not chiefly, in the crea- 
 tion of characters. His skill in making many of 
 these originate or color for themselves a sympa- 
 thetic environment is unequaled. He appears the 
 keenest, broadest, wisest, best-informed of ob- 
 servers. Few if any are so tolerant as he. Spon- 
 taneity and splendor mark his earlier plays; depth 
 and strength his later. Matchless language-form — 
 blended truth, imagery, sentiment, personification 
 — are claimed for him. Vividness and frequency of 
 prosopopoeia are a superlative excellence. Super- 
 added to these and perhaps other instances of pre- 
 eminence, are his wit and humor, his philosophic 
 insight, practical wisdom, and power of portraying 
 deep and varied emotion. Milton's eulogium is 
 decisive. 
 
 [10]
 
 Contents 
 
 Preface 
 
 Page 
 
 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 I. Shakespeare's Cradle and School; 
 
 a Study of His Early Environ- 
 ment and His Genius for Labor . 13 
 
 II. Shakespeare's Early Manhood; a 
 
 Study of his Marriage, Pedagogy, 
 
 Law, and Foundations .... 55 
 
 III. Shakespeare's Sword and Musket; 
 
 a Study of the Military Element 
 
 in the Man and His Dramas . . 105 
 
 IV. Shakespeare's Wand and Sceptre; 
 
 a Study of His Imagination and 
 Points of Superiority .... 159 
 
 Index 209 
 
 111
 
 Study I 
 Shakespeare^s Cradle and School
 
 Far from the sun and summer gale, 
 In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, 
 What time where lucid Avon strayed, 
 
 To him the mighty mother did unveil 
 Her awful face. The dauntless child 
 Stretched forth his little arms and smiled. 
 " This pencil take," she said, " whose colors clear 
 Richly paint the vernal year: 
 Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy! 
 This can unlock the gates of joy; 
 Of horror that, and thrilling fears, 
 Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." 
 
 — The Progress of Poesy, by Thomas Gray (1754).
 
 STUDY I 
 SHAKESPEARE'S CRADLE AND SCHOOL 
 
 A STUDY OF HIS EARLY ENVilJON!.IENT AND HIS 
 GENIUS FOR LA.BOF: .'."■.!• .'. 
 
 Many years ago, at the beginning of one of my 
 long summer vacations, I sat down to ascertain if 
 I could what sort of person William Shakespeare 
 in his childhood and youth was, and what founda- 
 tion, if any, was then laid for his greatness. I 
 discarded preconceived theories, took little or 
 nothing for granted, endeavored to verify, so far 
 as practicable, the truth of every alleged fact, and 
 to weigh, accepting or rejecting, all the customary 
 conclusions. A rather bold, even audacious at- 
 titude, some one will say, yet often the correct 
 one for a student — certainly in line with the 
 apostolic injunction, " Prove all things; hold 
 fast that which is good." 
 
 In this and other studies of Shakespeare I 
 present some of the results at which I then and 
 subsequently arrived. I shall not be so fortunate 
 as to induce all my readers to agree with me in my 
 findings: I hope many of them will do something 
 better than that. Mrs. Browning well says in 
 Aurora Leigh, 
 
 " Get work in this world; 
 Be sure 't is better than what you work to get." 
 
 [15]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Right habits of thought, mental growth, discipline, 
 broader horizons, new worlds of truth into which 
 you enter, more joyous appreciation of the wealth 
 of literature; above all, inspiration to higher living 
 — these are bettt^r far than any accumulation of 
 facts and formulae. If you gain any of these 
 benefits, even if-ycu.dp not concur with me at all 
 after testing the authenticity of my facts or the 
 soundness of my conclusions, I ought to be satis- 
 fied. Of course I believe both to be correct; but 
 verify is the word; " Prove all things; hold fast 
 that which is good." 
 
 In this regard we are fortunate in our subject; 
 for, as Halliwell-Phillipps affirms, " There is hardly 
 anything in Shakespearian criticism that is settled 
 beyond perad venture." On many interesting points 
 there is abundant room for differences of opinion.^ 
 Here, as in almost all history, we have to balance 
 probabilities. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the research of scholars and 
 antiquaries — and no man in modern times has 
 been the subject of more investigation — Shake- 
 speare is still a myth to some, a miracle to many, 
 a mystery to all. Certainly the history of litera- 
 ture presents no other instance of a mind begin- 
 ning so low and climbing so high. It used to be 
 said that neither his father nor his mother could 
 write.^ However that may have been, he was 
 
 [16]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 certainly of humble birth; yet, in spite of adverse 
 circumstances, by that force of being which we call 
 genius, he somehow rose to an eminence so lofty 
 that few if any of our race stand beside him in 
 royalty of intellect; and from that crowning sum- 
 mit it is perhaps safe to say that with eye at once 
 microscopic and telescopic he directed a more 
 searching glance and commanded a vaster horizon 
 than any other man. 
 
 Every item of information in regard to such 
 a person should be of interest, may be of value. 
 This must be my apology, if any be needed, for 
 stating facts which in the case of almost any other 
 author might be deemed trivial. 
 
 We are told that he was of pure English blood, 
 and this statement is explained to mean that he 
 was half Saxon and half Norman, or, as Lowell 
 poetically puts it, " One lobe of Shakespeare's 
 brain was Normanly refined, and the other Saxonly 
 sagacious." It has been commonly said that he 
 was Saxon by the father, Norman or French by 
 the mother. It is just possible that the reverse 
 may have been the fact; for critics have arisen 
 who argue ingeniously that, although " Shake- 
 speare " is an old Warwickshire word and looks as 
 if it were of unmistakable Saxon etymology, yet it 
 appears in the reign of Exlward III as a corruption 
 of the French " Jacques Pierre " (Jacob Stone, or 
 James Peter), and that the mother's surname 
 
 [17]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 " Arden or de Ardern " (Celtic meaning Wood) 
 was adopted by the Turchills, a Saxon family of 
 distinction whose pedigree is alleged to have been 
 traced beyond the Norman Conquest.^ 
 
 At Stratford-on-Avon, which they made their 
 permanent home, John Shakespeare and Mary 
 Arden, who had been united in marriage in the 
 parish church of Wilmcote in the year 1557, were 
 gladdened by the birth and saddened by the death 
 of two daughters before our poet was born. On 
 the 26th of April, 1564, their first boy was chris- 
 tened William.^ Those who have an appetite for 
 etymologies find food for rumination here. " Wil- 
 liam " is said to signify "he of the good (or resolute 
 or golden) helmet," and " Shakespeare," the Greek 
 engchespalos (spear-brandishing)^ — William Shake- 
 speare they say is the golden-helmeted brandisher 
 of the spear, perhaps the most brilliant and warlike 
 name in our language! 
 
 Besides her respectable lineage William's mother 
 brought to the marriage quite a little fortune in 
 houses and lands.® His father, John Shakespeare, 
 seems in business a very Proteus — farmer, grazier, 
 wood-dealer, wool-grower, corn vender, butcher, 
 pelt seller, tanner, glover. Perhaps we may recon- 
 cile the accounts of his various occupations by 
 supposing that he owned a farm or two, and so 
 was a farmer; raised sheep and cattle, and so was 
 a grazier or flockmaster; cut and sold wood from 
 his land, and so was a wood dealer; sheared the 
 
 [18]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 sheep and dealt in wool, and so was a wool-grower; 
 cultivated and marketed grain, and so was a corn 
 vender; butchered the animals and retailed the 
 meat, and so was a butcher; traded off some of the 
 hides, and so was a pelt seller; tanned others into 
 leather, and so was a tanner; manufactured the 
 sheepskins and calfskins into rude gloves, and so 
 was a glover. Such a union of occupations was 
 nothing uncommon in those days, when the divi- 
 sion of labor had not been carried far. 
 
 Some eight years before William's birth his 
 father was a juror in the borough court. A juror 
 is presumed to have plenty of time at his disposal. 
 He can sit long on juries or curbstones, waiting 
 like Wilkins Micawber for " something to turn up." 
 A year later we find his father filling the ofifice of 
 ale-conner, ale-inspector, a very agreeable ofifice, no 
 doubt.' Six and again five years before William 
 was born, his father was one of the four constables 
 of the borough. What Shakespeare thought of 
 constables may be inferred from several of his 
 plays — Loves Labor's Lost, Measure for Measure 
 and more especially Much Ado About Nothing, 
 in which he makes the beef-witted Dogberry, 
 himself a constable, say to Seacoal, " Neighbor 
 Seacoal, you are thought here to be the most 
 senseless and fit man for constable."^ Twice — 
 five and again three years (1559 and 1561) before 
 William's advent — his father is an afTeeror, a 
 borough court attache charged with the duty of 
 
 [19]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 fixing the amount of petty fines for misdemeanors, 
 a position requiring good judgment and a nice 
 sense of right and wrong, 
 
 " To make the punishment fit the crime." 
 
 Two or three years before William came, we find 
 his father holding the office of chamberlain or 
 treasurer of the borough.^ Of course this required 
 honesty and business ability. He held it for two 
 years, and was so well-to-do he could several times 
 allow the borough to be indebted to him in a con- 
 siderable sum. Afterwards he was auditor of 
 municipal accounts. 
 
 The summer after William was born his father 
 contributed money to relieve the sufferers by the 
 plague, " the sweating sickness," it was called. 
 It struck Stratford in June, and in six months it 
 swept away more than one sixth of the whole 
 population, 239 out of about 1,400 souls-^*^ It is 
 a fair inference that the family were then in good 
 pecuniary circumstances and charitably disposed. 
 When the boy was a little over a year old, on the 
 fourth of July, 1565, his father became one of the 
 fourteen aldermen, an office requiring wisdom and 
 integrity. He discharged its duties so well that 
 he held it by successive re-elections more than 
 twenty years. Annually one of the aldermen was 
 elected high bailiff and empowered to hold a court 
 once a fortnight. The office was the highest in the 
 gift of the corporation. The court was one of 
 
 [20]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 record with a registrar and a clerk. It had juris- 
 diction of cases in which the property involved 
 did not exceed in value thirty pounds, say $1,200 
 to $1,500. So on the fifth of September, 1568, 
 William's father became the presiding magistrate. 
 He must have been of good abilities and high 
 character with some knowledge of law.^^ 
 
 September 5th, 1571, William being then nearly 
 seven and a half years of age, his father was 
 elected chief alderman, the highest position 
 among the fourteen. He held it till the last day of 
 the following September, quite constantly a rising 
 man in the little world of Stratford. When William 
 was eleven, his father had not only a controlling 
 interest in his wife's property, fifty acres at Wilm- 
 cote and two dwelling houses with adjoining 
 buildings and grounds at Snitterfield, but he was 
 also the owner of other pieces of real estate. 
 
 The loss of their infant daughters must have 
 made John and Mary Shakespeare feel a deeper 
 and more tender interest in their first-born son, 
 an interest not lessened by the birth of Gilbert 
 some two and a half years younger than William, 
 Joan about two and a half years younger than Gil- 
 bert, Ann^^ two and a half younger than Joan, 
 Richard two and a half younger than Ann, and 
 finally Edmund six years younger than Richard. 
 William, then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen was 
 the oldest of six living children. Quite constantly 
 
 [21]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 they had an infant in that house, and the sweet 
 refining presence of a little child must have pro- 
 duced an impression for good on this most sensitive 
 nature. ^^ Then came the sad experience of his 
 sister's death adding a tinge of seriousness if not 
 of melancholy, such as we may find in his early 
 poems, especially his sonnets. 
 
 Yet we may safely assume after this brief survey 
 that the first twelve or fifteen years of his life were 
 passed in the midst of influences calculated to 
 awaken and foster his ambition. During his first 
 five or ten years — years that are often decisive 
 of character and destiny — the family was rising 
 in the social and political scale, growing in im- 
 portance as in numbers. And this mother of 
 respectable ancestry, this aspiring and successful 
 father, at times the foremost man in Stratford, 
 would of course wish their boy to have a superior 
 education. What more natural than that they 
 should employ private tutors?^* We do not know- 
 that such was the case with the Shakespeares ; 
 but it was customary in well-to-do families. With 
 a special instructor of the right sort there is little 
 in learning that is not attainable; few heights or 
 depths that cannot be scaled or sounded. 
 
 Whether the boy had this advantage or not, 
 there is no doubt that, like a majority of brilliant 
 Englishmen, he was much indebted to that wisest 
 of secular bounties which founds free institutions of 
 learning. The Stratford free grammar school, 
 
 [22]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 established in the reign of Edward IV, suppressed 
 by Henry VIII, restored in 1553 by Edward VI, 
 was open to the chief alderman's son at the age of 
 seven. ^^ The principal study was Latin preparatory 
 to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 Higher English was picked up only incidentally in 
 the " gerund grinding " processes of translation. 
 The rudiments of Greek, and even French and 
 Italian, were sometimes imparted to bright pupils 
 in similar English institutions, and we may be sure 
 none brighter than our hero ever sat on those hard 
 benches. " Toughness plus astucity," to use Car- 
 lyle's phrase — bodily endurance and keen discern- 
 ment — it seemed to me when I visited the school 
 in June, 1882, must surely be gained by those who 
 survived the drill for years. 
 
 The latest and best biographers for the most 
 part, like Sidney Lee, T. Spencer Baynes, and 
 Hamilton W. Mabie, are of the opinion that William 
 spent nearly six years in this school. ^^ Appleton 
 Morgan, William J. Rolfe and some other eminent 
 Shakespearians have been inclined to believe he 
 was not a diligent and regular student. Here 
 perhaps our views may widely diverge. The vast 
 and multiform learning displayed in the dramas is 
 conceded, though some will have it that the erudi- 
 tion was Lord Bacon's, or that of some other ripe 
 scholar or " syndicate " of scholars, or, to repeat 
 the old joke, " It was not William Shakespeare, 
 but another man of the same name! " 
 
 [23]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 The prevalent impression, perhaps I should call 
 it the current notion, is that the youngster himself 
 was idle, eccentric, irregular, often truant, dis- 
 sipated, dissolute even. Such depravity, the un- 
 thinking say, is characteristic of genius. " The 
 favorite idea of a genius," says Dr. Orville Dewey," 
 "is of one who never studies, or who studies no- 
 body can tell when, — at midnight, or at odd times 
 and intervals, and now and then strikes out ' at 
 a heat,' as the phrase is, some new and wonderful 
 production"; that geniuses are "loose fellows 
 about town or loungers in the country," who 
 " write in ale-houses and sleep in bar-rooms; 
 pick up the pen as a magician's wand to supply 
 their wants, and, when the pressure of necessity 
 is relieved, resort again to their carousals; abhor 
 order, can bear no restraint, eschew all labor," 
 etc. 
 
 I have little patience with such a theory either 
 of genius in general or that of Shakespeare in 
 particular. Genius, as I understand the term, is the 
 ability to see further and deeper, to feel more 
 keenly, conceive more vividly, originate more 
 rapidly, express more delicately and strongly, but 
 most of all and including all to work very long and 
 very hard. It is never idle: its apparent indolence 
 is that of the whirling top, so swift as to seem 
 motionless! But disturb it! — you see with what 
 tenacity it clings to its place and purpose! Try 
 to thwart or stop it — it flies into a paroxysm of 
 
 [24]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 power! The sooner we have done with the non- 
 sense that it is any substitute for hard labor, the 
 better. The greatest genius is ever the greatest 
 worker. From his joyous childhood to his early 
 death this brain labored as few have ever done. 
 
 Look at some of the undeniable facts. Most 
 men's vocabulary is limited to a few hundred 
 words, or at best two or three thousand badly 
 used and more than sufficient to express their — 
 lack of thought!^^ Language with most men, to 
 use the similes and metaphors of James Russell 
 Lowell, is " that contrivance, hollow as a speaking 
 trumpet, by which breathing and moving bipeds, 
 ' sailing o'er life's solemn main,' are enabled to hail 
 each other and make known their mutual shortness 
 of mental stores! " Milton, perhaps the most 
 learned of great poets, uses in all his verse fewer 
 than eighteen thousand words. Our common Eng- 
 lish version of the Bible with all its majesty and 
 richness of diction has less than seven thousand 
 five hundred, not including proper names. But 
 Shakespeare employs more than twenty-four thou- 
 sand. 
 
 Whence came this extraordinary mastery? this 
 almost unequaled copiousness of language? These 
 vocables were not all in common use. Good judges 
 affirm that at least five thousand of them could not 
 have been heard by him in conversation either at 
 Stratford or anywhere else; and if he had heard 
 them, how could he have known the meaning of 
 
 [25]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 hundreds of them? From books and books alone 
 could this familiarity with rare speech have been 
 gained. 
 
 More important still is it to observe his cor- 
 rectness in its use. What says that prince of 
 critics just quoted? He declares, "Shakespeare 
 was more supremely incapable of bad sense, un- 
 couth metre, and false grammar than any other 
 man that ever wrote English. "^^ Similar is the 
 testimony of one of the most brilliant of critics, 
 De Quincey. In his Essay on Style he says, " It 
 makes us blush to add that even grammar is so 
 little of a perfect attainment with us that, with 
 two or three exceptions, (one being Shakespeare, 
 whom some affect to consider as belonging to a 
 semi-barbarous age,) we have never seen the writer, 
 through a circuit of prodigious reading, who has 
 not sometimes violated the accidence or the syntax 
 of English grammar." 
 
 Still more to be emphasized is the fact that 
 Shakespeare needed all this vocabulary. No man 
 condenses more. He sometimes seems to put 
 several meanings at once into a word. No man 
 differentiates more nicely. -° The swarming " winged 
 words " are loaded down with honey from many an 
 Eden through which his fancy roamed. Few authors 
 are so much given to the coinage of other parts of 
 speech into what the pedagogues term " active 
 verbs." This reminds of Mark Tapley in Dickens's 
 Martin Chuzzlewit. He remembers the old Lind- 
 
 [26]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 ley Murray grammar definition of a verb. He 
 says, " A werb is a word as signifies to do, to be, 
 or to suffer (which is all the grammar, and enough 
 too, as ever I was taught) ; and if there's a werb 
 alive, I'm it. For I'm always a bein*, sometimes 
 a doin', and continually a sufferin'."^^ 
 
 To illustrate this coinage — The beautiful Egyp- 
 tian queen in Antony and Cleopatra foresees that 
 her revels with Mark Antony will in after ages be 
 dramatized and acted in the theatres, and she is 
 disgusted at the thought that some boy will per- 
 sonate and belittle her; for in Shakespeare's time 
 and for nearly fifty years afterward the female 
 characters were represented on the stage by boys, 
 never by girls or women. Disdainfully she ex- 
 claims. 
 
 The quick comedians 
 Extemporally shall stage us; Antony 
 Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see 
 Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness!^^ 
 
 So " He godded me " in Coriolanus, that is, idol- 
 ized me or treated me as a god; "Will you pleas- 
 ure me? " in The Merchant of Venice, that is, 
 " Will you please me, or comply with my pleas- 
 ure? " " It did bass my trespass," in The Tem- 
 pest, uttered the story of my crime in a deep bass 
 voice; "She Phebes me," treats me Phebe-like, 
 i. e., cruelly in As You Like It, IV, iii, 39. 
 (Sprague's ed.) " It out-herods Herod," in 
 Hamlet, III, ii, 13. (Sprague's cd.) "Grace me 
 
 [27]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 no grace, nor uncle me no uncle," in Richard II; 
 " Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no 
 prouds," in Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 This turning any " part of speech " into a 
 " verb," vivifying a name or a quality into an 
 act — making the dullest vocable glow with mean- 
 ing and stir like a thing of life — is more frequent 
 in the Elizabethan age than in any other, and 
 more frequent in Shakespeare than in any other 
 author. It appears to proceed from fulness and 
 intensity of thought. Conceive of the immense 
 distance that separates our dramatist intellectually 
 from portions of the brown races that inhabit some 
 of the islands south or southeast of Asia, of whom 
 we are told by the late Professor W, D. Whitney 
 of Yale that they have no " verb " in their lan- 
 guages. " Their so-called verbs," he says, " are 
 really only nouns used predicatively. . . . To ex- 
 press * He has a white jacket on ' the Dyaks 
 (these are the original and most numerous in- 
 habitants of Borneo) say, ' He with jacket with 
 white,' or ' He jackety whitey.' "^ What progress 
 in literature, science, or indeed in any phase of 
 civilization, can be hoped for with such? 
 
 We continually quote from his verse: look for 
 a moment at his prose, which lies in drifts of gold 
 sand here and there. Disregard for a moment the 
 dramatic effect, and note simply his mastery of 
 English. 
 
 [28]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 Hamlet suspects that his uncle and mother, the 
 king and queen, have sent his old schoolmates, 
 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as spies to find out 
 whether he is really insane or only shamming. He 
 appeals to them — 
 
 Let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by 
 the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our 
 ever preserved love, and by what more dear a better 
 proposer could charge you withal — be even and 
 direct with me, whether you were sent for or no." — 
 " My lord, we were sent for," — "I will tell you 
 why: so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, 
 and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no 
 feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, 
 lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; 
 and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that 
 this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile 
 promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air — 
 look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this ma- 
 jestical roof fretted with golden fire! — why it appears 
 no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent con- 
 gregation of vapors! What a piece of work is a man! 
 how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form 
 and moving how express and admirable! in action 
 how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! 
 the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! 
 And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? 
 Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though 
 by your smiling you seem to say so. . . . You are 
 welcome; but my uncle father and aunt mother are 
 deceived. ... I am but mad north northwest: when 
 the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand- 
 saw I^* 
 
 [29]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 It is safe to conclude that his mastery of Eng- 
 lish, the blended copiousness and felicity of his 
 diction, was never surpassed. 
 
 It is certain that his knowledge of Latin was 
 extensive, although we make no claim that he was 
 deep in its literature. Here is one proof: he uses a 
 multitude of Latin words in their root meaning, 
 indicating both that he knows them well and that 
 he has a taste for etymological study. Thus in 
 Cymheline we have not only such obvious ety- 
 mology as in Leonatus (lion-born, or lion's whelp), 
 but the ingenious derivation of mulier (woman) 
 from mollis (tender) and aer (air), not, we trust, 
 an altogether false derivation! In The Tempest 
 Ferdinand calls Miranda ' the top of admiration,' 
 a pretty good translation of the word. In Macbeth 
 and several other plays he uses " convince " in the 
 root sense of overcome completely. In Midsummer 
 Night's Dream and a dozen other plays he has 
 " continent " in the sense of containing or con- 
 tainer.^^ It would be easy to make a list of a 
 hundred or more Latin words whose radical mean- 
 ing he has so mastered that he can anglicise them 
 with ease and grace. 
 
 In Love's Labor's Lost, Taming of the Shrew, 
 Merry Wives of Windsor and elsewhere, he quotes 
 Latin freely and often. Occasionally he originates 
 it, apparently not less than fifteen times. His 
 Comedy of Errors is founded largely upon the 
 Menaechmi of Plautus, not found rendered into 
 
 130]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 English till after Shakespeare's play was written. 
 Ovid he appears to have at his tongue's end.^^ 
 In the Second Part of King Henry IV he seems to 
 tell us how he studied languages; for there we 
 find the Earl of Warwick apologizing to the king 
 for Prince Hal's association with Falstaff and other 
 rakes: he says the prince is only studying human 
 nature in these dissolute companions just as one 
 studies indelicate words in a lexicon.^^ We have 
 too the testimony of Ben Jonson, who knew him 
 well. In his famous lines to Shakespeare, prefixed 
 to the first folio, he says, 
 
 "And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek"; 
 
 which may be interpreted, Though we should con- 
 cede that thou hadst small Latin and less Greek. 
 But take the statement as commonly accepted; 
 it implies that he knew something of both lan- 
 guages. It should be remembered that Ben had, or 
 thought he had, vast knowledge of the classics, 
 and that what seemed to him " small Latin and less 
 Greek " might have been a respectable amount of 
 both tongues.^^ Some have even suspected that 
 Will had as much of that sort of learning as Ben, 
 but that he didn't over-estimate it and parade it as 
 Ben did his! It has been suggested that Greek 
 in that age was studied with the aid of books 
 annotated in Latin, and by those students only 
 who could fluently write and speak in the other 
 language. 
 
 [31]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 As to his knowledge of Greek we have not only 
 Jonson's testimony, but we have other evidence; 
 quite a number of Hellenic words, either newly 
 coined into our speech or partly introduced and 
 naturalized by him;^^ also many resemblances of 
 that ancient phraseology not till then construed 
 in English print. Some of these resemblances, if 
 we had found them in any other writer of the same 
 date, we should have pronounced palpable imita- 
 tions or translations. Little stress need be laid 
 upon isolated instances, but the many may force 
 conviction. Lowell points out that in the Electra 
 of Sophocles, which, he says, " is almost identical 
 in its leading motive with Hamlet" and which at 
 that time had not appeared in English print, the 
 Chorus uses " to console Electra for the supposed 
 death of Orestes " language quite similar to that 
 used by Hamlet's uncle and mother to console 
 
 Hamlet — 
 
 Your father lost a father; 
 That father lost, lost his; 
 
 but to perse ver 
 
 In obstinate condolement is a course 
 Of impious stubbornness. 
 
 Previously the queen had said 
 
 Thou know'st 't is common; all that lives must die, 
 Passing through nature to eternity.'" 
 
 It seems to be demonstrated that portions of 
 Shakespeare's Timon of Athens are founded in 
 part upon one of Lucian's Greek Dialogues not 
 
 [32]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 translated into English till twenty years after his 
 death. " Sea of troubles " in Hamlet is identical 
 with kakon pelagos in the untranslated Hip- 
 pdytus of Euripides and the untranslated Persai 
 of iCschylus. " Table of memory " in Hamlet 
 is mnemosin deltois phrenon in ^Eschylus* Prome- 
 theus. In Hamlet and in Shakespeare's one hun- 
 dred and seventh sonnet we find the phrase " pro- 
 phetic soul," which exactly renders promantis 
 thumos in the Andromache of Euripides. " Push 
 us from our stools " (i. e., thrones) in Macbeth is 
 stuphelixai hedeon in Homer's Iliad. " Digest the 
 venom of spleen " in Jidius Ccesar is cholon thumalgea 
 pessei in the Iliad. " Honey-heavy dew of slum- 
 ber " in Julius Ccesar is very nearly meliphron 
 Hupnos in the Iliad.^^ 
 
 Lowell, who made a study of the subject, and 
 whose opinion is of the highest among American 
 authorities, declares that Shakespeare is decidedly 
 Greek in his method. He points out, as Campbell 
 in his Life of Mrs. Siddons declared himself able 
 to do, marked resemblances between Shakespeare 
 and iEschylus in the mintage of the brain and 
 particularly in the choice of epithets.^^ He con- 
 cludes that Shakespeare was able to read after a 
 fashion the ancient tragic poets, among the most 
 difficult of all Greek, in the original tongue.^^ 
 
 He knew French. Scattered through his plays 
 are many passages in that language which, it
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 seems, he was able to compose in with tolerable 
 facility and correctness. His mastery of Latin 
 etymologies would wonderfully facilitate the acquisi- 
 tion of languages like French, Italian, Spanish, 
 daughters of that prolific mother. Perhaps the 
 quickest way to learn these is to master Latin 
 first. As illustrative of his French, notice the 
 amusing dialogue in King Henry V between Ancient 
 Pistol and the servant boy on one side and the 
 captive French soldier on the other.^^ So the 
 English-French lesson in the same play between the 
 princess Katherine of France and her lady at- 
 tendant who has been in England. So too the 
 last scene in the play, the delightful courtship 
 scene. King Henry tries to speak French in woo- 
 ing, and she talks back in broken English. They 
 get along pretty well, though Henry declares it 
 would be as easy for him to conquer the kingdom 
 as to speak so much French! 
 
 He knew Italian. How else shall we account 
 for the fact that he imitates passages in Italian 
 of which no English version had been printed? 
 The story of Othello, for instance, appears not to 
 have been translated into English print. True, 
 Shakespeare might have read it in French. But we 
 find in this play the following lines descriptive of 
 the virtue of the fatal handkerchief, the dying gift 
 of Othello's mother to her son, the gift of Othello 
 to his fair bride: 
 
 [34]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 There's magic in the web of it: 
 A sibyl that had numbered in the world 
 The sun to course two hundred compasses 
 In her prophetic fury sewed the work. 
 
 This in all probability is taken from Ariosto's 
 Orlando Furioso, where similar expressions are used 
 of a tent. Now the only English version of Ariosto 
 in Shakespeare's time, Harrington's, does not have 
 Shakespeare's phrase " prophetic fury," the furor 
 profetico of the original Italian. The dramatist, 
 then, it would seem, drew not from the only exist- 
 ing translation, but directly from the Italian 
 original.^^ Note also in the same play the famous 
 passage — 
 
 Who steals my purse steals trash: 'tis something, nothing: 
 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: 
 But he that filches from me my good name, 
 Robs me of that which not enricheth him 
 And makes me poor indeed. 
 
 This is apparently taken from Berni's Orlando 
 Inamorato (recast or remodeled from Matteo M. 
 Boiardo's long poem of the same name), of which 
 there had never been a printed English version.^^ 
 
 A considerable part of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, 
 all that relating to Imogen, is taken from Boc- 
 caccio's Decameron, of which there seems to have 
 been no printed English translation in his age. 
 For the plot of The Merchant of Venice he drew 
 from an Italian novel, // Pecorone, which had not, 
 
 [35]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 so far as we can learn, been rendered into English 
 print. Two of his tragedies and five of his come- 
 dies are of Italian origin.^^ Able scholars have 
 insisted that some of these could hardly have been 
 written by one who had not traveled in Italy. 
 Conversation in Italian, forty or fifty words and 
 phrases, occur in the dramas, such as one ignorant 
 of the language would hardly have ventured upon. 
 
 Dr. William Maginn, and a number of others 
 who within a few years past have made a careful 
 study of Shakespeare's learning, and who have 
 effectually confuted the arguments of Dr. Richard 
 Farmer's celebrated essay on the subject (in 
 1767), are of the opinion that the author of the 
 dramas understood something of Spanish. Certain 
 incidents in Shakespeare's third comedy. The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona, appear to have been taken 
 from Diana Enamorada (Diana in Love), a very 
 celebrated Spanish romance by Jorge de Monte- 
 mayor, not translated into English print till 1598, 
 several years after the production of the play.^* 
 Some fifteen or twenty Spanish words and phrases 
 are found in the plays, showing that the author 
 had " dipped " into that speech. 
 
 If like young Francis Bacon, or the child Milton, 
 or Walter Scott at the age of six, the boy had 
 " taken all knowledge to be his province," he could 
 hardly at that period have ranged over wider 
 fields. Dr. Morgan, President of the late New 
 
 [361
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 York Shakespeare Society, is not sure that Shake- 
 speare had any literary genius; but he is clear in 
 the conviction that there is vast erudition in the 
 plays. He has advanced the idea that, as theatre 
 proprietor and manager, quite probably he kept a 
 ripe scholar or two under pay at his elbow! Judge 
 Jesse Johnson in his Testimony of the Sonnets 
 concurs. Bishop C. Wordsworth in Shakespeare s 
 Knowledge and Use of the Bible, and other divines 
 have shown the dramatist's familiarity with the 
 Scriptures including the so-called Apocryphal books. 
 The many kinds and extent of information with 
 which his mind teemed, it would seem difficult to 
 account for, except on the theory of a very long 
 and almost passionate pursuit of knowledge for its 
 own sake.^^ 
 
 The fact that he was not an Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge student, if that be conceded, proves nothing 
 against his scholarship. Many a university graduate 
 is no scholar. Many a profound scholar has never 
 been inside college walls. Many a university 
 answers to Dean Swift's sarcastic description, "It 
 must be a very learned place; for every student 
 carries some learning there, and nobody ever 
 brings any away! " The world was our poet's 
 university, as Italy is said to have been Robert 
 Browning's. 
 
 To say nothing further at this time of his 
 knowledge of English, Latin, French, Greek, 
 
 [37] 
 
 434567
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Italian, possibly Spanish; nothing now of his 
 insight into the secrets of the heart; nothing of his 
 minute and extensive acquaintance with external 
 nature; nothing of his palpable acquired informa- 
 tion of the technique of law, medicine, insanity, 
 surgery, religion, art, music, natural science, politics, 
 history, mythology, navigation, astrology, heraldry, 
 falconry, metaphysics, military tactics, soldier 
 talk, Bible lore — a general knowledge so vast 
 that Lowell declares it unparalleled, and Emerson 
 pronounces him "inconceivably wise" — who can 
 believe, for this is what I wish to emphasize, — 
 who can believe that this astounding mass of 
 information, and the clear wisdom that was sub- 
 limated from it, were attained without eager and 
 long-continued study? study of books too? Other 
 knowledge passes away with the possessor; but 
 forma mentis aeterna, the impress of intellect is 
 everlasting. Science, art, literature, philosophy — 
 much that man has thought, much that man has 
 done, much that he has learned in the toil, the 
 joys, the sufferings of a hundred generations — is 
 garnered indestructible in the world of books. 
 
 Dryden declared " Shakespeare was naturally 
 learned, and needed not the spectacles of books."*" 
 " Naturally learned! " a contradiction in terms. 
 " Needed not the spectacles of books! " The 
 solemn ass Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing 
 affirms, "To be well-favored is the gift of fortune; 
 but to write and read comes by nature." But 
 
 [38]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 writing and reading, and the knowledge treasured 
 in books only, do not come by nature, Dogberrys 
 and Drydens to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 We measure the cause by the effect; the blow by 
 the indentation or the recoil. Whatever his natural 
 ability, he must have been a student, a book student, 
 and one of extraordinary diligence. 
 
 But evil days came upon this family, and the 
 bright future was hid or struggled faintly through 
 thick clouds. Whether John's official business as 
 ale-taster, the first office he ever held, exercised a 
 fatal influence over him as that of whiskey ganger 
 did upon gentle Robert Burns two hundred years 
 later; or whether, as is more likely, he lived be- 
 yond his means in his ambition or extravagance or 
 prodigal hospitality, with this increasing family; 
 or, as likeliest of all, his plans miscarried through 
 his attempting too many vocations at once — 
 farmer, grazier, wood-cutter, wool-grower, corn 
 dealer, malt seller, butcher, pelt vender, tanner, 
 glover, and last, and perhaps worst, office holder — 
 it seems certain that he sank into poverty. When 
 William is about fourteen we notice the beginning 
 of this descent: his father has to part with one of 
 his land interests, presumably to meet pressing 
 obligations: he can pay only half as much as each 
 of the other aldermen to equip militia soldiers, 
 billmen, pikemen, and archers. The other aldermen 
 gave money weekly to relieve the poor; he is 
 
 L39 ]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 excused by vote of the board from a tax of four- 
 pence a week levied for that purpose. When 
 William is fifteen another realty interest has to be 
 sacrificed, a reversionary property at Snitterfield; 
 and now John Shakespeare contributes nothing to 
 equip militiamen and nothing to relieve the poor. 
 Yet it seems he still endeavors to keep up ap- 
 pearances; for in this year William's little sister 
 Ann dies, and at her burial there are both pall and 
 bell, though other children, buried in the same year 
 at Stratford, are honored with only half the cere- 
 mony, the tolling of the bell at half the cost. 
 
 The once famous actor, Thomas Betterton, for 
 forty years the chief ornament of the English stage, 
 admired by Addison and Steele, and who used to 
 personate with wonderful skill and power Hamlet, 
 Macbeth, and Othello, and was finally honored by 
 burial in Westminster Abbey (1710), visited Strat- 
 ford to learn what he could about the dramatist 
 whom he almost worshipped. He picked up a 
 tradition that narrowed circumstances forced John 
 Shakespeare to withdraw his son from school. 
 William Castle, an old parish clerk who was living 
 in Stratford in 1693 learned that William, when a 
 boy, was apprenticed to a butcher. Gossiping old 
 John Aubrey who went up and down England 
 gathering items of interest in regard to distinguished 
 men, and who died in 1697, is more explicit. He 
 visited Stratford and talked with old people who 
 had known William in his " vealy " stage. He 
 
 [40]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 says, " I have been told heretofore by some of the 
 neighbors that when WilHam was a boy he exercised 
 his father's trade (of butcher), but when he killed 
 a calf, he would do it in high style and make a 
 speech! " Very likely. Will was not the boy to 
 have his spirit broken by his father's reverses; 
 not he! It is amusing to think of him in his 
 immaturity delivering an oration, dramatizing the 
 scene, airing his elocution, soaring on rhetorical 
 wings, pronouncing high-sounding Latin or English 
 poetry; while in sublime tragic style, perhaps re- 
 calling the legendary sacrificial goat in the dawn 
 of the Greek drama, he invoked the immortal 
 gods to partake in the offering, brandished the 
 sacred butcher-knife, clipped the fateful lock of 
 hair from between the gilded or wreathed horns 
 of the animal, tossed it in the flames as a share for 
 Minerva or Pluto, crumbled and sprinkled, Homeric 
 fashion,*^ the coarse salt- meal cake of consecra" 
 tion upon the head of the devoted calf, or chased 
 the bleating sheep, or held by the ears the squealing 
 pig! Was he thinking of these scenes a few years 
 later when he pictured the fat Falstaff running 
 away from a fight, who, says Prince Hal, " roared 
 for mercy and still ran and roared as ever I heard 
 bull-calf"?^ 
 
 In the sunny childhood of him as of every boy — 
 every boy that " amounts " to anything, for there*^ 
 are boys and boys! — we may be sure there were 
 
 [41]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 glorious ideals and high hopes. Had all gone 
 smoothly with his father, these day-dreams as 
 usual might have come to nothing. Of the es- 
 sence of genius is the ability by incredible industry, 
 " carrying the feelings of youth into the powers of 
 manhood," as Coleridge expresses it — perhaps the 
 best description ever given of genius in action — 
 to build the grandest works from the scantiest 
 materials; nay, to hew obstructions into stepping- 
 stones; as Massinger's Virgin-Martyr exclaims, 
 
 " The visage of the hangman frights not me; 
 And all your whips, racks, gibbets, axes, fires, 
 Are scaffoldings on which my soul climbs up 
 To an eternal habitation!" 
 
 And now at fourteen or fifteen, when he saw his 
 father becoming helpless in the tightening coils, 
 his gentle mother's face furrowed ever deeper and 
 shaded ever sadder, three younger brothers and his 
 still surviving sister likely to be soon barefoot, 
 ragged, hungry, shivering, and the very name of the 
 family a reproach for their poverty; may we not 
 well believe that the spirit of such a boy, conscious 
 of strength, full of the buoyancy of youth and 
 health and hope, saw through the clouds, burned 
 with a determination to uncoil the python that 
 was crushing his father, stop the fingers that were 
 tracing deep lines on his mother's face, to lift 
 with a strong arm Gilbert, Richard, gentle Joan 
 and baby Edmund out of the freezing mire, ac- 
 cumulate wealth to which all men in England 
 
 [42]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 seemed to pay absolute homage, and by and by 
 make Shakespeare a name for all the world to 
 swear by and no longer for little Stratford to 
 swear at! 
 
