NOTE. In the following pages the name of England's greatest dramatist will be found SHAKESPERE. INTRODUCTION. "Whose remembrance yet Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues SHAKESPERE! There is conjuration and mighty magic in the name, and there is mystery about the man. The place of his birth is a shrine for pilgrim feet, and Stratford-upon-Avon holds the dust of her (and England's) noblest intellectual son. Yet of this man, who "was not for an age, but for all time," fewer memorials, it is said, are attainable or preserved than of almost any of Britain's mighty minstrels. Far away, in the time-distance of five centuries ago, "Old Dan Chaucer" shows himself as a reality, and no myth,— Singing he was, or floyting alle the day; He was as fresche as is the moneth of May." Dunbar, Gawin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay, appear in literary history lifelike and solid. Surrey and Wyatt are known, both in biography and romance. Sydney and Spenser are palpable and substantial figures in the tableaux of their age. The personality and "the very form and pressure" of many of the Elizabethan sages-Raleigh, Fairfax, Daniel, Drayton, Marlowe, Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, &c., are known to the most casual readers of biography; yet here is one-the greatest-of whom it has been remarked, "He lived' is almost all that can be said." We remember the vividness with which the thought of this selfforgetfulness, and as it were, spirit-like impalpability, shone into our minds as we stood in the chancel of Stratford Church--the church in which he was baptized, in which he worshipped, where he mourned, and in which he now lies " so sepulchred," B "That kings, for such a tomb, might wish to die;"— saw before us the bust that "was for gentle Shakespeare cut ;" and beheld the grave which held all that was mortal of him who was "not one, but all mankind's epitome." A dear friend, now long and fast made ours, accompanied us,-and we recall the singular feeling with which we, almost simultaneously, remarked how difficult it was to realize Shakespere in all the breadth, power, and geniality of his nature, as "a visible presence" among men: he seems so much more like an impersonality, a shape, a shade, a force, a voice, than as a form shrouded in a "muddy vesture of decay," and as moving amid the casualities of time and space, possessed of all the attributes of man. And yet we had read, with some care, many of the abounding biographies of Avon's bard, and knew almost by heart those items of his life which research had rescued from among Time's "alms for Oblivion ;" we had conned his precious pages with a lover's ardour and a student's zeal, and could not bear to think of him as one whose "soul was like a star, and dwelt apart" from human friendships, interests, aims, and cares. We were anxious to bring a feeling of his humanity into our souls, and to realize the period when "Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill We thought then, as we have often done since, of the remarks of Hallam,—“ Of William Shakespeare, whom . . . we seem to know better than any human writer, it may be truly said that we scarcely know anything. We see him-so far as we do see him—not in himself, but in a reflex image; . . . to us he is scarcely a determined person, a substantial reality, the man Shakespeare. All that insatiable curiosity and unwearied diligence have hitherto detected about Shakespeare serves rather to disappoint and perplex us than to furnish the slightest illustration of his character."+ We repeat, with a sigh, the curt summarization of Steevens, "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning Shakespeare is, that he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, married, and had children there; went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays; returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried;" * See "Sonnets" 135 and 136, for proof of his enjoyment of this name. + "Literature of Europe," vol. ii. p. 175. and we were compelled to re-express the ejaculation of Carlyle, "How much in Shakespeare lies hid-his sorrows, his silent struggles, known to himself; much that was not known at all, not speakable at all; like roots, like sap and forces, working underground!" Then we cast our thoughts from the brief, gossipping, uncritical “Life," prefixed to Rowe's "Shakespeare," 1707, to the side-lighted, picturesque, synchronized, though somewhat highly-coloured and imaginative, biography of Charles Knight, 1842; and recollecting the researches of Malone, Dyce, Drake, Collier, Hunter, Bell, De Quincey, Wheler, Halliwell, Staunton, &c., came to the conclusion that it might be possible, by an exercise of discriminating criticism, to attain some more decided and realizable notions of the great dramatist than we at that time possessed. With the view of attempting this, we some years ago re-read a considerable amount of Shakesperean literature, taking notes as we proceeded; but other tasks, at that time, prevented the fulfilment of our design, and for awhile these notes have been laid past in a limbo of those interrupted or unfinished attempts which have now and again created excitement "In the quick forge and working house of thought." Our collection of references is dispersed into the libraries from which they were selected, and we are now living in a retired village, where the means of extended literary research are sparse and scant; and "When to the sessions of sweet, silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past, The recent discussions concerning Shakespere have forcibly revived the idea relinquished then, and we have resolved to sketch out our plan and lay it before such readers as we can find. The necessity for brevity laid upon us by the form of this publication, will materially interfere with the literary execution of our design; but it will have this advantage, that it will make our outline occupy a compass much narrower than we originally contemplated, and will therefore, perhaps, lessen its tedium to our readers, though it will certainly increase our labour. The accommodation of our original view to the exigencies of the present state of opinion among Shakesperean critics and readers will necessitate a remodelment of our materials, a special arrangement of the topics of our research, and an extension of our subject itself. With this view we have selected the words contained in the title of our brochure, as in our opinion inclusive of all that we shall require to consider. We make no pretensions to originality of research; we have no "new facts" to reveal; no fresh materials to bring into the argument. We intend chiefly such a reconstruction of that which is already known-carefully discriminating what is merely imagined, inferred, and probable, from what is founded on insufficient or untrustworthy evidence—as by its method may lead us to feel the human in Shakespere's character; as may bring him before us as a man; as may show him somewhat in his habit as he lived; and, by an appeal to chronology, prove that, though we know too little to gratify our insatiable curiosity, we do really know more than is commonly believed. The vagrant manner in which dates have hitherto wandered here and there, in the pages of professed biographers, has been quite mystifying. If it is only by "applying this to that, and so to so," that a memoir can be constructed, it will surely be well that these should be placed in their natural order; for then and thus may we most likelily break the spell "That does in vile misprison shackle up" our thoughts of Shakespere, and so bring out the man as well as the dramatist. The fallacy with which we are now about to deal—viz., that we know little or nothing concerning Shakespere as a man, his worldly career, his personal character, his social and literary standing among his contemporaries-is one of considerable importance. The insatiable curiosity which is felt regarding the "myriad-minded dramatist,” is, we doubt not, the occasioning cause, and the inducement of most, if not all, of those forgeries and fabrications, which from time to time occur to disgrace our literature, and to throw discredit upon the morals, as well as the critical sagacity, of men of letters. The great eras of Shakesperean criticism have as yet been also the great eras of literary imposture. Malone's researches brought up a good many (unbelieveable ?) traditions, scraps of poetry, &c. Theobald's deceptive fathering of his plays on Shakespere is notorious; so also are the infamous forgeries of the Irelands. Kirkman's trade frauds are well known, and several minor transgressors have been pilloried, sooner or later, by the literary detectives. There has been, during the present century, a new epoch in Shakesperean criticism; and there has, as usual, cropped up a variety of |