¥5Z 
 
 .hakespeare 
 
 on Horseback," 
 
 AND 
 
 "Shakespeare 
 
 no Dog Fancier.' 
 
 By C B. FLOWER,
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GALLOWAY* PORTER Ltd. 
 
 NEWaSECOND HAND BOOKSELLERS 
 30 SIDNEY STREET,CAMBRIOOE 
 (ENG)
 
 
 /^ 
 
 
 '
 
 "Jftaltqajjeaip an ihor^ebnch 
 
 AND 
 
 "'jlh8^8p«ai[j no jjog fancier/' 
 
 J?-£^Ftt IRS 
 
 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 Jtratfarb-n|an-^&0n §fy'ah%pmz Club 
 
 March 3rd, 1887, and January 11th, 1892. 
 
 Published for the Shakespeare Memorial 
 at the Library. 
 
 PRICE Is.
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The two following Papers are offered as slight contribu- 
 tions to a section of Shakespearean Literature which is 
 constantly increasing, and in which the personal characteristics 
 of the Poet are sought in his Poems and Plays. 
 
 They deal with certain strongly-marked likes and dislikes 
 which crop up with curious and suggestive frequency all 
 through his works, and have no more ambitious purpose 
 than that of showing their bearings, and where they may 
 be found. Thus, as in the tragedy of " Hamlet," Polonius 
 says : — 
 
 " Thus do we, of wisdom and of reach. 
 With windlaces, and with assays of bias, 
 By indirections find deductions out." 
 
 The Society before which the Papers were read and dis- 
 cussed began its career early in the present century, and 
 has from time to time played a leading part in the various 
 festivals, feasts, and commemorative gatherings which have 
 affectionately honoured the memory of Shakespeare in his 
 native town. 
 
 <i^2-*£^7 £ /*£:/-*— 
 
 '<? 

 
 SHAKESPEARE ON HORSEBACK. 
 
 §N the Autumn of 1882 I undertook to read a paper to the 
 Stratford-on-Avon Shakespeare Club, and in fulfilment 
 of my somewhat rash promise, I jotted down some notes 
 on a subject, one of several which had occurred to me while 
 engaged in the labour of love which I have undertaken, " The 
 Memorial Theatre Edition of Shakespeare's Plays." 
 
 The subject I selected was Shakespeare's knowledge of 
 horses and everything appertaining to them, and I put my 
 Notes into the form of a good-natured skit upon a certain 
 class of enthusiastic Shakespearean commentators, who take 
 up a hobby, and ride it so hard that they can see nothing but 
 the goal they are making for, and who are apt entirely to 
 ignore any obstacles or difficulties which present themselves 
 in the way. 
 
 The Notes I then read appeared in the columns of the 
 "Herald," and I was asked by several friends to reprint them 
 in a more extended form. For this object I have from time to 
 time made further memoranda, but I find that they only serve 
 to enable me to add a few more illustrations to those which I 
 had offered before, and while introducing some of them, I have 
 not attempted to make this paper anything different from what 
 it was at first, and it must, therefore, not be imagined that I 
 for one moment intend it as a serious contribution to the study 
 of the great Master's works. 
 
 Many essays have been written to prove all sorts of things 
 about Shakespeare's early life, and especially to urge that he
 
 must have studied for, or even served an apprenticeship to, 
 various different professions and trades. And it is remarkable 
 as showing how exact he was, and how truthful in his descrip- 
 tions, that those who, by their special knowledge and expe- 
 rience, are most able to detect errors, have claimed the very 
 fact of his correctness in the small details with which they were 
 intimately familiar to prove that he also had that special 
 knowledge of the subjects which bore out their views. Thus an 
 eminent lawyer writes an essay to prove that Shakespeare must 
 have studied law with a view to practising in the profession, 
 for no person who had not so studied could possibly have been 
 so conversant with its technicalities and phrases. Others have 
 tried to prove that he must have studied medicine, and that he 
 even practised as a physician. The traveller writes to show 
 that he must have sojourned, or at least have travelled, in 
 Italy, in Scotland, and elsewhere, as no one could possibly 
 have learned from books the descriptions of scenery and the 
 innumerable light touches and passing allusions which showed 
 his familiarity with those places, and the manners and customs 
 of their inhabitants. 
 
 Shakespeare has been ' proved ' to have been a schoolmaster, 
 a butcher, a farmer, a gardener, a soldier — so many different 
 trades, in fact, that they disprove each other; and serve to 
 teach us that his wonderful accuracy in detailed description 
 was derived not from that close study which in so many various 
 subjects would have demanded a dozen lifetimes, but rather 
 from a wonderful power of seeing at a glance, and of storing 
 all he saw in a well-ordered brain, ready instantly to be pro- 
 duced at the bidding of a fertile imagination, to embellish and 
 illustrate whatever subject his active mind was engaged upon 
 at the moment. As Cowden Clarke says : 
 
 " To a mind like Shakespeare's the acquisition of knowledge of all 
 Mjrts was like inhaling the air lie breathed, a .sheer vital necessity ; he 
 could ii" more help the one than the other, and both he turned to 
 besl account."
 
 There is another class of commentators who put forth the 
 bold theory that Shakespeare had nothing to do with his plays ; 
 but they have not only to avoid or leap over difficulties, but 
 to swallow hard facts, and to invent other facts to stand in 
 their place. They have to assume, among other things, that 
 Shakaspeare was a poor uneducated village lad when he 
 went to London, and that he might there have acquired just 
 sufficient learning to have enabled him to become the editor of 
 others' writings, and that the riches he acquired were the 
 product of some heavy bribes paid to induce him to become 
 sponsor for the plays, which created so much delight as they 
 were brought out, and that he was paid to conceal the real 
 author or authors, and to take to himself the contemporary 
 and lasting fame and admiration which these wonderful anony- 
 mous writers were too modest to accept. But the truth is, 
 they have to assume that ignorance of which thei'e is not the 
 slightest particle of evidence. Shakespeare was certainly as 
 far removed as it is possible to conceive from the uncouth 
 ignorant peasant which those who advocate the Baconian and 
 similar theories are obliged to represent him to have been. On 
 the contrary, he doubtless inherited from his father an impulsive, 
 generous, and energetic spirit, while from his mother (a gentle- 
 woman, be it remembered, by birth and breeding) he derived 
 the instincts and feelings of a true gentleman, with a taste for 
 art and literature, which tempered the bold and manly spirit 
 inherited from his father. Owing to his wonderfully retentive 
 memory he would not have the slightest difficulty in mastering 
 his lessons at the Grammar School, where, if he learned nothing 
 else, he at least acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin and 
 the Classics. He, of course, read every book he could lay his 
 hands on — probably not many, but all of them worth the read- 
 ing, and what he read he remembered. When he went up to 
 London he must have had many opportunities of which he 
 naturally would avail himself of obtaining a fair knowledge of 
 French and Italian ; and his quick power of observation enabled
 
 him to gain a familiarity with the habits, thoughts, and feelings 
 of the city and court as thorough as that which he had pre- 
 viously acquired of the country and rural life. 
 
 If his abundant knowledge of technicalities is to be a guide 
 to his early training he could as easily be proved to have been 
 a sailor, or a game-keeper, as any one of the various trades and 
 professions allotted to him, and it is to illustrate my argument 
 that I, taking a subject of which I know something (having 
 had a good deal to do with horses), might now say ' Shake- 
 speare was not a lawyer, or a doctor, or a schoolmaster; no, 
 the internal evidence of his plays and poems proves that the 
 greater part of his life must have been spent as a horse dealer 
 or veterinary surgeon, otherwise he could not possibly have 
 acquired the knowledge of horses which is exhibited through 
 all his works.' At any rate, I can say that there is as strong 
 internal evidence for this last suggestion as for any of the 
 others. 
 
 I will now extract some of the more important of the very 
 many passages which show how much Shakespeare knew about 
 horses, how correct his judgment was on their various points 
 and qualities ; in fact, how much more he knew about a horse 
 than any ordinary person who was not a veterinary surgeon or 
 a jockey. 
 
 First, then, we will turn to his poem, Venus and Adonis, 
 
 where we find a description of what a horse should be — 
 
 Venus and " Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 
 
 Adonis. j u limning out a well-proportion'd steed, 
 
 His art with nature's workmanship at strife, 
 As if the dead the living should exceed: 
 So did this horse excel a common one 
 In shape, iu courage, colour, pace, and bone. 
 
 Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, 
 Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, 
 High crest., short cars, straight legs, and passing strong, 
 Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide : 
 Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, 
 Save a proud rider on so proud a back."
 
 What description can be better than this ? What point 
 has he omitted or what described incorrectly, or who but a 
 consummate judge could have so summed up the points in 
 which a horse should excel, and name them all in such few 
 terse words, giving such a picture in a dozen lines as might be 
 expected from able writers on comparative anatomy in as many 
 chapters ? 
 
