Volume I Part 23 (1/2)
The walk, he said, was beautiful; the cottage damp, musty, and fusty; and a supposit.i.tious old bedstead, of the age of Queen Elizabeth, which had been obtruded upon his notice because it _might_ have belonged to Ann Hathaway's mother, received a special malediction. For my part, my relic-hunting propensities were not in the slightest degree appeased, but rather stimulated, by the investigations of the day before.
It seemed to me so singular that of such a man there should not remain one accredited relic! Of Martin Luther, though he lived much earlier, how many things remain! Of almost any distinguished character how much more is known than of Shakspeare! There is not, so far as I can discover, an authentic relic of any thing belonging to him. There are very few anecdotes of his sayings or doings; no letters, no private memoranda, that should let us into the secret of what he was personally who has in turns personated all minds. The very perfection of his dramatic talent has become an impenetrable veil: we can no more tell from his writings what were his predominant tastes and habits than we can discriminate among the variety of melodies what are the native notes of the mocking bird. The only means left us for forming an opinion of what he was personally are inferences of the most delicate nature from, the slightest premises.
The common idea which has pervaded the world, of a joyous, roving, somewhat unsettled, and dissipated character, would seem, from many well-authenticated facts, to be incorrect. The gayeties and dissipations of his life seem to have been confined to his very earliest days, and to have been the exuberance of a most extraordinary vitality, bursting into existence with such force and vivacity that it had not had time to collect itself, and so come to self-knowledge and control. By many accounts it would appear that the character he sustained in the last years of his life was that of a judicious, common-sense sort of man; a discreet, reputable, and religious householder.
The inscription on his tomb is worthy of remark, as indicating the reputation he bore at the time: ”_Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem_” (In judgment a Nestor, in genius a Socrates, in art a Virgil.)
The comparison of him in the first place to Nestor, proverbially famous for practical judgment and virtue of life, next to Socrates, who was a kind of Greek combination of Dr. Paley and Dr. Franklin, indicates a very different impression of him from what would generally be expressed of a poet, certainly what would not have been placed on the grave of an eccentric, erratic will-o'-the-wisp genius, however distinguished.
Moreover, the pious author of good Mistress Hall's epitaph records the fact of her being ”wise to salvation,” as a more especial point of resemblance to her father than even her being ”witty above her s.e.x,” and expresses most confident hope of her being with him in bliss. The Puritan tone of the epitaph, as well as the quality of the verse, gives reason to suppose that it was not written by one who was seduced into a tombstone lie by any superfluity of poetic sympathy.
The last will of Shakspeare, written by his own hand and still preserved, shows several things of the man.
The introduction is as follows:--
”In the name of G.o.d. Amen. I, William Shakspeare, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman, in perfect health and memory, (G.o.d be praised,) do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following; that is to say,--
”First, I commend my soul into the hands of G.o.d my Creator, hoping, and a.s.suredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Savior, to be made partaker of life everlasting; and my body to the earth, whereof it is made.”
The will then goes on to dispose of an amount of houses, lands, plate, money, jewels, &c., which showed certainly that the poet had possessed some worldly skill and thrift in acc.u.mulation, and to divide them with a care and accuracy which would indicate that he was by no means of that dreamy and unpractical habit of mind which cares not what becomes of worldly goods.
We may also infer something of a man's character from the tone and sentiments of others towards him. Gla.s.s of a certain color casts on surrounding objects a reflection of its own hue, and so the tint of a man's character returns upon us in the habitual manner in which he is spoken of by those around him. The common mode of speaking of Shakspeare always savored of endearment. ”Gentle Will” is an expression that seemed oftenest repeated. Ben Jonson inscribed his funeral verses ”To the Memory of _my beloved_ Mr. William Shakspeare;” he calls him the ”sweet swan of Avon.” Again, in his lines under a bust of Shakspeare, he says,--
”The figure that thou seest put, It was for gentle Shakspeare cut.”
