published two or three years. But, rejoicing as Shakspere must have done in "The Faery Queen," in his own poems we cannot trace the slightest imitation of that wonderful performance; and it is especially remarkable how steadily he resists the temptation to imitate the archaisms which Spenser's popularity must have rendered fashionable. If we go back eight or ten years, and suppose, which we have fairly a right to do, that Shakspere was a writer of verse before he was twenty, the absence of any recent models upon which he could found a style will be almost as remarkable, in the case of his narrative compositions, as in that of his dramas. In William Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetrie," published in 1586, Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Skelton are the old poets whom he commends. His immediate predecessors, or contemporaries, are "Master George Gascoigne, a witty gentleman, and the very chief of our late rhymers," Surrey, Vaux, Norton, Bristow, Edwards, Tusser, Churchyard, Hunnis, Heywood, Hill, the Earl of Oxford (who " may challenge to himself the title of the most excellent" among "noble lords and gentlemen in her Majesty's court, which in the rare devices of poetry have been and yet are most excellent skilful"); Phaer, Twyne, Golding, Googe, and Fleming, the translators; Whetstone, Munday. The eminence of Spenser, even before the publication of "The Faery Queen," is thus acknowledged:-"This place have I purposely reserved for one, who, if not only, yet in my judgment principally, deserveth the title of the rightest English poet that ever I read: that is, the author of 'The Shepherd's Calendar.'" George Puttenham, whose "Arte of English Poesie" was published in 1589, though probably written somewhat earlier, mentions with commendation among the later sort "For eclogue and pastoral poesy, Sir Philip Sidney and Master Challenner, and that other gentleman who wrate the late 'Shepherd's Calendar.' For ditty and amorous ode I find Sir Walter Raleigh's vein most lofty, insolent, and 66 66 passionate. Master Edward Dyer for elegy most sweet, solemn, and of high conceit. Gascoigne for a good metre and for a plentiful vein." The expression-"that other gentleman who wrate the late 'Shepherd's Calendar'"-would fix the date of this passage of Puttenham almost immediately subsequent to the publication of Spenser's poem in 1579, the author being still unknown. Shakspere, then, had very few examples amongst his contemporaries, even of the first and most obvious excellence of the “Venus and Adonis"—"the perfect sweetness of the versification.” "To continue the thought of the same critic, this power of versification was “evidently original, and not the result of an easily imitable mechanism." But at the same time, he could not have attained the perfection displayed in the "Venus and Adonis" without a long and habitual practice, which could alone have bestowed the mechanical facility. It is not difficult to trace in that poem itself portions which might have been written as the desultory exercises of a young poet, and afterwards worked up so as to be imbedded in the narrative. Such is the description of the steed; such of the harehunt. Upon the principle upon which we regard the Sonnets, that they are fragmentary compositions, arbitrarily strung together, there can be no difficulty in assigning several of these, and especially those which are addressed to a mistress, to that period of the poet's life of which his own recollection would naturally suggest the second stage in his Seven Ages." "The lover sighing like furnace," would have poured himself out in juvenile conceits, such as characterize the Sonnets numbered 135, 136, 143; or in playful tokens of affection, such as the 128th, the 130th, the 145th; or in complaining stanzas, a woeful ballad," such as the 131st and 132nd. The little poems of "The Passionate Pilgrim" which can properly be ascribed to Shakspere have the decided character of early fragments. The beautiful elegiac stanzas of "Love's Labour's Lost" have the same stamp upon them; as well as similar passages in "The Comedy of Errors." The noble scene of the death of Talbot and his son, forming the 5th, 6th, and 7th scenes of the 4th act of "Henry VI.," Part I., are so different in the structure of their versification from the other portions of the play that we may fairly regard them as forming a considerable part of some separate poem, and that perhaps not originally dramatic. "The period," says Malone, "at which Shakspeare began to write for the stage will, I fear, never be precisely ascertained."