CHAPTER XV

THE DOMESTIC UFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME— I
SjN carrying out the programme laid down at the beginning, I come in the present lecture to discuss the Domestic Life of Shaltspere's Time. It is my wish to make the treatment of this subject centre directly upon Shakspere himself. I desire to present not only the domestic life of his time, but that part of it which went on about the low-ceilinged and large- raftered house in Henley Street, Stratford, where Shak- spere was born, or in the quiet Warwickshire fields and pleasant lanes betwixt Shakspere's home and Anne Hatha- way's cottage a mile distant, or in the statelier rooms and park -grounds of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote near by, or in the magnificent castle of Kenilworth, which was only a few miles distant and in which Leicester gave such royal entertainment to Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1 57J. All these places connect themselves with the personal his- tory of William Shakspere ; and I shall endeavour to bring them before you, during my two lectures, in some such famil- iar way as will add to those features of Shakspere's person- ality which we have hitherto been endeavouring to piece out
62 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
from his works. Observe that these spots I have men- tioned in Stratford and the neighbourhood yield us exam- ples of all the sorts of life in England. Working in the fields about Stratford was many a rustic who might serve as a model for Touchstone or for Audrey ; hardly a sum- mer's day would pass that the boy Shakspere, strolling about the country lanes, would not meet some tinker who would at least suggest that profound rogue and merry soul, Autolycus. Here we have the lowest class of Eng- lish domestic life. Again, in the house of William Shak- spere's father, John Shakspere, in Henley Street, and in the cottage of Richard Hathaway, we have the life of the tradesman, the comfortable burgess, the alderman, — for Shakspere's father was alderman of Stratford before his reverses began, — and of the substantial yeoman. Again, in the manor of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote we are pre- sented with the mode of existence of the English country gentleman, a grade higher than the middle class. " Gen- tleman " in those days had, as you all remember, a much more specialised meaning than in these : it was a pleasant thing to be able to write one's name Bartholomew Griffin^ Gent.y or Samuel Daniel y Gent.y and we find our master not disdaining to see his name as fVilliam Shakspere j Gentleman, after he had gone up to London, and had become not only a popular playwright, but a man of substance, with interest in the Blackfriars and the Globe theatres and with invest- ments in real estate. Lastly, at Kenilworth Shakspere might have seen when he was a boy the very highest phase of English life — not only that of the nobility but that of royalty itself. Perhaps it will interest you if I devote a moment at this point to showing exactly how it is that this castle of Kenilworth connects itself with Shakspere's exis- tence. There is no eye-evidence that Shakspere was ever at Kenilworth ; but a very pretty piece of circumstantial
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 63
testimony to the fact comes out by comparing a certain passage in Shakspere's Midsummer Night's Dream with cer- tain events which are known to have taken place at Kenil- worth. The passage is that beautiful vision which Oberon relates to Puck in Scene II of Act II. Oberon and Titania have been disputing the possession of the Indian boy, and have just parted, after such a gentle and airy tiff as might be supposed to take place sometimes between a fairy husband and wife. Oberon, resolving to wreak a fantastic revenge upon Titania, wishes to get the mad- doting flower called love-in-idleness, for the purpose of dropping its juice on Titania's eyes. Calling Puck to him, he relates how it happened that this flower acquired its marvellous virtue of causing any one upon whose eyelids its juice was laid to love the next live creature that should be beheld, no matter how monstrous :
My gende Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath.
That the rude sea grew civil at her song.
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres.
To hear the sea-maid's music.
Puck. I remember.
Obe. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not. Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west. And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow. As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts : But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon, And the imperial votaress passed on. In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
64 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
Whereupon the erring shaft of Cupid fell upon a little flower, turned it from white to purple, and endowed it with its marvellous powers.
