How strange it was to be here again where every one knew and greeted him. In London he had been swallowed up in the crowd. How familiar, too, the homely provincial version of his name, with the abbreviated first syllable. In town that first syllable was always long, a pronunciation, which left no doubt as to the etymology of the name.[1] It was on account of these differing pronunciations that he had, while in London, changed the spelling of his name. He had always written it Shakspere, but in town it had from the first (the dedication of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece) been printed Shakespeare: a spelling always followed by the various publishers of the quarto editions of his dramas, only one adopting the orthography Shakspeare.[2]
Every one knew him, and he must exchange a word with all—with the ploughman in the field, the farmer's wife in her poultry-yard, the mason on the scaffolding, the fish-dealer at his stall, the cobbler in his workshop, and the butcher in the slaughter-house. How well he could talk to each, for no human occupation, however humble, was unfamiliar to him. He had a thorough acquaintance from of old with the butcher's trade. It had formed a part of his father's business, and his early tragedies contain many a proof of his familiarity with it. The Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. are full of similes drawn from it.[3].
There was hardly any trade, calling, or position in life which he did not understand as if he had been born to it. Doubtless the simple folk of his native town respected him as much for his sound judgment and universal knowledge as for his wealth and property. It would be too much to expect that they should recognise anything more and greater in him.
Many years ago, at the outset of his career as a dramatist, he had made a defeated king praise a country life for its simplicity and freedom from care (Third Part of Henry VI., ii. 5):
"O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months and years,
Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs and a quiet grave."
In just such a regular monotony were Shakespeare's own days now to pass.
[1] In 1875 Charles Mackay made an attempt, in the Athenaum, to prove a Celtic origin for the name, deriving it from seac = dry, and speir—shanks, thus dry or long shanks. If we take into consideration the numerous other names and nicknames of the day which began with Shake—Shake-buckler, Shake-launce, Shake-shaft, &c., this explanation does not seem very probable. Another argument in favour of its Anglo-Saxon origin and simple meaning, Spearshaker, is the contemporaneous existence of the Italian surname Crollalanza.
[2] It may be mentioned that there were no less than fifty-five different ways of writing the name at that time. It is well known that such spellings were quite arbitrary. In Shakespeare's wedding contract, for example, we have the version Shagspere.