 How spirited, too, are the pictures drawn of the action of 
 
 the '* strong-neck'd steed," as 
 
 "Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, Venus and 
 
 And now his woven girths he breaks asunder, Adonis. 
 
 The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, 
 Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder ; 
 The iron bit he crunches 'tween his teeth, 
 Controlling what he was controlled with. 
 
 His ears up-prick'd, his braided hanging mane 
 Upon his compassed crest now stands on end : 
 His nostrils drink the air, and forth again, 
 As from a furnace, vapours doth he send." 
 
 Then we get his paces — 
 
 " Sometimes he trots, as if he told the steps, 
 With gentle majesty and modest pride, 
 Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, 
 As who would say lo ! thus my strength is tried." 
 
 And further on — 
 
 " Sometime he scuds far off and there he stares, 
 Anon he starts at stirring of a feather ; 
 To bid the wind a base he now prepares, 
 And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether: 
 For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, 
 Fanning - the hairs who wave like feathered wings." 
 
 But it is not in this poem alone that a horse's action is 
 
 described, as through all the plays its action and paces are 
 
 constantly referred to, as in the chorus at the beginning of 
 
 Henry V. : 
 
 ' ' Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Henry V. 
 
 Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth." 1-Chorus. 
 
 Or, in Troilus and Cressida, where he describes the 
 
 " Strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut, Troilus 
 
 Bounding between the two moist elements 1_3 - 
 
 Like Perseus' horse."
 
 6 
 
 Shakespeare must have had many opportunities of riding 
 and learning all about horses in his boyhood and youth. 
 Doubtless, his father kept more than one, and Will was 
 sure to get a frequent mount, besides being often sent to 
 the neighbouring towns and villages on his father's hackney 
 to pay or receive accounts, or carry messages conneoted with 
 his business. 
 
 Horseback was the only way of getting from one town to 
 
 smother, and heavy goods also were carried on pack horses, for 
 
 there were few roads on which even a cart could travel. Those 
 
 who had not horses of their own could hire them, and probably 
 
 the sign that Benedick quoted 
 
 " Here is good horse to hire " 
 
 was not an unfrequent one in the streets of Stratford. If there 
 
 was such a sign in Henley Street it had, in the course of two 
 
 hundred years, given place to another which might have been 
 
 seen about the beginning of this century over the window of a 
 
 certain old house in that thoroughfare, which announced 
 
 " William Shakespeare was born in this house. 
 N.B. — A horse and taxed cart to let." 
 
 So in two hundred years the roads had been made passable 
 for light carts, and the Government had found in the carts a 
 subject for taxation, and the owner of a particular light cart 
 had found another source of income by exhibiting his house to 
 the travelling public, who had by that time discovered — what 
 before had been only known to literary and poetic students — 
 that Nature's greatest genius had been brought up in that old 
 farm-house in Henley Street. 
 
 How pleasant it is to picture the youthful poet riding along 
 the narrow lanes between the high and tangled hedges, or on 
 the open tracks across the frequent downs, sometimes alone, 
 but not lonely, for while his clear, observant eye marked every 
 bird and flower and insect that he passed, his quick imagination 
 peopled the country with the moving armies of York and Lan-
 
 easter, or the sylvan followers of the Banished Duke ; while 
 Titania and her fairy train peeped out upon him from every 
 flower and sheltering leaf. At other times, in company with 
 one or more congenial companions, he jogged along chatting 
 and singing as he went, and joining in a hearty laugh at some 
 quaint conceit or merry jest. 
 
 He must have enjoyed those days when, with his merry 
 
 companions, he rode up to the Cotswold Hills to join the 
 
 coursing matches, where he must needs have followed on 
 
 horseback Master Page's "fallow greyhound," whose owner 
 
 would not confess that it 
 
 " Was outrun on Cotsall," Merry Wives 
 
 1-1 
 or he would have seen little of the hare on those open downs 
 
 which are even now only partially enclosed, and where the 
 
 purple heather still lingers, and the thin plantations have a 
 
 hard struggle for existence against the bleak winter blasts. 
 
 That he delighted in coursing as a lad we may be sure, but we 
 
 know that his kindly and sympathetic heart was touched with 
 
 pity for 
 
 ' ' Poor Wat far off upon a hill , " V Adonrf d 
 
 and that he cared less for coursing in after life, deeming it 
 
 tame sport compared with the chase of more noble animals. 
 
 Racing for stakes as carried on in our days seems to have 
 played a very small part in the rural life of those times, and 
 Shakespeare makes but few references to that sport. Imogen, 
 indeed, says : 
 
 "I have heard of riding wagers Cymbeliae 
 
 Where horses have been nimbler than the sands 3-2. 
 
 That run i' the clock's behalf." 
 
 But racing which afterwards grew to be such an important 
 element in English social life was little thought of until betting 
 became a science. 
 
 The speed of the horse is, of course, referred to, as is 
 natural when it was frequently the subject of life and death
 
 interest as it was in those days so long before railways and 
 telegraphs. What anxiety as to whether the horse could hold 
 out on his journey ! what riding to bear the news of victory or 
 defeat in such a time as when 
 2 Henry IV. " Contention, like a horse, 
 
 1-1 • Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, 
 
 And bears down all before him." 
 
 Those were stirring times, when, after the" battle of 
 Shrewsbury, the Earl of Northumberland's friend " out- 
 rode " Travers, being better mounted, and brought the 
 joyful but false news of the King's defeat. 
 
 Travers, on his slower steed, was again overtaken by a 
 
 messenger of very different tidings, for 
 
 2 Henry IV. " After him came spurring hard 
 
 1-1. A gentleman, almost forespent with speed ; 
 
 That stopped by me to breath his bloodied horse. 
 He asked the way to Chester, and of him 
 I did demand what news from Shrewsbury ; 
 He told me that rebellion had bad luck, 
 And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. 
 With that he gave his able horse the head, 
 And, bending forward, struck his armed heels 
 Against the panting sides of his poor jade 
 Up to the rowel head : and starting so 
 He seemed in running to devour the way, 
 Staying no longer question." 
 
 But the Poet used the horse's speed as an illustration of 
 
 more peaceful scenes. It will suffice to take one example from 
 
 the Sonnets : 
 
 Sonnet 50. " How heavy do I journey on the way, 
 
 When what I seek — my weary f ravel's end — 
 Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 
 Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend. 
 The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, 
 Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, 
 As if by some instinct the wretch did know 7 
 His rider loved not speed, being made from thee : 
 The bloody spur cannot provoke him on 
 That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide, 
 Which heavily he answers with a groan, 
 More sharp to me than spurring to his side : 
 For that same groan doth put this in my mind, 
 My grief lies onward, and my joy behind."
 
 " Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Sonnet 51. 
 
 Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed ; 
 From where thou art why should I haste me thence F 
 Till I return, of postiug is no need : 
 Oh, what excuse will my poor beast then find 
 When swift extremity can seem but slow ? 
 Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind, 
 In winged speed no motion shall I know : 
 Then can no horse with my desire keep pace : 
 Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made 
 Shall neigh — no dull flesh— in his fiery race ; 
 But love, for love, shall thus excuse my jade ; 
 Since from the going he went wilful s'ow, 
 Toward thee I'll run, and give him leave to go." 
 
 Perhaps I may add, as illustrating this subject in a 
 
 different vein, Benedick's not very polite retort to Beatrice — 
 
 "I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good Much Ado 
 a continuer." 1_1 - 
 
 Shakespeare not only looked on a horse with the eye of a 
 judge, but he entertained for him a feeling of affection which 
 is exhibited through all the plays and poems. He constantly 
 makes his characters refer in affectionate terms to their horses. 
 I will particularly instance the Dauphin in Henry V. 
 
 >l I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four 
 pasterns. Ca, ha ! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were 
 hairs. Le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines defeu. When 
 I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk ; he trots the air ; the earth 
 sings when he touches it: the basest horn of his hoof is more 
 musical than the pipe of Hermes. 
 
 Orl. He is of the colour of the nutmeg. 
 
 Date. And of the heat of ginger ; it is a beast for Perseus : he 
 is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never 
 appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts 
 him. He is, indeed, a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts. 
 
 Con Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. 
 
 Ban. It is the prince of palfreys : his neigh is like the bidding of a 
 monarch, and his countenance enfoi'ces homage. 
 
 Orl. No more, cousin. 
 
 Dan. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot from the rising of the 
 lark to the lodging of the lamb vary deserved praise on my palfrey. 
 It is a theme as fluent as the sea : turn the sands into eloquent 
 tongues, and my horse is argument for them all. 'Tis a subject for 
 a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on ; 
 and for the world (familiar to us and unknown) to lay apart their 
 particular functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in 
 his praise, and began thus ' Wonder of Nature,' &c, &c." 
 