Now it so happens that this passage describes, with an exquisite mixture of fact and allegory, a series of events which took place at Kenilworth some fifteen or twenty years before. In the summer of the year 1575 Queen Elizabeth came down from London to visit Leicester, who was then in the very height of his ambitious purposes, and in particular was moving heaven and earth to win the hand of the Queen herself in marriage. He entertained his royal mistress in a series of pageants which were so magnificent and elaborate as to give them a supreme place even in that reign of glorious festivities. The chroniclers of the period have described these pageants in full ; and among them was one which Shakspere is evi- dently describing in the passage quoted — when, for the entertainment of Queen Bess, Leicester had caused to come over a sheet of water in his park a figure on a dolphin's back, singing ; and inasmuch as Leicester was all this time making the most vigorous love to Elizabeth, — who ap- pears in this passage as the "fair vestal throned by the west," — and as she escaped his toils and passed on " in maiden meditation, fancy-free," you can imagine the grateful plea- sure with which the Queen would have had all this scene thus vividly recalled to her by Shakspere ; for the Midsum- mer Night^s Dream was doubtless acted before the Queen, — possibly written for that special purpose, — and Shakspere probably anticipated in writing this speech of Oberon's the delight with which her mind would recur to those " princely pleasures of Kenilworth " which marked the heyday of her life and of Leicester's brilliancy.
Now if, as I say, Shakspere witnessed these royal masques at Kenilworth, — as well might have happened.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 65
for he was then eleven years old, and Kenilworth was close by Stratford, — we will have discovered, as I said, points in the immediate neighbourhood of Shakspere's home where he could have seen every phase of English life, from that of the tramp and the tinker and the clown, through that of the burgess and the country gentleman, up to the court's and its brilliant queen's.
I shall, then, set forth all these surroundings of Shak- spere's life in the most vivid way I can, and shall recur with detail to the environment I have just now rapidly sketched.
I have woven a little romance which I shall read, in which, taking Shakspere as a boy in Stratford, I endeavour to picture English life in his time by tracing some passages in his own existence which I have made out of such facts as I could gather regarding sixteenth-century existence, only using my own fancy just enough to connect these facts with Shakspere and with one another.
But I wish to bring this man's life before you from all possible points of view ; and with that purpose, only as- suring you that in the end you will find all converging quite legitimately upon the subject, I beg to devote this present lecture to two matters which will serve to give depth and foundation to what might otherwise degenerate into trivial details. These are, on the one hand, those great events in the world's history which happened just previous to and during Shakspere's time and which in a thousand ways reacted upon and cropped out in all the domestic life of his period: against which, on the other hand, I wish to set those inner spiritual events which took place deep within the soul of Shakspere, which went on refining and deepening his character, and which made him a wonderfully wiser and sweeter man when he re- turned to Stratford about 16 10 or 161 2 than he was when
66 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
he left it, some twenty-five years before, a youth, with all the passions of this world burning in his veins.
Permit me, then, to recall to your memories several interesting points in what one might call the Outer Life of that marvellous period which reached from the middle of the fifteenth century, 1450, to the end of the sixteenth, 1600 — a period which in the highest sense we may call Shakspere's time, for he was the representative and the consummation of it.
Then, after arraying these external facts before you, I will ask leave to contrast with them the Inner Life and development of Shakspere, which I think we can trace with great satisfaction by a proper use of those appliances which modern criticism has furnished us.
Here, then, you have a convenient outline of the pres- ent lecture : we are to discuss the Outer Life of the Renais- sance, and the Inner Life of Shakspere.
Take your minds back, then, to the middle of the fif- teenth century. It is almost impossible to speak with philosophic calmness of the prodigious series of events which now begin to take place, not only in politics, but in religion, in art, in science, in practical industries — in pretty nearly the whole range of man's activity.
At the middle of the fifteenth century (1440-50) Gutenberg and Faust lead off with the invention of print- ing. Looking back on it from our standpoint in the nine- teenth century, we can see that this marvellous discovery is as if some mysterious Well-wisher knew the tremendous conflict coming, and so thrust into the hands of the age this mightiest weapon against ignorance, — Printing, — as the arm in white samite rose out of the lake and placed the great brand Excalibur in the hands of Arthur.
In 1455 rage those Wars of the Roses between York and Lancaster which for so long kept blood and terror —
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 67
red and white indeed — at struggle in the whole complex- ion of English life.
In 1457 glass begins to be manufactured in England.
