lersonal Kecolleclions a JoHN'^JoYCE Broadway yublisbiw^ Con^pai?^) Book , JX- ightN" COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. ^tvf oV^'^'v^ . SHARSPERE Personal R,ecollections BY COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE Author of "Checkered Life," "Peculiar Poems," "Zig- Zag," "Jewels of Memory," "Complete Poems," "Oliver Goldsmith," "Edgar Allan Poe" "Brick- bats and Bouquets," "Beautiful Washing- ton," "Songs," etc. Nations unborn, adown the tides of time Shall keep thy name and fame and thought sublime, And o'er the rolling world from age to age Thy characters shall thrill the mimic stage! — ^JOYCE. PUBLISHED BY BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY 83s BROADWAY, NEW YORK LIBRaKY (,< CON(iP?ESS Two Copies Received MAR 17 1904 ■>, Cf»pyriKht fcrf-itry CLASS OL XXc, No. ' » " • • Copyrighted, in 1904. BY COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE. Alt Rights Reserved. » • • V • • • • * • « « , ♦ • ' e. * CO DEDICATION. I dedicate this hoolc to the reader who has energy enough to borrow it, bullion enough to buy it, and brains enough to understand its philosophy, with the fervent hope that posterity may reap, thresh and consume the golden grain of my literary harvest, J. A. J. ^ ■■*?! PREFACE. It would be a flagrant presumption and a speci- men of magnificent audacity for any man, but my- self, to attempt to give anything new about the personal and literary character of William Shak- spere ! I speak of William as I knew him, child, boy and man, from a spiritual standpoint, living with him in soul-lit love for three hundred and forty years ! Those who doubt my dates, facts and veracity are to be pitied, and have little appreciation of romantic poetry, comedy, tragedy and history! It is well known among my intimate friends, that I sprang from the race of Strulbugs, who live forever, originating on the island of Immor- tality, on the coast of Japan — ^more than a million years ago. I do not give the name of the play, act or scene, in head or foot lines, in my numerous quotations from Shakspere, designedly leaving the reader to p~' Preface trace and find for himself a liberal education by stud3ring the wisdom of the Divine Bard. There are many things in this volume that the ordinary mind will not understand, yet I only contract with the present and future generations to give rare and rich food for thought, and cannot undertake to furnish the reader brains with each book! J. A. J. CONTENTS. Page ■Sweepstakes , , ix CHAPTER I. Birth. School Da js. Shows 1 CHAPTER n. Launched. Apprentice Boy. Ambition 11 CHAPTER ni. Farm Life. Sporting. Poaching on Lucy 19 CHAPTER IV. In Search of Peace and Fortune 27 CHAPTER V. London. Its Guilt and Glory 37 CHAPTER VL Taverns. Theatres. Variegated Society 45 CHAPTER VIL Theatrical Drudgery. Compositions 53 CHAPTER VIIL Growing Literary Renown. Royal Patrons 61 CHAPTER IX. Bohemian Hours. Westminster Abbey. "Love's Labor's Lost" 73 CHAPTER X. Queen Elizabeth. War. Shakspere in Ireland ... 82 CHAPTER XL Rural England. "Romeo and Juliet" 91 vii Contents Page CHAPTER XII. "Julius Csesar" 110 CHAPTER XIII. Two Tramps. By Land and Sea 130 CHAPTER XIV. Windsor Park. "Midsummer Night's Dream" .. 156 CHAPTER XV. The Jew. Shylock. "Merchant of Venice" 175 CHAPTER XVI. The Supernatural. "Hamlet" 202 CHAPTER XVII. Death of Queen Elizabeth. Coronation of King James 233 CHAPTER XVIII. iShakspere as Monologist. King James 244 CHAPTER XIX. iStratford. Shakspere's Death. Patriotism Down the Ages 270 FACSIMILE PAGES. Autograph Letter of Shakspere xxiii Autograph Poem of Shakspere 170 Autograph Letter of King James 248 Autograph Epitaph of Shakspere 280 Vlll SWEEPSTAKES. Shakspere was the greatest delver into the mys- terious mind of man and Nature, and sunk his intellectual plummet deeper into the ocean of thought than any mortal that ever lived, before or after his glorious advent upon the earth. He was a universal ocean of knowledge, and the ebb and flow of his thoughts pulsated on the shores of every human passion. He was a mountain range of ideals, and has been a quarry of love, logic and liberty for all writers and actors since his day and age, out of which they have built fabrics of fame. No matter how often and numerous have been the ^^lasts" set off in his rocky foundations, the driller, stone mason and builder of books have failed to lessen his mammoth resources, and every succeeding age has borrowed rough ashlers, blocks of logic and pillars of philosophy from the inex- haustible mine of his divine understanding. He was an exemplification and consolidation of his own definition of greatness: "Some are horn great, some achieve greatness and sow^e have greatness thrust upon them/* The poet finds in Shakspere a blooming garden of perennial roses, the painter finds colors of heavenly hues, the musician finds seraphic songs ix Sweepstakes and celestial aspirations, the sculptor finds models of beauty and truth, the doctor finds pills and powders of Providence, the lawyer finds suits and briefs of right and reason, the preacher finds proph- ecies superior to Isaiah or Jeremiah, the historian finds lofty romance more interesting than facts and the actor "struts and frets" in the Shaksperian looking-glass of to-day, in the mad whirl of the mimic stage, with all the pomp and glory of de- parted warriors, statesmen, fools, princes and kings. Shakspere was grand master of history, poetry and philosophy — tripartite principles of memory, imagination and reason. He is credited with com- posing thirty-seven plays, comedies, tragedies and histories, as well as Venus and Adonis, The Eape of Lucrece, The Lovers' Complaint, The Passion- ate Pilgrim and one hundred and fifty-four clas- sical sonnets, all poems of unrivaled elegance. What a royal troop of various and universal characters leaped from the portals of his burning brain, to stalk forever down the center of the stage of life, exemplifying every human passion ! Shakspere never composed a play or poem with- out a purpose, to satirize an evil, correct a wrong or elevate the human soul into the lofty atmosphere of the good and great. His villains and heroes are of royal mold, and while he lashes with whips of scorn the sin of cupidity, hypocrisy and ingrati- tude, he never forgets to glorify love, truth and patriotism. Virtue and vice are exhibited in daily, home- spun dress, and stalking abroad through the cen- turies, the generous and brave nobility of King Lear, Caesar, Othello, and Hamlet, will be seen in Sweepstakes marked contrast to Shylock, Brutus^ Cassius, lagOj, Gloster and Macbeth. His fools and wits were philosophers, while many of his kings, queens, dnkes, lords and ladies were sneaks, frauds and murderers. Vice in velvet, gold and diamonds, suffered under the X-rays of his divine phrases, while vir- tue was winged with celestial plumes, soaring away into the heaven of peace and bliss. He was the matchless champion of stern morality, and the in- terpreter of universal reason. Shakspere was a multifarious man, and every glinting passion of his soul found rapid and elo- quent expression in words that beam and burn with eternal light. The stream of time washes away the fabrics of other poets, but leaves the ada- mantine structure of Shakspere erect and unin- jured. Being surcharged, for three hundred and forty years, with the spirit and imagination of Shaks- pere, I shall tell the world about his personal and literary life, and although some curious and un- reasonable people may not entirely believe every- thing I relate in this volume, I can only excuse and pity their judgment, for they must know that the Ideal is the Real! The intellectual pyramids of his thought still rise out of the desert wastes of literary scavengers and loom above the horizon of all the great writers and philosophers that preceded his advent on the globe. The blunt, licentious Saxon words and sentences in the first text of Shakspere, have been ruthlessly expurgated by his editorial commentators^ adding, xi Sweepstakes no doubt, to the beauty and decency of the plays, but sadly detracting from their original strength. Pope, Jonson, Steevens and even Malone have made so many minute, technical changes in the Folio Plays of 1623, printed seven years after the death of Shakspere, that their presumptive eluci- dation often drivels into obscurity. Editorial critics, with the best intention, have frequently edited the blood, bone and sinews of the original thought out of the works of the great- est authors. While attempting to simplify the text for common, rough readers, they mystify the matter by their egotistical explanation, and while showing their superior research and classical learning, they eliminate the chunk logic force of the real author. For thirty years Shakspere studied the varie- gated book of London life, with all the human oddities, and when spring and summer covered the earth with primroses, flowers and hawthorn blossoms, he rambled over domestic and foreign lands, through fields, forests, mountains and stormy seas. With the fun of Falstaff, the firmness of Caesar, the generosity of Eang Lear and the imagination of Hamlet, Shakspere also possessed the love-lit delicacy of Ophelia, Portia and Juliet, reveling familiarly with the spirits of water, earth and air, in his kingdom of living ghosts. He borrowed words and ideas from all the ancient philosophers, poets and story tellers, and shoveling them, pell- mell, into the furnace fires of his mammoth brain, fused their crude ore, by the forced draught of his fancy, into the laminated steel of enduring form and household utility. xii Sweepstakes The rough and uncouth corn of others passed through the hoppers of Shakspere's hrain and came out fine flour^ ready for use by the theatrical bakers. With the pen of pleasure and brush of fancy he painted human life in everlasting colors, that will not fade or tarnish with age or wither with the winds of adversity. The celestial sun- light of his genius permeated every object he touched and lifted even the vulgar vices of earth into the realms of virtue and beauty. Shakspere was an intellectual atmosphere that permeated and enlivened the world of thought. His genius was as universal as the air, where zephyr and storm moved at the imperial will of this Grand Master of human passions. Principles, not people, absorbed the mammoth mind of Shakspere, who paid little attention to the princes and philosophers of his day. Schools, universities, monks, priests and popes were rungs in the ladder of his mind, and only noticed to scar and satirize their hypocrisy, bigotry and tyranny with his javelins of matchless wit. The flower and fruit of thought sprang spontaneously from his seraphic soul. He flung his phrases into the intellectual ocean of thought, and they still shine and shower down the ages like meteors in a midnight sky. Like the busy bee, he banqueted on all the blossoms of the globe and stored the honey of his genius in the lofty crags of Parnassus. Shakspere and Nature were confidential friends, and, while she gave a few sheaves of knowledge to her other children, the old Dame bestowed upon the "Divine" William the harvest of all the ages. xiii Sweepstakes Sliakspere's equipoise of mind, placidity of con- duct and control of passion rendered him invul- nerable to the shafts of envy, malice and tyranny, making him always master of the human midgets or vultures that circled about his pathway. One touch from the brush of his imagination on the rudest dramatic canvas illuminated the murky scene and flashed on the eye of the beholder the rainbow colors of his matchless genius. Ben Jonson, Greene, Marlowe, Fletcher and Burbage gazed with astonishment at the versa- tility of his poetic and dramatic creations, and while pangs of jealousy shot athwart their envious souls, they knew that the Divine Bard was soaring above the alpine crags of thought, leaving them at the foothills of dramatic venture. He played the role of policy before peasant, lord and king, and used the applause and brain of each for his personal advancement, and yet he never sac- rificed principle for pelf or bedraggled the skirts of virtue in the gutter of vice. The Divine William knew more about every- thing than any other man knew about anything! He had a carnivorous and omnivorous mind, with a judicial soul, and controlled his temper with the same inflexible rule that Nature uses when mur- muring in zephyrs or shrieking in storms, receding or advancing in dramatic thought, as peace or passion demanded. He seemed at times to be a medley of contradic- tions, and while playing virtue against vice, the reader and beholder are often left in doubt as to the guilt or glory of the contending actors. He puts words of wisdom in the mouth of a fool, and ixiv Sweepstakes foolish phrases in the mouth of the wise, and shuttleeocked integrity in the loom of imagination. William was the only poet who ever had any money sense, and understood the real value of copper^ silver, gold, jewels and land. His early trials and poverty at Stratford, with the example of his bankrupt father was always in view, con- vincing him early in life that ready money was all-powerful, purchasing rank, comfort and even so-called love. Yet he only valued riches as a means of doing good, puncturing the bladder of bloated wealth with this pin of thought: ''If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, lihe an ass whose haclc with ingots hows. Thou hearest thy heavy riches hut a journey. And Death unloads thee!" He noticed wherever he traveled that successful Btupidity, although secretly despised, was often the master of the people, while a genius with the wis- dom of the ages, starved at the castle gate, and like Mozart and Otway, found rest in the Potter's field. No Indian juggler could mystify the ear and eye and mind of an audience like Shakspere, for, over the crude thoughts of other dramatic writers he threw the glamour of his divine imagination, making the shrubs, vines and briers of life bloom into perpetual flowers of pleasure and beauty. With his mystic wand he mesmerized all. And peasants transformed to Icings; While age after age in cottage and hall. He soars with imperial wings. Sweepstakes N"o one mind ever comprehended Shakspere, and even all the authors and readers that sauntered over his wonderful garden of literary flowers and fruits have but barely clipped at the hedge-rows of his philosophy, culling a few fragmentary mementos from his immortal productions. Shakspere^s chirography was almost as variable as his mind, and when he sat down to compose plays for the Globe and Blackfrairs theatres, in his room adjacent to the Miter Tavern, he dashed off chunks of thought for pressing and waiting actors and managers, piecing them together like a cabinet joiner or machinist. In all his compositions he used, designedly, a pale blue ink that evaporated in the course of a year, and the cunning actors and publishers, who knew his secret, copied and memorized and printed his immortal thoughts. He kept a small bottle of indelible ink for ideals on parchment for posterity. I have often found his room littered and covered with numbered sheets of scenes and acts, ready for delivery to actors for recital, and many times the sunset over London would run its roxmd to sunrise and find William at his desk in the rookery, ham- mering away on the anvil of thought, fusing into shape his divine masterpieces. Shakspere's bohemian life was but an enlarged edition of his rural vagabond career through the fields and alehouses of Warwickshire. He only needed about four hours' sleep in twenty-four, but when composition on occasion demanded rapidity, he could work two days and rise from his labor as fresh as a lark from the flowery banks of Avon. Most of the great writers of antiquity patterned xvi Sweepstakes after greater than themselves, but Shakspere evolved from the illuminated palace of his soul the songs and sentiments that move the ages and make him the colossal champion of beauty, mercy, charity, purity, courage, love and truth. There are more numerous nuggets of thought in the works of Shakspere than in all the combined mass of ancient and modern literature. The various bibles, composed and manufactured by man, cannot compare in variety, common sense and eloquence, with the productions of the Im- mortal Bard. All the preachers, bishops, popes, kings, and em- perors that have ever conjured up texts and creeds for dupes, devotees and designers to swallow with- out question, have never yet sunk the plummet of reason so deep in the human heart as the butcher boy of Stratford ! Shakspere was the most industrious literary pros- pector and miner of any land or time, throwing his searchlight of reason into the crude mass of Indian, Assyrian, Persian, Eg3rptian, Greek, Eoman, Frank, German, Eussian and Briton lore, and forthwith appropriated the golden beauties of each nation, leaving behind the dross of vice and vulgarity. Marlowe, Burbage, Peele, Chapman, Greene and Jonson composed many fine physical and licentious dramas, pandering to the London groundlings, bloated wealth and accidental power ; but Shakspere threw a spiritual radiance over their brutal, sordid phrases and elevated stage characters into the realm of romantic thought, pinioned with hope, love and truth. His sublime imagination soared away into the flowery uplands of Divinity, and plucked from xvii Sweepstakes the azure wings of angels brilliant feathers of fancy that shall shine and flutter down the ages. He flung his javelin of wit through the buckler of ignorance, bigotry and tyranny, exposing their rotten bodies to the ridicule and hate of mankind. In lordly language he swept over the harp strings of the heart with infinite expression and comprehension of words, leaving in his intellectual wake a multifarious heritage of brain jewels. He flew over the world like a swarm of bees, robbing all the fields of literature of their secret sweets, storing the rich booty of Nature in the honey- comb of his philosophic hive. Through his brain the variegated paraphernalia of Nature, in field, forest, vale, mount, river, sea and sky were illuminated with a divine radiance that shall shine forever and grow greater as man- kind grows wiser. Shakspere has paid the greatest tribute of re- spect of any writer to women. While he gives us a few scolding, licentious, cruel, criminal women, like Dame Quickly, Katharina, Tamora, Gertrude and Lady Macbeth, he gives us the beautiful, faith- ful, loving characters of Isabella, Juliet, Desde- mona, Perdita, Helena, Miranda, Imogen, Ophelia and Cordelia, whose love-lit words and phrases shine out in the firmament of purity and devotion like morning stars in tropic skies. Shakspere studied all trades and professions he encountered in daily contact with mankind. He thought what he was and was what he thought! To him a sermon was a preacher, a writ a lawyer, a pill a doctor, a sail a sailor, a sword a soldier, a button a tailor, a nail a carpenter, a hammer a xviii Sweepstakes blacksmith, a trowel a stone mason, a pebble a geologist, a flower a botanist, a ray of light an astronomer, and even a word gave him ample sug- gestion to build up an empire of thought. He sailed upon the tides and currents of the human heart, and steered through the cliffs and caverns of the brain with greater glory than those who sought the golden "fleece^^ among the enchant- ing waters of Ionian isles. Shakspere conjured the characters of his plays from elemental principles, measures not men, breathing and acting in his divine atmosphere. It is strange and marvelous that he never wrote a line about the great men that lived and wrote in his day and age, although Cervantes, Rubens, Camoens, Bruno, Drake, Raleigh, Calderon, Cor- neille, Rembrandt, Kepler, Galileo, Montaigne, Beaumont and Fletcher^ Sidney, Marlowe, Bacon and Ben Jonson were contemporaneous authors, poets, dramatists, navigators, soldiers, astronomers and philosophers Licentious phrases and actions were universal in Shakspere^s time, and from the corrupt courts of King Henry the Eig^hth, Elizabeth and King James, to the cot of the peasant and trail of the tavern, morality hid her modest head and only flourished amons^ the puritans and philosophers who kept alive the flame of love and liberty. Dryden, Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe and Jonson infected literature with a species of eloquent vul- garity, and Shakspere, willing to please, readily infused into his various plays sensuous phrases to catch the rabble cheers and purpled applause. While he worshiped nature, he never failed to bend xix Sweepstakes the knee for ready cash, and often paid fulsome tribute to lords and ladies, who flattered his vanity and ministered to his "itching palm." Physical passion, mental license and social tyranny ruled in home, church and state, where Eome and Eeformation struggled viciously for the mastery. There are nuggets of golden thought still scat- tered through the plays of Shakspere that no au- thor or actor has ever discovered, and although they have read and repeated his lines, for more than three hundred years, there has been no brain able and brilliant enough to delve into or explain the secret caves of Shaksperian wit. Human sparrows cannot know the eagle flights of divine philosophy. The golden gilt of imagination decorated his phrases and the lambent light of his philosophy shone like the rosy dawn upon a field of variegated wild flowers. The hut and the cottage were trans- formed into lordly castles while the rocks and the hills became ranges of mountain, whose icy pin- nacles reflected back the shimmering light of suns and stars. Shakspere was a man of universal moods and like a chameleon took color and force from every object he touched. The draughts he took from the deep flowing wells of nature made no diminution in the volume of his thought, that rushed through his seething brain like an underground cataract filled from eternal springs. Fresh from the mint of his mind fell the clink- ing, golden coin of universal value, bearing the glowing stamp of his genius, unrivaled in the an- Sweepstakes nals of time. Since he wrote and acted, no man ever understood the depths of his wit and logic, or the height of his imagination and philosophy. The human mackerel cannot know the human whale. Shallow, presumptive college bookworms, arro- gant librarians and classical compilers, have at- tempted to explain his plays and sonnets, in foot- notes, but they have only been entangled in the briers and flowers of his fancy, finding themselves suffocated at last, in the luxurious fields of his eloquent rhetoric and universal wisdom. School-teachers, professors, priests, preachers, popes, and princes are brushed aside by the cut- ting phrases of Shakspere and go down to earth like grass before the scythe of this rustic reaper. They are dumfounded by his matchless mysteri- ous logic. Religion, law and medicine are pitch- forked about by the Divine William on the thresh- ing floor of his literary granary, where he separates wheat from chaff, instanter, leaving the beholder mystified by the splendid result. Viewing the great minds of the world from Homer to Humboldt, Shakspere never had an equal or superior, standing on the pinnacle of the pjrramid of human renown, and lifting his mam- moth mental form above the other philosophers of the earth as Mount St. Elias soars above its brother peaks. Distance lends a wizard enchantment to his lofty form and down the rolling ages his glory will grow greater until the whole universe is luminous with the dazzling lights of his eternal fame. Such god-like men shall never die; They shine as suns in tropic slcy, Sweepstakes And thrill the world with truth and love Derived from nature far above. Shakspere's mind was pinioned with celestial imagination, and his rushing flight circled the shores of omnipotence. He taught us that igno- rance was a crime, a murky night without a single star to light the traveler on his weary way. Those who have attempted to fathom the depths of the Shaksperian ocean of thought, have only rounded the rim or skimmed over the surface of its illimitable magnificence. Tossed about by the billows of Shakspere's brain, for three hundred and forty years mankind like a ship in a storm, still wonders and runs on the reefs of his under- standing, to be wrecked in their vain calculation of his divine wisdom. Leaving the beaten paths of oriental and middle age writers, he dashed deep into the forest of na- ture and surveyed for himself a new dominion of thought, that has never been occupied before or since his birth. Like a comet of universal light, he shines over the world with the warm glow of celestial knowledge. With the tuning key of his matchless genius he struck the chords of sorrow to their inmost tone and played on the heart strings of joy with the tender vibrations of an seolian harp, trembling with melodious echoes among the wild flowers of ecstatic passion. And to clap the climax and fathom the logic of love, he eloquently exclaims : "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds r J. A. J. £sii H^'vwv'' {^fr«''fe iUirn-TjvC' XXlll Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER I. BIRTH. SCHOOL DAYS. SHOWS. '^One touch of Nature makes the whole world Tcin" William Shakspere was born on the 23d of April, 1564, at the town of Stratford, on the river Avon, Warwickshire County, England; and died in the same town on the 23d of April, 1616, ex- actly fifty-two years of age, the date of his birth being the date of his death, a remarkable coin- cidence of spiritual assimilation. For several centuries, his ancestors served their king and crown in war and peace ; and were noted in their day and age as country "gentlemen,^^ a term much more significant then than now, when even dressed up "dandy^^ frauds may lay claim to this much-abused title. The grandfather of Shakspere fought on Bos- worth Field with King Henry the Seventh, and was rewarded for his military service, leaving to his son John, the father of the "Divine" William, influence enough to secure the position of a coun- try squire and made him bailiff and mayor of the town of Stratford. Sh'akspere: Personal Recollections John Shakspere, in addition to his judicial duties, dabbled in trade as a wool dealer and glove maker, and when he lost influence and office he resorted to the business of a butcher to secure bread, meat and shelter for his large family. He married the youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a very beautiful girl of Wilmcote, a small village three miles from Stratford. When Arden died, Mary, his favorite daughter, was bequeathed thirty-six dollars, and a small farm of fifty acres, near the town of Snitterfield. Good inheritance for that age. The Arden family were strict Roman Catholics ; and Edward Arden, high sheriff of Warwickshire, was executed in 1583, for plotting against her majesty. Queen Elizabeth. Those were lively days, when the followers of the Pope and King Henry the Eighth, banished, burned and hung presump- tive heretics for opinion's sake! The lechery and greed of King Hal was the primary cause of his separation from papal authority, augmenting the Reformation by licentious royalty. John Shakspere and Mary, his good wife, did not seem to have much of an education, for in signing deeds of conveyance, they only made their mark like thousands of the yeomanry of England. Shakspere was a very common name in War- wickshire and the surrounding counties, and while the "Divine" William glorified the whole race, there were others of his name who fought for king and crown. John Shakspere had ten children, with the af- fectionate assistance of Mary Arden. Seven daughters and three boys, William being the third 2 Sh'akspere: Personal Recollections child and the most active and robust. Several of the flock died, thereby reducing the trials and expenses of the household ; the "old man" seeming to be one of those ancient "Mulberry Sellers/' that was forever making "millions'^ in his mind, and chasing gold bags at the west end of rainbows ! For many years he persistently applied to the College of Heralds for a "coat of arms;" and finally in the year of 1599, a picture of a "shield" with a "spear" and "falcon," rampant, was awarded to the Shakspere iamilj, all through the grow- ing influence of the actor and author William, who had become famous and wealthy. John Shak- spere did not enjoy the glory of his "coat of arms" very long, for we find that he died in Septem- ber, 1601, and was buried on the 8th of that month, at the old church in Stratford, and his brave old wife, the mother of William Shakspere, followed him to the tomb on the 9th of September, 1608. I first met Will Shakspere on the 23d of April, 1571, at the old log and board schoolhouse at the head of Henley street, Stratford, on the river Avon. It was a bright, sunny day, and Mr. Walter Roche, the Latin master, was the autocrat of the scholastic institution, afterwards succeeded by Thomas Hunt. Will Shakspere and myself happened to be born on the same day, and our first entrance at the temple of knowledge marked exactly the seventh milestone of our fleeting years. Will was a very lusty, rollicking boy and was as full of innocent mischief as a pomegranate is of seeds. He was handsome and bright, wearing a thick suit of auburn curls, that rippled over his shoulders like a waterfall in the sunshine. His Shakspere: Personal Recollections eyes were very large, a light hazel hue, that glinted into blue when his soul was stirred by passion. His forehead was broad and high, even as a boy, 2x>unding off into that ^^dome of thought" that in later years, when a six-foot specimen of splendid manhood caused him to conjure up such a uni- versal group of immortal characters. His nose was long and high, but symmetrical, and his distended nostrils, when excited at play, would remind you of a Kentucky racehorse in motion. His voice was sonorous and musical, and when stirred by passion or pleasure it rose and fell like the sound of waves upon a stormy or summer sea. His lips were red and full, marked by Nature, with the ^T^ow of beauty," and when his luminous countenance was flushed with celes- tial light, he shot the arrows of love-lit glances around the schoolroom and fairly magnetized the boys, and particularly the girls, with the radiant influence of his unconscious genius. Will was a constant source of anxiety and won- der to the teacher, who often marked him as the scapegoat to carry off the surface sins of sneaking and cowardly pupils. Corporal punishment was part of school discipline, and William and myself got our share of the rule and rod. Through all the centuries, in youth and age, private and public, the scapegoat has been the real hero in all troubles and misfortunes. He seems to be a necessary mortal, but while persecu- tion relentlessly pursues him, he almost invari- ably triumphs over his enemies, and when even devoted to the prison, the stake or the scaffold, as a martyr, lie triumphs over the grave and is mon- 4 Shakspere: Personal Recollections mnented in the memory of mankind for his brav- ery and silent self-sacrifice ! For seven school years Will and myself were daily companions. Spring, with its cowslips and primroses, and hawthorn blossoms, found ns rambling through the woods and fields, and an- gling for the finny tribe disporting in the purl- ing waters of the crystal Avon. Summer brought its grain and fruits, with boys and girls scrambling over hedges, fences, stiles and brooks, in search of berries and ripe apples; autumn with its nuts, birds and hares, invited us to hunting grounds, along the rolling ridges and the dense forest of Arden, even poaching on the domain of Sir Thomas Lucy and the royal reaches of Warwick Castle, and old winter with his snowy locks and whistling airs brought the roses to our young cheeks, skipping and sporting through his fantastic realm like the snow birds whirling in clumps of clouds across the withered world. Looking back over the fields, forests and waters of the past through the variegated realms of celes- tial imagination, I behold after the lapse of more than three centuries of human wrecks, the bril- liant boys and glorious girls I played with in childhood years — still shining as bright and fresh as the flowers and fruits of yesterday ! '^For we are the same our fathers have been. We see the same sights our fathers have seen. We drinlc the same streams and view the same sun. And run the same course our fathers have run!'' Shakspere: Personal Recollections I remember well the first time Will and myself attended a theatrical performance. It was on the first of April, 1573, when we were about nine years of age. A strolling band of comic, and Pnnch and Judy players had made a sudden invasion of Stratford and established themselves in the big barn of the old Bear Tavern on Bridge street. The town was alive with expectation and the school children were wild to behold the great play of "The Scolding Wife,^' which was advertised through the streets, in the daytime, by a cartload of bedizened harlequins, belaboring each other with words and gestures, the wife with bare arms, short dress and a bundle of rods, standing rampant over the prostrate form of a drunken husband. Fifes, drums and timbrels kept up a frantic noise, filling the bylanes and streets of Stratford with astonished country louts and tradesmen, un- til the fantastic parade ended in the wagon yard of the tavern. The old barn had been rigged up as a rustic playhouse, the stage covering one end, elevated about three feet from the threshing floor. Cur- tains with daub pictures were strung across the stage, separated in the center and shifted back- ward and forward, as the varying scenes of the family play were presented for the hisses or cheers of the variegated audience. The play consisted of three acts, showing the progress of courtship and marriage at the altar, country and town life with growing children, work, poverty, and final windup of the husband driven from home by the scolding wife, bruised in an Shakspere: Personal Recollections alehouse, dead and followed to the graveyard by the Beadle, undertaker and a brindle dog. The climax scene of the play exhibited the wife with a bundle of rods, surrounded by ragged chil- dren, driving out into a midnight storm the hus- band of her bosom, while peals of thunder and flashes of lightning brought goose pimples and shivers to the frightened audience. The impression made upon the mind of William and myself did not give us a very hopeful view of married life, and while the haphazard working, drinking habits of the husband seemed to deserve all the punishment he received, the modesty, benev- olence and beauty of woman was shattered in our young souls. On our way home from the country-tragedy performance we were gladdened by the thought, that although the rude, vulgar, criminal passions of mankind were portrayed and enacted day by day all over the globe, we could look up into the star-lit heavens and see those glittering lamps of night shining with reflected light on the mur- muring bosom of the Avon, as it flowed in peace- ful ripples to the Severn and from the Severn to the sea. Nature soothed our young hearts, and soon, in the mysterious realms of sleep, we forgot the sorrows and poverty of earth, tripping away with angelic companions through the golden fields of celestial dreams. " There are more things in heaven and earth, Ho- ratio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." Shakspere: Personal Recollections I shall never forget the great shows and pageants that took place in Warwickshire County, in July, 1575. All England was alive to the grand entrance of Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth Castle, as the royal guest of her favorite, Eobert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Proclamation had gone forth that all work be suspended, while yeoman, trader, mer- chant, doctor, lawyer, minister, lords and earls should pay a pilgrimage to Kenilworth and pay tribute to the Virgin Queen. Stratford and the surrounding villages were aflame with enthusiasm, and as John Shakspere, the alderman and mayor, took great interest in theatricals and particularly those festivities in- augurated for the entertainment of royalty, he led a great concourse of devoted patriots through the forests of Arden, blooming parks of Warwick Castle on to the grand surroundings of Kenil- worth, where the people en masse camped, sang, danced, took part in country plays, feasted and went wild for eighteen days, over the illustrious daughter of Henry the Eighth. William and myself were among the enthusi- astic revelers, and for boys of twelve years of age, we felt more cheer than any of the lads and lasses from Stratford, because our parents furnished us with milk white ponies, to pay tribute, and t3rpify the virtue and chastity of the 'Virgin Queen !" We did not particularly care about virtue or virginity, so we shared in the cakes and ale that were lavished in profusion to the rural multitude. A high grand throne made out of evergreens and wild flowers was erected in the central park of 8 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Kenilworth, rimmed in by lofty elms, oaks and sycamores. There, through the fleeting days and nights, the Queen and her royal suite of a thousand purpled cavaliers and bejeweled maids of honor, held court and viewed the ever-changing, living panorama evolved for their entertainment. The Queen looked like a wilderness of lace and variegated velvet, ir- rigated with a shower of diamonds. On the 9th of July Queen "Bess" and her il- luminated suite entered the Castle of Kenilworth, and the hands of the clock in the great tower pointed to the hour of two, where they remained until her departure, as invitation to a continual banquet. The Earl expended a thousand pounds a day for the fluid and food entertainment of his guests, while woodland bowers and innumerable tents were scattered through the royal domain generously donated to man and maid by night and day. We boys and girls seldom went to bed. Companies of circus performers, and theatrical artists, from London and other towns were brought down to the heart of Old Albion to swell the pleas- ure of the reigning Queen. Continual plays were going on, while horn, fife, bugle and drum lent music to the kaleidoscopic revel. Dancing, hunting, hawking and archery parties, through the day, lent their antics to the scene, and when night came with bright Luna showing her mystic face, forest fires, rockets and illuminated balloons filled the air with celestial wonder, vieing with the stars in an effort to do universal honor 9 Shakspere: Personal Recollections to the "Virgin Queen!" That^s what they called "Bess." William and myself took part in several of the joint cirCTis and theatrical performances^ and at the conclusion of one of the plays — "Virtue Vic- torious," Queen Elizabeth called up William and a purple page named Francis Bacon, patted them on the head with her royal digits, and said they would soon be great men ! I must acknowledge that I felt a little envious at the encomium, not so much to William, as to the proud peacock. Bacon, who came in the train of the Queen. At sunrise of the 27th of July, 1575, the fes- tivities closed, and the royal cavalcade with a fol- lowing of ten thousand loyal subjects, accompanied the ruling monarch to the borders of Warwick- shire, with universal shouts and ovations on her triumphal march to London. ''I would applaud thee to the very echo. That should applaud again/' ''All that glitters is not gold. Often you have heard that told; Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to hehold!" 