 The boy's day dream becomes the man's life 
 work. Would it were oftener so. I fancy him 
 resolving — " I will acquire and maintain a financial 
 competence; better than that, I will achieve by 
 strenuous labor the greatest literary success; I 
 will learn all the wisdom of books, scale the heights 
 and sound the depths of thought, solve if I can 
 the mysteries of life and nature, voice in exquisite 
 English all thought and feeling; recognize and 
 make manifest a thousand analogies, images, 
 symbols; transmute all matter into spirit, all ob- 
 jects and subjects into persons, a multitude of 
 persons into typical characters; I will revive the 
 buried past, paint such beauty, mirth, joy, sorrow, 
 terror, as the world has rarely seen ; — to the end 
 that flowers may once more bloom and the sun 
 again shine on the paths of brothers, sister, father, 
 mother." 
 
 This was not the highest possible motive; but 
 it was high. Let those who think it improbable 
 assign another adequate to push young Shake- 
 speare on to his splendid but laborious career. Some 
 great impelling force there must have been. 
 
 I love to think of such a childhood and youth. 
 At school learning with an avidity rarely paralleled; 
 
 [43]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 or at manual labor by day and hard study by 
 night; finding an unspeakable joy in books; 
 reveling in an ideal world; the humble cabin in 
 whose chimney corner like Abraham Lincoln he 
 pored over pages dimly lighted by the flickering 
 fire, nightly expanding to a palace, a city, a conti- 
 nent; — he was laying in ammunition for a life- 
 long battle; an eagle's wings were growing for a 
 flight above the mountain tops! 
 
 [44]
 
 NOTES IN STUDY I 
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 • Says Dr. Appleton Morgan, " If any one ever yet made a statement 
 about Shakespeare, or about all or any of his works, which somebody did 
 not immediately rise to contradict, I have yet to hear of it." — A Study 
 of the Warwickshire Dialect, Preface, x. 
 
 2 " There is evidence in the Stratford archives that he could write with 
 facility, though he occasionally made his mark." — Sidney Lee's Life of 
 Shakespeare, p. 5. 
 
 A writer in The British Quarterly Review, July 1875, affirms that in 
 extant registers, charters, leases, etc., the name Shakespeare is spelled in 
 fifty-five different ways. 
 
 3 Lee states that the first recorded holder of the name John Shakespeare 
 was living in Kent in 1279. — Life of Shakespeare, p. 1. 
 
 There was much Celtic blood in middle England in that age. We look 
 to the Celts for fire, poetic fervor, imagination; to the Saxons for industry, 
 thrift, common sense; to the Normans for grace, dignity, elegance. All 
 these seem united in Shakespeare. 
 
 * In 1582 Pope Gregory xiii reformed the Julian Calendar by " retrench- 
 ing " (annulling ten days), calling the tenth of October the twentieth. In 
 1752 the English Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar, retrenching 
 by cutting out eleven days, making the third of September the fourteenth. 
 We should therefore fix the date of the christening ten days later than 
 the 26th of April. 
 
 6 This is the epithet of Mars (Iliad xv, 605) and of auxiliaries of the 
 Trojans (Iliad ii, 131). But how easily the sublime topples over into the 
 ridiculous! If William is only Will, or as the Yale president and the gamins 
 call the ex-president of the U.S., " Bill," and Shakespeare is but the 
 French Jacques-Pierre (Jake or Jim Pete) — "Bill Jim Petel " as the 
 street Arabs would have it, we are reminded of the poet Saxe's funny 
 satire — 
 
 " Of all the notable things on earth 
 The queerest one is pride of birth 
 Among our fierce democracie; 
 A bridge across a hundred years 
 
 Without a prop to save it from sneers — 
 Not even a couple of rotten peers — 
 A thing for laughter, fleers and jeers 
 
 Is American aristocracy. 
 
 [45]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 " Depend upon it, my snobbish friend. 
 Your family thread you can't ascend 
 
 Without good reason to apprehend 
 You'll find it waxed at the farther end 
 
 By some plebeian vocation. 
 Or, worse than that, your boasted ' line ' 
 May end in a loop of stronger twine 
 
 That plagued some worthy relation! " 
 
 The Proud Miss Macbride, xiii and xv. 
 
 • The Ardens were among the most influential of the Warwickshire families. 
 Mary's grandfather is supposed to have been " groom of the chamber " 
 to King Henry VII, and a relative of Sir John Hampden, the patriot of 
 a later age, whose memory is dear to Americans. Her father, Robert 
 Arden, was a well-to-do farmer of Wilmcote near Stratford. Besides 
 reversionary estate at Snitterfield, three or four miles from Stratford, he 
 left to his daughter by his will dated Nov. 24, 1556, his " land in Wilmcote 
 called Asbies, and the crop upon the ground "; also 6 pounds, 13 shillings, 
 four pence, in money. Her property has been estimated worth £110. 
 See Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, Vol. II, pp. 173- 
 183; also Lee's Life of Shakespeare, pp. 6, 7; T. Spencer Baynes' Shake- 
 speare Studies, pp. 40, 50-56 (ed. 1894) ; the magazine Shakespereana for 
 January, 1893; French's Shakespereana Genealogica; and The Encyclopedia 
 Brilannica. 
 
 ' Elected in 1557, about the time that he became burgess or councillor. — 
 An office requiring taste — not aesthetic, but of bread and liquors! 
 
 8 Like Dogberry, father of all Malaprops, the constables Elbow (in M. 
 for M.) and Dull (in L.L.L.) have the gift of ludicrous misuse of words. 
 
 • Elected one of the two chamberlains in 1561. He delivered his second 
 statement of accounts to the corporation in January, 1564. 
 
 1" In 1603, says Edward Capell, Shakespearian editor and commentator, 
 the " sweating sickness " carried off about one fifth of the population of 
 London. The theatres were closed, as they had been ten years before from 
 the same cause. 
 
 1' I suspect we have a glimpse of Justice Shakespeare in the " Seven 
 Ages " of man. 
 
 Then the Justice 
 In fair round belly with good capon lined. 
 With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
 Full of wise saws and modern instances! 
 
 As You Like It, II, vii, 153-156, Sprague's ed. 
 
 [46]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 "Ann, baptized Sept. 28, 1571, was buried April 4, 1579; leaving sister 
 Joan and brothers William, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. 
 
 '■> The tenderness of pity is repeatedly compared in Shakespeare to that 
 of a new-born babe. Thus in Macbeth — sadly misunderstood by Irving, 
 who thinks the babe strides the airl — 
 
 And Pity, like a naked new-born babe, 
 Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubin horsed 
 Upon the sightless couriers of the air. 
 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye. 
 That tears shall drown the wind. 
 
 — I, vii, 21-25; Sprague's ed. 
 
 See also Measure for Measure, II, ii, 78, 79, misinterpreted by Johnson, 
 Malone, Holt White, Rolfe and others. The passage, appealing for pity 
 and mercy, reads. 
 
 How would you be. 
 If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
 But judge you as you are? O, think on that! 
 And Mercy then will breathe within your lips 
 Like man new made! (i.e. with tenderness like that of a babe!) 
 See also Hamlet, III, iii, 70, 71, Sprague's ed. 
 
 " See Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, I, pp. 38, 39. 
 
 In The Taming of the Shrew the wealthy old Baptista of Padua will 
 provide a special instructor in languages and another in music for his two 
 daughters. (I, i, 92-96.) 
 
 See the second of this series of Studies; viz, Shakespeare's Early Man- 
 hood, page 76. 
 
 >6 The Stratford Grammar School, established in the reign of Edward IV 
 by a priest, Thomas Jolyffe, a " brother " of the ancient guild of The Holy 
 Cross, had been seized by Henry VIII on the dissolution of the monasteries 
 (1636 or 1637). After fifteen years of suspension it was re-founded and 
 re-incorporated in the reign of Edward VI, and thenceforward was known 
 as " King Edward Vlth's Grammar School," or " The King's New School." 
 
 The masters were noted for their learning and high character. Thomas 
 Hunt was Principal during the six years of William's attendance (1572- 
 1577). 
 
 The best authority on the curriculum is probably the late T. Spencer 
 Baynes, editor of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In his 
 Shakespeare Studies and Other Essays his exhaustive article on Shakespeare 
 is reprinted from the Encyclopedia. He affirms as follows: — 
 
 [47]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 The pupil entered the school at seven years old, having already acquired 
 the rudiments of reading and writing. During the first year the pupils 
 were occupied with the elements of Latin Grammar, the accidence [inflec- 
 tions], and lists of words committed to memory and repeated two or three 
 times a week. ... In the second year the grammar was fully mastered, 
 and the boys were drilled in short phrase-books. ... In the third year the 
 books used were ^Esop's Fables, Cato's Maxims, and some good manual 
 of school conversation. . . . The constant speaking of Latin by all the 
 boys of the most advanced forms was indispensable even in the smallest 
 and poorest of the country grammar schools. . . . The books read in the 
 more advanced forms were the Eclogues of Mantuanus, the Tristia and 
 Metamorphoses of Ovid; Cicero's Offices, Orations, and Epistles; Virgil's 
 Georgics and ^neid; parts of Juvenal; parts of Terence, Plautus, and 
 Seneca. . . . The teaching even in the country grammar schools was as a 
 rule painstaking, intelligent, and fruitful. . . . The masters were university 
 men of at least average attainments and ability, as they rapidly gained 
 promotion in the church." For more details see Baynes' Shakespeare Studies, 
 pp. 68-73. 
 
 1' Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), dramatist, translator, poet-laureate, pro- 
 duced in 1709 the first critical edition of the plays. It was in six octavo 
 volumes, to which he prefixed a memoir of Shakespeare, very valuable so 
 far as it goes. See copious extracts from it in Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, 
 Vol. II, 72-76. " In all probability William's father removed him from 
 school when he was about thirteen " (idem, Vol. I, 57). 
 
 1' Lowell Lectures by Orville Dewey, D.D. (1794-1882). 
 
 "We suspect that, following Dr. George P. Marsh (1801-1882), who in 
 his Lectures on the English Language (1861-2) counts only base [stem or 
 root] words, we commonly underestimate the number. Thus Dr. Appleton 
 Morgan, founder and president of the late N. Y. Shakespeare Soc, in his 
 Warwickshire Dialed (p. 60) published in 1899, credits " the English peas- 
 ant " with only 500; " the average tradesman, at most 4,000; Milton, 
 7,000." Following Prof. Geo. L. Craik (1798-1866), he allows Shakespeare 
 21,000. 
 
 But Prof. Edward S. Holden, ex-president of the University of California 
 and ex-director of Lick Observatory, in an article in the Washington 
 Phil. Soc. Bulletin (V, 1, App. i, 1874), and in the Smithson. Misc. Coll. 
 (Vol. XX, App. 6, May 30, 1875), and subsequently in a personal letter to 
 me, in which he quotes the late Dr. W. D. Whitney (1827-1904), Editor- 
 in-Chief of the Century Dictionary, in approbation of his method of enumera- 
 tion, says as follows: — "I find that Milton, in his poems alone, uses 
 17,377 words. His prose would yield a much larger number. ... In the 
 English Bible there are 7,209 words, exclusive of proper names. . . . 
 Shakespeare's vocabulary contains over 24,000. . . . Marsh {English 
 
 [48]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 Language, 1862) took only the simple or stem, and not the inflected forma 
 of the vocables. In the sense in wliich I use the terra, " lover," " love- 
 less," and " lovely " are three words, though they have the same simple 
 or stem." Holden relies on the accuracy of Cruden (Concordance to the 
 Bible, 1737), Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke {Concordance to Shake- 
 speare's Plays, 1845), and Charles Dexter Cleveland (Concordance to Milton. 
 18S3). Edwin Reed (in the Arena) declares that Shakespeare (meaning 
 BaconI) introduced 5,000 new words into the English Language. 
 
 "Lowell's Among My Books (Vol. I, pp. 155, 169). 
 
 20 Beyond most authors he was an inveterate phrase monger, an experi- 
 menter with words, trying all sorts of linguistic gymnastics. We imagine 
 him ever turning, twisting, recasting sentences and selecting the best. His 
 nice adjustments of sound and sense are seen where we should least look 
 for them. For instance, note the alliteration and assonance in the paper 
 which Arteraidorus reads in Julius Ccesar; " Beware of Brutus; take heed 
 of Cassius; come wot near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Tre- 
 bonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou 
 hast wronged Caius Ligarius." (Sprague's ed., II, iii, 1-4.) — So in Brutus's 
 famous speech, in which Shakespeare admirably reproduces " the sententious 
 laconic style," which Plutarch tells us Brutus affected. " Who is here so 
 base that would be a ftondman? Who is here so rude that would not be a 
 i?oman? Who is here so die that will not lot^e his country? 1/ any, 
 speak; /or him have I o#ended." — Julius Casar, III, ii, 27-31 (Sprague's 
 ed.). 
 
 Note his nice discrimination of meanings; e.g. in " oppugnancy," " pro- 
 pugnation," and "repugnancy," respectively, in Troil. bf Cres., I, iii. 111; 
 II. ii, 136; Timon of A., Ill, v, 45. 
 
 As to " weight of meaning superimposed on single words," see Lowell's 
 Among My Books, Vol. I, p. 173. 
 
 For his conception of " words and ideas " as almost if not quite identical, 
 and his laborious verbal ingenuities, see Prof. Barrett Wendell's William 
 Shakespeare, pp. 55, 56, 63, 64, 65, 416, etc. 
 
 SI Page 171, Hurd & Houghton's ed. 
 
 ^^ Antony and Cleopatra. V, ii, 216-220. — The first woman actor on the 
 stage was probably Mrs. Margaret Hughes, Prince Rupert's favorite, 
 presenting Desdemona, Dec. 8, 1660. Afterwards, from 1663 on. the wife 
 of the great actor, Thomas Betterton, personated some of Shakespeare's 
 prominent female characters. — Lee's Life of S., 334, 335. 
 
 23 Language and the Science of Language, 338. — See Sprague's notes on 
 " pleasure," Phebe, and " out-herods " in the plays. 
 
 2« Hamlet, II, ii, 279-305; 367, 368 (Sprague's ed.) — For other specimens 
 of his prose see The Merchant of Venice, III, i. 33-58, Sprague's ed.; also 
 
 [49]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 King Lear, I, ii, 93-119; 126-130; and especially the astonishing passage 
 in Lear, II, ii, 13-21. 
 
 «6See Tempest, 1, ii, 144; III, i, 38; Macbeth, I, vii, 64; IV, iii, 142; 
 Midsummer N. D., II, i, 92; and the notes in Sprague's editions. 
 
 It is interesting to note how strenuously some pedants fought against 
 the introduction of foreign words into the English language three hundred 
 years ago. Thus in 1619, the year in which young Milton entered St. Paul's 
 School, the Head Master, Alexander Gill, published a book {Logonomia 
 Anglica) in which he inveighs against the influx of Latin and French. 
 " O harsh lips! " he says; " I now hear all around me such words as 
 'common,' 'vices,' 'envy,' 'malice,' even 'virtue,' 'study,' 'justice,' 
 'pity,' 'mercy,' 'compassion,' 'profit,' 'commodity,' 'color,' 'grace,' 
 ' favor '! Are our words to be exiled like our citizens? Is the new bar- 
 baric invasion to extirpate the English tongue? " But Gill himself in the 
 last two sentences uses five of the class of obnoxious words he so stigma- 
 tizes (' exiled,' ' citizens,' ' barbaric,' ' invasion,' ' extirpate '). 
 
 ^ The earliest printed translation of Plautus's Menaechmi was that of 
 William Warner in 1595. Dowden and the other recent commentators 
 assign the composition of the Comedy of Errors to a date not later than 
 1591. — On the title page of " The first heir of my invention," as he styles 
 his earliest published poem, Venus and Adonis, is an elegant quotation as a 
 motto from Ovid's Amores, more advanced Latin than any of the selections 
 from Ovid studied in the Stratford school. It reads, 
 
 Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flavus Apollo 
 Pocula Castalia plena ministrat aqua. 
 
 =" Hal, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V, 
 is evidently one of Shakespeare's most favorite characters. In him, as 
 almost all the critics agree, we see much of Shakespeare himself. Perhaps 
 we may find in Warwick's apology some explanation of William's youthful 
 escapades, if we admit their existence. See note 32 in our Study of Shake- 
 speare's Early Manhood, and the quotation there from 3 King Henry IV\ 
 the language of the Earl of Warwick to the king. Note in it the last 
 word, " hated." Taken in connection with Henry's after treatment of 
 these boon companions, it tends to confirm Warwick's estimate. Certainly 
 it throws light upon Henry's, and indirectly upon Shakespeare's character. 
 Each hated indecency. See Henry V. I, i, 24-30, 54-59; HI, vi, 94, 95; 
 and especially 2 Henry IV, V, v, 5-66. 
 
 28 " A parallel to Jonson's statement is found in a Memoir by Edward 
 Bathurst, B.D. of his friend Arthur Wilson, written before 1646; in which 
 he says that " Wilson ' had little skill in the Latin tongue and less in the 
 Greek '; and yet . . . had been a fellow-commoner at Oxford . . . regular 
 
 [50]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 and studious, and could at a pinch, speak Latin." See Richard Grant 
 White's Memoirs of William Shakespeare (in Vol. I of White's Shakespeare 
 in 12 vols.), pp. xix, xx. 
 
 "E.g.; Ate, anthropophagi, anlhropophaginian, charactery, chirurgeonly, 
 atomy, abysm, apoplex, cataplasm, epilheton, practic, theoric, thrasonical, 
 threnos, misanthropos. In The Tempest, II. i, 136, and Julius Ccesar, I, i, 
 24, 26 (Sprague's editions), he appears to recognize the substantial identity 
 in sense of the three words, chirurgeon, surgeon and hand-worker. 
 
 •"The literal rendering of lines 1171-1173 (.Eleclra, Jebb's ed.) is as 
 follows: 
 
 " Reflect, Electra; mortal sire thou'rt sprung from; 
 Mortal, Orestes too: sigh not too sore, then; 
 For to us all to suffer this is due." 
 
 «' Some of these coincidences I have come upon in my reading and have 
 not found them mentioned. In the only then existing English translation 
 of Homer, that of George Chapman, the original is not so closely followed 
 by him as by Shakespeare. Chapman's translation of " Seven Books of 
 the Iliads " (i, ii, vii-xi) appeared in 1598; tliat of twelve books, in 1610; 
 of all the twenty-four, in 1611; of both Iliad and Odyssey, in 1616. — 
 ^schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, and Lucian were not Englished till 
 after Shakespeare's time. 
 
 Of Greek idioms, Shakespeare has many instances; as of the attraction 
 of the relative into the case of the antecedent; of double comparatives or 
 superlatives. So of a double negative to strengthen the negation; though 
 well aware of the modern rule now universally binding. He says, " If your 
 four negatives make your two affirmatives," etc. (Twelfth Night, V, i, 
 18, 19). — In Xenophon's Anabasis, I, iii, 21, the literal rendering is, " Not 
 even in this place did nobody hear," etc. In The Merchant of V. Portia 
 says, " I cannot choose one nor refuse none." See notes in Sprague's ed., 
 I, ii, 23; IV, i, 54. — Ben Jonson approved the use of the double com- 
 parative and superlative. He characterized it as " a certain kind of English 
 Atticism, imitating the manner of the most ancientest and finest Grecians"! 
 
 ^ An interesting and not unprofitable study would be to examine all the 
 great dramas of antiquity for parallelisms; not to confirm or refute any 
 theory of authorship, but to show how the foremost writers think alike. 
 One familiar with Shakespeare but not with Sophocles will be struck with 
 the curious coincidences of thought, sometimes even of phrase. Compare 
 '■ cuts to the quick " in Ajax, 786 (Jebb's ed., Oxford Translation), with 
 Hamlet. II, ii, 587, and The Tempest. V, i, 25 (Sprague's ed.); "makes 
 hairs to stand upright" in Oedipus Coloneus, 1624-5, with Hamlet, I, v, 19 
 (Sprague's ed.); "Great Jove be my witness" in Trachiniae, 399, with 
 
 [51]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Henry VIII, II, iv, 22, and with Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, vi, 25, and 
 with All's Well That Ends Well, IV, ii, 24; "Strong necessity compels" 
 in Philoctetes, 921-2, with Antony and Cleopatra, I, iii, 42. (Of course 
 Vergil's steterunt comae; Aeneid, ii, 774, will be recalled.) 
 
 In the choice of epithets Shakespeare will hyphenate words after the 
 manner of George Chapman. A remarkable instance is in Julius Ceesar . 
 In the first copy, that is in the first Folio (1623), we find the phrase 
 " Tempest-dropping-fire." Here the three words are compound as shown 
 by the hyphens, and they present one of the grandest images the imagina- 
 tion ever conceived, a deluge of mingled fire and tempest dropping from 
 the sky I It has been spoiled by all, or nearly all editors, prior to myself, 
 by striking out the hyphensl See note in Sprague's ed., I, iii, 10. 
 
 33 Let college sophomores, who from their lofty standpoint are wont to 
 look down with pity and think what heights Shakespeare might have 
 attained, had he possessed their learning, be comforted. He probably 
 knew more Latin than the average college student, e.xcept in the second 
 year! 
 
 3* Because Ancient Pistol in Henry IV (Act IV, iv, 19-21) thinks the 
 French soldier says brass, when the French word is " bras," it has been 
 argued that the dramatist did not know the 5 to be silent. The sufficient 
 answer is that in the year 1415, either the 5 was sounded, as all silent 
 letters once were, or, if not, the sound was near enough to " brass " to 
 excuse Pistol's blunder, especially as he is thinking of ransom money! 
 
 35 The original of Shakespeare's "sibyl" is the sad Cassandra, who, 
 Ariosto tells us, gave the embroidered tent to her brother Hector, from 
 whom it came to Helen and Menelaus; thence to King Proteus of Egi'pt; 
 thence to Cleopatra, and finally to Constantine and Melissa. See the last 
 canto of Orlando Furioso. Stanza 80 reads. 
 
 Eran de gli anni oppresso che duo milia 
 Che fu quel ricco padiglion trapunto. 
 Una donzella de la terra d' Ilia 
 Ch' avea il furor profetico congiunto. 
 Con studio di gran tempo e con vigilia, 
 Lo fece di sua man, di tutto punto. 
 
 s« Berni's rifacimento is superior to the original of Boiardo. After his 
 death in 1536 it was thrice reprinted in the next ten years. The stanza 
 (St. 1, Canto LI), from which Shakespeare is supposed to have drawn, is 
 thus happily translated by R. G. White: 
 
 [52]
 
 Cradle and School 
 
 " The man who steals a horn, a horse, a ring. 
 
 Or such a trifle, thieves with moderation 
 And may be justly called a robberling; 
 
 But he who takes away a reputation. 
 And pranks in feathers from another's wing, — 
 
 His deed is robbery, assassination. 
 And merits punishment so much the greater 
 
 As he to right and truth is more a traitor." 
 
 ^''Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing, 
 All's Well Thai Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Romeo and Juliet, and 
 Othello. 
 
 3s This was written in Spanish in 1542 by the Portuguese poet Jorge. See 
 Hallam's Literature, Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe, and Ticknor's 
 History of Spanish Literature. 
 
 39 We can readily believe that this inquisitive and ardent mind, perhaps 
 over-eager at times to eat of the tree of knowledge, would look into all 
 sorts of places, try all kinds of experiences, study all types of characters; 
 but that, even in his escapades, like his favorite prince, under the veil of 
 seeming dissipation he was ever observing, apprehending, comprehending, 
 digesting, co-ordinating; and, unsuspected by his wild companions, was 
 utilizing in solitude and midnight the hours they had lost in thoughtless 
 mirth. See the first half dozen and the last dozen paragraphs in our 
 Study of Shakespeare's Early Manhood. 
 
 ^ " Lea gens de qualite savent tout sans avoir jamais rien appris." — 
 Les PrScieuses Ridicules of Moliere (1659). 
 
 ^' For a vivid description see Homer's Odyssey, iii, 430-463. 
 
 ^1 Henry IV, II, iv, 242-3. 
 
 *^ Curiously enough the Registry of the proceedings of the court at 
 Stratford for sixteen years (1569-1585), from William's fifth year to his 
 twenty-second, are missing. Possibly some light on his boyhood and 
 youth or on his father's misfortunes has thus been lost. 
 
 [53]
 
 Study II 
 Shakespeare's Early Manhood
 
 He was not of an age, but for all time! 
 
 And all the Muses still were in their prime 
 
 When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm 
 
 Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! 
 
 Nature herself was proud of his designs, 
 
 And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines! 
 
 Which were so richly spun and wove so fit 
 
 As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. 
 
 Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art. 
 
 My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part; 
 
 For, though the poet's matter nature be, 
 
 His art doth give the fashion; and so he 
 
 Who casts to write a living line must sweat — 
 
 Such as thine are — and strike the second heat 
 
 Upon the Muse's anvil, turn the same 
 
 And himself with it that he thinks to frame; 
 
 Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn; 
 
 For a good poet 's made as well as born. 
 
 And such wert thou. Look how the father's face 
 
 Lives in his issue; even so the race 
 
 Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
 
 In his well-turned and true-filed lines. 
 
 In each of which he seems to shake a lance 
 
 As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. — 
 
 ' — Ben Jonson, London, 1623,
 
 STUDY II 
 SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY MANHOOD 
 
 A STUDY OF HIS MARRIAGE, PEDAGOGY, LAW, 
 AND FOUNDATIONS 
 
 One of the most surprising phenomena in the 
 history of Literature is WilHam Shakespeare. How- 
 to account for him is the problem. For more than 
 eighteen years from the date of his christening, 
 April 26, 1564, to that of his licence to marry, 
 November 28, 1582, no word or act of his is re- 
 corded, nor is there any mention of him by a 
 contemporary. We may be sure that in this 
 period of " darkness visible " great forces were at 
 work within him and deep foundations were being 
 laid. 
 
 What were those forces, and what those founda- 
 tions? Probably this mystery will never be com- 
 pletely cleared up. But whether solved or not, 
 even a slight attempt at its elucidation may prove 
 not altogether uninteresting or unfruitful. 
 
 Normally every child hungers to know, to under- 
 stand. He can say with Francis Bacon, " I have 
 taken all knowledge to be my province." 
 
 Some years later a few of the most gifted, like 
 Milton or Goethe, fashion to themselves an ideal 
 of a mind not only thoroughly informed, but also 
 
 [57]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 symmetrical, strong, perfectly disciplined; "a 
 man," to use Hamlet's words, " noble in reason, 
 infinite in faculty, in form and moving express and 
 admirable, in action like an angel, in apprehension 
 like a god! " 
 
 Soon a few of these, like Alexander Pope, Wil- 
 liam Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Alfred Tenny- 
 son, take another step, make it a life-work to 
 clothe all in most felicitous poetic dress. 
 
 Suppose the boy Shakespeare aimed at this three- 
 fold excellence with special emphasis on the first 
 and last: universal knowledge, highest culture, 
 happiest expression. Given this triple aim — let it 
 be cherished incessantly during forty or fifty 
 years — given all the while perfect health, fair intel- 
 lect, and a genius for labor, the most indispensable 
 kind of genius, there needs but one thing more to 
 ensure eminence in literature, and that is proper 
 tools and materials, chiefly books. Whether as a 
 source of information, an apparatus for mental 
 gymnastics, or an auxiliary and test with models in 
 expression, books of the right sort would seem to 
 be indispensable. 
 
 Our ancestors had few, but they used them well. 
 I sometimes think we have too many. They did 
 less reading, more thinking. Fountains now are 
 multiplied a hundredfold; we sip from many, 
 drink deep of none. Butterflies, not bees, we taste 
 of a thousand flowers; we store up no honey. 
 So did not Shakespeare. Ex-president Eliot's 
 
 [58]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 five-foot shelf would have sufficed to hold his 
 library.^ 
 
 But what books they were! A multitude of 
 passages attest his acquaintance with the greatest 
 of our literatures, the English Bible including the 
 Apocrypha. Evidently, too, he has studied that 
 wonderful compilation sometimes termed " The 
 Bible of Heroisms," Pkitarch's Lives. He makes 
 much use of Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland. He is in love with Ovid's 
 Metamorphoses. I have elsewhere shown in him 
 slight traces of the great Greeks, ^schylus, 
 Sophocles, Euripides; Homer, Xenophon, Lucian, 
 possibly Plato; of the Latin Plautus, Ennius, Ver- 
 gil, Horace, Terence, Seneca, possibly Cicero; the 
 French Rabelais and Montaigne; the Italian 
 Boccaccio, Cinthio, probably Ariosto and Berni, 
 possibly Dante; very likely the celebrated Spanish 
 romance, Diana Enamorada; English Chaucer, 
 Spenser, Bacon. I have named about thirty 
 authors. We can be sure of but few, if any, 
 others. These proved to be enough. 
 
 But a youth of eighteen, feeding on books, 
 buoyant with health and hope, eager to acquire all 
 knowledge, discipline all faculties, embalm in musi- 
 cal speech, like insects in amber, all thought, 
 feeling, imagery — such a youth, seeing visions 
 and dreaming dreams and nursing the fire of am- 
 bition, is sure to awaken some day to the con- 
 
 [59]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 sciousness of another flame. A glory transfigures 
 the other sex. The more intense and guileless the 
 nature, the more complete the illusion. Bright 
 candle, dazzled moth! Witness keen Sir Thomas 
 More, saintly Richard Hooker, elegant Edmund 
 Spenser, burly Ben Jonson, magnificent John Mil- 
 ton, politic John Dryden, genial Joseph Addison! 
 witness Socrates, Dante, Montaigne, Moliere, Rous- 
 seau, Shelley, Byron, Landor, Charles Dickens, 
 Charles Sumner, John Ruskin, and a host of other 
 wits, poets, scholars, philosophers, who, so the 
 cynics tell us, lost their brains when they lost their 
 hearts, and thought they courted angels, but found 
 they had married women! 
 
 Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, William Shake- 
 speare about eighteen.' They are supposed to have 
 married at these respective ages " upon once asking 
 of the banns," two Stratford farmers signing a 
 bond to save harmless the Bishop of Worcester for 
 licensing this unusual haste.^ The license is to 
 " solemnize." The marriage, as many think, may 
 have existed before, what has been called a " com- 
 mon-law " marriage, without either cW\\ or ec- 
 clesiastical ceremonies — not a very solemn affair! 
 
 Early in the morning of my first Sunday in 
 England I walked a mile through the fields to the 
 neat cottage of Anne Hathaway.^ Entering I 
 faced an old-fashioned fireplace, in opposite corners 
 of which William and Anne are supposed to have 
 sat with a great fire of logs and love between them. 
 
 [60]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 Mrs. Baker, the housekeeper, who died sixteen 
 years ago, claimed to be a descendant of the 
 Hathaways. She graciously greeted us visitors, 
 and politely thanked us for our sixpences. In a 
 room overhead was an heirloom, bed and bedstead, 
 said to have come down from the time of Queen 
 Elizabeth. Shakespeare's " courting chair," if it 
 ever existed, had disappeared. Of what earthly use 
 was a " courting chair," when there was the settle, 
 a long high-backed stout bench much better 
 adapted than a chair or a fireplace for amatory 
 negotiations? I was told there was once a cheap 
 print purporting to show Shakespeare's wooing; 
 but that, too, had vanished. We consoled our- 
 selves with the reflection that it must have been 
 imaginary; for artists were not invited; kodaks, 
 flash-lights, snap-shots had not been invented; 
 reporters and newspaper interviewers with all their 
 forty-auger power were in the distant future; and 
 Peeping Tom had died at Coventry five hundred 
 years before. 
 
 Richard Grant White, Sidney Lee and many 
 other eminent scholars will have it that in this 
 matrimonial business William was the sought and 
 not the seeker. With Halliwell-Phillipps we prefer 
 to think differently — that he was a passionate 
 lover. ^ 
 
 A passionate lover! He who depicted the sin- 
 cerity and intensity of so many from Romeo and 
 Juliet to Ferdinand and Miranda, we may rest 
 
 [61]
 
 Sttidies in Shakespeare 
 
 assured, was not speaking from hearsay but from 
 personal experience. Let me with reverence il- 
 lustrate my reasoning. With irresistible logic to 
 prove that our Creator is all-hearing and all-seeing, 
 the Psalmist asks, " He that planted the ear, shall 
 He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He 
 not see? " Says Emerson, " What lover has 
 Shakespeare not out-loved? " He tells us lovers 
 have " seething brains." He couples them with 
 lunatics! Hear him — 
 
 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
 
 Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 
 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends! 
 
 The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
 
 Are of Imagination all compact: 
 
 One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; 
 
 That Is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, 
 
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt! 
 
 Midsummer Night' sDream, V, i, 4-11. (Sprague's ed.) 
 
 To the same effect Rosalind's wise bantering of 
 Orlando in ^.y You Like It — 
 
 Love Is merely a madness, and, I tell you, desers'es 
 as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and 
 the reason why they are not so punished and cured is 
 that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are 
 In love too! — As You Like It, III, il, 371-375. 
 (Sprague's ed.) 
 
 Was Shakespeare, then, inexperienced, guessing, 
 and, except as an observer or reporter, really 
 
 [62]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 ignorant of what he so vividly portrayed? Must 
 it not be that, Hke poor Troilus, he was for a while 
 fascinated, intoxicated, bewildered, blinded? Can 
 we doubt that he sought the marriage? 
 
 Let us not blame him for this. " All the world 
 loves a lover." Must w^e blame her? Surely not 
 for the difTerence of eight years between their 
 ages. Many appropriate marriages have occurred 
 where there was a greater disparity in this respect. 
 But ought a woman of twenty-six to allow a boy of 
 eighteen to become her husband when there is no 
 property in sight, no income, no means of support? 
 At first blush it looks as if neither had arrived at 
 years of discretion!^ 
 
 What did he think of this afterwards? that his 
 marriage was premature? that a wrong had been 
 done him? that wife should not be older than 
 husband? 
 
 After fifteen or twenty years he wrote his Twelfth 
 Night. In this drama we may reasonably assume 
 that Duke Orsino was about Anne Hathaway's 
 age, say twenty-five or twenty-six; that the fair 
 Viola was about Shakespeare's age, say eighteen. 
 The Duke is trying to woo and win the Countess 
 Olivia. She does not reciprocate his passion. 
 Viola is enamored of him, but he doesn't know it. 
 To be near him she has disguised herself as a boy 
 and entered his service as a page. Little does he 
 dream that his handsome young attendant is a 
 woman! Melancholy because the Countess rejects 
 
 [63]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 his suit, he calls for music after the fashion of 
 lovers to soothe his sorrow.'' Listen — 
 
 If music be the food of love, play on. 
 
 That strain again! it had a dying fall: 
 
 Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound 
 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets 
 
 Stealing and giving odors. ... — Twelfth Night, I, i, 1-7. 
 
 Come hither, boy. — If ever thou shalt love. 
 
 In the sweet pangs of it remember me; 
 
 For such as I am all true lovers are, 
 
 Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, 
 
 Save in the constant image of the creature 
 
 That is beloved. — How dost thou like this tune? 
 
 Viola. It gives a very echo to the seat 
 
 Where Love is throned! 
 
 Duke. Thou dost speak masterly: 
 
 My life upon 't, young though thou art, thine eye 
 
 Hath stayed upon some favor that it loves; 
 
 Hath it not, boy? 
 
 Viola. A little, by your favor. 
 
 Duke. What kind of woman is 't? 
 
 Viola. Of your complexion. 
 
 Duke. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith? 
 
 Viola. About your years, my lord. — 
 
 Duke. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take 
 
 An elder than herself: so wears she to him, 
 
 So sways she level in her husband's heart: 
 
 For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
 
 Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm. 
 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn 
 
 Than women's are. 
 
 [64]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 Viola. I think it well, my lord. 
 
 Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
 Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; 
 For women are as roses, whose fair flower, 
 Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. 
 — Twelfth Night, II, iv, 15-39. 
 
 Here the Duke's strong opposition to the page's 
 apparent choice of a woman five or ten years 
 older is contrary to what we should naturally 
 expect, and it may be a result of Shakespeare's 
 own experience: but note that it is for the wifes 
 sake he gives the advice, 
 
 Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
 
 lest, as her rose-like beauty fades, she lose 
 
 " What alle women most desire — 
 The sovereignety of mannes love," 
 
 as " Moral Gower " phrased it more than five 
 hundred years ago.^ 
 
 When the dramatist adds that a husband's love 
 is likely to diminish as a wife's physical attractions 
 decrease, it is possible, of course, that he is think- 
 ing for the moment of his own case. But it is 
 nearly certain that he cherished permanently a 
 loftier estimate of love and marriage. In his 
 hundred and sixteenth sonnet he tells us so, and 
 that he speaks from personal knowledge — 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends with the remover to remove. 
 
 [65]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Oh no! it is an ever fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark, 
 
 Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken. 
 
 Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come: 
 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error and upon me proved, 
 
 I never woo'd, nor no man ever loved !^ 
 
 The Duke told Viola that a husband's love for a 
 wife so much older could not " hold the bent," 
 the tension of inclination. But Anne's affection 
 for William did " hold the bent," if we may credit 
 the touching tradition, commonly believed to be 
 genuine, that " she did earnestly desire to be buried 
 in his grave. "^"^ But did his for her! 
 
 Grant White, Thomas De Quincey, and many 
 others think it did not. They allege that he soon 
 left her. We may answer, his very love for her 
 may have hastened his departure; he must have 
 remunerative employment to support wife and 
 children. They affirm that for twenty-five years 
 there is no evidence that he came to see her. 
 We answer, there is no evidence that he stayed 
 away. Aubrey relates that " he was wont to goe 
 to his native country once a yeare."^^ She may 
 have been with him in London a good deal of the 
 time. They assert that he never wrote her a 
 letter. We answer, he may have written her a 
 
 [66]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 thousand: very few letters of so long ago have 
 floated down the stream of time to us. 
 