 Henry V. 
 3-7.
 
 10 
 
 This, of course, is the ridiculous exaggeration of praise, 
 
 and, as the Constable retorted, 'twere more honour some were 
 
 away — 
 
 Henry V. " Even as your horse bears your praises ; who would trot as well 
 were some of your brags dismounted." 
 
 But this is only one of numerous instances in which the 
 horse is referred to with expressions of the greatest admiration 
 
 and regard, such as 
 
 Midsummer ,, m , , , ,, 
 
 Night's lrue as truest horse, 
 
 Dream 
 
 3-1. and as true regard for an object is- shown by the care taken for 
 its comfort, he makes his characters give directions that their 
 horses should be well cared for, as when Lafeu says 
 All's Well "Let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks." 
 
 He was up to ostler's tricks. 
 
 Or when the carrier in Henry IV. looks after the stuffing of 
 the saddle, and his companion complains of the quality of the 
 
 1 Henry IV. "I pr'y thee, Tom, beat Cuts' saddle, put a few flocks in the 
 2-1 • point : the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess. 
 
 " Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next 
 way to give poor jades the bots : this house is turned upside down 
 since Robin, ostler, died." 
 
 Prince Hal considers it a characteristic of the gallant 
 Hotspur that he should think of his horse before he can 
 answer his wife's anxious inquiry. The Prince says — 
 
 1 Henry- IV. " I am n °t yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North ; he that 
 2-4. kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his 
 hands, and says to his wife ' Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.' 
 ' Oh my sweet Harry,' .says she, ' how many hast thou killed to-day ? ' 
 ' Givo my roan horse a drench,' says he : and answers ' some four- 
 teen ' an hour after." 
 
 Hotspur, indeed, thought much of his horse. 
 
 I ||, nry jy " Come, let mo take my horse, 
 
 i-f. Who is tn bear me like a thunderbolt 
 
 Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales : 
 
 Harry to Hairy shall, hot horso to horse, 
 
 Meet and ne'er part 'till one drop down a corse."
 
 11 
 
 Shakespeare had observed and probably practised the 
 management and breaking-in of horses. Thus he describes 
 how horses should be broken — 
 
 " Those that tame wild horses Henry VIII. 
 
 Pace them not in their hands to make them gentle, 
 But stop their mouths with stubborn bits, and spur them 
 Till they obey the manage." 
 
 And again he says in Venus and Adonis 
 
 " The colt that's backed and burdened being young Venus and 
 
 Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong." Adonis. 
 
 I wish that breeders of horses would remember those lines : 
 we should not have the country so overrun with unsound horses, 
 whose various defects are generally brought on by over-work 
 when only two or three years old. 
 
 He sums up the description of a gallant man by comparing 
 him to 
 
 ' ' An angel dropped down from the skies 1 Henry IV. 
 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 4-1- 
 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship." 
 
 And again Mark Antony likens a tried and valiant soldier 
 to his horse that 
 
 " I teach to fight, Julius Csesar 
 
 To wind, to stop, to run directly on, 4-1. 
 
 His corporal motion governed by my spirit." 
 
 And in Hamlet the King, saying that the French 
 " Can well on horseback," 
 goes on to describe one of them, Lamond, a gentleman of 
 Normandy, 
 
 ' ' He grew unto his seat, Hamlet 
 
 And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, 4-7. 
 
 As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured 
 With the brave beast." 
 
 He knew well there must be for perfect training an 
 intimate sympathy between the horse and his rider, so that 
 the one can instantly feel the intention of the other, even 
 before it can be expressed by word or sign. He says — 
 
 " Well could he ride, and often men would say, Lovers' Com- 
 
 ' That horse his mettle from his rider takes ; plaint.
 
 12 
 
 Measure 
 1-3. 
 
 Measure 
 1-2. 
 
 As You Liki 
 It 3-4. 
 
 Lear 3-6. 
 
 Lear 2-1. 
 
 Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, 
 
 "What ronnds, what bounds, what course, what stops he makes ; ' 
 
 And controversy hence a question takes, 
 
 Whether the horse by him became his deed, 
 
 Or he his manage by the well-doing steed." 
 
 In Measure for Measure he describes severe laws as 
 "The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds." 
 
 And in the same play Claudio refers to the public body as 
 
 " A horse whereon the governor doth ride, 
 "Who newly in the seat, that it may know 
 He can command, lets it straight feel the spur." 
 
 Many more passages might be quoted to show the high, 
 esteem in which Shakespeare held good horsemanship. He 
 sometimes, however, refers to bad riders, as when Celia likens 
 Orlando to 
 
 " A puny filter that spurs his horse but on one side." 
 
 Shakespeare certainly knew more about the horse than 
 many of his commentators, for in Lear, when the Fool says 
 " He's mad that trusts in a horse's health,' 1 '' 
 
 an eminent editor, in a note, remarks, " we should read heels, 
 as health has no meaning," and this so-called emendation has 
 actually been adopted by several of the learned closet critics ; 
 whereas health has the best of meanings to one who knows 
 anything about horses. The fool, of course, used health in the 
 sense that we say soundness, and all those that have had much 
 to do with horses will bear feeling testimony to the truth and 
 wisdom of his remark. In the same play there is an amusing 
 instance of correctness of observation in little things — 
 
 " Horses are tied by the head ; dogs and bears by the neck : 
 monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs." 
 
 Kent being in the stocks — and this leads us to the complete 
 knowledge which Shakespeare evinces~-of all the various parts 
 of the horse's harness and trappings, In Henry IV. the carrier 
 looks after the stuffing of the saddlo^-^e trappings of silver 
 and gold are referred to. Bridles and headstalls, spurs and
 
 13 
 
 rowels, bits and reins, of course, are often mentioned, but not 
 bearing reins, which he doubtless would have condemned in 
 strong language had he witnessed the modern use of those 
 instruments of torture. 
 
 Although he mentions various coloured horses, Shake- 
 speare seems to have had a decided liking for roan, as, for 
 instance, King Kichard's roan Barbary, of which the faithful 
 groom said — 
 
 " Oh, how it yearned my heart, when I beheld Richard II. 
 
 In London streets, that coronation day, °" 5, 
 
 When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary ! 
 That horse that thou so often hath bestrid ; 
 That horse that I so carefully have dressed. 
 
 King. Rode he on Barbary ? Tell me, gentle friend, 
 How went he under him ? 
 
 Groom. So proud as if he had disdained the ground. 
 King. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back? 
 That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand ; 
 This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. 
 "Would he not stumble ? Would he not fall down, 
 (Since pride must have a fall) and break the neck 
 Of that proud man that did usurp his back ? 
 Forgiveness, horse ! why do I rail on thee, 
 Since thou, created to be awed by man, 
 Was born to bear ? I was not made a horse, 
 And yet I bear a burden like an ass, 
 Spur-gall'd and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke." 
 
 Again, when Hotspur's servant tells him that Butler has 
 
 brought one horse only from the sheriff, Hotspur inquires 
 
 " What horse ? a roan ? a crop-eared, is it not ? " Henrv IV 
 
 And adds 2 ~ 3, 
 
 " That roan shall be my throne." 
 
 And afterwards Prince Hal speaks of " Hotspur's roan 
 horse." 
 
 The Dauphin's favourite horse was " of the colour of the 
 nutmeg," which we now call chestnut. And we hear in King 
 Lear of a 
 
 " Bay trotting horse." I^ear 3-4. 
 
 Lafeu's horse also was a bay — 
 
 " I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture." All's Well
 
 14 
 
 Titus Andro- 
 nicus 5-2. 
 
 Ant. & Cloo. 
 3-2. 
 
 Coriolanus 
 1-9. 
 
 Timon of 
 Athens 1-2. 
 
 Timon of 
 Athens 2-1 
 
 Hamlet 
 5-2. 
 
 Troilus 
 5-5. 
 
 Twelfth 
 NigM 8-4. 
 
 White horses are referred to several times, but I believe 
 
 that black horses are only mentioned once, when Titus 
 
 Andronicus tells Tamora to 
 
 "Provide two proper palfries, black as jet, 
 To hale thy vengeful wagon swift away." 
 
 Shakespeare knew that the value of a horse was reduced 
 
 by a white blaze or cloud upon his face — 
 
 " He has a cloud on his face ; 
 He were the worse for that were he a horse." 
 
 Of course, we frequently find reference to the value of a 
 
 horse as a gift, worthy of a prince to bestow or to receive, as 
 
 in Coriolanus, where the Roman general Cominius, when 
 
 adding the name of Coriolanus to that of Caius Marcius, 
 
 and after offering a tenth of all the horses taken in the 
 
 field, bestows 
 
 ' ' My noble steed known to the camp 
 With all his trim belonging." 
 
