CHAPTER VII.
THEATRICAL DRUDGERY. COMPOSITIONS.
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head."
Shakspere had now his foot firmly planted on the lower round of the ladder of fame, whose top leaned against the skies of immortality!
The fermentation of composition began again to work within his seething brain, and the daily demands of the Blackfriars spurred him on to emulate if not surpass Kyd, Lodge, Greene and Marlowe.
During the time Shakspere had been a strolling player through the middle towns of England he had studied the works of Ovid and Petrarch, and read with pleasure the sonnets and Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney.
While playing at Kenilworth, the Lady Anne Manners, young and beautiful cousin to the Earl of Leicester, honored the young actor with great praise for his part in playing the Lover in "Love's Conquest." She presented the Bard with a bunch of immortelles, that even when withered, he always kept in an inside pocket, and at various times composed sonnets to his absent admirer, playing Petrarch to another Laura.
The languishing, luscious, lascivious poem of "Venus and Adonis" was really inspired by the remembrance of Miss Manners, and imagination pictured himself and the lady as the principals in the sensuous situation!
William, like Dame Nature, was full of life-sap, that circled through his body and brain with constant motion and sought an outlet for the surplus volume of ideal knowledge, in theatrical action, teaching lessons of right and wrong, with vice and virtue struggling forever for the mastery of mankind.