 A more plausible argument to show that he 
 cared little or nothing for her is based upon a 
 dozen words in his last will and testament. In the 
 first draft/^ though he names many friends, to 
 each of whom he leaves some token of regard; 
 for instance, a ring, a sword, a silver bowl, a 
 hundred pounds, a house or lands — his wearing 
 apparel to his sister, Mrs. Joan Hart; his chattels, 
 leases, plate, jewels, household stuff to his daughter 
 Susannah, or her husband. Dr. John Hall; a 
 hundred and fifty pounds to his daughter Judith, 
 Mrs. Thomas Quiney, etc., in all this he does not 
 once mention her; but finally he interlines the 
 bequest, " Item, I give unto my wife my second- 
 best bed with the furniture." " Second-best bed! " 
 Yes, on sober afterthought, they say, he does con- 
 clude to give her not his best bed but his second- 
 best, nothing else! We may answer; the best 
 bed, as was then often the case, may have been an 
 heir-loom like that in the Hathaway cottage, 
 sure to remain in the family in her possession as 
 long as she lived. But Grant White objects, 
 " We may explain ' second-best bed ' but how can 
 we explain second-best thoughts; for the 'item' 
 is an afterthought? " Perhaps in this way: He 
 is finishing his will; she is perhaps amply provided 
 for by her right of dower; he knows too that she 
 will be tenderly cared for by their daughter Susannah ; 
 
 [67]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 he is finishing his will; he turns to her and asks her 
 if there's anything in the house which she wishes 
 especially to retain for herself: she answers naming 
 that bed, perhaps the bed on which their only boy 
 died, and which had been kept sacred to his 
 memory !^^ 
 
 Critics have alleged that he nowhere praises 
 women. This is not strictly true. In his earliest 
 comedy, Love's Labor's Lost, he extols them and 
 their influence highly; and never, against women in 
 general nor against any particular class of them, 
 does he speak with half the bitterness with which 
 he speaks against all men. Furthermore and most 
 significant is the fact, better than any verbal 
 praise, that though the men outnumber the women 
 eight to one, he holds up for admiration hardly 
 half a dozen men of fla\vless character, while at 
 least twenty of his women are almost if not quite 
 perfection itself. You can name at least ten of 
 them who are mentally equal and morally superior 
 to any ten of his prominent men! That is what 
 Shakespeare thought of women, married or single! 
 Outside of the Bible where will you find so noble a 
 group?^^ 
 
 To all this it should be added as bearing on the 
 question of the happiness of Shakespeare's wedded 
 life, that he appears repeatedly to be providing for 
 her a comfortable and even elegant home, the best 
 house in Stratford, with barns, gardens, orchards 
 and extensive lands. ^^ And this seems certain: 
 
 [68]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 that he loved her enough to come back from Lon- 
 don and spend his last years with her. If, before 
 that, there had been any loss of affection, of which 
 there is no evidence, it was probably his fault, not 
 hers. Certainly he was not a model husband, if the 
 wretched traditions are true, which I do not be- 
 lieve, or if his sonnets are to be interpreted as 
 autobiographical, which is very doubtful. 
 
 This marriage, happy or unhappy, premature if 
 not ill-starred, occurred on or about the first of 
 December, 1582, possibly some months earlier. 
 On the twenty-sixth of the following May (O. S.) 
 their first child, Susannah, was christened. A year 
 and a half later twins, Hamnet and Judith, were 
 born (Feb. 2, 1584-5 O. S.) So before William 
 was twenty-one he was the father of three children! 
 
 What effect had this matrimonial experience? 
 
 A youth of astonishing genius, no doubt, but 
 very likely in affairs of the heart unsophisticated as 
 the sheep upon the meadows of his river Avon — 
 a bookworm it may have been, suddenly carried 
 away by a lover's frenzy — wrongly permitted by 
 a lady eight years his senior to contract a marriage 
 that from poverty might prove a martyrdom — 
 possibly we owe something of his greatness to this 
 very misery, If misery there was. It is sometimes 
 best for the world that the highest intellect stalk 
 through it without visible companionship. 
 
 L69]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 " You have a wife already, whom you love, 
 Your social theory," 
 
 says Aurora Leigh to her cousin suitor, Romney, in 
 Mrs. Browning's poem. 
 
 " My muse is she my love shall be," 
 
 Said the quaint poet Thomas Randolph, Shake- 
 spear's contemporary (1605-1635). " I have es- 
 poused my art; my works shall be my children " 
 declared Michael Angelo. Francis, afterwards called 
 Lord Bacon, to whom matrimony was always a 
 matter of money, and who came perilously near 
 not marrying at all and never had any children, 
 solemnly averred at the age of fifty-one, " Certainly 
 the greatest works, and of greatest merit for the 
 public, have proceeded from the unmarried or 
 childless men, which, both in affection and means, 
 have married and endowed the public." ^^ Pos- 
 sibly, when his " passion had spent its novel 
 force," the tender love of the great heart of Shake- 
 speare, the time, the pains, the ceaseless attentions, 
 which might have been lavished upon an idolized 
 wife or absorbed in a thousand household cares, 
 went nearly all to the drama instead. Wedded 
 not to a woman, but to immortal verse, as Milton 
 wished his Lydian airs to be — 
 
 " And ever against eating cares 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs 
 Married to immortal verse " — 
 
 [70]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 his transient individual sorrow, if sorrow there 
 was, is transmuted into many millions' lasting joy. 
 But if fancy may dwell for a moment on proba- 
 bilities, what a struggle must have been his! 
 How fate must have lashed him! To say nothing 
 of his harassed and hunted father in the depths of 
 poverty, his broken-hearted mother, his younger 
 brothers and still surviving little sister, all of whom 
 had begun to look hopefully to bright, strong, 
 brave William; to say nothing of this venerable 
 wife; here were three little mouths to feed, three 
 little backs to clothe, three pairs of little feet to 
 be shod; every avenue to wealth and fame bar- 
 ricaded; neither capital nor inclination to set up 
 like his father in the butcher business; glorious 
 aspirations in his heart, but three babies in his 
 arms; wings of imagination impatient to soar to 
 the skies; his soul singing 
 
 Oh for a Muse of fire that would ascend 
 The brightest heaven of invention! 
 
 ( — First lines of Henry V.) 
 
 but solid Anne Hathaway clinging to him like 
 Mrs. Micawber to the ill-fated Wilkins when she 
 lovingly threatened, " I never will desert you, Mr. 
 Micawber,"^^ — and the demon of poverty saddled 
 upon him like the " old man of the sea " astride 
 the neck and shoulders of Sinbad the Sailor, — 
 " The Philistines be upon thee," Shakespeare! 
 Whither shall he turn? Well — he is perhaps 
 
 [71]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 better fitted for school-keeping than for any other 
 business. It used to be the easiest profession to 
 enter. It required no capital. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, whom I often met at the Butler Health 
 Lift in Brooklyn, ^^ once remarked to me, as we lay 
 resting side by side, after lifting, that if a learned 
 young man, just graduating from college, full of 
 philosophies and classics, had no property, no in- 
 come, no other way of keeping the w^olf of starva- 
 tion from the door, he " would either teach or 
 preach! " " I did both," said Beecher. He told 
 me where. 
 
 The situation is different now, thanks to the 
 training which is gradually making pedagogy one 
 of the fine arts. But the time was, and not so 
 long ago, when a little scholarship alone was re- 
 quired as an outfit; and no lawless lawyer, no 
 impatient physician, no hungry pastor, no unstudied 
 student, unschooled scholar, illiterate man of let- 
 ters, but was, in his own and others' estimation, 
 entirely competent to train the immortal mind! 
 And so the one secular business, whose right 
 exercise requires more skill, produces more far- 
 reaching visible results, and is more vital to the 
 prosperity of a free state than any other, was more 
 than any other exposed to the incursions of a horde 
 of adventurers, vagrants, rifi"raff, fractions of 
 humanity, fools learned and unlearned not fit to 
 train anything above a dog!'^ Yet from Pyth- 
 agoras to Festalozzi; from old Homer teaching 
 
 |72J
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 school three years at Smyrna, to Whittier playing 
 pedagogue for months at Amesbury; from Plato 
 in the Academy at Athens, to Emerson five years 
 in his brother's seminary in Boston; from Aristotle 
 in the Lyceum to Agassiz in his wife's classes at 
 Cambridge; from Nicholas Udal and Sir John 
 Cheke and Roger Ascham and Jeremy Taylor and 
 John Milton to Daniel Webster and Thomas 
 Arnold and Mark Hopkins and Emma Willard 
 and Mary Lyon and Phillips Brooks and Woodrow 
 Wilson, and others vv^hose names are dear to man- 
 kind and familiar as household words, conspicuous 
 among the noble living or sleeping with the il- 
 lustrious dead; a host of bright and beautiful 
 characters, among them some of the best intellects 
 of the race, have honored this profession and been 
 honored by it; and to this number I think we may 
 add Shakespeare. He certainly was eminently 
 fit for it, his need was great, and entrance upon it 
 was easy. 
 
 There is good evidence that he was at one time 
 a schoolmaster. Aubrey records and gives the 
 name of his informant, Mr. Beeston, that Shake- 
 speare " understood Latin pretty well, for he had 
 been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the 
 country. "20 This Mr. Beeston, who lived till 
 1682 and whom Dryden compliments by naming 
 him " the chronicle of the stage," had been a 
 member, even a fellow, of Lord Strange's Company 
 of Players, to which Shakespeare himself belonged,-^ 
 
 [73]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 He therefore would be likely to know the facts. 
 Why should he falsify? What motive could there 
 be for inventing such a statement? The tradition 
 is not one that would be likely to arise out of 
 mere nothing. Unfavorable reports do arise out of 
 mere nothing by a kind of " spontaneous genera- 
 tion " in the " protoplasm " of total depravity. 
 In ' the struggle for existence,' scandalous statements, 
 like infant mosquitoes that have squeezed through 
 a screen, small at first, grow large and strong; and 
 by that psychological law which curiously seems to 
 reverse the biological, the " survival of the " 
 morally " unfittest," they are pretty surely per- 
 petuated. 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them, 
 
 The good is oft interred with their bones. — 
 
 Julius CcBsar, III, ii, 73, 74 (Sprague's ed.) 
 
 But this is a favorable tradition with no depravity, 
 no envy, no malice, no distrust, to give it birth or 
 keep it alive. It is stated as a well known fact 
 to account for his mastery of Latin — "He under- 
 stood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his 
 younger years a schoolmaster in the country." 
 
 As corroborative of the statement made by Bees- 
 ton and Aubrey it is well to note that many 
 pages, especially in his earlier writings, teem with 
 precisely that kind of learning which a school- 
 master, more than any other, was likely to be 
 familiar with. " No man," says Dr. Sam. Johnson, 
 
 [74]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 " forgets his original trade "; and Coleridge remarks 
 that " a young author's first work almost always 
 bears traces of his recent pursuits." Not to lay 
 stress upon Shakespeare's habit which I have else- 
 where shown,^^ of using words in their root meaning, 
 a habit into which a Latin teacher is especially 
 liable to fall, and the kindred practice of coining 
 words from the classic tongues, we find that the 
 contents of the text-books which he would use 
 daily, the stories of ancient history and mythology, 
 topics familiar in the class room, are evidently 
 running constantly through his head and skipping 
 off the point of his pen.^^ 
 
 Note, too, the prominence he gives, especially 
 in his earlier plays, to schools and school matters. 
 There are not less than fifty mentions of them, 
 besides some thirty or forty concerning the pupils, 
 the masters, and the exercises. I cite a few, some 
 of which show the importance he attaches to the 
 instruction. 
 
 In As You Like It Orlando complains of his 
 elder brother Oliver who is defrauding him of the 
 education his father intended for him. " My 
 brother Jacques he keeps at school, and report 
 speaks goldenly of his profit; for my part he keeps 
 me rustically at home." To Oliver he says, " My 
 father charged you in his will to give me a good 
 education. You have trained me like a peasant, 
 obscuring and hiding from me all gentlemanlike 
 qualities." Hamlet, who wishes to go back to 
 
 [75]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 school at Wittenberg, will not allow his friend and 
 fellow student to disparage himself by calling him- 
 self a truant! He recognizes the seriousness of the 
 charge of truancy, the plague of teachers. 
 
 Hamlet. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 
 
 Horatio. A truant disposition, good my lord. 
 
 Hamlet. I would not hear your enemy say so, 
 
 Nor shall you do mine ear that violence 
 
 To make it truster of your own report 
 
 Against yourself. I know you are no truant. — 
 
 Hamlet, I, ii, 168-173. (Sprague's ed.) 
 
 In Merry Wives of Windsor he funnily carica- 
 tures a lesson in Latin Grammar as conducted by 
 the Welsh schoolmaster parson Sir Hugh Evans.^* 
 In Twelfth Night a pedant keeps a school in the 
 church, and has a new wall map showing " the 
 augmentation of the Indies. "^^ In Loves Labor's 
 Lost the schoolmaster Holophernes is complimented 
 for thoroughness in the minutice of book-learning. 
 He is fastidious about accents, apostrophes, pro- 
 nunciation, poetic cadences; insists that the letter 
 b should be sounded in ' debt ' and ' doubt,' and 
 / in 'calf' and 'half'; he says he "smells false 
 Latin"; he affects, like Goldsmith's master in The 
 Deserted Village " words of learned length and 
 thundering sound "; shows off his skill in allitera- 
 tion; and displays his Latin and Italian in true 
 pedagogue-pedant style, as if, to use the description 
 by Moth, the page, he " had been at a great feast 
 of languages and had stolen the scraps! "^^ 
 
 [76]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 Significant \n As You Like It is the picture of 
 
 the boy going to the hated school of three centuries 
 
 ago, 
 
 Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel 
 And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
 Unwillingly to school! — 
 
 II, vii, 145-147. (Sprague's ed.) 
 
 Still more significant in Romeo and Jidiet is the 
 comparison, 
 
 Love goes toward Love as schoolboys from their books; 
 But Love from Love, toward school with heavy looks! — 
 
 II, ii, 157-158. 
 
 In speaking of our poet as possibly having been 
 a teacher, we need not imagine him wielding birch 
 or ferule over ten, twenty, thirty or forty ' urchins,* 
 as Washington Irving would style them. A private 
 tutor in that age was commonly termed a " school- 
 master," though he had but two or three pupils or 
 only one.-^ Thus Prospero, one of the most com- 
 plete all-round characters in the plays, and in 
 whom, as all critics agree, we discern something of 
 the features of the dramatist himself, teaches his 
 daughter Miranda: she is his only pupil: he calls 
 himself her " schoolmaster." In The Taming of 
 The Shrew we have two, Hortensio who teaches 
 music, and Lucentio who teaches Latin and Greek: 
 each has but one pupil, yet each is called a "school- 
 master." In Antony and Cleopatra Euphronius 
 
 [77]
 
 Stiidies in Shakespeare 
 
 who teaches but two children is styled their 
 " schoolmaster," In this Shakespeare follows Plu- 
 tarch. 
 
 I have often fancied William such a school- 
 master as that, and have even suspected that Anne 
 Hathaway was his sole (soul) pupil! He would 
 teach her as Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew 
 taught the beautiful Bianca. You may remember 
 that Lucentio, desiring to make Bianca's acquain- 
 tance and to woo her, disguises himself as a teacher, 
 exchanging his costly robes for the humbler gar- 
 ments of his servant Tranio. Dressed as a tutor 
 he gains admission into the stately mansion of 
 Bianca's father, Baptista, at Padua, and is engaged 
 by him to instruct the girl in the classic tongues. 
 Listen as he gives her a lesson in Latin. He reads 
 the text in a loud voice, but translates, or pre- 
 tends to translate, in an undertone, suspecting 
 some one is eavesdropping! 
 
 Bianca. Where left we last? 
 
 Lucentio. Here, madam: 
 
 * Hie ibat Simois; hie est Sigeia tellus; 
 Hie steterat Priami regia eelsa senis.' 
 
 Bianca. Construe them. 
 
 Lucentio. Hie ibat, as I told you before; Simois, 
 I am Lucentio; hie est, son unto Vincentio of Pisa; 
 Sigeia tellus, disguised thus to get your love; Hie 
 steterat, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing; 
 Priami, is my man Tranio; regia, bearing my port; 
 celsa senis, that we might beguile the old ' panta- 
 loon.' 
 
 [78]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 Then the fair Bianca tries her skill at translating 
 the same passage. 
 
 Bianca. Now let me see if I can construe it. 
 
 Hie ibat Simois, I know you not; hie est Sigeia 
 tellus, I trust you not; Hie sleterat Priami, take heed 
 he hear us not; regia, presume not; celsa senis, despair 
 not! 
 
 With such a teacher and such a pupil rapid progress 
 might naturally be expected in conjugating, espe- 
 cially the verb amareP^ 
 
 We find then in the plays strong confirmation of 
 Aubrey's and Beeston's statement that Shake- 
 speare " was in his younger years a schoolmaster 
 in the country." 
 
 Although this vocation was ready at hand, and, 
 more than most others, might afford leisure for 
 study and experiment, and that was perhaps what 
 he most desired; — the opportunity of investigating 
 and accumulating; of classifying, digesting, practis- 
 ing mental gymnastics; and of mastering the art 
 and mystery of poetic expression ; — it was not 
 likely to content him long. It might do for a 
 temporary support, but it could hardly be anything 
 better than that, or a stepping-stone. He was not 
 of the stuff of which martyrs and missionaries and 
 permanent school teachers are made! What more 
 natural than that he should study law? Doubtless 
 
 [79]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 he had often seen his father presiding as magis- 
 trate in the court-leet of Stratford; at table had 
 heard law cases stated and knotty legal questions 
 discussed; had known of numerous impending 
 litigations in which his father was to be plaintiff 
 or defendant, particularly the distressing complica- 
 tions in which he was entangled when William was 
 fourteen to eighteen years of age, and on the un- 
 raveling of which the happiness of the Shakespeare 
 family depended. 
 
 Even if the laws of England and the proceedings 
 of courts of justice had not been thus forced upon 
 his attention during his childhood and youth, they 
 would yet have constituted an important branch 
 of that universal knowledge the attainment of 
 which may have been his earliest ideal.^^ He must 
 have known his powers, and what could be more 
 natural than that he should at times dream of a 
 professional career for himself as a lawyer? We 
 need attach no importance to the tradition men- 
 tioned by Steevens, Malone, and Rushton, and yet 
 there was such a tradition, that he was once a 
 clerk in an attorney's office. Still less can we con- 
 cur unreservedly in Lord Chancellor Campbell's 
 sweeping assertion (1859) that, " While novelists 
 and dramatists are continually making mistakes 
 as to the law of marriage, of wills, and of inheri- 
 tance, to Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he pro- 
 pounds it, there can be neither demurrer, nor bill 
 of exceptions, nor writ of error! " Yet there are 
 
 [80]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 passages which justify the affirmation of the late 
 Senator Cushman K, Davis of Minnesota in his 
 treatise on Shakespeare's legal lore (1899) that 
 "The legalism is structural; it could not be up- 
 rooted without taking the thought, blood, rhetoric, 
 and continuity of the whole text along with it."^*' 
 For instance, let us quote from Hamlet a part of 
 the graveyard scene. Even a well-read lawyer 
 needs a dictionary to understand it fully. Two 
 grave-diggers are unearthing bones in the ancient 
 cemetery. Says Hamlet — musing — 
 
 There's another: why may not that be the skull 
 of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, 
 his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he 
 suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the 
 sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his 
 action of battery? — Hum! This fellow might be in 
 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his re- 
 cognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his re- 
 coveries: is this the fine of his fines and the recovery 
 of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? 
 Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, 
 and double ones too, than the length and breadth of 
 a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his 
 lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the in- 
 heritor have no more? ha? 
 
 Horatio. Not a jot more, my lord. 
 
 Hamlet. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? 
 
 Horatio. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins, too. 
 
 Hamlet. They are sheep and calves which seek out 
 assurance in that! — Hamlet, V, i, 94-110. (Sprague's 
 ed.) 
 
 [81]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Not claiming, therefore, that he was a practitioner, 
 it is evident that he mastered much of the techni- 
 cahties of law. 
 
 To all this it has been objected by Dr. Appleton 
 Morgan, the gifted president of the late New York 
 Shakespeare Society, and by Mr. William C. 
 Devecmon, a learned member of the Maryland 
 bar, and by many others, that the trial scene in 
 The Merchant of Venice, case of " Shylock vs. 
 Antonio," " shows a consummate ignorance of all 
 law and of all legal procedure," and that " every 
 ruling of Portia is the exact reverse of the English 
 law of Shylock's case." To these strictures answer 
 has been made in my Study of Shakespeare' s 
 Greatest Character, a Woman, and in my essay on 
 Alleged Blunders in Shakespeare' s Legal Terminology, 
 published some years ago (April, 1902) in The 
 Yale Law Journal. In these I show: (1) It would 
 have been improper to conform to modern English 
 law or English court practice, for the scene is laid 
 in ancient Venice five hundred or a thousand years 
 ago; (2) In some of the deviations from English 
 rule and usage, the dramatist is adhering closely 
 to the old story, which, for aught we know, may 
 be true history; (3) In that remote age the highest 
 court in Venice very likely had a fourfold jurisdic- 
 tion; civil, equity, criminal, and ecclesiastical or 
 probate, and these four are successively and very 
 properly availed of; (4) In the court procedure 
 in the play there are remarkable coincidences with 
 
 [82]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 usages which never existed in England but may have 
 been common in countries under Spanish domina- 
 tion, and which prevailed in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century in the Republic of Nicaragua 
 and other Spanish American states. In The 
 Overland Monthly of July, 1886, Mr. John T. Doyle 
 of California, who had been in business for some 
 years in one of those central American states, 
 points out those usages which he had observed in 
 the courts there, and which had evidently been 
 inherited from Spain or Italy.^^ 
 
 But the monotony of pedagogue life or incipient 
 butchership by day and hard study by night, 
 varied by cradling in his arms his twin babes 
 Hamnet and Judith and two-years-old Susannah 
 when their triple cries baffled mother Shakespeare's 
 soothing paregoric, seems to have come to a sudden 
 and inglorious end. Nicholas Rowe heard from 
 the famous actor Thomas Betterton a tradition 
 believed to be authentic, that young Shakespeare 
 fell into bad company, and that some of his com- 
 panions engaged him in the robbery of Sir Thomas 
 Lucy's park of deer at Charlecote, three or four 
 miles from Stratford. In those days, to kill and 
 carry off a wild deer in defiance of the game laws 
 would have been deemed by fast young men about 
 as heinous a crime as it would be thought now to 
 catch fish in our great lakes or Long Island Sound 
 or the English Channel, if some multi-millionaire 
 
 [83]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 owned the whole of those waters and forbade all 
 trespassing.^- 
 
 There were special reasons why these madcaps 
 should single out Sir Thomas Lucy for their roguish 
 pranks. He was reputed proud of his wealth and 
 his aristocratic connections; a solemn puritanic 
 person and therefore an object of dislike to young 
 men of velocity and rapidity; as high sheriff of 
 Warwickshire taking notice of John Shakespeare's 
 absence from church; fussy and testy, his family 
 being repeatedly involved in quarrels with the 
 neighboring Stratford folks; a member of Parlia- 
 ment, and to crown all he was pushing forward a 
 bill which he had introduced as chairman of a 
 committee of the House of Commons to enforce 
 the hated game laws, laying new restrictions on 
 poor men's hunting in England, and aiming to save 
 up the wild animals for the amusement of the 
 gentry! 
 
 Our young scapegraces thought such a man, his 
 deer, and his keeper's daughter fair game. They 
 ' engaged ' William — " engaged " is the word, 
 which shows that William did not originate the 
 plot — "engaged" him in the affair, broke into 
 the enclosure, killed a deer, and were carrying 
 it off, when they were attacked by some of Sir 
 Thomas's men. These they beat. Imagine the 
 gamekeeper's daughter coming up with an in- 
 verted, high-lifted broom to her father's defence. 
 She will make a clean sweep of the trespassers! 
 
 [84]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 With Christian meekness worthy of a better cause 
 they receive her with open arms and give back a 
 kiss for a blow! The golden rule, "To do to others 
 as I would," etc., has its exceptions! However 
 ugly the gamekeeper, however beautiful the girl, 
 however fascinating the fun, we cannot justify the 
 boys: they had carried the deer and the joke too 
 far. Sir Thomas did right in causing them to be 
 arrested. 
 
 Soon after this, a singular lampoon is said to 
 have been found nailed up on Sir Thomas's park 
 gate. It is coarse, bitter, nonsensical; but not 
 without a certain smartness. It was attributed to 
 young Shakespeare, and Grant White and others 
 are inclined to think a part of it is genuine, and 
 that nobody in Stratford but William was capable 
 of writing a satire so keen.^^ 
 
 To complete the story of this deer stealing, the 
 first scene in Merry Wives Of Windsor strongly 
 corroborates the tradition. Shakespeare seems to 
 be paying off old scores. The thick-headed Justice 
 Shallow is almost universally believed to be Sir 
 Thomas Lucy himself. He is in a rage at Jack 
 Falstaff and his naughty companions for breaking 
 into his park, killing the deer, beating the men, 
 and kissing the girl! Then there is the same coarse 
 punning on the name Lucy.^^ 
 
 Whatever part young Shakespeare acted in all 
 this, clearly he was no longer the person to teach 
 children and youth by precept and example, or 
 
 [85]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 make them repeat according to the good old cate- 
 chism of the Church of England, " My duty toward 
 my neighbor is ... to order myself lowly and 
 reverently to all my betters; to hurt nobody by 
 word or deed ... to keep my hands from picking 
 and stealing, and my tongue from evil speaking! " 
 Farewell to school-keeping now, if not before. 
 
 Ofif to London goes our boy husband, fleeing 
 the wrath of the incensed knight, bidding a hasty 
 good-bye to wife and babes, to sad-eyed mother 
 and bailiff-hunted father. It is perhaps the turning- 
 point in his career. He is a sadder and a wiser 
 man. His " wild oats " are nearly all sown. There 
 is little left in Warwickshire for him to learn. 
 
 He is now in London, twenty or twenty-one years 
 of age, penniless but healthy and hopeful. He has 
 eyes of a light hazel color, complexion fair, hair 
 and beard auburn. Thus much was learned of his 
 personal appearance from his bust in Holy Trinity 
 Church, Stratford, placed there about eight years 
 after his death.^^ Aubrey tells us he " was hand- 
 some, well shaped." So he must have been if, as 
 John Davis of Hereford wrote six years before his 
 death, he played " kingly parts." Tradition, al- 
 most universally believed trustworthy, declared 
 that he acted the part of the Ghost in his own 
 tragedy of Hamlet; that it was " the top of his 
 acting " and that " he did act exceeding well."^^ 
 
 In my Study of Shakespeare's early environ- 
 
 [86]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 ment I state that he has been a myth to some, 
 a miracle to many, a mystery to all: but have we 
 not uncovered some of his foundations? or suggested 
 a possible key to his success? 
 
 Does not the soul sometimes, even in infancy, 
 receive an impulse that never swerves and never 
 ceases? May not this rare genius, of " right happy 
 and copious industry," such as his contemporary, 
 the dramatist John Webster, attributed to him four 
 years before his death — industry, to which his 
 intimate friend Ben Jonson bore strong testimony 
 in the laudatory lines prefixed to the First Folio — 
 may not this rare genius, as suggested, have early 
 formed and steadily cherished during more than 
 forty years a threefold purpose of knowledge, of 
 culture, and of expression? Pardon me if I repeat 
 the suggestion of three processes going on simul- 
 taneously; — (1) To acquire all possible informa- 
 tion; (2) To train to the utmost all intellectual 
 powers; (3) To clothe all ideas and sentiments in 
 most felicitous poetic language. To know, to 
 cultivate, to express; to accumulate, discipline, 
 formulate; to gather and classify; utilize, digest 
 and drill ; idealize, visualize and voice — that is the 
 ideal and the life-work.^'' 
 
 Moving toward such a goal, nothing is common- 
 place. Every product of nature or art, every mood 
 or movement of body or mind, every phase of 
 matter or force or spirit, every object or subject, 
 yields an inner meaning. By deep introspection 
 
 [87]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 every innate principle or latent tendency shall be 
 revealed; by studious observation every external 
 fact, relation, semblance, analogy, every lesson 
 thereof, shall be stored in memory. By wide 
 generalization and persistent drill, all attainable 
 strength and nimbleness, breadth and keenness, 
 solidity and brilliancy, refinement and nobleness 
 shall be gained. By phosphorescent humor or 
 scintillating wit or burning eloquence, by lucid 
 assertion or fiery interrogation, by gleaming simile 
 or glowing metaphor or radiant unlimited personi- 
 fication, not only the most vital principles, and the 
 most intense passion, but the subtlest thought, the 
 most recondite truth, the most evanescent image, 
 the most elusive sentiment shall be bodied forth 
 in incandescent speech to shine for many ages.^^ 
 
 The world of books is ever opening before him. 
 Face to face with the great souls of the past, he 
 continues his study and acquisition, disciplinary 
 drill, enriching analysis and vitalizing synthesis. 
 
 Family prosperity fosters ambition. Family re- 
 verses come, and the love he bears to father, 
 mother, sister, brothers is a new stimulus. 
 
 He marries: children are born to him: it sobers 
 him. He teaches: it clarifies his vision. He 
 studies law: it sharpens him. He poaches: it 
 ends all boyishness and sends him to London. 
 Elsewhere I have shown that he probably became 
 soon a soldier in the Low Countries under Sir 
 Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester. 
 
 [88]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 He is conscious of strength. He writes of his 
 writings: 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme. 
 
 He is now in the heart and brain of England. 
 All around him great truths have been thought out, 
 great deeds wrought, great battles fought, heroic 
 lives lived, glorious deaths died. To him we may 
 well believe the atmosphere tingles with electric 
 memories, flashes with brilliant examples, dazzles 
 with auroral prophecies. 
 
 For it is an age such as the world had never 
 seen; an age of wonder, of daring, of startling 
 discovery, of high achievement in many a field, of 
 earthquake upheavals in religion, volcanic struggles 
 for liberty abroad and subterraneous mutterings 
 against tyranny at home; the unparalleled age of 
 Elizabeth! 
 
 So all things minister to this sensitive soul, in- 
 tensify this threefold process of acquiring, perfect- 
 ing, evolving; kindle and keep alive the joy of 
 creating — creating in thought and re-creating in 
 speech, speech plastic as wax but imperishable as 
 diamond. 
 
 To crown all, the hour of England's drama has 
 struck. The opportunity has come not only to 
 display a thousand thoughts in glittering phrases, 
 but also to incarnate his conceptions in a hundred 
 human forms forever luminous. Call it genius, 
 
 [89]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 inspiration, or what you will, to this end he was 
 born. Drawn toward it from his early years by a 
 triple magnetism, this keen and comprehensive 
 observer, this tireless intellectual athlete, this 
 wonder-speaking and wonder-building artist has 
 found his mission at last. 
 
 A myth no longer, a miracle no longer, he is yet 
 in some degree a mystery still. In the vast ac- 
 cumulations of his knowledge, which Lowell de- 
 clares was "beyond precedent or later parallel"; 
 in the comprehensiveness of his grasp; in the 
 subtleness of his insight; in the deep minings of 
 his studies; in the towerings of his imagination; 
 in his exquisite word-painting, and above all, in 
 his amazing character-creation; we indeed see the 
 effect, we guess at the cause. 
 
 But the cause of that cause, the beginning of the 
 impulse that started him on his shining career, 
 the origin of the force that first upheaved and 
 afterwards steadily lifted toward the skies this 
 loftiest Himalaya peak of the intellectual world — 
 that cause, that beginning, that origin, we may 
 never know; and we still say with Matthew Arnold, 
 
 " Others abide our question; thou art free! 
 We ask and ask; thou smilest and art still, 
 Out-topping knowledge: for the loftiest hill, 
 Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, 
 Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea. 
 Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place. 
 Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
 
 [90]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 To the foiled searching of mortality! 
 
 And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
 
 Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-centred, self-secure, 
 
 Didst walk on earth unguessed at! — Better so! 
 
 All pains the immortal spirit can endure, 
 
 All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow, 
 
 P'ind their sole speech in that victorious brow! " 
 
 [91]
 
 NOTES IN STUDY II 
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 1 It has often been said that Stratford on Avon was " a bookless town." 
 But surely the youth from his seventh to his seventeenth year could have 
 obtained books from the learned masters of the grammar school, Walter 
 Roche (1570-1577). Thomas Hunt (1577-1580), and Thomas Jenkins 
 (1580+). So too from the rectors of tlie churches. 
 
 From Holinshed (pub. in 1577) he drew materials for Lear, Macbeth , 
 Cymbeline and the ten English historical plays; from Plutarch's Lives 
 (pub. in 1579), for Julius Ccesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 * More nearly, say eighteen years and seven months, reckoning from 
 April 26, Old Style. Her age is shown by the inscription on her gravestone 
 in the Stratford church, " Here lyeth interred the body of Anne, wife of 
 William Shakespeare. She departed this life the 6 day of August, 1623, 
 being of tlie age of 67 yeares." William died April 23d, 1616, O. S. 
 
 ' In California some years ago it was held that a marriage might be 
 legal and valid without the intervention of minister or magistrate. 
 
 The Shakespeare marriage bond in the Bishop's Registry at Worcester, 
 Eng., was brought to light in 1830 by Sir Thomas Phillipps of Middle Hill, 
 Worcestershire. It is dated November 28, 1582. The bondsmen are held 
 in quadraginta libris (in forty pounds) to " defend and save harmless the 
 right reverend Father in God, Lord John Bishop of Worcester, and his 
 offycers, for licensing the said William and Anne to be married together 
 with once asking of the bannes of matrimony between them." 
 
 * At Shottery. The cottage is said to have been first mentioned as hers 
 by Samuel Ireland in his Picturesque Views (1795) and remained in posses- 
 sion of the Hathaways till 1838. 
 
 ' One of the most illuminating discussions of the marriage and of the 
 matrimonial experiences of Shakespeare is that by Halliwell-Phillipps 
 (1820-1889) in his Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. See especially Vol. I, 
 62-67; 7th ed. (1887). 
 
 'Surely some time limit ought to be fixed. Cassius M. Clay at 83, 
 thinking probably of King David and Abishag tlie Shunammite, married a 
 girl of 15 without the consent of his parentsi The story goes that he 
 asked his "colored servant, "What do you think of my marriage?" — "I 
 don't like it, massa." — " Why not? " — " Too much difference in your 
 ages." — " Sambo, I'm still in my prime." — " Yes. massa; but when she 
 comes to her prime about 70 years from now, where'U you be? " 
 
 [93]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Perhaps the impecuniosity of this couple has been too much emphasized. 
 If, as commonly supposed, Richard Hathaway's daughter Agnes was the 
 same as Anne, then by his will (dated Sept. 1, 1581 and probated July 9, 
 1582) she was to be paid " at the day of her marriage 61., 13s., 4d.". See 
 Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, page 19. 
 
 ' I recall in a song at Yale 65 years ago the lines, 
 
 " And his chum who has fallen in love 
 And so of course bloweth a flute! " 
 
 'Chaucer's friend John Gower (1330-1408), who wrote long poems in 
 three languages. In his Confessio Amantis he makes Venus say 
 
 " And greet well Chaucer when you meet. 
 As my disciple and my poete." 
 
 • In the last line of this sonnet the common reading is 
 
 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 But as the word ' writ ' makes no pertinent sense, I venture to change it 
 to woo'd or wist. 
 
 1° One John Dowdall, in a manuscript account of his travels in Warwick- 
 shire in 1693 (pub. in London in 1838) states it thus: " His wife and 
 daughters did earnestly desire to be layd in the same grave with him." 
 Their wish was not complied with. Susannah was buried in her husband's 
 grave. Their gravestones are beside his in front of the altar rails on the 
 second step in Holy Trinity Church. 
 
 11 John Aubrey (1626-1697) compiled between 1669 and 1696 his Lives 
 of Eminent Men. Halliwell-Phillipps thinks it was completed in 1680. 
 
 '2 It was to have been signed Thursday, January 25th, but was not 
 executed till the 25th of the following March. It was presented for 
 probate by Dr. John Hall at the registry of the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 in London June 22d, 1616. 
 
 1' It is occasionally a manifestation of tender affection to leave a death 
 chamber and its contents in precisely the same condition as when the 
 loved one passed away. On the tablet of my memory were indehbly 
 carved, scores of years ago, the lines on a child's tombstone, 
 
 " Here thy toys neglected lying, 
 Here thy cradle and thy bed; 
 Here thy little books: O Roscoel 
 Can it be that tliou art dead? " 
 
 [94]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 The " second-best bed " may have been sacred to the memory of their 
 lost boy Hamnet. Charles Sprague's touching verses in his exquisite lyric , 
 1 See Thee Still, are re-called — 
 
 " This was thy chamber: here each day 
 I sat and watched thy sad decay; 
 Here on this bed thou last didst lie. 
 Here on this pillow thou didst die." 
 
 " In round numbers 1,000 men and boys, 125 women speak in dialogue 
 in the plays. Among the " good women " of unblemished moral character 
 we may name Queen Katharine of King Henry VIII; Imogen in Cymbe- 
 line; Hermione, Paulina, and Perdita, in The Winter's Tale; Miranda in 
 I'he Tempest; Volumnia, Virgilia, and " dear Valeria " in Coriolanus; 
 Cordelia in King Lear; Isabella in Measure for Measure; Helena in All's 
 Well That Ends Well; Portia and Calpurnia in Julius Ccesar; Ophelia 
 in Hamlet; Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night; Rosalind and Celia in 
 As You Like It; Beatrice and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing; Julia 
 and Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet; 
 and, perhaps above all, Portia in The Merchant of Venice. Here, out of 
 125 speaking women, are twenty-five superior in real goodness and inno- 
 cence to any twenty-five of the thousand men! 
 
 15 May 4, 1597, he purchased The Great House, built by Sir Hugh 
 Clopton more than a century before, with two barns and two gardens. 
 The place was a good deal " run down," but he paid for it sixty pounds. 
 As to the probable worth of money in Shakespeare's age, Halliwell-Phillipps 
 remarks {Outlines, Vol. I, p. 21), " In balancing the Shakespearian and 
 present currencies, the former may be roughly estimated from a twelfth 
 to a twentieth of the latter in money, and from a twentieth to a thirtieth, 
 in landed or house property." In May, 1602, he bought from William and 
 John Combe one hundred and seven acres of arable land for 320 pounds. 
 To this he added twenty acres early in 1610. 
 
 16 See Bacon's £553^5, VIII and X. In the eighth we read, "A man 
 may have a quarrel (i.e. cause, reason, or plea) to marry when he will; 
 but yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the 
 question when a man should marry — ' A young man not yet, an older 
 man not at all.' " 
 
 " See Dickens' David Copperfield. 
 
 " Graduating from Amherst in 1834, he taught school for a little while 
 in Northbridge (Whitinsville), Mass. — See my Recollections of Henry Ward 
 Beecher. 
 
 [95]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 19 " I have taught him even as one would say, ' precisely thus would 1 
 teach a dog';" spoken of his ill-mannered cur Crab by the clownish 
 Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV, iv, 4, 5. 
 
 A story was once current that John C. Calhoun said to Daniel Webster 
 on the steps of the Capitol at Washington as a drove of donkeys passed 
 by, " Webster, there goes a lot of your Massachusetts constituents," and 
 he replied, " Yes, they're going to South Carolina to teach school! " The 
 same anecdote was related of Tristan Burges of Rhode Island and John 
 Randolph of Roanoke. 
 
