Noble-hearted women such as the Lady Godiva were those of Coventry who assisted their husbands to drive out the Danes; and there they lead their captives in triumph; and the Hock-play terminates with song and chorus.

But the solemnities of the day are not yet concluded. In the space around Swine Cross, and near St. John's School, is another scaffold erected; not a lofty scaffold like that of the drapers and shearmen, but gay with painted cloths and ribbons. The pageant of The Nine Worthies' is to be performed by the dramatic body of the Grammar School; the ancient pageant, such as was presented to Henry VI. and his Queen in 1455, and of which the Leet-book contains the faithful copy.* Assuredly there was one who witnessed that performance carefully employed in noting down the lofty speeches which the three Hebrews, Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabæus; the three Infidels, Hector, Alexander, and Julius Cæsar; and the three Christians, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne, uttered on that occasion. In the Coventry pageant Hector thus speaks :

Surely it was little less than plagiary, if it were not meant for downright parody, when, in a pageant of The Nine Worthies' presented a few years after, Hector comes in to say

"The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion:

A man so breath'd, that certain he would fight, yea,
From morn till night, out of his pavilion.

I am that flower."

And Alexander :

"When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;

By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might:
My 'scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander."

And Pompey, usurping the just honours of his triumphant rival :—

"I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the great,

That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to sweat."

* Sharp, page 145.

But the laugh of the parody was a harmless one. The Nine Worthies were utterly dead and gone in the popular estimation. Certainly in the crowd before St. John's School at Coventry there would be more than one who would laugh at the speeches-merry souls, ready to "play on the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay."*

* Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. It is scarcely necessary to refer the reader to the same play for the speeches of Hector, Alexander, and Pompey. The coincidence between these and the old Coventry Pageant is remarkable.

NOTE ON THE COVENTRY PAGEANTS.

THE "Chester Mysteries," which appear greatly to have resembled those of Coventry, were Enally suppressed in 1574. Archdeacon Rogers, who in his MSS. rejoices that "such a cloud of ignorance" would be no more seen, appears to have been an eye-witness of their performance, of which he has left the following description :-(See Markland's 'Introduction to a Specimen of the Chester Mysteries.')

"Now of the playes of Chester, called the Whitson playes, when the weare played, and what occupations bringe forthe at theire charges the playes or pagiantes.

"Heare note that these playes of Chester, called the Whitson playes, weare the worke of one Rondell, a Moncke of the Abbaye of Sainte Warburghe in Chester, who redused the whole historye of the bible into englishe storyes in metter in the englishe tounge; and this Monke, in a good desire to doe good, published the same. Then the firste maior of Chester, namely, St John Arnewaye, Knighte, he caused the same to be played: the mâner of which playes was thus:— they weare divided into 24 pagiantes according to the cōpanyes of the Cittie; and every companye broughte forthe theire pagiant, wch was the cariage or place wch the played in; and before these playes weare played, there was a man wch did ride, as I take it, upon St Georges daye throughe the Cittie, and there published the tyme and the matter of the plays in breeife: the weare played upon Mondaye, Tuesday, and Wensedaye in Whitson weeke. And thei first beganne at the Abbaye gates; and when the firste pagiante was played at the Abbaye gates, then it was wheled from thense to the Pentice, at the hyghe Crosse, before the maior, and before that was donne the seconde came; and the firste went into the Watergate Streete, and from thense unto Bridge Streete, and so one after an other 'till all the pagiantes weare played appoynted for the firste daye, and so likewise for the seconde and the thirde daye. These pagiantes or carige was a hyghe place made like a howse with 2 rowmes, beinge open on the tope; the lower rowme theie apparrelled and dressed themselves, and the higher rowine theie played, and theie stoode upon vi wheeles; and when the had donne with one cariage in one place theie wheled the same from one streete to another, first from the Abbaye gate to the pentise, then to the Watergate streete, then to the bridge streete through the lanes, and so to the este gate streete: and thus tha came from one streete to another, kepinge a directe order in everye streete, for before thei firste carige was gone from one place the seconde came, and so before the seconde was gone the thirde came, and so till the laste was donne all in order withoute anye stayeinge in anye place, for worde boinge broughte howe every place was neere doone, the came and made no place to tarye tell the laste was played."