In later times Milton, who could have known him only by tradition, calls him ”my Shakspeare,” ”dear son of memory,” and ”sweetest Shakspeare.”
Now, n.o.body ever wrote of sweet John Milton, or gentle John Milton, or gentle Martin Luther, or even sweet Ben Jonson.
Rowe says of Shakspeare, ”The latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense would wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and ent.i.tled him to the friends.h.i.+p, of the gentlemen of the neighborhood.” And Dr. Drake says, ”He was high in reputation as a poet, favored by the great and the accomplished, and beloved by all who knew him.”
That Shakspeare had religious principle, I infer not merely from the indications of his will and tombstone, but from those strong evidences of the working of the religious element which are scattered through his plays. No man could have a clearer perception of G.o.d's authority and man's duty; no one has expressed more forcibly the strength of G.o.d's government, the spirituality of his requirements, or shown with more fearful power the struggles of the ”law in the members warring against the law of the mind.”
These evidences, scattered through his plays, of deep religious struggles, make probable the idea that, in the latter, thoughtful, and tranquil years of his life, devotional impulses might have settled into habits, and that the solemn language of his will, in which he professes his faith, in Christ, was not a mere form. Probably he had all his life, even in his gayest hours, more real religious principle than the hilarity of his manner would give reason to suppose. I always fancy he was thinking of himself when he wrote this character: ”For the man doth fear G.o.d, howsoever it seem not in him by reason of some large jests he doth make.”
Neither is there any foundation for the impression that he was undervalued in his own times. No literary man of his day had more success, more flattering attentions from the great, or reaped more of the substantial fruits of popularity, in the form of worldly goods.
While his contemporary, Ben Jonson, sick in a miserable alley, is forced to beg, and receives but a wretched pittance from Charles I., Shakspeare's fortune steadily increases from year to year. He buys the best place in his native town, and fits it up with great taste; he offered to lend, on proper security, a sum of money for the use of the town of Stratford; he added to his estate in Stratford a hundred and seventy acres of land; he bought half the great and small t.i.thes of Stratford; and his annual income is estimated to have been what would at the present time be nearly four thousand dollars.
Queen Elizabeth also patronized him after her ordinary fas.h.i.+on of patronizing literary men,--that is to say, she expressed her gracious pleasure that he should burn incense to her, and pay his own bills: economy was not one of the least of the royal graces. The Earl of Southampton patronized him in a more material fas.h.i.+on.
Queen Elizabeth even so far condescended to the poet as to perform certain hoidenish tricks while he was playing on the stage, to see if she could not disconcert his speaking by the majesty of her royal presence. The poet, who was performing the part of King Henry IV., took no notice of her motions, till, in order to bring him to a crisis, she dropped her glove at his feet; whereat he picked it up, and presented it her, improvising these two lines, as if they had been a part of the play:--
”And though, now bent on this high emba.s.sy, Yet stoop we to take up our cousin's glove.”
I think this anecdote very characteristic of them both; it seems to me it shows that the poet did not so absolutely crawl in the dust before her, as did almost all the so called men of her court; though he did certainly flatter her after a fas.h.i.+on in which few queens can be flattered. His description of the belligerent old Gorgon as the ”Fair Vestal throned by the West” seems like the poetry and fancy of the beautiful Fairy Queen wasted upon the half-brute clown:--
”Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek, smooth, head, And kiss thy fair, large ears, my gentle joy.”
Elizabeth's understanding and appreciation of Shakspeare was much after the fas.h.i.+on of Nick Bottom's of the Fairy Queen. I cannot but believe that the men of genius who employed their powers in celebrating this most repulsive and disagreeable woman must sometimes have comforted themselves by a good laugh in private.
In order to appreciate Shakspeare's mind from his plays, we must discriminate what expressed the gross tastes of his age, and what he wrote to please himself. The Merry Wives of Windsor was a specimen of what he wrote for the ”Fair Vestal;” a commentary on the delicacy of her maiden meditations. The Midsummer Night's Dream he wrote from his own inner dream world.