In 1471 four very notable things happen: Wolsey, the afterwards pathetic cardinal, is born ; Thomas a Kem- pis, the sweet-souled imitator of Christ, goes to see his Master ; Albert Durer is born ; and, what is perhaps a more significant circumstance than all, William Caxton, the first English printer, sets up a printing-press at West- minster, and English books straightway begin to multiply.
In 1473 Copernicus is born. In 1474 comes Michel- angelo.
In 1477 they begin to make watches at Nuremberg; and in the same year Titian is born.
In 1478 the Spanish Inquisition begins.
In 1483 Raphael appears in the world ; and in the same year Martin Luther is born.
In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovers America ; and in the same year five hundred thousand Jews are ban- ished from Spain.
In 1497 Vasco da Gama sails to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.
In 15CX) Savonarola and Machiavelli are flourishing in Italy.
In 1505 shillings begin to be coined in England; and John Knox is born.
In 1509 gardening begins to flourish in England, brought out of the Netherlands, and the people's fare is greatly varied with vegetables.
In 1 51 2 Ponce de Leon lands on the coast of Florida; and in 15 13 Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean.
A great year is 1517. Luther preaches against indul- gences ; Erasmus and Melanchthon appear on the scene ; gentle Roger Ascham, afterwards tutor to Queen Eliza-
68 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
beth and Jane Grey, is born ; Europeans are seen at Canton, China ; and Copernicus announces a comprehen- sible system of the universe.
In 1 52 1 Gustavus Vasa begins to show the Swedish people the sight of a man; while in the same year, far down in the southwestward of the world, that brilliant buccaneer Cortez is taking possession of the City of Mexico.
In 1 52 1 Magellan discovers the Philippine Islands, being the first man that ever sailed round the globe. In 1 519 he had sailed from Spain; he kept a westerly course for some three years, and finally his ship reached home.
In 1524 a considerable part of Europe was thrown into alarm by the prediction that another deluge was about to come upon the earth, and people might everywhere be seen building arks ; the season, however, happened to be unusually dry. In this year Palestrina is born.
In 1525 Sultan Baber establishes the great Mogul empire in India.
In 1529 we first hear the name of Protestant, which is applied in the Diet of Spires to those who protested against the mother church of Rome. In this same year Sir Thomas More is Lord Chancellor of England.
In 1533 Henry VIII marries Anne Bullen. In the same year Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester are born.
In 1534 AUegri (called Correggio from his Lombard village) dies.
In 1535 Ignatius Loyola founds the order of Jesuits; and Sir Thomas More is beheaded.
In 1538-39 more than six hundred monasteries and religious houses are suppressed in England and Wales by Henry VIII.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 69
In 1542 Mary Queen of Scots is born; and in the following year the King of France first wears silk stockings.
In 1545 a very great event happens : though it was a long time before people knew how great, and probably many at this day have never heard the name of Vesalius, who in this year brought out his work on anatomy.
In 1549 telescopes are invented; and Cervantes is born, to delight all the ages with the figure of Don Quixote.
In 1553 Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed Queen of Eng- land, remains queen for ten days, is then deposed, and soon after executed. In the same year Calvin causes Servetus to be burned.
In 1554 the common people of England are forbidden to wear silk.
In 1555 Ridley and Latimer are burned at Oxford.
In 1556 Charles V leaves a throne which commanded Germany, Austria, Hungary, Spain, and the Netherlands, and retires to a monastery.
In 1558 Elizabeth becomes Queen of England.
In 1 561 Francis Bacon is born.
In 1564 three very notable events happen: Galileo IS born at Pisa ; William Shakspere is born at Stratford ; and John Calvin dies at Geneva.
In 1572 the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in France takes place. Sir Philip Sidney is in Paris at this time, and finds refuge in the house of the English ambassador. In this same year false hair is brought into England from France, and the women thus acquire a new device against time.
In 1577 Sir Francis Drake sails away from England and goes round the globe, returning in three years, after many dangers and hardships. He is the first English circumnavigator.
70 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
In 1579 the Netherland provinces under William of Orange revolt ; and the next year Camoens dies.
In 1582 Tycho Brahe flourishes and greatly advances astronomy. In the same year Pope Gregory introduces the New Style calendar in Italy, the 5th of October being counted the 15th.