CHAPTER IX.

HOME.

We have thus endeavoured to fill up, with some imperfect forms and feeble colours, the very meagre outline which exists of the schoolboy life of William. Shakspere. He is now, we will assume, of the age of fourteen-the year 1578; a year which has been held to furnish decisive evidence as to the worldly condition of his father and his family. The first who attempted to write Some Account of the Life of William Shakspeare,' Rowe, says, "His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, had so large a family, ten children in all, that, though he was his eldest son, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it is true, for some time at a free-school, where, it is probable, he acquired what Latin he was master of: but the narrow ness of his circumstances, and the want of his assistance at home, forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language." This statement, be it remembered, was written one hundred and thirty years after the event which it professes to record-the early removal of William Shakspere from the free-school to which he had been sent by his father. We have no hesitation in saying that the statement is manifestly based upon two assumptions, both of which are incorrect :-The first, that his father had a large family of ten children, and was so narrowed in his circumstances that he could not spare even the time of his eldest son, he being taught for nothing; and, secondly, that the son, by his early removal from the school where he acquired "what Latin he was master of," was pre

vented attaining a "proficiency in that language," his works manifesting “an ignorance of the ancients." It may be convenient that we should in this place endeavour to dispose of both these assertions. Mr. Halliwell, commenting upon this statement, says, "John Shakspeare's circumstances began to fail him when William was about fourteen, and he then withdrew him from the grammar-school, for the purpose of obtaining his assistance in his agricultural pursuits." Was fourteen an unusually early age for a boy to be removed from a grammar-school? We think not, at a period when there were boy-bachelors at the Universities. If he had been taken from the school three years before, when he was eleven,— certainly an early age, we should have seen his father then recorded, in 1575, as the purchaser of two freehold houses in Henley Street, and the "narrowness of his circumstances as the reason of Shakspere's "no better proficiency,' would have been at once exploded. In his material allegation Rowe utterly fails.

-

The family of John Shakspere did not consist, as we have already shown, of ten children. In the year 1578, when the school education of William may be reasonably supposed to have terminated, and before which period his "assistance at home" would rather have been embarrassing than useful to his father, the family consisted of five children: William, aged fourteen; Gilbert, twelve; Joan, nine; Anne, seven; and Richard four. Anne died early in the following year; and, in 1580, Edmund, the youngest child, was born; so that the family never exceeded five living at the same time. But still the circumstances of John Shakspere, even with five children, might have been straitened. The assertion of Rowe excited the persevering diligence of Malone; and he has collected together a series of documents from which he infers, or leaves the reader to infer, that John Shakspere and his family gradually sunk from their station of respectability at Stratford into the depths of poverty and ruin. The sixth section of Malone's posthumous Life' is devoted to a consideration of this subject. It thus commences: "The manufacture of gloves, which was, at this period, a very flourishing one, both at Stratford and Worcester (in which latter city it is still carried on with great success), however generally beneficial, should seem, from whatever cause, to have afforded our poet's father but a scanty maintenance." The assumption that John Shakspere depended for his "maintenance" upon "the manufacture of gloves" rests entirely and absolutely upon one solitary entry in the books of the bailiff's court at Stratford. In Chapter II. we have endeavoured to show to what extent, and in what manner, John Shakspere was a glover. Glover or not, he was a landed proprietor and an occupier of land in 1578.

We proceed to the decisive statement of Malone that "when our author was about fourteen years old," the "distressed situation" of his father was evident it rests upon surer grounds than conjecture." The Corporation books have shown that on particular occasions, such as the visitation of the plague in 1564, John Shakspere contributed like others to the relief of the poor; but now, in January, 1577-8, he is taxed for the necessities of the borough only to pay half what other aldermen pay; and in November of the same year, whilst other aldermen are assessed fourpence weekly towards the relief of the poor, John Shakspere "shall not be taxed to pay anything." In 1579 the sum levied upon