English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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Years passed on, and the house in Henley Street grew ever more
noisy with chattering tongues and pattering feet, until little
Will had two sisters and two brothers to keep him company.

Then, although his father and mother could neither of them write
themselves, they decided that their children should be taught, so
William was sent to the Grammar School. He was, I think, fonder
of the blue sky and the slow-flowing river and the deep dark
woods that grew about his home that of the low-roofed schoolroom.
He went perhaps

"A whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school."

But we do not know. And whether he liked school or not, at least
we know that later, when he came to write plays, he made fun of
schoolmasters. He knew "little Latin and less Greek,"* said a
friend in after life, but then that friend was very learned and
might think "little" that which we might take for "a good deal."
Indeed, another old writer says "he understood Latin pretty
well."**

*Ben Jonson.
**John Aubrey.

We know little either of Shakespeare's school hours or play
hours, but once or twice at least he may have seen a play or
pageant. His father went on prospering and was made chief
bailiff of the town, and while in that office he entertained
twice at least troups of strolling players, the Queen's Company
and the Earl of Worcester's Company. It is very likely that
little Will was taken to see the plays they acted. Then when he
was eleven years old there was great excitement in the country
town, for Queen Elizabeth came to visit the great Earl of
Leicester at his castle of Kenilworth, not sixteen miles away.
There were great doings then, and the Queen was received with all
the magnificence and pomp that money could procure and
imagination invent. Some of these grand shows Shakespeare must
have seen.

Long afterwards he remembered perhaps how one evening he had
stood among the crowd tiptoeing and eager to catch a glimpse of
the great Queen as she sat enthroned on a golden chair. Her red-
gold hair gleamed and glittered with jewels under the flickering
torchlight. Around her stood a crowd of nobles and ladies only
less brilliant that she. Then, as William gazed and gazed, his
eyes aching with the dazzling lights, there was a movement in the
surging crowd, a murmur of "ohs" and "ahs." And, turning, the
boy saw another lady, another Queen, appear from out the dark
shadow of the trees. Stately and slowly she moved across the
grass. Then following her came a winged boy with golden bow and
arrows. This was the god of Love, who roamed the world shooting
his love arrows at the hearts of men and women, making them love
each other. He aimed, he shot, the arrow flew, but the god
missed his aim and the lady passed on, beautiful, cold, free, as
before. Love could not touch her, he followed her but in vain.

It was with such pageants, such allegories, that her people
flattered Queen Elizabeth, for many men laid their hearts at her
feet, but she in return never gave her own. She was the woman
above all others to be loved, to be worshiped, but herself
remained in "maiden meditation fancy-free." The memory of those
brilliant days stayed with the poet-child. They were sun-gilt,
as childish memories are, and in after years he wrote:

"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 loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before, milk-white; now, purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness."*

*Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II Scene i.

Some time after John Shakespeare became chief bailiff his
fortunes turned. From being rich he became poor. Bit by bit he
was obliged to sell his own and his wife's property. So little
Will was taken away from school at the age of thirteen, and set
to earn his own living as a butcher--his father's trade, we are
told. But if he ever was a butcher he was, nevertheless, an
actor and a poet, "and when he killed a calf he would do it in a
high style and make a speech."* How Shakespeare fared in this
new work we do not know, but we may fancy him when work was done
wandering along the pretty country lanes or losing himself in the
forest of Arden, which lay not far from his home, "the poet's eye
in a fine frenzy rolling," and singing to himself:

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a."*

*Winter's Tale, Act IV Scene ii.

*John Aubrey.

He knew the lore of fields and woods, of trees and flowers, and
birds and beasts. He sang of

"The ousel-cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay."*

*Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III Scene i.

He remembered, perhaps, in after years his rambles by the slow-
flowing Avon, when he wrote:

"He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport, to the wide ocean."*

*Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II Scene vii.

He knew the times of the flowers. In spring he marked

"the daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."*

*Winter's Tale.

Of summer flowers he tells us

"Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer."*

*Winter's Tale.

He knew that "a lapwing runs close by the ground," that choughs
are "russet-pated." He knew all the beauty that is to be found
throughout the country year.

Sometimes in his country wanderings Shakespeare got into mischief
too. He had a daring spirit, and on quiet dark nights he could
creep silently about the woods snaring rabbits or hunting deer.
But we are told "he was given to all unluckiness in stealing
venison and rabbits."* He was often caught, sometimes got a good
beating, and sometimes was sent to prison.

*Archdeacon Davies.

So the years passed on, and we know little of what happened in
them. Some people like to think that Shakespeare was a
schoolmaster for a time, others that he was a clerk in a lawyer's
office. He may have been one or other, but we do not know. What
we do know is that when he was eighteen he took a great step. He
married. We can imagine him making love-songs then. Perhaps he
sang:

"O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true-love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers' meeting;
Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure."*

*Twelfth Night.