10 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER II. LAUNCHED. APPRENTICE BOY. AMBITION. ''TTie fault, dear Brutus, is not in our Stars, But in ourselves that we are underlings/* Will Shakspere and myself left school when we were fourteen years of age. Our parents being reduced in worldly circumstances, needed the finan- cial fruits of our labor. Shakspere was bound to a butcher named John Bull, for a term of three years, while I was put at the trade of stone-cutting with Sam Granite for the same period. Will was one of the finest looking boys in the town of Stratford, aristocratic by nature, large and noble in appearance, and the pride of all the girls in the county of Warwick; for his fame as a runner, boxer, drinker, dancer, reciter, speaker, hunter, swimmer and singer was well known in the surrounding farms and villages, where he had oc- casion to drive, purchase and sell meat animals for his butcher boss, John Bull. Shakspere's father assisted Bull in selling hides and buying wool. In the winter of 1580, Will and myself joined a new thespian society, organized by the boys and 11 Shakspere: Personal Recollections girls of Stratford, with a contingent of theatrical talent from Shottery, Snitterfield, Leicester, Kenil- worth and Coventry. Strolling players, chartered by Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester, often visited Stratford and the surrounding towns, infusing into the young, and even the old, a desire for that innocent fun of tragic or comic philosophy that wandering minstrels and circus exhibitions generate in the hu- man heart. Plays of Eoman, Spanish and German origin, as well as those of Old Albion, were enacted on our rural stage, and although we had not the para- phernalia and scenery of the London actors, we made up in frantic enthusiasm what we lacked in artistic finish, and often in our amateur exhibi- tions at balls, fairs, races and May Day Morris dances, we "astonished the natives,^^ who paid from a penny to sixpence to see and hear the "Stratford Oriental Theatrical Company." Shakspere always took a leading part in every play, poem and declamation, but when an encore was given and a demand for a recitation on love. Will was in his natural element and gave the eager audience dashes from Ovid's Metamorphoses or Petrarch's Sonnets. The local company had a large assortment of poetic and theatrical translations, and many of the boys and girls who had passed through the Latin school, could "spout" the rhythmic lines of Ovid, Virgil, Horace or Petrarch in the original lan- guage. And strange to say the Warwickshire au- dience would cheer the Latin more than the English rendition, on the principle that the least you know 1^ i Shakspere: Personal Recollections about a thing the more you enjoy it! Thus pre- tense and ignorance make a stagger at informa- tion, and while fooling themselves, imagine that they fool their elbow neighbor ! Shakspere had a most marvelous memory, and his sense of taste, smell, feeling, hearing and par- ticularly seeing was abnormally developed, and con- stant practice in talking and copying verses and philosophic sentences made him almost perfect in his deductions and conclusions. He was a nat- ural orator, and impressed the beholder with his superiority. He had a habit of copying the best verses, dra- matic phrases and orations of ancient authors, and then to show his superiority of epigrammatic, inci- sive style, he could paraphrase the poems of other writers into his own divine sentences, using the crude ore of Homeric and Platonic philosophy, re- solving their thoughts into the best form of classic English, lucid, brave and blunt ! I have often tested his powers of lightning ob- servation with each of us running by shop win- dows in Stratford, Oxford or London, and betting a dinner as to who could name the greatest number of objects, and he invariably could name correctly three to my one. In visiting country farmers in search of cattle, sheep or pigs he could mount a stone fence or climb a hedge row gate, and by a glance over the field or meadow, give the correct number of animals in sight. He was a wonder to the yeomanry of Warwick- shire and the surrounding counties, and when he had occasion to rest for the night at farm houses or taverns, he was the prime favorite of the rural 13 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Sames or bouncing, beaming barmaid. The girls went wild about him. The physical development of Shakspere was as noticeable as his mental superi- ority. Often when he ploughed the placid waters of the Avon, or buffeted the breakers of the moan- ing sea, have I gazed in rapture at his manly, Adonis form, standing on the sands, like a Grecian wrestler, waiting for the laurel crown of the Olym- pic games. Great Shakspere was endowed with heavenly light; He read the hooh of Nature day and nighty And delving through the strata of manhind Divined the thoughts that thrilled the mystic mind. And felt the pulse of all the human race. While from their heating heart could surely trace The various passions that inspire the soul Around this breathing world from pole to pole! My family and the Hathaway household were on familiar terms, for my father at times worked an adjoining! estate at the edge of the village of Shottery, a straggling community of farmers and tradesmen, with the usual wheelwright, blacksmith shop, corn and meat store and alehouse attachments. William, in his rural perambulations, often put up for the night at our cottage, and as there was generally some fun going on in the neighborhood after dark, I led him into many frolics with the boys and girls; and I can assure you he was a rusher with the fair sex, capturing the plums that fell from the tree of beauty and passion. On a certain moonlight night, in the month of May, 1581, a large concourse of rural belles and 14 Shakspere: Personal Recollections beaux assembled at the borne of John Dryden, washed by the waters of the Avon, and thrilled by the songs of the nightingales, thrushes and larks lending enchantment to the flitting honrs. Stratford, Snitterfield, Wilmcote and Shottery sent their contingent of roistering boys and girls to enjoy the moonlight lawn dance and rural feast set out under flowery bowers by the generous Dry- den. It would have done your heart good to see the variegated dresses, antics and faces of the happy rural belles. I see them as plain as ever in the looking-glass of memory. There is Laura Combs, plump and intelligent, Mary Scott, willowy and keen, Jennie Field, sedate and sterling, Mary Hall, musical and handsome, Annie Condell, modest and benevolent, Joyce Acton, witty and aristocratic, Lizzie Heminge, bouncing and beaming, Fannie Hunt, stately and kind, while Anne Hathaway, the big girl of the party, seemed to be the leader in all the innocent mischief of the evening. William took a particular liking to the push and go of Anne, and she seemed to concentrate her gaze on his robust form at first sight. William asked me, as the friend of the family, to intro- duce him to Miss Hathaway, which I did in my best words, and away they went, on a hop, step and a jump through the Morris dance that was just then being enacted on the lawn. The clarion notes of the farm cocks were saluting the rosy footsteps of the dawn when the various parties dispersed for home. The last I saw of William he was helping Miss Hathaway over the rustic stile and hedge row that 15 Shakspere: Personal Recollections rimmed the old thatched cottage home of his new found flame. It was a frigid day or night when William could not find something fresh and new among the fair sex, and like a king bee in a field of wild flowers, he sipped the nectar of love and beauty, and tossed carking care to the vagrant winds. It was soon after this moonlight party that a picnic revel was given in the domain of Sir Hugh Clopton, near the old mill and stone bridge erected by that generous public benefactor. The boys and girls of the town turned out en masse, and enjoyed the hawking, hunting, swim- ming, dancing, archery and boating that prevailed that day. In the midst of the festivities, while a long line of rural beauties and beaux were prancing and rollicking on the bridge, a scream, and a flash of Dolly Varden dress in the river showed the strug- gling efforts of Anne Hathaway to keep her head above water. One glance at the pride of his heart struggling for her life determined the soul of the athlete, when he plunged into the running stream, caught the arm of his adored as she was going down for the third time, and then with a few mighty sweeps of his brawny arm, he reached the shore and heaved her on the sands in an almost lifeless condition. She was soon restored, however, by her numerous companions, with only the loss of a few ribbons and bunches of hawthorn blossoms that William had tied in her golden hair that morning. William was the hero of the day, and his fame for bravery rung on the lips of the Warwick- 16; Shakspere: Personal Recollections shire yeomanry, while in the heart of Anne Hatha- way devotion reigned supreme. ''There is no love hroJcer in the world can more prevail in mans commendation with woman than report of valor/" The courtship of William and Anne was rapid, and although her father died only a few months before the 27th of November, 1582, license to marry was suddenly obtained through the insist- ence of the yeoman friends of the Hathaway fam- ily, Fulke-Sandells and John Richardson, who con- vinced the Lord Bishop of Worcester that one call- ing of the banns of matrimony was only necessary. William left his home in Stratford immediately and took charge of Anne's cottage and farm, set- tling down as soon as one of his rollicking nature could realize that he had been virtually forced into marrying a buxom girl, eight years older than himself, and a woman of hot temper. Six months after marriage Susanna, his daughter was born, and about two years after, February 2d, 1585, his twin children Hammet and Judith were ushered into his cottage home, as new pledges of matrimo- nial felicity. Things did not move on with William as happily after marriage as before, and while his wife did most of the work, the Bard of Nature preferred to shirk hard labor in field and wood, longing con- stantly to meet the ^"hoys" at the tavern, or fish, sing, hunt and poach along the Avon. Yoking Pegasus to a Manders mare would be about as reasonable as joining a practical^ honest woman with a poet! ir Shakspere: Personal Recollections Water and hot oil will not mix, and the fires of genius cannot be curbed or subdued by material surroundings. Beef cannot appreciate brains! Anne was constantly sand papering William about his vagabond life, and holding up the picture of ruin for her ancestral estate, by his thoughtless extravagance and determination to attend to other people^s business instead of his own. As the wife was senior and business boss, the Bard endured these curtain lectures with meekness and surface sorrow and promises of reformation, but, when out of her sight continued in the same old rut of playing the clown and philosopher for the public amusement. ^'Eow hard it is to hide the spark of Nature!" 18 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTEE III. FARM LIFE. SPORTING. POACHING ON LUCY. '^Hanging and wiving go hy destiny!" The drudgery of farm work was not relished by Shakspere, and the spring of 1586 found the man of destiny more engaged in the sports of Stratford and surrounding villages than in the production of corn, cabbage, turnips and potato(3s. Where fun was to be found William raised the auction and the highest bidder at the booths of vanity fair. He was athletic in mind and body, and forever like a cribbed lion or caged eagle, struggled to shake off his rural environments and dash away into the world of thought and action. Home, with its practical, daily gad grind moral- ity and responsibility, had no charm for William, and his stalwart wife made matters worse by her continual importunities to her vagabond husband to settle down with the muttonhead clodhoppers and tradesmen of Warwickshire. He was not built that way! Her farm logic fell upon deaf ears, for while she was preaching hard work he was reading the love- lit flights of Ovid and pondering over the sugared sonnets of Petrarch and Sir Philip Sidney, living in the realms of Clio^ Euterpe and Terpsichore, 19 Shakspere: Personal Recollections preparing even then his pathway to the great poems of Venus and Adonis, Lncrece, the sonnets and the immortal plays that were incubating in the procreant soul of the Divine Bard. He was his own schoolmaster, drawing daily draughts from the universal fountains of JS'ature. And what a blessing it is to the public to have even a social scapegrace hatch out golden ideas for their education and amusement, notwithstanding the neglect of farm and family ! The greatest good to the greatest number is best for all time. ''God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm/' On the first of September, 1586, the lord high sheriff of Coventry invited the people to an arch- ery and drinking contest. Eepresentatives from twenty-five villages and towns were selected, from the various working guilds and professions, to conquer or die (drunk) in the Queen^s name for the honor of Old Albion. Ceres, the Goddess of Harvest, had showered her riches on the fields and forests of Warwickshire, and to glorify her abundance, a great athletic and semimilitary carnival was thus given by the au- thorities to test the bravery, endurance and great- ness of the sons of Saint George and the Dragon. The beautiful, broad, undulating, winding high- ways, leading from Stratford, Warwick, Kenilworth and Birmingham to the ancient town of Coventry 20 Shakspere: Personal Recollections were filled with jolly pilgrims to pay devotion at the shrine of Hercules and Bacchus, with the in- fluence of Venus as an ever-present incentive to passionate pleasure. That bright September morning I well remem- ber ! Dame Nature was just donning her variegated gown of rustic-brown, while fitful airs from the realms of Jack Frost were painting the wild roses and forest leaves in cardinal hue, and the black- bird, thrush and musical nightingale flew low and sang hoarse, but continually, in their assemblages for migration to lands of sun and flowers. From Kenilworth to Coventry the rural scenery is as various and beautiful as visions of a dream, and the undulating landscape by hill and dale, field and forest, river, marge, cottage, hall, church and castle, grouping themselves in shifting pic- tures of beauty and grandeur, where lofty elms and sycamores rise and bend their willowy arms to the passing breeze, indelibly impresses the be- holder with a splendid kaleidoscopic view of Eng- lish hospitality and agricultural cultivation. The tall turrets of monasteries, castles and soar- ing church spires of Coventry looked luminous in the morning sunshine, while the brazen tongues of century bells rolled their mellifluous matin tones in voluminous welcome to the great multitude of revelers within her embattled walls and hospi- table homes. Promptly at nine o'clock in the morning, in the Leicester Park, twenty-five accoutered long bow men, in archery uniform, took their stand before the bulFs eye targets two hundred yards away. At the words "draw," "aim" and *^fly'' the whiz- 21 Shakspere: Personal Recollections zing arrows centered and shivered in the oak tar- gets, and none hit the bull's but Will Shak- spere of Stratford, who was proclaimed winner of the first prize, an ox, a barrel of sack and butt of wine, with the privilege of kissing every girl in the county. The entire day was spent in all kinds of sports, and with roasts, joints, bread, pudding, sack, ale, gin, brandy and whiskey, the revelers did not break up until daylight, when all were laid under the table but William and his friends Burbage, Con- dell and Dick Field, who had come away from his printing house in London to witness one of the greatest rural sports of England. Although Stratford was not a da3r's walk from Coventry, William and his friends did not suc- ceed in getting back for three days, and often they traveled by the light of the moon believing it was the sun in midday splendor. Anne Hathaway heard of William's official and social victory, not in the proud light of his Strat- ford and Shottery alehouse companions, but with a tongue like a gad, she proposed to lash him into shame as a husband or drive him from his cottage home to earn a living for his infant children. William was a little dubious as to his reception, and in order to temper the storm to the "ambling lamh," he earnestly requested me to accompany him home, as a buffer to his contemplated recep- tion, believing that Anne would mellow her words and actions in the presence of an old friend. I respectfully declined his pressing invitation and twitted him on being afraid of a woman, when he plaintively exclaimed: 22 Shakspere: Personal Recollections ^Anne Hath-a-tvay that gives me pain. She scolds both day and night; Her tongue goes pattering liTce the rain And speeds my outward flight; Til soon he gone to London town And leave her house and land Where I will gain some great renown That she may understand. I met William the next morning on his way to the Crown Tavern in search of a "Martini Cock- tail," a new drink that an Indian from America had invented for Admiral Drake and Sir Walter Ealeigh. William bore the appearance of a man who had slept by a smoky chimney, or encountered the butt end of a threshing flail. He seemed sombre and muttered to himself : ^'When sorrows come they come not single But in battalions r I joined him in liquidation at the tavern, for, to tell the truth, my throat felt like the rough edge of a buffalo robe, and my nerves trembled like aspen leaves in July. When our usual village sports filed around the table, and glee and song once more prevailed, William began to soften in his statuesque attitude, and laughingly proposed that we "go a poaching"^ on the imprisoned animals and birds that Squire Lucy corraled for his special delectation, to the detriment of honest apprentices and pure-minded yeomanry. His proposition was agreed to unanimously, 23 Shakspere: Personal Recollections and just as the stin tipped the treetops of the Charlecote domain, we had scared up a couple of fat deer, and sent our arrows through their trem- bling anatomy, and the number of hares, grouse and pigeons we slaughtered that evening kept the landlord of the Crown Tavern busy for two days to dish up to his jolly revelers. In this escapade we only imitated the aristo- cratic students of Oxford College, who frequently made inroads into lordly domains and took some of the treasures that God and Nature intended for all men, instead of being hatched, bred and watched by impudent and cruel gamekeepers, employed by tyrannical landlords, in defiance of the natural rights of the people. Even the fish in the Avon, Severn and Bay were registered and claimed by scrubs of royalty for their exclusive use, fine and imprisonment being imposed for hunting on the land and fishing in the streams that God made for all men. These parliamentary laws should be voted or bulleted out of the statute books, and the people again inherit their inalienable rights. My friend William was arrested by the ma- licious Lucy, and the gamekeeper, Tom Snap, swore to enough facts to exile, hang and quarter the Bard. Through the influence of his father and John A. Combe, William, the chief culprit, was not im- prisoned, but compelled to pay a fine of one pound ten. He did not have but three shillings, yet the boys secretly passed the hat around in the court yard and tavern, and soon extricated our chum from the toils of Sir Thomas Lucy. 24 Shakspere: Personal Recollections William did not have the courage to face his wife after a week's absence, and told me privately that he was going off instanter by the way of Ox- ford to London and seek his fortune. I applauded his spunk and determination, and, at his solicitation willingly joined him in his eloquent rambles. My parents were both dead, and being of a bohemian tendency, my home has ever been on any spot of the earth where the sun rose or set. Pot luck suits me. E'atural freedom of body and mind has ever been my greatest delight and the artificial fashions and tyrannical laws of society I despise and defy, and shall to my dying day. My mind is my master. Eight is my religion and God is my instructor ! '^I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind To blow on whom I please/' The evening before we left Stratford William wrote a short note to his wife and said that he would take her advice, leave the town, and seek his fortune in the whirlpool of grand old London. I imagine that Anne was delighted to receive his impromptu note, for it left her one less mouth to feed; and William was equally satisfied to be relieved of the role of playing husband without any of the practical moral adjuncts. In passing by the entrance gate to the lordly estate of Sir Thomas Lucy, or Justice Shallow, William nailed up the following poetic shot to the hot-headed old squire, which was read and copied the next morning, by all the market men 2S> Shakspere: Personal Recollections going to town, and the tavern lads going to their country ploughs : "The tyrant Thomas Lucy Lets no one go to mass, ^Ee's a squire for Queen Bess, And in Parliament an ass; Fair Charlecote is ruined By this hlujfer of the state, 'And only his dependents Will dare to call him great. The deer and hares and pidgeons Are imprisoned for his use. Yet, poaching lads from Stratford Pluch this strutting, feathered goose." 2^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER IV. IN SEARCH OF PEACE AND FORTUNE. '^ Blessed are those whose hlood And judgment are so commingled. That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger 'To sound what stop she pleases.' 'Give me that man that is not passion's slave' And I will wear him in my heart's core. Ay, in my heart of heart as I do thee." Early on the morning of the 9th of September, 1586, William and myself took our departure from the Crown Tavern. The landlord, Tom Gill, gave ns a bottle of his best gin and brandy to cheer iis on onr way to fame and fortune. Fannie Hill, the barmaid, threw kisses at ns nntil we rounded the corner of the street leading to the old Gram- mar School. We carried blackthorn cudgels to protect us from gamekeepers, lords and dogs. As we passed the modest cottage where William's parents resided, he impulsively broke away from my presence to bid a long farewell to his angelic mother, and soon again he was at my side, flushed with pride and tears, exclaiming in undertone : A mother's love and fervent hope Are coined into our horoscope. Shakspere: Personal Recollections And to our latest dying hreatJi Her heart and soul are ours to death! In his clutclied hand he held four gold ^^sov- ereigns'^ that his fond mother had given him at parting to help him in the daily trials of life, when no other friend conld be so triie and powerful. Gold gilds success. "Here, Jack, keep two of these for yourself, and if I should ever be penniless, and you have gold, I know you will aid me in a pinch. The wine na- ture of your soul needs no bush. ''We still have slept together. Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together. And wherever we went, liTce Juno's swans. Still we went coupled, and inseparable/' ^^illiam," said I, '^memory with her indelible signet shall long imprint this generous act of yours upon my soul, and when hundreds of years have passed, I shall tell of the undying friendship of two bohemians, who, day and night, set their own fashion, created a world of their own, and lived ecstatically, oscillating between the blunders of Bacchus and the vanity of Venus !" William's heart was heavy when turning his back on father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children, at the age of twenty-two. We passed along the Clopton stone bridge, and as we tramped over Primrose Hill looking back at the roofs and spires of Stratford, glinting in the morning light, the Bard uttered this impulsive dash of eloquence: ^8 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Farewell, farewell! a sad farewell To glowing scenes of hoyJiood. Ye roclcs, and rills and forests primeval List to my sighing soul, trembling on the tongue To vent its echoes in ambient air. No more shall wild eyed deer. Fretful hares, hawlcs and hounds Entrance mine ear and vision, Or frantically depart when Stealthy footsteps disturb the larTc, Ere Phoebus' golden light Illuminates the dawn. Memory, many hued maiden. Oft in midnight hours Shall picture these eternal hills. And purling streams, rimmed by Vernal meadows; And pilloived even in the lap of misery Fantastic visions of thee Shall lull deepest woe to repose. And banqueting at yon alehouse. Nestling near blooming hedge and snowy Hawthorn, I shall live again In blissful dreams among the enchanting Precincts of the silver, serpentine Avon. To thee I lift my hands in prayer Disappearing, and pinioned with Hope; Daughter of Love and sunrise — Go forth to multitudinous London, And, ''bucTcle fortune on my back'' "To bear her burden," to successful, Lofty heights of mind illimitable. With this apostrophe, we took a last look at the glinting gables and sparkling spires of Strat- ^9, Shakspere: Personal Recollections ford, disappearing over the hill, our steps and faces turned to London town, that seething whirl- pool of human woe and pleasure. The air was cold and the country roads were rutty and muddy, but the autumn landscape was beautiful, in its gray and purple garb, while the notes of flitting wild birds chirped and sang from bush, hedge, field and forest, in a mournful mono- tone to the fading glory of the year. The various birds chattered in clumps along the highway, and then would rise over our heads in flitting flocks, steering their course to the south and seemingly accompanying us on our wander- ing way to the great metropolis. In our zigzag course we passed through the towns of Ettington, Oxhill, Wroxton, Woodstock, Ever- sham and Oxford. It was near sunset when the lofty towers and steeples of ancient Oxford, the great site of classic lore, met our view. In our haste to enter the city before dark, we jumped a hedge fence and stone wall, making a short cross-cut over the lordly do- main of the Earl of Norfolk, and just as we were again emerging into the great road, a gamekeeper was seen approaching with a huge mastiff, who rushed upon us like a lion. We were near a rough wall, and it appeared to both of us that unless we stood for immediate fight the dog would tear us to pieces. The gamekeeper urged the dog in his barking, mad career, but just as he made a grand leap at William's throat, his blackthorn cudgel came down with a whirl and broke the forelegs of the mastiff, sending him to earth with a growl and 30 Shakspere: Personal Recollections roar that could be heard over the castle walls that loomed up in the evening gray. The game- keeper aimed a blunderbuss at the Bard, but ere he could fire the deadly weapon, I jumped on the petty tyrant whelp, and cudgeled his face into a macerated beefsteak. We then leaped the garden wall and rushed into the city crowd where the curtains of night screened us from dogs and licentious lords. We found our way to the Crown Tavern, kept by Eichard Devanant and his buxom black-eyed wife. The old Boniface was Jolly, but was in his physical and spiritual dotage, yet "Nell," his sec- ond wife, was the life of the place, being im- mensely popular with the Oxford students, who circled about the "Crown" in midnight hours, with hilarious independence, that defied the raids of beadles, watchmen and armed constabulary. Those were gay and roystering days and nights when the greatest yeoman, tradesman, student, or lord, was the one who "drank his comrade under the table" and went away at sunrise like a lark, fluttering with dew from his downy wing, and soaring into the sky of beauty and action. It was Saturday night when we pulled up at the old tavern, and there seemed to be a great crowd of town people celebrating some local event. We soon found that the senior class of Oxonian students had conquered the senior class of Cam- bridge at a great game of inter-college football and the cheers and yells of Oxford bloods perme- ated the atmosphere until midnight. A round table spread in the tavern hall was 31 Shakspere: Personal Recollections loaded with food and liquors, while songs and speeches were given with a vim, all boasting of the prowess and patriotism of Oxford. A number of strolling players and boxers were introduced during the evening. A young lord named Bob Burleigh, was presi- dent of the club, while Mat Monmouth was the spokesman, who called on the various students and actors to entertain the town roysters who dropped in to see the free and easy celebration of the foot- ball victory. While drowning our grief and loneliness in pew- ter pots of ale at a side table, in a snug corner, who should slap William on the shoulder but Ned Sadler, our old schoolmate from Stratford. N'ed was a jolly rake, and had been in London sporting with theatrical companies, and, as a citizen of the world, was perfectly at home wherever night over- took him. At the height of the college banquet Mat Mon- mouth announced that the president of the Cam- bridge Boxing Club had just challenged the presi- dent of the Oxford Club to fight, under the King's rule, for a purse of twenty guineas. A wild cheer rent the room, and instanter the chairs and tables were pushed aside, when Dick Milton and Jack Norfolk stepped into the impro- vised prize ring, made by the circling arms of the students. Five rounds with gloves were to be fought, and the champion who knocked out his opponent three times, should be the victor. Dick Milton, the Cambridge athlete, when "time^^ was called, rushed on Jack Norfolk^ the m Shakspere: Personal Recollections Oxford man, with a blow that sent him over the circling arms and into the chairs. Score one for Dick. Time was called, and Jack, although a little dazed, leaped at his opponent, who dodged the rush, and with a qnick turn got in, a left-hander on Jack's neck, and pastured him again among the yelling bloods. Score two for Dick. When time was called for the third round, the Oxford man looked bleary and tremulous, but with that bull-dog courage that never deserts an Eng- lishman, he threw himself on the Cambridge man with great force and both went down with a crash. Dick shook his opponent off like a terrier would a rat, and standing erect at the end of the room, waited for the call of time. Jack Norfolk did not respond to the call. Score three for Dick. Victory! Then the yell of the Cambridge students could be heard among the turrets and gables of classic Ox- ford, a recompense for their defeat at the after- noon football game. Dick Milton, flushed with wine and victory, held aloft the purse of guineas, and challenged any man in the room to fight him three rounds. There seemed to be no immediate response, but I noticed a flush in the face of William, who mod- estly rose in his six-foot form and asked if the challenge included outside citizens? Dick immediately replied, ^^You, or anybody in England.'