SHAKESPEARE AT CHARLECOTE PARK
It was a fine May morning when the bailiff of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, attended by some half-dozen serving men, rode quickly through the streets of Stratford, and halted at the abode of his worship the Mayor. The children in the street stood mute, and stared; gossips ran to door and casement; Thrums, the tailor, mechanically twitched off his cap, and for a moment forgot the new bridal jerkin of Martin Lapworth, the turner, of Henley Street; John-a-Combe, the thrifty money-scrivener, startled from a sum of arithmetic, watched the horsemen with peering eyes and open mouth; and every face expressed astonishment and surmise as the horses’ hoofs tore up the road, and the arms of the riders rang and clattered; and their visages, burly and glowing, showed as of men bearing mighty tidings. Had a thunderbolt fallen in the market-place, it could not more suddenly have broken the tranquillity of Stratford than had the sudden visit of Sir Thomas Lucy’s retainers. Every one pressed to the Mayor’s house to learn the tidings, and in a brief time one, taking up the fears of his neighbour for the truth, told an inquiring third that the swarthy Spaniard, with a thousand ships, had entered the Thames; that her gracious highness the Queen was a close prisoner in the Tower, and that the damnable papists had carried the host through the city, and had performed High Mass in the Abbey of Westminster. This rumour was opposed by another, averring that the Queen had drunk poison in a quart of sherris (a beverage much loved by her highness)—whilst a fourth story told of her private marriage with the Master of the Horse. Great wonderment followed on each tale. Some vowed they would never be brought to speak Spanish, others religiously called for fire upon all Catholics—whilst more than one good housewife hoped that in all reasonable time her Majesty would bring forth a prince. Stratford was the very court-place for rumour; old, yellow Avon paused in his course, astonished at the hum and buzz that came with every wind.
At length the truth became manifest. No Spanish bottom poisoned the Thames; no Spanish flag blasted the air of England. Elizabeth yet gripped her sceptre—yet indulged in undrugged sack and cold virginity. Still it was no mean event that could thrust seven of Sir Thomas Lucy’s men into their saddles, and send them galloping, like so many St Georges, to the Mayor of Stratford. Thus it was then; the park of Sir Thomas had been entered on the over-night, and one fine head of fallow deer stolen from the pasturage, whilst another was found sorely maimed, sobbing out its life among the underwood. The marauders were known, and Sir Thomas had sent to his worship to apprehend the evil-doers, and despatch them under a safe guard to the hall of Charlecote. This simple story mightily disappointed the worthy denizens of Stratford, and, for the most part, sent them back to their various business. Many, however, lingered about his worship’s dwelling to catch a view of the culprits—for they were soon in custody—and many a head was thrust from the windows to look at the offenders, as, mounted on horseback, and well guarded on all sides by Sir Thomas Lucy’s servants and the constables of Stratford, they took their way through the town, and, crossing the Avon, turned on the left to Charlecote.
There were four criminals, and all in the first flush of manhood; they rode as gaily among their guards as though each carried a hawk upon his fist and were ambling to the sound of Milan bells. One of the culprits was specially distinguished from his companions, more by the perfect beauty of his face than by the laughing unconcern that shone in it. He seemed about twenty-two years of age, of somewhat more than ordinary stature, his limbs combining gracefulness of form with manly strength. He sat upon his saddle as though he grew there. His countenance was of extraordinary sweetness. He had an eye, at once so brilliant and so deep, so various in its expression, so keenly piercing, yet so meltingly soft—an eye so wonderful and instant in its power as though it could read the whole world at a glance—such an eye as hardly ever shone within the face of man; it was not an eye of flesh—it was a living soul. His nose and chin were shaped as with a chisel from the fairest marble; his mouth looked instinct with thought, yet as sweet and gentle in its expression as is an infant’s when it dreams and smiles. And as he doffed his hat to a fair head that looked mournfully at him from an upper casement, his broad forehead bared out from his dark curls in surpassing power and amplitude. It seemed a tablet writ with a new world.
