in the town of Stratford, contemporaries of John Shakspere. We cannot say, absolutely, that Anne Hathaway, the future wife of William Shakspere, was of Shottery; but the prettiest of maidens (for the veracious antiquarian Oldys says there is a tradition that she was eminently beautiful) would have fitly dwelt in the pleasantest of hamlets. Pass the back of the cottage in which the Hathaways lived, and enter that beautiful meadow which rises into a gentle eminence commanding the hamlet at several points. Throw down the hedges, and there is here the fittest of localities for the May-games. An impatient group is gathered under the shade of the old elms, for the morning sun casts his slanting beams dazzlingly across that green. There is the distant sound of tabor and bagpipe :—

"Hark, hark! I hear the dancing,
And a nimble morris prancing;
The bagpipe and the morris bells,

That they are not far hence us tells."

From out of the leafy Arden are they bringing in the May-pole. The oxen move slowly with the ponderous wain: they are garlanded, but not for the sacrifice. Around the spoil of the forest are the pipers and the dancers-maidens in blue kirtles, and foresters in green tunics. Amidst the shouts of young and old, childhood leaping and clapping its hands, is the May-pole raised. But there are great personages forthcoming-not so great, however, as in more ancient times. There are Robin Hood and Little John, in their grass-green tunics; but their bows and their sheaves of arrows are more for show than use. Maid Marian is there; but she is a mockery-a smooth-faced youth in a watchet-coloured tunic, with flowers and coronets, and a mincing gait, but not the shepherdess who

"With garlands gay

Was made the lady of the May."†

There is farce amidst the pastoral. The age of unrealities has already in part arrived. Even amongst country-folks there is burlesque. There is personation, with a laugh at the things that are represented. The Hobby-horse and the Dragon, however, produce their shouts of merriment. But the hearty Morris-dancers soon spread a spirit of genial mirth amidst all the spectators. The clownish Maid Marian will now

Caper upright like a wild Morisco : " "‡

Friar Tuck sneaks away from his ancient companions to join hands with some undisguised maiden; the Hobby-horse gets rid of his pasteboard and his foot-cloth; and the Dragon quietly deposits his neck and tail for another season. Something like the genial chorus of "Summer's Last Will and Testament" is rung out :—

"Trip and go, heave and ho,
Up and down, to and fro,
From the town to the grove,
Two and two, let us rove,
A Maying, a playing;
Love hath no gainsaying:
So merrily trip and go."

The early-rising moon still sees the villagers on that green of Shottery. The piper leans against the May-pole; the featliest of dancers still swim to his music:

"So have I seen

Tom Piper stand upon our village green,

Back'd with the May-pole, whilst a jocund crew
In gentle motion circularly threw
Themselves around him." §

*Weelkes's "Madrigals," 1600. † Nicholas Breton.

"Henry VI.," Part II.

§ Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals," Book ii. Second Song.

The same beautiful writer-one of the last of our golden age of poetry-has described the parting gifts bestowed upon the "merry youngsters" by

Eight villages in the neighbourhood of Stratford have been characterized in wellknown lines by some old resident who had the talent of rhyme. It is remarkable how familiar all the country-people are to this day with these lines, and how invariably they ascribe them to Shakspere :

It is maintained that these epithets have a real historical truth about them; and

* Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals," Book ii. Fourth Song.

so we must place the scene of a Whitsun-Ale at Bidford. Aubrey has given a sensible account of such a festivity :-"There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather's days; but for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the Church-Ale of Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is, or was, a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, &c., utensils for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there, too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c., the ancients sitting gravely by and looking on. All things were civil, and without scandal."* The puritan Stubbs took a more severe view of the matter than Aubrey's grandfather:-"In certain towns where drunken Bacchus bears sway, against Christmas and Easter, Whitsuntide, or some other time, the churchwardens of every parish, with the consent of the whole parish, provide half a score or twenty quarters of malt, whereof some they buy of the church-stock, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his ability; which malt, being made into very strong ale or beer, is set to sale, either in the church or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then, when this is set abroach, well is he that can get the soonest to it, and spend the most at it."+ Carew, the historian of Cornwall, (1602), says, "The neighbour parishes at those times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankly spend their money together." Thus lovingly might John Shakspere and his friends, on a Whit-Monday morning, have ridden by the pleasant road to Bidford-now from some little eminence beholding their Avon flowing amidst a low meadow on one side and a wood-crowned steep on the other, turning a mill-wheel, rushing over a dam-now carefully wending their way

through the rough road under the hill, or galloping over the free downs, glad to escape from rut and quagmire. And then the Icknield Street is crossed,

*"Miscellanies."

"Anatomy of Abuses," 1585.

The Roman way which runs near Bidford.

and they look down upon the little town with its gabled roofs; and they pass the old church, whose tower gives forth a lusty peal; and the hostel at the bridge receives them; and there is the cordial welcome, the outstretched hand and the

full cup.