In 1583 tobacco is brought from Virginia into Eng- land. I think it notable, by the way, that Shakspere never mentions tobacco at all in his plays. One would think that a spectacle so odd as men puffing smoke from a weed out of their mouths and nostrils would certainly have fur- nished Shakspere with some allusion or other, for he was always hitting off current matters which occupied the peo- ple's minds in any way. Ben Jonson is full of it ; Cap- tain Bobadilla, for instance, in Every Man in his Humour^ invites Matthew — having first carefully ascertained that Matthew has two shillings in his pocket to pay for it — to go with him to an alehouse where they will have " a bunch of radish and salt, to taste our wine, and a pipe of tobacco to close the orifice of the stomach." Again, Cob, the water-carrier, in describing this same Captain Bobadilla, who is a lodger at Cob's house, says : " O, I have a guest. ... He does swear the legiblest of any man chris- tened : By St. George ; the foot 0/ Pharaoh ; the body of me; as I am a gentleman and a soldier; and withal he does take this same filthy roguish tobacco the finest and the cleanli- est ! It would do a man good to see the fume come forth at's tonnels." ^
In 1584 Miles Standish is born. In the same year Sir Walter Raleigh sails over to Virginia.
1 Cf. Sir John Hawkins's account Britons' substance, of which a
of tobacco in Lanier's Florida, and piece no bigger than a bean would
Sir Thomas Browne's and Stephen destroy the desire for food during
Gosson's account of the ancient two or three days, etc.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 71
In 1585 the first English colony in America is estab- lished at Roanoke.
In 1587 Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded.
In 1589 Henry of Navarre comes to the throne of France. In the same year English people begin to ride in coaches.
In 1592 Montaigne finishes his essay-writing for this world.
In 1595 Torquato Tasso dies.
In 1596 Descartes is born.
In 1598 Edmund Spenser becomes poet laureate of England.
In the same year the Edict of Nantes carries joy to the hearts of the Huguenots.
In 1600 the great East India Company of England is established ; Charles I of England is born ; and Giordano Bruno, a philosopher of very nimble wit, is burned at Rome for heresy.
In 1 601 Essex is beheaded.
In 1603 many thousand persons perish of the plague in London. In the same year James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, unites the crowns of England and Scotland upon his own head.
In 1604 the great translation of the Bible which we all now use is resolved upon by the conference of prelates and ministers.
In 1606 Dr. Gilbert becomes acquainted with the powers of electric conductors and non-conductors.
In 1608 people begin to eat with forks in England.
In 1609 the thermometer is invented.
In 1614 Sir John Napier invents logarithms; and New York City is founded by the Dutch. In this year also a project which had an immense influence upon the health and comfort of the people of London is carried out.
72 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
The New River is brought to the city and supplies it with water. The inhabitants had previously been served by water-carriers, who brought the water round in tankards every morning, as our postman carries letters, to each household. The poorer sort of people had to send apprentices, servants, and children after their water. In Ben Jonson's comedy of Every Man in his Humour^ Cob, one of the main characters, is a water-carrier. And when we think of the lavish way in which we use water from our liberal reservoirs, it gives one a startling idea of the housekeeping in those days when one finds a whole household like Kitely's, in Jonson's comedy, dependent on the water that one man, Cob, could bring ; for I find in one passage where Kitely, the master of the household, re- proaches Cob, who has been delayed on his rounds that day, with the trouble he had caused, telling him the maids will have him by the backy i* fait hy for coming so late in the morning.
Perhaps in those days of the mighty consumption of ale and sack the people shared in that aversion to water which old Jack Falstaflf expresses when he declares, with loathing, water swells a man.
In 1615 Richard Baxter is born.
In 1 61 6 William Shakspere dies.
Here, then, you have before your eyes the outer life of this wonderful age.
I ask you now to put the agility of your imaginations- to its proof, and to pass on from this dazzling array of names and events whose influence is in many cases so intimately connected with the every-day life not only of Shakspere's time but of our own, for the purpose of look- ing in upon some occurrences in the private life of Shak- spere, which throw light upon the inner life we shall discuss later, just as these historical facts help to explain the inner life of those marvellous centuries under review.