Shal. Not a whit.
Evans. Yes, py'r-lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures; but this all one: if Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you.
Shal. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot."[409:A]
Though the portrait thus given of Sir Thomas Lucy (in the person of Shallow) represent him as weak and vain, yet we must recollect that it is still drawn in the spirit of retaliation and satire, and was most undoubtedly meant for a caricature.
It appears then more than probable, indeed from the testimony of Mr. Jones it appears to be the fact, that the prosecution, which,
there is little doubt, had been threatened on the detection of the trespass, was only carried into execution in consequence of the poetical assault on the part of our author, who, possibly, thought nothing serious could occur from such a mode of revenge.
The circumstances, therefore, of the prosecution being threatened in the first instance, and taking place in the second, might occasion the report which Mr. Rowe has inserted in his Life of Shakspeare, where, speaking of the ballad as his first essay in poetry, he adds, "it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London."[410:A]
That Shakspeare left Stratford for London, about the year 1586 or 1587, and that the prosecution commenced by Sir Thomas Lucy contributed to this change of situation, are events which we may with safety admit; but that the libel was the sole cause of the removal appears not very probable; and we are inclined to believe with Mr. Chalmers, that debt added wings to his flight. "While other boys," remarks this ingenious controversialist, "are only snivelling at school, and thinking nothing of life, Shakspeare entered the world, with little but his love to make him happy, and little but his genius to prevent the intrusion of misery. An increasing family, and pressing wants, obliged him to look beyond the limits of Stratford, for subsistence, and for fame. He felt, doubtless, emotions of genius, and he saw, certainly, persons, who had not better pretensions, than his own, rising to eminence in a higher scene. By these motives was he probably induced to remove to London, in the period, between the years 1585, and 1588; chased from his home, by the terriers of the law, for debt, rather than for deer-stealing, or for libelling."[410:B]
The probability of this having been the case, will be much heightened, when we recollect, that between the years 1579 and 1586 the father of Shakspeare had fallen into distressed circumstances;
that during the first of these periods, he had been excused paying a weekly contribution of 4d., and that during the latter he was under the necessity of resigning his office as alderman, not being able to defray the expense of attendance at the common halls; facts, which while they ascertain his impoverished state, at the same time prove his utter inability to assist his son, now burdened with a family, and anxiously looking round for the means of its support.