 The Lord Lucius presents Timon with 
 
 " Four milk white horses, trapped in silver." 
 
 But that was only in the certainty of a greater gift being 
 
 returned, for, as the Senator said, 
 
 " If I would sell my horse and buy twenty more 
 Better than he, why give my horse to Timon ? 
 Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight 
 A stable o' horses." 
 
 The King in Hamlet wages 
 
 " Six Barbary horses," 
 
 And in Troilus and Cressida, Diomedes bids his servant 
 
 ' ' Take thou Troilus' horse 
 Present the fair steed to my lady Cresaid." 
 
 Sir Andrew Aguecheek offers his horse to make up the 
 quarrel with his supposed ferocious opponent, 
 
 " I'll givo him my horse grey Capilet." 
 
 And Sir Toby takes care to get the advantage to himself. 
 
 " Marry, I'll rido your horse as I ride you ; 
 
 I have hifl hur.se "-- -he says to Fabian — "to tako up the quarrel."
 
 15 
 
 My opening quotation was an admirable description of 
 what a horse should be. Shakespeare was equally felicitous in 
 describing what he should not be. He concentrated every 
 kind of unsoundness into a horse when Biondello says that 
 Petruchio is coming — 
 
 " His horse hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no Taming of 
 kindred : besides, possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in thc ' Shrew 
 the chine : troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, 
 full of wind-galls, sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past 
 cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with bots : 
 swayed in the back, and shoulder shotten : ne'er legged before, and 
 with a half cheeked bit, and a headstall of sheep's leather, which 
 being restrained to keep him from stumbling hath been often burst, 
 and now repaired with knots : one girth six times pieced, and a 
 woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name 
 fairly set down with studs, and here and there pieced with pack 
 thread." 
 
 Can you suggest any addition to that ? Cannot you see 
 the poor wretch in his trappings, which Petruchio must have 
 rescued from the knacker's yard to carry him to his bride 't 
 In another scene in the same play he uses as a climax 
 " As many diseases as two and fifty horses." 
 
 And yet there are clever commentators who think that 
 when_he speaks of a horse's health he must mean something 
 else. I fancy that Shakespeare must have had some troubles 
 in horse dealing just before he wrote The Taming of the 
 Shrew — it has so many allusions to mishaps connected with 
 them. He often refers to horse stealing, a crime more common 
 then, when the country was thinly populated, and when there 
 were no rural police or pursuing telegraphs. When Lord 
 Bardolph (not Falstaff's friend), wishing to discredit the 
 messenger of bad news, he at once says — 
 
 " Who, he ? he was some hilding fellow 2 Henry IV. 
 
 That had stolen the horse he rode on." 1-1. 
 
 And the better known Bardolph in The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor was the victim of the treachery of three Germans, 
 who, after staying a week with mine host of the Garter, hired
 
 16 
 
 his horses — Bardolph in charge riding behind one — when as 
 soon as they came beyond Eton 
 Meny Wives " They threw me off into a slough of mire, and set spurs, and 
 
 away like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses." 
 
 These Germans, it seems, had cheated all the landlords of 
 Beading, Maidenhead, and Colebrook of their horses and 
 money. They probably sold them in Smithfield, where 
 2 He " r 2 y 1V ' Bardolph had before that time bought a horse for Falstaff. 
 
 The fat knight was very dependent upon his horses for 
 
 locomotion. They were about the last things he could part 
 
 with ; and for this reason the Merry Wives, in order to be 
 
 revenged on him, determined to 
 
 Merry Wives " Lead him on with a fine baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his 
 
 horses to mine host of the Garter." 
 
 They succeeded in their plan, as we learn from the last 
 scene of the play. 
 
 Among the descriptions of horses we may quote the 
 
 passages in Henry V., where the boasting French exclaim 
 
 Henry A'. " Hark how our steeds for present service neigh, 
 
 • Mount them and make incision in their hides, 
 
 That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, 
 And dout them with superfluous courage." 
 
 And afterwards, describing the supposed state of the 
 
 English army, Grandpre says 
 
 Henry V. " Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, 
 
 4-2. With torch-staves in their hands ; and their poor jades 
 
 Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips : 
 The gum down -roping from their pale dead eyes, 
 And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
 Lies foul with chew'd irrass, still and motionless; 
 And their executors, the knavish crows, 
 Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour." 
 
 In Henry IV., Vernon, while counselling prudence to 
 Hotspur, and urging him to put off the fight until the 
 morrow, says 
 i Bonn iv. "your ancle Worcester's horse came but to-day, 
 
 '"•'• Ami dow their pride and mettle is asleep ; 
 
 Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, 
 
 That not a horse is half the half himself."
 
 17 
 
 Hotspur replies — 
 
 "So are the horses of the enemy 
 In general journey— bated and brought low ; 
 The better part of ours are full of rest." 
 
 Had Vernon's advice^been taken in this and other matters 
 it had been the better for Hotspur. 
 
 Shakespeare has referred to the courage of the horse, 
 
 especially on the battle field, but he does not forget his 
 
 timidity at any unexpected object : 
 
 " Anon he starts at stirring of a feather." Venus and 
 
 Adonis 
 And it appears that he knew that the fear of a wild beast 
 
 would make him fly in terror : 
 
 ' ' Sheep run not half so timorous from the wolf 1 Henry VI. 
 
 Or horse or oxen from the leopard." 1_5 - 
 
 African travellers recount among the most ordinary 
 incidents the danger of losing their horses and oxen from 
 their breaking away in fright at the sound of a wild beast's 
 roar. 
 
 Horses played a part in the superstitions of the times, 
 
 such as are recorded in Eichard III. 
 
 "Three rimes to-day my footcloth horse did stumble, Richard III. 
 
 And startled when he looked upon the tower." 3 ~ i - 
 
 And they are often brought in to homely proverbs, as in the 
 
 same play, 
 
 " But yet I run before my horse to market. Richard III. 
 
 Clarence still lives." 1_1 - 
 
 Or, in Henry VI., 
 
 " Unless the adage must be verified 3 Henry VI. 
 
 That beggars mounted run their horse to death " 1-4- 
 
 A proverb, I presume, which preceded that of ' put a beggar on 
 horseback, and he'll ride to the devil." 
 
 I am drawing to a close now, not, however, from want of 
 more matter ; but before I conclude I must refer to the use 
 Shakespeare makes of the horse in drawing similes. I will
 
 18 
 
 only cite two or three out of many I might take which show 
 
 how ready he was to use that noble animal as an illustration, 
 
 as where Buckingham speaks of the ungoverned state of the 
 
 country : 
 
 Richard III. '< Where every horse bears his commanding rein, 
 
 And may direct his course as please himself. " 
 
 Or, as Norfolk says — 
 
 Henry VIII. " To climb steep hills 
 
 1-1 • Requires slow pace at first ; anger is like 
 
 A full hot horse, who, being allowed his'way, 
 Self mettle tires him." 
 
 And again in the same play, where Lord Sands, describing the 
 
 tricks the English have learned in France, says — 
 
 Henry VIII. " They have all new legs and lame ones ; one would take it 
 
 "*• That never saw their pace before, the spavin 
 
 Or spring-halt reigned among them." 
 
 And we must not omit from the Merchant of Venice 
 
 Merchant of ' ' Where is the horse that doth untread again 
 
 Venice 2-6. His tedious measures with the unbated fire 
 
 That he did pace them first." 
 Or, a fine example from Julius Csesar, 
 
 Julius Csesar . "There are no tricks in plain and simple faith, 
 
 ' 1 ~ 2 - But hollow men, like horses hot in hand, 
 
 Make gallant show and promise of their mettle, 
 But when they should endure the bloody spurs 
 They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades, 
 Sink in the trial." 
 
 I think that I have now given enough illustrations to 
 prove my case. I might go on till you would exclaim with 
 Portia 
 
 Merchant of «< He doth nothing but talk of his horse." 
 