^ William said he did not know much about fighting with gloves, but if the gentleman 3a Shakspere: Personal Recollections would consent to three rounds with bare knuckles he would be pleased to accommodate him at once. "All right, toe the mark !" Mat Monmouth called time. Dick Milton made a tiger leap at William, and landed with his right eye on the right knuckles of the Stratford citizen. The quickness and science of the Bard was a great surprise to the Cambridge athlete, and when time was called he came up groggy with a funeral eye, on the defense, and not on the tiger attack. Considerable sparring for place, and dodging about the human ring, was indulged in by Dick, but William foiled each blow, and as the Cam- bridge man inadvertently rubbed his swollen eye, the Bard landed a stinging blow on the left optic of Milton and sent him into the arms of the land- lord. When time was called, no response from the Cambridge champion was heard, and Mat Mon- mouth handed over the prize purse to William, when the Oxford lads cheered the Stratford stranger to the echo, and made him an honorary member of their athletic club. "Screiv your courage to the sticking place. And we will not fail." !At the second crow of the cock William and my- self bid good-bye to the jolly Boniface and his fantastic spouse, who made a deep impression on the Bard. In fact, he was easily impressed when youth, beauty and pleasure reigned around, and had he been born in Kentucky, no blue ribbon 34: Shakspere: Personal Recollections stallion in the commonwealth could match his form, spirit or gait. Apollo with his rosy footsteps lit up hill, meadow and lawn, and kissed away the sparkling dewdrops of bush and hedge, cheering us on our way through the towns of Thane, over the Chil- ton Hills, on to Great Marlow, Maidenhead and renowned Windsor, where forest and castle thrilled the beholder with admiration for the works of Nature and Art. It was late in the afternoon when we entered the broad highway to Windsor, passing numerous yeomen and tradespeople on their way to and from the royal domain of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. In striding along, with hearts light and airy, we were suddenly startled by cries of frantic yells coming from the rear, and looking around beheld a wild, runaway horse, and an open wagon with two young girls screaming for help. To see, think and act was always the way of William, and as the horse rushed by with wagon and girls, nearly clipping our legs off, the Bard made a leap for the tail board of the vehicle and landed in the midst of the frightened girls. He then, as if inspired with the impulse of a tiger, jumped on the back of the rushing animal, grabbed the trailing lines, and neck of the horse, and steered him into a huge box hedge row that skirted the castle walls of Windsor. Every one went after the runaway to see the fate of the party; but strange to say, the horse was lodged high and dry in the hedge row, while Wil- liam and the girls crawled out of the wreck with- 35 Shakspere: Personal Recollections out a scratch, soon recovering from the fear, trepi- dation and danger that but a moment before reigned supreme. We put up for the night at the Eed Lion Tavern, and you may be sure that William was the hero of the town. Eose and Bess Montagle were the young ladies whose lives had been providentially saved, and their father was the head gamekeeper of Windsor. William was invited for breakfast the next morning at the stone lodge to receive hearty thanks and reward for his heroic action in risk- ing his life for the salvation of others; but the Bard excused himself, saying that he must start by daylight for his last stretch to London, and only asked from the young ladies a sprig of boxwood and lock of their golden hair. At parting the father threw William a bag of gold, and the girls presented him with the tokens desired, in addition to impulsive bashful kisses. We were off promptly by sunrise, and steering our course to Houndslow, Brentford, Kensington, and to the top of Primrose Hill, we first caught sight of the spires, domes, turrets, temples and palaces of multitudinous, universal London. "London, the needy villains general home. The common sewer of Paris and of Rome; With eager thirst hy folly or by fate, SucTcs in the dregs of each corrupted state," 36 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTEE V. LONDON. ITS GUILT AND GLORY. ^'TJiey say^ test men are molded out of faults; And for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad/' It was on the 13th of September, 1586, that William and myself first feasted our eyes on the variegated wilderness of wood, mortar, stone and tile of wonderful London. The evening was bright and clear, while a north- west wind blew away the smoky clouds that hov- ered over the city like a funeral pall, displaying to our view the silver sinuosities of old Father Thames, as he moved in sluggish grandeur by West- minster, Blackfriars Bridge, the Tower, and to Gravesend, on his way to the channel and the sea. To get a grand view of the town, an old sexton advised us to climb the steeple steps of crumbling Saint Mary's, that once felt the tread of the Cru- saders, and heard the chanting hymn of monks, nuns and friars five hundred years before. Standing on a broken column of the old steeple, three hundred feet above Primrose Hill, William struck an attitude of theatrical fashion and ut- tered the following oratorical flight : 351 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Glorious London! Leviathan of human greed; Palpitating hot-hed of iniquity and joy, GreelCj Roman, Spanish, Saxon, Kelt, Scot, Pict, Norman and Dane Have swept over thee lihe winter storms; And the mighty Ccesar, Julius of old. With a myriad of huchlered warriors And one hundred galleons of sailors Triple-oared mariners, defying wave and fate. Have ploughed the placid face of Father Thames, Startling the loud cry of hawTc and bittern As his royal prows grated on thy strand. Or slcimmed over the marshes of thy infancy. Yet, amid all the wrechs of human ambition Where Pagan, Jew, Buddhist, TurTc and Christian Struggled for the mastery of gold and power. You still march forward, giant-lihe and brave. Facing the morning of progress and liberty. Carrying thy cross and crown to all lands — And with thy grand flotilla, chartered by Neptune Remain mistress of all the seas, defiant — The roar of thy cannon and drum beats Heard with pride and glory around the world! Sad, how sad, to thinJc that the day will come When not a vestige of this wonderful mass Of human energy shall remain; Where the cry of the wolf, bat and bittern Shall only be heard, and Nature again Resume her rustic, splendid desolation! Cities older and far greater than this, 'Dreaming of everlasting endurance. Have been long since buried in desert sands. Or engulfed in the pitiless wa/ves of ocean. Lost foremr from the rusty records 3a Shakspere: Personal Recollections Of Time^ the tyrant and tomb huilder Of man, vain insect of a moment. Who promises himself immortality. And then disappears like the mist of mountains. Or wandering meteors that sparhle and darhle In the midnight of oblivion! We quickly descended from the steeple, passed by Buckingham Palace, Eegent Park, British Mu- seum, through Chancery Lane into Fleet street, by Ludgate Hill, under the shadow of old bat- tered Saint Paul's Church on to the Devil's Tav- ern, near Blackfriars Bridge, where we found gay and comfortable lodgings for the night, it being twelve o'clock when we shook hands with Meg Mullen, the rubicund landlady. The Devil's Tavern was a resort for actors, au- thors, bohemians, lords and ladies, who did not retire early to their downy couches. The night we arrived the tavern was crowded, as the Actors' Annual Ball was in progress, and many fair women and brave men belated by Bacchus could not find their way home, and were compelled to remain all night and be cared for by the host of the Devil. I told "Meg" we were Stratford boys, come up to London to seek our fortune, and set the Thames afire with our genius. Plucking the "^^rosy" dame aside, I informed her that William Shakspere was a poet, author, actor and philosopher; and, while he was posing over the counter, smiling at a blooming barmaid, he looked the picture of his own immortal Eomeo. Meg told me in a quizzical tone that the town was 39 Shakspere: Personal Recollections full of poets and actors, and that the surrounding playhouses could hire them for ten shillings a week, with sack and bread and cheese thrown in every Saturday night. After a hasty supper, I tossed Meg a golden guinea to pay score, as if it were a shilling, to con- vince her that we were of the upper crust of bohe- mians, not strollers from the Strand, or penny pup- pets from Eastcheap or Smithfield. After passing back the change, Meg sent a gay and festive porter to light us to the top cock-loft of the tavern, -Ryb stairs up, among the windows and angled gables of the tile roof. A tallow dip and coach candle lit up the room, which was large, containing two Eoman couches with quilts, robes and blankets, a stout table, two oak chairs, a pewter basin, and a large stone jug filled with water. The tavern seemed to be on the banks of the Thames, for we could see through the two large windows, flitting lights as if boats and ships were moving on the water, while across the bridge old Southwark could be seen in the midnight glare as if it were a field of Jack-o'-lanterns moving in mystic parade. William and myself soon found rest in deep slumber, and wafted away into a dreamless realm, our tired bodies lay in the enfolding arms of Morpheus until the porter knocked at our door the next morning as the clock of the tower struck the hour of nine. Our first sight of sunrise in London gave us great expectations of fame and fortune — ^for surely all we had was glowing expectations. 40 Shakspere; Personal Recollections "Oft expectation fails^ and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits." While William stood gazing out of the roof windows of the Devil's Tavern on the moving, meandering population of London as they passed below on lane, street and stream, by foot, car or boat, he heaved a long drawn sigh, turned to me and said, "Jack, what do you think of London ?'^ "I like its whirl, dash and roar, far better than mingling with the rural milk-sops and innocent maidens of Warwick. Here we can work and climb to the top of the ladder of fame, while you, dear Will, will not be battered in ear by crying kids and tongue-lashing spouse/^ Brushing away a tear of sorrow, no doubt for the absence of loved ones at Stratford, he dashed down the stairs, and was soon in the jolly whirl- pool of tavern loungers, where beaming Meg greeted us with a smiling face, having prepared in advance a fine breakfast, smoking hot from the busy kitchen of the Devil. In passing out of the dining room, Meg led us through a back hall into a low, long room, where a number of 'ladies" and "gentlemen" were as- sembled about a round table, playing "cut the card," "spring the top" and "throw the dice;" small piles of silver and gold stacked in front of each player, while the "King's Dealer," or fat Jack Stafford, lost or paid all bets on "call." William and myself were incidentally intro- duced to the motley gang as young ^*bloods" from Warwick, who had just entered London for fame 41 Shakspere: Personal Recollections and fortune. The conclave rose with extreme politeness^ and Jack as spokesman welcomed ns to their bosoms (so to speak), and asked if we would not "sit up and take a hand/' I respectfully declined, but William, surcharged with sorrow or flushed with ambition, bethought of the guineas in his pocket and belt, and called for the "dice box/' "Deuces" won double and "sixes'^ treble coin. William, to the great amazement of the dealer, flung a guinea in the center pot, which was im- mediately tapped by Jack, while the others looked on in silent expectation. Grasping the dice box, he whirled it in his grasp, rattling the ^1)ones" in triumphant glee and threw on the table three "sixes," thus abstracting from the inside pocket of the "Gentleman" at the head of the table, twenty-seven guineas. Pushing back the coin and dice box, William proposed another throw, which was smilingly consented to by the "child of Fortune," and grasp- ing the box, the Bard clicked the "ivories" and flung on the table three aces, which by the rule of the game, gave all the coin to the "Eoyal" dealer. William never winced or hesitated, but pulling from his waist a buckskin belt, threw it on the table, exclaiming, "There's fifteen guineas I wager on the next throw." The polite Jack replied, "All right, sir, take your word for it." William frantically said : "I have set my life upon a cast. And will stand the hazard of the die!'' 42 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Then, with a round whirl, he threw three ^^aces" again, rose from the table and bolted out of the room like a shot from a blunderbuss. I immediately followed in his footsteps and found him joking with the landlady about a couple of infant bull pups she was fondling in. her capacious lap. At this juncture, who should appear on the scene but Dick Field, the first cousin of William, who had been in London a few years engaged in the printing and publishing business. If he had dropped out of the clouds William could not have been more pleased or surprised, and the feeling was reciprocal. The printing shop of Field was only a short distance from the Devil's Tavern, and we were invited to visit the establishment. On our way we passed by the Blackfriars, Curtain, In Yard, Paris and Devil theatres, interspersed with hurdy- gurdy concert hall, sailor and soldier, gin and sack vaults, where blear-eyed belles and battered beaux vied with each other in fantastic intoxica- tion. Field did a lot of rough printing for the vari- ous theatres, issuing bill posters, announcing plays, and setting up type sheets for actors and managers, in their daily concerts and dramas for the public amusement. As luck would have it, old James Burbage and his son Dick were waiting for Field, with a lot of dramatic manuscript that must be put in print at once. We were casually introduced to the great the- 43 Shakspere: Personal Recollections atrical magnate Burbage, as relatives from Strat- ford who were just then in search of work. James Burbage gazed for a moment on the manly form of William and blurted out in his bluff manner, "What do you know?^' Quick as a flash William replied : "I know more than those who know less, and know less than those who know more." "Sharp answer, ^oy.' See me to-morrow at the Blackfriars at noon.'^ We turned aside and left Field and Burbage to their business; while Dick Burbage, the gay theatrical rake, invited us across the way to the Bull's Head, where we irrigated our anatomy, and then returned to the printing shop. Field informed me that he had given us a great setting up with old Burbage; and would see his partner Greene, the playwright, and add to our. recommendation for energy and learning. We were invited to dine with Field that even- ing at eight o'clock at the Boar's Head Tavern, where Dame Quickly dispensed the best food and fluid of the lower town, and where the wags and wits of all lands congregated in security. "At the very witching time of night When church yards yawn and hell itself Breathes out contagion to this world/* M Shakspcre: Personal Recollections CHAPTER VI. TAVERNS. THEATRES. VARIEGATED SOCIETY. "Men's evil manners live in hrass; Their virtues we write in water/* The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap was one of the oldest and best inns in London for free and easy rollicking mood, where prince and peasant, king or clown, papist or puritan were welcome night and day, provided they intended no wrong and kept good nature aglow even in their cups. Magistrate and convent prior would sometimes raid the tavern until their physical and financial wants were satisfied. Dame Quickly, with ruffled collar, was the mas- ter spirit of the house, and had been its light and glory for thirty years. Her round, full face, fat neck and robust form was a constant invitation for good cheer, and her matchless wit was a mar- vel to the guests that nightly congregated through her three-story gabled stone monastery. A tavern is the best picture of human folly, nature wearing no garb of hypocrisy. You must know that the Boar's Head had once been the home of the "Blackfriars," then a resi- dence of a bishop, a convent, a brewery, and finally fell into the hands of the grandfather of fl5 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Dame Quickly, who bequeathed it to his posterity and the public as a depot for plum pudding, roast beef, lamb, birds, fish, ale, wine, brandy and universal pleasure. A boar's head, with a red light in its mouth was kept constantly burning from sunset to sunrise, where wandering human- ity found welcome and rest. Supper parties from the adjacent theatres filled the tavern in midnight hours, where actors, au- thors, politicians, statesmen and ladies of all hue, reveled in jolly, generous freedom, beneath the ever-present superintendence of buxom Dame Quickly. "The gods are just, and oft our pleasant vices MaTce instruments to scourge us. Boys, immature in Tcnowledge, Pawn their experience to their present pleasure.** The main bar, decorated with variegated lights and shining blue bottles and glasses, with pewter and silver mugs in theatrical rows, lent a kind of enchantment to the nightly scene. Bound, square and octagonal oak tables were scattered through the various rooms, and rough leather lounges skirted the walls. Promptly at eight o'clock William and myself passed the stony portals of the Boar's Head, and were ushered into the back ground floor dining room where we met our friend Field and a play- wright named Christopher Marlowe, standing be- fore a great open chimney, with a blazing fire and a splendid supper. Field seemed to take great pride in making us 46- Shakspere: Personal Recollections acquainted with Marlowe, the greatest actor and dramatist of his day, whose plays were even then the talk and delight of London. "Tamberlaine the Great" and "Dr. Faustns" had been successfully launched at the Blackfriars, and young Marlowe was in his glory, the wit and toast of the town. He was but twenty-five years of age, finely formed, a voluptuary, high jutting forehead, dark hazel eye, and a typical image of a bohemian poet. It was a toss up as to who was the handsomest man, William or Marlowe, yet a stran- ger, on close inspection could see glinting out of William's eye a divine light and flashing expres- sion that ever commanded respect and admiration. He was unlike any other mortal. I, alone at that period, knew the bursting ability of William; and that his granary of knowledge was full to the brim, needing only an opportunity to flood the world with immortal sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and the incubating passion plays that lay struggling in his burning brain for universal recognition. During the evening young actors, politicians, college students and roystering lords, filled the house and by twelve o'clock Bacchanalian folly ruled the madcaps of the town, while batteTed Venus with bedraggled hair and skirts languished in sensuous display. Field requested his friend Marlowe to recite a few lines from "Dr. Faustus" for our instruction and pleasure, and forthwith he gave the soliloquy of Faust, waiting at midnight for Lucifer to carry him to hell, the terrified Doctor exclaiming to the devil ; '47 Shakspere: Personal Recollections "Oh mercy! Jieaven, look not so fierce on mej Adders and serpents ^ let me hreathe awhile; Ugly hell gape not; come not^ Lucifer; III burn my hooTcs; oh! Mephistopheles !" And then mellowing his sonorous voice, gives thus his classical apostrophe to Helen of Greece : "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burned the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, maTce me immortal with a Tciss! Her lips such forth my soul — see where it Hies; Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again; Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips. And all is dross that is not Helena. O, thou art fairer than the evening air. Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars! Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, When he appeared to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sTcy In wanton Arethusa's azure arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!" A loud round of applause greeted the rendition of the classical poem, not only at our own table, hut through the entire hall and adjacent rooms. At a table not far away sat a number of illus- trious gentlemen, favorites of Queen Elizabeth and greatly admired by the people. There sat Sir Walter Ealeigh, lately returned from discoveries in America; Francis Bacon, At- torney-General to the Crown ; Earl Essex, the court favorite; Lord Southampton, the gayest in the realm; with young Burleigh, Cecil and Leicester, Shakspere: Personal Recollections making night melodious with their songs, speeches and tinkling silver wine cups. The young lords insisted that we give another recitation, pictorial of love and passion. Marlowe declined to say more, but knowing that William had hatched out his crude verses of Venus and Adonis, I insisted that he deliver a few stanzas for the enthusiastic audience, particularly describ- ing the passionate pleadings of Venus to the stal- lion Adonis. Without hesitation, trepidation or excuse, Wil- liam arose in manly attitude and drew a picture of beautiful Venus : ^'SomeMmes she shakes her head and then his hand. Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground; Sometimes her arms infold him lihe a hand; She would, he will not in her arms he hound; And ivhen from thence he struggles to he gone She loclcs her lily fingers one in one! '' 'Fondling' she saith, ^since I have hemmed thee here. Within the circuit of this ivory pale, ril he a parTc, and thou shalt he my deer; Feed where thou wilt on mountain or in dale; Graze on my lips; and if those hills he dry. Stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie. " 'Within this limit is relief enough. Sweet hottom grass and high delightful plain. Round rising hillochs, hrahe ohscure and rough To shelter thee from tempest and from rain; Then he my deer since I am such a park — No dog shall rouse thee though a thousand harTcF " 49 Shakspere: Personal Recollections When he dropped in his chair the revelers went wild with enthusiasm, and Marlowe and Southamp- ton wished to know where the ^^Stratford Boy'' got the poem ! William smiled, tapped his forehead and tossed off a bumper of brandy to the cheers that still de- manded more mental food. But as it was two by the clock, onr friend Field suggested that we retire, when Marlow and himself took ns in a carriage to the Devil Tavern, where we slept off our first spree in London. ''0 thou invisible spirit of wine. If thou hast no name to he Jcnown hy. Let us call thee Devil T We arose the next morning a little groggy, and William had a shade of melancholy remorse flash over his usually bright countenance. He abstractedly remarked: "Well, Jack, we are making a fine start for fame and fortune. The stride we took last night, at the Boar's Head, will soon land us in Newgate or Parliament V" I replied that it made little difference to intel- lectual artists whether they served their country in prison or in Parliament, for many a man was in Newgate who might honor Parliament, and many secret scoundrels who had not been caught should be inmates of Newgate, or, if equal justice prevailed, their bodies be dangling on the heights of Tyburn! ^'A Daniel come to judgment; yea, a Daniel! wise young judge, how I do honor theeT no Shakspere: Personal Recollections Poise the cause in justice' equal scales. Whose beam stands sure? It was ten o'clock when we stretched our weary legs under the breakfast table of Meg Mullen, who had prepared for us a quartette of fat mutton chops, with salt pork, baked potatoes, a huge ome- let and a boiling pot of black tea, sent, as she said, by the Emperor of China for the guests of the Boars Head Tavern ! Meg was a jolly wench, and garnished her food with pleasant words and witty quips, believing that love and laughter aided digestion and cheered the traveler in his journey of life. I reminded William that he had a business en- gagement with the great theatrical monarch, Kich- ard Burbage, at noon at the Blackfriars. The Bard was ready for a stroll, and after brushing our clothes and smiling at the variegated guests, we sauntered into the street toward the Thames, and soon found the entrance to the re- nowned Blackfriars Theatre. A call-boy ushered us into the presence of the great actor and manager, who greeted us with a snappish "Good morning!" A number of authors and actors were waiting their turn to see the prince of players, whose sig- net of approval or disapproval finished their ex- pectations. It was Saturday and pay day. Turning abruptly to William, the proprietor said: "I understand you know something about theatres and acting?" "Try me; you shall be my judge." "Then, sir, from this hour you are appointed 51 Shakspere: Personal Recollections assistant property man and assistant prompter for the Blackfriars, at sixteen shillings a week, with chance of promotion, if you deserve it ! ^^^Your business hours shall be from noon, every week day, until five o'clock ; and from eight o'clock in the night until eleven o'clock, when you are at liberty until the next day! "Do you accept the work?"' William promptly replied: "I accept with immeasurable thanks, and like Caesar of old, I cross the dramatic Kubicon." The Bard was then introduced to Bull Billings, the chief property man and prompter, who at once initiated William into the machinery secrets of the stage, with its scenes, ropes, chains, masks, moons, gods, swords, bucklers, guns, pikes, torches, wheels, chairs, thrones, giants, wigs, hats, bonnets, robes, brass jewels, kings, queens, dukes, lords, and all the other paraphernalia of dramatic exhibition. William was now launched upon the ocean of theatrical suns and storms, with Nature for his guide and everlasting glory for his name. ^'Loivliness is young ambition's ladder ^ Whereto the cliniber turns his face; But when he once attains the utmost round. He then unto the ladder turns his hachj, Loohs in the clouds, scorning the hose degrees By which he did ascend!'* 53 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER VII. THEATRICAL DRUDGERY. COMPOSITIONS. ''Sweet are the uses of adversity. Which, nice the toad, ugly and venomous. Wears yet a precious jewel in its head/* Shakspere had now his foot firmly planted on the lower round of the ladder of fame, whose top leaned against the skies of immortality ! The fermentation of composition began again to work within his seething brain^ and the daily demands of the Blackfriars spurred him on to emulate if not surpass Kyd, Lodge, Greene and Marlowe. During the time Shakspere had been a strolling player through the middle towns of England he had studied the works of Ovid and Petrarch, and read with pleasure the sonnets and Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney. While playing at Kenilworth, the Lady Anne Manners, young and beautiful cousin to the Earl of Leicester, honored the young actor with great praise for his part in playing the Lover in "Love's Conquest.^' She presented the Bard with a bunch of immortelles, that, even when withered, he always 53 Shakspere: Personal Recollections kept in an inside pocket, and at various times com- posed sonnets to his absent admirer, playing Petrarch to another Laura. The languishing, luscious, lascivious poem of ^^Venus and Adonis" was really inspired by the remembrance of Miss Manners, and imagination pictured himself and the lady as the principals in the sensuous situation ! William, like Dame Nature, was full of life- sap, that circled through his body and brain with constant motion and sought an outlet for the sur- plus volume of ideal knowledge, in theatrical ac- tion, teaching lessons of right and wrong, with vice and virtue struggling forever for the mastery of mankind. The Bard worked night and day in his duties as theatrical drudge for the Blackfriars, and made himself valuable and solid with old Burbage, who saw in the young actor a marvelous development of new thought and force, that had never before been seen on the British stage. In a few weeks Bull Billings was discharged for tyranny and drunkenness, and my friend William was given the place of chief property man and prompter. Various plays were put on and off the Black- friars stage, through the hisses or cheers of the motley audience, the autocrats of the "pit" seeming to be the real umpires of the cessation or continu- ance of the most noted plays. The last week in October, 1586, was a mournful time for London, as the greatest favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Philip Sidney, was to receive a State funeral at Saint Paul's. 54 Shakspere: Personal Recollections All England went in mourning for the hand- some cavalier and poet, who lost his life at the siege of Axel, in the Netherlands, while serving as chief of cavalry under his uncle, the Earl of Leicester. All business closed in honor of the young hero, and the celebrated military organization, the "An- cient and Honorable Artillery,^^ led more than thirty thousand of the "train bands," who followed in the great procession to Saint Paul's Church. The sacerdotal service began at noon, and Queen Elizabeth rode in a golden car on a dark purple throne to witness the last rites in honor of her court favorite. The bells of London churches, temples, turrets, and towers rang continually until sundown, filling the air with a universal requiem of grief, while the black clouds hanging over the metropolis shed showers of tears for the untimely loss of a patriot and a poet. William and/myself saw the funeral car from the steps of St. Paul, and as the coffin was carried in on the shoulders of eight stalwart soldiers, dressed in the golden garb of the Horse Battalions, we bowed our heads in holy adoration to the mem- ory and valor of the sonnet-maker — lost in eternal sleep. ''Come, sleep, sleep, the certain Jcnot of peace. The halting place of wit, the 'balm of woe. The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release — The indifferent judge between the high and low!" b^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections How truthful this extract from one of Sidney's sonnets ! He was a synonym of bravery and politeness ; for being carried from the field of battle, thirsty and bleeding, he called for a cup of water, and just as he was lifting it to his lips a fatally wounded soldier was being carried by who fixed his longing eyes eagerly on the cup— and instanter, the gay and gallant Sidney delivered the drink to the poor sol- dier, saying : "Thy necessity is greater than mine !" Noble self-sacrifice, elemental generosity, im- perial nature, sublime and benevolent in thought and act! On our return to the Devil Tavern for supper we found Manager Burbage, of Blackfriars, await- ing us. He was in great haste and desired William to look over a play that had been submitted by Greene and Lodge, who composed it jointly. It was a comedy-tragedy, entitled "Looking Glass of London," in three rambling acts, and while Bur- bage was disposed to take the play and pay for it, he desired that Shakspere should give it such rip- ping corrections as he thought best. This was surely showing great confidence in a young actor and author — ^to criticise the play of acknowledged dramatists who had been the talk of the town. Shakspere modestly remarked : "I fear, sir, your friends. Lodge and Greene, will not like or tolerate my cutting of their play.'' "Care not for their opinion! Do as I say, and have the play ready for staging Monday afternoon at two o'clock." "Your command is law, and I obey," said the 50 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Bard — and out rushed the bluffing, busy Burbage. The constant circulation of bohemian customers, day and night about the DeviFs Tavern, was not conducive to careful composition of plays, and William and myself moved to modest quarters near Paris Garden, kept by a Miss Maggie Mellow, a blonde maiden of uncertain age. William continued to perform his theatrical duties diligently, while I was engaged at the print- ing shop of Field, translating historic, dramatic and poetic works from Latin authors, thus piecing out the price of food, clothes and shelter in the whirlpool of London joy and misery. During my apprenticeship with Sam Granite, as a marble cutter, I spent my nights with Master Hunt studying the intricate windings of the Latin language, and became proficient in the translation of ancient authors, delving also into the philosophy of Greek roots, with its Attic phrases and Athenian eloquence. My parents desired me to leave off the trade of stone cutting and prepare for the priesthood, where I could make an easier living, working on the fears, egotism and hopes of mankind. I was always too blunt to play the velvet phi- losopher and saint-like character of a sacerdotal vicaro of any church or creed, feeling full well that the so-called divine teacher and pupil know just as much about the ^"Tiereafter" as I do — and that's nothing ! Put not thy faith in wind, variable and inconstant. So, a life of bohemian hack-work for printers, publishers and theatrical managers seemed best suited to my nature, giving me perfect freedom of 57i Shakspere: Personal Recollections thought and a disposition to express my honest opinion to prince or peasant, in home, church or state. God is God, and N'ature is His representative ! While man, vain creature of an hour. Depressed hy grief or blessed hy power Is hut a shadow and a name — A flash of evanescent fame! Most of the dramatic writers during the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the Second, were graduates of Oxford, Cambridge or other classical halls of learning. They borrowed their plots and characters from an- cient history and endeavored to galvanize them into English subjects, tickling the ears of the groundlings, as well as their royal patrons with Grecian and Roman translations of lofty allegorical and mythological conceptions. ^schylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Homer, with Terence, Tacitus, Virgil, Horace and Ovid, were constantly pillaged for thoughts to piece out the theatrical robes and blani: verse eloquence of pla3rw^rights who only received for their best ac- cepted works from five to twenty pounds; pro- prietors and stage managers driving hard bargains with these brilliant, bacchanalian and impecunious bohemians. The winter and spring of 1587-8 was a busy time for William. In addition to his prompting and casting the various plays for Burbage, he was engaged in collecting his sonnets, putting finish- ing touches on "Venus and Adonis/^ as well as 58 Shakspere: Personal Recollections composing the ^^Eape of Lucreee," a Eoman epic^; based on historic truth. He had also planned and mapped out the Eng- lish play of "Henry the Fourth," taken from an old historical play, and was figuring on two com- edies — "Midsummer N'ight's Dream" and the "Merry Wives of Windsor." Often when entering his workroom at twelve o'clock at night, or six o'clock in the morning, I found him scratching, cutting, and delving away at his literary bench and oak chest. He could work at three or four plays alternately, and, from crude plots taken out of ancient history, novels, religious or mythological tableaus, devised his characters and put words in their mouths that burned in the ears of British yeomen, tradesmen, professional sharpers and lords and ladies who crowded the benches and boxes