 ^ See Beeston's statement as quoted by Aubrey in Halliwell-Phillipps' 
 Outlines, II, 71. Sidney Lee says that Beeston "was doubtless in the 
 main a trustworthy witness." — Life of Shakespeare, p. 361. 
 
 2' There is little or no doubt that our dramatist belonged first to the 
 Company of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. This was licensed when 
 William was ten years old. When he was twelve, this company acted at 
 the playhouse built in London that year (1576) by James Burbage, father 
 of the celebrated actor, Richard Burbage (? 1567-1619), and known simply 
 as The Theatre. Upon Leicester's death in 1588 his company was merged 
 with that of Lord Strange (Ferdinando Stanley, who became Earl of 
 Derby in 1592). He died in 1594, and Henry Carey, the first Lord Huns- 
 don, holding the high office of Lord Chamberlain, succeeded him as patron. 
 So the company then took the name. The Lord Chamberlain's Company. 
 He died in 1596, and then his son George Carey, the second Lord Hunsdon, 
 became the company's patron. In 1597 he became Lord Chamberlain. 
 The company continued to bear the name of The Lord Chamberlain's 
 Company till the accession of James in 1603. Among the first acts of the 
 king was the licensing (May 19, 1603) of the company as the special 
 " Servants " of the king. Of course it included what remained of Lord 
 Strange's Company. In the list of " The King's Servants " Shakespeare's 
 name stands second. Did he attempt to repay the royal favor a few 
 years later by whitewashing Banquo, one of James's reputed ancestors? 
 
 22 See the preceding Study (Shakespeare's Cradle and School) as to his 
 use of words in their root meaning; also as to his coining or anglicising 
 such. 
 
 23 Many a play, especially his earlier, bristles with such names as Alex- 
 ander, Ajax, Hercules, Cupid, Argus, Ovidius Naso, Apollo, Phoebe, 
 Phoebus, Bellona, Mercurj', Pompey, Caesar, Hector, Mars, Ilion, Hannibal, 
 Ate, Aurora, Titan, Cleopatra, Iris, Briareus, Ceres, Pluto, Juno, Niobe, 
 Pythagoras, etc. Outside the circle of college professors, it is rather 
 unusual to find any one so familiar with classic mythology and ancient 
 history. — See what is perhaps his earliest comedy. Love's Labor's Lost, 
 especially IV, ii, and V, i. 
 
 [96]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 '* This scene (Act IV, sc. i) is not found in the quarto of 1602. It first 
 appears in the Folio of 1623. It has been queerly fancied that the boy, 
 William Page (the g being " hard " like the g in go and Sprague), was none 
 other than the William who with his two brothers, Ralph and Richard, 
 founded Charlestown, Mass., in 1628. (See the pamphlet. The Founding 
 of Charlestown by the Three Spragues, by Henry H. Sprague.) The fancy 
 is that their father, Edward Sprague, a well-to-do fuller of Upway, Dorset- 
 shire, entertained Shakespeare at his house, and there the dramatist saw 
 the boy, who was about eight years of age at the time of Shakespeare's 
 death. After hearing him recite, his schoolmaster, the Welsh parson. Sir 
 Hugh Evans, compliments him to his mother, " He is a good sprag mem- 
 ory," punning on the word sprag (for ' Spraguel ') meaning smart, quick, 
 or ready. Shall we say, " Credat Judmus Apella "? 
 
 Apropos of book study, note the importance which Prospero, in whom all 
 critics discern some of the lineaments of Shakespeare himself, attaches to 
 the schoolmaster's tools. He tells Miranda that his usurping brother 
 Antonio consigned him to his library as "dukedom large enough"; that 
 the good Gonzalo, — 
 
 Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me 
 
 with volumes tliat 
 
 I prize above my dukedom. 
 
 The monster Caliban, plotting to destroy him, tells his fellow conspirators, 
 
 Thou may'st brain him 
 Having first seized his books. . . . Remember 
 First to possess his books; for without them 
 He's but a sot as I am! . . . Burn but his books. 
 
 See The Tempest (Sprague's ed.), I, ii, 73, 74, 77, 89, 90, 109, 110; III. 
 i, 19, 20, 94; ii. 84, 85, 87-91; V, i, 56, 57. See also Macbeth, I, vii, 6 
 (Sprague's ed.) and the note on " this bank and school of time," where 
 nearly all editors erroneously change ' school ' to shoalt 
 
 26 The earliest charter of the East India Company was granted by 
 Elizabeth Dec. 31. 1600. The earliest mention of Twelfth Night is in a 
 diary by John Manningham of the Middle Temple; thus: " At our feast 
 (Feb. 2, 1601-2) we had a play called Twelfth Night, or What You Will." 
 — Outlines, II, 82. 
 
 2* " Shakespeare is Hamlet," say many critics. The prince tells us how. 
 like a schoolmaster with due regard to penmanship, punctuation, syntax, 
 and rhetoric, he forged a new commission from the king of Denmark to 
 the king of England — 
 
 [97]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Ere I could make a prologue to my brains. 
 
 They had begun the play. I sat me down, 
 
 Devised a new commission, wrote it fair: — 
 
 I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
 
 A baseness to write fair, and labored much 
 
 How to forget that learning; but, sir, now 
 
 It did me yeoman's service. . . . 
 
 An earnest conjuration from the king, 
 
 As England was his faithful tributary. 
 
 As Love between them like the palm might flourish, 
 
 As Peace should still her wheaten garland wear 
 
 And stand a comma 'tween their amities. 
 
 And many such like as 's of great charge, etc. 
 
 — V, ii, 30-43 (Sprague's ed.). 
 
 In Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Quince, personating the Prologue 
 in " the play within the play," suggests by his mispunctuation and false 
 inflections the need of a schoolmaster's correcting hand and voice. — See 
 note to V, i, 108-117 (Sprague's ed.). The verbal and vocal trick is very 
 like that in the letter to Dame Custance in the funny comedy of Ralph 
 Roister Doister (1553) by Nicholas Udall (1505-1556). 
 
 2' In The Taming of the Shrew (I, i, 92-95), Bianca's father Baptista 
 says of her, 
 
 And for I know she taketh most delight 
 In music, instruments, and poetry. 
 Schoolmasters will I keep within my house 
 Fit to instruct lier youth. 
 
 28 Taming of the Shrew, III, i, 26-43. — If William taught Miss Hathaway 
 as Lucentio probably taught Bianca the familiar paradigm, 
 
 amo, I love, amarem, I might, could, would or should love, 
 
 amas, thou lovest, amares, you might, could, would, or should love, 
 etc., etc. etc., etc. 
 
 he very likely soon became more a learner than a teacher. Slowly hia 
 " sense undazzled " till he cor.Id say with Biron of the new, uplifting, 
 inspiring, illuminating, energising mysterious force, 
 
 Other slow arts entirely keep the brain, 
 
 But Love, first learned in a lady's eyes, 
 Lives not alone immured in the brain. 
 
 [98]
 
 His Early Manhood 
 
 But with the motion of all elements. 
 Courses as swift as thought in every power, 
 And gives to every power a double power. 
 
 It adds a precious seeing to the eye: 
 A lover's eye will gaze an eagle blind; 
 A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound 
 
 Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: 
 
 For valor, is not Love a Hercules, 
 
 Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? 
 
 Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical 
 
 As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair? 
 
 — L.L.L.. IV, iii, 319-338 
 
 '» We think of him as of Posthumus Leonatus. By self-education, the 
 only real education, 
 
 " Self -schooled, self-scanned, self-centred, self-secure," 
 
 he did for himself in spite of his narrow circumstances what King Cymbe- 
 line did for his protege — 
 
 Puts to him all the learnings that his time 
 
 Could make him the receiver of; which he took, 
 
 As we do air, fast as twas ministered. 
 
 And in 's spring became a harvest. — Cymbeline, I, i, 43-46. 
 
 'o See article on Falstaff and Equity in the magazine Shakespeareana for 
 April, 1893, pp. 68, 69, 70. 
 
 " Those who argue from the case of Shylock vs. Antonio that Shakespeare 
 was ignorant of the technique of the legal profession appear to misappre- 
 hend the purpose of the dramatist. It was not to show off his own 
 knowledge of law or judicature, but, if we may use his masterly description 
 of 'the end of playing,' "to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; 
 to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age 
 and body of the time his form and pressure." This is exactly what he 
 appears to have done in this case. Not satisfied with portraying the 
 beauty and glory of celestial mercy in the eloquent language of Portia, 
 the finest speech in Shakespeare, and the detestable image of cruelty in the 
 scornful words of Shylock, he has taken special pains to hold before us as 
 in a mirror " the very age and body of the time," reproducing what 
 might very naturally have taken place in a Venetian court hundreds of 
 years before. 
 
 [99]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 First, a learned jurist is invited by the duke, not to ascertain the facts — 
 these are already agreed upon — but to expound and apply the law. 
 
 Secondly, in place of the invited Bellario, young Portia comes in disguise 
 to act as judge, and is accepted as such by the duke, who presides as 
 chief justice. 
 
 Thirdly, she is accepted in due form by the plaintiff, Shylock. 
 
 Fourthly, she is accepted by the defendant, Antonio. 
 
 Fifthly, being thus invested with power, she renders judgments adhering 
 closely to the story in the Italian novel, exercising a fourfold jurisdiction. 
 
 Sixthly, instead of the customary ' gratification ' {honorarium) to which 
 she was morally, though not by force of law, entitled, but which she 
 declines, she takes from Bassanio as a souvenir the ring she had given him 
 the day before! See Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 100, 101; 161; 229-231; 
 233, 234; 290-385; 397; 417; ii, 9 (Sprague's ed.). 
 
 ^2 If we feel bound to accept as true any account of escapades on young 
 Shakespeare's part, we may perhaps reasonably explain them as the Earl 
 of Warwick did those of Prince Hal in company with Falstaff and other 
 rakes. Says the earl to the king, 
 
 The prince but studies his companions 
 
 Like a strange tongue; wherein, to gain the language, 
 
 'T is needful that the most immodest word 
 
 Be looked upon and learned; which once attained. 
 
 Your highness knows, comes to no further use 
 
 But to be known and hated! — 2 King Henry IV; IV, iv, 68-73. 
 
 Studying human nature in wild pranks, low resorts, vulgar companions? 
 The sudden and complete change from the dissolute prince to the grave, 
 pious, scholarly King Henry V, seems almost a miracle to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, 
 
 Since his addiction was to courses vain; 
 
 His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow; 
 
 His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports; 
 
 And never noted in him any study. — King Henry V, I, i, 54-57 
 
 The Bishop of Ely replies — 
 
 The strawberry grows underneath the nettle. 
 
 And so the prince obscured his contemplation 
 Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt. 
 Grew like the summer grass, fastest by niglit. 
 Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty! — King Henry V, I, i, 60, 63-66, 
 
 [100]
 
 His Early Manhood ■ , 
 
 As in Hamlet and Prospero, so the commentators think they recognize 
 something of Shakespeare in his favorite monarch, Henry the Fifth. 
 
 " Betterton's testimony is valuable. He communicated many facts to 
 Rowe. See Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, i, 12-15; ii, 251. Thomas Jones 
 (born circa 1615, dying 1703), who lived at Tarbick, near Stratford; 
 William Oldys, antiquarian (1696-1761); Nicholas Rowe, dramatist and 
 translator, "the first critical editor of Shakespeare," 1709 (1674-1718, 
 poet laureate in 1715); Edward Capell, Shakespearian commentator 
 (1713-1781), and others, relate the story of the ballad, which they had 
 heard from old Stratford people, their grandfathers or others who had 
 known the Shakespeares or the Lucys. They quote as follows: 
 
 " A parliament member, a justice of peace. 
 At home a poor scarecrow, at London an ass, 
 If lowsie is Lucy, as some folk miscall it, 
 Then Lucy is lowsie whatever befall it! 
 He thinks himself great, 
 Yet an ass in his state 
 We allow by his ears but with asses to mate. 
 If Lucy is lowsie, as some folk miscall it. 
 Sing O lowsie Lucy, whatever befall itl " 
 
 It hardly needs to be added that the letters o w in the third, fourth, and 
 last two lines are to be sounded like ou in Louis, not like ow in now. 
 
 For a quite thorough discussion of this deer-stealing and its conse- 
 quences, see Halliwell-Phillipps" Outlines, Vol. I, pp. 67-76. For interesting 
 remarks about the ballad and the Lucys, see the Outlines, Vol. II, pp. 379- 
 390. Sir Thomas was elected to the parliaments of 1571 and 1584. — The 
 great actor, Betterton (1635-1710), was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 ^ It is to be noted that the armorial bearings of the family show three 
 interlaced luces, the luce being a fish, a pike full-grown. The device is on 
 the seal, the vanes, and emblazoned on the stained glass in the large 
 Gothic bow windows. The paranomasia on luce, the fish; louses, the 
 peculidae vestimenti; and Lucy the family name; was natural enough, and 
 had been repeated for ages. 
 
 The following objections have been urged against the authenticity of the 
 anecdote: 
 
 (1) Sir Thomas had no deer park at Charlecote. 
 
 (2) The only punishment allowed by statute for poaching was fine and 
 imprisonment. 
 
 (3) No one is known to have twitted Shakespeare with it. 
 
 (4) Lucy was high sheriff and William's father had been mayor. 
 
 [101]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 (5) Sir Thomas died August 18th, 1600, and it would have been ungracious 
 r even cowardly for the dramatist to satirize the dead knight in writing 
 
 The Merry Wives. 
 To these objections respectively we may answer as follows: 
 
 (1) Sir Thomas's son and heir in 1602 sent a buck from Charlecote as a 
 present to Harefield on the occasion of a four-days' visit there by Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 (2) This was not simple larceny, but a riotous trespass. 
 
 (3) It was not regarded as a disreputable offence. Many a dignitary in 
 church and state in his maturer years has felt an ill-disguised satisfaction 
 if not pride in having participated in just such sport in his youth. 
 
 (4) William's father had fallen into obscurity if not disgrace in his poverty. 
 
 (5) This scene in Merry Wives in all probability was written a year or two 
 before Sir Thomas's death, and there is really no spite in it; only good- 
 natured fun. 
 
 For the earliest manuscript account of the poaching, see what is said of 
 the writers. Rev. William Fulman and Archdeacon Richard Davies, by 
 Halliwell-Phillipps in his Outlines, I, ii, 68, 69; II, 71. They speak of the 
 young man as " oft whipt " for poachingi 
 
 '^ It was the work of one Gerard Johnson, " tomb-maker," born in 
 Holland, but resident twenty-six years in England. It had been colored 
 to the life, and the coloring was renewed in 1748; but in 1793 the learned 
 and usually judicious Shakespearian scholar, Edmund Malone (1741-1812), 
 caused it to be painted white in imitation of classic marble. In 1861 the 
 white was removed, and the former colors were restored. Undoubtedly it 
 was intended to represent faithfully the complexion, features, and facial 
 expression. 
 
 In June, 1882, with the aid of a ladder I examined the bust from various 
 points of view on a level with the face. I saw it in different lights, for 
 rain and sunshine were alternating that day. Upon wiping off with a 
 handkerchief the thick dust from Shakespeare's face and eyes, I was much 
 struck with the different expression of the features when viewed from 
 opposite sides. The right side of the countenance is for tragedy; the left, 
 for comedy! If the difference is not accidental, it evinces real skill on the 
 part of Johnson, who was not a sculptor but a Southwark stone-mason, 
 and it well atones for the evident crudity of the rest of the performance. 
 
 S8 The Ghost in Hamlet must of course have been in form and move- 
 ment a facsimile of the older Hamlet, king of Denmark, whose physical 
 proportions were magnificent. (Hamlet, I, i, 41, 47-49, 143; ii, 186-188; 
 and especially III, iv, 55-63; Sprague's ed.) — The "kingly parts played 
 in sport " by Shakespeare are not named; but besides the Caesars, the 
 princes and dukes, twenty kings are introduced in the plays, and it would 
 have been strange if he had personated none of them. See the statement 
 
 [102]
 
 Ilis Early Manhood 
 
 of John Davies of Hereford (1610; Fleay says 1607), quoted by Halliwell- 
 Phillipps in Outlines II, 154. 
 
 3' Of these three elements, doubtless two are of prime importance; in 
 early life the first, in later years the last. 
 
 '" It would be difficult to overestimate his painstaking in the matter of 
 felicitous expression. To attain this he had ransacked the stores of English 
 speech," " searched its coffers," as Milton would say, and acquired his 
 unequaled working vocabulary. These raw materials he kneaded and 
 moulded with extraordinary care. 
 
 Felicitous speech was admired in polite society all over Europe, and the 
 publication of John Lyly's Enphues, when William was fifteen, soon made 
 it a fashion, a fad, a craze in all England for many years. Shakespeare 
 ridiculed its excess; but he must have felt the impulse, and with finest 
 taste, avoiding its fantastic conceits, he was stimulated to seek ever the 
 best possible expression. In his sonnets he appears to be practising poetic 
 gymnastics. In his plays he is trying his skill at fittest phrasing. By 
 verbal ingenuities, word and sentence manipulation, choicest locutions, 
 inversions, antitheses, onomatopoeia, unlimited personification, alliteration, 
 assonance, linguistic jugglery; not disdaining clever tricks of talk, quibbles, 
 paronomasia, multitudinous malapropisms; he contrives with seeming 
 spontaneity to hit always upon the most pleasing, the most distinctive, 
 the most striking forms. 
 
 It is dangerous to attempt to improve upon the language of Milton or 
 Shakespeare. I recollect but one or two attempts of my own in which I 
 seem to myself to have succeeded. In Macbeth, I, vii, 12, I would sub- 
 stitute for the word " double " the word treble or triple. (See note in 
 Sprague's ed.) The words are He's here in double trust. — (See note on 
 the 116th Sonnet, ante.) 
 
 " The poet's pen," says Shakespeare, " gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 Oftener it treats airy vocables as solid realities; the word and thought, 
 the phrase and concept are nearly or quite identical. " Here," says 
 Professor Barrett Wendell, " we have the trait which, above all others, 
 defines the artistic individuality of Shakespeare. To him, beyond any 
 other writer of English, words and thoughts seemed naturally identical." 
 See Prof. Wendell's William Shakespeare, a book that should be in thejhands 
 of every student of the drama. 
 
 1103]
 
 Studij III 
 Shakespeare's Sword and Musket
 
 THE FIRST GREAT SOLDIER-AUTHOR? 
 1491 B. C. 
 
 This was the bravest warrior 
 That ever buckled sword ; 
 This the most gifted poet 
 
 That ever breathed a word ; 
 And never earth's philosopher 
 Traced with his golden pen 
 On the deathless page 
 Truths half so sage 
 As he wrote down for men| 
 — The Burial of Moses, 
 
 by Mrs. Alexander.
 
 THE HAPPY WARRIOR 
 
 Who is the happy warrior? Who is he 
 
 That every man in arms should wish to be? — 
 
 It is the generous spirit, who, when brought 
 
 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
 
 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought; 
 
 Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 
 That makes the path before him always bright: 
 
 W^ho, with a natural instinct to discern 
 
 What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; 
 
 Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 
 
 But makes his moral being his prime care; 
 
 Who, doomed to go in company with Pain 
 
 And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train! 
 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain: — 
 
 *T is he whose law is reason ; who depends 
 Upon that law as on the best of friends ; 
 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim — 
 
 'T is, finally, the man, who, lifted high, 
 Or left, unthought-of, in obscurity, 
 
 Finds comfort in himself and in his cause. 
 And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
 His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. 
 This is the happy warrior; this is he 
 That every man in arms should wish to be. — 
 — William Wordsworth, 1806-7.
 
 STUDY III 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SWORD AND MUSKET 
 
 A STUDY OF THE MILITARY ELEMENT IN THE 
 MAN AND HIS DREAMS 
 
 A Preliminary word in regard to Soldier- 
 Authors. 
 
 A life-long soldiership must be fatal to author- 
 ship; a brief one may transform the sword into a 
 pen. With pardonable exaggeration the sweet 
 Scottish songstress^ sings of the great Hebrew, 
 who more than three thousand years ago united 
 in himself warrior, poet, statesman, theologian, 
 historian, lawgiver, and prophet. 
 
 With a passionate loyalty which impelled him 
 at the outset of his career to strike down an 
 Egyptian smiting an Israelite; with a chivalrous 
 reverence for womanhood that made him, though 
 a stranger, champion of the wronged daughters of 
 the priest of Midian; yet with a modest self- 
 depreciation or disinterestedness that has rendered 
 his name for all subsequent ages a synonym for 
 meekness ; — perhaps the leading impression gained 
 from a study of his character and deeds is a sense 
 of energy. This, as always with soldiers and with 
 almost every man of genius, must have been, at 
 least in part, physical; and accordingly we are told 
 that at the age of one hundred and twenty " his 
 
 [109]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 eye was not dim nor his natural force abated." 
 In whatever direction he acted a fiery vigor blazes 
 forth, just as truly as in the earliest and grandest 
 of martial hymns, " The Song of Moses," when the 
 hundreds of thousands of Israel had passed through 
 the sea and the pursuing hosts were drowned — 
 
 " I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: 
 The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. 
 
 With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered 
 
 together, 
 The floods stood upright as a heap. 
 The depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. — 
 The enemy said, 
 
 I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; 
 My lust shall be satisfied upon them; 
 I will draw my svv^ord, my hand shall destroy them! — 
 Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them; 
 They sank as lead in the mighty waters! — 
 Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? 
 Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, 
 Fearful in praises, doing wonders? "^ 
 
 Such men are necessarily few: human nature is 
 rarely great enough to combine intensest thought 
 with stoutest action. The strong man is usually 
 strong in but one direction. If, like the image in 
 Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the head be of gold, and 
 the breast silver, and the thighs brass, and the legs 
 iron, the feet will be partly at least of clay. There 
 is a law of compensation here, some defect offsetting 
 every excellence.^ 
 
 [110]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 Accordingly hundreds of years elapse before 
 another world-renowned soldier author marches 
 before us. It is the Psalmist, warrior and poet; 
 slayer in youth of savage beasts and the more 
 savage giant; softening with music the sad in- 
 sanity of his king and the sorrows and frenzy of 
 uncounted millions since. 
 
 Five hundred years after David another martial 
 poet arises; earliest and loftiest of writers of 
 tragedy, the most brilliant character in early Gre- 
 cian history; Athenian yEschylus; justly proud 
 of his deeds at Marathon, where with his two 
 brothers he took the highest prize for bravery, and 
 conspicuous ten years later at Artemisium and 
 Salamis, and a year after ' on old Platsea's day.'* 
 
 Three and a half centuries pass, and he is born 
 whom Shakespeare dares to call ' the foremost man 
 of all this world,' polished gentleman, luminous 
 historian, powerful orator, far-seeing statesman; 
 who, had his life been spared a few years longer, 
 would perhaps have shown himself greatest of 
 reformers; admittedly, of conquerors one of the 
 most merciful; yes, and one of the most extensive, 
 subduing much of what is now Switzerland, France, 
 Belgium, Holland, Spain, southern England, northern 
 Africa, southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia; pro- 
 nounced by Mommsen ' the sole creative genius pro- 
 duced by ancient Rome, and the last produced by 
 the ancient world ' ; — the most illustrious example 
 in history of the soldier author — Julius Caesar. 
 
 [Ill]
 
 Sttidies in Shakespeare 
 
 Six or seven centuries glide away, and the meteor 
 sword of the great Arabian, author of the Koran, 
 flashes across the sky. 
 
 Three hundred other years: then, in the darkness, 
 a thousand years ago a star-like character rises; 
 warrior, scholar, author, king; declared by the 
 historian Freeman to be ' the most perfect character 
 in history'; Alfred 'the truth-teller,' 'Alfred the 
 Great.' 
 
 Four hundred years more. The gifted Floren- 
 tine, heroic in battle as in song, a luminary of the 
 first magnitude, ascends to the zenith, and is flam- 
 ing there still; immortal Dante. 
 
 Half a century later England's ' morning star of 
 song,' shines and sings, the * Father of English 
 poetry,' a soldier in the army of Edward III, a 
 prisoner of war in France, Geoffrey Chaucer. 
 
 Two centuries afterwards a constellation of 
 geniuses, wielders of sword and pen, illumines 
 the sky of Elizabeth; such as Jonson, Gascoigne, 
 Lodge, Raleigh. Brightest and best of all was he 
 who sank in blood on the field of Zutphen, the 
 gifted poet, the first skilled artist in English prose, 
 Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 Across the sea in that age, the chief of Spanish 
 if not of the world's humorists, Cervantes, is 
 utilizing his extraordinary experience as a soldier, 
 lighting up, tradition tells us, the darkness of a 
 prison with phosphorescent fun in composing his 
 immortal Don Quixote. Three quarters of a century 
 
 [112]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 later in the gloom of Bedford jail the prince of 
 prose allegorists, 
 
 " Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
 Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail," 
 
 works his military career into the luminous pages 
 of his Holy War and his Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 We have passed the age of Elizabeth. We might 
 come down to America and our own times, and 
 speak of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Logan, Lew 
 Wallace, and the Confederates, Generals Long- 
 street and Gordon, my gifted classmate Colonel 
 William Preston Johnston, and others, writers as 
 well as fighters; all tending to show that a military 
 life, if not too long and too absorbing, may con- 
 stitute a valuable preparation and to some extent 
 an equipment for a literary career.^ 
 
 To this long list selected from the chronicles of 
 more than thirty centuries, I venture to suggest the 
 addition of another name, William Shakespeare. 
 Was he ever a soldier? 
 
 Here we trench on debatable ground; but per- 
 haps it may be held against all attacks. As the 
 technical legal knowledge he displays convinced 
 Lord Chancellor Campbell and Senator Cushman 
 K. Davis that the dramatist had mastered the law; 
 and as twenty or thirty other professions or occupa- 
 tions have for analogous reasons claimed him as a 
 trained member of their respective vocations; I 
 
 [113]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 think we may fairly and with even stronger logic 
 argue that he must have been for a while a soldier. 
 For of all the terms of art, science, handicraft, 
 business, or avocation, scattered with wondrous 
 profusion through his dramas, those which he em- 
 ploys most lavishly, are of matters military. 
 
 Before proceeding to illustrate this, let me pre- 
 mise that if he was long in the army the fact 
 would not only account for his several years' 
 disappearance from view, but it might throw much 
 light upon the sources whence he drew certain kinds 
 of knowledge the possession of which by him is not 
 otherwise easily accounted for. 
 
 For example: The most distinctive and most 
 useful equipment for his life work was knowledge 
 of human nature. Perhaps there is no school quite 
 equal to the army for that. 
 
 In passing to and from scenes of active hostilities, 
 he would sail the seas, and gain that familiarity 
 with navigation which surprises all who read his 
 Tempest.^ 
 
 In marching, drilling, fortifying, besieging, mining, 
 battering; in tents, trenches, barracks, camps, 
 forts, ships; in frost and heat, sun and rain, dust 
 and mire, he would meet disease in many forms, 
 and would insensibly become a physician.'' 
 
 Campaigning against Spaniards and their allies, 
 Italians, Frenchmen, Walloons, Germans, Portu- 
 guese; associating with Dutch, Welsh, Scotch, Irish 
 and other auxiliaries; meeting adventurers, soldiers 
 
 [114]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 of fortune, prisoners of war, deserters, camp fol- 
 lowers; he would pick up, schoolmaster-like, that 
 smattering of many languages with which his plays 
 are besprinkled. 
 
 Looking beyond the immediate present in place 
 and time, great questions of national and interna- 
 tional polity would confront him and tend to make 
 him a statesman. 
 
 In the fertile fields of the Netherlands under 
 Leicester or Sidney, or of Ireland under Lord 
 Grey de Wilton, this keen and comprehensive 
 observer would be in perpetual contact with rich 
 flora and become a botanist; for students of plant- 
 life claim him as of their peripatetic tribe. 
 
 Sir Philip was General of Cavalry in the Low 
 Countries, and the young soldier would there see 
 splendid steeds and more splendid riders. His 
 description of " the perfect horse " surpasses that 
 of the reverend romancer of the Adirondacks.^ 
 May we not easily believe that Sidney was the 
 original of his portrait of the Prince of Wales in the 
 First Part of King Henry /F? 
 
 I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 
 Plis cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, 
 Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, 
 And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
 As if an angel dropped dov.-n from the clouds 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship! 
 
 If at Leicester's headquarters, he would observe 
 
 [115]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 court scenes and ceremonies, the speech and man- 
 ners of the nobiHty, arrivals and departures of 
 ambassadors, heralds, aides-de-camp, bearers of 
 dispatches — all reproduced by and by in the plays 
 to the amazement of those who cannot conceive 
 where the dramatist could have learned such things. 
 For there the Commander-in-chief, too much like 
 a king, was always on dress parade, surrounded by 
 three or four lords, a score of knights, a hundred of 
 the English gentry, all playing soldier, and always 
 with a bevy of butterfly ladies who would better 
 have stayed at home.^ 
 
 So bright and quick-witted a young man would 
 have made the best of clerks or orderlies. Have 
 we a glimpse of such ' detached service ' in the 
 remark of Parolles, ' The letter is on file with the 
 duke's other letters in my tent '? and in the request 
 of the Earl of Richmond the night before the battle 
 of Bosworth Field — 
 
 Give me some ink and paper in my tent: 
 I'll draw the form and model of the battle. 
 
 In such a position above that of an ordinary 
 private, he might naturally wish to acquire skill 
 as a swordsman, the accomplishment of a gentle- 
 man. In evidence of his familiarity with fencing, 
 we name without defining some of the terms he 
 uses; thus: ' three veneys for a dish of stewed 
 prunes,' ' a quick venue of wit,' ' dismount thy 
 tuck': * to see thee foin, to see thee traverse, to 
 
 [116]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 see thee pass thy punto ' : ' thy stock, thy reverse, 
 thy distance, thy montant ' : 'a pass of practice 
 and a sword unbated ' : ' the duello ' : * the pas- 
 sado': 'the punto reverso, the hay': 'stoccado': 
 ' a la stoccata.' 
 
 Most remarkable are the multitudes of allusions 
 or references that show a mind saturated with 
 military ideas and soldier talk. This technique 
 in Shakespeare is perhaps twice as copious as any 
 other. Ordinary civil life could afford little or no 
 opportunity to acquire it. The gulf that separates 
 the colorless phraseology of any peaceful vocation 
 from the vividly painted vocabulary of the fighting 
 profession is wider and more difficult to span than 
 that which keeps most of the non-martial occupa- 
 tions apart from each other. I speak from over 
 four years' experience of active service in the Union 
 army. Mere books were inadequate in Shake- 
 speare's time to communicate the peculiar dialect, 
 the patois, jargon, lingo, slang even; and there 
 were no newspapers. Something of it, but not 
 much of its familiar use, might be caught from old 
 soldiers. 
 
 To illustrate this familiarity, I quote, without 
 explaining, a few out of a hundred or more of such 
 significant expressions as I happen to light upon 
 them. 
 
 " The sergeant of the band sets up his rest to 
 do more exploits with his mace than a morris 
 pike," — " Pluck your sword out of his pilcher." — ■ 
 
 [117]
 
 Studies in SJmkespeare 
 
 " Corporal of his field." — " Like powder in a 
 skilless soldier's flask, is set on fire by thine own 
 ignorance." — "I give thee the bucklers." — " You 
 must put in the pikes with a vice." — 
 
 " Like to a murderlng-piece in many places 
 Gives me superfluous death." — 
 
 " Sorrows come not single spies, but in battalions." 
 
 — " Methought I lay worse than the mutines in 
 
 the bilboes." — " Compassed like a good bilbo in 
 
 the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel 
 
 to head." — 
 
 " What an eye she hath! 
 Methinks it sounds a parley of provocation 
 
 And when she speaks, is it not an alarm to love?" — 
 
 " To instruct for the doubling of files." — " Had 
 the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, 
 and the practice in the chape of his dagger." — 
 " The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs 
 are tickle o' the sere."^° — 
 
 " The nimble gunner 
 With linstock now the devilish cannon touches, 
 And down goes all before him." — 
 
 " Time delves the parallels in Beauty's brow." — 
 
 " When forty winters shall besiege thy brow 
 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field." — 
 
 " His coward lips did from their color fly." — "I 
 must advance the colors of my love." — 
 
 [118]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 " Thou art not conquered; Beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheek, 
 And Death's pale flag is not advanced there." — 
 
 " If he be angry, he knows how to turn his girdle." 
 — " Hal, if thou seest me down in the battle, 
 and bestride me, so; 'T is a point of friendship." — 
 " Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friend- 
 ship! Say thy prayers, and farewell." — "I would 
 't were bedtime, Hal, and all were well." 
 
 " Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought 
 For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, 
 Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross 
 Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens: 
 And toiled with works of war, retired himself 
 To Italy; and there at Venice gave 
 His body to that pleasant country's earth, 
 And his pure soul unto his Captain Christ, 
 Under whose colors he had fought so long."" 
 
 " I dare not fight, but I will wink, and hold out 
 mine iron, .... it will toast cheese." 
 
 " Put up thy sword betime, 
 Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron 
 That you shall think the devil is come from hell." 
 
 " Fortuna de la guerra." — 
 
 " To be the mark 
 Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, 
 That ride upon the violent speed of fire, 
 Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air 
 That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord." — 
 
 " What fashion will you wear the garland of? " — 
 " Under your arm like a lieutenant's scarf? " —
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 " That in the captain's but a choleric word 
 Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy." — 
 
 " According to my description, level at my afifec- 
 tion." — 
 
 " As level as the cannon to his blank 
 Transmits his poisoned shot." — 
 
 " If this should blast in proof." — " Words too 
 light for the bore of the matter." — 
 
 These are but a few of the multitude of examples 
 that might be cited. Particularly do they abound 
 in the early historical plays, King John, Richard 
 II, Richard III, the three Parts of Henry VI, 
 the two Parts of Henry IV, Henry V. Bristling 
 all over with speech of war and battle, they il- 
 lustrate Coleridge's remark, " A young author's 
 first work almost always bears traces of his recent 
 pursuits." His brain is saturated with them like 
 Hotspur's, who can talk of nothing else even in his 
 sleep, and to whom his wife. Lady Percy, says, 
 
 In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched 
 
 And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, 
 
 Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, 
 
 Cry " Courage! to the field! " And thou hast talked 
 
 Of ' sallies ' and ' retires '; of ' trenches,' ' tents '; 
 
 Of ' palisadoes,' ' frontiers,' ' parapets '; 
 
 Of ' basilisks'; of ' cannon,' * culverin '; 
 
 Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain, 
 
 And all the current of a heady fight!^^ 
 
 [120]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 In Romeo and Juliet, perhaps his earliest tragedy, 
 Queen Mab's pranks are provocative of similar 
 dreams. 
 
 Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 
 And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 
 Of ' breaches,' ' ambuscadoes,' Spanish ' blades,' 
 Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon 
 Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
 And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two 
 And sleeps again!^^ 
 
 In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, his second or 
 third comedy, three careers are specified as being 
 particularly appropriate and customary for enter- 
 prising young men — 
 
 Some to the wars, to try their fortunes there; 
 Some to discover islands far away; 
 Some to the studious universities.^^ 
 
 In Shakespeare's celebrated division of man's life 
 into seven ages, note that the soldier stage comes 
 next after the lover's. He describes it as a matter 
 of course for a young man to be a lover; and next, 
 as a matter of course, for him to become a soldier. 
 Is he not thinking of his own experience? 
 
 Then the lover 
 
 Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad 
 Made to his mistress' eyebrow: then a soldier 
 Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 
 Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel. 
 Seeking the bubble reputation 
 Even in the cannon's mouth! ^^ 
 
 [121]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Unlike Lord Bacon, Shakespeare was conscien- 
 tiously opposed to unjust war. He states (is it the 
 first time in literature?) the unanswerable argument; 
 namely, International war cannot be waged with- 
 out the deliberate shedding of innocent blood. It 
 is in a passage which he originates (its source not 
 found elsewhere), in which he makes Henry the 
 Fifth say to the Archbishop of Canterbury who had 
 urged him to invade France, 
 
 God doth know how many now in health 
 Shall drop their blood in approbation 
 Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 
 Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, 
 How you awake our sleeping sword of war; 
 We charge you in the name of God, take heed! 
 For never two such nations did contend 
 Without much fall of blood; whose GUILTLESS drops 
 Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 
 ' Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords 
 That make such waste in brief mortality. 
 
 May I with right and conscience make this claim?^^ 
 
 He shows us King Henry the night before the 
 battle of Agincourt visiting incognito his sentinels, 
 and earnestly impressing upon them the duty of 
 being constantly prepared for death. Speaking of 
 wicked men dying in battle he says, " If these 
 men have defeated the law and outrun native 
 punishment, though they can outstrip men, they 
 have no wings to fly from God! " Yet he makes 
 Henry hold that the soldier's duty is paramount. 
 
 [122]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 He says, " Every subject's duty is the king's; 
 but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore 
 should every soldier in the wars do as every 
 sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his 
 conscience; and dying so, death is an advantage; 
 or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein 
 such preparation was gained. "^^ 
 
 With all his conscientious objection to unjust 
 war, he yet has the true military spirit, the ad- 
 miration for heroic daring, the martial ardor that 
 ' stirs the blood like a trumpet,' at thought of 
 * fair, square fighting ', 
 
 " And the stern joy that warriors feel 
 In foemen worthy of their steel." 
 
 The language of his favorite king, in whom all 
 critics believe they discern lineaments of the 
 dramatist himself, will be recalled — 
 
 Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, 
 Or close the wall up with our English dead! 
 
 Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. 
 
 Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; 
 
 Let it pry through the portage of the head 
 
 Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it. 
 
 Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
 Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
 To his full height! On, on you noble English! 
 Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof, 
 
 '[123]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
 
 And teach them how to war! — And you, good yeomen, 
 
 Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 
 
 The mettle of your pasture! let us swear 
 
 That you are worth your breeding! which I doubt not; 
 
 For there is none of you so mean and base 
 
 That hath not noble lustre in your eyes! 
 
 I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
 
 Straining upon the start! The game 's afoot! 
 
 Follow your spirit; and upon this charge 
 
 Cry ' God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'^* 
 
 Surely here is the spirit which all admire in certain 
 fowls and dogs and supposed to characterize all 
 English fighters long before and since Cromwell's 
 Ironsides, of whom it is recorded, " They were 
 accustomed to rejoice greatly whenever they came 
 in sight of the enemy." 
 