 Venice 1-2. 6 
 
 But I have really only taken some of the most striking out of 
 hundreds, and I think that I have shown that if Shakespeare's 
 knowledge of law or medicine was so great as to prove he must 
 have boon a lawyer or a doctor, the knowledge he had of horses, 
 their good and bad points and characteristics, was quite 
 sufficient to have qualified him for a certificate from the
 
 19 
 
 College of Veterinary Surgeons. But the fact is, it would 
 
 be as difficult for 
 
 " Thy horse to con an oration," Troilus 
 
 J 2-1. 
 
 as for us to find any subject with which the great master mind 
 was not familiar, and with the familiarity of one completely 
 initiated rather than of an amateur. And as it was impossible 
 that the whole of his younger life could have been devoted to 
 all of the professions and trades to which it has been claimed 
 that he has served an apprenticeship, may we not rather 
 conclude that his works are the outcome of a mind ever 
 observant and enquiring— never forgetting or despising even 
 "unconsidered trifles" — and capable of retaining, digesting, 
 arranging, and reproducing every incident presented to his 
 senses r 
 
 I would, in conclusion, hope that this paper, though by 
 no means exhaustive of its subject, may serve to show how 
 much there is in Shakespeare's writings to assist and lead one 
 on in other studies. You have had one instance in the 
 admirable paper read by Mr. Humphreys on the Flora of 
 Shakespeare. Doubtless he would bear witness that the study 
 of botany and the collection of specimens were made pleasanter 
 and even easier by the poetic associations connected with their 
 names and habits. 
 
 I can say the same, and so will any of you who may be 
 inclined to work out what Shakespeare has written upon any 
 subject, no matter what, in which you may take a special 
 interest. 
 
 Now I conclude with the hope that you will not vote me 
 
 " As tedious as a tired horse." 1 Henry IV. 
 
 3-1.
 
 SHAKESPEARE NO DOG FANCIER 
 
 'OME years since I read a paper before this Club entitled 
 55% " Shakespeare on Horseback," the subject being the 
 poet's knowledge of, and love for, horses. I was then 
 urged by a few friends to treat of his knowledge of dogs in the 
 same way, but I was a busy man then, and had not time enough 
 for the labour of examining, collating, and weighing the bearing 
 of the three or four hundred passages which had to be con- 
 sidered before putting together even so humble a contribution 
 to Shakespearean literature as this is. Therefore, the idea was 
 for a time abandoned. Having now much enforced leisure 
 (although the task has become far more difficult, and, indeed, 
 cannot be prosecuted without the assistance of others), I return 
 to the subject, and will endeavour to show what Shakespeare 
 has said about dogs. In the first place, I find that the direct 
 references to dogs are about three hundred, almost as many as 
 those to horses. But on examining the more important ones 
 there is a wide, strongly-marked difference in the character of 
 the collected quotations relating to dogs as compared with 
 those concerning horses. Throughout his plays and poems 
 Shakespeare not only expresses his admiration for the noble 
 qualities, the beauty and usefulness of the horse, but he 
 constantly betrays his personal affection for him as a living 
 sentient being, whom he can love as a dear friend, and for 
 whom he feels the deepest sympathy. Moreover, he applies
 
 22 
 
 the horse and its qualities to illustrate certain attributes which 
 he finds in man, and these are nearly always qualities of a 
 character indicating courage and nobility, as pointed out in 
 my former essay. It is remarkable that very few traces of this 
 feeling are expressed in his allusions to the dog, an animal now 
 considered to be especially the friend of man, and one with 
 which other poets are accustomed to identify feelings of friend- 
 ship and sympathy much more closely than with any other 
 animal. The dog, in preference to the horse, is now used by 
 our more modern poets to illustrate the truest type of affection 
 and fidelity ; his faithfulness is depicted as something almost 
 superhuman, his love for his master, his willing obedience, and 
 his steadfast, unselfish attachment (even under constant ill- 
 treatment) are held up as examples for imitation. Cowper, 
 Shelley, Scott, Burns, Wordsworth, Byron, and others have all 
 their good words for the dog. 
 
 But though Shaksepeare does not entirely ignore any 
 allusion to a feeling of sympathy between man and dog, he 
 treats that feeling very lightly, and evidently regarded dogs 
 more with respect to their uses and for the services they render 
 men in carrying on their sports or their business. There are 
 two, but only two, passages with any important bearing 
 favourable to the dog in his works. One will be found in 
 "Tinion of Athens," where the cynical philosopher and the 
 man-hating Timon meet in the wood, and the other, in the 
 same act and scene, where Timon, touched by the unchanged 
 friendship of Alcibiades, says : — 
 Timon of "I do wish thou wort a dog 
 
 Athons That I might love thee something." 
 
 In the first we have the following lines : — 
 
 " Apemantus. What "man didst thou ever know unthrift that was 
 beloved after his means; 
 
 Timon. Who, without thoso means thou talkest of, didst thou ever 
 know beloved? 
 
 Apemantus. Myself. 
 
 Timon. I understand thee — thou hadst some means to keep a dog."
 
 23 
 
 Yet that Timon neither loved nor admired dogs is made quite 
 apparent in other passages, and we are, therefore, compelled 
 to conclude that he made use of the comparison rather to 
 disparage the man than praise the dog. The conclusion that 
 Shakespeare did not love dogs was forced upon me most 
 unexpectedly as the result of my researches, and I have con- 
 sequently been obliged to change the original title of my 
 paper for that which now stands at its head — Shakespeare 
 no Dog Fancier. A third passage bearing upon this subject 
 is from the Induction to the " Taming of the Shrew," and this 
 also might at first sight be quoted against me, but on exami- 
 nation, and taken in conjunction with other passages, it quite 
 bears out my contention that Shakespeare's regard for dogs 
 was rather for their uses than for the animals themselves. 
 This passage is that where a Lord enters with his huntsman 
 and servants, saying : — 
 
 " Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds ; Taming of 
 
 Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd, the Shrew, 
 
 And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth' d brach. Induction 
 
 Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good 
 At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault ? 
 I would not lose the dog for twenty pound. 
 
 1 Hun. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord ; 
 He cried upon it at the merest loss, 
 And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent : 
 Trust me, I take him for the better dog. 
 
 Lord. Thou art a fool ; if Echo were as fleet 
 I would esteem him worth a dozen such. 
 But sup them well, and look unto them all ; 
 To-morrow I intend to hunt again. 
 
 Here the lord (evidently a kindly and considerate man, who 
 
 takes good care of his hounds, and has been pleased by the 
 
 sport they have shown him), displays nothing whatever of any 
 
 sentiment of love and regard for the animals apart from the 
 
 sport and pleasure they have given, and would again give on 
 
 the morrow if properly attended to. This is the case with less 
 
 important passages which I shall point out later on, showing 
 
 that for one expression of tender feeling, or even the barest 
 
 liking, there are dozens where positive dislike or contempt are.
 
 24 
 
 plainly expressed. Let us now try to discover a reason, or 
 reasons, for Shakespeare's evident preference for the horse to 
 the dog. Is it that the horse was his more frequent companion ? 
 As the wool-stapler's son travelling the country round about 
 Stratford on his father's business, his sympathetic spirit and 
 innate love for animals made for him a favourite and a friend 
 of the horse which carried him, and which he, doubtless, fed 
 and groomed with his own hands ; while he probably did not 
 possess a dog. For dogs were at that time expensive articles 
 of luxury,* only considered to appertain to the rich and their 
 retainers, to serve in their sports, or as watch dogs, or to help 
 in the duties of the shepherds and swineherds. Moreover, it 
 is probable that if the youth kept a dog it might bring him 
 iuto disfavour with the well-to-do and sober-minded, and by 
 making him an object of suspicion would be likely to lead him 
 into scrapes and difficulties. It is hardly probable that he 
 could, as a young man, afford to keep a couple of grey-hounds 
 to enter into the coursing matches on the Cotswold Hills, 
 although he might readily have attended them as a spectator, 
 when, as we know, his sympathies leant more to the hare than 
 the hounds. Whether or no there were any general or local 
 enactments that prohibited the youth from keeping a dog, it is 
 certain that the gentry of the neighbourhood would look 
 askance upon the young man travelling about the country 
 ostensibly for the purpose of purchasing wool and skins from 
 the small farmers and cottagers, under cloak of which business 
 the dog following at his heels might easily pick up many a 
 hare or cony. His father, too, would naturally discourage or 
 positively forbid his keeping a dog of any kind, not only on 
 account of the objections that might be raised, but from its 
 being a worse than useless addition to the expenses of the 
 f imily, as in the time of William's boyhood wo learn that the 
 Shakcspeares were in considerable straits for money. There 
 are other probabilities which we may venture to consider as 
 • Sec quotation on previous page.
 