But nearer home Whitsuntide has its sports also. Had not Stratford its "Lord of Whitsuntide?" Might not the boy behold at this season innocence wearing a face of freedom like his own Perdita ?——

"Come take your flowers:
Methinks, I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals."

Would there not be in some cheerful mansion a simple attempt at dramatic representation, such as his Julia has described in her assumed character of a page?—

"At Pentecost,

When all our pageants of delight were play'd,
Our youth got me to play the woman's part;
And I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown;
Which served me as fit, in all men's judgments,
As if the garment had been made for me:
Therefore I know she is about my height.
And at that time I made her weep a-good,
For I did play a lamentable part:
Madam, 'twas Ariadne, passioning

For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight."†

Certainly on that holiday some one would be ready to recite a moving tale from Gower or from Chaucer-a fragment of the "Confessio Amantis" or of the "Troilus and Creseide :"

"It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves, and holy-ales."‡

The elements of poetry would be around him; the dramatic spirit of the people would be struggling to give utterance to its thoughts, and even then he might cherish the desire to lend it a voice.

The sheep-shearing-that, too, is dramatic. Drayton, the countryman of our poet, has described the shepherd-king :

"But, Muse, return to tell how there the shepherd-king,

Whose flock hath chanc'd that year the earliest lamb to bring,

In his gay baldric sits at his low grassy board,

With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties stor❜d:
And, whilst the bagpipe plays, each lusty jocund swain
Quaffs syllabubs in cans to all upon the plain;

And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear,
Some roundelays do sing,-the rest the burden bear."§

The vale of Evesham is the scene of Drayton's sheep-shearing. But higher up the Avon there are rich pastures; and shallow bays of the clear river, where the washing may be accomplished. Such a bay, so used, is there near the pretty village of Alveston, about two miles above Stratford. One of the most delicious scenes of the "Winter's Tale" is that of the sheep-shearing, in which we have the more poetical shepherd-queen. There is a minuteness of circumstance amidst the exquisite poetry of this scene which shows that it must have been founded upon actual observation, and in all likelihood upon the keen and prying observation of a boy

*"Winter's Tale," Act IV., Scene III.

"Pericles," Act I.

"Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act IV.,
§ "Polyolbion," Song XIV.

Scene III.

66

occupied and interested with such details. Surely his father's pastures and his father's homestead might have supplied all these circumstances. His father's man might be the messenger to the town, and reckon upon counters" the cost of the sheep-shearing feast. "Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants, rice ❞—and then he asks, “What will this sister of mine do with rice ?" In Bohemia, the clown might, with dramatic propriety, not know the use of rice at a sheep-shearing; but a Warwickshire swain would have the flavour of cheese-cakes in his mouth at the first mention of rice and currants. Cheese-cakes and warden-pies were the sheepshearing delicacies. How absolutely true is the following picture :-—

"Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon
This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;
Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all:
Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here

At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;

On his shoulder, and his her face o' fire

With labour; and the thing she took to quench it
She would to each one sip.'

This is the literal painting of a Teniers; but the same hand could unite the unrivalled grace of a Correggio. William Shakspere might have had some boyish dreams of a "mistress o' the feast," who might have suggested his Perdita; but such a creation is of higher elements than those of the earth. Such a bright vision is something more than “ a queen of curds and cream."

The poet who says

"Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music,"
""*

had seen the Hock-Cart of the old harvest-home. It was the same that Paul Hentzner saw at Windsor in 1598: "As we were returning to our inn we happened to meet some country-people celebrating their Harvest-home. Their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhapst hey would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." In the reign of James I., Moresin, another foreigner, saw a figure made of corn drawn home in a cart, with men and women singing to the pipe and the drum. And then Puritanism arose, to tell us that all such expressions of the heart were pagan and superstitious, relics of Popery, abominations of the Evil One. Robert Herrick, full of the old poetical feeling, sang the glories of the Hock-Cart in the time of Charles I.: but a severe religion, and therefore an unwise one, denounced all such festivals as the causes of debauchery; and so the debauchery alone remained with us. The music and the dancing were banished, but the strong drinks were left. Herrick tells us that the ceremonies of the Hock-Cart were performed "with great devotion." Assuredly they were. Devotion is that which knocks the worldly shackles off the spirit; strikes a spark out of our hard and dry natures; enforces the money-getter for a moment to forego his gain, and the penniless labourer to forget his hunger-satisfying toil. Devotion is that which brings the tear into the eye and makes the heart throb against the bosom, in silent forests where the doe gazes fearlessly upon the unaccustomed form of man, by rocks overhanging the sea, in the gorge of the mountains, in the cloister of the cathedral when the organ-peal comes and goes like the breath of flowers, in the crowded city when joyous multitudes shout by one impulse. Devotion lived