Warwickshire House of the Tudor Period
Disappointment, soreness, jealousy, not seldom followed the award of the coveted distinction, but not so on this occasion. For now the successful candidate is one of the youngest and best beloved of this jolly coterie, and their pride in him is shown by the eagerness with which they await his coming to read to them the changes in the manuscript of his play since its former presentation. Ah! hear the burst of applause that greets his late arrival--a high-browed, sandy-haired man of thirty-two, lithe in figure, of middle height, with a smile of great sweetness, yet sad withal. On his face, one may read the lines of recent sorrow, and all know that he has returned but recently to London from the mournful errand which took him to his Stratford home--the burial of his dearly beloved and only son, Hamnet. The plaudits for the author of the most successful play of the season--"_Romeo and Juliet_," which was then taking the town by storm at the Curtain Theatre--were little heeded by the grief-stricken father as he urged his horse over the rough roads of the four days' journey, arriving just too late for a parting word from dying lips. But private sorrows are not for those who are called to public duties; a writer must trim his pen not to his own mood, but to the mood of the hour. And Queen Elizabeth, old in years, but ever young in her love of fun and frolic and flattery, must be made to forget the heaviness of time and the infirmities of age. If she may no longer take part in out-door sports--the hunting, the hawking, the bear-baiting,--she still may command processions, fêtes, masques, and stage-plays. It pleases her now to see this wonderful fairy piece, of which she has heard so much since, two years ago, it graced the nuptials of the Earl of Derby. Does she not remember also that pretty impromptu verse of the author when acting the part of King in another man's play, two years ago at Greenwich? Did she not twice drop her glove near his feet in crossing the stage? And how happily had he responded to the challenge! True to the character as well as to the metre of his part, he had picked up the glove, presenting it to its owner with the words:--
"And though now bent on this high embassy,
Yet stoop we to take up our cousin's glove."
Old Graves in Trinity Churchyard, Stratford
Seats are taken, the manuscript is opened, and the club becomes a green-room conference. The play is not to be recast entirely, the changes from the early version being mainly to introduce certain touches to flatter the royal ears, and to suit it to the more elaborate equipment of the Whitehall stage. Quill in hand, the reader as he proceeds crosses out from his manuscript everything that clogs the movement or detracts from the playfulness; giving free rein to his luxuriant imagination, he scatters the choicest flowers of fancy to create a vivid and animated picture. The lovers meet and part with pretty rhymes and repartee; the hard-handed men--the tradesmen and tinkers--bring their clumsy efforts to serve the wedding-feast; the fairies, graceful, lovely, enchanting, dance amidst the fragrance of enameled meadows.
Old Warwickshire Cottages