 25 
 
 reasons why dogs were not the companions and friends of the 
 
 lad. It is possible that his mother, a lady with refined and 
 
 cultivated tastes, who had married rather below her former 
 
 station in life, while bringing up a numerous family in the 
 
 Henley- street house, was not able to spend much on the 
 
 luxuries or even comforts of life, and, with habits and tastes 
 
 that caused her to inculcate order and cleanliness in her 
 
 household, must have objected to the intrusion of dogs and 
 
 puppies as the friends and companions of the active children, 
 
 who carried mud enough on to the stone floors as they rushed 
 
 in and out of the house (not from the well-paved streets of our 
 
 days, but from the dirty yards and muddy lanes of former 
 
 times) to have been a sore trial to the lady mother, without the 
 
 additional confusion and disorder that would be occasioned by 
 
 doggish play-fellows. And as he drove out the intruder he 
 
 would naturally have used the language of abuse learned from 
 
 his elders, and which he so frequently applied in after-life to 
 
 the objectionable and " base intruder ! " 
 
 ^ •, . « Tw0 Gentle- 
 
 " Go, base intruder, overweening slave ! men of 
 
 Verona 3-1. 
 And it is but natural to suppose that William, with his keen 
 
 observant eye, and its power quickened by his ardent love for 
 
 his gentle mother " as much as child ever loved" must have Lear l-l. 
 
 tried to assist and relieve her by driving away, instead of 
 
 encouraging anything that would give her annoyance or 
 
 trouble. We may be pretty sure that the little lad would 
 
 early have turned his childish steps to the stable, first holding 
 
 his father's hand, and there, even before he could be called a 
 
 boy, helping to feed and saddle the sturdy nag, or proud to 
 
 bring him to the farm-house door, and hold him until his 
 
 father was ready to mount and ride off on business or pleasure. 
 
 He would thus naturally have his childish instinct of love for 
 
 animals turned towards the horse that was prized by his 
 
 parents rather than to the dog that was looked upon as an 
 
 objectionable and " unmannerly intruder." With the dog it
 
 26 
 
 HP 1011 °f " Out rascal dogs." 
 
 Athens 5-1. ° 
 
 Titus Andro- c« Away inhuman dog, unhallowed." 
 
 mcus 5-3. J °' 
 
 M Ni ?U ht ,,ner " Out dog ! out cur ! thou driv'st me past the bounds of maiden's 
 Dream patience." 
 
 3-2. 
 
 While with the horse it was ever :- 
 
 Coriolanus « A noble steed." 
 
 "ttSSr "A goodly steed." 
 
 Troilus 
 3-3. 
 
 " A gallant horse fallen in first rank." 
 
 And so on. The dog, wherever he is named, was usually "cut- 
 throat dog," "blasphemous, uncharitable dog," "damned 
 inexorable dog," or "inhuman dog" (Merchant of Venice, 
 i., 3., and iv., 1.), and so on, over and over again to the end of 
 the chapter. He says of one that he was " fit only to be beat 
 like a dog " (Othello, v., 1.), and of another he should be sent 
 to " the fellow that whips the dogs " (Two Gentlemen, iv., 1). 
 
 This idea of the early influences on the child's life may 
 be scouted as merely visionary. It is, however, not only a 
 pleasant fancy, but has at any rate more foundation from what 
 we know of the poet's writings, and what few facts have come 
 down to us of his actual life and surroundings, than have 
 the groundless slanders invented by the Donnelli-Pottian 
 calumniators. " I thank thee, dog, for teaching me that 
 word." 
 
 Happily it was no English idea to put forth the sheer 
 invention that Mary Arden, the daughter of a house long 
 established, known, and respected throughout Warwickshire, 
 was the mother of a man whom they describe as so debased and 
 ignorant as to be unfit for any respectable companionship, but 
 of whom fifty contemporary writers spoke in terms of praise, 
 admiration, and envy ; who, after a distinguished career in 
 London, returned with ronown and wealth to his native town, 
 welcomed with reBpect and affection by his neighbours. If he
 
 27 
 
 had gained his wealth by being a party to the fraudulent 
 
 imposition now said to have been palmed off before the open 
 
 eyes of his contemporaries by Lord Bacon, he would surely 
 
 have gone anywhere else to live on his ill-gotten gains rather 
 
 than have returned to Stratford, where his antecedents were so 
 
 well known. Can we conceive that his fortune (so very large 
 
 for those days) was the result of liberal payments from " the 
 
 greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind " for partnership in a 
 
 conspiracy as absurd as fraudulent, and that either Bacon or 
 
 Shakespeare could have palmed off the writings of the one for 
 
 those of the other ? And that not only printers, publishers, and 
 
 a host of business men, but half of the poet's contemporary 
 
 literary friends and enemies should have joined in a plot to 
 
 deceive the world for three hundred years, only to be revealed 
 
 at last by a few astute Americans ! We know the honours he 
 
 received at the close of his life when he was buried in the 
 
 chancel of the Parish Church, and that over his grave was 
 
 placed the inscription : — 
 
 "In judgment a Nestor, in intellect a Socrates, in Art a Virgil. 
 The earth covets, the people mourn, Olympus has him." 
 
 Such a description, put up by contemporaries and friends, 
 must surely have called down torrents of contempt and ridicule 
 from many wits, who, from envy, would have been quite as 
 ready and far more capable of vilifying the dead poet as 
 Donnelly and his scurrilous followers, if they had but one peg 
 of fact on which to hang their wretched lampoons. When 
 these epithets were placed over Shakespeare's grave time was 
 too fresh to permit of such monstrous inventions to be circu- 
 lated as were put forth by Donnelly under the protecting shade 
 of nearly three hundred years. 
 
 " O, let not virtue seek Troilus and 
 
 Remuneration for the thing it was ; Cresrida 
 
 For heauty, wit, 3_3 - 
 
 High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, 
 Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 
 To envious and calumniating time."
 
 28 
 
 The child, then, grown past boyhood to youth, with his 
 natural instincts of affection turned towards the horse rather 
 than to the dog, would assuredly take every opportunity of 
 riding up to the Cotswold Hills and joining in the racing, 
 coursing, and other sports as a humble follower and eager 
 spectator of the games in which he, at that time, could not 
 share as an equal. Then his power of reasoning and observa- 
 tion daily grew in strength, and as his poetic genius gradually 
 developed he would learn to mark and apply the various 
 incidents that arose before him, and draw comparisons, and 
 store up descriptions, of which he soon after made such 
 splendid use. We know only the more matured works that 
 fell from his pen — works which he considered worthy of 
 presenting in their full completion to his Queen, his learned 
 and witty comrades, and the accomplished critics of London. 
 But, ah ! to think of the unconsidered trifles, the dramatic 
 scenes and scraps of verse that must have fallen from him in 
 his younger days, the recitals that made his mother smile and 
 sigh, or his father roar ; the little crude dramas acted with and 
 for his school-mates after each visit to the town of strolling 
 players had turned their thoughts for the time to theatres, or 
 rather to acting without a theatre. What a light would be 
 cast on the character and surroundings of the boy if only one 
 of his fugitive, scratchy, youthful jottings had been saved ! 
 
 When one thinks of what patient care has been bestowed 
 on every line and word of all his plays and poems, how every 
 fact and hint has been seized upon and weighed by conscientious 
 students, anxious to point out any faint spark that can throw 
 light upon the outer life and inner history of the poet, how sad 
 it is to think that nothing was kept or saved from all of that ho 
 would have considered too poor or trifling to be preserved. But 
 we must not leave young Shakespeare (young master William 
 Shakespeare) too long at tho coursing match beyond Dover's 
 Hill, or ho may get into bad company. At presont he is in safe
 
 29 
 
 hands, for he has found in the crowd a certain elderly person 
 whom he greets somewhat irreverently as "Puff." He is no 
 less a person than his father's friend, Goodman Pufford, of 
 Barcheston, with whom he stands, just in the rear of "the 
 quality," the squires and sporting yeomen of Warwickshire, 
 Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire, and quite near enough to 
 overhear their loud, boisterous conversation, and hearing 
 probably a good deal that we should consider the reverse of 
 edifying. But all that slips over his innocent mind without 
 leaving a stain, his attention being rivetted upon all that 
 belongs to the sport in progress. He sees there the 'squire 
 of Charlecote (the original of his Eobert Shallow, Esq., of the 
 county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and Custos Rotulorum), 
 with his foolish cousin, Master Slender, and they are soon 
 joined by roystering William Squale, a Cotswold man, the 
 companion of their studeut's life in Clements Inn. In the 
 train of Sir Thomas Lucy we also see William Cook, the 
 -aterer, and his fellow-servant, Thomas Davy, bailiff to the 
 'squire, and, at the same time, strange as it may now seem, 
 Vicar of Charlecote. With them is a great crony of young 
 Shakespeare's, little Lawrence Smythe, a lad of about his own 
 age, who helped in the kitchen and about the yard at Charle- 
 cote House, and grew up to succeed Cook in his office of caterer. 
 Poor fellow ! Years after, when he was about some business 
 appertaining to his office at Worcester (possibly to arrange 
 about a supply of lampreys for the great feast which was to 
 be given in honour of Queen Elizabeth's visit), he contracted 
 the plague, of which he died. Here, however, he is, lively and 
 well enough, standing in the group about Davy, the Charlecote 
 Vicar, and his friend the Welsh parson, and the two have 
 plenty of talk together, not only about theology and the Henry rv. 
 sports going on before them, but also of the respective merits 
 of red and white wheat, the rearing of pigeons, and the news 
 from Hinckley fair. The general talk is, however, of various 
 kinds of hunting, from the wolf and boar down to the smallest
 
 30 
 
 game, and Will learns enough to be useful to him in times to 
 come when he will be writing that appeal from Venus to 
 Adonis to leave the " angry, chasing, sharp-fanged boar," and 
 ruled by her — 
 
 " Uncouple at the timorous flying hare, 
 
 Or at the fox, which lives hy subtlety, 
 
 Or at the roe, which no encounter dares. 
 Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, 
 And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy hounds." 
 