 Hence it is not surprising to find in the plays 
 passages which indicate that the word ' soldier ' 
 has along with animal courage and contempt of 
 danger and death a distinctive flavor of nobleness 
 and fidelity. It is 'a name that best becomes ' 
 a manly man. " Fie, my lord, fie! " says Lady 
 Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene, " a soldier 
 and afeard? " King Henry V, wooing Katherine, 
 says, " I speak to thee plain soldier . . . take me, 
 take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king."^^ So 
 Ophelia implies when she says of Hamlet, 
 
 O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! 
 
 The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword!" 
 
 [124]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 In the ' seven ages ' of man \n As You Like It, 
 the first trait of the soldier is ' Jealous in honor,' 
 
 Seeking the bubble Reputation 
 Even in the cannon's mouth. 
 
 Note that in all the centuries a so-called ' honor ' 
 in the estimation of the military man is the su- 
 preme virtue. Yet it is seen to be often but an 
 empty bubble. Falstaff pricks it just before the 
 battle of Shrewsbury (1403) — 
 
 Honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick 
 me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set to 
 a leg? no; or an arm? no; or take away the grief of 
 a wound? no. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? 
 no. What is honor? a word. What is that word 
 honor? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he 
 that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth 
 he hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the 
 dead. But will it not live with the living? no. 
 Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll 
 none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon; and so ends 
 my catechism. ^^ 
 
 Of course Shakespeare must sympathize and 
 share in the sentiment of the duke of Norfolk in 
 his impassioned utterance in Richard the Second — 
 
 The purest treasure mortal times afford 
 
 Is spotless reputation: that away. 
 
 Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. 
 
 Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; 
 Take honor from me, and my life is done.^^ 
 
 [125]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 He must also respect, though he may not wholly 
 admire Hotspur's glorification of a kind of honor in 
 contempt of danger and death — 
 
 Sink or swim! 
 Send danger from the east unto the west, 
 So honor cross it from the north to south, 
 And let them grapple! Oh the blood more stirs 
 To rouse a lion than to start a hare! 
 
 By heaven! methinks it were an easy leap 
 
 To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, 
 
 Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
 
 Where fathom-line could never touch the ground. 
 
 And pluck up drowned honor by the locks. 
 
 So he that doth redeem her thence might wear 
 
 Without corrival all her dignities.^* 
 
 But Hotspur's passion is at bottom selfish, vain- 
 glorious. It longs for the admiration of men; 
 not the approving voice of conscience. It is the 
 false honor of Marcus Brutus, not the true honor 
 of the Founder of Christianity. That of Shake- 
 speare's favorite king, Henry the Fifth, is tinged 
 with patriotism, modesty, conscience. In the early 
 morning of St. Crispin's Day, with his little army 
 of 12,000 he is confronted by the flower of French 
 chivalry, fifty thousand strong. They block his 
 way to Calais. Against such odds he must give 
 battle, and they all know it is victory or death. 
 In presence and hearing of his little army he holds 
 a brief council of war. As he enters, he hears the 
 Earl of Westmoreland sighing for reinforcements — 
 
 [126]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 O that we now had here 
 But one ten thousand of those men in England 
 That do no work to-day! 
 
 Henry replies — 
 
 What 's he that wishes so? 
 My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin: 
 If we are marked to die, we are enow 
 To do our country loss; and if to live, 
 The fewer men the greater share of honor! 
 God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 
 By Jove! I am not covetous for gold. 
 Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; 
 It yearns me not if men my garments wear; 
 Such outward things dwell not in my desires: 
 But if it be a sin to covet Honor, 
 I am the most offending soul alive. 
 No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: 
 God's peace! I would not lose so great an honor 
 As one man more, methinks, would share from me, 
 For the best hope I have. O do not wish one more! 
 Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 
 That he which hath no stomach to this fight — 
 Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 
 And crowns for convoy put into his purse: 
 We would not die in that man's company 
 That fears his fellowship to die with us. 
 This day is called the feast of Crispian: 
 He that outlives this day and comes safe home, 
 Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named. 
 And rouse him at the name of Crispian! 
 He that shall live this day and see old age, 
 Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, 
 And say " To-morrow is Saint Crispian! " 
 Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 
 And say " These wounds I had on Crispin's day! " — 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, 
 
 But he '11 remember with advantages 
 
 What feats he did that day. Then shall our names 
 
 Familiar in his mouth as household words — 
 
 Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, 
 
 Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester — 
 
 Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. 
 
 This story shall the good man teach his son; 
 
 And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by 
 
 From this day to the ending of the world 
 
 But we in it shall be remembered. 
 
 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers! 
 
 For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
 
 Shall be my brother! be he ne'er so vile, 
 
 This day shall gentle his condition: 
 
 And gentlemen in England now a-bed 
 
 Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 
 
 And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks 
 
 That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day!^* 
 
 Did the ardor of military honor, the passion for 
 military fame and glory, ever rise higher? 
 
 There were circumstances that would naturally 
 predispose young Shakespeare to enter the army. 
 
 He was about twenty-one, the husband of a lady 
 who had rather unkindly permitted him to marry 
 her when he was eighteen and she twenty-six, 
 though neither had sufficient property or income or 
 remunerative employment. He was the son of a 
 man who had apparently failed in business, and 
 who, as many are convinced, was in disfavor at that 
 time for being at heart like his father a Roman 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 Catholic, or, as others say, suspected and accused 
 of obstinate Puritan recusancy, or, at least, as 
 almost every one admits, was under a cloud in the 
 tightening clutches of poverty. If the young man 
 should enlist, he might reasonably hope that his 
 wife and infant children, perhaps his father and 
 mother, would be taken care of." 
 
 We may be sure too that like Amyas Leigh in 
 Kingsley's Westward Ho he felt in full the spirit 
 of adventure which burns in the heart of every 
 enterprising youth. 
 
 If, like Francis Bacon, he has " taken all knowl- 
 edge to be his province," he must not miss this 
 opportunity " to see the world. "^^ 
 
 We can hardly imagine him utterly destitute of 
 every soldier's ambition, 
 
 " That last infirmity of noble mind," 
 
 prompting him " to endure hardness as a good 
 soldier," 
 
 " To scorn delights and live laborious days." 
 
 In the army he might also fairly hope for such 
 acquaintance and recognition as bore fruit a few 
 years later in the princely generosity of the Earl of 
 Southampton.^'' 
 
 Especially would he be desirous to meet the 
 literary genius, the most accomplished of gentle- 
 men, nephew of Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney; and 
 equally perhaps Sir Philip would wish to know the 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 brilliant young poet of Stratford. Aubrey tells us, 
 " Sidney was of a very munificent spirit and liberal 
 to all lovers of learning, and to those that pre- 
 tended to any acquaintance with Parnassus; in- 
 somuch that he was cloyed and surfeited with the 
 poetasters of those days." There was ten years' 
 difference in their ages and it might well be a case 
 of love at first sight. The cold-blooded Leicester, 
 who lived only a dozen miles away, would at least 
 take an interest in the chief ornament of the 
 company of players called by his name. 
 
 From several sources we learn that Queen Eliza- 
 beth was delighted with Shakespeare. His un- 
 doubted loyalty seventeen or eighteen years before 
 her death would be an inducement to serve in her 
 armies.^^ 
 
 There is little if any doubt that the actor, 
 Thomas Betterton, the dramatist, Nicholas Rowe, 
 and Archdeacon Richard Davies are truthful in 
 stating that Sir Thomas Lucy's hostility on account 
 of the deer stealing and the ballad hastened Wil- 
 liam's departure from Stratford to London.-^ But 
 Sir Thomas was a member of Parliament, and the 
 young poacher might not be safe even in the city. 
 If he wished to put some distance between himself 
 and the hostile Puritan knight, what safer refuge 
 than to go to fight the Spanish? It would tend 
 also to conciliate the zealous Protestant, and very 
 likely prompt him to deal kindly with the dear 
 ones left at home. 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 There was of course another motive which may 
 have been stronger than any of the others, 
 PATRIOTISM. Was Shakespeare a patriot? 
 
 In Coriolanus he makes Cominius say 
 
 I do love 
 My country's good with a respect more tender, 
 More holy and profound than my own life.^*^ 
 
 At the end of King John, Faulconbridge exclaims — 
 
 This England never did nor never shall 
 Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. 
 
 Come the three corners of the world in arms. 
 
 And we shall shock them! Naught shall make us rue 
 
 If England to itself do rest but true.^^ 
 
 And listen to ' old John of Gaunt, time-honored 
 Lancaster ' — 
 
 This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself 
 Against infection and the hand of war — 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, — 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea — 
 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England — 
 This land of such dear souls, — this dear, dear land!^^ 
 
 Surely the man who wrote that regarded England 
 with an almost unspeakable love. 
 
 But was his country in any special need of 
 soldiers? Yes; a struggle for national existence 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 had long been foreseen, and the crisis was im- 
 minent. Spain at the zenith of her power was 
 pushing with energy her miHtary operations against 
 her revolted subjects in Holland and Belgium. 
 More and more it appeared likely that England 
 would be forced into the conflict. In anticipation 
 of hostilities, there was in the year 1583 a general 
 census and review of Englishmen capable of ac- 
 tively bearing arms. It is reasonable to believe 
 that our William, then recently married, was 
 counted among the 1,172,000 able-bodied. If old 
 enough to be married, he was old enough to fight! 
 " A happy marriage is a suppressed warfare," said 
 Eliot, historian of New England echoing Lord 
 Bacon, to me at his dinner table fifty-four years 
 ago! 
 
 We have good evidence that he was of the proper 
 physique. At the age of twenty-eight he is de- 
 clared by his contemporary, the publisher Henry 
 Chettle, to be an excellent actor. When he was 
 forty-six, John Davies of Hereford in his Book 
 entitled ' Scourge of Folly ' has lines addressed 
 ' To our English Terence, Mr. Will Shakespeare,' 
 in which he declares, 
 
 " Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport, 
 Thou hadst been a companion for a king." 
 
 Aubrey is more specific: he tells us Shakespeare 
 " was a handsome well-shaped man." His earliest 
 biographer, Nicholas Rowe, tells us on the authority 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 of the famous actor Thomas Betterton that Shake- 
 speare acted the part of the Ghost in his own 
 play of Hamlet, that "it was the top of his acting," 
 and that " he did act exceeding well." Doubtless 
 this Ghost was one of those ' kingly parts,' the fac- 
 simile of the elder Hamlet, King of Denmark, a 
 man of the finest proportions, physically perfect. 
 Says Horatio, 
 
 I saw him once; he was a goodly king. 
 
 ' Goodly ' of course refers to external appearance, 
 
 equivalent to comely and of good size. Hamlet 
 
 replies. 
 
 He was a man; take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again. 
 
 Still speaking of his physical perfections, you will 
 recollect Hamlet's description of his father as he 
 gazes upon his full-length portrait in his mother's 
 chamber. It shows unmistakably how Shakespeare 
 looked, if he personated the Ghost as genuine 
 tradition asserts and as all scholars believe. 
 
 See what a grace was seated on this brow! 
 Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and command; 
 A station like the herald Mercury 
 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 
 A combination and a form indeed 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal 
 To give the world assurance of a man^P 
 
 We do not then doubt that he was of good phy- 
 sique. Being such, he would naturally be enrolled 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 at the age of nineteen among the one million 
 one hundred and seventy-two thousand fit for 
 military service. 
 
 Next year (1584) the illustrious Founder of the 
 Dutch Republic, ' The Washington of Holland,' 
 William of Orange, ' William the Silent," perished 
 by the hand of an assassin. The outlook for 
 liberty and independence on the continent and for 
 the safety of England was growing very dark. 
 With the subjugation of the low countries, the 
 last barrier against the overwhelming advance of 
 the Spanish would seem to be swept away, and 
 England would apparently lie at the mercy of the 
 foe. 
 
 Fifteen eighty-five came and in August the 
 splendid city of Antwerp fell. Elizabeth at last 
 reluctantly yielded to the advice of the illustrious 
 Walsingham and other statesmen and to the urgent 
 entreaties of the Dutch envoys, and determined, 
 none too soon, to strike a blow, lest the destruction 
 that impended over the Netherlands should in- 
 volve England also. 
 
 In September she appointed her favorite, the 
 Earl of Leicester, commander-in-chief. Early in 
 November she dispatched Sir Philip Sidney with 
 troops. He was eager for active service. Leicester 
 was not. The great Lord of Kenilworth, whom 
 many had thought likely to become king, or at 
 least husband to the queen, if Lady Leicester 
 would but step down and out, must go in pomp 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 with a loud flourish of trumpets. He invited a 
 multitude of his chents and retainers to accompany 
 him as a guard of honor. A large and splendid 
 retinue, some five hundred in number, mostly from 
 central England, responded.^* Several among them 
 were probably young Shakespeare's friends, neigh- 
 bors, or even relatives; certainly his fellow actors 
 or authors. We have, it has been supposed, a 
 recollection of Leicester's pompous embarkation in 
 the Chorus in Act III of King Henry V — 
 
 Suppose that you have seen 
 The well-appointed king at Hampton pier 
 Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet 
 
 A city on the inconstant billows dancing. 
 
 Follow, follow! 
 
 And leave your England 
 
 Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women. 
 
 For who is he whose chin is but enriched 
 With one appearing hair, that will not follow 
 These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France? 
 
 When, to all other incitements were added the 
 inspiration of such a scene and the sense of com- 
 radeship with enthusiastic thousands rallying around 
 the red-cross flag of Saint George, who can doubt 
 that William Shakespeare, perhaps already en- 
 listed, would gladly join the splendid battalions 
 moving to martial music ' on to the field of Glory? ' 
 What would he think of the invertebrate stay- 
 at-home gentleman, Oliver Wendell Holmes's ' sweet 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 little man,' like the parasite Osric in Hamlet, 
 whom our fathers would have termed a ' dandy ' 
 and our sons a ' dude.' By no stretch of imagina- 
 tion can we fancy our hero such a milksop as is 
 described in one of the last stanzas of Robert 
 Browning — 
 
 " What had I on earth to do 
 With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
 With the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel? 
 Being who? " 
 
 Rather must our beloved dramatist have been like 
 Browning himself, 
 
 ' One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
 Never doubted clouds would break; 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
 
 triumph; 
 Held we fall to rise, are bafifled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake! "^^ 
 
 Here we are not left to conjecture. Hotspur had 
 fought against the Scots, captured a goodly num- 
 ber of them, and refused to deliver them up to 
 King Henry. The monarch calls him sharply to 
 account for this disobedience. Hotspur prudently 
 apologizes — 
 
 My liege, I did deny no prisoners: 
 But I remember, when the fight was done, 
 When I was dry with rage and extreme toil. 
 Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, 
 Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reaped 
 Showed like a stubble-land at harvest home. 
 He was perfumed like a milliner, 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 And twixt his finger and his thumb he held 
 
 A pouncet-box, which ever and anon 
 
 He gave his nose and took 't away again; 
 
 Who therewith angry, when it next came there. 
 
 Took it in snuff! and still he smiled and talked, 
 
 And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 
 
 He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 
 
 To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 
 
 Betwixt the wind and his nobility! 
 
 With many holiday and lady terms 
 
 He questioned me, among the rest, demanded 
 
 My prisoners in your majesty's behalf. 
 
 I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, 
 
 To be so pestered with a popinjay. 
 
 Out of my grief and my impatience, 
 
 Answered neglectingly I know not what, — 
 
 He should or he should not; for he made me mad 
 
 To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet. 
 
 And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 
 
 Of guns and drums and wounds — God save the mark- 
 
 And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth 
 
 Was parmaceti for an inward bruise! 
 
 And that it was great pity, so it was. 
 
 This villainous salt-petre should be digged 
 
 Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
 
 Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed 
 
 So cowardly; and but for these vile guns 
 
 He would himself have been a soldier!^^ 
 
 We come now to a remarkable coincidence. To 
 fix the time, let us premise that Shakespeare's 
 twins, Hamnet and Judith, as shown by the parish 
 register, were christened February 2d, 1585. The 
 father would naturally be present at the ceremony. 
 
 [137]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 From this time for several years he is lost to view, 
 except for the possible reappearance which we are 
 about to state. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney arrived in Holland November 
 tenth, 1585; Leicester a few weeks later. On the 
 twenty-fourth of March, 1586, having been cam- 
 paigning in Holland four and a half months, Sidney 
 writes from Utrecht a letter to his father-in-law, 
 Sir Francis Walsingham, in which occurs this 
 passage : — 
 
 " I wrote to you a letter by Will, my Lord of 
 Leicester's jesting player, enclosed in a letter to my 
 wife, and I never had answer thereof. It contained 
 something to my Lord of Leicester and Council, that 
 some way might be taken to stay my lady there. I 
 since, divers times, have written to know whether you 
 had received them; but you never answered me on 
 that point. I since find that the knave delivered the 
 letters to my lady of Leicester, but whether she sent 
 them to you or no, I know not, but earnestly desire 
 to do; because I doubt there is more interpreted 
 thereof."" 
 
 From this we naturally infer that before Leicester 
 left England in December, 1585, Sir Philip em- 
 ployed one ' Will ' as amanuensis to write to 
 Walsingham; that this letter, so dictated, con- 
 tained a message to Leicester and the Council, in 
 which there was an expression of Sir Philip's de- 
 sire that his wife should be made to stay in Eng- 
 land; furthermore, the Walsingham letter and the 
 message it contained were enclosed in a personal 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 letter from Sir Philip to his wife: but these two 
 letters and the accompanying message were de- 
 livered by ' Will,' not to Sidney's wife, nor to her 
 father Walsingham, nor even to the Earl, but to 
 my Lady of Leicester! and Sidney has repeatedly 
 tried in vain to find out whether the Countess ever 
 delivered them to any one, or whether the wife, 
 father, or Earl ever received them. 
 
 Sir Philip appears suspicious of double-dealing. 
 Evidently he doesn't believe the letters reached 
 their destination. Lady Leicester probably wished 
 to come over to Holland with a goodly number of 
 ladies of the nobility and gentry. Sir Philip's 
 remonstrance was unheard or unheeded. Notwith- 
 standing his opposition and Queen Elizabeth's 
 disapprobation, the ladies must see the holiday 
 festivities over in Holland, and the 
 
 Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! 
 
 Even Sir Philip's wife came over at last! 
 
 Now the question is, Who was the amanuensis 
 'Will,' 'my Lord of Leicester's jesting player'? 
 It has been quite commonly assumed that he was 
 William Kemp. To this supposition there are 
 several objections which seem decisive. 
 
 Kemp is not mentioned as a theatrical player 
 till six or seven years after Sidney's death. His 
 name first appears in 1593 in a list of six members 
 of Lord Strange's Company. In 1594 he acted the 
 part of Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. 
 
 [139]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 In 1612, twenty-six years after Sidney's death, the 
 learned Thomas Heywood tells us that in Septem- 
 ber, 1588, Kemp succeeded to the place on the stage 
 made vacant by the death of the celebrated Richard 
 Tarleton, as dancer, vaulter, tumbler, and clown.'^ 
 In 1600, fourteen years after Sidney's death, Kemp 
 says of himself, " I have spent my life in mad 
 jigges and merry jestes." In 1589 the author of 
 a book entitled An Almond for a Parrat dedicates 
 it as follows: To that most Comical and Con- 
 ceited Cavaliero, Monsieur de Kempe, jestmonger 
 and Vice-Regent-Generall to the Ghost of Dicke 
 Tarlton. At this date, three years after the death 
 of Sir Philip, he and his associates were engaged in 
 their favorite occupation of ridiculing the Puritans. 
 Now if anything could disgust Sir Philip Sidney, 
 it would be just such business as gave Kemp his 
 popularity. From his earliest youth his remarkable 
 gravity, his puritanic seriousness, his lofty ideals, 
 are commented upon by all his biographers. Espe- 
 cially at this crisis, when the life of the new-born 
 Dutch Republic and the safety of England were 
 in imminent peril, he would say of Kemp as the 
 intense Hamlet says of the shallow Polonius, 
 " He *s for a jig or a tale of bawdry." Leicester 
 might have brought over this jumplng-jack to 
 please himself or the ladies; but Sir Philip never 
 would have tolerated him. Like the sober Brutus 
 in Julius CcEsar he would ask, 
 
 " What should the wars do with these jigging fools?"^* 
 
 [140]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 It nowhere appears that Kemp was ever in the 
 army or in the Netherlands at all. He did not 
 rise to the dignity of a comic play-actor till seven 
 years after Sidney's death. 
 
 Then as to the name of " my Lord of Leicester's 
 jesting player " — Kemp was never called simply 
 * Will.' Of course it was convenient to abbreviate 
 the names Benjamin Jonson, Richard Burbage, 
 and Christopher Marlowe, into Ben, Dick, and Kit, 
 and their cronies always did so. But the name 
 ' Kemp ' was short enough already. He was often 
 designated as Will Kemp, oftener still as Kemp; never 
 in his day, so far as we can learn, merely ' Will.' 
 
 On the contrary, William Shakespeare was uni- 
 versally known as ' Will.' He is himself pleased 
 with the pet sobriquet. In his 135th and 136th 
 sonnets he insists on being so called. In them he 
 uses the word twenty times, ten of them being 
 clear instances of paronomasia. The 136th ends 
 with this couplet: 
 
 Make but my name my love, and love that still, 
 And then thou lov'st me; for my name is Will! 
 
 Six years before Shakespeare's death John Davies 
 of Hereford, in his book entitled ' The Scourge of 
 Folly,' has lines addressed ' To our English Ter- 
 ence, Mr. W^ill: Shakespeare', as follows: 
 
 " Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, 
 Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport. 
 Thou hadst been a companion for a king. 
 And been a king among the meaner sort." 
 
 [141]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Nineteen years after Shakespeare's death, he was 
 still known by his accepted name Will. Thus 
 Thomas Heywood in his * Hierarchy of the Blessed 
 Angels' (1635), uses this language: 
 
 " Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill 
 Commanded mirth or passion, was but ' Will ' " 
 
 That Will had been for several years a play- 
 actor when Sidney wrote the Walsingham letter, 
 it is reasonable to believe. " It is fair to infer," 
 says Sidney Lee, " that it was Leicester's company 
 that Shakespeare originally joined and adhered to 
 through life." All the biographers concur in this. 
 
 " My Lord of Leicester's jesting player." Proba- 
 bly no opprobrium attaches to the word ' jesting.' 
 Hamlet says admiringly of Yorick, " He was a 
 fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." 
 It is recorded in praise of Lord Bacon that he was 
 ' a most delightful companion . . . bringing out 
 with great effect his unexhausted stores of jests 
 new and old.' Ben Jonson tells us that Bacon's 
 speech, " When he could spare or pass by a jest, 
 was nobly censorious." Sidney had probably heard 
 of the smart squib on Sir Thomas Lucy with its 
 atrocious puns. " The worst puns are the best," 
 says Charles Lamb. Shakespeare is perhaps the 
 greatest punster in our language. Dr. Sam. 
 Johnson and other solemn critics blame him for 
 his frequent quibbling plays upon words. 
 
 In the period under consideration he had proba- 
 
 [142]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 bly engaged in comedy chiefly or only. When we 
 read what many think his earHest, Love's Labor s 
 Lost, we say with Schlegel, " It is a humorsome 
 display of frolic; a whole cornucopia of the most 
 vivacious jokes . . . unbroken succession of plays 
 on words . . . sallies of every description . . . 
 Sparkles of wit fly about in such profusion that they 
 resemble a blaze of fireworks." To the same effect, 
 Charles Cowden-Clarke — " There is an exuberance, 
 an extravagance in Shakespeare's fun which is 
 infectious. We laugh in spite of ourselves, stung 
 by that keen sense of the ludicrous which has 
 evidently smitten and inspired the writer. W'e 
 feel in reading Shakespeare's drollery that he him- 
 self had a relish for it; that he enjoyed a frolic 
 of words; that he loved a bout of jesting; that 
 he reveled in a spell of waggery and nonsense. "'*° 
 
 As to his conversation we may safely believe in 
 the truth of Aubrey's well-authenticated tradition 
 that he was ' very good company, and of a very 
 ready and pleasant smooth wit.' Aubrey quotes 
 in illustration the ' extemporary epitaph ' on the 
 old usurer 'John O' Combe'; tells of his his- 
 trionic mock heroics in boyhood; and adds, " I 
 have heard Sir Wm. Davenant and Mr. Thomas 
 Shadwell, who is accounted the best comedian that 
 we have now, say that he had a most prodigious 
 Wit." But here the word * wit ' includes far more 
 than the power of giving sudden intellectual 
 pleasure. 
 
 [143]
 
 Sttidies in Shakespeare 
 
 In the light of these considerations it is easy to 
 imagine the circumstances under which Sidney 
 wrote to his wife, to her father, and to Leicester. 
 He had arrived as Governor of Flushing the second 
 week in November. The briefest observation con- 
 firmed his conviction that this was no time nor 
 place for lady visitors. Winter and the Spaniards 
 are coming. He protests against the feminine 
 invasion. 
 
 Young Shakespeare, between whom and Sidney 
 there would naturally be attraction and mutual 
 confidence, had probably come from England with 
 him. No soldier detailed as clerk at headquarters 
 could be more useful. Sidney learns that Will has 
 a wife and three infant children at Stratford, and 
 is therefore trustworthy; that his home is in Strat- 
 ford a dozen miles from Leicester's lordly castle 
 of Kenilworth; and he would be glad to revisit 
 his family, his father and mother, his sister, his 
 brothers and friends. Sidney knows that the Earl 
 is soon to embark for the seat of war. He loses 
 no time: Lady Sidney at least must not come. 
 He employs Will to write a formal communication 
 to the Earl and the Privy Council, and immediately 
 sends him home to Warwickshire bearing the three- 
 fold protest. Innocently enough Will delivers the 
 precious epistles 'to my Lady of Leicester! ' She 
 knows how to take care of theml 
 
 " I find the knave delivered the letters," writes 
 Sidney. The word ' knave ' has no disparagement 
 
 [144]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 in it. Often, as repeatedly in Shakespeare, it 
 signifies boy, servant, or stripling. Sidney, ten 
 years Will's senior, might even make it a term of 
 endearment, as Brutus does.*^ Will would naturally 
 return in Leicester's train, if not earlier, and report 
 to Sir Philip. 
 
 Very likely he remained in the service for years. 
 This would account for his silence from 1585 till 
 1592; for he was too modest to speak of his own 
 deeds. We are left to imagine; but we cannot for 
 a moment doubt his exaltation of soul, when in a 
 just cause he beheld the splendid display of seem- 
 ingly irresistible force; infantry advancing in succes- 
 sive waves foam-tipped with flags, or densely 
 massed steadily moving flanked with thundering 
 artillery; and cavalry in shining armor swiftly 
 plunging past. 
 
 " There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 
 Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower; 
 For Fame is there to say who bleeds, 
 And Honor's eye is on daring deeds." 
 
 He could keenly appreciate the contrast as in 
 Othello's heartbreak — 
 
 Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars 
 That make ambition virtue! O farewell! 
 Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump. 
 The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife. 
 The royal banner, and all quality, 
 Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! 
 
 [145]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 And 0, you mortal engines, whose rude throats 
 The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit, 
 Farewell! — Othello's occupation 's gone!^ 
 
 We have spoken of the emergency that called 
 for soldiers in the summer and fall of 1585. Three 
 years later there was another, still more impera- 
 tive; a crisis which stirred England as perhaps it 
 never was stirred before or since. The ambitious 
 Spanish monarch, Philip the Second, lord of 
 dominions on which the sun never set, emboldened 
 by the conquest of Portugal, the acquisition of the 
 East Indies, and the yearly receipt of vast treasures 
 from North and South America, determined to sub- 
 due England, make it a province of Spain, and from 
 it as a standpoint and base of operations crush 
 liberty and independence and make himself master 
 of Europe and the civilized world. The hour 
 seemed opportune. Immense preparations had been 
 going on for years. The ' Invincible Armada,' the 
 most powerful fleet that had ever floated, clouded 
 all the southern sky, and was ready to pour on 
 England its iron hail and thunder fire. Great 
 galleons, ships larger than Britons had ever seen, 
 from Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Portugal, were swarm- 
 ing toward the English Channel. Troops from 
 those nations and from other portions of Europe 
 swelled the ranks of the vast invading army on the 
 other shore under the most skilful general of the 
 age, the veteran Duke of Parma. All England, 
 
 [146]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 Catholic and Protestant alike, armed and drilled. 
 For fame, home, country, civilization, no sacrifice 
 seemed too great. 
 
 To these incentives was added a more intense 
 personal loyalty. If the queen had done nothing 
 else to earn the name ' Great Elizabeth,' her ap- 
 parent conduct at this crisis would in the estima- 
 tion of the common people have been enough. 
 She puts herself at the head of her principal army. 
 At West Tilbury, near where the invaders may be 
 expected to attempt a landing, she rides on horse- 
 back through the lines and thus addresses them: — 
 
 " I have always so behaved myself that, under 
 God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safe- 
 guard in the loyal hearts and good will of my sub- 
 jects; and therefore I am come among you at this 
 time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being re- 
 solved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or 
 die amongst you all; to lay down for my God and for 
 my kingdom and my people my honor and my blood 
 even in the dust. I know I have but the body of a 
 weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a 
 king, and a king of England too; and think foul 
 scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe 
 should dare to invade the borders of my realm! "*^ 
 
 Where was William Shakespeare at this time? 
 They tell us he was probably in a London theatre, 
 acting third-rate parts in third-rate plays. Do not 
 believe it. They tell us he was so great a man 
 that he was sublimely indifferent to the fate of 
 nations, religions, and civilizations. Do not be- 
 
 [147]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 lieve it. Prominent critics like Richard Grant 
 White and James Russell Lowell tell us that " he 
 wrote without any moral intention," and that it is 
 ' his highest praise ' that " he carries his persons 
 indifferently through right and wrong, . . . and 
 leaves their example to operate by chance." This 
 may be measurably true of his drama; but when 
 they add the strange assertion that " he was simply 
 observer and artist, and was incapable of partisan- 
 ship," do not believe it. What right has a great 
 man or a small man to shirk and slink and shut 
 his eyes and seal his lips and fold his hands, when 
 the life of his country is trembling in the balance? 
 " Incapable of partisanship " in a day like that? 
 Give us men that are capable of partisanship, of 
 enthusiasm, of fanaticism even. " Simply observer 
 and artist "? Oh for an hour of old Athenian 
 ^schylus, who did not forget that he was a man 
 of muscle as well as mind, a citizen as well as a 
 dramatist, and whose epitaph composed by himself 
 reads, 
 
 " Athenian iCschylus, Euphorion's son, 
 Buried in Gela's fields, tliese words declare. 
 His deeds are registered at Marathon, 
 Known to the deep-haired Mede who met him there! " 
 
 Give us a Joseph Warren, who on the eve of 
 Bunker Hill, as he kisses ' Good-bye ' to wife and 
 child, exclaims, and next day proves it true, " It 
 is sweet and beautiful to die for one's country! " — 
 a James Lawrence, who knowing with Sir Humph- 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 rey Gilbert and the Martyrs of river and sea that 
 " Heaven is as near by water as by land," won't 
 give up the ship! — Leonidas and his three hun- 
 dred, who would rather be dead in Thermopylae 
 than alive in retreat — a heart as well as a brain, 
 a backbone as well as a tongue — if it must be, 
 a hand that can wield a pike as well as a pen — 
 a heart that is flesh, not ice; vertabrse that are 
 bone, not rubber; an arm that can strike quicker, 
 surer, heavier blows for God than others can for 
 the devil; a brain that to illume the dark and 
 smite the wrong can condense the light of truth 
 into lightning; a self-devotion whose death, like 
 the last sparkle of a spent rocket, may indeed be 
 followed by a momentary gloom, but whose life 
 shall shine in memory as the stars forever! 
 
 [149]
 
 NOTES IN STUDY III 
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 1 Mrs. Cecil Frances (Humphreys) Alexander, wife of William Alexander 
 ' Archbishop of Armagh and Primate after 1896,' was the author of the 
 hymn beginning " There is a green hill far away"; also of " Jesus calls us 
 o'er the tumult," etc. 
 
 t Exodus XV, 8-11. 
 
 '"The Muse dearly loved the tuneful bard (Demodocus), but she gave 
 him both good and ill; she indeed deprived him of sight, but she gave 
 him sweet song." — Odyssey viii, 63, 64. 
 
 " The gods bestow not equally on all 
 The gifts that men desire, the grace of form. 
 The mind, the eloquence. One man to sight 
 Is undistinguished, but on him the gods 
 Bestow the power of words. All look on him 
 Gladly: he knows whereof he speaks: his speech 
 Is mild and modest: he is eminent 
 In all assemblies; and, whene'er he walks 
 The city men regard him as a god. 
 Another in the form he wears is like 
 The immortals, yet he has no power to speak 
 Becoming words. So thou hast comely looks — 
 A god would not have shaped thee otherwise 
 Than we behold thee — yet thy wit is small." 
 
 Odyssey vni, 167-177 (Bryant's Translation). 
 
 So in some way the favorite of the Muses pays penalty for their love; 
 deaf like Beethoven; or lame like Byron and Scott; or consumptive like 
 Virgil, Mozart. Keats, Lanier, and Stevenson; or blind like Homer, Milton, 
 ancient Thamyris, 
 
 " And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old," 
 
 and our Prescott and Fanny Crosby; or exiled like Ovid, Seneca, Dante, 
 Locke, and Boyle O'Reilly; or insane like Lucretius, Swift, Cowper, Collins 
 and Delia Bacon; or poverty-stricken like Spenser, Butler, Dryden, Burns, 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Otway, Hood, Chatterton, and Francis Thompson; or unhappily married 
 like Euripides, Socrates, Montaigne, Hooker, Bacon, MoliSre, Addison, 
 Shelley, Landor, Dickens, and Sumner; or unhappily unmarried like 
 Horace, Voltaire, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Lamb, Macaulay, Fitz Greene 
 Halleck, Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller and Phillips Brooksl 
 
 « Sophocles too was a soldier. So Pericles, Thucydides, and Xenophon. 
 
 6 The danger lies in extreme specialization. " I devothes my whole 
 mind to it," was the explanation given by one of the leaders of ' the Four 
 Hundred ' in New York City, accounting for his much-admired mustache. 
 
 6 He may have been with one of those old ' sea-kings ' who loved above 
 all things 'to singe the king of Spain's beard!' — Sir Francis Drake, 
 Thomas Cavendish, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Martin Frobisher, Admiral Lord 
 Charles Howard, or ' the Shepherd of the Ocean,' Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 As to his knowledge of navigation, see notes to Sprague's edition of 
 The Tempest, Act \, sc. i, page 30; also quotations from the second Lord 
 Mulgrave (1740-1792) in the notes to Furness's Variorum ed. of The 
 Tempest, Act. I, sc. i. See also note on The Tempest V, i, 223, p. 125, 
 Sprague's ed. 
 
 ' There is an old Spanish proverb, " Every man at forty is either a physi- 
 cian or a fool." 
 
 ' Shakespeare's knowledge of hippology is perhaps best shown in his 
 Venus and Adonis, lines 295-300. 
 
 All the horse worshipers, from Richard III of England to Richard Croker 
 of Tammany Hall, and all the horse traders from MoseS Primrose to David 
 Harum, may claim him as of the equine cult; but the most enthusiastic 
 devotee was perhaps the Rev. W. H. H. Murray, whose ' Camp Life in 
 the Adirondacks ' gave him his popular sobriquet. To his interesting book 
 entitled ' The Perfect Horse,' Henry Ward Beecher wrote an introduction 
 saying that " although the horse is a rather remote department of theology," 
 yet he was glad to gratify his friend ' Adirondack Murray 'I 
 
 » See in this ' Study ' {post) the quoted postscript of Sir Philip Sidney's 
 letter to his father-in-law. Sir Francis Walsingham, and our comments 
 thereon. 
 
 "For once we deviate from our rule and explain 'tickle o' the sere.' 
 The phrase points to a delicate piece of mechanism which, to a non- 
 military man, is involved in obscurity. The attempts by civilians to 
 elucidate it, as may be seen in their editorial comments, have been numer- 
 ous, ingenious, and funny. It was first made clear by Dr. Nicholson in 
 ' Notes and Queries,' July 22, 1871. 
 
 " The sere (or, as it is often spelled, sear, or scear) of a gun-lock is the 
 bar or balance lever interposed between the trigger on the one side and 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 the tumbler or other mechanism on the other, and is so called from its 
 acting the part of a serre or talon in gripping the mechanism and preventing 
 its action. It is in fact a paul or stop-catch. When the trigger is made 
 to act on one end of it, the other end releases the tumbler, the mainspring 
 acts, and the hammer, flint, or match falls. . . . Now if the lock be so 
 made of purpose, or be worn, or be faulty in construction, this sear or 
 grip may be so tickle or ticklish in its adjustment that a slight touch or 
 jar may displace it, and then of course the gun goes off. Hence ' light ' 
 (or 'tickle') 'of the sere' (equivalent to like a hair-trigger), applied 
 metaphorically, means that which can be started into action at a mere 
 touch, or on the slightest provocation, or on what ought to be no provo- 
 cation at all." 
 
 During ' the war between the States ' (1861-1865) some of us Union 
 officers were careful to understand this nice mechanical structure. 
 
 For the etymology of " tickle " and " sere " see notes to Hamlet, II, ii. 
 318, Sprague's ed. It hardly needs to be emphasized that, some three 
 hundred years ago as now, the word " tickle " conveyed the idea of 
 incitement to laughter. See Merchant of Venice, III, i, 51, and the kindred 
 passage in The Tempest, II, i, 169-171, Sprague's ed. 
 
 i^ Richard II, IV, i, 92-100. 
 
 12 i Henry IV, II, iii, 43-51. 
 
 " Act I, sc. iv, 82-88. — " Swears a prayer or two! " Could anything be 
 truer to the life? To the characteristics referred to in As You Like It 
 (II, vii, 147-153) that mark the soldier in the field — beard untrimmed, 
 sensitiveness to a sort of ' honor," quickness to quarrel, eagerness for dis- 
 tinction — the dramatist adds as first of all that he is ' full of strange 
 oaths,' a failing more nearly universal than deep drinking even. We never 
 heard so much profanity in an equal space of time as in our first battle in 
 Louisiana, and the most pious seemed to swear loudest and fastest! " Lest 
 we forget " that " War is hell! " 
 
 " The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, iii, 8-10. 
 
 •5 As You Like It, II, vii, 147-153. See notes in Sprague's ed. 
 
 Pretty surely, among his soldier experiences and very likely before or 
 after them, he saw such scenes as Falstaff's examination of the recruits Mouldy, 
 Wart, Shadow, Feeble, and BuUcalf. When four have been accepted, the 
 fat knight orders his quartermaster Bardolf to issue uniforms to them: 
 privately, however, the sly old rogue, on receipt of three pounds cash, 
 allows Mouldy and Bullcalf to be released altogether from military service! 
 See 2 Henry IV, III, ii, 91-173; 204-227; 268. 
 
 w King Henry V, I, ii, 18-28. 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 1' Ibidem, IV, i, 154-156; 166-174. Henry's first remark here appears 
 to be a recollection of the speech of Clearchus to the treacherous Tissa- 
 phernes in Xenophon's Anabasis. 
 
