Shakespeare of Divines (The), Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667).
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.—Emerson.
Shakespeare of Eloquence (The). The comte de Mirabeau was so called by Barnave (1749-1791).
Shakespeare of Germany (The), Augustus Frederick Ferdinand von Kotzebue (1761-1819).
Shakespeare of Prose Fiction (The). Richardson, the novelist, is so called by D’Israeli (1689-1761).
Shallow, a weak-minded country justice, cousin to Slender. He is a great braggart, and especially fond of boasting of the mad pranks of his younger days. It is said that Justice Shallow is a satirical portrait of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, who prosecuted Shakespeare for deer-stealing.—Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (1596); and 2 Henry IV. (1598).
As wise as a justice of the quorum and custalorum in Shallow’s time.—Macaulay.
Shallum, lord of a manor consisting of a long chain of rocks and mountains called Tirzah. Shallum was “of gentle disposition, and beloved both by God and man.” He was the lover of Hilpa, a Chinese antediluvian princess, one of the 150 daughters of Zilpah, of the race of Cohu or Cain.—Addison, Spectator, viii. 584-5 (1712).
Shalott (The lady of), a poem by Tennyson, in four parts. Pt. i. tells us that the lady passed her life in the island of Shalott in great seclusion, and was known only by the peasantry. Pt. ii. tells us that she was weaving a magic web, and that a curse would fall on her if she looked down the river. Pt. iii. describes how Sir Lancelot rode to Camelot in all his bravery; and the lady gazed at him as he rode along. Pt. iv. tells us that the lady floated down the river in a boat called The Lady of Shalott, and died heart-broken on the way. Sir Lancelot came to gaze on the dead body, and exclaimed, “She has a lovely face, God in his mercy grant her grace!” This ballad was afterwards expanded into the Idyll called “Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat” (q.v.), the beautiful incident of Elaine and the barge being taken from the History of Prince Arthur, by Sir T. Malory.
“While my body is whole, let this letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed with all the richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes be laid with me in a chariot to the next place whereas the Thames is, and there let me be put in a barge, and but one man with me such as ye trust to steer me thither, and that my barge be covered with black samite over and over.” ... So when she was dead, the corpse and the bed and all was led the next way unto to the Thames, and there a man and the corpse and all were put in a barge on the Thames, and so the man steered the barge to Westminster, and there he rowed a great while to and fro, or any man espied.—Pt. iii. 123.