The townspeople gazed at the young man, and some of them said, “Poor Will Shakespeare!” Others said, “’Twas a sore thing to get a child for the gallows!” and one old crone lifted up her lean hands and cried, “God help poor Anne Hathaway, she had better married the tailor!” Some prophesied a world of trouble for the young man’s parents; many railed him as a scapegrace given to loose companions, a mischievous varlet, a midnight roysterer; but the greater number only cried, “Poor Will Shakespeare!” It was but a short ride to the hall, yet ere the escort had arrived there Sir Thomas Lucy with some choice guests were seated at dinner.
Hereupon the constables were ordered to take especial care of the culprits, who were forthwith consigned to the darkest and strongest cellar at Charlecote. Here, at least, it was thought that Will Shakespeare would abate somewhat of his unseemly hardihood, for all the way to the mansion he had laughed and jested and made riddles on the constables’ beards, and sang snatches of profane songs, and kissed his fingers to the damsels on the road, and, indeed, “showed himself,” as a discreet, observing nun declared, “little better than a child of Satan.” In the cellar he and his co-mates, it was thought, would mend their manners. “As they do not learn to respect God, and worship Sir Thomas, and honour deer’s flesh, as good Christians ought—and they learn not these things in the dark—’tis to waste God’s gifts upon ’em to let ’em see the light of day.” Thus spoke Ralph Elder, constable of Stratford, to one of the grooms of Charlecote. “I tell you, John,” continued the functionary, “Will Shakespeare’s horse didn’t stumble for nothing at the field of hemp. God saves poor babes born to be hanged, for ’tis no constable’s affair——Hush! mercy on us, they laugh—laugh like lords!”
To the shame of the prisoners be it spoken, the discourse of Ralph was broken by a loud shout from the cellar. To add to the abomination, the captives trolled forth in full concert a song—“a scornful thing,” as Ralph afterwards declared it, “against the might and authority of Sir Thomas Lucy.” The men, the maids—all flocked to the cellar door, while the dungeon of the prisoners rang with their shouting voices. “It was thus they glorified,” as Ralph avowed, “in their past iniquities”:—
“’Twas yester morning, as I walked adown by Charlecote Meads,
And counting o’er my wicked sins, as friars count their beads;
I halted just beside a deer—a deer with speaking face,
That seem’d to say, ‘In God’s name come and take me from this place!’
“And then it ’gan to tell its tale—and said its babe forlorn
Had butcher’d been for Lucy’s dish soon after it was born;
‘I know ’tis right!’ exclaimed the dam, ‘my child should form a feast,
But what I most complain of is, that beast should dine off beast!’
“And still the creature mourn’d its fate, and how it came to pass
That Lucy here a scarecrow is, in London town an ass![[1]]
And ended still its sad complaints with offers of its life,
twenty hundred times exclaimed, ‘Oh! haven’t you a knife?’
“There’s brawny limbs in Stratford town, there’s hearts without a fear,
There’s tender souls who really have compassion on a deer;
And last night was without a moon, a night of nights to give
Fit dying consolation to a deer that may not live.
“The dappled brute lay on the grass, a knife was in its side;
Another from its yearning throat let forth its vital tide.
It said, as tho’ escaping from the worst that could befall,
‘Now, thank my stars, I shall not smoke on board at Charlecote Hall!’
“Oh, happy deer! Above your friends exalted high by fate,
You’re not condemned like all the herds to Lucy’s glutton plate;
But every morsel of your flesh, from shoulder to the haunch,
Tho’ bred and killed in Charlecote Park, hath lined an honest paunch.”
[1]. “In the country a scarecrow, in London an ass!”—Shakespeare’s Satire on Sir Thomas Lucy.
The household were truly scandalised at this bravado. The night came on, and still the prisoners sang and laughed. In the morning Sir Thomas took his chair of state, and ordered the culprits to his presence. The servants hurried to the cellar—but the birds were flown. How they effected their escape remaineth to this day a mystery, though it cannot be disguised that heavy suspicion fell upon four of the maids. The story went that Shakespeare was a day or two afterwards passed on the London road.
This tale was corroborated by John-a-Combes. For, many years afterwards, a townsman of Stratford, who had quitted his native place for the Indies just at the time that Warwickshire rang with the deeds of the deer-stealers, returned home, and amongst other gossip was heard to ask the thrifty money-getter what became of that rare spark, Will Shakespeare, him who entered Sir Thomas’s park at Charlecote. “Marry, sir,” replied John; “the worst has become of him, for after that robbery he went to London, where he turned stage actor, and writ plays, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and such things.”