 18 Ibidem, III, i, 1-34. 
 
 » Ibidem, V, ii, 160, 161. 
 
 20 Hamlet, III, i, 160, 161. See note, Sprague's ed. 
 
 21 i Henry IV, V, i, 127-139. 
 
 ^Richard II, I. i, 177-179; 182, 183. 
 
 23 7 Henry IV, I. iii, 194-205. 
 
 2* Henry V, IV, iii, 16-67. The battle of Agincourt was fought October 
 25, 1415. 
 
 26 " Why don't you enlist? " said State Senator Hammond of Connecticut 
 to me at the beginning of our ' War between the States ' (1861). " Be- 
 cause I have a wife and children to support," I replied. " Why don't you 
 enlist? " he asked an impecunious lawyer at my side. " Because I have 
 no wife nor children to support," he answered! The State of Connecticut 
 was promising to take good care of soldiers' families. 
 
 25 On huge placards calling for recruits for the American navy, the 
 authorities are careful to hold out as one of the inducements the oppor- 
 tunities afforded ' to see the world.' 
 
 2' With Leicester in the army of the Netherlands were, among others of 
 note, his step-son, the brave but unfortunate Robert Devereux, Earl of 
 Essex; Lord Audley, Lord North; among other knights William Russell, 
 Thomas Shirley, Arthur Bassett, Walter Waller, and Gervase Clifton; Thomas 
 Sidney, younger brother of Sir Philip; John and Thomas Arden and Miles 
 Combe, who were probably of Stratford. Ben Jonson at this time was only 
 thirteen or fourteen: he served there later. 
 
 28 E.g. Note the lines in Ben Jonson's tribute prefixed to the First Folio: 
 
 " Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were 
 To see thee in our water yet appear 
 And make those flights upon the banks of Thames 
 That so did take Eliza and our James! ". 
 
 So the publisher, Henry Chettle, on the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, 
 in his memorial volume entitled ' England's Mourning Garment,' has lines 
 blaming Shakespeare and virtually accusing him of ingratitude for not 
 writing elegiac verses on her who had been so gracious to him; thus 
 
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 His Sword and Musket 
 
 " Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert 
 
 Drop from his honeyed Muse one sable tear 
 To mourn her death that graced his desert 
 And to his lays opened her royal ear." 
 
 2« See these names in the Index to Lee's Life of Shakespeare; also in 
 Halliwell-Phillipps" Outlines, Vol. II. 
 
 ^Coriolanus, III, iii. 111-113. 
 
 "Act V. vii, 112-118. 
 
 "Act II, i, 40-46; 50, 57. 
 
 M Hamlet, III, iv, 55-62; also I, ii, 186, Sprague's ed. — For Chettle and 
 Davies see Fleay's Shakespeare Manual, pp. 13, 15; for Aubrey and 
 Betterton, Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, I, 10, 12; II, 70, 71; 251. For 
 Rowe, I, 13; II, 72-76, 298. 
 
 »« See note 27, ante. 
 
 " Epilogue to Asolando, 2d and 3d stanzas. 
 
 »/ Henry IV, I, iii, 29-64. 
 
 »' See Sir Philip's Biography by H. R. Fox Bourne. 
 
 It may be objected that Will Shakespeare was not a good penman and 
 therefore could hardly have been acceptable as clerk, secretary, or amanuen- 
 sis to Sir Philip. But he certainly wrote a better hand than Sir Henry 
 Irving, several of whose autograph letters to me I should in vain have 
 attempted to decipher, had I not known before receiving them what he 
 meant to say. 
 
 The probability, however, is that like Hamlet, in whom all agree that 
 we see much of the dramatist himself, he was able to write a fair hand in 
 his youth. Says Hamlet, 
 
 I sat me down; 
 Devised a new commission; wrote it fair: 
 I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
 A baseness to write fair, and labored much 
 How to forget that learning; but, sir, now 
 It did me yeoman's service. 
 
 — Hamlet, V, ii, 31-35, Sprague's ed. 
 
 Hudson remarks, " It was accounted a mechanical and vulgar accom- 
 plishment to write a fair hand." Dr. Wm. J. Rolfe quotes Blackstone — 
 " Most of the great men of Shakespeare's time, whose autographs have 
 been preserved, wrote very bad hands; their secretaries very neat ones." 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 The Italian John Florio, translator of Montaigne's ' Essays,' quotes the great 
 
 French author thus: " I have seen some, who by writing did get both 
 
 tlieir titles and living, disavow their apprenticeship, mar their pen, and 
 affect ignorance of so vulgar a quality." 
 
 '8 Richard Tarleton, clown, jig-maker, and dancer of jigs, died in 1588, 
 and Kemp is supposed to have succeeded him in his comic nonsense. As 
 to jigs, see Furness's Hamlet, Variorum ed.. Vol. I, pp. 189-190. For its 
 etymology see notes to Hamlet, II, ii, 486, and Julius Casar, IV, iii, 135, 
 Sprague's editions. 
 
 Shakespeare is thought to have Kemp in mind when in Hamlet, III, ii, 
 35-41, he directs — " Let those that play your clowns speak no more 
 than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, 
 to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the 
 mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: 
 that 's villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it." 
 
 Twelve years after Sidney's death the satirist John Marston in his 
 Scourge of Villainy is quite enthusiastic over Kemp's dancing jig. In the 
 year 1600 Kemp distinguished himself by what he himself described in a 
 pamphlet entitled ' Kemp's Nine Days Wonder Performed in a Dance from 
 London to Norwich/ It was a ' morris dance.' We get a fine glimpse of 
 it in Alfred Noyes's ' The Companion of a Mile,' the fifth of his ' Tales 
 of the Mermaid Tavern.' 
 
 ^* Julius Casar, IV, iii, 135, Sprague's ed. 
 
 *" Black's Translation (pp. 383 et seq.) of A. W. Schlegel's Lectures on 
 Dramatic Art and Literature. 
 
 *i ' Knave ' (from the Anglo-Saxon cnafa (German knabe) , properly a 
 servant or boy) generally had a favorable signification. Thus in Wiclif's 
 Translation of the Bible (1383), the Epistle to the Romans begins, ' Paul, 
 a knave of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle,' etc. Brutus in Julius 
 Casar speaks [affectionately to his boy attendant Lucius; " Poor knave, 
 I blame thee not," and "Gentle knave, good night!" IV, iii, 239, 267, 
 Sprague's ed. Some scholars have made the word akin to knob, and so to 
 mean ' Knobby boy.' The total depravity inherent in ' knobby boys ' 
 often cropped out, and so the once innocent word became tainted with 
 the opprobrious sense it now bears of rogue or rascal! 
 
 ^^ Othello, III, iii, 349-352. 
 
 " For a merciless arraignment of Elizabeth at the bar of history, see 
 Professor Goldwin Smith's ' The United Kingdom, A Political History,' 
 Vol. I, pp. 367 et seq.; especially 388-392. "A policy partial, feeble, and 
 fretful; vacillation, infirmity of purpose, and general dishonesty; false and 
 perfidious, heartless and selfish; capable at times of hateful cruelty; a 
 
 [156]
 
 His Sword and Musket 
 
 vanity such as could hardly dwell in the same breast with greatness; to 
 say nothing of her indelicacy and at least one darker stain (prompting to 
 the assassination of Mary Queen of Scots)! a virago who spat, swore, and 
 cuffed! " — such is the indictment, and it seems to be sustained. There is 
 hardly in history a more painful disillusion than the admirer of ' Great 
 Elizabeth ' experiences when he first comes to know ' the true inwardness ' 
 of the character and conduct of ' the Virgin Queen.' But of all this, at the 
 epoch in question, young Shakespeare knew little, and the common people 
 nothing. 
 
 [157]
 
 Study IV 
 
 Shakespeare's Wand and Sceptre
 
 Yes, Master of the human heaft! we own 
 
 Thy sovereign sway, and bow before thy throne. 
 
 There warbles Poesy her sweetest song; 
 
 There the wild Passions wait, thy vassal throng; 
 
 At thy command the varied tumult rolls, 
 
 Now Pity melts, now Terror chills our souls; 
 
 Now, as thou wav'st the wizard rod, are seen 
 
 The Fays and Elves quick-glancing o'er the green; 
 
 There, mid the lightning's blaze and whirlwind's 
 
 howl. 
 On the scathed heath the fatal Sisters scowl. 
 
 These are thy wonders, Nature's darling birth! 
 And Fame shall waft thy wealth o'er all the earth. 
 There, where Rome's eagle never stooped for blood, 
 By hallowed Ganges or Missouri's flood. 
 Thy peaceful triumphs spread, and mock the pride 
 Of Pella's Youth, and Julius slaughter-dyed. 
 
 In ages far remote, if Albion's state 
 
 Hath touched the mortal limit, marked by Fate, 
 
 E'en Australasia shall thy sway prolong. 
 
 And her rich cities echo with thy song; 
 
 There myriads still shall laugh or drop the tear 
 
 At Falstaff's humor or the woes of Lear; 
 
 Man wave-like following man thy powers admire. 
 
 And thou, my Shakespeare, reign till time expire! 
 
 Newstead Abbey, Charles Symmons, D.D. 
 
 England. Aug. 4, 1825.
 
 STUDY IV 
 SHAKESPEARE'S WAND AND SCEPTRE 
 
 A STUDY OF HIS IMAGINATION AND POINTS OF 
 SUPERIORITY 
 
 " There is an upstart crow beautified with our 
 feathers." So Shakespeare is described by Robert 
 Greene in the year 1592.^ " Beautified with our 
 feathers! " This seems to imply that he is a 
 plagiarist. That may not be the meaning; but it 
 suggests the question of his originality. 
 
 " Many have supposed him original," says Grant 
 White, " when he was only following the old play 
 or the old story." Emerson remarks — "Shake- 
 speare regarded the mass of plays as waste stock, 
 in which any experiment might be freely tried, 
 and he used whatever he found. The investiga- 
 tion leaves hardly a single play as his absolute 
 invention." " A great poet " (I am still quoting 
 Emerson) " knows the sparkle of the true stone, 
 and puts it in high place, wherever he finds it. 
 Chaucer is a huge borrower; he uses poor old John 
 Gower as if he were only a brick kiln or a stone 
 quarry, out of which to build his house. He steals 
 by this apology, that what he takes has no value 
 where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves 
 it." 
 
 It is doubtful if Shakespeare originated wholly 
 
 [161]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 a single play.- When he builds the stately edifice, 
 he usually finds the corner stone already laid, 
 some if not all of the foundations in position, some 
 of the principal apartments located. In what, 
 then, does his originality consist? Partly in this: 
 that, as Augustus ' found Rome brick and left it 
 marble,' so Shakespeare finds a barn and leaves it 
 a palace. He touches the rude fabric: wood be- 
 comes gold, foundations grow, walls recede, rooms 
 multiply, ceilings lift; the roof expands, rounds 
 into a dome, stretches far toward the infinite 
 blue. Lo, columns, arches, battlements, towers! 
 
 " Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures graven! " 
 
 But the new structure, though it proves him a 
 master builder, is the least part. He was not 
 architect only, nor chiefly. So far as mere frame- 
 works or plots are concerned, other dramatists 
 and some novelists have been equally inventive, 
 equally constructive; many of them more so.' 
 But what music sounds through Shakespeare's 
 halls! What flowers of fancy and fragrance of 
 sentiment there! What outlooks to earth and sky, 
 toward heaven and hell, from those windows! 
 What pictures adorn those walls, or move before 
 our eyes! 
 
 Yet melody of verse, bloom of ideality, aroma of 
 feeling, glimpses of great truths of the seen and the 
 unseen, some of them from lofty soarings or deep- 
 sea soundings of the soul — neither one nor many 
 
 [162]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 of these combined are the principal charm. More 
 than all else what living, speaking, energetic forms, 
 interesting persons are here! The first thing we 
 note on entering and the last on leaving is the 
 multitude of striking characters, many of them the 
 creation of the poet himself, a hundred of them 
 seeming more real than the men and women of 
 history! 
 
 It is not so much their number as their distinct- 
 ness, representativeness, and mutual helpfulness. 
 Here are thirty-seven plays presenting more than 
 twelve hundred speakers, each of whom with 
 hardly an exception talks and acts consistently 
 with the author's conception of his part and so as 
 to promote the purpose of the whole. For, speak- 
 ing broadly, these productions, not only in their 
 structure but also in the arrangement and interplay 
 of characters, fulfil measurably the definition of an 
 organism, that in which all portions are recipro- 
 cally means and ends. 
 
 There has been a good deal of loose exaggera- 
 tion in describing his power, but most critics would 
 probably agree in asserting this: That no other 
 dramatist, perhaps no other man, ever stood at so 
 many independent standpoints, looked through so 
 many eyes, spoke from so many lips — in a word 
 identified himself with so many individualities. 
 His characters are rarely or never exact duplicates; 
 they are seldom interchangeable or superfluous. 
 Often each is typical of a distinct class. How 
 
 [163]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 different from many great poets! Byron's Man- 
 fred, Mazeppa, Lara, Cain, Conrad, Hugo, Alp, 
 Childe Harold, Don Juan, Sardanapalus and the 
 rest — all are different editions of Byron himself, 
 Byrons in miniature: they all have the handsome 
 Byronic scowl, or the beautiful Byronic disdain, 
 or the bitter Byronic sneer, or the eloquent Byronic 
 whine! Most of Milton's personages too, — Mil- 
 ton's Samson, Sabrina, Adam, Eve, Abdiel, Belial, 
 Beelzebub, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and 
 especially Satan — yes, there's a great deal of 
 Milton in the devil! his enemies always insisted 
 there was a good deal of the devil in Milton! — 
 they are all stamped with Milton's likeness; all 
 are phases of John Milton! 
 
 Not so with Shakespeare. His characters are not 
 little Shakespeares. If he seems to duplicate, it is 
 for dramatic effect, as in the case of the two 
 Dromios of Syracuse and Ephesus in The Comedy 
 of Errors. They are exactly alike externally, as 
 are also their masters. You cannot tell them apart 
 by their looks, "and there's the humor of it"; 
 but they are differentiated; not alike internally. 
 
 In this Character-creation the dramatist ap- 
 parently loses his identity, wears many masks, 
 becomes successively each of a thousand persons. 
 How is this transformation effected? Apparently 
 either by intuition and reproduction, or by original 
 creation: he either enters into the consciousness of 
 some known personage, perhaps historical, and then 
 
 [ 164 ]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 re-creates it, sometimes bettering it, Shakespearianiz- 
 ing it! ^ or he assumes, or so to speak invents, a 
 consciousness, clothes it with flesh and blood, all the 
 attributes of personality; and thus really originates 
 the character. In either case, the self-effacement 
 is perfect; the writer himself disappears. 
 
 From ' the foremost man of all this world,' 
 as he styles Julius Caesar, and from old Lear 
 ' every inch a king,' all the way down to young 
 Gobbo, whose horizon rarely reaches beyond his 
 dinner, and to Launce whose life mission was to 
 train his mischievous cur Crab ' even as one would 
 say,' "precisely »thus would I teach a dog"; — 
 from the elder Hamlet, ' a goodly king,' 
 
 A combination and a form indeed 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal 
 To give the world assurance of a man; 
 
 and from Mark Antony, of whose Herculean 
 physique Cleopatra exclaims, 
 
 His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck 
 
 A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted 
 
 The little O, the earth! 
 
 His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm 
 Crested the world; his voice was propertied 
 As all the tuned spheres! — 
 
 from such, all the way down to Thersites of the 
 sugar-loaf head, mastiff jaws, bandy legs, ' lame 
 of the other foot'; — yes, still lower to Caliban, 
 tortoise shaped, * fins like arms,' ' ancient and fish- 
 
 [165]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 like smell,' missing link between man and brute; — 
 from the perfect woman, 
 
 The noble sister of Publicola, 
 The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle 
 That 's curded by the frost from purest snow 
 And hangs on Dian's temple, dear Valeria! — 
 
 from the transparent innocence of Miranda, the 
 saintly devotion of Imogen, the heavenly tenderness 
 of Cordelia, — all the way down to the more than 
 swinish foulness of Cloten, the more than Mephisto- 
 phelian malice of lago, the more than devilish 
 savageness of Cornwall or Richard Third, — the 
 dramatist left himself far behind, and became for 
 the moment the person he imaginatively saw. 
 Nor stops with beings of common flesh and blood- 
 Gods and goddesses from Jupiter and Juno down; 
 allegorical persons like Time and Rumor; fairies, 
 witches; spirits from ocean, from air, from other 
 worlds, from beyond the grave; come at his call, 
 and Shakespearian words issue from supernatural 
 lips! 
 
 Is not this Character-creation the principal thing? 
 The more we note its grace, ease, and complete- 
 ness, the more his greatness grows upon us. 
 Argus was hundred-eyed. Rumor hundred-tongued, 
 Briareus hundred-armed; but such epithets be- 
 little Shakespeare. Rather wnth Hallam we term 
 him the ' thousand-souled,' or with Coleridge we 
 name him the ' myriad-minded,' and speak of his 
 ' oceanic intellect.' ' Oceanic '! — how multitudin- 
 
 [166]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 ous that sea of thought from whose depths bubbled 
 up in inexhaustible profusion such varieties of being! 
 If we name as the first point in his superiority 
 shown in a previous study his mastery of the Eng- 
 lish language, the blended copiousness and felicity 
 of his diction, is not this unequaled creation of 
 strikingly important characters the second?^ 
 
 To make this self-transformation more complete, 
 to give each important person of the drama an 
 appropriate setting, framework, and background, 
 he often creates or colors an environment. As a 
 means to this end, while he himself is for the mo- 
 ment out of sight and out of mind, he makes many 
 of his characters strangely subjective. The mood 
 imparts its tone and hue. Even inanimate nature 
 seems interpenetrated with the soul of the speaker, 
 sympathetic with him, sharing his views and 
 feelings; at least the speaker thinks so; the burning 
 emotion or passion, like colored flame in evening 
 fireworks filling the atmosphere with its odor, and 
 suffusing all things with its glow. 
 
 This will be clearer by illustration. Take Lady 
 Macbeth, bent on murdering her royal guest. 
 Contrast her words with those of the king and his 
 suite. They are coming to her castle in the north 
 of Scotland. It is ' beautiful for situation,' pleasant 
 for its pure air and breezes like the breath of 
 heaven, attractive for its architecture, sweetly 
 soothing for the notes of ' temple-haunting ' songs- 
 ters all around, their lovely nests in every advanta- 
 
 [ 167 ]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 geous nook; delightful for memories of affection, 
 music, gaiety, mirth, hospitality within its walls. 
 King Duncan is coming: all should be gladness: 
 but she means to kill him, if need be with her 
 own hands! Her soul is black: it radiates dark- 
 ness, as Byron says of Satan, 
 
 " And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space."^ 
 
 If she thinks of any bird, it is one of foreboding, 
 of midnight, Edgar Poe's * grim, ungainly, ghastly, 
 gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,' the raven! If 
 she thinks of any sound, it is one of evil omen, 
 a hoarseness, a croaking! if of any ceremony, it is 
 of deadly import, fatal! if of any portion of her 
 castle, it 's something menacing, frowning, hostile, 
 the battlements! Hear her mutter, thinking aloud! 
 
 The raven himself is hoarse, 
 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
 Under my battlements! 
 
 Soon the king arrives, all unsuspicious, full of 
 kindness and cheer. Glad thoughts tinge his 
 speech. No raven now, no hoarseness, no croaking, 
 no fatality, no threatening battlements! Hear him: 
 
 This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air 
 Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
 Unto our gentle senses.^ 
 
 Banquo chimes in — 
 
 This guest of summer. 
 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve 
 By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath 
 
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 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, 
 Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird 
 Hath made his pendent bed and prccreant cradle: 
 Where they must breed and baunt, I have observed 
 The air is delicate. 
 
 It may be worth while to note in passing that 
 this imparting of the color of the mind to the en- 
 vironment as if one looked through stained glass, 
 and still more this seeming transfer of the mind 
 itself to surrounding objects, as if all nature were 
 alive, sympathetic, consciously akin to the speaker 
 and sharing his mood, is not peculiar to Shake- 
 speare, James Russell Lowell to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. Lowell declares, " If this be accident, 
 it is at least one of those accidents of which Shake- 
 speare only was ever capable." On the contrary, 
 the same merit is seen in Bunyan, Burns, Milton, 
 and many others, including Lowell himself. Thus 
 Bunyan in one of his self-condemnatory moods ex- 
 claims, " Methought I saw as if the very sun that 
 shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light." 
 Burns, in his lines To Mary in Heaven — Mary 
 Campbell, whom he was to have married, but who 
 suddenly passed away — writes of their last meeting 
 on the banks of the river Ayr, 
 
 " Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore: 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thickening, green. 
 The fragrant birch, the hawthorn hoar, 
 Twined amorous round the raptured scene: 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed, 
 The birds sang love on every spray." 
 
 [169]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Milton in Paradise Lost describing a case of love 
 
 at first sight, makes everything share and seek to 
 
 augment the joy — 
 
 " All heaven 
 And happy constellations on that hour 
 Shed their selectest influence; the earth 
 Gave sign of gratulation and each hill; 
 Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs 
 Whispered it to the woods, and from their wings 
 Flung rose, flung odors from the spicy shrub. 
 Disporting, till the amorous bird of night 
 Sung spousal." 
 
 And Lowell himself possesses this excellence which 
 he affirms to belong to Shakespeare alone. Thus 
 the exquisite lines in The Vision of Sir Launfal — 
 
 " And what is so rare as a day in June? 
 Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
 Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 
 And over it softly her warm ear lays: 
 Whether we look or whether we listen, 
 We hear life murmur or see it glisten; 
 Every clod feels a stir of might. 
 An instinct within it which reaches and towers, 
 And groping blindly about it for light 
 Climbs to a soul amid grass and flowers. 
 
 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how: 
 
 Everything is happy now. 
 
 Everything is upward striving: 
 
 'T is as easy now to be good and true 
 
 As for grass to be green and skies to be blue; 
 
 'T is the natural way of living," 
 
 While, therefore, we cannot concede all of 
 
 [170]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Lowell's claim that Shakespeare is the sole posses- 
 sor of this power, we may grant that he surpasses 
 in the frequency, the completeness, and the felicity 
 of its exercise. 
 
 This. Character-creation, embracing not less than 
 twelve hundred who speak in all nearly twenty-five 
 thousand most appropriate words, and many of 
 whom live in peculiar atmospheres of thought and 
 sentiment, implies a keen, deep, perpetual scrutiny, 
 not only of human nature, human conduct, and 
 human history, but also of man's surroundings, all 
 things within reach of the senses and of mental 
 perception, all objects and subjects. No such 
 production, verbal delineation, or tinting of en- 
 vironment — not one of his great plays, hardly one 
 of his great characters — would have been possible 
 without an artistic observation extraordinary in 
 scope and power, a grasp most comprehensive, an 
 inspection most minute — all eyes, all ears, all 
 sense, all memory — perception and apperception. 
 Not otherwise can we account fully for his amazing 
 intelligence evinced in those stores of information 
 of which Lowell declares, " The range and accuracy 
 of his knowledge w^ere beyond precedent or later 
 parallel." This result may be questioned, but the 
 superior extent and accuracy of the dramatist's 
 observation will generally be conceded. Take a 
 single illustration. In 2 Henry IV, the Chief 
 Justice, Sir William Gascoigne, reprimands old 
 Jack Falstaff for pretending to be young — 
 
 [171]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, 
 that are written down with all the characters of age? 
 Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow 
 cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an in- 
 creasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind 
 short? your chin double? your wit single? and 
 every part about you blasted with antiquity? 
 
 Multiply this passage by a hundred, and we begin 
 to realize that this man was perhaps the keenest, 
 broadest of observers, his insight and range micro- 
 scopic and telescopic.^ 
 
 Considering the multitude of his characters, 
 their representativeness, the completeness with 
 which he withdraws himself from view, and the 
 extent to which he allows their idiosyncrasies to 
 tinge their surroundings, we learn how tolerant, 
 how large-hearted he was. His overflowing sym- 
 pathies reach an extraordinary number and every 
 kind. Clowns, fools, villains, witches, monsters, 
 fiends in human or devilish form, as well as kings, 
 sages, saints, warriors, statesmen, and truly angelic 
 women — all are made to appear at their best, 
 Shakespearianized ; all, even the worst, allowed to 
 plead their own cause, speak for themselves the 
 most fitting words. As one critic finely observes, 
 the dramatist " would rather feel them in his arms 
 than under his feet." All-embracing in his charity, 
 he can even " give the devil his due." Burns 
 pitied Satan and wished he'd reform! — 
 
 " But fare ye well, auld Nickie Ben, 
 O wad ye tak a thought and men'! 
 
 [172]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Ye aiblins might, I dinna ken, 
 
 Still ha' a stake! 
 I'm wae to think upon yon den, 
 
 Even for your sake! "^ 
 
 But Shakespeare goes a step further, respects His 
 Satanic Majesty's rank; says 
 
 Let the devil 
 Be sometime honored for his burning throne! 
 
 In the hateful passage in which he represents Joan 
 of Arc invoking the aid of fiends, they are 
 
 Under the lordly monarch of the north. 
 
 Lowell remarks, " Milton can do justice to great 
 devils, but not to little devils." But the dramatist 
 abdicates in favor of every one. Saint or sinner, 
 angel or imp, fool, felon or flunkey, sage, savage, 
 or simpleton — he treats all fairly, kindly, sym- 
 pathetically. Does he go too far in this? Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson thought so; he would rather see 
 a larger measure of righteous wrath grinding some 
 of these demons into small dust. 
 
 We cannot help feeling that is what fiends are 
 for; to be fought against and put down; to be 
 spurned, not dandled; not caressed in Shake- 
 speare's arms nor any arms; but flung as Alcides 
 threw Lichas ' from the top of QEta into the 
 Euboic sea,' or as Vulcan was 
 
 " thrown by angry Jove 
 Sheer o'er the crystal battlements," 
 
 or as Satan, whom 
 
 [173]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 " the Almighty Power 
 Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky! " 
 
 And so Johnson regrets that Shakespeare " carries 
 his persons indifferently through right and wrong, 
 and leaves their example to operate by chance." 
 Well, if he erred, it was on the side of charity. 
 We all need that. Let us rather set this down as 
 one of his points of superiority, that no other 
 writer of that age, or perhaps of any age, is so 
 tolerant as he. 
 
 The drama of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripi- 
 des, from which Aristotle is said to have drawn 
 his rules on the Poetic Art, was simple, like Greek 
 art in general. It respected strictly the Unities of 
 Time, Place, and Plot. Shakespeare's, like mediae- 
 val art was complex. Greek was classic, severe, 
 statuesque; Shakespeare, Gothic, varied, multi- 
 form. An ancient temple, say the Parthenon, 
 with its chaste simplicity, may stand for the 
 ancient drama. A cathedral of the middle ages, 
 say that of Amiens, Cologne, or Milan, with all its 
 complexity, may stand for the Shakespearian. 
 Except in Henry VIII he observes pretty well the 
 Unity of Plot; but he cares little for the Unities 
 of Time and Place. 
 
 He is, too, the earliest of dramatists to ' hold 
 the mirror up to nature ' by blending tragedy and 
 comedy. Contrast the most perfect of ancient 
 tragedies, say the Agamemnon of iEschylus, the 
 CEdipiis Tyrannus or Electra of Sophocles, or the 
 
 [174]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Alcestis of Euripides, with Hamlet, Othello, Lear, 
 or Macbeth. Is not the introduction of the comic 
 element, more or less alternating with the tragic, 
 truer to life? Does it not also relieve for a moment 
 from the almost unendurable stress of horror? 
 And then by contrast does it not accentuate and 
 intensify? 
 
 " Life, struck sharp on death, 
 Makes awful lightning." 
 
 This blending of sunshine and shadow difTerentiates 
 Shakespeare's from the ancient tragedies, as also 
 from most of the French. Perhaps we may claim 
 it as another point of his superiority. 
 
 Besides the intermingling of tragedy and comedy 
 as often occurs in human affairs, there are many 
 passages properly described as history, pastoral 
 dialogue, interlude, and even farce; so that old 
 Polonius is as correct as funny in his characteriza- 
 tion — "The best actors in the world for tragedy, 
 comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, his- 
 torical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical- 
 historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem un- 
 limited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus 
 too light." This mixture makes it difficult to 
 classify the plays i^** and the difficulty is enhanced 
 by the disregard of the Unity of Time. He allows 
 many months, sometimes years, fifteen or more, to 
 elapse between the first and the last act, as in 
 Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Kirig Henry VIII, 
 Equally regardless is he of the Unity of Place; 
 
 [175]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 shifting the scene in Macbeth from the north of 
 Scotland to the south of England four hundred 
 miles, and in Cymbeline from Wales to Rome a 
 thousand miles! 
 
 A simple arrangement, which is no classification 
 but may assist the memory, is to make the end of 
 the year 1600 the dividing line. About eighteen 
 of the plays were composed before, and about 
 eighteen after. 
 
 Speaking broadly we may say that the works 
 of his early manhood, those prior to 1601, display 
 more spontaneity, fertility, and splendor. Not that 
 imagination is anywhere lacking. Indeed it is 
 absolutely stronger, bolder, loftier in the later; 
 but more exuberant in the earlier. 
 
 Of these, Midsummer Night's Dream, which 
 Hallam deems the finest of all comedies, and which 
 Grant White singles out as ' the most exquisite, 
 the daintiest, the most fanciful creation that exists 
 in poetry,' has for its chief excellence the originality 
 and skill shown in the creation and management 
 of the fairy machinery. Except for slight touches 
 in Chaucer, Robert Greene, and one or two others, 
 he was the first to place upon the stage, the first 
 really to introduce into literature the fairies of 
 English folklore. 
 
 Time hardly suffices to illustrate the skill with 
 which he has done this; but as a hint of the 
 coinage of purest and most playful imagination 
 we may quote from the language of Oberon, king 
 
 [176]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 of the sprites, to his ' tricksy spirit ' Puck. The 
 passage contains the celebrated compHment to 
 Queen EHzabeth as ' a fair vestal throned by the 
 west.' It appears to be a recollection of ' the 
 princely pleasures of Kenilworth ' so finely de- 
 scribed by Walter Scott. Shakespeare, then a boy of 
 eleven years, had very likely tramped over to 
 Kenilworth a dozen miles away during that mem- 
 orable fortnight in 1575 and seen something of 
 what he describes. Oberon speaks — 
 
 My gentle Puck, come hither. — Thou rememberest 
 
 Since once I sat upon a promontory, 
 
 And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back 
 
 Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath 
 
 That the rude sea grew civil at her song, 
 
 And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
 
 To hear the sea-maid's music. 
 
 Ptick. 
 
 I remember. 
 
 Ober. 
 That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, 
 Flying between the cold moon and the earth 
 Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took 
 At a fair vestal throned by the west. 
 And loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow. 
 As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; 
 But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 
 Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon. 
 And the imperial votaress passed on 
 In maiden meditation, fancy free! 
 Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 
 It fell upon a little western flower. 
 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, 
 
 [177]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 
 Fetch me this herb .... 
 
 and be thou here again 
 
 Ere the leviathan can swim a league. 
 Puck. 
 
 I'll put a girdle round about the earth 
 In forty minutesP 
 
 If Midsummer Night's Dream excels In that phase 
 of imagination displayed in the creation and 
 management of the fairy machinery, The Merchant 
 of Venice is perhaps unequaled in the felicitous 
 juxtaposition of contrasted characters. The ter- 
 rible Jew is face to face with celestial Portia. We 
 must not pause to illustrate this contrast. Victor 
 Hugo comes near it in Les Miserablcs.^^ 
 
 But here are lines which Hallam thinks the 
 finest in Shakespeare. It is the passage which 
 blends in delicious harmony love, music, moonlight, 
 the star pavement of heaven, loftiest Platonic 
 philosophy, a vision of listening cherubs, an as- 
 surance of immortal life. 
 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! 
 Here will we sit and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 Sit, Jessica. — Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! 
 There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins! 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls! 
 
 [178]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Illustrative of the exuberance and splendor of 
 imagination in the earlier plays, the lines just 
 quoted remind us of another claim of superiority. 
 It is made by Richard Grant White. It is in 
 regard to the language form in which this imagina- 
 tion often clothes itself. Says White, " Shake- 
 speare's use of simile, imagery, and impersonation, 
 shows a power to which that of any other poet in 
 this respect cannot be compared even in the way of 
 derogation; for it is not only superior to, but 
 unlike that which we find in any other." He adds 
 by way of explanation, " He fuses a thought, a 
 feeling, and an image together." There is a basis 
 of truth in this claim, though at first it may seem 
 extravagant. On careful examination we shall 
 find that the analysis is not original with White; 
 the synthesis he praises is not peculiar to Shake- 
 speare. The rhetorical or poetic combination of a 
 truth, a sentiment, and a picture is almost the 
 precise excellence which Edmund Burke com- 
 mended a century and a half ago as characteristic 
 of great writers in every age. " A truly fine 
 sentence," said Burke, " consists in a union of 
 thought, feeling, and imagery — of a striking truth 
 and a corresponding sentiment, rendered doubly 
 striking by the force and beauty of figurative 
 language. "^^ The simplest element, the indis- 
 pensable basis, ornament or no ornament, must be 
 a truth, important or at least interesting. 
 
 To Illustrate: take the bald statement of the 
 
 [179]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 brevity of life, " Man is of few days," or as the 
 Prayer Book has it, " Man hath but a short time 
 to live." The next step adds a picture; as " Your 
 life is a vapor, that appeareth for a little time and 
 then vanisheth away." Or two pictures, " He 
 cometh forth as a flower and is cut down; he 
 fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not"; 
 or three pictures — 
 
 " As the winged arrow flies 
 Speedily its mark to find; 
 As the Hghtning from the skies 
 Darts and leaves no trace behind; 
 Swiftly thus our fleeting days 
 Bear us down life's rapid stream.^* 
 
 Or there may be many graceful images. Notice 
 how the ornaments soften and soothe: 
 
 " Like to the falling of a star. 
 Or as the flights of eagles are. 
 Or like a wind that chafes the flood 
 Or bubbles that on water stood, 
 Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue 
 Or silver drops of morning dew; 
 E'en such is man; whose borrowed light 
 Is straight called in and paid to-night! 
 The wind blows out, the bubble dies, 
 The spring entombed in autumn lies, 
 The dew dries up, the star is shot. 
 The flight is past, and man forgot. ^^ 
 
 In all these we have an important truth, that 
 life is brief; but here is no passion, no emotion, 
 scarce any feeling. The pictures are fine, but they 
 
 [180]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 have no color. Let us add the third ingredient, 
 the hue of sentiment. Take this from the southern 
 poet, the late Father Ryan of Mobile: 
 
 " Only a few more years, weary years! 
 Only a few more tears, bitter tears! 
 And then — ah! then — like other men, 
 I cease to wander, cease to weep; 
 Dim shadows o'er my way shall creep; 
 And out of the day and into the night. 
 Into the dark and out of the bright 
 I go! — ... and then like other men 
 I close my eyes and go to sleep; 
 Ah me! the grave is dark and deep! 
 Alas! alas! how soon we pass! "'^ 
 
 But as yet we have no impersonation. Let us 
 add, then, to the three component parts, the 
 fourth element, personification. Listen to half a 
 dozen lines from Shakespeare's Richard the Second. 
 In them note the familiar truth that life, even a 
 monarch's life, is brief. See, too, the imagery, a 
 king's crown expanded to a palace containing a 
 throne and a court! You share a feeling of in- 
 effable contempt for ridiculous vanity; and there 
 in full view is the tremendous skeleton form of the 
 King of Terrors, death personified! 
 
 Within the hollow crown 
 That rounds the mortal temples of a king 
 Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits 
 Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, 
 Allowing him a breath, a little scene, 
 To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks!" 
 
 [181]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 To show that this fourfold combination is not 
 peculiar to Shakespeare, note instances from other 
 authors. When Milton makes Satan exclaim — 
 
 " Which way I fly is hell! myself am hell! 
 And in the lowest deep a lower deep, 
 Still threatening to devour me, opens wide. 
 To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven! "" 
 
 we have one of the greatest truths; namely, to 
 use Milton's language, 
 
 " The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven! " 
 
 we have as intense a feeling as ever was uttered, 
 Satan's agony of remorse; we have a suggested 
 picture, the lowest depths of the infernal world; 
 and we have a personification, not so vivid as 
 Dante or Shakespeare would have made it, but 
 tremendous, the lower deep as a threatening, all- 
 devouring, open-jawed monster! 
 
 When Gray paints the early magnificence and 
 dark and bloody end of Richard's reign, a bright 
 summer day ending in cyclone, we have in half a 
 dozen lines a wonderful combination of prophetic 
 truth, sentiments of joy, pride, and reckless con- 
 fidence, a maritime picture unsurpassed in beauty; 
 vivid personifications of laughing Morn, a gilded 
 bark on a smooth blue sea. Youth with eyes on 
 the future, Pleasure guiding all, and in the distance 
 a crouching Whirlwind silently awaiting his victims! 
 
 [182]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 " Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 
 While proudly riding o'er the azure realm 
 In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, 
 
 Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, 
 Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway. 
 That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey!"" 
 
 Without pausing to point out or analyze, we 
 quote from Byron sentences illustrative. The first 
 is of a thunder-storm at midnight among the 
 Alps. 
 
 " Oh Night 
 And Storm and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong. 
 Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
 Of a dark eye in woman! Far along 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 
 And Jura answers through her misty shroud 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! 
 
 And this is in the night: most glorious Night! 
 
 Thou wast not made for slumber! let me be 
 
 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 
 
 A portion of the tempest and of thee! 
 
 How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea. 
 
 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! 
 
 And now again 't is black, and now the glee 
 
 Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
 
 As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth!" 
 
 And so the Morning after the storm — 
 
 " The Morn is up again, the dewy Morn, 
 With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
 Laughing away the clouds with playful scorn. 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb."™ 
 
 [183]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 In these passages and many others we find the 
 fourfold blending that has been claimed as Shake- 
 speare's alone, truth, feeling, picture, impersonation 
 — warp of logic, woof of sentiment, embroidery of 
 fancy, a robe richly wrought, and, within, the 
 throb, the stir, the consciousness, the activity of 
 an intelligent personality. This is as truly the 
 fact, though the workmanship may not be so deli- 
 cate, as in Romeo's exquisite description of the 
 dawn. He has stayed too long in his courtship, 
 and his life is in danger. Day begins to glimmer, 
 an unwelcome intruder, seeming envious of his 
 happiness, and coming to sever him from Juliet. 
 The subjectivity is inverted! 
 