 Our fancy sees the lad, Shakespeare, with his Stratford 
 companions following the train of the Squire of Charlecote as 
 far as their roads lay together, until Sir Thomas, pleased with 
 his eagerness and intelligence, tells him that he may join in 
 their falcon-flying matches if he will make himself useful in 
 beating up the quarry, and will even allow him to follow the 
 hunting at Fulbrook Park, where the hare instead of being 
 pursued in full view by greyhounds would be more slowly but 
 as surely hunted down by scent among the small enclosures 
 and the scattered woods, when the hounds, (mostly mongrel 
 bloodhounds, slow in pace, with a great cry,) will be the care- 
 fully selected and bred progenitors of the foxhounds and 
 harriers of our later day. They were dogs which had seemingly 
 been originally brought from the south of Europe, and to have 
 occasioned Shakespeare's description of the Spartan boar- 
 hound whose — 
 
 M . i , , " Heads are hung 
 
 Night's With ears that sweep away the morning dew." 
 
 Dream 4-1. 
 
 Thus Shakespeare had an opportunity of seeing the 
 incidents which he has so fully and perfectly described in 
 " Venus and Adonis " — 
 
 " And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, 
 Mark the poor wretch, to overshut his troubles 
 How he out-runs the wind, and with what care 
 lie cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles : 
 The many musits through the which ho goes 
 Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
 
 31 
 
 Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, 
 To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, 
 And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, 
 To stop the loud pursuers in their yell, 
 
 And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer : 
 Danger deviseth shifts ; wit waits on fear : 
 
 For there his smell with others being mingled, 
 The hot scent- snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, 
 Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled 
 With much ado the cold fault cleanly out ; 
 
 Then do they spend their mouths : Echo replies, 
 
 As if another chase were in the skies. 
 
 By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, 
 
 Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, 
 
 To hearken if his foes pursue him still : 
 
 Anon their loud alarums he doth hear ; 
 And now his grief may be compared well 
 To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell. 
 
 Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch 
 Turn, and return, indenting with the way ; 
 Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch, 
 Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay ; 
 
 For misery is trodden on by many, 
 
 And being low never relieved by any." 
 
 How complete, poetical, and perfect is the whole of this 
 description. 
 
 The road the party took from the Cotswolds to Stratford 
 and on to Charlecote is now a hard, well macadamised one 
 between high hedges, but in the days of which I am speaking, 
 and almost down to the beginning of the present century, it 
 ran across a series of open commons. About five miles from 
 Stratford we can well imagine Sir Thomas stayed at Wincote 
 to meet his friend Loggin who was staying at the Manor 
 House (a fine building, with a large hall which has only 
 recently been demolished, although some remains of it have 
 been converted into a farmhouse), which still stands in the 
 orchard where grew until quite recently three mulberry trees 
 of goodly size and venerable appearance, traditionally con- 
 nected w.ith the name of Shakespeare, and were, probably,
 
 32 
 
 planted by him at a time when this tree was introduced 
 into so many Stratford orchards. 
 
 While Sir Thomas goes up to the Hall, Shakespeare and 
 his humbler companions stop a few minutes at Mrs. Hackett's 
 tavern (which stood about two hundred yards from the Squire's 
 mansion) to taste the hostess's ale and exchange a passing jest 
 with the well-known Miller of Quinton, who was there waiting 
 with Gregory Sly of Clifford to hear the results of the games. 
 
 This Wincote (as Shakespeare wrote it), not Wilmcote (to 
 which it has been changed by some modern editors) was doubt- 
 less the scene of the Induction to the " Tamiug of the Shrew" 
 before cited ; and probably the Poet had himself been present 
 when some similar practical joke was played, after, perhaps, 
 he had followed the chase where Merryman was hurt and 
 Silver behaved so well. He witnessed, or perhaps performed 
 in a play in the great hall there, which I cannot help identify- 
 ing as that in which the first rough version of the " Taming of 
 the Shrew '* saw light. 
 
 Thus William Shakespeare grew up, helping his father at 
 his business, and sometimes going to school, where his quick- 
 ness in study gave him plenty of time to caricature his pompous 
 but learned pedagogue, whom he introduced undes the name 
 of Holof ernes into " Love's Labour's Lost," and drew him, 
 probably, from the well-known schoolmaster, Holof ernes 
 Taylor, who was buried at Winchcomb. Will was so apt a 
 scholar that he was soon permitted to take the place of monitor 
 or assistant master. This was done for the mutual advantage 
 of himself and the master ; for while he was saved from paying 
 any salary, young Shakespeare had the run of all his books, of 
 which the pedagogue doubtless had a good store, for he was a 
 learned man, as it whs fit the master of a school should be who 
 had a salary which was twico as largo as that which the head- 
 master of Eton received.
 
 33 
 
 We know that companies of players occasionally visited 
 Stratford and acted in the Hall of the Guild, now an important 
 part of the Grammar School. "We can well imagine what a 
 theatrical tendency they gave the school boys, not only William 
 Shakespeare, but James Burbage, and others, who, like them, 
 afterwards became popular London players, and were probably 
 only too glad to introduce the clever youth who was to furnish 
 them with so many fine parts. 
 
 And, now, let us suppose that there sprang up in the 
 youthful Shakespeare a discontented spirit. He found himself 
 patronised, tolerated, or snubbed by those who were glad 
 of his companionship for the amusement it afforded, but who 
 would not dream of treating him as their equal ; while he felt 
 that in mental strength, learning, and accomplishments he was 
 more than their superior. Why should he be debarred from 
 the chase except when bidden as a humble follower ? and so, 
 having many companions only too eager to lead him astray, 
 he fell into the famous poaching scrape, and was brought 
 before the Justice at Charlecote. We dare not think any 
 record of these proceedings perished in the recent destruction 
 of the countless accumulation of unheeded papers kept in the 
 old malt-house, but it seems clear that it was not for his killing 
 a deer, but for the ridicule cast upon his prosecutor and judge, 
 that William thought it advisable to absent himself awhile from 
 Stratford and join his cousin and friends in London, who were 
 ready to welcome him and eager to turn his talents to account. 
 That a serious feud arose between Sir Thomas and Shakespeare 
 seems certain. It may have been that the lad's connection with 
 the Catholic family of Arden was the real cause of this flight, 
 but, whatever the cause, we soon find him touching up the 
 copies of the dramas belonging to his company, and transposing 
 or writing-in lines of his own to take the place of others that 
 had been lost in oral transmission. But he took no dogs to 
 London, no
 
 34 
 
 Macbeth " Hounds or greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, shoughs, water 
 3-1. rugs, or demi-wolves yclept all by the name of dogs." 
 
 For none of these could be permitted on the stage of the 
 theatre or in the humble lodgings of the obscure actor from 
 Warwickshire. 
 
 Having now followed Shakespeare to London we need no 
 longer, for our purpose, trace his life as he grew into fame, 
 mingling with the courtiers and wits, and working hard at his 
 profession, writing and bringing out fresh master-pieces every 
 few months. No time then to encourage or indulge in a fancy 
 or taste which was not imparted 'in his infancy or had not 
 grown up with his youth, 
 
 On his frequent journeyings to and from Stratford his own 
 imaginings were sufficient companions ; and, when he stayed 
 in his native town, the time he had to spare from writing was 
 well filled up with business of his own — with consultations with 
 Mr. Green and others, and with giving advice on the various 
 cases on which he was consulted by his friends. That he was 
 so consulted, was much respected, and highly regarded by his 
 friends and neighbours we have plenty of evidence to show. 
 Halliwell-Phillipps's " Outlines of the Life " will give numerous 
 illustrations. Besides the fact of his burial in the chancel of 
 the Parish Church, the monument put up soon after his death, 
 and the many contemporary notices and eulogiums all prove 
 this beyond any reasonable doubt. 
 
 In so far tracing an imaginary sketch of these earlier 
 influences upon the tastes of the young poet, I have, of course, 
 mingled what is likely with what is known to be true, a 
 pleasanter task, certainly, than some have undertaken, who 
 have mixed up the unlikely with what is known to be 
 absolutely false. 
 