SHAKESPEARE AT “BANK-SIDE”[[2]]
The bell of St Mary Overy had struck three; the flag was just displayed from the Rose play-house; and, rustling in the wind, was like, in the words of the pious Philip Stubbes, “unto a false harlot, flaunting the unwary onward to destruction and to death.” Barges and boats, filled with the flower of the court-end and the city, crowded to the bridge. Gallants, in the pride of new cloak and doublet, leaped to the shore, making rich the strand with many a fair gentlewoman lifted all tenderly from the craft; horses pranced along Bank-side, spurred by their riders to the door of the tiring-room; nay, there was no man, woman, or child who did not seem beckoned by the Rose flag to the play,—whose ears did not drink in the music of the trumpets, as though it was the most ravishing sound of the earth. At length the trumpets ceased, and the play began.
[2]. According to Rowe’s story, related to Pope, Shakespeare’s first employment in London was to wait at the door of the play-house and hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready after the performance. “But I cannot,” says Mr Steevens, “dismiss this anecdote without observing, that it seems to want every mark of probability.”
The Rose was crammed. In the penny gallery was many an apprentice unlawfully dispensing his master’s time—it might be, his master’s penny too. Many a husband, slunk from a shrew’s pipe and hands, was there, to list and shake the head at the player’s tale of wedded love. Nor here and there was wanting, peeping from a nook, with cap pulled over the brow, and ruff huddled about the neck, the sly, happy face of one, who yesterday gave an assenting groan to the charitable wonder of a godly neighbour—of one who marvelled that the Rose flag should flout the heavens, yet call not down the penal fire. The yard was thronged; and on the stage was many a bird of courtly feather, perched on his sixpenny stool; whilst the late comer lay at length upon the rushes, his thoughts wrested from his hose and points by the mystery of the play.
Happy, thrice happy wights, thus fenced and rounded in from the leprous, eating cares of life! Happy ye, who, even with a penny piece, can transport yourselves into a land of fairy—can lull the pains of flesh with the music of high thoughts! The play goes on, with all its influences. Where is the courtier? Ten thousand miles from the glassy floor of a palace, lying on a bank, listening to a reed piping in Arcady. Where the man of thrift? He hath shuffled off his trading suit, and dreams himself a shepherd of the golden time. Where the wife-ridden husband, doubtful of a natural right to his own soul? He is an Indian emperor, flushed with the mastery of ten thousand slaves! Where is the poor apprentice—he who hath weals upon his back for twopence lost on Wednesday? He is in El Dorado, strutting upon gold. Thus works the play—let it go on. Our business calls us to the outside.
There is scarcely a passenger to be seen on Bank-side. Three or four boys loiter about the theatre, some trying, through a deceitful crevice, to catch a glimpse of the play—some tending horses, until the show be done. Apart from these, his arms crossed, leaning against a post, his eyes fixed on the Rose flag,—stands a youth, whose face, though perfect in its beauty, has yet a troubled air. As he stands, watching the rustling beacon, it almost seems—so fixed is his look—as though he held some converse with it; as though the fortunes of his future life were woven in its web in mystic characters, and he, with his spirit straining from his eyes, were seeking to decipher them. Now—so would imagination work—there seemed voluble speech in its flapping folds, and now a visible face. The youth turned from gazing on the flag to the open river. Some spirit was upon him; and, through his eyes, gave to vulgar objects a new and startling form. He was in a day-dream of wonder and beauty; and as it is told that those doomed to the ocean with hearts yearning for the land see fields and pleasant gardens in the heaving wave,—so our hero, tricked by his errant fancy, gazed breathless at new wonders sweeping before him. A golden mist shrouded the mansions and warehouses on the strand. Each common thing of earth glowed and dilated under the creative spirit of the dreamer. The Thames seemed fixed—whilst a thousand forms moved along the silver pavement. The sky shone brighter—harmony was in the air! The shades move on.