 Look, love; what envious streaks 
 Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east? 
 Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund Day- 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's topsP^ 
 
 Professor Goodrich, in his work on British 
 Eloquence declares that more sentences combining 
 a striking thought with sentiment and imagery 
 are found in Burke than in any other writer. On 
 the contrary Burke falls below Shakespeare in this 
 regard; and if we include personification, there are 
 ten, yea, a hundred in the dramatist to one in the 
 statesman. Burke rarely. Bacon never, vividly 
 personifies. Shakespeare deals more profusely in 
 this quadruple commingling than any other, and 
 his artistic work is more complete. At once 
 philosopher, enthusiast, painter, life-giver, the very 
 
 [184]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 fibre of his logic seems metaphor; the color of 
 sentiment is not an after added dye, but ingrain; 
 the figures of fancy are not painted or printed — 
 it is not calico or chromo — but they are inwoven ; 
 and everything that he looks upon or even thinks 
 of, lives! What does this show? Is there not in 
 him a degree of piercing insight, subjective inten- 
 sity, fertile fancy, life-imparting creativeness, to 
 which we find no complete parallel, at least in 
 modern times, and of which men in general have 
 no conception? insight giving us truths; intensity, 
 sentiment; fancy, pictures; vital creativeness, 
 persons? 
 
 Set down, then, this fourfold blending as another 
 point in Shakespeare's superiority. 
 
 In a former study we endeavored to show that 
 he turns at will any word into a verb. With equal 
 ease he turns at will any object of thought into a 
 person. Probably nowhere else in literature are 
 there so many such or so life-like. Let us illustrate: 
 Romeo has slain Tybalt in fair fight; but the 
 nurse is of the Tybalt faction, and she exclaims, 
 " Shame come to Romeo! " Juliet hotly replies 
 (again note the fourfold combination!) — 
 
 Blistered be thy tongue 
 For such a wish! He was not born to shame. 
 Upon his brow Shame is ashamed to sit! 
 For 't is a throne where Honor may be crowned 
 Sole monarch of the universal earth!^^ 
 
 Listen to other examples. " Disdain and scorn 
 
 [185]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 ride sparkling in her eyes." " Nice customs curtsy 
 to great kings." " The wish is father to the 
 thought." 
 
 The iron of itself, though heat red hot, 
 Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears 
 And quench his fiery indignation 
 
 There is no malice in this burning coal; 
 
 The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out, 
 
 And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.^' 
 
 One more illustration out of hundreds; 
 
 Your mind is tossing on the ocean. 
 
 There where your argosies with portly sail. 
 
 Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, 
 
 Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, 
 
 Do overpeer the petty traffickers 
 
 That curtsy to them, do them reverence, 
 
 As they fly by them with their woven wings.^* 
 
 This vivid personification affords a glance, per- 
 haps more revealing than any other, into Shake- 
 speare's laboratory. Weak poets glue, strong weld, 
 Shakespeare fuses; simile becoming metaphor, and 
 metaphor creation. The cemented mass — truth, 
 feeling, imagery — in the passionate heat of this soul, 
 becomes incandescent, melts, flows into moulds, 
 solidifies; the castings are statues, the statues 
 persons alive, sympathetic, immortal as literature. 
 
 The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 
 
 And as imagination bodies forth 
 
 [ 186 ]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name.^^ 
 
 "A fine frenzy!" Is he not thinking of himself? 
 A single sentence is an aerolite from 
 
 The brightest heaven of invention; 
 
 a single act lets loose a group of shooting stars; 
 a single drama is a comet that drags in its train a 
 hundred meteors; and what shall we say of the 
 " Muse of Fire " that could send from its depths 
 in quick succession thirty-seven such to circle for- 
 ever in the world's intellectual sky? 
 
 We have been speaking chiefly of the plays 
 produced before the end of the century. It is 
 proper to add that some of the earlier, as for 
 instance the First and Second Parts of King 
 Henry the Fourth, appear to exhibit most con- 
 spicuously another quality, in which some of the 
 best judges claim that he surpasses all other drama- 
 tists or even all other authors, his Wit and Humor. 
 " Comparisons are odorous," as Dogberry wisely 
 remarks; but Falstaff is often regarded as the most 
 comic character in literature. As the Chief Jus- 
 tice says, Falstaff always " wrenches the true cause 
 the false way "; but his judgment is keen, as when 
 going into the battle of Shrewsbury he points out 
 the emptiness of false ' honor.' So he says, " I 
 am not only witty in myself, but the cause that 
 wit is in other men." 
 
 L187 ]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 We need not pause to illustrate this.^^ It is 
 enough that we mention with him some of the 
 other names synonymous with fun, frolic, jesting, 
 comicality in a hundred forms; Dogberry, Bottom, 
 Mercutio, the two Dromios, Launce, the two 
 Gobbos, Touchstone, the nameless fools and clowns; 
 those who laugh and those who are laughed at. 
 May we not properly include Wit and Humor as 
 an element in Shakespeare's superiority? 
 
 If his earlier works best exhibit the spontaneity, 
 exuberance, and brilliancy of his fancy, I think 
 we may safely affirm that his later have more depth 
 and delicacy, more reflective power; more daring, 
 comprehensive, lofty imagination; deeper signifi- 
 cance of humor; intenser pathos; more justice, 
 charity, self-control, fortitude.^'' The man has 
 grown in what the Scripture calls " Grace," as he 
 has grown in years. These qualities will be illus- 
 trated incidentally, though only to a limited ex- 
 tent, in what we have to say of three surpassing 
 excellences, clearly evident after the year 1600; 
 his Philosophic Insight, Practical Wisdom, and 
 Power of expressing deep and varied Emotion. 
 
 As bearing on his philosophic insight, we might 
 quote Lowell's bold assertion — " Whatever we 
 have gathered of thought or knowledge shrinks to 
 a mere footnote, the stepping-stone to some hitherto 
 inaccessible verse." Of his intuition Lowell writes — 
 " That intuition, whose edging shallows may have 
 been sounded, but whose abysses, stretching down 
 
 [188]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 amid the sunless roots of Being and Consciousness, 
 mock the plummet." Conversely, but to the same 
 effect, Hawthorne declares, " Shakespeare has surface 
 beneath surface to an immeasurable depth adapted to 
 the plummet line of every reader. His works present 
 many phases of truth, each with scope large enough 
 to fill a contemplative mind. There is no exhaust- 
 ing the various interpretations of his symbols; 
 and a thousand years hence a world of new readers 
 will possess a whole library of new books, as we 
 ourselves do in these old volumes already." Are 
 Lowell and Hawthorne given to exaggeration? 
 
 This insight is seen in numerous masterly 
 generalizations. We here quote but three.^^ 
 
 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
 
 'T is mad idolatry 
 
 To make the service greater than the god. 
 
 It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
 Not she which burns in it. 
 
 A learned critic characterizes as * superhuman ' 
 the precision and power with which our dramatist 
 differentiates at different epochs national peculiari- 
 ties, as, for instance, contrasting the Romans in 
 the time of Coriolanus with the Romans four and 
 a half centuries later in the time of Julius Caesar. 
 The gifted essayist, Edwin P. Whipple, calls at- 
 tention to the subtle insight in his method, seizing 
 unerringly the law of a class, so embodying it In 
 a character as to constitute it a type, and then 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 making it elevated, ideal, poetic, in a word, Shake- 
 spearian! 
 
 Akin to this philosophic insight, and as a conse- 
 quence of it, we may name his Practical Wisdom. 
 A palpable phase of this might be inferred from his 
 business success, a success unparalleled for two 
 hundred years till the time of Sir Walter Scott. 
 But his practical wisdom as an author has often 
 been questioned or denied altogether, especially 
 by the French critics, Chateaubriand, Taine, and 
 Voltaire. The average Frenchman has much wit, 
 little humor. He is likely to confound taste with 
 wisdom. They ought of course to be identical; 
 but too often in the fashionable world are far 
 apart: taste dealing with the outside; wisdom, 
 the inside; taste appearing well, wisdom really 
 being well. Chateaubriand affirms Shakespeare 
 has " corrupted art "; Taine is fond of representing 
 him as eccentric, irregular, lawless, bizarre, exag- 
 gerated, barbarous; " a drunken savage," says 
 Voltaire, whom, you will remember, Goethe char- 
 acterized as ' the greatest literary genius of all 
 time * — " Mw sauvage ivre sans le moindre etincelle 
 de hon gout, et sans le moindre connaissance des 
 regies.'' Voltaire continues the description — "a 
 writer of monstrous farces called tragedies " — 
 " these pieces are monstrous in tragedy . . . the 
 merit of this author has ruined the English drama!" 
 — " Imagine what you can of most monstrous and 
 absurd; you will find it in Shakespeare!" Later 
 
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 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 French critics, Victor Hugo, Darmesteter, Mezieres, 
 and a few others are unquahfied admirers, as are 
 all German, English, and American. " A heavenly 
 genius," says Goethe, " who approaches mankind 
 in order in the mildest way, to make them ac- 
 quainted with themselves." " He was the man 
 who, of all the moderns," says Dryden, " and 
 perhaps we should include the ancients, had the 
 largest and most comprehensive soul." He quotes 
 with approval from ' the ever-memorable Hales 
 of Eton,' " Whatever topic you quote upon from 
 the ancients, something at least equally well writ- 
 ten on the same may be found in Shakespeare. "^^ 
 Our Emerson declares, " Other poets are conceiva- 
 bly wise; Shakespeare, inconceivably. We can in 
 some sort nestle into Plato's brain; not so into 
 Shakespeare's; we are still out of doors! "^^ 
 
 But this is hearsay, opinion. One fact goes far 
 toward proving him the wisest of non-biblical 
 authors; he surpasses all the rest in the number of 
 keen and deep observations that have become prov- 
 erbs. In the first act in Hamlet, for example, 
 are more than a score of aphorisms, many of which 
 are as familiar as household words. Thus: 
 
 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world! — 
 
 " Frailty, thy name is woman! " — " In my mind's 
 eye, Horatio. " — 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again. — 
 
 " Loan oft loses both itself and friend." — " Bor- 
 rowing dulls the edge of husbandry." — 
 
 Foul deeds will rise, 
 Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. — 
 
 " A custom more honored in the breach than the 
 observance." — " Something is rotten in the state 
 of Denmark." — " One may smile and smile, and 
 be a villain." — 
 
 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 
 
 The time is out of joint; — O cursed spite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right! 
 
 This above all: to thine own self be true. 
 And it must follow, as the night the day. 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. — 
 
 We venture, then, to name Practical Wisdom as 
 another point in Shakespeare's preeminence. 
 
 One word more. Coleridge remarks that In- 
 tensity is a leading characteristic of genius. In 
 the power of portraying deep and varied emotion, 
 a power that was apparently increasing all through 
 his life, a power that seems to have been totally 
 lacking in Bacon, Shakespeare is on the whole 
 unequaled. Milton, we may concede, is un- 
 approached in sustained sublimity, intensity sono- 
 rous and prolonged. But we always fancy Milton 
 playing the organ, as Tennyson sings — 
 
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 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 " O mighty- mouthed inventor of harmonies! 
 O skilled to sing of time and eternity! 
 God-gifted organ voice of England, 
 Milton, a name to resound for ages! 
 
 Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
 Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, 
 Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 
 Rings to the roar of an angel onset. "^' 
 
 Milton is at the organ: Shakespeare plays many 
 instruments, sounds nearly every chord in the heart 
 from its lowest note to the top of its compass. 
 Shall we endeavor to illustrate? — sound the gamut 
 of the diatonic scale — imagine a " Seventh Sym- 
 phony "! show the three primary colors — fancy 
 the rainbow! pour a glass of water — say Niagara! 
 a splinter of marble — Dian's Temple! Neverthe- 
 less we quote as hints. 
 
 How much love, real or pretended, when the 
 splendid animal, Antony, returning victorious, calls 
 to the Egyptian Queen — 
 
 O thou Day o' the world, 
 Chain mine arm'd neck! Leap thou, attire and all. 
 Through proof of harness to my heart, and there 
 Ride on the pants triumphing!" 
 
 How much of reverent love, tinged with a sense 
 
 of its divineness, for the sincerest is most sacred, 
 
 is compressed in Ferdinand's inquiry of Miranda 
 
 and their instant avowals! 
 
 Ferd. I do beseech you, 
 
 Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers, 
 What is your name? 
 
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 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Mir. Miranda. — O, my father, 
 
 I have broken your hest to say so! 
 Ferd. Admired Miranda! 
 
 Indeed the top of admiration! worth 
 
 What's dearest in the world. Full many a lady 
 
 I have eyed with best regard 
 
 But you — O you, 
 
 So perfect and so peerless, are created 
 
 Of every creature's best! 
 Mir. I do not know 
 
 One of my sex; no woman's face remember. 
 
 Save from my glass mine own; nor have I seen 
 
 More that I may call men than you, good friend, 
 
 And my dear father 
 
 but, by my modesty. 
 
 The jewel in my dower, I would not wish 
 
 Any companion in the world but you; 
 
 Nor can imagination form a shape, 
 
 Beside yourself, to like of ... • 
 Ferd. Hear my soul speak: 
 
 The very instant that I saw you, did 
 
 My heart fly to your service; there resides 
 
 To make me slave to it 
 
 Mir. Do you love me? 
 
 Ferd. O heaven! O earth! bear witness to this sound. 
 
 And crown with kind event what I profess. 
 
 If I speak true; if hollowly, invert 
 
 What best is boded me to mischief! I, 
 
 Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, 
 
 Do love, prize, honor you. 
 Mir. I am a fool 
 
 To weep at what I am glad of.^' 
 
 How much of scorn and wrath break from Corio- 
 lanus when he turns upon cowardly soldiers fleeing 
 in battle! 
 
 I 194 ]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 You souls of geese that bear the shapes of men, 
 
 How have you run from slaves that apes would beat! 
 
 Pluto and hell! all hurt behind! backs red, 
 
 And faces pale with flight and agued fear! 
 
 Mend and charge home; or, by the fires of heaven, 
 
 I'll leave the foe and make my wars on you! 
 
 Look to 't: come on! 
 
 Before the Volscian lords, whom he had erst 
 fought single-handed and driven like sheep before 
 him in their capital city of Corioli, their leader 
 Aufidius now stigmatizes him as ' A Boy! ' ' a 
 Boy of tears!' because he has wept, and yielded 
 to his mother's entreaties, and spared Rome. 
 Coriolanus' words are sledge-hammer — 
 
 Measureless liar! thou hast made my heart 
 
 Too great for what contains it. " Boy "? O slave! — 
 
 Pardon me, lords; 't is the first time that ever 
 
 I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords. 
 
 Must give this cur the lie. 
 
 But the conspiring nobles are drawing their swords 
 to kill him on the spot. He shouts, 
 
 Cut me to pieces, Volsces! men and lads, 
 
 Stain all your edges on me! — " Boy "? — false hound! 
 
 If you have writ your annals true, 't is there. 
 
 That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
 
 Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli; 
 
 Alone I did it. — " BOY! "" 
 
 How much of admiration and love in Florizel's 
 praise of Perdita! He thinks she is perfection: 
 so do we. 
 
 [195]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 What you do 
 Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, 
 I'd have you do it ever. When you sing, 
 I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms; 
 Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs. 
 To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you 
 A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
 Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own 
 No other function. Each your doing 
 
 Crowns what you are doing 
 
 That all your acts are queens!'^ 
 
 How much of noblest indignation in Queen 
 Katharine's repudiation of Cardinal Wolsey as her 
 judge in the court scene in Henry VIII. 
 
 Q, Kath. Lord Cardinal, 
 
 To you I speak. 
 
 WoL Your pleasure, Madam? 
 
 Q. Kath. Sir, 
 
 I am about to weep; but thinking that 
 We are a Queen, or long have dreamed so, certain 
 The daughter of a King, my drops of tears 
 I'll turn to sparks of fire, 
 
 Wol. Be patient yet. 
 
 Q. Kath. I will when you are humble; nay, before. 
 
 Or God will punish me. I do believe. 
 Induced by potent circumstances, that 
 You are mine enemy, and make my challenge 
 You shall not be my judge; for it is you 
 Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me, — 
 Which God's dew quench! — Therefore, I say again, 
 I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul, 
 Refuse you for my judge; whom yet once more 
 I hold my most malicious foe, and think not 
 At all a friend to truth l^*! 
 
 [196]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 How full of awe the prayer of Pericles during 
 the sea-tempest in which his daughter Marina was 
 born! 
 
 Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges, 
 Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast 
 Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, 
 Having called them from the deep! O still 
 Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench 
 
 Thy nimble sulphurous flashes! 
 
 The seaman's whistle 
 
 Is as a whisper in the ears of death. 
 Unheard!" 
 
 How much of horror in the selfish Claudio's fear! 
 He has committed a capital crime, and must die 
 for it on the morrow. There is but one way to 
 save his life; his sister, the white-souled nun 
 Isabella, must give up her chastity to the foul 
 acting duke! How unspeakable is her disgust at 
 the vileness of Angelo, and still more at the 
 willingness of her brother that she should pay 
 such a price to prolong his worthless existence! 
 
 Claud. O Isabel! 
 
 Isab. What says my brother? 
 
 Claud. Death is a fearful thing. 
 
 Jsab. And shamed life a hateful. 
 
 Claud. 
 
 Aye; but to die and go we know not where — 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot — 
 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 
 A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods .... 
 
 or to be worse than worst 
 
 [197]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts 
 
 Imagine howling! — 't is too horrible! 
 Isab. Alas, alas! — 
 Claud. Sweet sister, let me live. 
 
 What sin you do to save a brother's life — 
 
 Nature dispenses with the deed so far 
 
 That it becomes a virtue. 
 Isab. O you beast! 
 
 O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! 
 
 to take life 
 
 From thine own sister's shame! 
 
 Take my defiance! 
 
 Die! perish! — Might but my bending down 
 
 Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed. 
 
 I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, 
 
 No word to save thee. 
 Claud. Nay, hear me, Isabel. 
 
 Isabel. O, fie, fie, fie! 'T is best that thou diest quickly!" 
 
 How much of desperate fierceness and would-be 
 cruelty in Lady Macbeth's invocation of evil 
 spirits to come and help her kill King Duncan! 
 
 Come, you spirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here. 
 And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full 
 Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood! 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse, 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose .... 
 
 Come to my woman's breasts 
 
 And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers. 
 
 Wherever in your sightless substances 
 
 You wait on Nature's mischief. Come, thick Night, 
 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 
 [ 198,]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark 
 To cry 'Hold! hold!'" 
 
 How refreshing the recognition of human equaHty, 
 the utter nothingness of rank on the ship in The 
 Tempestl King Alonzo, Duke Antonio, the high 
 counsellor Gonzalo, the King's brother Sebastian, 
 and other noblemen rush on deck where they've 
 no business to be in the fury of the storm. They 
 obstruct the proper movements of the sailors. 
 King Alonzo undertakes to give orders to the 
 boatswain! 
 
 Alonzo. Good boatswain, have care. — Where's 
 the master? — Play the men. 
 
 Boatswain. I pray now, keep below. 
 
 Antonio. Where is the master, bo'son? 
 
 Boatswain. Do you not hear him? You mar our 
 labor. Keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. 
 
 Gonzalo. Nay, good, be patient. 
 
 Boatswain. When the sea is. Hence! What cares 
 these roarers for the name of king? — To cabin! 
 Silence! Trouble us not. 
 
 Gonzalo. Good, yet remember whom thou hast 
 aboard. 
 
 Boatswain. None that I love more than myself. 
 You are a counselor. If you can command these 
 
 elements to silence — we will not hand 
 
 a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, 
 give thanks you have lived so long, and make your- 
 self ready in your cabin for the mischance of the 
 hour Out of our way, I say.'*" 
 
 In Lear the passion is almost superhuman. His 
 brain is a volcano, hurling masses of mixed thought, 
 
 1199]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 feeling, imagery, white-hot and swift. Maddened 
 by the ingratitude of daughters to whom he has 
 given his kingdom, but who have repaid him by 
 driving him out of doors into the night and the 
 storm, he exclaims of one — 
 
 All the stored vengeance of heaven fall 
 
 On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones, 
 
 You taking airs, with lameness! . . . 
 
 You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames 
 
 Into her scornful eyes!*^ 
 
 Was ever more distressful cry than this? 
 
 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 
 To have a thankless child! 
 
 Beloved Regan, 
 
 Thy sister's naught. O Regan, she hath tied 
 Sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here! 
 I can scarce speak to thee. 
 
 When Lear thinks the heavens are friendly, he 
 appeals to them for sympathy and succor on the 
 ground that he and they are alike old! 
 
 O heavens, 
 If you do love old men, if your sweet sway 
 Allow obedience, if yourselves are old. 
 Make it your cause, send down and take my part! 
 
 But the heavens, the elements, are not friendly, and 
 in midnight and tempest he raves defiance at them. 
 
 Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, rage, blow! 
 
 You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout 
 
 Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the cocks! 
 
 You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, 
 
 [200]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, 
 
 Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, 
 
 Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world! 
 
 Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once 
 
 That make ingrateful man! 
 
 Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout rain! 
 Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters. 
 I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness; 
 I never gave you kingdoms, called you children; 
 
 But yet I call you servile ministers. 
 That will with two pernicious daughters join 
 Your high-engendered battles 'gainst a head 
 So old and white as this. O! O! 't is foul! 
 
 When Lear's discarded daughter CordeHa hears of 
 the treatment of her father by her unnatural sisters, 
 
 . Now and then an ample tear trilled down 
 
 Her delicate cheek 
 
 Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of father 
 Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart; 
 Cried " Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters! 
 Kent! father! sisters! — What, 'i the storm? 'i the night? " 
 
 Then she shook 
 
 The holy water from her heavenly eyes! 
 
 When at last he has become helpless and insen- 
 sible, she bends over him with almost unspeakable 
 tenderness — 
 
 O my dear father! — Restauration hang 
 Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss 
 Repair those violent harms that my two sisters 
 Have in thy reverence made! Was this a face 
 To be opposed against the warring winds? 
 
 [201]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder? 
 In the most terrible and nimble stroke 
 Of quick cross lightning? . . . Mine enemy's dog, 
 Though he had bit me, should have stood that night 
 Against my fire! 
 
 We may now enumerate those points in which it 
 may perhaps be fairly claimed that Shakespeare 
 surpasses all other dramatists, if not all other men. 
 
 1. As shown in another Study, his mastery of the 
 English Language, the blended copiousness and felicity 
 of his diction. 
 
 2. Character-creation, the number, consistency, 
 and representativeness, of striking Dramatis Personae. 
 
 3. Felicitous subjectivity, creating and coloring a 
 sympathetic environment. 
 
 4. Extraordinary artistic observation. 
 
 5. Vastness of knowledge. 
 
 6. Tolerance, impartial and perfect. 
 
 7. Mirroring actual life in its changing phases. 
 
 8. Spontaneity and exuberance of Imagination. 
 
 9. Sentential structure, uniting truth, feeling, 
 imagery, and personality. 
 
 10. Personification, vivid and universal. 
 
 11. Wit and humor. 
 
 12. Philosophic insight. 
 
 13. Practical wisdom. 
 
 14. Portrayal of deep and varied emotion. 
 
 How strange that few or none of that age so 
 prolific of genius recognized the greatest of them 
 allH- Ben Jonson knew him, honored him, loved 
 him; and a greater than Jonson, John Milton, born 
 nearly eight years before Shakespeare's death, has 
 left on record his estimate of our dramatist's 
 
 [ 202 J
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 primacy. What he thought of the comedies may 
 be inferred from the fact that in his V Allegro he 
 singles him out and for sweetness and fancy places 
 him at the head of all — 
 
 " Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
 If Jensen's learned sock be on, 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 What he thought of the tragedies may fairly be 
 gathered from the Theatrum Poetarum of his 
 nephew, Phillips, a work that bears evident traces 
 of the uncle's mighty hand. These are the words: 
 "In tragedy none ever expressed a more lofty and 
 tragic height; none ever painted nature more purely 
 and to the life." And what he thought of him as 
 both author and man is clearly seen in the Epitaph 
 composed fourteen years after his death. It is a 
 voucher for the dramatist's moral character; for 
 the fastidious young Puritan was not the man to 
 tolerate immorality, much less to glorify one 
 tainted with vice. The title expresses admiration: 
 it reads, " Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic 
 Poet, William Shakespeare." It expresses personal 
 love and religious reverence, calling him * dear,' 
 ' my Shakespeare,' speaking of ' his honored bones,' 
 and 'hallowed relics.' It almost deifies him; for it 
 represents him as ' son of Memory ' (Greek Mnemo- 
 syne) and so by inference brother of the nine Muses. 
 It would seem as if there was talk of erecting a 
 lofty monument to his memory; but Milton re- 
 
 [203 i
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 gards any such possible structure as * a weak 
 witness ' at best, though it were a stone pyramid 
 piled to the skies by a generation of toilers. And 
 lastly by a far-fetched but truly Miltonic tableau 
 he groups the eminent living admirers, himself 
 among them, around Shakespeare's lowly tomb, and 
 there they are transmuted into marble with very 
 astonishment at the mighty genius that had dwelt 
 in that tenement of clay. For a sepulchre encom- 
 passed by such statuary, even kings would gladly 
 die! 
 
 The earliest of Milton's poetry to get into print, 
 it shows him the first truly illustrious Englishman 
 to appreciate Shakespeare at his real worth, and 
 connects most honorably the greatest of epic 
 poets with the greatest of dramatists. 
 
 " What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones 
 The labor of an age in piled stones? 
 Or that his hallowed relics should be hid 
 Under a stary-pointing pyramid? 
 Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? 
 Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
 Hast built thj'self a livelong monument. 
 For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art 
 Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 
 Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 
 Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, 
 Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, 
 Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; 
 And so sepulchred in such pomp dost He 
 That kings for such a tomb would wish to die." 
 
 [204]
 
 NOTES IN STUDY IV 
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 ' Greene, poet and dramatist, a man of real ability, had been educated 
 for a minister, but had fallen and become a drunken actor. Dying at 32 
 in September of a ' surfeit of pickled herring and Rhenish wine,' he left 
 behind him a singular treatise composed on his death-bed, entitled ' A 
 Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance,' in which he 
 betrays his jealousy at Shakespeare's rising fame. The passage is com- 
 monly regarded as the earliest contemporary mention of Shakespeare in 
 the theatre. It is therefore worthy of careful examination. It reads, 
 " There is an upstart crow " (meaning a newly arrived ungainly country 
 fellow) " beautified with our feathers " (perhaps meaning tricked out with 
 a theatrical costume hke ours); " that with his tiger's heart wrapped In a 
 player's hide " (echoing the Hne in 3 Henry VI, I, iv, 137, ' O tiger's heart 
 wrapped in a woman's hide! ' — the phrase ' tiger's heart ' indicating an 
 intensity amounting to fierceness), " supposes he is as well able to bombast 
 out a blank verse as the best of you " (addressed to his fellow dramatists, 
 Marlowe, Nash, Peele, or Lodge, and attributing to Shakespeare a belief 
 that he could compose sonorous blank verse as pompous as ' Marlowe's 
 mighty line'); "and being an absolute Johannes factotum (' Jack-at-all- 
 trades, able to do anything and everything), " is, in his own conceit " 
 (Shakespeare must have known his superiority), " the only Shake-scene in 
 a country." ' Shake-scene ' is probably equivalent to stage manager. 
 
 It is gratifying to know that the publisher of Greene's book, Mr. Henry 
 Chettle, three months later in December, 1592, publicly apologized for this 
 attack on Shakespeare; and, bearing personal testimony to his gentlemanly 
 behavior and his excellence as an actor, he declares, " Divers of worship 
 have reported his uprightness of dealing which argues his honesty, and his 
 facetious grace in writing that approves his art." 
 
 ■ We find a substantial basis for all except Love's Labor's Lost and per- 
 haps The Tempest, which some suppose to have been founded upon an 
 Italian or Spanish novel that has disappeared. Only slight hints have been 
 discovered that may have helped in the plot of The Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 ' As Scott, Dickens, Balzac, the Dumas, Zola, Howells, Kipling, and 
 many others. Ben Jonson is said to have composed 50 comedies; ^Eschy- 
 lus, 70 tragedies; Sophocles, 123; Lope de Vega Carpio, 1500 playsl 
 
 * Note how clearly in the tragedy of Julius Ccesar he sees through 
 Brutus, Cassius, Cicero, Csesar, Mark Antony and the rest; how he 
 
 [205]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 improves on the Homeric conception of Ulysses in Troilui and Cressida; 
 and how celestial he makes Portia in The Merchant of Venice in contrast 
 with the rather indelicate and greedy though beautiful ' cat ' of II Pecorone. 
 
 » See Study No. 1, of this series, p. 25. 
 
 •See Byron's The Vision of Judgment, St, xxiv; also Shelley's Prome- 
 theus Unbound, II, iv, 3, 4. 
 
 'See notes on Macbeth I, v, 36-38; I, vi, 1-10, Sprague's ed.; also his 
 notes on V, i, 1-22, of The Merchant of Venice; also Stanza v of Milton's 
 Hymn on the Nativity, and his Paradise Lost VIII, 511-520. See note on 
 Hamlet's remark. " There is nothing either good or bad but thinking 
 makes it so," II, ii, 246, Sprague's ed. The reader will recall the famous 
 song, beginning, " The year 's at the spring " in Browning's Pippa Passes. 
 
 •Young Gobbo "sleeps by day more than the wild-cat"; Merchant of 
 Venice, II, v, 47. Drunken Stephano knows the effect of wine the first 
 time it is ever drunk; The Tempest II, ii, 67; notes in Sprague's editions. 
 How nice the discernment by Ulysses of the effect of Diomede's aspiring 
 spirit! (Troilus and Cressida IV, v, 15, 16.) 
 
 He rises on the toe: that spirit of his 
 In aspiration lifts him from the earth. 
 
 •See Burns's Address to the Deil, last stanza. "The lordly monarch of 
 the north " is alleged by Schmidt in his Shakespeare Lexicon to be Lucifer, 
 referring to Isaiah xiv, 13. Symmons, Rolfe and some other editors make 
 him to be Zimimar, one of the four principal devils invoked by witches. See 
 comments on 1 Henry VI, V, iii, 5. 
 
 i" The most common classification is that of the First Folio (1623); via., 
 14 Comedies; 10 Histories (of the English kings); and 12 Tragedies. 
 Pericles was not included. 
 
 "See Notes to Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 145-173, Sprague's ed. 
 Grant White declares that line 161, 
 
 In maiden meditation fancy free, 
 
 furnishes the finest example in literature of the beauty of alliteration. 
 But is it finer than that in the last stanza of Longfellow's The Slave in the 
 Dismal Swamp, 
 
 " On him alone the curse of Cain 
 - Fell like a flail on the garnered grain "? 
 
 [206]
 
 His Wand and Sceptre 
 
 or than Goldsmith's 
 
 " And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue 
 Pants to the place from whence at first she flew "? 
 
 Lines 93, 94 of The Deserted Village. 
 
 >» Merchant of Venice, IV. i, 35-385; also V. i, 54-65; notes in Sprague's 
 ed. 
 
 '3 Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and 
 Beautiful. It was handsomely examined by Goldsmith in Griffith's Monthly 
 Review, in May, 1757. 
 
 '* By John Newton, friend of the poet Cowper (1725-1807). 
 
 '» Attributed to Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) by Charles Dexter Cleve- 
 land (1802-1869); but to Henry King (1591-1669) by William Cullen 
 Bryant (1794-1878) in his Library of Poetry and Song. 
 
 15 Reverie by Abrara Joseph Ryan (1834-1886). 
 
 1- Richard II, III. ii, 160-165. 
 
 IS Paradise Lost IV, 75-78; also I, 254. 255. But Dante places his 
 Lucifer, alias Satan, at the bottom of hell. Wedged in there, he is crunch- 
 ing in his triple jaws Judas Iscariot, Marcus Brutus, and Caius Cassiusl 
 
 "Gray's Bard, 71-76. 
 
 2» Childe Harold, Canto III, xcii. xciii, xcviii. 
 
 21 Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 7-10. 
 
 «! Romeo and Juliet, III, ii, 90-94. 
 
 21 King John, IV, i, 61-63; 109-111. 
 
 2* Merchant of Venice, I, i, 8-14. See notes, Sprague's ed. 
 
 ^^ Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i, 12-17. 
 
 2«See / Henry IV, V. i. 130-140, quoted on p. 119 of the Third Study 
 in this series. 
 
 " If we may include Hamlet and Julius Ccesar among the plays after 
 the year 1600, we may safely say that there is a greatness in subjects and 
 characters superior on the whole to that which we find in the earlier. 
 E.g., see especially in The Tempest, IV, i, 148-158, and the notes in 
 Sprague's ed. Here are the great tragedies, Othello, Timon, Lear, Macbeth. 
 Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Antony and Cleopatra; the great comedies. The 
 Tempest, Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, and Twelfth 
 Night. 
 
 [207]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 =' Troilui and Cressida. Ill, Hi. I'o; II. ii, 57; Winter's Tale, II, iii. 115, 116. 
 
 M In the voluminous Dictionary of Quotations from English and American 
 Poets compiled by R. H. Stoddard, himself a poet of no mean rank, there 
 are five thousand nine hundred and fourteen choice selections from two 
 hundred and twenty-four poets illustrative of hundreds of topics. Of these 
 quotations, fifteen hundred and sixty-three are from Shakespeare alone, 
 being nearly three times as many as from any other poet. 
 
 a> Richard Grant White, one of the acutest and most learned of Shake- 
 spearian critics, avers that the Fool in Lear " has wisdom enough to set 
 up a college of philosophers." But he never lived in Boston. 
 
 31 Tennyson's Alcaics (experiment in quantity). 
 
 32 Antony and Cleopatra, IV, viii, 13-16. 
 
 33 The Tempest, III, i, 31-52; 63-74; notes in Spraguc's ed. 
 it Coriolanus, I, iv, 34-40; V. vi, 103-106; 112-117. 
 
 35 The Winter's Tale. IV, iv, 134-146. 
 3« Henry VIII. II, iv, 68-84. 
 37 Pericles. III. i, 1-10. 
 ^^ Measure for Measure. III. i, 114-150. 
 »» Macbeth. I, v, 38-52. See notes, Sprague's ed. 
 « The Tempest, I, i, 9-25. Consult notes, Sprague's ed. 
 " Lear, II, iv, 156-160. See also in Lear, III. ii. 1-9; 13-25; IV, iii, 
 12, 25-30; IV, vii, 26-39, etc. 
 
 « The literary men on the continent in that age or not much later — men 
 like Cervantes. Galileo, Kepler, Richelieu, Grotius, Descartes, Joseph 
 Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon — could not take notice of the works of an 
 obscure English dramatist. But it seems surprising that he escaped the 
 attention of the great Englishmen; Bacon, Raleigh, Walsingham, Richard 
 Hooker, Dr. Donne, Isaac Walton, Edmund Spenser. Sir Edward Coke, 
 John Selden, John Pym, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Sir Henry 
 Wotton, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Taylor, and the rest. 
 
 [208]
 
 INDEX 
 
 N. B. In this Index the capital S stands for Shakespeare, either the man or 
 his works. The names of his dramas are often abbreviated, the initial letters 
 or syllables of the principal words in the title standing for complete words. 
 Thus L.L.L.»» Love's Labor Lost; Mer. of V.= Merchant of Venice. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 .'Vctor. As such S. is com- 
 plimented. 
 
 205 
 
 Address to the De'il, 
 Robert Burns's, 
 
 173 
 
 ^schylus, soldier-author, 
 
 111 
 
 quoted. 
 
 148 
 
 his fruitfulness. 
 
 205 
 
 Affeeror, 
 
 19, 20 
 
 Agassiz, Louis, as teacher 
 in school. 
 
 73 
 
 Agnes Hathaway. Same as 
 Anne? 
 
 94 
 
 Age, Elizabethan, most re- 
 markable. 
 
 89 
 
 Age of S. at marriage. 
 
 60. 93 
 
 at deatii. 
 
 93 
 
 Age proper for marriage, 
 Bacon's view. 
 
 95 
 
 Agincourt, battle of. 
 
 122, 154 
 
 Alcaics, Tennyson's experi- 
 ment in, 
 
 193, 208 
 
 Aldermen in Stratford; 
 John S. one, 
 
 20, 21 
 
 ale-conner. 
 
 19, 46 
 
 Alexander, Mrs., 
 
 109, 151 
 
 Alfred the Great, soldier- 
 author. 
 
 112 
 
 Alleged blunders in law 
 by S.. 
 
 82 
 
 Alliteration, fine in S., in 
 others, 49, 
 
 206, 207 
 
 Alonzo, King of Naples, 
 intrudes. 
 
 199 
 
 American soldier-authors, 
 
 113 
 
 Amyas Leigh's love of ad- 
 venture, 
 
 129 
 
 Analysis, sentence, 179, 184 
 
 .Ancestry of S., 17 
 Ancestr>', pride of, Saxe's 
 
 burlesque, 45, 46 
 
 Ancient Pistol, 34, 51 
 
 Ann, sister of S., 47 
 Angelo, acting duke in M. 
 
 for M., 197 
 
 Angelo, Michael, quoted, 70 
 
 .\ntonio in The Tempest, 199 
 
 Antony, Mark, in Jul. C, 205 
 
 Antony, in Ant. and Cle., 165, 193 
 
 Antwerp, captured by 
 
 Spanish, 134 
 
 Aphorisms, illustrative, 
 
 quoted. 191, 192 
 
 Apocrypha, drawn from by 
 
 S., 59 
 
 Arden. Celtic for 'wood?' 18 
 
 Arden family, 146 
 
 .\rden, Mary, mother of S., 
 
 17, 18, 46 
 
 Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, 35, 52 
 Aristocracy, American, hit 
 
 off by Saxe, 45, 46 
 
 Aristotle, 174 
 
 Armada, ' The Invincible,' 146 
 Armorial bearings of Sir 
 
 Thomas Lucy, 101 
 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 90, 91 
 Arnold, Thomas, of Rugby, 73 
 Arrangement of plays, dif- 
 ficult, 175, 176, 206 
 Arrest for poaching? 85, 101 
 
 209]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 Art. Greek, 
 Gothic, 
 that of S., 
 Assonance, 
 Aubrey, John, 
 
 quoted. 
 
 40, 41, 66, 74, 86, 94. 
 description of the boy S., 
 Aufidius in Coriolanus, 
 Aurora Leigh, Mrs. Brown- 
 
 PAGE 
 
 174 
 
 174 
 
 174 
 
 49 
 
 132. 143 
 
 41 
 
 195 
 
 ings. 
 
 15, 70, 175 
 
 22 
 
 23, 36, 122, 132 
 
 57, 70 
 
 95, 129 
 
 20 
 
 85, 102 
 
 96 
 
 183 
 
 Babe, tenderness of. 
 
