For the adoption of the year 1586 or 1587, as the era of our author's emigration to town, several powerful, and almost convincing, arguments may be given, and these it will be necessary here to state.
It is well ascertained that Shakspeare married in the year 1582, and Mr. Rowe has affirmed that "in this kind of settlement he continued for some time, till an extravagance (the deer-stealing frolic) that he was guilty of, forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up."[411:A] Now that this settlement for some time was the period which elapsed between the years 1582 and 1586, will almost certainly appear, when we recollect the domestic events which occurred during its progress; that, according to tradition, he had embraced his father's business, on entering into the marriage-state; and that the family of the poet in short was increased in this interval, by the birth of three children, baptized at Stratford; Susanna, May 26th, 1583, and Hamnet and Judith, Feb. 2d, 1584-5.
That the removal was not likely to have taken place later than 1587, will be generally admitted, when we advert to the commencement of his literary labours. The issue of research has rendered it highly probable that our bard was a corrector and improver of old plays for the stage in 1589; it has discovered from evidence amounting almost to certainty, that he was a writer for the theatre on a plan of greater originality in 1591, and that, even so early as 1592, he was noticed as a dramatic poet of some celebrity. Now, if we compare
these facts, which will be noticed more fully hereafter, with the poet's own assertion, that the Venus and Adonis was "the first heir of his invention[412:A]," it will go far to prove, that this poem, which is not a short one, and is elaborated with great care, must have been composed between his departure from Stratford, and his commencement as a writer for the stage, (that is between the years 1586 and 1589;) for while there is no ground to surmise that it was written on the banks of the Avon, there is sufficient evidence to assert that it was finished, though not published before he was known to fame.
It is impossible to contemplate the flight of Shakspeare from his family and native town, without pausing to reflect upon the consequences which followed that event; consequences most singularly propitious, not only to the intellectual character of his country in particular, but to the excitation and progress of genius throughout the world. Had not poverty and prosecution united in driving Shakspeare from his humble occupation in Warwickshire, how many matchless lessons of wisdom and morality, how many unparalleled displays of wit and imagination, of pathos and sublimity, had been buried in oblivion; pictures of emotion, of character, of passion, more profound than mere philosophy had ever conceived, more impressive than poetry had ever yet embodied; strains which shall now sound through distant posterity with increasing energy and interest, and which shall powerfully and beneficially continue to influence and to mould both national and individual feeling.
FOOTNOTES:
[402:A] Fuller's Worthies, part iii. p. 132. The Luce or Pike is very abundant in this part of the Avon, and there may still be seen in the kitchen of Charlecot-house, the representation of a pike, weighing forty pounds, a native of this stream, and caught in the year 1640.
[403:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 42, 43. Act ii. sc. 1.
[403:B] Ireland's Views on the Avon, p. 154.