First passes one bearing in his hand a skull: wisdom is in his eyes, music on his tongue—the soul of contemplation in the flesh of an Apollo: the greatest wonder and the deepest truth—the type of great thought and sickly fancies—the arm of clay, wrestling with and holding down the angel. He looks at the skull, as though death had written on it the history of man. In the distance one white arm is seen above the tide, clutching at the branches of a willow “growing askant a brook.”
Now there are sweet, fitful noises in the air: a shaggy monster, his lips glued to a bottle—his eyes scarlet with wine—wine throbbing in the very soles of his feet—heaves and rolls along, mocked at by a sparkling creature couched in a cowslip’s bell.
And now a maiden and a youth, an eternity of love in their passionate looks, with death as a hooded priest joining their hands: a gay gallant follows them, led on by Queen Mab, twisting and sporting as a porker’s tail.
The horns sound—all, all is sylvan! Philosophy in hunter’s suit, stretched beneath an oak, moralises on a wounded deer, festering, neglected, and alone: and now the bells of folly jingle in the breeze, and the suit of motley glances among the greenwood.
The earth is blasted—the air seems full of spells: the shadows of the Fates darken the march of the conqueror: the hero is stabbed with air-drawn steel.
The waves roar like lions round the cliff: the winds are up, and howling; yet there is a voice, louder than theirs—a voice made high and piercing by intensest agony! The singer comes, his white head “crowned with rank fumitor”—madness, tended by truth, speaking through folly!
The Adriatic basks in the sun: there is a street in Venice; “a merry bargain” is struck—the Jew slinks like a balked tiger from the court.
Enter a pair of legs, marvellously cross-gartered.
And hark! to a sound of piping, comes one with an ass’s head wreathed with musk roses and a spirit playing around it like a wildfire.
A handkerchief, with “magic in the web,” comes like a trail of light, and disappears.
A leek—a leek of immortal green shoots up!
Behold! like to the San Trinidad, swims in a buck-basket labelled “to Datchet Meads.”
There gleam two roses, red and white—a Roman cloak stabbed through and through—a lantern of the watch of Messina!
A thousand images of power and beauty pass along.
The glorious pageant is over—no! fancy is yet at work.—
Yonder ship, laden with sherris, canary, and spice—see how her masts and rigging fall and melt, like metal in a furnace! Her huge hold, stowed to the deck with wine, swells and distends, and takes another form. We see no ship, but a man mountain, with a belly that “would sink a navy.” One butt of red wine is sinking in the Thames: no; it moves and shapes itself into something like a nose, which, rising like a comet, fiery red, before him of the abdomen, seems as ’twere purposed for a torch to light him “’twixt tavern and tavern.” And see——
But the day-dream of the youth is broken. A visitor, mounted, has just arrived, and would fain enter the play-house; but there is none bold or strong enough to hold his steed. At least a dozen men—it was remarkable that each had in his bosom a roll of paper, it might be the draft of a play—rushing from the Rose, strove to hold the bridle: but some the horse trod down—some he struck paralytic with his flashing eye—some ran away, half distraught at his terrible neighing. At length our dreamer approached the steed, which, as it had been suddenly turned to stone, stood still. The rider dismounted and entered the play-house, leaving his horse tended by our hero. The animal ate from out his hand—answered with its proud head the caresses of its feeder—and, as it pranced and curveted, a sound of music, as from the horny hoofs of dancing satyrs, rose from the earth. All stood amazed at the sudden taming of the horse.
The play ended—the audience issued from the doors. The story had run from mouth to mouth, touching the new-comer and his horse. All hurried about the stranger, to see him mount. He, with some difficulty, such was the crowd, leaped on his steed, when, inclining his face, radiant with smiles, towards the youth who had performed the office of his groom, he flashed like a sunbeam out of sight. All stood marble with astonishment. At length the immortal quality of the visitor was made manifest, for, in the press and hurry, a feather had fallen from one of his wings—albeit, concealed and guarded by a long cloak.
The youth who had taken charge of the horse seized, as his rightful wages, on this relic of Phœbus, and, taking his way, he fashioned it into a pen, and with it from time to time gave to the “airy nothings” of his day-dream “a local habitation and a name.”
It is modestly hoped that this well-authenticated story will wholly silence the sceptical objections of Mr Steevens.
“Hearing little John Fenton lisp his Berkshire Latin”