 Bacon. Francis, 
 
 Bacon, quoted, 
 
 on marriage. 
 
 Bailiff, high, in Stratford, 
 
 Ballad on Sir Lucy, coarse 
 but keen, 
 
 Banquo, whitewashed? 
 
 Bard, Gray's, quoted, 
 
 Baynes, T. Spencer, 23, 46, 47, 48 
 
 Beaumont, Francis, quoted? 180, 207 
 
 Bed, ' second-best,' 67 
 
 Beecher, Rev. H. W., quoted, 
 
 71, 72, 152 
 Beeston, William, quoted, 74, 96 
 
 Berni's Orlando Inamorato, 35, 52 
 Betterton, Thomas, good 
 
 authority, 40, 83. 101, 130 
 
 Bible, number of words in, 25 
 
 Bible, knowledge of by S., 37, 38, 59 
 Boatswain ignores rank in a 
 
 tempest, 199 
 
 Boccaccio's Decameron, 35 
 
 Boiardo. Matteo M. His 
 
 Orlando, 35, 52 
 
 Bond, marriage, quoted, 93 
 
 Books. Shakespeare's, 
 
 26, 38, 39, 58, 59, 93, 97 
 Books, we have too many? 58 
 
 Borough court, 20, 21, 46 
 
 Botany in S., 115 
 
 British Eloquence, Goodrich's 184 
 
 'Boy "of tears,' spoken in 
 
 scorn, 195 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, a school- 
 teacher. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. E. B., 
 quoted, 15 
 
 Browning's life-work? 
 Browning, Robert, quoted, 
 136, 
 
 Brutus, Marcus, 
 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 
 
 Banyan, John, quoted, 
 
 Bunyan, soldier-author, 
 
 Burges, Tristan, 
 
 Burial of Moses, by Mrs. 
 Alexander, 
 
 Burke, Edmund, quoted, 
 
 Burke's Philosophical In- 
 quiry, 
 
 Burns, Robert, quoted. 
 Bust of S., carefully ex- 
 amined. 
 
 Bust, colored, etc., 
 Butcher business, drama- 
 tized, 
 Byron, Lord, quoted, 168, 
 Byron's characters little 
 Byrons, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 73 
 
 , 70, 
 
 175 
 
 
 58 
 
 155, 
 
 206 
 
 126, 
 
 205 
 
 
 207 
 
 
 169 
 
 112. 
 
 113 
 
 
 96 
 
 
 151 
 
 179. 
 
 184 
 
 179. 
 
 207 
 
 169, 
 
 173 
 
 86, 
 
 102 
 
 
 102 
 
 
 41 
 
 183, 
 
 206 
 
 164 
 
 Cffisar, Julius, soldier-author.lll, 165 
 Calhoun, John C., quoted, 96 
 
 Calendar, O. S.. ' retrenched,' 45 
 Caliban, the ' missing link '? 
 
 Campbell. John, Lord Chan- 
 cellor, quoted, 
 
 Capell, Edward, quoted, 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, quoted. 
 
 Castle of Macbeth, 
 
 Castle, Mr. William, 
 
 Catechism, Ch. of Eng., 
 quoted, 
 
 Celtic blood, nature, etc., 
 
 Cervantes, a soldier-author? 
 
 Chamberlain in Stratford, 
 
 Chamberlain's Company, the 
 Lord, 
 
 Chapman. Geo., translator, 
 
 165, 
 
 166 
 
 80, 
 
 113 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 23 
 
 167, 
 
 168 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 86 
 
 18 
 
 . 45 
 
 
 112 
 
 
 20 
 
 e 
 
 96 
 
 
 52 
 
 [210]
 
 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Character-creation, the chief 
 
 thing? 163, 166. 171 
 
 Characters in S., how created, 
 
 164, 165 
 Characters rarely duplicated, 
 
 1,000 male, 125 female, 163. 164 
 
 Charity in S., hardly paral- 
 leled, 172-174 
 
 Charlecote, Sir T. Lucy's 
 
 mansion, 101, 102 
 
 Park of deer at? 83 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, ' a huge 
 
 borrower," 161, 176 
 
 Chaucer, a soldier-author? 94, 112 
 
 Chateaubriand, Vicomte de, 
 
 quoted, 190 
 
 Chettle, Henr>', apologizes, 205 
 
 Blames S., 154, 155 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 
 
 quoted, 168, 183, 207 
 
 Chuzzlewit, Martin, Dickens's, 
 quoted, 27 
 
 Classical names in S., pro- 
 fusion of, 96 
 
 Classification of the plays, 
 
 difficult, 175, 176, 206 
 
 Clay, Cassius M., marriage 
 
 at 83, 93 
 
 Claudio in M. for M., 197, 198 
 
 Clearchus to Tissaphernes, 154 
 
 Cleopatra in Atit. and Cle., 
 
 disgusted, 27 
 
 Clerk, militarj'. S. for Sid- 
 ney? 116, 144 
 
 Clopton, Sir Hugh, His 
 
 ' Great House,' 68, 95 
 
 Cloten, the human swine, 106 
 
 Clowns, jesters, fools, etc. 
 in S.. 188 
 
 Coining words, 30, 32. 49, 50 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., quoted, 
 
 42, 75, 120, 166, 192 
 
 Comedy and tragedy in same 
 
 play, 174, 175 
 
 Comedy of Errors, source of, 30, 50 
 
 Comedy in S. Milton's 
 estimate of, 202, 203 
 
 ' Common-law marriage '? 
 
 no solemnization? 60, 93 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Compensation, law of, 110, 151, 152 
 
 Compliment to Queen Eliza- 
 beth, 177 
 
 ' Conjugation.' quickly learned, 
 
 78, 79, 98 
 Conjugation, two-fold, 98 
 
 Conscious strength, 89 
 
 Constables in Stratford, 19 
 
 in the plays, 46 
 
 Conscious strength, 89 
 
 Contemporary great men 
 
 unaware of S., 202, 208 
 
 Cordelia in Lear, 166, 201, 202 
 
 Coriolanus, 194, 195 
 
 Cornwall in Lear, 166 
 
 Court-leet in Stratford? 20, 21, 80 
 Court, Venetian, its four- 
 fold power, 82, 99, 100 
 Cowden-Clarkes, Charles 
 
 and Mary, quoted, 144 
 
 Cowper, William, quoted, 113 
 
 Crispian, Crispin and, saints, 
 
 126,127, 128 
 Crispin, Saint Crispin's 
 
 Day, Oct. 25, 154 
 
 Cromwell's Ironsides, 124 
 
 Currency values in the age 
 
 of S., 95 
 
 Cymbeline, source of, 35 
 
 Dante, soldier-author, 112 
 
 Darmesteter, James, French 
 
 author, 191 
 
 Davenant, Sir William, 143 
 
 David, King, soldier-author. 111 
 
 David Copperfieli, Dickens's, 95 
 
 Davies, Archdeacon Rich- 
 ard. 130 
 
 Davis, Cushman K., on law 
 
 in S., quoted, 81, 113 
 
 Davis, John of Hereford, 
 
 quoted, 86, 132, 141 
 
 Decameron, Boccaccio's, drawn 
 
 from, 35, 60 
 
 Deer-stealing, not accounted 
 
 bad, 83, 84, 102 
 
 Departure for London, 86, 130 
 
 [2Uj
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 PAGE 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, quoted, 
 
 
 26,66 
 
 Deserted Village, Goldsmith's 
 
 ^ 
 
 quoted from. 
 
 207 
 
 Devecmon, William C, 
 
 
 able lawyer. 
 
 82 
 
 Devil, the, honored as 
 
 
 monarch. 
 
 173, 206 
 
 Devil, Milton just to? 
 
 173 
 
 Devil, pitied by Burns! 
 
 172. 173 
 
 Devils, little ones, Milton 
 
 
 toward. 
 
 173 
 
 Dewey, Orville, quoted. 
 
 24, 48 
 
 Diana Enemorada, Jorge de 
 
 
 Montemayor's, 
 
 53, 59 
 
 Dickens, Charles, his Mark 
 
 
 Tapley, 
 
 26, 27 
 
 his Micawber, 
 
 19,95 
 
 fruitfulness. 
 
 205 
 
 Dictionary of Quotations, 
 
 
 Stoddard's, 
 
 191, 208 
 
 Differentiation in meanings, 
 
 26.49 
 
 Differentiation of national 
 
 
 traits. 
 
 189 
 
 Dogberry, father of all 
 
 
 * Malaprops,' 19, 38, 
 
 187, 188 
 
 Double comparatives and 
 
 
 superlatives. 
 
 51 
 
 Double negatives = an af- 
 
 
 firmative? 
 
 51 
 
 Doyle, Mr. John T. on 
 
 
 Central Am. courts, 82 
 
 , 83, 100 
 
 Dowdall, John, traveler. 
 
 
 quoted. 
 
 94 
 
 Drama, the classic. 
 
 174 
 
 Dreams of soldiering. 
 
 120, 121 
 
 Dromios, the two. 
 
 164 
 
 Dryden, John, quoted. 38 
 
 , 73, 191 
 
 Dyaks of Borneo, defec- 
 
 
 tive language of. 
 
 28 
 
 Earl of Warwick's apology 
 
 for ' Hal,' 
 
 31, SO, 100 
 
 East India Company's first 
 
 charter, 97 
 
 Education of S. .\vailable 
 
 means for, 22, 23 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Education, the best and only 
 
 real, 99 
 
 Electra of Sophocles, com- 
 ment on, 32, 33, 51 
 
 Eliot. Charles W. His five- 
 foot shelf, 58, 59 
 
 Elizabethan age, most won- 
 derful, 89, 112, 113 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, at the 
 
 bar of History, 156, 157 
 
 Elizabeth's speech at West 
 
 Tilbury. 147 
 
 Emerson, R. W., once a 
 
 school-teacher, 73 
 
 Emerson on brain of Plato 
 
 and S., quoted, 191 
 
 Emerson, on originality of 
 
 S., quoted, 161 
 
 Emotion and passion, in- 
 tense expression of, 192-201 
 
 English, mastei-y of, by S., 28, 30, 167 
 
 Environment, fitting, made 
 
 or colored by S., 167 
 
 Epitaph of /Eschylus, quoted, 148 
 
 Epitaph on S., by Milton. 204 
 
 Epitaph on wife of S., 
 
 quoted, 93 
 
 Epithets. Those of S. and 
 ^schylus, 33 
 
 Equality, All men's recog- 
 nized, 199 
 
 Escapades of S., easily ex- 
 plained, 53 
 
 Etymologies, studied by 
 
 S.? 30 
 
 Euphronius, tutor in Anl. 
 
 and Clc. Tl. 78 
 
 Euphues, John Lyly's; its 
 influence, 88? 103 
 
 Euphuism, a fad in the Eliza- 
 bethan age, 103 
 
 Euripides, drawn from, 33 
 
 Evans. Sir Hugh. Welsh 
 
 schoolmaster, 76, 97 
 
 Evil spirits invoked by 
 
 Lady Macbeth, 198, 199 
 
 Experiments in phraseology, 103 
 
 [212]
 
 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fairy machinery introduced 
 by S., 176, 
 
 Falslaff and Equity, 
 
 Falstaff, prince of comic 
 characters, 31, 
 
 running _away, 
 
 Falstaff on emptiness of 
 false honor, 
 
 Faulconbridge (Philip), pa- 
 triotism of. 
 
 Felicity in speech, a con- 
 stant aim, 26 
 
 Fencing, technical terms in, 
 
 Ferdinand and Miranda, 
 
 Ferdinando Stanley, Lord 
 
 Strange, 
 Flight? from Stratford, 
 Florizel and Perdita, 
 Fool in Lear wiser tlian 
 
 philosophers? 
 Four-fold combination in 
 
 sentence, 
 French used fluently by S., 
 French's Genealogica Shakc- 
 
 spereana, 
 Fulman, Rev. William, an 
 
 authority. 
 
 Game laws in England, 
 
 more stringent, 
 Genius defined. 
 Genius in action. 
 Genius of S., for labor, 
 Genius, physical basis of. 
 Ghost in Hamld, 86, 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 
 
 Quoted, 
 Goethe's ideal in childhood? 
 Goethe, quoted. 
 Goldsmith. Oliver, Quoted, 
 Gonzalo's intrusion checked, 
 Goodrich, Cliauncey A.. 
 
 author, 
 Gothic art complex? 
 
 Gower, John, ' the moral,' 
 quoted. 
 
 177, 
 
 178 
 
 
 99 
 
 172, 
 
 187 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 125 
 
 
 131 
 
 .49. 
 
 103 
 
 116, 
 
 117 
 
 193. 
 
 194 
 
 73 
 
 1, 96 
 
 
 86 
 
 195, 
 
 196 
 
 
 208 
 
 181- 
 
 -185 
 
 
 23 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 102 
 
 
 84 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 109 
 
 102, 
 
 , 133 
 
 
 149 
 
 ' 57, 58 
 
 
 191 
 
 
 207 
 
 . 
 
 199 
 
 
 1S4 
 
 
 174 
 
 
 161 
 
 65,94 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Grammar, De Quincey on 
 
 defective, 26 
 
 Grammar school at Strat- 
 ford, 22. 23, 47 
 
 Grammar school, English, 
 
 curriculum. 47, 48 
 
 ' Gratification ' ( = honora- 
 rium?), 100 
 
 Gray, Thomas, quoted, xii, 182, 183 
 ' Great House ' or ' New 
 
 Place." of S., 95 
 
 Greek coined into English. 32, 33, 51 
 Greek Drama, origin of? 41 
 
 Greek idioms in S.. 51 
 
 Greek phraseology trans- 
 lated? 33, 50, 51 
 
 ' Greek, small Latin and 
 
 less.' 23, 31. 33, 50 
 
 Greene, Robert, dramatist, 
 
 161, 176. 205 
 
 his sneer at S., quoted 
 
 and examined, 205 
 
 Gregorian calendar, 45 
 
 ' Hal.' Intimacy with Fal- 
 staff, why? 31, 50 
 Hal's reformation, 50, 100 
 
 Hales of Eaton. ' ever 
 
 memorable.' quoted. 191 
 
 Hallam. Henry, historian. 
 
 his opinion, 166, 176, 178 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps. High 
 
 authority. 46. 61, 95. 96, 101 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, quoted. 16. 95 
 
 Hamlet, drama of. quoted 
 from, 29. 81, 206 
 
 Hamlet, elder. King of Den- 
 mark, 133 
 
 Hamlet, younger, prince of 
 
 Denmark. 1)3 
 
 Haranet and Judith, twins 
 
 born to S., 83, 13S 
 
 Handkerchief, Othello's fatal, 
 
 34, 35, 52 
 
 Handwriting, Hamlet's, fine 
 
 in his youth. 155 
 
 Handwriting of John S.. 43 
 
 [213]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Handwriting of S.. 155 
 
 Happy marriage of S.? 66-69 
 
 Harrington, John, Transla- 
 tion of Ariosto (1591), 35 
 Hathaway cottage at Shot- 
 
 terv'. 60, 63, 66, 67. 71. 93 
 
 Hathaway, Anne, possible 
 
 pupil of S.? 78, 79 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, esti- 
 mate of S., 189 
 
 Heavens, if friendly, invoked 
 
 by Lear, 200 
 
 Heirloom in the Hathaway 
 
 cottage, 61 
 
 Henry IV, Part 1, 120, 153 
 
 Henr>' V. Favorite king of 
 
 S., 101, 122, 123, 124 
 
 HenPv' VIII stops the Strat- 
 ford school, 47 
 
 Hippology in S., 115, 152 
 
 ' Hold the mirror up to 
 
 nature,' 99 
 
 Holden, Edward S., on 
 
 vocabularies, 48, 49 
 
 Holinshed's Chronicle His- 
 tories, 59, 93 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 135 
 
 Holophernes, pedantic teacher 
 
 in L. L. L., 76 
 
 Homer, poet, once school- 
 master? 72, 73 
 
 Homer, quoted, 151 
 
 Homer's words literally 
 
 translated by S., 33 
 
 Honor, false; its bubble 
 
 pricked? 125, 126. 127, 128 
 
 Honor, true, its essential 
 
 nature, 126 
 
 Horse, ' a department of 
 
 theology,' 152 
 
 Horse. Murray's The Per- 
 fect Horse, 115, 152 
 
 Horses and horse worshipers, 152 
 Hortensio, music teacher in 
 
 Tarn, of Shrew, 77 
 
 Hotspur's dreams, 120 
 
 honor. 126, 136, 137 
 
 Hugo, Victor 178, 191 
 
 Hyphened words in S., to 
 be noted, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 52 
 
 lago in Othello, 166 
 
 Ideal of love, 65, 66 
 Identity. S. parts with his 
 
 own, 164 
 
 Iliad, Homer's, drawn from, 33, 51 
 
 Image, ingredient in a sen- 
 tence, 180 
 
 Imageri', abundant in Bacon, 
 
 more in S.. 184 
 
 Imagination, most exuberant 
 
 before 1601? 176. 178, 179 
 
 Imagination, most pro- 
 found after 1601? 176 
 
 Impulse, threefold, persis- 
 tent? 87 
 
 Impecuniosity of S., over- 
 stated? 94 
 
 Industry of S., attested. 87 
 
 Industr>', demonstrated, 38, 39 
 
 Insight, keen and compre- 
 hensive, 164, 165, 171. 205, 206 
 
 Insight, profound philosophical, 
 
 188, 205 
 
 Intensity, characteristic of 
 
 genius, 192 
 
 Intensity in S., rarely paral- 
 leled, 192-198 
 ' Invincible Armada,' 146 
 Invocation of devils, bv 
 
 Lady Macbeth, 198, 199 
 
 Inwardness, the true, seen 
 dearly by S., 205 
 
 Isabella in M. for M., 197, 198 
 
 Italian language, knowledge 
 
 of by S.? 23, 34, 35, 36, 52 
 
 Italian origin of five plays, 53 
 
 Jacques-pierre «= Shakespeare? 
 
 17 
 
 James, King, pleased with 
 dramas of S., 
 
 154 
 
 James's ' Servants of the 
 King ' licensed. 
 
 96 
 
 Jesting, 
 
 142 
 
 John of Gaunt, Outburst of 
 patriotism. 
 
 131 
 
 [214]
 
 Index 
 
 Johnson, Gerard, maker of 
 
 the S. bust, 102 
 
 Johnson, Jesse, Judge, 37 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 74, 75 
 
 Johnson regrets charity to 
 
 devils, 17J, 174 
 
 Joke and deer carried too 
 
 far, 85 
 
 Jonson, Ben, lover of S., 202 
 
 quoted, 31, 51 
 
 Jonson, Ben, prolific author 
 
 of comedies, 56 
 
 Jonson's splendid praise of 
 
 S. in Folio I, 56 
 
 Jorge de Montemayor, au- 
 thor of 1,500 plays? 36 
 
 also of the Spanish Diana 
 Enamorada} 53, 59 
 
 Juliet in Rom. and J., 
 
 intense, 185 
 
 June's rare days described 
 
 by Lowell, 170 
 
 Jurisdiction of Venice court, 
 
 fourfold? 99, 100 
 
 Jurors in Stratford, 19 
 
 Justice, Chief, Sir William 
 
 Gascoigne, 171 
 
 to Falstaff, 171, 172, 187 
 
 Justice Shakespeare in Strat- 
 ford, 46 
 
 Katherine, French princess. 34 
 
 Katherine, Queen, in Henry 
 
 VIII. 196 
 
 Kemp, William, dancer of 
 jigs, 139-141, 156 
 
 quoted, 140 
 
 Kenilworth Castle, resi- 
 dence of Leicester, 144 
 ' princely pleasures of ' 177 
 
 King Henry, quoted? 180, 207 
 
 King Henry V, favorite of 
 
 S., 123 
 
 Kingly parts played by S., 102 
 
 ' King's Servants,' company 
 of S.. 96 
 
 Kingsley's Westward Ho, 129 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Knave, true meaning of, 
 
 138. 144, 145, 156 
 
 Knowledge, displayed in the 
 
 S. plays, 90, 171 
 
 how acquired, 171 
 
 Laboratory process in brain 
 
 of S., 186 
 
 Lady Leicester, the Earl's 
 
 wife, 139, 144 
 
 Lady Macbeth. Her dark 
 
 design, 167, 168 
 
 Lady Sidney, Sir Philip's 
 
 wife, 138. 144 
 
 L' Allegro, Milton's, quoted, 203 
 
 Lamb. Charles, quoted, 142 
 
 Lampoon on Sir Thomas's park 
 
 gate, 85 
 
 Language form, peculiar in 
 
 S.? 179 
 
 Lapse into poverty, by 
 
 John S., 39. 40 
 
 Later plays (i. e., after 1601) 
 
 greater? 138-192, 207 
 
 Latin, as taught in school, 23 
 
 Latin, knowledge of by S., 
 
 30. 31. 34, 50, 52 
 
 Latin recitation by ' sprag ' 
 
 boy, 97 
 
 Latin taught to Bianca, 78, 79 
 
 Law in court scene in Mer. of 
 
 V. 99, 100 
 
 Law, knowledge of by S., 79, 80 
 
 Lawrence, James, quoted, 149 
 
 Lear, passion in, 199-201 
 
 Learning in S., 23 
 
 Lee, Sidney. His Life of S.. 
 
 2i, 45, 46, 61, 96 
 
 Legalism in S., 81, 113 
 
 Legal terminology, alleged 
 
 blunders in, 82 
 
 Leicester, Lord, 88 
 
 Leicester's Company of actors, 96 
 Leicester's soldiering, 
 
 115. 116, 134. 135. 138. 144 
 L€onidas, 149 
 
 [215]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Librar>- of S., small but select, 
 
 58. 59 
 License to marry, discovered, 93 
 
 Lichas, thrown from top of 
 
 Mt. CEta. 173 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, studying by 
 
 firelight, 44 
 
 Lineage of S., how far known, 17 
 
 Lineage. Saxe on American, 45, 46 
 
 Literary men in Elizabethan 
 
 age, 208 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., quoted, 206 
 
 Lope de V'ega's fruitfulness. 205 
 Lovers and madmen coupled 
 
 in M. N. D., 62 
 
 Lowell, J. R., opinion of. 33, 38 
 
 quoted. 17. 25. 32, 90, 173, 188, 189 
 modestly mistaken? 169, 170 
 
 Lucentio, how he taught 
 
 Latin, 78, 79 
 
 Luces = pikes (fishes) or pecu- 
 
 lida, 101, 102 
 
 Lucian's Greek Dialogues, 32 
 
 Lucifer alias Satan alias Zimi- 
 
 mar? 206 
 
 Lucy, Sir Thomas = Justice 9 
 
 Shallow? 83-86 
 
 Lucy's deer preserve, 
 
 83, 84. 101, 102 
 
 Lyly, John, romancer and 
 
 dramatist, author of Euphues, 103 
 
 Mab, queen of fairies, her 
 
 pranks. 121 
 
 Mabie, Hamilton W., author. 2.^ 
 
 Macbeth, castle of. 167, 168 
 
 Macbeth. Lady, her subjec- 
 tive intensity, 167, 168, 198, 199 
 Maginn, William, ansv.-ers 
 
 Farmer, 36 
 
 MaJapropisms of Dogberry 
 
 and his ilk, 19, 38, 187, 188 
 
 Malone, Edmund, 80 
 
 Manningham, John,- quoted. 97 
 
 Marina, tempest-born in Peri- 
 cles. 197 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Marriage of S. and Anne 
 Hathaway, 
 
 60, 61. 63. 65, 69, 93. 132 
 
 Marsh. Dr. G. P.. on num- 
 ber of words. 48 
 
 his method of counting. 49 
 
 Massinger, Philip, dramatist, 
 
 quoted, 42 
 
 Masters. Stratford grammar- 
 school. 93 
 
 Meanings condensed or dif- 
 ferentiated, 26. 49 
 
 MencBChmi of Plautus, 30, 50 
 
 Mfzigres, Alfred, French scholar, 
 (1860), 191 
 
 Mer. of Venice, source of. 35 
 
 Micawber, Wilkins, Dickens's, 
 
 19,71 
 
 Mrs. Micawber lovingly 
 threatens. 71 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 
 White's characterization. 176 
 
 Military ambition and ardor. 
 
 134. 135. 145, 148 
 
 Military life affording equip- 
 ment. 113-116 
 
 Milton. John. 25, 36. 48. 203 
 
 quoted, 
 70, 162, 170, 173, 174, 182, 203, 204 
 
 his devil and other characters 
 phases of Milton? 164 
 
 Milton's great epitaph on S., 204 
 
 Milton's ideal? 57, 58 
 Milton's Music, described by 
 
 Tennyson, 193 
 
 Miranda, 166 
 
 Miranda, Latin. 30 
 
 Miranda and Ferdinand. 193, 194 
 
 Mirror help up to nature by 
 
 S.. 99 
 
 Mohammed, soldier-author, 112 
 
 Moli^re, J. B. P., quoted. 53 
 
 Mommsen. Theodor. quoted. 111 
 
 Money values, then and now, 95 
 
 ' Moral Gower.' quoted. 65. 94 
 
 Morgan. Appletou. S. scholar, 
 
 author, 23, 36, 37, 18, 82 
 
 quoted, 45 
 
 [216]
 
 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' Morris dance,' by Kemp 
 
 in 1600. 156 
 
 Moses, soldier-author, 109 
 
 Moses, Song of, ItO 
 Murray, W. H. H., 115, 152 
 
 Moth, page in L. L. L., 76 
 
 Music, ' food of love,' 64, 94 
 Myriad-minded; Coleridge's 
 
 phrase, 166 
 
 Name, familiarly abbreviated, 141 
 
 Name, S., how spelled, 45 
 
 for short, 45 
 Nature, imagined intelli- 
 gently sympathetic, and 
 
 participating, 167 
 
 Navigation, knowledge of by 
 
 S., 114, 152 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's dream, 110 
 
 Newton. John, quoted, 180; 207 
 
 Nicaragua, court usages in, 
 
 82, 83. 100 
 
 Niceties in language, 26, 49, 10.5 
 
 Nobility and gentry with 
 Leicester, 135, 154 
 
 Observation, minute, illus- 
 trated, 171, 172, 206 
 
 ' Oceanic intellect.' Cole- 
 ridge's phrase, 166 
 
 Odyssey, Homer's, drawn 
 
 from, 41 
 
 quoted, 151 
 
 CEdipus Coloneus of Sopho- 
 cles, 5 1 
 
 Organism, each play an? 163 
 
 Olivia in Twelfth Night , 63 
 
 Originality of S.; in what? 
 
 162, 163, 205 
 
 Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, 35 
 
 Orlando Inamorato of Berni, 35, 52 
 
 Orlando of Boiardo, 52 
 
 Orsino, Duke, in Twelfth 
 
 NigSU, 63 
 
 Othello, story of, 34. 35 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Outlines, Life of S., Halli- 
 well-Philipps's, 
 
 16. 46. 61. 95, 96, 101 
 Ovid, favorite poet of S.. 31, 50, 59 
 
 Page, William, author's an- 
 cestor? 
 
 97 
 
 Paradise Lost, quoted from 
 
 162. 170, 173, 174, 182 
 
 Parma, Duke of. 146, 147 
 
 Patriotism in S.. 131 
 
 Pectdidce; vestimenli; Ang- 
 
 lice, lice, 85, 101 
 
 Pedagogy, art of. 72, 73 
 
 Penmanship of S., 155 
 
 Personification in a sen- 
 tence, 181-183 
 
 Personifications, multitudin- 
 ous, 185, 186 
 Pet names, abbreviations, 141 
 
 Philip II of Spain, 146 
 
 Philosophical Inquiry, Ed- 
 mund Burke's, 179. 207 
 Physical basis of genius, 109 
 ' Phrase-monger,' was S.? 49, 103 
 
 ' Physician or fool at 40,' 
 
 proverb, 114, 152 
 
 Pity, tenderness of, 47 
 
 Place, Unity of. often dis- 
 regarded in S., 175, 176 
 
 Plagiarism charged? 161 
 
 Plato's brain, Emerson on 
 
 nestling in, 191 
 
 Plautus's Menmchmi, 30, 50 
 
 Plots, not often originated 
 
 by S.. 162 
 
 Plutarch's Lives, 49. 59. 93 
 
 Poaching on Lucy's deer 
 
 preserve. 83-85, 101, 102 
 
 Poe, Edgar A., quoted, 168 
 
 Poetic gymnastics, a kind of? 103 
 
 Points of superiority, 202 
 
 Polonius's classification quoted. 175 
 
 Pope, Alexander; his chosen 
 vocation. 58 
 
 Povertv. John S. lapses 
 into? 39, 40 
 
 [.217J
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Practical wisdom of S., 190-192 
 
 Private tutors, termed school- 
 masters? 77, 78 
 Prose in S., 28, 29, 49 
 Protest against influx of new 
 
 words, 50 
 
 Proverbs in S., 191, 192 
 
 Pun on name Will, 141, 142 
 
 Puns in S., 103 
 
 Charles Lamb's dictum, 142 
 
 Puritan poet, 203 
 
 Pythagoras, 72 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, arraignment 
 
 of by Goldwin Smith, 156, 157 
 
 Quince. Peter, in Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream, 98 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, soldier- 
 author, 112 
 Ralph Roister Doister, 98 
 Randolph, John, storj' told 
 
 of, 96 
 
 Randolph, Thomas, quoted, 70 
 Rank, ignored aboard ship 
 
 in tempest, 199 
 Recruits, Falstaff's, Mouldy, 
 
 BuUcalf, etc.. 153 
 
 Reed, Edwin. 49 
 
 Regan, daughter of Lear, 200 
 
 Reputation, precious, 125 
 
 Richard II. 119 
 
 Richard III. 166 
 
 Rolfe. W. J.. 23 
 
 Root meanings of words, 30, 32, 75 
 Rosalind to Orlando in .\. 
 
 Y. L. L, 62 
 Rowe, Nicholas, first bi- 
 ographer of S.. 48, 83, 132. 133 
 
 Rumor, allegorical, 166 
 Ryan, Abram J., quoted, 181. 207 
 
 Sacrificial goat in dawn of 
 
 drama, 41, 53 
 
 Saint Crispin's Day, 126 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Satan, honored as monarch, 173 
 
 pitied by Burns, 172 
 
 quoted in Paradise Lost, 182 
 
 location of. 207 
 
 Saxe, J. G.. stanzas quoted, 45, 46 
 
 Schlegel, A. W. von. quoted, 144 
 
 School, old-fashioned, un- 
 loved, 77 
 
 * School ' wrongly changed 
 
 to shoal in Macbeth? 97 
 
 Schools, importance of rec- 
 ognized, 75, 76 
 
 School-keeping, 70, 71, 72 
 
 Schoolmaster with but one 
 
 pupil, 77, 78 
 
 was S. such? 71-79 
 
 Schoolmaster lore, 74 
 
 methods, 97, 98 
 
 School-teachers, greatest and 
 
 smallest, 72, 73, 93 
 
 Scott, Walter, childhood as- 
 piration, 36 
 ' Second-best bed,' 67 
 Scour se of Folly, quoted from. 141 
 Scourge of Villainy, Marston's. 156 
 Sea-kings. English. 152 
 Self-effacement by S., 164 
 Sentence form. 179 
 building. 179-182 
 Sentiment, often important, 181 
 Shakespeare, etymology of 
 
 the word. 17. 18 
 
 Shakespeare. John, father of 
 
 S.. 18, 39. 46 
 
 offices held by him. 19. 20 
 
 lapse. 39. 40 
 
 Shakespeare, William, pas- 
 sim, his possible motive, 
 
 43, 57, 87-90 
 
 Shakespeares, earliest mention 
 
 of. 17, 45 
 
 Shallow. Justice, in Mer. 
 
 W. of W. 85 
 
 SheUey. P. B.. 206 
 
 Shottery. Hathaway cottage 
 
 at. 93 
 
 Sibyl, original of that in S., 52 
 
 [218]
 
 Index 
 
 PACB 
 
 Siddons, ' the incomparable," 
 
 Sarah, 33 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 88 
 
 soldier-author, 112, 115, 129. 
 
 130, 134, 138, 155 
 
 Silence as to S. for several 
 
 years, 138, 145 
 
 ' Singe the king of Spain's 
 
 beard," 152 
 
 Sir Launfal, Lowell's, quoted, 
 
 from, 170 
 
 Snitterfield, 21, 40 
 
 Soldier-authors, 109-113 
 
 Soldier stage next after 
 
 lover"s, 121 
 
 Soldier's name honorable, 124, 125 
 
 Soldier's peculiar talk, 117-120 
 
 ' Small Latin and less Greek," SO 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, quoted, 156, 157 
 
 Song of Moses, quoted from, 110 
 
 Sophocles, author of great 
 
 tragedies, 152 
 
 quoted, 51 
 
 his fruitfulness, 205 
 Spanish language, knowledge 
 
 ofbyS.? 36,53 
 
 Specialization, extreme, dan- 
 ger of, 152 
 
 ' Sprag ' boy, William Page, 
 
 76, 97 
 
 Sprague, Charles, poet, 
 
 quoted, 95, 97 
 
 Sprague, William, author's 
 
 ancestor? 97 
 
 Steevens, George, 80 
 
 Stoddard, R. H., on quo- 
 tations, 208 
 
 Strange, Lord = Ferdinand© 
 Stanley, his company of 
 players, 73, 96 
 
 Stratford on Avon. 18 
 
 Studies in Eng. Grammar 
 
 schools, 47, 48 
 
 Subjectivity, singular power 
 
 in S., 167-171 
 
 inverted or transferred, 184 
 
 Susannah S., Mrs. John 
 
 Hall. 68. 83 
 
 FAOB 
 
 ' Swears a prayer or two,' 121, 153 
 
 ■ Sweating sickness,' or 
 ' the plague '? mortality 
 in, 20, 46 
 
 ' Sweet little man,' O. W. 
 
 Holmes's, 135, 136 
 
 Swift, Dean, on accumu- 
 lated learning, 37 
 
 Symmons, Dr. Charles, 
 
 quoted, 160 
 
 Taine, Henri, 190 
 
 Tapley, Mark, quoted, 27 
 
 Tarleton, Dick, Kemp's 
 
 predecessor, 140, 156 
 
 Tenderness of pity, 47 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, quoted, 70, 193 
 
 his life-work, 58 
 
 Thousand-souled, Hallam's 
 
 estimate of S., 166 
 
 Thersites, deformed tongue- 
 
 stabber, 165 
 
 Three purposes cherished by 
 
 S.? 58, 87, 89, 103 
 
 Three careers for enterpris- 
 ing youths, 121 
 
 Three Unities observable 
 
 in dramas, 174. 175 
 
 Tickle o' the sere. 118, 152. 153 
 
 Time, personified. 166 
 
 Time for marriage, 63 
 
 Time, Unity of, disregarded 
 
 by S., 175 
 
 Timon of Athens. Its founda- 
 tion, 32 
 
 Toleration, perfect in S., 172, 173 
 
 carried too far? 173, 174 
 
 Tragedy and comedy mixed 
 
 in a play, 174, 175 
 
 Tragedy of S. Milton's 
 
 opinion, 203 
 
 Tricks, verbal and vocal, 98 
 
 Troilus in Tro. and Cres., 
 
 deluded, 63 
 
 Truancy, evil of, recognized 
 
 by S., 75, 76 
 
 Truth, the main ingredient 
 
 in sentence, 179 
 
 [219]
 
 Studies in Shakespeare 
 
 PAGE 
 
 18 
 
 Turchills, a Saxon family, 
 Twenty-five good women 
 
 named in S., 68, 95 
 
 Udall. Nicholas, 73. 08 
 
 Unities, the three, 174, 175 
 
 Universities, why learned 
 
 places; Swift's sarcasm, 37 
 
 ' Upstart crow.' Greene's ugly 
 
 phrase, 161 
 
 Verb, any word turned into 
 
 by S., 27, 28 
 
 Vergil's stelerunt comee, 51 
 
 Viola in T'^jelfth Night, 63, 64 
 
 Virgin-Martyr, Massinger's, 
 
 quoted, 42 
 
 Vocabulary, vastness of, 25 
 
 Rare words used by S., 25, 26 
 
 Voltaire, Goethe's estimate 
 
 of. 190 
 
 Voltaire's estimate of S., 
 
 quoted, 190 
 
 Wall map showing Indies 
 
 enlarged, 97 
 
 Walsingham. Sir Francis, 134. 138 
 
 War, S. opposed to, 122, 123 
 
 his martial ardor, 123 
 
 Warren, Joseph, quoted, 148 
 
 Warwick, Earl of, to Henr>- 
 
 IV, 31, 50, 100 
 
 War\vickshire, 1 7 
 
 its dialect, 48 
 
 Webster, Daniel, once a 
 
 schoolmaster, quoted, 96 
 
 Webster, John, quoted as 
 
 to industry of S., 87 
 
 Weighty meanings condensed 
 by S.. 
 
 Wendell, Barrett, 26. 49. 103 
 
 ' Werb ' defined by Mark 
 Tapley, 27 
 
 Whipple, E. P., on method 
 of S., 189. 190 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Wliite. Richard Grant, 
 
 51, 52, 53, 61, 66. 67, 85. 161, 
 
 176, 206 
 
 Whitney, W, D.. quoted, 28, 48 
 
 Whittier, John G., once 
 
 schoolmaster, 73 
 
 'Wiir=S. 138,145 
 
 Will and testament, last, 
 
 of S., 67, 94 
 
 William, etymology of the 
 
 name? 18 
 
 William of Orange, 134 
 
 Wilmcote, 18. 21 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, once 
 
 schoolmaster, 73 
 
 Wisdom, practical, shown by 
 
 S., 190, 191 
 
 Wit and humor, extraordin- 
 ary, 143. 187, 188 
 
 Wolsev, Cardinal, in Henry 
 
 Vlil, 196 
 
 Women actors, the earliest 
 
 in theatres, 27, 49 
 
 Women in S., morally bet- 
 
 ber than men? 68, 95 
 
 Women, love of, an in- 
 spiration in L. L. L., 98, 99 
 
 Word coining by S.,30, 32, 47. 50, 51 
 
 Words and ideas seemingly 
 
 identical in S.. 49, 103 
 
 Wordsworth, Bishop Charles, 
 
 on Bible in S., 37 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 
 
 quoted, 107 
 
 his life work, 58 
 
 ' Writ,' ' wist,' or ' woo'd '? 94 
 
 Xcnophon, soldier-author, 152 
 
 Xenophon's Anabasis, echoed 
 
 in S.? 51, 154 
 
 Yale Law Journal, article 
 
 in, 82 
 
 Zimimar, roval devil in / 
 
 Henry VH 173, 206 
 
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