Shakespeare’s Youth.
And now what was the personality of this man, who, out of his imagination, has presented to us such a host of acquaintances? Who was he, where did he live, how did he live, and what about his father, or his children, or his family retinue?
And here we are at once confronted by the awkward fact, that we have less positive knowledge of him, and of his habits of life than of many smaller men—poets and dramatists—who belonged to his time, and who—with a pleasant egoism—let drop little tidbits of information about their personal history. But Shakespeare did not write letters that we know of; he did not prate of himself in his books; he did not entertain such quarrels with brother authors as provoked reckless exposure of the family “wash.” Of Greene, of Nashe, of Dekker, of Jonson, of Beaumont and Fletcher, we have personal particulars about their modes of living, their associates, their dress even, which we seek for vainly in connection with Shakespeare. This is largely due, doubtless—aside from the pleasant egoism at which I have hinted—to the circumstance that most of these were university men, and had very many acquaintances among those of culture who kept partial record of their old associates. But no school associate of Shakespeare ever kept track of him; he ran out of sight of them all.
He did study, however, in his young days, at that old town of Stratford, where he was born—his father being fairly placed there among the honest tradespeople who lived around. The ancient timber-and-plaster shop is still standing in Henley Street, where his father served his customers—whether in wool, meats, or gloves—and in the upper front chamber of which Shakespeare first saw the light. Forty odd years ago, when I first visited it, the butcher’s fixtures were not wholly taken down which had served some descendant of the family—in the female line[13]—toward the close of the eighteenth century, for the cutting of meats. Into what Pimlico order it may be put to-day, under the hands of the Shakespeare Society, I do not know; but it is understood that its most characteristic features are religiously guarded; and house, and town, and church are all worthy of a visit. The town does not lie, indeed, on either of those great thoroughfares which Americans are wont to take on their quick rush from Liverpool to London, and the Continent; but it is easily approachable on the north from Warwick, in whose immediate vicinity are Kenilworth and Guy’s Cliff; and from the south through Oxford, whose scores of storied towers and turrets beguile the student traveller. The country around Stratford has not, indeed, the varied picturesqueness of Derbyshire or of Devon; but it has in full the quiet rural charm that belongs to so many townships of Middle-England;—hawthorn hedges, smooth roads, embowered side lanes, great swells of greensward where sheep are quietly feeding; clumps of gray old trees, with rookeries planted in them, and tall chimneys of country houses lifting over them and puffing out little wavelets of blue smoke; meadows with cattle browsing on them; wayside stiles; a river and canals, slumberous in their tides, with barges of coal and lumber swaying with the idle currents that swish among the sedges at the banks.
On the north, toward Warwick, are the Welcombe hills, here and there tufted with great trees, which may have mingled their boughs, in some early time, with the skirts of the forest of Arden; and from these heights, looking southwest, one can see the packed gray and red roofs of the town, the lines of lime-trees, the elms and the willows of the river’s margin, out of which rises the dainty steeple of Stratford church; while beyond, the eye leaps over the hazy hollows of the Red-horse valley, and lights upon the blue rim of hills in Gloucestershire, known as the Cotswolds (which have given name to one of the famous breeds of English sheep). More to the left, and nearer to a south line of view, crops up Edgehill (near to Pilot-Marston), an historic battle-field—wherefrom Shakespeare, on his way to London may have looked back—on spire, and alder copse, and river—with more or less of yearning. To the right, again, and more westerly than before, and on the hither side of the Red-horse valley and plain, one can catch sight of the rounded thickets of elms and of orcharding where nestles the hamlet of Shottery. Thence Shakespeare brought away his bride, Anne Hathaway, she being well toward the thirties, and he at that date a prankish young fellow not yet nineteen. What means he may have had of supporting a family at this time, we cannot now say; nor could his father-in-law tell then; on which score there was—as certain traditions run—some vain demurral. He may have been associated with his father in trade, whether as wool-dealer or glover; doubtless was; doubtless, too, had abandoned all schooling; doubtless was at all the wakes, and May festivals, and entertainments of strolling players, and had many a bout of heavy ale-drinking. There are stories too—of lesser authenticity—that he was over-familiar with the game in the near Park of Charlecote, whereby he came to ugly issue with its owner. We shall probably never know the truth about these stories. Charlecote House is still standing, a few miles out of the town (northeasterly), and its delightful park, and picturesque mossy walls—dappled with patches of shadow and with ivy leaves—look charmingly innocent of any harm their master could have done to William Shakespeare; but certain it is that the neighborhood grew too warm for him; and that he set off one day (being then about twenty-three years old) for London, to seek his fortune.