"Her doublet and hose," said Doubletongue. "The very pair of nether garments in which I had seen her masquerading at the Blue Boar the first night I beheld her."
"Oh, monstrous!" said Grasp. "Tis, undoubtedly the person of whom you are in quest. See, the execution is over and the criminals burnt. Wherefore not at once, proceed to Blackfriars and identify the house? To-morrow we will procure assistance and pounce upon her;" and the two immediately pushed their way through the crowd and left Smithfield.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE POET AND HIS FRIENDS.
The success of Shakespeare's play of Romeo and Juliet had placed him in a somewhat different situation amongst his companions of the theatre. By the majority he was immediately looked up to as a rising star, and whilst others again viewed him with increasing envy, there were one or two who were so much struck with the extraordinary merit of the composition that they already pronounced him the wonder of the age.
Such, however, was the agitated state of the kingdom at the moment, and fears, factions, and jealousies, so absorbed the minds of men of all ranks, that except beyond the circle of his own professional brethren, and amongst his own immediate friends of the Court, my Lord of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Southampton, &c., the effect produced was, after all, but evanescent.
The English nation at this time was yet struggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been transplanted hither in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and the learned languages cultivated by Lilly, Linacre, More, and others. Greek was now taught in some of the principal schools, and many of the learned read the Italian and Spanish poets. But still literature was even yet confined in a great measure to professed scholars, or persons of high rank. The body public was but gross and dark; and to read and write, an accomplishment valued according to its rarity.
Thus, then, the people who witnessed the great curiosity of Shakespeare's new play hardly knew how to judge. It was welcome even to the most rude and vulgar; they looked at it with a sort of childish wonder. It was a delicious and startling change from the giants, dragons, and enchantments they had been used to. Nay, it even bid fair to supersede the interesting exhibition of the bear hugging the dog to death, or the bull driven into madness by agony. The show and bustle of the new play even charmed the rudesby's, who could scarce even comprehend the beauty and elegance of the poetry.
It was on the morning of the same day on which Grasp had witnessed the execution in Smithfield, that Shakespeare made his unsuccessful application to the Earl of Leicester in behalf of his friend Arderne. After his interview with the fallen favourite, the poet returned, sad and somewhat out of sorts, to his new lodgings in Blackfriars. As was his wont on all occasions wherein his capacious mind had received an impression, he contemplated the object that had furnished it. Indeed, his interview with that ambitious courtier, whose whole life had been a mistake, had been to him a whole volume. "How wretched," he thought, "is that poor man that hangs on prince's favours!" and then he seized his pen and wrote,—