 I have not discarded all facts which cannot be legally 
 proved to the satisfaction of tho most critical mind. I have
 
 35 
 
 not thought fit to discard tradition, for, in default of positive 
 proof to the contrary, I am inclined to give considerable weight 
 to anecdotes and incidents that have been handed down and 
 recorded within some eighty or hundred years or more by 
 Ward, Aubrey, Davis, and others. And as this does not 
 pretend to be more than a fanciful sketch, it is unnecessary to 
 quote authorities. For statements made in this respect it is, 
 unfortunately, on a level with works of much greater pretensions, 
 and even the most full andimportant biographies sometimes do 
 not quote the authorities on which their statements are based, 
 their writers seeming to think their own assertions sufficient to 
 satisfy any reasonable inquirer that a correct decision has been 
 attained. My hearers, however, are at perfect liberty to treat 
 the whole as mere fancy, except the lines quoted from Shake- 
 speare himself, which, I believe, are quite sufficient to prove 
 that he had no fancy for dogs. 
 
 I have taken out as I went along those lines which I 
 oonsidered the most important to prove my case, but I may as 
 well add a few out of many further illustrations. 
 
 Launce and his dog Crab will occur to all as one of the 
 more important instances of the introduction of a dog into the 
 plays. But this, I fear, only affords another strong proof of 
 the complete want of sympathy felt by Shakespeare with the 
 subject. A decided contempt for both the dog and his master 
 is the ruling idea, even omitting the coarse jokes with which 
 the conversation is interspersed. There is not much sentiment 
 in the following : — 
 
 " I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives ; my Two 
 mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid Gentlemen 
 howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great /°i Vero ^ 
 perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear : he is a Edition* 
 stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog : 2-3. 
 
 a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting ; why, my grandam, 
 having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay 
 I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father : no, this left 
 shoe is my father : no, no, this left shoe is my mother : nay, that
 
 36 
 
 cannot be bo, neither : yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. 
 This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father ; 
 a vengeance on't ! there 'tis : now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, 
 look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand : this 
 hat is Nan, our maid : I am the dog : no, the dog is himself and 
 I am the dog — Oh ! the dog is me, and I am myself ; ay, so, so. 
 Now come I to my father ; Father, your blessiug : now should not 
 the shoe speak a word for weeping : now should T kiss my father ; 
 well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother : O, that she could 
 speak now like a wood woman ! Well, I kiss her ; why, there 'tis ; 
 here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister ; 
 mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a 
 tear nor speaks a word ; but see how I lay the dust with my tears." 
 
 And, again, in another act — 
 
 Enter Latjnce, with his dog. 
 
 Two " Launce. "When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look 
 
 Gentlemen y u, it goes hard ; one that I brought up of a puppy ; one that I 
 (Memorial saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and 
 Edition) sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say 
 4-3- precisely, ' thus I would teach a dog. ' I was sent to deliver him as 
 a present to Mistress Sylvia from my master ; and I came no sooner 
 into the dining-chamber but he steps me to her trencher and steals 
 her capon's leg : O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself 
 in all companies ! I would have, as one should say, one that takes 
 upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. 
 If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he 
 did, I think verily he had been hanged for't ; sure as I live, he had 
 suffered for't : you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the 
 company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's 
 table : he had not been there—bless the mark ! — a while, but all the 
 chamber smelt him. ' Out with the dog ! ' says one : ' What cur is 
 that ? ' says another : ' Whip him out ' says the third : ' Hang him 
 up ' Bays the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, 
 knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs : 
 ' Friend,' quoth I, ' you meau to whip the dogP ' ' Ay, marry, do I,' 
 quoth he. ' You do him the more wrong,' quoth I, ' 'twas I did the 
 thing you wot of.' He makes no more ado, but whips me out of the 
 chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant ? Nay, 
 I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, 
 otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese 
 he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't. Thou thinkest not of 
 it now. Nay, [ remember the trick you served me when I took my 
 leave of Madam Sylvia : did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I 
 do ? didst thou ever see mo do such a trick ? " 
 
 Nothing sympathetic hero for cither man or cur. In fact, 
 Shakespeare looked upon all dogs as curs unless they were 
 distinctly marked and set aside for some specific use. Edgar
 
 37 
 
 in King Lear (while pretending to be mad) strings out a list of 
 names which must have included the majority of distinct kinds 
 or breeds known in Shakespeare's time : — 
 
 " Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, hound or spaniel brach or Lear 3-6. 
 lym, or bob- tail tike, or trundle-tail, Tom will make them weep and 
 wail." 
 
 This list, with that given before from " Macbeth," and a few 
 others mentioned throughout the plays, show that Shakespeare 
 understood various breeds and qualities, even including the 
 Iceland or Esquimaux dog, which he rightly describes as the 
 " prick-eared dog of Iceland." But with all his knowledge he 
 does not love them — he rather dislikes and despises them. He 
 has no word — with the exceptions already mentioned — to say 
 of their fidelity and affection, but on the contrary, as in 
 " Richard III.," he makes Queen Margaret say — 
 
 " Oh Buckingham take heed of yonder dog. Kichard III. 
 
 Look, when he fawns he bites ; and when he bites 1_3 - 
 
 His venom tooth will rankle to the death." 
 
 The cursing Queen Margaret finds the dog a convenient 
 copy from which to paint a likeness of the crooked- backed 
 Richard. She describes him as 
 
 " Hell-hound ! that doth hunt us all to death. Richard III. 
 
 That dog that had his teeth before his eyes, 1-4. 
 
 To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood." 
 
 And in the same scene she prays 
 
 " That I may live to say the dog is dead." 
 
 And in the next Act the same comparison rises to Rich- 
 mond's lips when he exclaims 
 
 " The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead." Richard III. 
 
 5-4. 
 Over and over again the dog is drawn upon for illustrations 
 
 of dislike and hatred, but never for trustiness and courage. 
 
 Prince Arthur says 
 
 " And like a dog that is compelled to fight King John 
 
 Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on." 4-1-
 
 38 
 
 Richard II. Or when Richard II. denounces his former favourites as 
 
 3-2. 
 
 " Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man." 
 
 But it is needless to multiply instances. I have quoted 
 enough to show that the name of dog, or cur, or hound, is ever 
 ready as a term of contempt or dislike in the works of Shake- 
 speare ; while the sentiment that animates Campbell's poem of 
 " Bethgelert," or the affection which inspired the lines 
 addressed by Byron to his dead Newfoundland friend, find 
 no equivalent in anything uttered by our great dramatist, or 
 put into the mouths of any of his characters. No ; it is a 
 certain fact that Shakespeare was no dog fancier. He knew 
 as much of dogs as he cared to know ; used them frequently 
 for his illustrations, and described the characteristics of various 
 species ; but he does not love any of them — on the contrary, he 
 rather disliked and despised them. At the best they were as 
 
 Richard II. " That sad dog that brings me food to make misfortune five." 
 5-5. 
 
 At the worst they were only fit for the " Witches' cauldron." 
 
 Shakespeare disliked the dog, and considered the word 
 only fit to be used as a term of reproach, but this dislike was 
 not peculiar to him, and, probably, extended to most serious 
 and well-brought-up men of his time. 
 
 Most likely the book from which Shakespeare's chief 
 instruction was gained was the Bible. At any rate its power- 
 ful influence upon his mind is very evident. The Eastern 
 feeling that the dog is an unclean beast runs through it, 
 and its lessons in that, as in higher subjects, seem to have 
 impressed themselves upon the mind of the youth, and, perhaps 
 unconsciously, led him to use the same ideas and language in 
 connection with this animal that he had imbibed from his 
 early Bible lessons. 
 
 It may be said that Shakespeare talked as familiarly
 
 39 
 
 " Of roaring lions as maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs," 
 
 and treats of puppy-dogs as familiarly as of roaring lions, but 
 he had no more affection for the puppies than for the lions, 
 and though he might stroke the 
 
 ' ' Puppy greyhound ever so gently ' ' 
 
 when grown up he yet considered him as a cruel hound, whose 
 rank in nature was no higher than the hogs. Thus says Puck — 
 
 " Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound. 
 ' A hog." 
 
 and so the Duke in " Twelfth Night " speaks of his desires as 
 resembling — 
 
 "Pell and cruel hounds." 
 
 I pray my hearers, therefore, to let me claim that I have 
 proved my proposition — that, whatever we may think either of 
 the man or his works, it may be admitted at any rate that I 
 am correct in my first assertion that whatever our greatest 
 dramatic poet may have been we all agree that Shakespeare 
 was no dog fancier. 
 
 King John 
 2-2. 
 
 Henry IV. 
 2-4. 
 
 Midsummer 
 
 Night's 
 
 Dream 
 
 3-1. 
 
 Twelfth 
 
 Night 
 
 1-1.
 
 
 
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