of the Blackfriars. He reminded me of an expert cabinet-maker, who had piled up in a corner of his shop a variety lot of rough timber, from which he fashioned and manufactured the most exquisite dressers, sofas and bureaus, dovetailing each piece of oak, rose- wood or mahogany, with exact workmanship, and then with the silken varnish of his genius, sending his wares out to the rushing world to be admired, and transmitted to posterity, with perfect faith in the endurance of his creations ! In putting the finishing touches on the fifth act of a play he would quickly change to the com- position of the first act of another, and, with lightning rapidity embellish the characters in the third act of some comedy, tragedy or history, that constantly occupied his multifarious brain. o9 Shakspere: Personal Recollections His working den at the Blackfriars was crowded with a mass of theatrical literary productions, an- cient and modern, while onr lodging rooms were piled np with Latin, Greek, Spanish and French translations. Manager Burbage, Dick Field and even Chris Marlowe were constantly patronizing the wonder- ful William, and supplied him with the iron ore products of the ancient and middle ages, which he quickly fashioned into the laminated steel of dra- matic excellence. ''Why, man, lie doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walh under his huge legs and peep ahout To find ourselves dishonorable graves/' 60 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER VIII. GROWING LITERARY RENOWN". ROYAL PATRONS. "Follow your envious oourses, men of malice; You have Christian warrant for them, and, no douM, In time will find their fit rewards." "0 heware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster, which doth moch The meat it feeds on." The literary and dramatic world of London in the years 1589 to 1592 was stirred with pride and astonishment at the productions of William Shak- spere, and from the tavern and guilds of trades- men to the crack clubs of authors, lords and royalty itself, the Dramatic Magician of the Black- friars was praised to the skies and sought for by even Queen Elizabeth, who saw more than another Edmund Spenser to glorify her reign and flash her name down the ages with even finer, luminous colors than bedecked the sylvan pathway of the Faerie Queen! "Kie Earl of Leicester was one of the first great men of England to recognize the divine accom- plishments of the Warwickshire boy who had made .61 Shakspere: Personal Recollections liis first theatrical adventures through the domain of the old Earl, and who was ever the friend of old John Shakspere, the impecunious and agnostic father of our brilliant Bard. On the death of the old Earl in the autumn of 1588, his domain reverted to his stepson, the young Earl of Essex, who continued to be the pat- ron of letters and often attended the Blackfriars, with his friend, the handsome and intellectual Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, who took the greatest interest in the plays of "Love's Labor's Lost," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "King John," "Henry the Fourth, "Henry the Fifth," and "Henry the Sixth," that were then fermenting in the brain of William. He had ransacked the history of HoUingshead and others to illustrate on the stage the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, known as the war of the Eed and White Roses, with can- ker and thorn to pester each royal clan and bring misery on the British people because of a family quarrel ! ''Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown/' What have Kings that privates have not too. Save ceremony f The jealousy of Kyd, Lodge and Greene con- tinued to secretly knife the Stratford butcher boy, but the more they tried to cough him down the more he rose in public estimation, until finally these little vipers of spite and spleen gave up their secret scandal chase, when, like a roebuck from the 6^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections forest of Arden or Caledonian heather crags, he flashed out of sight of all the dramatic and poetic hounds who pursued him, and ever after looked down from the imperial heights of Parnassus at the dummies of theatrical pretense. They accused him of wholesale plagiarism and of robbing the archives of every land for raw material to build up his comedies, tragedies and histories. He laughed and worked on, night and day, ac- knowledging the "soft impeachment" of his liter- ary integrity, but at the same time defied them to equal or surpass the marvelous characters he cre- ated for the edification and glory of mankind ! Yet, while he had a few envious literary, political and religious detractors, he was building up con- stantly a bulwark of sentimental and material friends in London that kept his name on the tongue of thinkers in home, tavern, club and palace. The keen and generous Burbage knew the in- trinsic value of Shakspere, and to tie him to the interest of the Blackfriars, he gradually increased the Bard's salary and gave him an interest in the stock company. Yet, other theatres staged his plays. Edmund Spenser, the greatest rhythmic poet of his day, author of the "Faerie Queen,'' and prime favorite of Sidney and Queen Elizabeth, was lavish in his praise of the rising dramatist, while Michael Drayton and Christopher Marlowe vied with each other in admiration of the newly discovered star of intellectual brilliancy that glittered unceasingly in the sky of poetic and philosophic letters. Essex, Southampton, Ealeigh, Bacon, Mon- mouth, Derby, Norfolk, Northumberland, Percy, <63 ShaKspere: Personal Recollections Burleigh, Cecil, Montague, and many other lords of London club life, gave a ready adherence to Shakspere, and after his mighty acting on the Blackfriars and other stages, struggled with each other as to who should have the honor of enter- taining him at the gay midnight suppers that de- lighted the amusement world of London. One of the most valuable friends William en- countered in London was John Florio, a Floren- tine, the greatest linguist of his day, who had trav- eled in all lands and gathered nuggets of thought in every clime. He spoke Spanish, Italian, French, German and Greek, with the accent of a native, and had but recently translated the works of Mon- taigne, the great French philosopher. The Her- bert-Southampton family patronized him. When not employed at the various theatres, the Stratford miracle could be found at the rooms of his friend Florio, at the "Red Lion," across the street from Temple Bar, where law students, bailiffs and barristers made day and night merry with their professional antics. William employed Florio to teach him the tech- nical and philosophic merits of the Greek and Latin languages, and at the same time furnish him with ancient stories that he might dramatize into English classics, and astonish the native writers by dressing up old subjects in new frocks, cloaks, robes and crowns. Florio would often read by the hour, gems of Latin, Greek and French philosophy, and explain to us the intricate phrases of Virgil, Ovid, Ter- ence, Homer, ^schylus, Plutarch, Demosthenes, Plato, Petrarch and Dante, while William drank Shakspere: Personal Recollections Tip his imparted laiowledge as freely and quickly as the sun in his course inhales the sparkling dew- drops from garden^ vale and mountain. In the spring of 1591 William and myself paid a flying visit to Stratford, the Bard to pay up some family debts and bury a brother who had recently migrated to the land of imagination. The mother and father of William were de- lighted at the London success of their son, and Anne Hathaway seemed to be mellowed and molli- fied by the guineas William emptied into her lap, while Hammet and Judith, the rollicking children, were rampant with delight at the toys, sweetmeats and dresses presented as Easter offerings. No matter what the incompatibility of temper between William and Anne, he never forgot to send part of his wages for the support of herself and children, and although he was a "free lance'^ among the ladies of London, he maintained the "higher law" of family purity and morality. When he violated any of the ten commandments, he did it with his eyes open, and took the conse- quent mental or physical punishment with stoic indifference. He never called on others to shoulder his sins, but on the contrary he often bore the burden of cowardly "friends,^' who made him the "scapegoat" for their own iniquity — a common class of scoundrels. He never bothered himself about the religion manufacturers of mankind, knowing that the whole scheme, from the Oriental sunworshipers to the quarreling crowd of Pagans, Hebrews, Christians and Moslems, was nothing but a keen financial syndicate or trust to keep sacerdotal sharpers in 65 Shakspere: Personal Recollections place and power at the expense of plodding igno- rance^ hope and bigotry ! The night we started back for London, by jaunt- ing car, on the road to Oxford, the Bard was in a mood of lofty contemplation. He had stowed away in the bottom of the car, a mass of school- day and strolling-player compositions, evolved in the rush of vanished years. "William,^' said I, "can yon tell me anything abont the silence of those sparkling, eternal stars and planets ?" He instantly replied: I question the infinite silence. And endeavor to fathom the deep That rests in the ocean of Tcnowledge And dreams in the heaven of sleep; And I soar with the wing of science. Its mysterious realm to explore. But the wail of the wild sea hrealcers ^Drowns my soul in the Nevermore; For the answer of finite wisdom Is as fichle as ambient air. And my wrecTcage of hopes are scattered On the rocTcs and shores of despair! Arriving at the Crown Tavern, in Oxford, we were, as nsnal, received by the old Boniface Deva- nant and his handsome wife, with warm words and Inxnrions table cheer. After a day and night of reasonable revelry, we proceeded on our way to London, and in due course found our sunny lodg- ings at the home of Maggie Mellow. 66 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The night after our arrival Sir Walter Kaleigh gave a grand banquet at the Mermaid Club to the principal wits of London. Burbage^, Florio-, Field, William and myself were invited as special guests, in honor of the poetic and dramatic association. Eepresentative authors and actors of the various theatrical companies were present at the festive war of wits. The Queen^s men, and those who played under the patronage of Leicester, Pembroke, Burleigh, and the Lord Admiral were there, while Hens- lowe, the owner of the Eose Theatre on Bankside, with his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn, the noted actor, shone in all their borrowed glory. Spenser, Drayton, Marlowe, Kyd, IN'ash, Chettle^ Peele, Greene, and a young author, Ben Jonson_, were a few of the literary luminaries present. A contingent of London lords, patrons of au- thors and actors graced the scene. Essex, South- hampton, Pembroke, Cecil, Mortimer, Burleigh and Lord Bacon occupied prominent places at the angle table of the club, where Ealeigh sat as master of ceremonies. Promptly at eleven o'clock, the great courtier, sailor and discoverer arose from his elevated chair and proposed a toast to the Virgin and Fairy Queen ! All stood to their tankards and drank unani- mously to the Virgin Queen. I thought I observed a flash of secret smiles pictured on the lips of Essex, Spenser, Bacon and Ealeigh when Elizabeth was toasted as the Virgin Queen; and William whispered in my ear: 67 Shakspere: Personal Recollections *'Her virtues graced with eternal gifts. Do treed love's settled passions in my Jieo/rt!'' After tremendous cheers were given for the Qneen^ Sir Walter, in his blandest mood said: "We are glorified by having with ns to-night the greatest poet in the realm, and I trust Sir Ed- mund Spenser will be gracious enough to give us a few lines from the '^Faerie Queen/ " Sir Edmund arose in his place and said : "In Una, the Fairy Queen, I beheld the purity and innocence of Elizabeth, and in the lion of passion, hungry from the forest, I saw her con- quer even in her naked habiliments. ''One day, nigh weary of the irTcsome way From her unhasty beast she did alight; And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay. In secret shadow, far from all men's sight. From her fair head her fillet she undight. And laid her stole aside, her angel's face. As the great Eye of Heaven, shone bright And made a sunshine in the shady place — Did never mortal eye behold such grace! It fortuned, out of the thicTcest wood A ramping Lion rushed suddenly. Hunting full greedy after savage blood; Soon as the Royal Virgin he did spy. With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, To have at once devoured her tender corse; But to the prey when as he drew more nigh — His bloody rage assuaged with remorse. And with the sight amazed, forgot his furious forcer' 69 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Spenser resumed his seat, while a whirl of echo- ing applause waved from floor to rafter. Then Sir Walter remarked: "We are honored to-night by the presence of the counsel extraordinary of Queen Elizabeth, the orator and philosopher. Sir Francis Bacon, who will, I trust, give us a sentiment in honor of Her Majesty, the patron of art, literature and liberty !" Bacon, handsome, proud, but obsequious, then arose and addressed the jolly banqueters as fol- lows : "Gentlemen: The toast of the evening to her gracious Majesty, Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, meets my soul-lit approval, and had I the wings of fancy, instead of the plodding pedals of prac- tical administration, I should raise her virtuous statue to the skies until its pinnacle shone above the uplands of omnipotence! "Philosophy teaches us that vice and virtue are at eternal war, and that whether married or single, the happiest state of man or woman is personal independence! "Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed. Or pain his head; Those that live single^, take it for a curse. Or do things worse; Some would have children, those that have them mourn. Or wish they were gone; What is it then, to have or have no wife. But single thraldom, or a double strife! "My friends: The ocean is the solitary hand- maid of eternity. Cold and salt cure alike! ^9! Shakspere: Personal Recollections "Men are like ants, crawling up and down. *^'Some carry corn, some carry their young, and all go to and fro — at last a little heap of dust V The states' attorney took his seat, with frantic applause rattling in his ears. Although the sentiments of Bacon were variable, mixed, foreign and epigrammatic, they received great attention; for no matter who may be the speaker at a banquet where royalty and power are the subjects at issue, there will be great and tre- mendous cheering by little sycophants who expect reward, and of course, by those patriots who have already received favors from the administration pie counter. Sir Walter at last arose and said "that although the hour was late, or, more properly speaking, early, he earnestly desired the noble gentlemen present to hear one whose fame, in the world of dramatic letters, like the morning sun, had al- ready flashed upon the horizon and rapidly ap- proached the high noon of earthly immortality — . William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon !" Then could be heard roof -lifting cheers by all present, who had often heard the Bard in his lofty language and kingly strides at the Blackfriars. William, in the flush of self-conscious, imperial, splendid manhood exclaimed: "Gentlemen : Your toast of glory to the Virgin Queen CracTcs high heaven with reverberation. And through the ambient air, sonorous. The echoing muses mingle the Harmony of the spheres with celestial repetition! 70 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Elizabeth, I lift my song to thee. In holy adoration To echo down the flowing tide of ages! Within the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights. And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and gallant knights. Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I know their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master noiv. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; And, for they looked, but with divining eyes. They had not skill enough your worth to sing; For me, which now behold these present days Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues tos praise. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Can yet the lease of my true love control. Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured. And the sad augurs mark their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured. And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of the most balmy time. My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes. Since spite of him Til live in the poor rhyme While he sweeps over dull and speechless tribes. And thou, in this shalt find thy monument. When tyrant crests and tombs of brass are spent! Shakspere: Personal' Recollections Eapturous and universal praise and applause greeted William and Ms immortal sonnets; and if any critical reader or author will take pains to delve into and scati the poetry and philosophy of Spenser and Bacon with that of Shakspere, they will quickly and honestly come to the conclusion that the former writers are merely rushlights to the flashing electric lights of the Divine Bard! To paraphrase the encomium of Shakspere to Cleopatra would fit the greatness of himself: *'Age cannot wither Mm, nor custom stale His infinite variety; other men cloy The appetites they feed; hut he maizes hungry Where most he satisfies T 7a Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER IX. BOHEMIAN HOUKS. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. '^LOVE's labor's lost.'' *'I have ventured Like little wanton toys that swim on bladders This many summers in a sea of glory/' The literary bohemians of London three hundred years ago were an impecunious and jealous lot of human pismires, who built their dens, carried their loads, and were filled with vaulting ambition just the same as we see them to-day. The hack-writer for publishers, the actor for the- atrical managers and the author of growing re- nown belonged to clubs and tavern coteries, push- ing their way up the rocky heights of fame, and struggling, as now, for bread, clothes and shelter, many of the Bacchanalian creatures dying from hunger at the foothills of their ambition; and in- stead of winning a niche in the columned aisles of Westminster Abbey, dropped dead in some back alley or gloomy garret, to be carted away by the Beadle to the voracious Potter's field. They often courted Dame Suicide, who never Shakspere: Personal Recollections fails to relieve the wicked, wretched, insane or desperate from their intolerable sitnation. ''Art thou so hare and full of wretchedness. And fear'st to die ? Famine is in thy cheelcs. Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes. Content and beggary hang upon thy bach; The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law!" How often at the Miter or Falcon taverns have I seen these little great literary men swell like a toad or puff like a pigeon at the flattery bestowed on them by fawning bohemians, meaner than them- selves, who sought a midnight snack and a tankard of foaming ale. Of all the despicable and miserable creatures I have ever known it is the poor starving devil, with latent genius, who attempts to pay court to a cad, snob, or drunken lord around the refuse of literary or sporting clubs in midnight hours. William was always very kind to these thread- bare wanderers, and although they often gave him pen prods behind his back, he never betrayed any recognition of their envious stings, but like the lion in his jungle, brushed these busy bees away by the underbrush of his philosophy. He mildly rebuked their pretense, but relieved their immediate wants, impressing upon them the study of Nature and not the blandishments of art, having the appearance of Oriental porcelain or Phoenician glass, when it was really crude crockery painted to deceive the sight and auctioned off to the unwary purchaser as genuine material. How many authors, artists and actors of to-day 74 Shakspere: Personal Recollections follow in the path of their London ancestors who blow, and brag, and strut in midnight clubs and taverns to the pity and disgust of their table tooters. Speaking one evening at the Eed Lion, in the rooms of Florio, I asked William how it was that his plays were so successful, while those of other authors had almost been banished from the dra- matic boards. He at once replied : / draw my plots from Nature's law To sound the depths of human life,. And through her realm I find no flaw In all her seeming, varied strife; The good and had are near allied; With sweet and sour forever hlent. While vice and virtue side by side Exist in every continent. The poison vine that climbs the tree. Is just as great in Nature's plan As every mount and every sea Displayed below for little man. And every ant and busy bee Shall teach us how to build and toil If we would mingle with the free. Who plough the seas or till the soil. I shall never forget the visit Shakspere and my- self paid to the cloistered, columned, pinnacled proportions of Westminster Abbey. It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th of December, 1592. The living London world was rushing in great multitudes by alley, lane, street and park prepar- ing for the celebration of Christmas Eve. 75 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Vanity Fair was decked off with palm, spruce, pine, myrtle, ivy and holly to garnish home, hall and shop in honor of Jesns, who had been crucified nearly sixteen hundred years before for telling the truth and tearing down the vested arrogance of religious tyranny. A bright winter sun was gilding the tall towers of the Abbey with golden light, and the mullioned windows were blazing over the surrounding build- ings like flashes of fire. We entered the court of Westminster through the old school by way of a long, low passage, dimly lighted corridors, with glinting figures of old teach- ers in black gowns, moving like specters from the neighboring tombs. As we passed along by cloistered walls and mural monuments to vanished glory, we were soon within the interior of the grand old Abbey. Clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with lofty arches springing from wall to nave met the eye of the beholder, and stunned by the solemn surroundings, vain man wonders at his own handi- work, trembling with doubt amid the monumental glory of Old Albion. The Abbey clock struck the hour of five as Wil- liam and myself stood in deep contemplation at Poets' corner. The reverberating tones of time echoed from nave to floor, through cloistered walls and columned aisles, noting the passing hour and ages, like billows of sound rolling over the graves of vanished splendor. Here crumble the dust and eflSgies of courtiers, warriors, statesmen, lords, dukes, kings^ queens 76 ShaKspere: Personal Recollections and authors ; and yet, there is no spot in the Abbey that holds such an abiding interest for mankind as the modest corner where lie the dust of noted poets and philosophers. The great and the heroic of the world may be bravely admired in lofty contemplation of nation- ality, but a feeling of fondness creeps over the traveler or reader when he bows at the grave of buried genius, while tears of remembrance even wash away the sensuous Bacchanalian escapades of impulsive, poetic revelers. The author, touched by the insanity of genius, must ever live in the mind of the reader, and while posterity shall forget even warriors, kings and queens, it never fails to preserve in marble, granite, bronze and song the name and fame of great poets. David, Solomon, Job, Homer, Horace, Ovid, 'Angelo, Dante and Plutarch are deeply imbedded in the memory of mankind, and although great kingdoms, empires and dynasties, have passed away to the rubbish heap of oblivion, the poet, musician, painter, and sculptor still remain to thrill and beautify life, and teach hope of im- mortality beyond the grave. After gazing on the statues of abbots, Knights Templar, Knights of the Bath, bishops, statesmen, kings and queens, many mutilated by time and profane hands, William stood by the coffin of Ed- ward the Confessor and mournfully soliloquized : Westminster! lofty heir of Pagan Temple; Imperial in stone; a thousand years Crowns the record of thy inheritance. Gilding the glory of thy ancient fame, .77 Shakspere: Personal Recc^Uections With imperishable deeds — Liberty of thought and action, shall. Forever cluster about thy classic form; While new men with new creeds, and reason. Shall overturn the religions of to-day. As thou hast invaded and destroyed The Pagan, Roman rules of antiquity. These marble hands and faces appealing For remembrance, to animated dust Appeal in vain, for we, whose footfalls Only sound in marble ears, cold and listless. Shall ourselves follow where they led, dying Not Tcnowing the mysterious secrets of the grave. Here the victor and vanquished, side by side. Sleep in dreamless rest. Kings and Queens in life. Battling for power, all conquered by tyrant Death, Whose universal edict, irrevocable. Levels Prince and Peasant, in impalpable dust. Crowns to-day, coffins to-morrow, with monuments Mossed over, letter-crached, undecipherable As the mummied remains of Egyptian Kings. Vain, vain, are all the monuments of man. The greatest only live a little span; We strut and shine our passing day, and then — 'Depart from all the haunts of living men. With only Hope to light us on the way Where billions passed beneath the silent clay; And, none have yet returned to tell us where Well bivouac beyond this world of care; And these dumb mouths, with ghostly spirits near Will not express a word into mine ear. Or tell me vjhen I leave this sinning sod If I shall be transfigured with my Qod! n Shakspere: Personal Recollections In September, 1592, the second play of Shak- spere, ^^Love's Labor's Lost," was given at the Blackfriars, to a fine audience. He took the characters of the play from a French novel, based on an Italian plot, and wove around the story a lot of glittering talk to please the lords and ladies who listened to the silly gabble of their prototypes. Ferdinand, King of N'avarre, and his attendant lords are a set of silly beaux who propose to retire from the world and leave women alone for the space of three years. The Princess of France and her ladies in wait- ing, with the assistance of a gay lord named Boyet, made an incursion into the Kingdom of Navarre and break into the solitude of the students. Nathaniel, a parson, and Holofernes, a pedant schoolmaster, are introduced into the play by William to illustrate the asinine pretensions of ministers and pedagogues, who are constantly introducing Latin or French words in their daily conversation, for the purpose of impressing com- mon people with their great learning, when, in fact, they only show ridiculous pretense and expose themselves to the contempt of mankind. There are very few noted philosophic sentiments in the play, and the attempt at wit, of the clown, the constable and Holofernes, the schoolmaster, fall very flat on the ear of an audience, while the rhymes put in the mouth of the various characters are unworthy of a boy fourteen years of age. I remonstrated with William about injecting his alleged poetry into the love letters sent by the lords and ladies^ but he replied that young love .79, Shakspere: Personal Recollections was such a fool that any kind of rhyme would suit passionate parties who were playing "Jacks and straws" with each other. Ferdinand, the King, opens up the play with a grand dash of thought: ^'Let fame that all hunt after in their lives. Live registered upon our brazen torribs. And then grace us in the disgrace of death. When, spite of cormorant devouring time. The endeavor of this present breach may buy That honor, which shall bait his scythe's Tceen edge To mahe us heirs of all eternity/' Lord Biron, who imagines himself in love with the beautiful Eosaline, soliloquizes in this fashion : "What? HI love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman that is liTce a German clocTc, Still a repairing; ever out of frame. And never going aright, being a watch. But being watched that it may still go right! Is not Love a Hercules Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as a sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair And when Love speaTcs, the voice of (M the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony!" Holofernes, the Latin pedagogue, criticising Ar- mado, exclaims: Novi hominem tanquam te. His humor is lofty, his discourse peremptory. He draweth out the 8Q Shakspere: Personal Recollections thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. And then Holofernes winds np the play with the Owl and Cuckoo song, a rambling verse. Win- ter speaking: When icicles hang hy the wallj, And Diclc^ the shepherd, blows his wail. And Tom hears logs into the hall. And milh comes frozen home in pail. When hlood is nipped and ways he foul. When nightly sings the staring owl To-who; Tu'whit, to-who, a merry note While greasy Joan doth scum the pot. 81 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTEE X. QUEEN" ELIZABETH. WAR. SHAKSPEEE IN" lEE- LAITD. **Now all the youth of England are on fire And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armorers^ and honors thought Hangs solely in the breast of every man. Cry ^ Havoc/ and let slip the dogs of warT The reign of Queen Elizabeth was a most glori- ous one for the material and mental progress of England, but most disastrous for Philip of Spain, Louis and Henry of France, Mary of Scotland, O'Neill, O'Brien, Desmond and Tyrone of Ireland. The Eeformation of Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, against the faith and financial exactions of the Pope of Rome, cracked from the CathoKc sky like a clap of thunder from the noonday sun, and reverberated over the globe with startling de- tonation. The cry of personal liberty and personal respon- sibility to God, went out from the German cloister like a roaring storm and echoed in thunder tones among the columned aisles of the Vatican. Entrenched audacity and mental tyranny was 8^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections broken from its ancient pedestal, as if an earth- quake had shivered the Eoman dominions, leaving sacerdotal precedents and papal bulls in the back- alley of bigotry and bloated ignorance. People began to think and wonder how they had been bamboozled for centuries by a set of edu- cated harlequins, who, in all lands and climes ex- hibited their antics and nostrums for the delecta- tion and digestion of infatuated fools! Millions yet living ! Queen Elizabeth's elevation to the throne of England was a bid for the banished and perse- cuted Protestants to return from foreign lands and again pursue their puritanical philosophy. Pope Paul demanded of Elizabeth that all the church lands, monasteries and cathedrals confis- cated by her father, Henry the Eighth, be restored to the Eoman hierarchy, and that she make con- fession and submission to the divine authority of the Catholic Church. Although religion and civil law was in a very chaotic state. Queen Bess was not at all disturbed by the threats of the Vatican or the Armada of Spain. With old Lord Cecil as her prime counsel, she never hesitated to believe in her own destiny, and, like her opponents, the Jesuits, the end always justified the means. When it was necessary to rob or kill anybody, the Queen did so without any com- punction of conscience. She did not care for religion one way or the other, and flattered the Catholic and Protestant lords alike, manipulating them for her psrsonal and official advantage. Victory at any price. Busi- ness Bessy! .83 Shakspere: Personal Recollections She professed great love for her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, but to foil the French Catholics and satisfy the Scotch and English Protestants, Lizzie cut off the head of her beautiful sister. She professed great sorrow after Mary's head was de- tached. Essex and Ealeigh, and many other royal cour- tiers were sent to the Tower and the block by this ired-headed, snaggle-tooth she devil, who only thought of her own physical pleasures and official vanities, sacrificing everything to her tyrannical ambition. She died in an insane, frantic fit. Yet, with all her devilish conduct, she pushed the material interest of Englishmen ahead for G.Ye hundred years, and by her patronage of sailors, warriors, poets and philosophers, gave British let- ters a boom that is felt to the present day, and through Shakspere's lofty lines, shall continue down the ages to tell mankind that nothing on earth is lasting but honest work and eternal truth. Contention and war is the natural condition of mankind; for all animated nature, from birth to death, struggles for food and shelter. The birds of the air, animals of the land and fishes of the sea, fight and devour each other for food, while man, the great robber and murderer of all, delights in destruction, and from his first appearance on earth to the present day, has been earnestly engaged in emigrating from land to land, seeking whom he may rob and kill for personal wealth and power ! Doing it to-day more than ever. Civilization is only refined barbarism ; and this very hour the nations of the world are inventing and manufacturing powder, guns and terrible bat- Si Shakspere: Personal Recollections tie ships for the purpose of robbing and killing each other in the next war, nearly at hand. Japan and Eussia will tear each other to pieces. Peace is only a slight resting spell for the na- tions to trade with each other and make secret preparations to finally kill and secure increased dominion. The minions of monarchy and lovers of liberty have invariably despised each other, and waited only favorable opportunity to rob and murder. Even now, they crouch like lions at bay, and fight to the death. Liberty is forging ahead with ten league boots ^and monarchy is silently, but surely being rele- gated to the tomb of defeat. Of course, right is right in the abstract, but might is the winning card in the lottery of Fate, and that nation having the most brave men, money and guns will come out victorious ! Strong nations have become stronger by rob- bing and killing weaker nations, and the British Government for a thousand years — ^particularly from the bloody reigns of Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell — can boast that it has never failed to rob and kill the weak, while truckling and fawning at the feet of Eussia and the Eepublic of the United States, which will soon extend from Bering Sea and Baffin's Bay to the Isthmus of Panama — ab- sorbing Canada, Cuba, Mexico and Central Amer- ica within its imperial jurisdiction. We intend to, and shall rule the world ! Then, this vast Eepublic, looking over the globe •from the dome of our national Capitol, at Wash- ington^ can invite all lands to banquet at the table 85 Shakspere: Personal Recollections of the Goddess of Liberty, and in merc}^ to the blind tyranny of monarchy we may lay a wreath of myrtle on the graves of lords, earls, dukes, kings, queens and emperors, to be only remem- bered as the nightmare of tyranny, extirpated from the earth forever. God grant their speedy official destruction ! The gentle reader (of course) will excuse this enthusiastic digression from the story of Queen Bess and my soul friend William Shakspere. If they were present at this moment, they would not dare deny the truth of this memory narrative. In the summer of 1595, the periodical plague of London was thinning out the inhabitants of that dirty city. In the lower part of the city skirting the Thames, the sewerage was very bad and but the poorest sanitary rules existed. After a hard rain, the lanes, alleys and streets ran with a stream of putrefaction, as the offal from many tenement houses was thrown in the public highway, where the rays from the hot sun created malarial fever or the black plague. At such times the theatres and churches were closed, and those who could get out of London, by land or water, fled to the inland shires of England, the mountains of Scotland or to the heather hills of Ireland. Edmund Spenser, the poet and Secretary of Lord Gray for Ireland, invited William and myself to visit his Irish estate near the city of Cork. One bright morning in May, we boarded the good ship Elizabeth, near the Tower, passed out of Gravesend, then into the channel and steered our way to Bantry Bay, until we landed in the cove 86 Shakspere: Personal Recollections of Cork, as the church bells were ringing devotees to early mass. The green fields and hills of Ireland were bloom- ing in rustic beauty, the thrush sang from every hawthorn bush, the blackbird was busy in the fields filching grain from the ploughman, the lark, in his skyward flight poured a stream of melody on the air, and all Nature seemed happy, but man. He it is who makes the blooming productive earth miserable, with his voracious greed for gold and power. Elizabeth was then waging war with the various Irish chieftains, importing cunning Scotchmen and brutal Englishmen as soldiers and traders to colonize the lands and destroy the homes of what she was pleased to call "Barbarous, rebellious, wild Irish." Whenever any strong power invades a weaker one for the purpose of robbery and official murder (war), the tyrant labels his victim — a "Eebel!" That is, the original owner of the land destined to be robbed is regarded as bigoted, barbarous and rebellious, unless he submits to be robbed, banished and murdered for the edification and glory of free- booters, thieves, tyrants, assassins and foreign man hunters. Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connaught, the four provinces of Ireland, had been marked out for settlement by Henry the Eighth and Queen Eliza- beth, and hordes of English "carpetbaggers" and soldiers were turned loose on the island to rob, burn and destroy the natives. As soon as counties and provinces were con- auered. the military and lordly pets of the various 87 Shakspere: Personal Recollections monarchs were given large grants of the lands stolen from the people. 0':Nreil, O'Brien, Desmond, O'Donnell, O'Con- nor, Burke, Clanriekard and Tyrone disputed every inch of ground with Pellam, Mountjoy, Gray, Essex, Ealeigh and Cromwell; and, although the original commanders and owners of the soil have been virtually banished or killed, their posterity has the proud satisfaction of knowing that more than a million of Englishmen and Scotchmen have been killed by the *'Wild Irish," and the battle for liberty shall still go on till the Saxon robber re- linquishes his blood sucking tentacles on the Em- erald Isle. Poet Spenser and Sir Walter Ealeigh were re- warded by Queen Elizabeth with thousands of acres, confiscated from the great estate of the Earl of Desmond, who lived at the castle of Kilcolman, near the town of Doneraile. Spenser paid for his stolen land by writing a dissertation on the way to conquer and kill off the Irish race, regarding them no more than the wild beasts of the forest. He also flattered Queen Bess by composing a lot of flattering verse, called the "Faerie Queen," and made her believe she was the beautiful, sweet, mild, chaste, angelic iidividual that had thrilled his imagination in the royal realms of dreamland. What infernal lies political courtiers, religious ministers and even poets have told to flatter the vanity of governors, presidents, kings, queens, popes and emperors! Yet in all the grand sentiments Shakspere evolved out of his volcanic brain, he never bent the 88 Shakspere : Personal Recollections knee to absolute vice, but pictured the horrors of royalty in its most devilish attitudes. His pen was never purchased against truth. We remained at Kilcolman Castle with Spenser for about ten days riding and sporting, and then with an escort of soldiers, were piloted through the "EebeF^ counties on to Dublin, where the head of O'lSTeil graced one of the "Ked" walls of that unlucky city. On our route from Cork to Dublin we beheld misery and ruin in every form, burned cabins, churches, monasteries and bridges, and starving women and children on the roadside, crouching Tinder bushes, straw stacks and leaking sheds, with smouldering turf fires crackling on the ashes of despair ! We took shipping the next morning for Liver- pool, as William was very anxious to get away from the land of funeral wails, where the cry of the "wake" over some dead peasant or defiant "Eebel" echoed on the air continually. Where sorrow in her weeping form. Shed tears in sunshine, and in storm. While o'er the land, a reign of hlood Was running Wke a mountain flood! As we pushed away from the sight of the Irish hills, Shakspere, leaning against the foremast, in pathetic tone exclaimed: Farewell, old Erin, land of nameless sorrow, Albion crushes thee for opinion's sahe; 'Twixt the Bulls of Borne and Laws of England 89. Shakspere: Personal Recollections TJiy children are rohhed, hanisTied and murdered^ And cast away from native land, Wke leaves Bestrewing forest wilds, ilealc and lone. Merged in lands of Liberty, thy children Shall rise again, a new horn glorious race — Triumphant in home, church and State, honored. Masters of War, Wit, Eloquence and Poetry. Move out and move on, liJce the rising sun Whose face so oft is clouded with shadows. Yet, shall hurst forth again in noondoA) splendor — Irradiating a hleaJc and cruel world! 90 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTEE XI. RURAL ENGLAND. "ROMEO AND JULIET/^ "I know a hank where the wild thyme blows; Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine. With sweet musk roses and the eglantine/' • ^'Stony limits cannot hold love out; And what love can do, that dares love attempt." We remained in Liverpool three days, and then determined to return to London by land, crossing through the inland shires, taking in Manchester, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Coventry, War- wick, and on to Stratford, where clustered the dear- est objects of our affection. We were ten days walking, riding and resting at taverns, in our rural tour of Old Albion. The fields were furrowed for the grain, the birds sang from every hedge and forest domain, the cattle, sheep and swine grazed in lowing, bleating, grunt- ing security along winding streams, public fields or on the velvet meadows of rich yeoman or lordly estates, while the men, women, boys and girls that we encountered seemed to be infused with the de- lights of May blossoms, forest wild flowers and re- 91 Shakspere: Personal Recollections freshing showers, all noting the practical prosperity of England. How different these rural scenes to those we had recently encountered in poor down-trodden Ire- land, the Niobe of nations, besprinkled with the tears of centuries for the loss of her crushed and exiled children. Yet, the world is moving upward To the heights where Freedom reigns; Where the sunshine of redemption Shall give joy for all our pains. When the cruel hands of tyrants Shall he banished from the land With our God the only Master Of Dame Nature true and grand! We arrived in sight of Stratford as the sun set over the hills of Arden, and as the pigeons and rooks sought their nests for the night, a golden glow flashed over the evening landscape. The last rays of Sol shone in dazzling splendor upon the pinnacle of old Trinity Church as we gazed with ravished eyes on the winding, glisten- ing Avon, meandering through emerald meadows and whispering wild flowers to the silvery Severn. The old tavern was still there, but the old host slept in God's acre near by, while the lads we knew ten years before, had, like ourselves, gone out into the world for fame and fortune. William sought out his father and mother, and then Anne Hathaway and the children, who still resided at the old Hathaway cottage at Shot- tery. I remained at the tavern for contemplation. 9^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections Time and age mellow the most violent spirits; and the temper of Anne had become modified by family troubles, inducing an inward survey of self, which brings a reasonable person to the real- ization of the fact that he or she is not the only stubborn oak in the forest of humanity. A practical stubborn wife and a lofty poet never can assimilate. Shakspere had no equals or superiors. Shak- pere was simply SHAKSPERE. At home he found a scolding wife. Abroad he felt the joys of life. While all his glory and renown Were reaped at last in London town. He looTced for truth in crowds of men. In field, in street, in tavern. And mingled with the moving throng To hear their story and their song. He pictured life in colors true. As brilliant as the rainbow hue. And all his characters display The pride and passion of to-day. He cared not for the crowds of men — As fierce as beasts within a den. And loohed alone to Nature's God Displayed in heaven, in sea and sod. And held the scales of justice high' Uplifted to the sunlit sTcy, Weighing the passions of manlcind With lofty and imperial mind. The Puritan and Pope to him Were overflowing to the brim Shakspere: Personal Recollections With higotry and cruel spleen That desolated every scene. The midget minds of men in power He satirized from hour to hour. And on the stage portrayed the greed Of those who live hy crime and creed. He tore the masTcs from royal hrows And showed their guilt and hrohen vows. Exposing to the laughing throng The horrid face of vice and wrong. In every land and every clime. He honored truth and punctured crime. And down the years his god-like rhyme Shall he synonymous with Time! We remained among relatives and friends in Warwickshire until the middle of September, when we heard that the London plague had abated and the theatrical profession were bnsy preparing for a winter campaign of dramatic glory. Shakspere had several plays partly or nearly finished;, and, as Burbage and Henslowe desired our immediate services, we took our departure from Stratford, with the friendship of the town echoing in our ears. The flowers and growing fields, the leafy forests and circling and singing birds seemed to say good- bye, good luck and God bless you ! We felt happy and hopeful ourselves, and con- sequently Dame Nature echoed the feeling of our souls. AH was joy, song, feasting and laughter. William, on our way to Oxford, in one of his original flights taken from an ode of Horace, im- pulsively exclaimed: Shakspere: Personal Recollections Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep and you weep alone. This grand old earth must harrow its mirth. It has troubles enough of its own. Sing and the hills will answer. Sigh, it is lost on the air. The echoes hound to a joyful sound. But shrinh from voicing care. Be glad and your friends are many; Be sad and you lose them all; There are none to decline your nectared wine. But alone we must drinh life's gall. There's room in the halls of pleasure. For a long and lordly train. But one hy one we must all file on; Through the narrow aisles of pain. Feast, and your halls are crowded. Fast, and the world goes hy. Succeed and give, 'twill help you live; But no one can help you die! Rejoice, and men will seeTc you. Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure But they do not want your woe! These lines impressed me very much, at the time and from that day to this I have never ceased to act on the philosophy of the poem. It has been part of my nature, and during my wanderings for the past three hundred and twenty years I have never failed to carry in my train of ifchought and action— sunshine, beauty, song, love ^5 Shaksperc: Personal Recollections and laughter — advance agents to secure welcome in all hearts and homes throughout the world. We were beautifully entertained by Mrs. Daisy Davenant at the Crown Tavern in Oxford, and many of the college "boys," who heard of our ar- rival in the city, hurried to pay their classic friendship to the "Divine" William. We arrived in London on the 20th of September, and found that our old maid landlady had died of the plague, but had kindly sent all our literary and wardrobe effects to Florio, who was still alive and well at the Eed Lion. In a couple of days William was up to his head and ears in theatrical composition and stage struc- ture. A few years before the Bard had '^dashed off" a love tragedy entitled "Eomeo and Juliet," taken from an Italian novel of the thirteenth century, and a translation of the old family feud in poetry, by Walter Brooke, who had but recently delighted London with the story. Shakspere never hesitated to take crude ore and rough ashler from any quarry of thought; and out of the dull, leaden material of others, produced characters in living form to walk the stage of life forever, teaching the lesson of virtue triumphant over vice. The exemplification of true love, as pictured in the pure affection of Juliet and the intense, heroic devotion of Eomeo, have never been equaled or surpassed by any other dramatic characters. The lordly and wealthy gentry of Italy have been noted for their family feuds for the past three thousand years, and the party followers of 96 Shakspere: Personal Recollections these blood-stained rivals have desolated many happy homes in Eome^ Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice and Verona. Shakspere showed the finished play of "Romeo and Juliet'^ to Burbage, and the old manager fairly jumped wth Joy and astonishment at the eloquence of the love and ruin drama. The families of Capulet and Montague of Ve- rona, stuffed with foolish pride about the matri- monial choice of their daughters and sons, can be found in every city in the world where a tyrant father or purse-proud mother insist on selecting life partners for their children. The story of Eomeo and Juliet shows the utter failure of such parental folly. The play was largely advertised among the lights of London and announced to come off in all its glory at the Blackfriars on the last Saturday of December, 1595. Queen Elizabeth, in a special box, was there incog, with a royal train of lords and ladies; and such another audience for dress and stunning show was never seen in London. Burleigh, Bacon, Essex, Southampton, Derby, Ealeigh, Spenser, Warwick, Gray, Montague, Lancaster, Mount joy, Blake, and all the great sol- diers and sailors of the realm then in London were boxed for a sight of the greatest love tragedy ever enacted on the dramatic stage. All the dra- matic authors were present. William himself took the part of Eomeo, for he was a perfect exemplification of the hero of the play. Jo Taylor took the part of Juliet, and I can assure you that his makeup, in the form and dress 1)7 . Shakspere : Personal Recollections of the fourteen-year-old Italian beauty, was a great success. Dick Burbage took the part of Friar Laurence, Condell played Mercutio, Arnim the part of Paris, Field played old Capnlet, and Florio played Mon- tague, Hemmings played Benvolio, and John Un- derwood played the part of Tybalt, and Escalus, the Prince, was played by Phillips. The curtain went up on a street scene in Ve- rona, where the partisans of the houses of Capulet and Montague quarreled, while Paris, Mercutio, Komeo and Tybalt worked up their hot blood and came to blows. Eomeo and his friends, in mask, attended a ball at the home of Juliet, in a clandestine fashion, and on first sight of this immaculate beauty Eomeo exclaims : "O, she doth teach the torches to hum 'bright! Her beauty hangs upon the cheeTc of night Lihe a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows. As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The dancing done, I'll watch her place of stand. And, touching hers, maJce happy my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight. For I ne'er saw true beauty till to-night!" The poetic apostrophe of Eomeo to his new dis- covered beauty elicited universal applause, led by the "Virgin Queen," who imagined, no doubt, that his tribute to beauty was intended for herself. 98 Shakspere: Personal Recollections She never lost an opportunity to appropriate any- thing that came her way. An epigram of strenuous audacity. A winner ! In the second act Eomeo climbs the wall, hem- ming in his beautiful Juliet, and in defiance of the family fued, locks and bars of old man Capulet, and seeks a clandestine interview with his true love, although at the risk of his life. It was the evening of the twenty-first birthday of Eomeo, and with love as his guide and subject, he felt strong enough to attack a warring world. Beneath the window of the fair Juliet, Borneo soliloquizes : "He jests at scars, that never felt a wound—' (Juliet appears at an upper window.) But, soft! what light through yonder window ireahs! It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and Mil the envious moon. Who is already siclc and pale with grief. That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she; Be not her maid since she is envious; Her vestal livery is hut siclc and green. And none hut fools do wear it; cast it off — It is my lady; 0, it is my love; 0, that she knew she were! — 8he spealcs, yet she says nothing: What of that: Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too hold. His not to me she spealcs; Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven. Having some hu^iness, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? 99 ;L.cfC. Shakspere: Personal Recollections The brightness of her cheeh would shame those stars. As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing, and thinh it were not night. See how she leans her cheeh upon her hand! 0, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I might touch that cheeh T' Juliet speaks, and finally out of her fevered, love- lit mind says : '^0, Romeo J Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Beny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love. And Til no longer be a Capulet!" Eomeo replies: ""Z tahe thee at thy word; Call me but love, and Fll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo/' She says; '^How cam'st thou hither? The orchard walls are too high and hard to climb; And the place death, considering who thou art/' Eomeo quickly responds: ''With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out; 100 Shakspere: Personal Recollections And what love can do^ that dares love attempt. Therefore thy Tcinsmen are no hindrance to me! I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far As that vast shore washed with the further sea I would adventure for such merchandise!'* Then Juliet^ with, her fine Italian cunning makes the following declaration of her love; and considering that she is only fourteen years of age, yet in the hands of a house nurse, older and wiser girls could not give a better gush of affectionate eloquence : ''Thou Jcnow'st the maslc of night is on my face. Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheeh. For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I divell on form, fain, fain, fain, deny What I have spoke; But, farewell compliment! Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say. Ay; And I will take thy word, yet if tliou swear st. Thou may'st prove false; at lover s perjuries They say Jove laughs. 0, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully; Or, if thou thinVst I am too quickly won, ril frown and be perverse, and say thee nay. So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think my conduct light; But, tru^t me, gentleman. Til prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more shy, I must confess. But that thou overheard'st, ere I was aware. My true love's passion; therefore, pardon me; And not impute this yielding to light love. Shakspere: Personal Recollections Which the darh night hath so discovered. My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep; the more I give to thee. The more I have, for both are infinite T The lovers part, promising eternal love and marriage "to-morrow" at the cell of good Friar Laurence, the confessor of the fair Juliet. The friar, priest, preacher and bishop have ever been great matrimonial matchmakers, and when "Love's young dream'^ is foiled or withered by parental tyranny, these velvet-handed philosophers find a way to tie the hymeneal knot, even in per- sonal and legal defiance of cruel, social dictation. Friar Laurence, in contemplation of tying love- knots soliloquizes in the following lofty lines: "^The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, ChecTcering the eastern clouds with streaJcs of light; And Heclced darTcness liTce a drunkard reels From forth day's pathway, made by Titan's wheels. Now ere the sun advance his burning eye. The day to cheer, and night's darJc dew to try, I must fill up this osier cage of ours With baleful needs and precious-juiced Uowers. The earth that's Nature's mother, is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers Tcind We sucTcing on her natural bosom find. Many for many virtues excellent. None, but for some, and yet all different; 10^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections 0, micJcle is the powerful grace that lies In herhs, plants^ stones and their true qualities; For naught so vile that on the earth doth live. But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good, but strained from that fair use. Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied And vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower, ^Poison hath residence and medicine power. For, this being smelt, with that part cheers eacH part. Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed foes encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant. Full soon the canlcer death eats up that plant I'' Komeo implores the holy Friar: '^Do thou but close our hands with holy words. Then love devouring death do what he dare. It is enough I muy but call her mineT Juliet addressing Eomeo in the Friar^s cell ex- claims : '^Imagination more rich in matter than in words. Brags of his substance, not of ornament; They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth/' 103 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The good old Friar then says : *'Come, come with me and we will make short work; For, hy your leaves, you shall not stay alone Till holy church incorporate two in oneT Mereutio and Tybalt fight, in faction of the Capnlet and Montague houses. Mereutio is killed, and then Eomeo kills Tybalt and is banished from the State by Prince Escalus. Juliet awaits Eomeo in her room the night after marriage, and with passionate, impatient longing exclaims : ''Give me my Romeo; and when he shell die Take him and cut him out in little stars. And he will make the face of heaven so bright That all the world will he in love with night. And pay no worship to the garish sun. 0, I have bought the mansion of a love. But not possessed it; and, though I am sold; Not yet enjoyed; so tedious is this day. As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes. And may not wear themT Although the verdict of banishment was pro- nounced against Romeo to go to Mantua instanter, he found means through the old nurse and good Priar Laurence to visit his new-made bride the night before his forced departure; and in spite of locks, bars, law, parents and princes, plucked the ripe fruit from the tree of virginity. Borneo must be gone before the first crowing 104 Shakspere: Personal Recollections of the cock and ere the rosy fingers of the dawn light up the bridal chamber, else death would be his portion. Juliet importunes him to stay, and says: "Wilt thou he gone? It is not yet near day; It was the nightingale, and not the larTc, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree; Believe me, love, it was the nightingale." Eomeo replies: "It was the larTc, the herald of the morn. Wo nightingale; loolc, love, what envious streahs ''Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East; Wight's candles are burnt, and jocund day, 'Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die!" Juliet further implores him to stay: "Yon light is not daylight, I Icnow it; It is some meteor that the sun exhales; To be to thee this night a torch bearer. And light thee on thy way to Mantua; Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not he gone" Eomeo willingly consents : "Let me be taTcen, let me be put to death; I am content so thou wilt have it so; ril say yon gray is not the morning's eye, 'Tis hut the pale reiiex of Cynthia's brow! 105 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Nor that it is not the lark, whose notes do heat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads; I have more care to stay than will to go; — Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so — How is it, my soul? Let's talk, it is not day!'* Juliet alarmed exclaims: "It is, it is, hie hence, hegone away; It is the larTc that sings so out of tune. Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps, Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us; Some say, the lark and lothed toad change eyes; 0, now I would they had changed voices too; Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray. Hunting thee hence with hunts up to the day. 0, now hegone; more light and light it grows/' Eomeo descends the ladder, saying his last words to the beautiful Juliet: "And trust me, love, in mine eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! Adieu!" After the banishment of Eomeo, old Capulet and his wife insisted that Juliet marry young Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus, and sorrows unnumbered crowded on the new-made secret bride. To escape marriage with Paris, Juliet consulted Friar Laurence, who gives her a drug to be taken the night before the prearranged marriage, that will dull all life and the body remain as dead for forty-two hours. This scheme of the Friar works Shakspere: Personal Recollections out favorably until Juliet is laid away with her ancestors in the grand tomb of the Capulets. But Eomeo hears of the whole trouble and hur- ries back from banishment, dashing his way through all impediments until he kills Paris, griev- ing at midnight by the grave of Juliet. Then, tearing his way into the tomb of Juliet throws himself upon the gorgeous bier and ex- claims : ''Oh, my love! my wife! Veath that hath suclced the honey of thy hreath. Hath had no power yet upon thy heauty; Thou art not conquered; heauty' s ensign yet Is crimson on thy lips, and in thy cheeks. And death's pale flag is not advanced there; Tybalt, liest thou there in thy hloody sheet? 0, what more favor can I do thee. Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain. To sunder his that was thine enemy! Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I will still stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again; here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids; 0, here Will I set up my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied Hesh; eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, 0, you, 107, Shakspere: Personal Recollections TJie doors of 'breath, seal with a righteous Tciss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conductor, come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate pilot, now and at once run on The dashing rocTcs thy sea-siclc, weary baric! Here's to my love! (Drinks poison.) 0, true apothecary ! Thy drugs are quiclc; thus with a hiss I die!" Friar Laurence and Balthazar with dark lan- tern, at this moment approach the tomb to extri- cate and save Juliet from the sleeping drug. She awakes with the noise in the tomb and views the deadly situation. The Friar implores her to come, depart at once, as the night watch approach. She says: '''Go, get thee hence, for I will not away; Whafs here 9 a cup close in my true love's hand; Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end; churl! drinlc all; and leave me no friendly drop To help me after? I will hiss thy lips; Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them. To m,ahe me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm! Yea, noise ? Then Til be brief. happy dagger! (Snatches Eomeo's dagger.) This is thy sheath, there rust and let me die!" ( Stabs herself through the heart. ) The Prince, Capulet and Montague family soon discover all, and Friar Laurence tells the true story, punishment follows, and the two contending 108 Shakspere: Personal Recollections houses of Verona clasp hands over the ruin they have wrought, while the Prince exclaims: *'For, never was a story of more woe. Than this of Juliet and her Romeo T' The drop curtain was rung down and up three times^ and the storm of applause that greeted Shakspere and Taylor, as the representatives of Komeo and Juliet, was never equaled before at the Blackfriars. The Queen called William and Jo to the royal box and by her own firm hand presented a signet ring to Eomeo and a lace handkerchief to Juliet! ''What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It hoots not to resist both wind and tide!" S09I Shakspere: Personal Recollections GHAPTEE XIL ^^JULIUS C^SAB/^ "0 mighty Ccesar! Dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests^ glories^ tnumphs, spoils Shrunk to this little measure f^ The assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus, Cassius, Casca and twenty other Eoman Senators, in the capital of the Empire in broad daylight, was one of the most cowardly and infamous crimes recorded in the annals of time. The historical and philosophical friends of Brutus and Cassius have tried to justify the con- spiracy and assassination by imputing the deep de- sign of tyranny to Caesar, who was bent on tram- pling down the rights of the people and securing for himself a kingly crown. They say the motive of the conspirators in the deep damnation of Caesar's "taking off'' was purely patriotism. Many murderers have used the same argument. The facts do not justify the excuse. For more than thirty years Julius Caesar had been a star performer on the boards of the Eoman Empire, and his family had been illustrious for five hun- dred years. Sylla, Marius, Cicero, Cato, Brutus 110 Shakspere: Personal Recollections and Pompey had crossed lances with this civil and military genius^ and had all become very jealous of his increasing fame. From boyhood Caesar had been a mixer with the common people, and in midnight hours in Rome, among tradesmen, merchants, students, authors, sailors and soldiers, he became imbued with their wants and impulsive nature. He had no reason to doubt or oppress the people. As commander of invincible troops in Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain, Caesar had secured a world-wide reputation, for the eagles of his vic- torious legions had swept across the mountains and seas to the shore end of Europe and screamed in triumph among the palms and sands of Africa and Asia! Caesar was a poet, orator, historian, warrior and statesman, and the imperial families and poli- ticians of Rome, who were forced to sit in the shade of his triumphs and glory, felt a secret pang of jealousy at the stride of this colossal character. He was the pride and idol of his soldiers, and whether in the forests of Gaul and Germany, the swamps of Britain, mountains of Spain, or among Ionian isles, his presence was ever worth a thou- sand men in battle action. His plans were mathematical, his soul sublime and his purpose eternal victory ! Bravery and Caesar were synonymous terms, and the little, mean, pismire ambitions of Roman politicians he despised, striding over their corrupt schemes for pelf and office like a winter whirlwind. Brutus, while professing horror at the contem- plated assassination of his friend and natural lllj Shakspere: Personal Recollections father Caesar, lent a willing ear and sympathetic voice to the prime conspirator — Cassius; and al- though seemingly dragged into the murderous plot, he was in heart the grand villain of the conspiracy, believing he might rise to supreme control of the Eoman Empire when Julius the Great lay welter- ing in his heroic blood. Brutus was a dastard, an ingrate, a coward and a murderer, and no pretense of patriotism can save him from the contempt and condemnation of mankind. There is no justification for assassiaa- tion! The death of Cassar was the first great blow in the final destruction of the Eoman Empire, for up to this time the people had a voice in electing their tribunes, consuls and governors, and were consulted as to the burden of taxation, although many of their previous rulers had been terrible tyrants. Brutus and Cassius, and their coconspirators, city senators, who dipped their hands in Csesar^s sacred blood, were finally driven from all political power, their estates confiscated, fleeing like fright- ened wolves to foreign fields and forests and perish- ing in battle as enemies to their country. When brought to bay at Philippi, Brutus and Cassius mustered up enough courage to commit suicide, which is confession of guilt. In the winter of 1597 William was deeply study- ing the new translation of Petrarch, and Florio was nightly teaching us the lofty philosophy of Grecian and Eoman classics. The lives of noted ancient poets, orators, warriors, statesmen, gover- nors, kings and philosophers, as written or com- 11^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections piled by the great Plutarch has furnished a mine of historic thought for the dramatic artist, and Shakspere, above all the men who ever thought, wrote or talked on the stage, took most advantage of the lines of Plutarch. The British people were clamoring for grand historical plays, not only for the actions of their own kings and queens, but demanded the enact- ment of the reigns of great, ancient warriors and kings who had given glory to Greece and Eome and left imperishable memories for posterity to avoid or emulate. Burbage, Henslowe and other theatrical man- agers, were ever on the lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and of course, the Bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the vari- ous stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compeers, struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow dips of dramatic thought. He knew, and I knew, that his plays would be enacted down the circling centuries as long as vice and virtue, hate and love, cowardice and bravery, fun, folly, wit and wisdom characterized humanity. William told Essex and Southampton that he had just composed a play with Julius Csesar as the central figure, and wished an opportunity to test its merits before a private party of authors, students and lords at the Holborn House, the grand castle of Southampton. These noblemen were delighted with the sugges- tion, and on the night of the first of March, 1597, Burbage, with his whole tribe of theatrical "rounders," appeared in the grand banquet room 113 Shakspere: Personal Recollections of Southampton, and, under the guidance of Shak- spere, rendered for the first time "Julius Caesar." Jo Taylor took the part of Caesar, Dick Burbage acted Brutus, Condell represented Cassius and Shakspere played Marcus Antonius, while the other characters were distributed among the "stock" as their various talents justified. Calphurnia, wife to Caesar, and Portia, wife to Brutus, were represented respectively by Hemmings and Arnum. The play opens with a street scene in Eome filled with working, rabble citizens who have turned out to give Caesar a great triumph on his return from successful war. Flavins and Marullus, tribunes, enter and re- buke the people for greeting Caesar. Flavins twits the turncoat rabble in this style: "0 you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew ye not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climbed up to walls and battlements. To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops. Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day, with patient expectation. To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome; And when you saw his chariot but appear. Have you not made a universal shout. That Tiber trembled underneath her banks. To hear the replication of your sounds. Made in her concave shores f And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now cull out a holiday f And do you now strew flowers in his way. That comes in triumph over Pompey' s blood f^' 114 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Brutus and Cassius witness the triumphal march of Caesar with Jealous, vengeful and dagger hearts, and Cassius, the old, desperate soldier, first hints at blood conspiracy. Brutus asks: ''What is it that you would impart to me? If it be aught toward the general good. Set honor in one eye, and death in the other. And I will looh on hoth indifferently/' Fine talk ! Brutus is not the only political murderer that talks of "honor" through the cen- turies, a cloak for devils in human shape to work a personal purpose and not "the general good." Cassius delivers this eloquent indictment against Caesar, the grandest of its kind in all history: "Well, Honor is the suhject of my story — / cannot tell what you and other men Thinh of this life; hut, for my single self I had as lief not to be, as live to he In awe of such a thing as I, myself. I was horn free as Ccesar; so were you. We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winters cold as well as he. For once, upon a raw and gusty day. The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Ccesar said to me, 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry -flood And siuim to yonder point f Upon the word, Accoutered as I was, I plunged in And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did, 115 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The torrent roared and we did hujfet it With lusty sinews; throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive at the point proposed, Ccesar cried, 'Help me, Cassius, or I sinhl' I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor. Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulders The old Anchisas hear, so, from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Ccesar; and this man Is now become a god, and Cassiu^ is A wretched creature, and must bend his body. If Ccesar carelessly but nod on him. He had a fever, when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did marh How he did shaTce; 'tis true, this god did shalce, His coward lips did from their color Hy; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his lustre; I did hear him groan; Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Marh him, and write his speeches in their boohs; Alas! it cried, 'Give me some drinTc, Titiniusf As a side girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic world And bear the palm alone! Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Lihe a Colossus; and we petty men Walh under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Brutus and Ccesar; what should be in that Ccesar? Shakspere: Personal Recollections Why should that name he sounded more than yours ? Write them together^ yours is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar. Now in the name of all the gods at once. Upon what meat doth this our Ccesar feed That he is grown so great 9^' Unanimous applause followed this cunning con- spiracy speech, and Jonson, Lodge and Drayton gave loud exclamations of approval. Caesar, with his staff, returning from the games in his honor, sees Cassius and remarks to Antonius : *^Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleelc-headed men and such as sleep of nights; Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry looJc; He thinlcs too much; such men are dangerous; And are never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves!" Casca, one of the senatorial conspirators, tells Cassius that Caesar is to be crowned king, and he replies thus, contemplating suicide: "I Tcnow where I will wear this dagger then; Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius; Therein, ye gods, you mahe the iveak most strong; Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat; Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass. Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life being weary of these worldly bars^ 117 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Never lacks power to dismiss itself; That part of tyranny that I do\ hear I can shaTce off at pleasure!" Brutus, contemplating assassination, says in soliloquy : *'To speaJc the truth of Ccesar, I have not known when his affections swayed More than his reason. But His a common proofs That lowliness is young ambition's ladder. Whereto the climber upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round. He then unto the ladder turns his back. Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend!" This ingratitude of the great to the people is often recompensed by defeat and death. After the senatorial conspirators decided that Caesar should die, Cassius insisted wisely that Mar- cus Antonius should not outlive the great Julius, and said: ^^Let Antony and Caesar fall together!" But Brutus would not consent to the death of Antony, believing that he was not dangerous to their future, yet insisting that "Caesar must bleed for ar "Let's kill him bodily, but not wrathfully; Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods. Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds; And let our hearts as subtle masters do. Stir up their servants to an act of rage^ And after seem to chide them!" 118 Shakspere: Personal Recollections And yet this is the sweet-scented assassin who prates of "honor/^ and is sometimes known as "the noblest Eoman of them all!" Portia, the wife of Brutus, felt a strange alarm at his recent conduct, and Calphurnia, the wife of Csesar, implored him not to attend the session of the senate, reminding him of the soothsayer's warn- ing — "Beware the ides of March." Yet, Cffisar threw off all fear and suspicion and said: "What can he avoided^ Whose end is purposed hy the mighty gods ? Yet Ccesar shall go forth, for these predictions Are to the world in general, not to Ccesar! Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death hut once!" The hour of assassination has arrived, and Caesar, seated in the chair of state, says : ''What is now amiss That Ccesar and his senate must redress f Senator Metellus, one of the chief conspirators, throws himself at the feet of Caesar and implores pardon for his traitor brother. Caesar says: ''Be not fond. To thinlc that Ccesar hears such rebel blood. That will be thawed from the true quality. With that which meeteth fools; I mean, sweet words, 119 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Low, crooked courtesies, and hase, spaniel fawning; Thy brother hy decree is banished; If thou dost bend, and pray and fawn for him, I spurn thee UTce a cur out of my way. Know, Gcesar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied ! But I am constant as the northern star. Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament!'* The conspirators at this moment crowd aronnd the doomed hero with pretended petitions — and, instanter, Casca stabs Cassar in the neck, while several other murdering senators stab him through the body, and last Marcus Brutus plunges a dagger in the heart of his benefactor and father, when with glaring eyes and dying breath, the noble Caesar exclaims: "Et tu, Bruter (And thou, Brutus?) Thus tumbled down at the base of Pompey's statue the greatest man the world has ever known ! Then the citizens of Rome — royal, rabble and conspirators, were filled with consternation, while Brutus tried to stem the rising flood of indigna- tion. Mark Antony was allowed to weep and speak over the pulseless clay of his official partner and friend. Gazing on the cold, bloody form of the amazing Julius, he utters these pathetic phrases: 120 Shakspere: Personal Recollections **0 mighty Ccescur! Dost tliou lie so low? Are all thy conquests^ glories^ triumphs^ spoils. Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well — I Tcnow not, gentlemen, what you intend. Who else must he let hlood, who else is ranh; If I myself, there is no hour so fit As CcBsar's death-hour; nor no instrument Of half that worth, as those your swords, made rich With the most ndhle hlood of all this world. I do beseech ye, if you hear me hard. Now, while your purpled hands do reeh and smoTce, Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years, I shall not find myself so apt to die; No place will please me so, no mean of death As here hy Ccesar, and hy you cut off. The choice and master spirit of this age!" Brutus gave orders for a grand funeral, turning the body of the dead lion over to Antony, who might make the funeral oration to the people within such bounds of discretion as the conspira- tors dictated. Standing alone, by the dead body of Caesar in the Senate, Antony pours out thus, the overflowing vengeance of his soul: ''0 pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth. That I am meelc and gentle with these butchers; Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! Over thy wounds now do I prophesy — Which like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips 121 Shakspere: Personal Recollections To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue; A ciirse shall light upon the limbs of men; Domestic fury and fierce civil strife Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; Blood and destruction shall be so in use. And dreadful objects so familiar. That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quartered with the hands of war; All pity cholced with custom of fell deeds; And Ccesar's spirit, ranging for revenge. With Ate by his side, come hot from hell. Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice. Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war! The wild citizens of Eome clamored for the reason of Cesar's death, and Brutus mounted the rostrum in the Forum and delivered this cunning and bold oration in defense of the conspirators : ^'^Eomans, countrymen and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that ye may hear; believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe ; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. ^^If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. "If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer. Not that I loved Caesar less ; but that I loved Eome more ! "Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? "As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was 13^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him, but as he was ambitious I slew him ! "There is tears for his love ; joy for his fortune ; honor for his valor, and death for his ambition ! ^^ho is here so base that would be a bond- man? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. "I pause for a reply.^' And then the rabble, vacillating, fool citizens said, "JSTone, Brutus, none," and continue to yell, "Live, Brutus, live! live!" Brutus leaves the Forum and requests the hu- man cattle to remain and hear Antony relate the glories of Caesar ! Finally Antony is persuaded to take the ros- trum, and delivers this greatest funeral oration of all the ages: ''Friends, Bomans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to hury Ccesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do live after them; The good is oft interred with their hones; So let it he with CfBsar. The nohle Brutus Hath told you Ccesar was amhitious; If it were so it was a grievous fault; And grievously hath Ccesar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, {For Brutus is an honor ahle man. So are they all, all honorahle men); Come I to speaTc in Ccesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me; 123 Shakspere: Personal Recollections But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill; Did this in Ccesar seem ambitious f When that the poor hath cried, Ccesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff; Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see, that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a Jcingly crown Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honorable man. I speaTc not to disprove what Brutus spoTce, But here I am to spealc what I Tcnow. You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? judgment, thou art Hed to brutish beasts. And men have lost their reason! Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Ccesar, And I must pause until it come baclc to me. But, yesterday the word of Ccesar might Have stood against the ivorld, now lies he there. And none so poor to do him reverence. 0, Masters! If I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong. Who, you all Icnow, are honorable men. I will not do them wrong; I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you Than I will wrong such honorable men. But here's a parchment with the seal of Ccesar; 134: Shakspere: Personal Recollections I found it in his closet, 'tis his will; Let hut the commons hear this statement, (Which pardon me, I do not mean to read). And they would go and kiss dead Ccesar's wounds; And dip their napTcins in his sacred hlood; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. And dying, mention it within their wills. Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue. If you have tears prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle; I remember The first time ever Ccesar put it on; 'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent; That day he overcame the Nervii; Look! in this place ran Cassius dagger through; See ivhat a rent the envious Casca made; Through this the well beloved Brutus stabbed; And as he plucked his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Ccesar followed it; As rushing out of doors to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no; For Brutus, as you know, was Ccesar s angel: Judge, ye gods, how Ccesar loved him! This was the most unkindest cut of all; For when the noble Ccesar saw him stab. Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms Quite vanquished him, then burst his mighty heart; And in his mantle muffling up his face. Even at the base of Pompey's statue. Which all the while ran blood, great Ccesar fell. 0, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I and you and all of us fell down 125 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Whilst bloody treason nourished over us. O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel The impression of pity; these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what, weep you, when you hut behold Our Gcesars vesture wounded? LooTc you here. Here is himself marred, as you see, with traitors! Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden Hood of mutiny; They that have done this deed are honorable; What private griefs they have, alas, I know not That made them do it; they are wise and honor- able And vjill noi doubt with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts; I am no orator, as Brutus is; But as you know me all, a plain, blunt man. That love my friends, and that they know full well. That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth. Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech To stir men's blood, I only speak right on; I tell you that, which you yourselves do know; Shotv you stveet Ccesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths. And bid them speak for me; but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Ccesar, that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny T This oration fired the Eoman people to mutiny, and Brutus and Cassius with their followers fled m Shakspere: Personal Recollections from the city and prepared for war with Antony and Octavius, who had suddenly returned to Eome. The passionate quarrel between Brutus and Cas- sius in their military camp at Sardis was a nat- ural outcome of conspirators. Cassius accused Brutus of having wronged him, and Brutus twitted his brother assassin thus: "Let me tell you, Gassiiis, you yourself Are much condemned to have an itching palm. To sell and mart your offices for gold To undeservers r Cassius fires back this reply: **I an itching palm? You hnow that you are Brutus that speah this. Or by the gods this speech were else your last!'* The night before the battle of Philippi the spirit of Caesar appeared in the tent of Brutus, who startles from a slumbering trance and ex- claims : ''Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes. That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me! Art thou anything? Art thou some god, some angel or some devil. That mahest my blood cold, and my hair ten stare? Speah to me, what thou art. The Ghost replies : "Thy evil spirit, Brutus! Shakspere: Personal Recollections Brutus: Why comest thou? Ghost : To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. Brutus: Well, then I shall see thee again? Ghost: Ay, at Philippi T The armies of Antony and Octavins and Brutus and Cassius meet in crash of battle. Cassius is hotly pursued by the enemy, and to prevent capture and exhibition at Eome, craves the service of Pindrus to run him through with his sword. He says: ''Now he a freeman, and with this good sword That ran through Ccesar's bowels, search this bosom. Stand not to answer; here, take thou the hilt; And when my face is covered, as His now. Guide thou the sword; Ccesar, thou art revenged. Even with the sword that Tcilled thee!'* (Dies.) Brutus is run to earth, and most of his generals dead or fled. He implores Strato to assist him to suicide, and says: "■/ pray thee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord; Thou art a fellow of good respect; Thy life hath had some smach of honor in it; Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face. While I do run upon it! Farewell, good Strato; Ccesar now be still, I killed not thee with half so good a will ! (Kuns on his sword and dies.) Shakspere: Personal Recollections Antony and Octavius and his army soon find Brutus slain by his own sword^, and with a most magnificent and undeserved generosity Antony pronounces this benediction over the dead body of the vilest and most intelligent conspirator who ever lived! ^^TMs was the noblest Boman of them all; All the conspirators^ save only he Did that they did in envy of great Ccesar; He only in a general honest thought, And common good to all made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements 80 mixed in him that Nature might stand up. And say to all the world. This was a manT The whole audience, led by Southampton, Es- sex, Bacon and Drayton gave three cheers and a lion roar for "Julius Cagsar,^' the greatest historical and classical play ever composed, and destined to run down the ages for a million years ! 129 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER XIII. TWO TRAMPS. BY LAND AND SEA. ''Travelers must he content." "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluch this Uower, safety/' The translation of Petrarch, Plutarch, Tacitus, Terence, and particularly Homer, by Chapman, gave a great impulse to dramatic writers, and in- spired a feverish desire to travel through classic lands where classic authors lived and died. Shakspere was a natural bohemian, and while he could conform to the conventionalities of so- ciety, he was never more pleased than when mix- ing with the variegated mass of mankind, where vice and virtue predominated without the guilt of hypocrisy to blur and blast the principles of sin- cerity. Art, fashion and human laws he knew to be often only blinds for the concealment of plastic iniquity, and were secretly purchased by the few who had the gold to buy. By sinking the grappling iron of independent investigation into every form and phase of human life, he plucked from the deepest ocean of ad- 130 Shakspere: Personal Recollections versitj the rarest shells^ weeds and flowers of thought, and spread them before the world as a new revelation. By mingling with and Imowing the good and bad, he solved the riddle of human passions, and with mind, tongue and pen unpurchased, he flashed his matchless philosophy on an admiring world, lifting the curtain of deceit and obscurity from the stage of falsehood, giving to the beholder a sight of l^ature in her unexpurgated nakedness ! On the first of May, 1598, William and myself determined to travel into and around continental and oriental lands, and view some of the noted monuments, cities, seas, plains and mountains, where ancient warriors and philosophers had left their imperishable records. Sailing through the Strait of Dover into the English Channel, our good ship Albion landed us in three days at Havre, the port town at the mouth of the river Seine, leading on to Eouen and up to the ancient city of Paris. Our good ship Albion was to remain a week trading between Havre and Cherbourg, when we were to be again on board for a lengthy trip to the various ports of the Mediterranean. Our first night in Paris was spent at the Hotel Eeims, a jolly headquarters for students, painters, authors and actors. LeMour was the blooming host, with his daugh- ter Nannette as the coquettish ^^roper in.^' Father and daughter spoke English about as well as Wil- liam and myself spoke French; and what was not understood by our mutual words and phrases was explained by our gesticulation of hand, shoulder, 131 Shakspere: Personal Recollections foot, eye, and clinking ^'franes'^ and ^^sovereigns." Cash speaks all languages, and it is a very ig- norant mortal who can't understand the voice of gold and silver. "Francs," "pounds" and "dollars" are the real monarchs of mankind! William in a prophetic mood recited these few lines to the ^^oys" at the bar: With circumspect steps as we picTc our way through This intricate world, as all prudent folTcs do^ May we still on our journey he able toi view The benevolent face of a dollar or two. For an excellent thing is a dollar or two; No friend is so true as a dollar or two; In country or town, as we pass up and down. We are code of the wallc with a dollar or two! ^Do you wish that the press should the decent thing do, 'And give your reception a gushing review, ^Describing the dresses by stuff, style and hue. On the quiet, hand **Jenlcins" a dollar or two; 'Fo(r the pen sells its praise for a dollar or two; 'And Mngs its abuse for a dollar or two; And you'll find that it's easy to manage the crew When you put up the shape of a dollar or two! ■Do you wish your existence with Faith to imbue. And so become one of the sanctified few; Who enjoy a good name and a well cushioned pew You must freely come down with a dollar or two. For the gospel is preached for a dollar or two, 'Salvation is reached for a dollar or two; 13^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections 'Sins are pardoned, sometimes, hut the worst of all crimes Is to find yourself short of a dollar or two! Although the Bard delivered this truthful poem off hand, so to speak, in '"broken" French, the cos- mopolitan, polyglot audience "caught on" and "shipped" the Stratford "poacher" a wave of tumultuous cheers! That very night at the Theatre Saint Germain the new play of Gamier, "Juives," was to be en- acted before Henry the Fourth and a brilliant audience. William and myself were invited by a band of rollicking students to join them in a front bench "clapping" committee, as Gamier himself was to take the part of Old King Nebuchadnezzar in the great play, illustrating the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The curtain went up at eight o'clock, and the French actors began their mimic contortions of face, lips, legs and shoulders for three mortal hours, and while there was a constant shifting of scenes, citizens, soldiers, Jews and battering rams, yells, groans and cheers, it looked as if the audi- ence, including King Henry, was doing the most of the acting, and all the cheering! A maniac would be thoroughly at home in a French theatre ! The play had neither head, tail nor body, but it was sufficient for the excitable, revolutionary Frenchman to see that the Jews were being robbed, banished and slaughtered in the interest of Chris- tianity and the late Jesus, who is reported as hav- 133 Shakspere: Personal Recollections ing taught the lessons of "love/' "charity" and "mercy !" The "Son of God/' it seems, had been crucified more than fifteen hundred years before the audi- ence had been created; and although "Old Neb" of Babylon had destroyed a million of Hebrews several hundred years previous to the birth of the Bethlehem "Savior of Mankind/' the "frog" and "snail" eaters of France were still breaking their lungs and throats in cheering for the destruction of anybody! It was one o'clock in the morning when we got back to the hotel; and with the Bacchanalian racket made by the "students" and fantastic "grisettes" it must have been nearly daylight before William and myself fell into the arms of sleep. Sliding into the realm of dreams I heard the "mammoth man" murmur: ''Sleep, that Tcnits up the raveled sleeve of care. The death of each day's life, sore labor s hath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. Chief nourisher in life's feast!" Jodelle, Lariney, Corneille, Moliere, Eacine, La Fontaine, Eousseau, Yoltaire, Balzac, or even Hugo, never uttered such masterly philosophy. After partaking of a French breakfast, smoth- ered with herbs and mystery, we hired a fancy phaeton and voluble driver to whirr us around the principal streets, parks and buildings of the rushing, brilliant city, everything moving as if the devil were out with a search warrant for some of [the stray citizens of his imperial dominions. 134i Shakspere: Personal Recollections The driver spoke English very well, and with a telephone voice, surcharged with monkey gestures, we listened to and saw the history of Paris from the advent of Caesar, Clovis, Charlemagne to Louis and Henry. A city directory would have been a surplusage, and we flattered the "garcon" by seeming to believe everything he said, exclaim- ing "Oh my V "Do tell V "Gee whizz !" "Did you ever !" "Wonderful !" and "!N"ever saw the like !" As our mentor and nestor pulled up at noted wine cafes to water his horse, we contributed to his own irrigation and our champagne thirst. Be good to yourself. It was sundown when we nestled in the Hotel Reims, but had been richly repaid in our visit to the king's palace, the great Louvre, St. Denis, Notre Dame and the great cathedrals, picture gal- leries, cemeteries and monuments that decorated imperial Paris. The evening before we left Paris we accepted the invitation of Garnier to visit the Latin Quar- ter. The playwright did not know William or myself, except as young English lords — "Buck- ingham" and "Bacon," traveling for information and pleasure, sowing "wild," financial "oats" with the liberality of princes. A well dressed, polite man, with lots of money, and a "spender" from "way back" is a welcome guest in home, church and state; and when it comes to the "ladies," he is, of course, "a jewel," "a trump" and "darling." They know a "soft snap" when they see it. Some of us have been there. While basking under the light of flashing eyes 135 Shakspere: Personal Recollections and sparkling wine at the Eoyal Cafe, surrounded by a dozen of the artistic "friends" of the "toast of the town," Garnier said he noticed us in the front bench the night before, and knowing us to be Englishmen, was desirous to know how his play, depicting the siege of Jerusalem compared with the new man Shakspere, who had recently loomed up into the dramatic sky. William winked at me in a kind of sotto voce way, and with that natural exuberance or intel- lectual "gall" that never fails to strike the 'T3uirs eye," I bluntly said that Garnier's philosophy and composition were as different from Shakspere's as the earth from the heaven ! The Frenchman arose and made an extended bow when his "girl" friends yelled like the "rebels" at Shiloh and kicked off the tall hat of the noted French dramatist! Great sport! Extra wine was ordered, and then an improvised ballet girl jumped into the middle of the wine room, with circus antics, champagne glasses in hand, singing the praises of the great and only Garnier ! Poor devil, he did not know that my criticism was a double ender. Just as well. I cannot exactly remember how I got to the hotel, but when William aroused my latent ener- gies the next morning, I felt as if I had been put through a Kentucky corn sheller, or caught up in a Texas blizzard and blown into the middle of Kansas. William was, as usual, calm, polite, sober and dignified, and while he touched the wine cup for sociability, in search of human hearts, I never saw him intoxicated. He had a marvelous capacity of 136 Shakspere: Personal Recollections body and brain, and like an earthly Jupiter he shone over the variegated satellites around him with the force and brilliancy of the morning snn. He was so far above other thinkers and writers that no one who knew him felt a pang of jealousy, for they saw it was impossible to even twinkle in the heaven of his philosophy. The day before leaving Paris we visited Ver- sailles and wandered through its pictured palaces, drinking in the historical milestones of the past. Here lords, kings, queens, farmers, mechanics, shop keepers, sailors, soldiers, robbers, murderers and beggars had appropriated in turn these royal halls and stately gardens. Eiot and revolution swept over these memorials like a winter storm, and the thunder and lightning strokes of civil and foreign troops had desolated the works of art, genius and royalty. ISTations rise and fall like individuals, and a thousand or ten thousand years of time are only a "tick^' in the clock of destiny. Early on the morning of the seventh of May, 1598, we went on board a light double-oared gal- ley, swung into the sparkling waters of the Seine, and proceeded on our way to Eouen and Havre. The morning sun sparkling on the tall spires and towers, the songs of the watermen and gar- deners, whirring ropes, flashing flags, blooming flowers, green parks, forest vistas, shining cottages, grand mansions and lofty castles, in the shimmer- ing distance gave the suburbs of Paris a phase of enchantment that lifted the soul of the beholder into the fairy realm of dreamland ; and as our jolly crew rowed away with rhythmic sweep we lay under 137 Shakspere: Personal Recollections a purple awning;, sheltered from the midday sun, gazing out on the works of Dame N'ature with en- tranced amazement. William^ in one of his periodical bursts of im- promptu poetry, uttered these lines on CREATION. The smallest grain of ocean sand. Or continent of mountain land. With all the stars and suns we see Are emblems of eternity. God reigns in everything he made — In man, in beast, in hill and glade; Is sum and substance of all birth; Component parts of Heaven and Earth, The moving, ceaseless vital air Is managed by Almighty care. And from the center to the rim. All creatures live and die in Him. We Tcnow not why we come and go Into this world of joy and woe. But this IV e hnow that every hour Is clipping off our pride and power. The linTcs of life that malce our chain Of golden joy and passing pain. Are brohen rudely day by day. And like the mists we melt away. 138 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The voice of Nature never lies. Presents to all her varied shies. And wraps within her vernal hreast The dust of man in pulseless rest. A hillion years of life and death Are hut a moment or a breath To one unhnoivn Immor'tal Force Who guides the planets in their course! As the stars began to peep throngh the gather- ing curtains of night, and the young moon like a broken circle of silver split the evening sky, we came in sight of the busy town of Eouen, with its embattled walls and iron gates still bidding de- fiance to British invasion. After a night^s slumber and a speedy passage our galley drew up against the side of our stout ship Albion, when gallant Captain Jack CNeil greeted us on board, and refreshed our manhood with a fine breakfast, interspersed with brandy and champagne. The next morning, with all sails filled, we wafted away into the open waters of the rolling Atlantic Ocean, touching at the town of Brest, land^s end port of France, and then away to Corunna in Spain, and on to Lisbon, Portugal, where we re- mained three days viewing the architectural and natural sights of the great commercial and ship- ping city of the Tagus. About the middle of May we swung out again into the breakers of old ocean, and held our course to the wonderful "Strait of Gibraltar," separating Europe from Africa, whose inland, classic shores 139 Shakspere: Personal Recollections are bathed by the emerald waters of the romantic Mediterranean Sea. We remained for a day at the rocky, stormy town of Gibraltar, meeting variegated men of all lands, who spoke all dialects, and preached and practiced all religions. The pagan, the Moslem, the Buddhist, the Jew and the Christian dressed in the garb of their respective nationalities, were wrangling, trading,; praying and swearing in all languages, every one grasping for the "almighty dollar." As the sun went down over the shining shoul- ders of the Western Atlantic, flashing its golden rays over the moving, liquid floor of the heaving ocean and Mediterranean Sea, William and myself stood on the topmost crag of giant Gibraltar, and the Bard sent forth this impulsive sigh from his romantic soul: How I long to roam o'er the hounding sea. Where the waters and winds are fierce and free. Where the wild bird sails in his tireless flight. As the sunrise scatters the shades of night; Where the porpoise and dolphin sport at play In their liquid realm of green and gray. Ah, me! It is there I would love to he Engulfed in the tomh of eternity I In the midnight hour when the moon hangs low And the stars beam forth with a mystic glow; When the mermaids float on the rolling tide And Neptune entangles his beaming bride, — It is there in that phosphorescent wave I would gladly sinh in an ocean grave — 140 Shakspere: Personal Recollections To rise and fall with the songs of the sea And live in the chant of its memory. Around the world my form should sweep — Part of the glorious, limitless deep; Enmeshed by fate in some coral cave. And rising again to the topmost wave. That curls in beauty its snowy spray And hisses the light of the garish day; Ah ! there let me drift when this life is o'er. To he tossed and tumbled from shore to shore! I clapped my hands intensely at the rendition of the poem, and echo from her rocky caves sent back the applause, while the sea gulls in their circling flight, screamed in chorns to the voice of echo and the eternal roar of old ocean. At sunrise we sailed away into the land-locked waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where man for a million years has loved, lived, fought and died among beautiful, blooming islands that nestle on its bosom like emeralds in the crown of immor- tality. We passed along the coast of Spain to Cape Nao, in sight of the Balearic Islands, on to Barcelona, to the mouth of the river Ehone, and up to the an- cient city of Avignon. In and around this city popes, princes and in- ternational warriors lived in royal style; but they are virtually forgotten, while Petrarch, the poetic saint and laureate of Italy, is as fresh in the mem- ory of man as the day he died — July 18th, 1374, at the age of seventy. William and myself remained all night in the Lodge House of the Gardens of "Vacluse/^ the 143] Shakspere: Personal Recollections hermit home of the sighing, soaring poet, who pined his life away in platonic love for "Laura/' who married Hugh de Sade, when she was only seventeen years of age, and presented the noble- man ten children as pledges of her homespun af- fection. And this is the married lady who Petrarch, the poet, wasted his sonnets upon, and was treated in fact as we were told by the "oldest inhabitant" of Avignon, with supercilious contempt. Boccaccio and Petrarch were intimate friends, and both of these passionate poets lavished their love on "married flirts," who give promise to the ear and disappointment to the heart. I could see that while Shakspere reveled deep in the mental philosophy of Petrarch, and even plucked a flower from his rustic bower, he had no sympathy with lovesick swains, and as we signed our names in the Lodge House book, he wrote this: Petrarch, grand, immortal in thy sonnets; Sugared hy the eloquence of philosophy — Destined to shine through the rolling ages; Emulating, competing with the stars. Thy love for Laura, pure, unreciprocated; Yet, thou, foolish man, passion dazed and sad, Lilce many of the greatest of manTcind Lie dashed in the vale of disappointment; And flowers of hope, given hy woman, ■Have crowned thy hrows with nettles of despair! ISText day the Albion sailed into the Mediter- ranean, passed by the island of Corsica (cradle of one of the greatest soldiers of the world), through U2 Shakspere: Personal Recollections the Strait of Bonifacio, and in due course kept on to the flourishing city of Naples. It was dark twilight when we came to peer into the surrounding hills and mountains of classic Italy. To the wonder and amazement of every pas- senger on board, Mount Vesuvius was in bril- liant action, and the flash of sparks and blading lights from this huge chimney top of Nature dazzled the beholder, and produced a fearful sensa- tion in the soul. As the great Jaws of the mountain opened its fiery lips and belched forth molten streams of lava, shooting a million red hot meteors into the caves of night, the earth and ocean seemed to tremble with the sound and birds and beasts of prey rushed screaming and howling to their nightly homes. Shakspere entranced stood on the bow of the ship and soliloquized: Great God! Almighty in thy templed realm; And mysterious in thy matchless might; ^SunSj moonSj planets^ starSj ocean, earth and air ^Move in harmony at thy supreme will; And yonder torch light of eternity. Blazing into heaven, candle oif omnipotence — Lights thy poor, wandering human midgets — An hundred miles at sea, with lofty hope — That nothing exists or dies- in vain; But changed into another form lives on Through countless, houndless, blazing, brilliant worlds Beyond this transient^ seething, suffering sod! 143 Shakspere: Personal Recollections At this moment the vessel struck the dock and lurched William out of his reverie, coming "with- in an ace" of pitching the poet into the harbor of ISTaples. Captain O'Neil informed us that he would be engaged unloading and loading his ship for a week or ten days at JSTaples, before he started for Sicily, Greece and Egypt. William and myself concluded to hire a guide and ride and tramp by land to Eome, and view the ancient capital and test the hospitality of the Italians. Early the next morning we set out for the Im- perial City, perched on her seven hills, and en- lightening the world with the radiance of her classic memorials. Our guide, Petro, was a villainous looking fel- low, yet the landlord of the Hotel Columbo told us he was well acquainted with the mountain by- paths and open roads, and could, in the event of meeting robbers, be of great service to us. Petro wanted ten "florins" in advance, and wine and bread on the road; and as we could not do any better, the bargain was made, and off we tramped through the great city of Milan, scaling the surrounding hills and pulling up as the sun went down at the town of Terracino. After a good night's rest and hot breakfast, we started on horseback throua^h a mountain trail for the banks of the Tiber, but when within three miles of the Capitoline hills Petro seemed to lose his way, and rode off into the underbrush to find it. We stopped in the trail, and in less than five minutes after the disappearance of our faithful 144 Shakspere: Personal Recollections guide we were captured by a gang of bandits, whose garb and countenance convinced us that robbery or murder or both would be our fate. We were dragged off our horses, hustled into the forest gloom, through briars, over streams and rocks, until finally pitched into the tiptop moun- tain lair of Koderick, the Terrible. The evening camp fire was lit, and Tamora, the queen of the robbers, with a couple of robber cooks, was preparing supper for the whole band when they returned from their daily avocations. They seemed to be a jolly set, and with joke, laughter and song, these chivalric sons of sunny Italy were relating their various exploits, and laughing at the trepidation and futile resistance of their former victims. Just before the band sat around on the ferny, pine clad rocks for supper, Eoderick addressed William, and asked him if he had anything to say why he should not be robbed and murdered. William said he was perfectly indifferent; for, being only a writer of plays and an actor, working for the amusement of mankind, he led a kind of dog^s life anyhow, and didn't give a damn what they did with him. The Eobber Chief gave a yell and a roar that could be heard for three miles among the columned pines and oaks of the Apennines, and yelled, ^"'Bully for you ! Shake V Eoderick then turned to me and said, "Who are you ?" I replied at once, "I am a fool and a poet." He grasped my hand intensely and yelled, "I'm another." That sealed our friendship, 145 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Then these gay and festive robbers invited ns to partake of the best in the mountain wilds, with the request that after the evening feast was over we should give samples of our trade. With the blazing light of a mountain fire, hemmed in by inaccessible rocks and gulches, from a tablerock overhanging a roaring, dashing stream, five thousand feet below, William stood and was requested to give a sample of his dramatic poetry for the edification of the beautiful cut-throat au- dience! And this, as I well remember, was his encomium in Latin to the "Gentlemen" and "Queen" of independent, gold-getting, robbing, murdering, fantastic Italian "society." When first I heheld your noble hand Pounce from rock and lairs vernal. My soul and hair were lifted "With admiration and amazement. Free as air, ye sons of immortal sires. Hold these crags, defiant still. As eagles in their onward sweep — Citizens of destiny. Entertainment awaits your advent. Even beneath yon columned capitol! The emperors, pampered in power Were subject to some human laws. But you, great, wonderful chief, Rodericlc, the Terrible, and fierce Soar superior over all, bloody villain. Force with gold and silver alone — Dictating thy generous onslaughts! Ccesar, Pompey and Scipio Could not compete with thy valor; 146 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Only Nero, paragon of infamy. Could match the renown of Roderick, Thy fame, great chief, boundless as the globe! Italy, Spain, France and England Pay constant tribute to thy purse. Travelers and pilgrims, seeking glory By kissing the pope's big toe Drop their golden coin and jewels Into thy pockets capacious. Hear me, ye sprites of Apennine, And the ghosts of murdered travelers Let the circumambient air Ring with universal cheers For Roderick, the glory of Robbers, And the terror of mankind. (Whirlwind of cheers.) At the conclusion of William's apostrophe to the prince of robbers, Tamora, the fair queen, jabbed me with a poniard and ordered me to sing. I mounted the platform rock, overlooking the horrible vale below, and sang in my sweetest strain "Black Eyed Susan," gesticulating at the con- clusion of each verse in the direction of the queen, who seemed to be charmed with my voice and audacity. An encore was demanded with a yell of delight, and I forthwith sang the new song "America," which was cheered to the echo — and as they still insisted that I "go on," "go on," I rendered in my best voice the recent composition of "Hiawatha." The robber band yelled like wild Indians, and the fair queen took me to her pine bower and fondled me into the realm of dreams^ although I 147 Shakspere: Personal Recollections could see that Eoderick was disposed to throw me on the rocks below — ^but, the "madam" was ^Tdoss" of that mountain ranch and gave orders with her poniard. As the earliest beams of morning lit up the crests of the Apennines we fed on a roast of roe buck and quail, and barley bread washed down by goblets of Falernian wine that had been captured the day before from a pleasure party from Brin- disi. The goblets we drank from were skulls of for- mer citizens of the world;, who attempted to dally with the dictates of Eoderick. The noble chief Eoderick and his imperial queen, Tamora, who seemed to rule her terrible husband, with one hundred of the most villainous cut-throats it had ever been my misfortune to be- hold, gave us a "great send off" from their inac- cessible mountain lair. Eoderick gave William a talismanic ring that shown to any of his brother robbers on the globe would at once secure safety and hospitality. Tamora in her sweetest mountain manner gave me a diamond hilted poniard, and then with a Fra Diavolo chorus, we were waved off down the precipitous crags with a special guide on the main road leading to imperial Eome. William and myself drew long breaths after we had passed the Horatio Bridge, and planted our feet firmly on the Appian Way, leading direct to the precincts of Saint Peter's, with its lofty dome shin- ing in the morning sun. Gentle reader, if you have never been in battle or captured by robbers, you needn't "hanker" for 148 Shakspere: Personal Recollections tte experience, but take it as you would your cloth- ing, "second hand." At the "Hotel Caesar" we brushed the dust from our anatomy, and ordered dinner, which was served in fine style by a lineal descendant of the great Julius, who wore a spreading mustache, a purple smile and an abbreviated white apron. In the afternoon we called on Pope Clement, who had heard of our experience with the rob- bers, and seemed very much interested in our narration of the details of our capture and enter- tainment. Clement seemed to be a nice, smooth man, set- ting on a purple chair with a purple skull cap on his head, and a purple robe on his fat form. His big toe was presented to us for adoration, but as we did not seem to "ad," he withdrew his pedal attachment and talked about the "relics" and the "weather." We did not purchase any "relics," and as to the Eoman "weather," no mortal who tries it in sum- mer desires a second dose. There seemed to be a continuous smell of some- thing dead in the atmosphere of Rome, while the droves of virgins, monks, priests, bishops and car- dinals seemed to be pressing through the streets, night and day, begging, singing, riding, and like ants, coming and going out of the churches con- tinually. Selling "relics," psalm singing and preaching was about all the business we could see in the Im- perial City. It is very funny how a fool habit will cling to the century pismires of humanity, and actually 149 Shakspere: Personal Recollections blind the elements of common sense and patent truth. We were offered a job lot of '^relics" for five florins, which included a piece of the true cross, a bit of the rope that hung Judas, a couple of hairs from the head of the Virgin Mary, a peeling from the apple of Mother Eve, a part of the toe nail of 'Saint Thomas, a finger of Saint John, a thigh bone of Saint Paul, a tooth of Saint Antony, and a feather of the cock of Saint Peter, but we per- sistently declined the proffered honors and true '^relics of antiquity," spending the five florins for 9 ^^night liner" to wheel us about the grand archi- tectural sights of the city of the Caesars. The night before leaving Rome William and my- self climbed upon the topmost rim of the crumbling Coliseum and gazed down upon the sleeping moon- lit capital with entranced admiration. The night was almost as bright as day, and the mystic rays from the realm of Luna, shining on gate, arch, column, spire, tower, temple and dome, revealed to us the ghosts of vanished centuries, and from the depths of the Coliseum there seemed to rise the shouts of a hundred thousand voices, cheering the gladiator from Gaul, who had just slain a N'umidian lion in the arena, when, with ^^thumbs up," he was proclaimed the victor, deco- rated with a crown of laurel and given his freedom forever. Shakspere could not resist his natural gift of exurberant poetry to sound these chunks of elo- quence to the midnight air, while I listened with enraptured enthusiasm to the elocution of the Bard : 150 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Hark! Saint Peter, with Ms brazen tongue Voices the hour of twelve; The wizard tones of tireless Time Thrills the silvery air; The multitudinous world sleeps. Pope and beggar alilce — In the land of lingering dreams — Oblivious of glory. Poverty, or war, destructive; Sleep, the daily death of all Throws her mesmeric mantle Over prince and pauper; And care, vulture of fleeting life Folds her bedraggled wings To rest a space, 'till first cocTc crow Hails the glimmering dawn With piercing tones triumphant; Father Tiber, roaring, moves along Under rude stony arches And chafes the wrinMed, rocJcy shores As when Romulus and Remus Suclcled wolf of Apennines f Vain are all the triumphs of man. These temples and palaces. Reaching up to the brilliant stars In soaring grandeur, vast — Shall pass away liTce morning mist. Leaving a wilderness of ruins. And, where now sits pride, wealth and fraud Pampered in purpled power — The lizard, the bat and the wolf Shall hold their habitation; And the vine and the rag-weed Swaying in the whistling winds 151 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Shall sing their mournful requiem. The silence of dark Babylon Shall hrood where millions struggled. And naught shall he heard in cruel Rome, But the wail of the midnight storm. Echoing among the trolcen columns Of its lofty, vanished glory — Where vain, presumptive, midget man Promised himself Immortality! After five days of sightseeing we took the public stage for Milan, guarded by soldiers, and arrived safely on board the Albion, which sailed away, through the Strait of Messina, around classic Greece to IN'egropont and on to Alexandria, Egypt, where we anchored for a load of dates, figs and Persian spices. William and myself took a boat up the Nile to Cairo, and hired a guide to steer us over the desert to the far-famed Pyramids. There in the wild waste of desert sands these monuments to forgotten kings and queens lift their giant peaks, appealing to the centuries for recog- nition, but although the great granite stone memo- rials still remain as a wonder to mankind, the dark, silent mummies that sleep within and around these funereal emblems give back no sure voice as to when and where they lived, rose and fell in the long night of Egyptian darkness. Eemains of vast buried cities are occasionally exposed by the shifting, searching storm winds of the desert, and many a modern Arab has cooked his frugal breakfast by splinters picked up from the bones of his ancestors. 15^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections It was night when we got to the Pyramids, and we concluded to camp with an Arab and his fam- ily at the base of the great Cheops until next morn- ing, and then before sunrise scale its steep steps and lofty crest. A few silver coins insured us a warm greeting from the "Arab family," who seemed to vie with each other in preparing a hot supper and clean couches. They sang their desert songs until nearly mid- night, the daughter Cleo playing on the harp with dextrous fingers, and throwing a soft soprano voice upon the air, like the tones of an angel, echoing over a bank of wild flowers. Standing on the pinnacle of the Pyramid Wil- liam again struck one of his theatrical attitudes, and with outstretched hands exclaimed: Immortal Soli Image of Omnipotence! To thee lift I my soul in pure devotion; Out of desert wilds, in golden splendor. Rise and Hasli thy crimson face, eternal — Across the ivastes of shifting, century sands; Again is mirrored in my sighing soul The lofty temples and hastioned walls Of Memphis, Balbaclc, Nineveh, Badylon — Gone from the earth liTce vapor from old Nile, When thy noonday teams lick up its waters! Hark! I hear again the vanished voices Of lofty Memnon, where proud pagan priests Syllahle the matin hour, uttering Prophecies from Jupiter and Apollo — To devotees deluded, then as now. By astronomical, selfish fakirs, 153 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Who pretend claim to heavenly agency And power over human souls divine. Poor hamhoozled man; Jcnow God never yet Empowered any one of his truant tribe To rule with a creed rod, image of Himself; And thou, oh Sol, giver of light and heat. Speed the hour when man, out of superstition Shall leap into the light of pure reason. Only believing in everlasting Truth! In a short time we crossed the sands of the desert and interviewed the Sphynx, but with that battered, solemn countenance, wrinkled by the winds and sands of ages, those granite lips still re- fused to give up the secrets of its stony heart, or tell us the mysteries of buried antiquity. We were soon again in the cabin of the Albion, sailing away to Athens, where we anchored for two days. William and myself ran hourly risk of breaking our legs and necks among the classic ruins of Athenian genius, where Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Pericles, Alcibiades, Demos- thenes^ Zeno, Solon, Themestocles, Leonidas, Philip and Alexander had lived and loved in their glorious, imperishable careers. We went on top of Mars Hill, and climbed to the top of the ruined Acropolis, disturbing a few lizards, spiders, bats, rooks and pigeons that made their homes where the eloquence of Greece once ruled the world. William made a move to strike one of his ac- customed dramatic attitudes, but I "pulled him off/' remarking that he could not, in an impromptu 154: Shakspere: Personal Recollections way, do Justice to the occasion, and intimated that when he arrived at the .Red Lion in London, he could write up Cleopatra and Antony, and the ten-years' siege of Troy, with Helen, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Achilles, Pandarus, Paris, Troilus, Cres- eida and Hector as star performers in the plays. It was not very often that I interfered with William in his personal movements and aspira- tions, but as he had given so much of his poetry in illustration of our recent travels, and knowing that I was in honor bound to report to posterity all he said and did as his mental stenographer, I begged him to ^^give us a rest,'' and "let it go at that/' The next day the Albion bore away for the Strait of Gibraltar, rounding Portugal, Spain and France, sailing into the Strait of Dover, passed Gravesend, until we anchored in safety under the shadow of the Blackfriars Theatre, where a jolly crowd of bohemians greeted our rapid and success- ful tour of continental and classic lands. "TMs accident and flood of Fortune So far exceed all instance^, all discourse. That I am ready to distrust mine eyes And wrangle with my reason that Persuades me to any other trust/" 155 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTEE XrV. WINDSOR PARK. ^^MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM/' ''This is the fairy land; spite of spites We talk with gohlins, owls, and elfish sprites. 'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as Madmen tongue and hrainT "If music he the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it/* Shakspere had blocked out the play of "Mid- summer Night's Dream'' in the year 1593, and completed it in the summer of 1599. The story of Palamon and Arcite by Chaucer, and the love of Athenian Theseus for the Ama- zonian Queen Hippoljrta, as told by Plutarch, gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would as- similate in their loves and jealousies. One evening while seated at the Falcon Tavern, in company with the Earl of Southampton, Essex, Florio, Bacon, Cecil, Warwick, Burbage, Drayton and Jonson, William read the main points of the play, which was lauded to the skies by all present. Shakspere: Personal Recollections Burbage, the manager of the Globe, suggested to Essex and Southampton that it would be a grand idea to have the "Dream" enacted in the park and woods of Windsor ! It was a novel idea, and one sure to catch the romantic sentiments of Queen Elizabeth, as old Duke Theseus, the cross-purposed lovers. Bottom and his rude theatrical troop, and the fairies, led by Oberon, Titania and Puck could have full swing in the forest, sporting in their natural ele- ments. In reading or viewing the play, the mind wan- ders in a mystic grove by moonlight and breathes at every step odors of sweet flowers, while listening to the musical murmurings of fantastic fairies and echoing hounds in forest glens. Theseus was the first and greatest Grecian in strength of body, second only to his cousin Her- cules, each reveling in the god-like antics of seduc- tion, incest, rape, robbery and murder ! The Persian, Egyptian, Grecian and Koman gods commingled with the heroes and heroines of man- kind and committed unheard of crimes with im- punity, the most outrageous villain seeming to be honored as the greatest god! The amphitheater grove in front of Windsor Castle, overlooking the Thames, was the place se- lected for the exhibition of the "Dream." Natu- ral circular terraces for the spectators. The Virgin Queen had sent out five thousand invitations to her wealthy and intellectual subjects to attend the new and romantic play of Shakspere, "Midsummer Night's Dream," on the 4th of July, 1599. 157 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Everything had been prepared in the way of natural and artificial scenery by the direction of William, while the Queen sat on a sylvan throne, embowered in vines and roses, surrounded by all her courtiers, ladies and lords, in grand, golden array. The night was calm, bright and warm, while the young moon and twinkling stars, shining over Windsor, lent a celestial radiance to the scene, where lovers and fairies mingled in the meshes of affection. Candles, torches, chimes, lanterns and stationary fire balloons were interspersed through the royal domain in brilliant profusion. Essex and Southampton were, unfortunately, ab- sent in Ireland putting down a rebellion. William took the part of Theseus, Field played Hippoljrta, Burbage played Puck, Heminge repre- sented Lysander, and Condell Demetrius, while Phillips and Cooke played respectively Hermia and Helen, Jo Taylor played Oberon and Eobert Ben- field acted Titania, the fairy queen. The characters Pyramus and Thisbe were played by Peele and Crosse. The play opens with a grand scene in the palace of Theseus, who thus addresses the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta: 'Now, fair Hippolyta, our mutual hour Draws on apace, four happy days bring in. Another moon; hut, 0, methinks, how slow This old moooi wanes! She lingers my desires, LiTce to a step-dame, or a dowager. Long withering out a young man's revenue T 15a Shakspere: Personal Recollections Hippolyta : "Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights j And then J the moon shall behold the night Of our solemnities/" Egeus, a wealthy Athenian complains to Duke Theseus that his daughter Hermia will not consent to marry Demetrius, but disobedient_, insists on wed- ding with Lysander. Theseus decides that she must obey her father or suffer death, or enter a convent, excluded from the world forever. Theseus reasons with Hermia thus: "If you yield not to your fathers choice. Whether you can endure the livery of a nun; For aye to he in shady cloister mewed. To live a barren sister all your life; Chanting fair hymns to the cold, fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they that master so their blood. To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distilled. Than that, which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness!'" This sentiment was cheered heartily by the great forest audience, and "Queen Bess" led the ap- plause ! Lysander pleaded his own case for the heart of Hermia, and sighing, says: "Ah, me! for aught that I could ever read. Could ever hear by tale or history. The course of true love never did run smooth!"" 159. Shakspere: Personal Recollections Hermia and Helena compare notes and wonder at the perversity of their respective lovers. Hermia says: '^TJie more I hate Demetrius, the more he follows me/' And Helena says: ''The more I love him, the more he hatheth me I'' Hermia still sighing for Lysander says: ''Before the time I did Lysander see. Seemed Athens as a paradise to me; then, what graces in my love do dwell That he hath turned a heaven unto hell/' Helena soliloquizes regarding the inconsistency of Demetrius since he saw Hermia: "Love holes not with the eyes, hut with the mind. And, therefore, is winged cupid painted blind; I will go tell him of fair Hermia' s Uight; Then to the wood, will he, to-morrow night. Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanhs, it is a dear expense; But herein mean I to enrich my pain To have his sight thither and hack again." A number of rude workingmen of Athens pro- pose to give an impromptu play in the Duke's palace in honor of his wedding. 160 Shakspere: Personal Recollections It is a burlesque on all plays, and being so very crude and bad, is good by contrast ! Pyramus and Thisby are the prince and prin- cess, who die for love. Bottom is to play the big blower in the im- provised drama and the Jackass among the fairies. He says: "I could play a part to tear a cat in, to maJce all split"— "The raging rocTcs, With shivering shocTcs, Shall hrealc the lochs Of prison gates; And Phcebus' car Shall shine from far And malce and mar The foolish fates!" Puck, the mischievous Robin Goodfellow, who is ever playing pranks among his fairy tribe and human lovers, enters the forest scene and addresses one of the fairies thus : "How now, spirit, whither wander you?" Fairy says : "Over hill, over dale. Through Itush, through trier. Over parh, over pale. Through flood, through fire. Farewell, thou wit of spirits. Til he gone; Our queen and all her elves come here anon." 161 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Puck, the funny tattler, tells of the jealousy of King Oberon^ because Titania has adopted a lovely boy: ''For Oheron is passing fell and wrath. Because that she, as her attendant hath A lovely hoy stolen from an Indian Tcing, She never had so sweet a changeling !** This sly cut at Queen Elizabeth, who had re- cently adopted a young American Indian as her parlor page, elicited applause among the courtiers, yet "Lizzie" did not seem to join in the cheers ! Oberon and Titania meet and quarrel, just as natural as if they belonged to earthly passion people. ''Ill met hy moonlight, proud Titania ! What, jealous Oheron? Fairy, sTcip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company/' Oberon : "Tarry, rash woman; am I not thy lord?" Titania : "Then I must be thy ladyT Oberon accuses Titania with being in love with Theseus and assisting him in the ravishment of antique beauties. She replies: 16^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections ''These are the forgeries of jealousy; Never met we on hill, dale, forest or mead; Or on the leached mar gent of the sea To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind. But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport!" After the departure of Queen Titania and her fairy train, King Oberon calls in Puck to aid in punishing her imagined infidelity. ''My gentle Puclc, come hither; thou remember st Since once I sat upon a promontory. And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's bach Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breathy The rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea maid's music? Puck replies: "I remember/' Oberon continues: "That very time I saw, but thou could'st not. Flying between the cold moon and the earth Cupid all armed; a certain aim he tooh At a fair Vestal, throned by the West; And loosed his shaft smartly from his bow. As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon; And the Imperial Voteress passed on 163 Shakspere: Personal Recollections In maiden meditation, fancy free! Yet marlced I where the holt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little Western Hower — Before milTc white; now purple with love's wound — And maidens call it Hove in idleness.' Fetch me that Hower; the herh I showed thee once. The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid. Will mahe, or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herh; and he thou here again Ere the Leviathan can swim a league/* Puck replies: 'TZZ put a girdle round ah out the earth in forty minutes r The audience saw by this time that the 'fes- tal" and "Imperial Voteress" in "maiden medi- tation^ fancy free" was none other than Queen Elizabeth, and therefore three cheers and a roar- ing lion were given for the delicate and eloquent compliment of Shakspere to her Virgin Majesty! Tributes to the powerful, though undeserved, are received with spontaneous applause, while just praise for the poor receive no echo from the jeal- ous throng. Poor, toadying humanity! The infatuated Helena follows Demetrius into the dark forest, and though he tells her that he does not and cannot love her, she says: "And even for that, do I love you the more; I am your spaniel; and Demetrius 164 Shakspere: Personal Recollections TJie more you heat me, I will fawn on you. And to he used, as you use your dog I'* I have seen fool women and fool men act just that way, and the more they were spurned, the more they clung to their infatuation. Puck returns with the flower containing the juice that will make wanton women and licentious men return to their just lovers. Oberon grasping the herb says : '*^/ Jcnow a hanh whereon the wild thyme Mows Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over'Canopied with blooming woodbine. With sweet musTc-roses, and with eglantines- There sleeps Titania, sometime of the night Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight. And with this juice Til strealc her eyes To maTce her full of hateful fantasies. And take thou some of it, and seeh through this grove; A sweet Athenian lady is in love With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes; But do it, when the next thing he espies May be the lady/* Titania enters with her fairy train and orders them to sing her to sleep, and be gone. Oberon finds his queen sleeping and squeezes some of the love juice on her eyelids, saying: "What thou see'st when thou dost awake Do it for thy true love take; Love and languish for his sake; 165 Shakspere: Personal Recollections When thou makestj, it is thy dear. Wake when some vile thing is near/' Lysander and Hermia wander in the woods, lost and tired, and sink down to rest. He says : "One turf shall serve as pillow for us hoth. One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth!" Puck finds the lovers asleep, and says to Lysan- der: "Churl, upon thy eyes I throw. All the power that this charm doth owe. When thou waTcest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid/' Puck finds Bottom in the woods, rehearsing the play for the marriage of Theseus, and translates the weaver into an ass, with a desire for love. He wanders near the flowery bed where Queen Titania sleeps. She hears him sing, and opening her eyes, says : "What angel waJces me from my Howery bed? Thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me. On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee!" Bottom says: "MethinTcs, mistress, you should have little reason for that; Reason and love keep little company now-a-days!" Shakspere: Personal Recollections Oberon relents and releases his Fairy Queen from her dream of infatuation with Bottom dis- guised as an ass, and says: ''But first I will release the fairy queen. Be as thou wast wont to be; (Touching her eyes with the herb.) See as thou wast wont to see; Dian's hud o'er Cupid's flower. Hath such force and blessed power. Now, my Titania; waJce you, my sweet queen," Titania awakes and exclaims: ''My Oberon, what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamored of an ass!" Titania is not the only woman who is enamored by an Ass ; in fact the mismatched, cross-purposed, twisted, infatuated affections of the sordid, de- ceitful earth are as thick as blackberries in July, while pretense and pampered power greatly pre- vail around the globe. Theseus and his train wander through the woods in preparation for the grand hunt and find Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena still asleep under the magic influence of Puck. Theseus wonders how the lovers came to the wood, and says to the father of Hermia: "But speaTc, Egeus; is not this the day That Helena should give answer of her choice f Egeus: "It is, my lord," 1671 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Theseus : *'Go hid the huntsmen wake them with their horns, (Expresses surprise at their situation.) How comes this gentle concord in the world. That hatred is so far from jealousy, Toi sleep hy hate, and fear no enmity/' The lovers are reconciled to their natural choice, and Theseus decides against the father: "Egeus, I will overhear your will. For in the temple hy and hy, with us These couples shall eternally he Jcnit/' Bottom wakes and tells his theatrical partners: '*"/ have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was, Man is hut an ass, a patched fool. Eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not ahle to taste, his tongue to conceive^ nor his heart to report, what my dream was!" The vast audience laughed heartily at the be- fuddled language of Bottom, the weaver, and im- agined themselves under the like spell of fantastic fairies. The fifth and last act opens up with Theseus and his Amazonian Queen in the palace, prepared for the nuptial rites, and also the marriage of Lysander and Demetrius to their choice. ^^J^ h^iA/i^^^C XfsJ^ iiP/^ fi^Vx^ tUx, ^t«^ 17Q Shakspere: Personal Recollections Theseus speaking of the strange conduct of lovers, delivers this great bit of philosophy: "More strange than true, I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lover's and madmen have such seething brains — Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet. Are of imagination all compact; One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; That is the madman; the lover all as frantic. Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egypt; The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling. Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. And as imagination bodies forth The fo'mis of things unJcnown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a nameT The play of Pyramus and Thisby is then intro- duced to the palace audience^ when Bottom and his Athenian mechanics amuse Theseus and Hippolyta with their crude^ rustic conception of love-making. As the play proceeds Hippol3rfca remarks : "This is the silliest stuff that I ever heard/' And Theseus says: "The best in this hind are but shadows; And the worst are no worse, if imagination amend themr 171 Sh'akspere: Personal Recollections Pyramus appeals to the moon thus: ''Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny teams, I thanlc thee, moon, for shining now so bright, I trust to taste of truest Thisly's sight T P3rram-QS and Thisby commit suicide, for disap- pointment in love, in the climax scene, and wak- ing again Bottom wishes to know if the Duke wants any more of the burlesque play. Theseus replies: *'Your play needs no excuse; for when the players are all dead. There need none to he llamed! The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers to hed; 'tis almost fairy time, I fear we shall outsleep the coming mom. As much as we this night have overwatched. This palpable, gross play hath well beguiled The heavy gait of night — sweet friends, to bed; A fortnight hold we this solemnity In nightly revels and new jollity!'' The forest scene is filled with fairies, led by Puck, Oberon and Titania, all fantastically dressed, rehearsing and singing in their mystic revels. Puck leading, says: *'No(iv the hungry lion roars. And the wolf beholds the moon. 172 ShaKspere: Personal Recollections Whilst the heavy ploughman snores All with weary tosh foredone; And we fairies, that do run By the triple of Hecate's team. From the presence of the sun Following darkness lilce a dream." Oberon orders: "Through this house give glimmering light. By the dead and drowsy fire; Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier; And his ditty, after me. Sing and dance it trippingly" Titania speaks: ''First rehearse this song hy rote; To each word a warbling note. Hand in hand with fairy grace Will we sing and bless this place." Then all the fairies, joining hands at the com- mand of Oberon, dance and sing : "Every fairy taJce his gait. And each several chamber bless; Through this palace with sweet peace. All shall here in safety rest And the owner of it blest. Trip away, mahe no stay; Meet me all by breah of day!" in Shakspere: Personal Recollections Then mischievous little Puck flies to the front, makes his final bow and speech, concluding the play of "Midsummer Night's Dream'^ : "If we shadows have offended. Think hut this, and all is mended — That you have hut slumbered here. While these visions did appear; And this weah and idle theme No more yielding hut a dream; Gentles, do not reprehend; If you pardon we will mend. And, as I am honest PucJc, If we have unearned luck. How to escape the serpenfs tongue. We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call, 80 good night unto you all. Give me your hands if we he friends. And Bohin shall restore amends T Unanimous cheers rang through Windsor forest at the conclusion of this mystic play, and Queen Elizabeth called up Theseus (William), Hippolyta, Oberon, Titania and Puck, presenting to each a five-carat solitaire diamond — a slight token of Her Majesty's appreciation of dramatic genius. It was after two o'clock in the morning when a thousand sky rockets filled the heavens with varie- gated colors, indicating for fifty miles around, that ^^Midsummer Night's Dream'^ had been success- fully launched on the ocean of dramatic imagina- tion! 174 Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER XV. THE JEW. SHYLOCK. ^^MERCHANT OP VEITICE." ''0, it is excellent To have a gianfs strength, hut it is tyrannous To use it like a giant." *'Had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All Unity on earth." In my peregrinations and bohemian investiga- tions I have met on several occasions, and in strange lands, Mr. Ahasuerus, the Jerusalem shoe- maker, who is reported to have jeered and scoffed at Christ as he passed his shop, bearing the heavy cross np the rugged heights of Calvary. That was a terrible day for Jesus of N'azareth (dying for the sins of others), but worse for his foolish brother, the Jew shoemaker ; for as punish- ment to the scoffing and heartless Ishmaelite, the "Son of God," bending under the weight of the cross, exclaimed to the "Son of Saint Crispin": "Tarry thou 'till I come ! Move on !" And from that hour to this the "Wandering Jew" has been traveling and seeking for peace and 175 Shakspere: Personal Recollections death, but has never found surcease from everlast- ing sorrow and misery. I have often met his business partners, Solomon Isaacs and David Levy ; and while these gentlemen are compelled by nations to "move on," they have the great gift of loading up their pack with the rarest jewels — silver, gold and diamonds being their great specialty — ^with ready made clothing, pawnshops and banks as convenient adjuncts. Their three golden balls, worn in front of their establishments, they say, represent energy, economy and wealth; while their victims insist that they represent passion, poverty and suicide. And yet these wandering Jews of all lands and climes, having no home or country anywhere, have the best of homes, churches, banks and temples everywhere. War and peace they often hold in their financial power, and therefore become the arbitrators and umpires of national fate. When my friend William was working on the rough sketch of the "Merchant of Venice," in the years 1598 and 1599, there was a great hate mani- fested against the London Jews, Dr. Lopez, the physician of Queen Elizabeth, having been re- cently tried and hung for the design of poisoning Her Majesty. The Jews were accused of clipping the coins of the realm, demanding one hundred per cent, usury, bewitching the people, sacrificing Christian boys on the altar of religious fanaticism and setting fire to the warehouses and shipping along the Thames. These outrageous stories were believed by many people, and Shakspere, being infected by the hate ire Shakspere: Personal Recollections of the multitude (for the first time in his intel- lectual career), fashioned the repulsive character of Shylock, who walks the world as a synonym of greed, hate and vengeance. Several Jew plays had been put on the London boards, like the "Venetian Comedy" and the "Jew of Malta," but none had the lofty pitch of Shak- spere's, who derived his main idea of the play from the Italian story of "Pecorone," by Floren- tina, and Silvayn's "Orator." Yet, with William's imagination, a hint was suffi- cient, the rose and acorn giving him scope enough to create flower gardens and forest ranges. The Jew has always been a great subject for the world's contention and condemnation, particu- larly since the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. If Christ, the Jew, suffered for others, his own race for nearly two thousand years have been "scapegoats" for private and public villains. From the days of Ferdinand and Isabella of 'Spain, Louis the Fourteenth of France, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth of England, Emperor Wil- liam of Germany and the Czars Nicholas and Alex- ander of Eussia, the Jews have been robbed, exiled and murdered by Christian rulers, presumptively for their rebellion against the State, but really as an excuse to rob them of their jewels and gold. The Caucasian Christian has never hesitated to rob and murder anybody anywhere for cash and country ! Look over the world to-day, and you behold nothing but diplomatic cheating, domestic and foreign robbery and international murder for in- dividual ambition and national territorial expan- 177 Shakspere: Personal Recollections sion ! The official hypocrite is the greatest liar of the century ! England, Germany, France, Eussia and the United States are this very day competing with each other in the race for universal empire! Considering that "Uncle Sam" has had only one hundred and twenty-six years of national life, he has forged to the front amazingly, and has become the grandest "General" on the globe ! He does things ! The "gentle reader" (confidentially speaking) may think this a slight digression from the "Mer- chant of Venice," which was enacted at the Globe Theatre, London, on the first Saturday in Decem- ber, 1599. The "gentle reader" may also have found out by this time that the "subscriber" pays little attention to the "unities of time and place," as a thousand years are but short milestones in the life of the "Strulbug" family ! What the "gentle reader" needs more than any- thing else is Icnowledge and truth; and he observes, if he observes at all, that I give bits of the most eloquent and philosophic speeches in all the plays of Shakspere, besides the true personal transactions and escapades of the Bard of Avon! The enactment of the various scenes of the "Merchant of Venice" takes place in the great water city — Venice, "Queen of the Adriatic," that ruled the commercial world two thousand years ago. Antonio, the Christian merchant, and Shylock, the usurious Jew, are the principal characters of the play, while Portia, the wealthy heiress, and Jessica, the daughter of Shylock, with Bassanio Shakspere: Personal Recollections and Lorenzo carry the thread of Shakspere's argu- ment trying to prove that it is Christian Justice to steal an old man's money and daughter, and punish him for demanding his legal rights ! In speaking privately to William I tried to have him change the logic and morals of the play, but his curt answer was: ^^Jack, the dramatic demand and tyrant public must be satisfied." Burbage took the part of Antonio, Jo Taylor played Shylock, William played Portia, Condell acted Bassanio, Heming represented Lorenzo and Field played Jessica, Poole played Gratiano, Slye played the Duke. The Globe Theatre was packed from pit to loft by the greatest variety audience I had ever seen; lords, ladies, lawyers, doctors, merchants, mechanics, soldiers, sailors, and street riff-raff — all assembled to see and hear how the Jew, Shylock, was to be roasted by the greatest dramatist of the ages. Antonio in a street scene in Venice opens up the play thus: "In sooth, I Icnow not why I am so sad; That I am much ado to Icnow myself/' Salarino replies to the ship merchant: '^Your mind is tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies, with portly sail — Lihe signiors and rich burghers of the flood. Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea As they Uy to traffickers with their woven wings." 179 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Antonio says to his friend Gratiano : "I hold the world hut as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part. And mine a sad one/' But the light and airy Gratiano utters this phil- osophic speech, which the ^^gentle reader^' should cut out and paste in his hat : "Let me play the Fool; With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine. Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose Mood is warm within. Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes f and creep into the jaundice. By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Antoniot, — / love thee, and it is my love that speaks; There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; Anl do a wilful stillness entertain. With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark! 0, my Antonio, I do know of these. That therefore only are reputed wise. For saying nothing; who I am very sure. If they should speak, would almost damn those ears Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fooUr 180 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Bassanio, in love with the rich heiress, Portia, tries to borrow three thousand ducats from Shylock, and Antonio, his friend, is willing to give bond for the loan. The Jew and the Christian hate each other ; and Shylock vents his opinion: "How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him, for he is a Christian; Antonio lends out money gratis and brings down — The rate of usury here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails. Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well worn thrift. Which he culls interest; cursed be my tribe If I forgive him!" Antonio finally asks for the three thousand du- cats, and says: **Well, ShylocJc, shall we be beholden to you ?" Then in a speech of brave defiance, Shylock humiliates the Gfentile merchant in this manner : "Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me About my monies, and my u^ury; Still have I borne it with a patient shrug; For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; You call me misbeliever, cut-throat, dog. And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, 181 Shakspere: Personal Recollections And all for use of that which is mine own. Well, then, it now appears you need my help; Go to, then; you come to me and you say: Shyloch, we ivould Imve monies; you say so; You, that did void your rheum upon my heard. And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur — Over your threshold; monies is your suit. What should I say to you ? Should I not say; Hath a dog money? Is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats? Or Shall I tend low, and in a bondsman s hey. With bated breath and whispering humbleness say this — Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me — dog, and for these courtesies Til lend you thus much monies!" Antonio, not any way abashed at the scolding of the money lender, says: ''I am as like to call thee dog again. And spit on thee again, to spurn thee, too!" Shylock then agrees to lend the three thousand ducats if Antonio will give bond and penalty to pay the money back with interest in three months. Shylock says: "Let the forfeit of the bond Be nominated for an equM pound Of your fair Hesh, to be cut off, and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me!" 18^ Shakspere: Personal Recollections The second act opens with Portia in her grand home at "Belmont/' awaiting suitors for her wealth, beauty and brains. Her father dying, left three locked chests, gold, silver, and lead, one of them containing the picture of Portia ; and the fortunate suitor who picked out that rich casket, was to be the husband of the bril- liant Portia. The Prince of Morocco and Prince of Arragon, with Bassanio, were the suitors. Portia says to Morocco: "In terms of choice I am not solely led By nice direction of a maiden's eyes; Besides^ the lottery of my destiny Bars me the right of voluntary choosing/' Launcelot, the foolish serving man for Shylock, says to old Gobbo, his blind father: ''Do you not Tcnow me, father f Gobbo replies: ''AlacTc^sir, I am sand-hlind, I Tcnow you not," Launcelot makes this wise statement : "Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, You might fail of the knowing of me: It is a wise father that Tcnows his own child!" Shylock discharges Launcelot, and Jessica, the beautiful daughter of the money lender, parts with 183 Shakspere: Personal Recollections him regretfully — she gives him a secret letter to de- liver to her Christian lover, Lorenzo, and then says : "Farewell^ good Launcelot — Alack, what heinous sin it is in me To he ashamed toi he my father's child! But though I am a daughter to his hlood, I am not to his manners; Lorenzo, If thou Tceep promise, I shall end this strife; Become a Christian, and thy loving wife!" This beautiful Jewess forswears her birth and religion for infatuated love, and throws to the winds all duty and honor as a daughter; a rene- gade of matchless quality, stealing her father's money and jewels to elope with the fascinating Christian Lorenzo. The Hebrew race has not produced many Jes- sicas; and the morality taught by Shakspere of a daughter ^^fooling her father*^ is base and rotten in principle. Shylock says to his daughter : "Well, Jessica, go in to the house. Perhaps I will return immediately; Do as I hid you; Shut doors after you; fast hind, fast find, A proverh never stale in thrifty mind/' Then at the turn of his back the beautiful fraud Jessica says: "Farewell, and if my fortune he not crost, I have a father, you a daughter, lost!"* 184 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Lorenzo with his friends appear under the win- dow of Shyloek's house to steal away Jessica, and she appears above in boy^s clothes, and asks: "WTio are you ? Tell me for more certainty. Albeit, III swear that I da Jcnow your tongue f He responds : "Lorenzo and thy love" Jessica before leaving her home spouts the fol- lowing stuff to her lover : "Here, catch this casJcet, it is worth the pains; I am glad 'tis night, you do not looTc on me; For I am much ashamed of my exchange; But love is hlind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would hlush To see me thu^ transformed to a hoy. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself With some more ducats, and he with you straight !" Nice specimen of a dutiful daughter. Contrast the conduct of the Christian Portia with the Hebrew Jessica, and the latter's action is thoroughly reprehensible. Portia obeys the injunction and will of a dead father, while' Jessica violates criminally the duty she owes a live father, who is in the toils of personal and official swindlers. 185 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Portia in her palace awaits foreign and domestic suitors for her hand, heart and wealth. The Prince of Morocco and his train first ap- pear. Portia in her splendid drawing room receives the Prince, and says to her waiting maid : i, ''Go draw aside the curtains, and discover The several caslcets to this noile prince; — Now malce your choice T The Prince reads the inscriptions on the three caskets, gold, silver and lead: "Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire." "Who chooseth me, shall get as mnch as he deserves." "Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath." The Prince asks: ''How shall I Tcnow if I do choose the right f Portia replies : "The one of them contains my picture. Prince; If you choose that then I am yours withal." The Prince of Morocco makes a long speech on the beauty and glory of Portia, and then decides to open the golden casket. Portia hands him the key, and when the contents come to view he exclaims: "0 hell! what have we here!" "A carrion death, within whose empty eye There is a written scroll? Fll read the writing. 1861 Shakspere: Personal Recollections 'All that glitters is not gold. Often have you heard that told; Many a man his life hath sold. But my outside to behold; Gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold. Young in limbs, in judgment old Your answer had not been enscrolled. Fare you well, your suit is cold/ " The disappointed black prince says : ^'Portia, adieu ! I have too grieved a heart To taTce a tedious leave; thus lovers part/' Portia exclaims after his exit: ^'A gentle riddance; draw the curtains, go Let all of his complexion choose me soT When Shyloek returned home, fonnd his house deserted and robbed, he rushed into the street, and cried : "My daughter! my ducats! my daughter! Fled with a Christian? my Christian ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats and my daughter! A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats. Of do(uble ducats, stolen from me by my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones Stolen by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl! She hath the stones upon her and the ducats!" 187 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The frantic raging of tlie old broken down, sonl lacerated Jew, only brought from that Christian audience, laughter, yells, and howling jeers. The mob spirit was there, and the appeal for justice by Shylock fell upon deaf ears and stony hearts. Portia still holds court for her hand and heart at beautiful "Belmont," setting like an Egyptian Queen in the circling, blooming hills of the blue Adriatic. The Prince of Arragon comes to the choice of caskets, and with lofty words in praise of virtue, says : "Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity, 0, that estates, degrees, and offices. Were not obtained corruptly! and that clear honor Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover, that stand bare! How many be commanded that command! How much low corruption would then be gleaned From the true seed of honor! and how much honor PicTced from the chaff and ruin of the times!'* The Globe Theatre shook with applause at this fine political speech of the Prince, and may be well contemplated in the State transactions of to- day. The Prince unlocks the silver casket, and finds a portrait of a blinking idiot; and departing ex- claims : "Some there be that shadows Tciss, Such have hut a shadow's bliss; J88 Shakspere: Personal Recollections There "be fools alive I wis — Silvered o'er, and so was ihis!" Portia soliloquizes: "Thus hath the candle singed the moth Of these deliberate fools, when they do choose. They hare their wisdom hy their wit to lose." And !N"erissa, the bright waiting maid, says : "The ancient saying is no heresy; — Hanging and wiving go hy destiny!" The third act opens with a street in Yenice, and friends of Antonio bemoan the reported loss of several of his ships at sea, which will eanse his de- fault and ruin, by the demands of Shylock. Salarino says to the Jew: "Why, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not TaTce his flesh; what's that good forf Shylock now begins to gloat over his prospect of a dire vengeance npon the Christian Antonio, and replies to Salarino: "Toi hait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else. It will feed my revenge ! Antonio hates me because Tm a Jew; Hath not a Jew eyes f Hath not a Jew hands; Organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions^ Fed with the same food, hurt with the same wea- pons, 189 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means. Warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter. As a Christian is? If you pich us, do we not bleed? If you ticJele us do we not laugh ? if you poison us Do we not die ? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? The villainy you teach me, I will execute f' Tubal, the Hebrew friend of Shylock, says : '^But Antonio is certainly undone," Shylock delighted says: ''That's true, that's very true. Tubal, fee me an officer; bespealc him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of Antonio if he forfeit the bond. Go, Tubal, meet me at our synagogue/' Pbrtia again appears for the third time to un- dergo matrimonial choice. Bassanio, the particular friend of Antonio, is the real love suitor for the hand and heart of the beautiful Portia, and appears at her palace, at- tended by his faithful Venetian friends. He is a high-toned, but impecunious Italian gentleman, whose heart and soul are ninety per cent, larger than his pockets. 190 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Portia seems to be fascinated with Bassanio, and wishes him to remain at her home and take time in choosing the right casket, but he wants to act instanter, confessing his love. Portia says: ''Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Now he goes. With no less dignity, hut with much more love Than young Alcides, when he did redeem The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy To the sea monster T Bassanio, standing before the leaden casket, ut- ters this high sounding, moral, truthful speech: "The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt. But, being seasoned with a gracious voice Obscures the show of evil f In religion. What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text. Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ? There is no vice so simple, but assumes Some marh of virtue on his outward parts! Hoiv many cowards whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beard of Hercules, and frowning Mars; Who^ inward searched, have livers white as milk ? And these assume but valor's excrement. To render them redoubted. Look on beauty And you shall see His purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature. Making them lightest that wear most of it; in Shakspere: Personal Recollections So are those curled, snaky golden locks. Which make such wanton gambols with the wind Upon supposed fairness, often known To he the dowers of a second head; The scull that bred them in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is hut the treacherous shore To a most dangerous sea! Thou meagre lead casket. Which rather rebuffs than dost promise aught. Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence. And here choose I; joy the consequence T Opening the leaden casket, Bassanio exclaims : ''What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit. What demigod Hath come so near creation; Here's the scroll. The continent and summary of my fortune — If you he well pleased with this. And hold your fortune for your hliss. Turn you where your lady is And claim her with a loving kiss!'' Bassanio kisses Portia, and she makes this wo- manly speech: ''You see me. Lord Bassanio, where I stand Such as I am; though for myself alone I would not he ambitious in my wish To wish myself much better; yet, for you I would he trebled twenty times myself; A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich. 192 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Happiest of all is that my fond spirit Commits itself to yours to he directed. As from her Lord, her Governor, her King I Myself and what is mine, to you and yours Is now converted; hut now I was the Lord Of this fair mansion, master of my servants. Queen o'er myself; and even now, hut now. This house, these servants, and this same myself. Are yours, my Lord, I give them with this ring; Which when you part from, lose, or give away. Let it presage the ruin of your love. And he my vantage to exclaim to your Bassanio tells Portia that he is not a freeman, that Antonio borrowed three thousand ducats for him from Shylock, and that now he is miserable because Antonio may lose his life by the Jew claim- ing a pound of flesh in forfeit of the bonded debt. Portia proposes to pay six thousand ducats rather than Antonio suffer, and says to Bassanio : "First go with me to church and call me wife. Then away to Venice to your friend. You shall have gold To pay the petty deht twenty times over!" Shylock swears out a writ and puts Antonio in jail, and demands trial before the Grand Duke of Venice. The Duke in open court, with all the witnesses and lawyers and people present, implores Shylock not to insist to cut a pound of flesh from the body of Antonio, and argues for mercy. 193 Shakspere: Personal Recollections But, Shylock, impenetrable to the cries of mercy, says to the judge : *'I have told your grace of what I purpose; And hy our holy Sabbath have I sworn. To have the due and forfeit of my bond. The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is dearly bought^ is mine, and I will have it; If you deny me, fye upon your law! I stand for judgment; shall I have it f* A learned doctor of laws, Bellario, is expected to appear as the advocate for Antonio, and the Duke awaits him; but receives a letter saying that a young lawyer named Balthazar will represent him, as sickness prevents his presence. Portia disguised like a doctor of laws appears in court. The Duke asks : ^^Come you from old Bellario ?" Portia replies: "I did, my lord.'^ Antonio and Shylock stand up in court, and Portia, after surveying each, inquires: "Is your name Shylock ?" He replies: '^^Shylock is my name." She says to Antonio: "You stand within Shy- lock's control, do you not?^' He responds: "Ay, so he says." Portia asks : "Do you confess the bond ?" Antonio replies: "I do." Portia speaks: "Then must the Jew be merci- ful?" Shylock asks: "On what compulsion must I? Tell me that?" a94: Shakspere: Personal Recollections Then Portia rises in court and makes this lofty, never to be forgotten speech: ''The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven. Upon the place beneath; 't is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives, and him that tahes; ^Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power. The attribute to awe and majesty; Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of Icings; But mercy is above his sceptred sway. It is enthroned in the hearts of Icings, It is an attribute to God himself. And earthly poiuer doth then show liJcest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, — That in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy, I have spolce this much To mitigate the justice of thy plea; Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice Must needs give sentence against the merchant therer Shylock, with unforgiving spirit, replies : "'My deeds upon my head! I crave the law. The penalty and forfeit of my bond!" Portia asks: ''Is not Antonio able to discharge the money f 195 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Bassanio replies: ''Yes; here I tender it for him in the court; Yea, twice the sum/' and still appealing to the Duke, says : ''To do a great right, do a little wrong. And curb this cruel devil of his will I'' Portia says: "There is no power in Venice can altar a decree established/' And Shylock, lighting up with joy, replies : "A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel I" Preparation is made to cut the pound of flesh from the breast of Antonio; and this brave old Christian merchant says to his dearest friend, Bas- sanio : PAGE "Fare you well! Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you; For herein fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom; it is still her use To let the wretched man outlive his wealth. To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow. An age of poverty," Portia, speaking to Shylock, says: "Take thou thy pound of flesh; But, in the cutting, if thou dost shed 196 Shakspere: Personal Recollections 'One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscated Unto the State of Venice T The Jew finding himself absolutely blocked con- sents to take the money offered. Yet, Portia tells him that his property and life are now at the mercy of the Duke because he has conspired against the life of a citizen of Venice, and bids him : *'Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Buke r Then the great Duke, judge of the court, speaks to Shylock: ''That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit, I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it; For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's, The other half conies to the general state F' Shylock bravely replies: ''Take my life and all, pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live!" Then Antonio says if the Jew will give up all his property to Lorenzo and his daughter Jessica, and become a Christian, he the "Merchant of Venice," will be content. Portia then triumphantly asks: "Art thou content, Jew, what dost thou sayf in Shakspere: Personal Recollections And poor old Shylock gasps : "I am content" Thus ends one of the most barefaced swindles of the ages ; and my friend William is responsible for the nefarious and systematic machinery of roguery and persecution injected into the play to satisfy Christian hate against the wandering Jew. In looking around the world even to-day, we might truthfully exclaim : "0, Christianity ! Christianity ! how many crimes are committed in thy name !" The fifth act of the "Merchant of Venice" winds up with harmonious love and prosperity for all concerned. At the beautiful home of "Behnont," Bassanio, Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, as well as Gratiano and Nerissa are married and living in blissful asso- ciation. In the moonlit, lovelit conversation between Lorenzo and his Jewish wife, Jessica, Shakspere wings in some of his finest classical allusions, a word banquet for all passion struck lovers. Lorenzo seated amid waving trees, trailing vines and perfumed flowers illuminated by the mystic rays of Luna, says to Jessica : "The moon shines bright; in such a night as this. When the sweet wind did gently hiss the trees. And they did mahe no noise; in such a night, Troilus, methinhs, mounted the Trojan walls. And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents Where Cressid lay that night" il98S Shakspere: Personal Recollections Jessica replies : 'In such a nigJit Did Thishe fearfully o'ertrip the dew; And saw the lion's shadow ere himself. And ran dismayed away/' Then Lorenzo talks : [In such a night Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea banhs^ and waved her love To come again to Carthage." And Jessica: 'In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herhs That did renew old Aesonf Lorenzo then triumphant speaks : 'In such a night Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew; And with an unthrifty love did run from Venice, As far as Belmont/' Jessica satirically replies : 'In such a night Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well; Stealing her soul with many vows of faith. And ne'er a true one/' 199 Shakspere: Personal Recollections Lorenzo fires back this answer: ^'And in such a night Did pretty Jessica, lihe a little shrew Slander her love, and he forgave it her." Jessica gets in the last word, and says : "I would outnight you, did nobody come; But harh, I hear the footing of a man" Lorenzo declines to enter the house for rest or sleep, but still discourses of love and music: "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this hanh! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night. Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica; looTc, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb, which thou beholdest But in his motion lihe an angel sings. Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, whiVst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot have it! By the sweet power of music; therefore, the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and Hoods. Since naught so stocTcish, hard and full of rage But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; J800 Shakspere: Personal Recollections The moiiom of Jiis spirit are dull as night And his affections darJc as Erel)us; Let no such man he trusted." Portia, Bassanio and friends arrive from the trial of Antonio at Venice, and at the brilliant home of Belmont all is peace and love. Bassanio discovers that the young lawyer in dis- guise was Portia, and she twits him for giving away his ring to the young advocate, as a recompense for clearing Antonio from the toils of Shylock; and then she discourses to her friends about music by night : "Methinks it sounds much sweeter than hy day; The crow doth sing as sweetly as the larh. When neither is attuned; and I thinTc The nightingale, if she should sing hy day When every goose is cacTcling, would he thought No hetter a musician than the wren. How many things hy season, seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection! Peace, there, the moon sleeps with Endymion And would not he awaTced." (Music ceases and all retire.) Music murmurs through the soul 'Hopes of a sweet heavenly goal. And enchants from pole to pole While the planets round us roll! Shakspere: Personal Recollections CHAPTER XVI. THE SUPERNATURAL. "hAMLET." a^-T . ,,T-r,m >>