I
INTRODUCTORY
THE FORTUNES OF SHAKESPEARE
IN REMEMBRANCE OF 23RD APRIL 1564-1616
It is so much the fashion to write and speak of Shakespeare’s misfortunes, his disabilities, disadvantages, and lack of preparedness for becoming great, that perhaps I may best fit my opportunity by touching upon what I believe to be his good fortunes. It is all very true to say, that “poets are born, not made,” but there is a converse possibility, too finely expressed in Gray’s elegy to need repeating. Shakespeare might have been born a poet, and he might have been drowned in the Avon, as his contemporary of the same name was drowned in 1575; or he might have been carried by compelling currents of his life, away from the fruition of the high possibilities of his genius, instead of directly towards them. The whole truth is, that great poets are both born and made, and it is worth pausing to dwell on some of the steps in the making of this “Maker.” In no life is it more clear than in his that
There’s a divinity doth shape our ends,
Rough hew them as we will.
Shakespeare was fortunate in the place of his birth. Warwickshire was in the very heart of England. The whole shire was haunted by legends and stories of a romantic past from the time when it was the Mercia of the Saxons down to the desolating Wars of the Roses. His birthplace was but seven miles from the castled city of Warwick, glorified by traditions of Cymbeline, Guiderius, Ethelfleda, Phillis, and Guy, one of the seven champions of Christendom. Stratford was not far from the tragic Vale of Evesham, from the holiday making of the Cotswolds, and it lay amid gently swelling hills and dales, the richly cultivated Feldon to east and south, the stretches of woodland to north and west, sufficient to satisfy an artist, a dreamer, or a poet. It was of much more relative importance in the sixteenth century than it is to-day. It stood at the crossing of the two great thoroughfares of the whole country, its Avon was another highway, for water transit was much more used in olden days than now. The river was spanned at Stratford by a noble bridge, safe even in floods (thanks to Sir Hugh Clopton); it had important markets, a prosperous trade in wool, manufactures of cloth and leather and other things, and was rich in agricultural commodities. It was a spirited and independent little town, and many important families lived in its neighbourhood. The house in Henley Street in which the poet was born (three houses combined), made a roomy and comfortable home for his youth.
He was fortunate in the date of his birth, on or about 23rd April, 1564. I say on or about, as it might have been a day or two earlier or later. He was baptized on the 26th, and it was then usual enough to baptize infants on the third day after birth. Tradition has always given us the 23rd as the birthday, St. George’s day. In those days, before the reformation of the Calendar, the 23rd of April fell later in the season than it does to-day. There were twelve more days of sunshine to open the May blossoms, and to encourage the nightingales to sing in welcome of another sweet singer. The poet always loved the spring; he was a May-blossom himself.
He was fortunate also in the period in which he arrived. England’s heart was heaving. Great spiritual movements had stirred men’s souls to their depths, and given them inspiration to think for themselves amid diverse creeds; the literary renaissance had brought their intellects in touch with the great minds of other times, and diverse countries; learning had become a hunger as well as a fashion; students translated, imitated, emulated the philosophers and poets of Greece, Italy, and France. England was in the high tide of fervour through its emancipation from the Pope’s authority, its new sense of independence, its command of the sea, and its ever-widening geographical horizons; the romance of a maiden Queen, fortunate since her accession, made a new development in the spirit of patriotism. Poets born in the previous reigns shed their glories on Elizabeth’s. The very atmosphere was charged with negative poetical electricity, which only waited for a positive stimulus to flash forth in light.
He was fortunate in his parents. We know only too little of them, but we do know something. John Shakespeare had sprung from an honest yeoman family, which evidently had seen better days. It had contributed a Prioress and a Sub-Prioress to the venerated Priory of Wroxall, and it had its family legends concerning royal service and royal grants, not necessarily unfounded, but frustrated somehow, perhaps by an Empson or a Dudley. There is a possibility that he had had a Welsh mother, and inherited blue blood from a Cymric past. He evidently had some special charm in person, manner, or wit, because all his life he seems to have been popular among his fellows, and he managed to win the heart and the hand of the youngest daughter of a “gentleman of worship” in the neighbourhood, who was the ground landlord of his father’s farm in Snitterfield. The only definite notice we have of him is “that he was a merry-cheeked old man who said ‘Will was a good honest fellow; but he darest have crakt a jesst with him at any time’” (Dr. Andrew Clark, from the Plume MS. at Maldon). John had risen through all the grades of honour in the town, had shown his predilection for the drama by his payments to players, a predilection not shared by the majority of his townsmen, and we may take it he could tell a story and be good company. The mothers of men are more important to their youth than their fathers are. Mary Arden had descended from the Ardens of Park Hall, a storied Saxon line, counting amidst its ancestors no less a hero than King Alfred. She evidently had the Saxon virtues, was prudent and capable, or her father would not have left her executrix at his death. She is said to have been beautiful; we may believe it, if we realize the verbal descriptions, not the painted portraits of her son. A strong woman, whom we see reflected in the poet’s noble women’s characters, and yet romantic enough to marry where she loved, though doubtless many men of better position and of greater wealth in the country, would have been glad enough of such a well-dowered gentle bride. Hers was evidently a happy marriage, and she ensured her son the benefits of a happy home.