+ Probably not. But, in the absence of this precise information, it is a far more reasonable theory that he was educating himself in dramatic as well as poetical composition generally at an early period of his life, when such a mind could not have existed without strong poetical aspirations, than the prevailing belief that the first publication of the "Venus and Adonis," and his production of an original drama, were nearly contemporaneous. This theory assumes that his poetical capacity was suddenly developed, very nearly in its perfection, at the mature age of twenty-eight, in the midst of the laborious occupation of an actor, who had no claim for reward amongst his fellows but as an actor. We, on the contrary, consider that we adopt not only a more reasonable view, but one which is supported by all existing evidence, external and internal, when we regard his native fields as Shakspere's poetical school. Believing that, in the necessary leisure of a country life,— encumbered as we think with no cares of wool-stapling or glove-making, neither educating youth at the charge-house like his own Holofernes, nor even collecting his knowledge of legal terms at an attorney's desk, but a free and happy agriculturist, the young Shakspere not exactly "lisped in numbers," but cherished and cultivated the faculty when "the numbers came;" we yield ourselves up to the poetical notion, because it is at the same time the more rational and consistent *Coleridge: "Biographia Literaria." † Posthumous "Life," p. 167. THE hospitality of our ancestors was founded upon their sympathies with each other's joys and sorrows. The festivals of the church, the celebrations of sheepshearing and harvest-home, the Mayings, were occasions of general gladness. But upon the marriage of a son or of a daughter, at the christening of a child, the humblest assembled their neighbours to partake of their particular rejoicing. So was it also with their sorrows. Death visited a family, and its neighbours came to mourn. To be absent from the house of mourning would have seemed as if there were not a fellowship in sorrow as well as in joy. Christian neighbours in those times looked upon each other as members of the same family. Their intimacy was much more constant and complete than in days that are thought more refined. Privacy was not looked upon as a desirable thing. The latch of every door was lifted without knocking, and the dance in the hall was arranged the instant some young taborer struck a note; or the gossip's bowl was passed around the winter fire-side, to jest and song :— "And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, Young men married early. In the middle ranks there was little outfit required to begin housekeeping. A few articles of useful furniture satisfied their simple tastes; and we doubt not there was as much happiness seated on the wooden bench as now on the silken ottoman, and as light hearts tripped over the green rushes as over the Persian carpet. A silver bowl or two, a few spoons, constituted the display of the more ambitious; but for use the treen platter was at once clean and substantial, though the pewter dish sometimes graced a solemn merry-making. Employment, especially agricultural, was easily obtained by the industrious; and the sons of the yeomen, whose ambition did not drive them into the towns to pursue commerce, or to the universities to try for the prizes of professions, walked humbly and contentedly in the same road as their fathers had walked before them. They tilled a little land with indifferent skill, and their herds and flocks gave food and raiment to their household. Surrounded by the cordial intimacies of the class to which he belonged, it is not difficult to understand how William Shakspere married early; and the very circumstance of his so marrying is tolerably clear evidence of the course of life in which he was brought up. Shakspere's marriage-bond, which was discovered a few years since, has set at rest all doubt as to the name and residence of his wife. She is there described as Anne Hathaway, of Stratford, in the diocese of Worcester, maiden. Rowe, in his "Life," says,—“ Upon his leaving school, he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him; and in order to settle in the world, after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford." At the hamlet of Shottery, which is in the parish of Stratford, the Hathaways had been settled forty years before the period of Shakspere's marriage; for in the Warwickshire Surveys, in the time of Philip and Mary, it is recited that John Hathaway held property at Shottery, by copy of Court-roll, dated 20th of April, 34th of Henry VIII., (1545).† The Hathaway of Shakspere's time was named Richard; and the intimacy between him and John Shakspere is shown by a precept in an action against Richard Hathaway, dated 1566, in which John Shakspere is his bondman. Before the discovery of the marriage-bond, Malone had found a confirmation of the traditional account that the maiden name of Shakspere's wife was Hathaway; for Lady Barnard, the grand-daughter of Shakspere, makes bequests in her will to the children of Thomas Hathaway, "her kinsman.” But Malone doubts whether there were not other Hathaways than those of Shottery, residents in the town of Stratford, and not in the hamlet included in the parish. This is possible. But, on the other hand, the description in the marriage-bond of Anne Hathaway, as of Stratford, is no proof that she was not of Shottery; for such a document would necessarily have regard only to the parish of the persons described. * "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," Act II., Scene I. †The Shottery property, which was called Hewland, remained with the descendants of the Hathaways till 1838. Amongst the laudable objects of the Shakspere Club of Stratford was the purchase and preservation of this property. That has been abandoned for want of means. |