The lady whom Shakespeare married was named Anne Hathaway. She
came of farmer folk like Shakespeare's own mother. She was eight
years older than her boyish lover, but beyond that we know little
of Anne Hathaway, for Shakespeare never anywhere mentions his
wife.
A little while after their marriage a daughter was born to Anne
and William Shakespeare. Nearly two years later a little boy and
girl came to them. The boy died when he was about eleven, and
only the two little girls, Judith and Susanna, lived to grow up.

In spite of the fact that Shakespeare had now a wife and children
to look after, he had not settled down. He was still wild, and
being caught once more in stealing game he left Stratford and
went to London.

Chapter XLVI SHAKESPEARE--THE MAN

WHEN Shakespeare first went to London he had a hard life. He
found no better work to do than that of holding horses outside
the theater doors. In those days the plays took place in the
afternoon, and as many of the fine folk who came to watch them
rode on horseback, some one was needed to look after the horses
until the play was over. But poor though this work was,
Shakespeare seems to have done it well, and he became such a
favorite that he had several boys under him who were long known
as "Shakespeare's boys." Their master, however, soon left work
outside the theater for work inside. And now began the busiest
years of his life, for he both acted and wrote. At first it may
be he only altered and improved the plays of others. But soon he
began to write plays that were all his own. Yet Shakespeare,
like Chaucer, never invented any of his own stories. There is
only one play of his, called Love's Labor's Lost, the story of
which is not to be found in some earlier book. That, too, may
have been founded on another story which is now lost.

When you come to know Shakespeare's plays well you will find it
very interesting to follow his stories to their sources. That of
King Lear, which is one of Shakespeare's great romantic
historical plays, is, for instance, to be found in Geoffrey of
Monmouth, in Wace's Brut, and in Layamon's Brut. But it was from
none of these that Shakespeare took the story, but from the
chronicle of a man named Holinshed who lived and wrote in the
time of Queen Elizabeth, he in his turn having taken it from some
one of the earlier sources.

For, after all, in spite of the thousands of books that have been
written since the world began, there are only a certain number of
stories which great writers have told again and again in varying
ways. One instance of this we saw when in the beginning of this
book we followed the story of Arthur.

But although Shakespeare borrowed his plots from others, when he
had borrowed them he made them all his own. He made his people
so vivid and so true that he makes us forget that they are not
real people. We can hardly realize that they never lived, that
they never walked and talked, and cried and laughed, loved and
hated, in this world just as we do. And this is so because the
stage to him is life and life a stage. "All the world's a
stage," he says,

"And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances:
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."*

*As You Like It.

And again he tells us:

"Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more."*

*Macbeth.

It is from Shakespeare's works that we get the clearest picture
of Elizabethan times. And yet, although we learn from him so
much of what people did in those days, of how they talked and
even of how they thought, the chief thing that we feel about
Shakespeare's characters is, not that they are Elizabethan, but
that they are human, that they are like ourselves, that they
think, and say, and do, things which we ourselves might think,
and say, and do.

There are many books we read which we think of as very pretty,
very quaint, very interesting--but old-fashioned. But
Shakespeare can never be old-fashioned, because, although he is
the outcome of his own times, and gives us all the flavor of his
own times, he gives us much more. He understood human nature, he
saw beneath the outward dress, and painted for us real men and
women. And although fashion in dress and modes of living may
change, human nature does not change. "He was not of an age but
for all time," it was said of him about seven years after his
death, and now that nearly three hundred years have come and gone
we still acknowledge the truth of those words.

Shakespeare's men and women speak and act and feel in the main as
we might now. Many of his people we feel are our brothers and
sisters. And to this human interest he adds something more, for
he leads us too through "unpathed waters" to "the undreamed
shores" of fairyland.

Shakespeare's writing time was short. Before he left Stratford
he wrote nothing unless it may have been a few scoffing verses
against the Justice of the Peace who punished him for poaching.
But these, if they were ever written, are lost. In the last few
years of his life he wrote little or nothing. Thus the number of
his writing years was not more than twenty to twenty-five, but in
that time he wrote thirty-seven plays, two long poems, and a
hundred and fifty-six sonnets. At one time he must have written
two plays every year. And when you come to know these plays well
you will wonder at the greatness of the task.

Shakespeare writes his plays sometimes in rime, sometimes in
blank verse, sometimes in prose, at times using all these in one
play. In this he showed how free he was from rules. For, until
he wrote, plays had been written in rime or blank verse only.

For the sake of convenience Shakespeare's plays have been divided
into histories, tragedies and comedies. But it is not always
easy to draw the line and decide to which class a play belongs.
They are like life. Life is not all laughter, nor is it all
tears. Neither are Shakespeare's comedies all laughter, and some
of his tragedies would seem at times to be too deep for tears,
full only of fierce, dark sorrow--and yet there is laughter in
them too.

Besides being divided into histories, tragedies and comedies they
have been divided in another way, into three periods of time.
The first was when Shakespeare was trying his hand, when he was
brimming over with the joy of the new full life of London. The
second was when some dark sorrow lay over his life, we know not
what, when the pain and mystery and the irony of living seems to
strike him hard. Then he wrote his great tragedies. The third
was when he had gained peace again, when life seemed to flow
calmly and smoothly, and this period lasted until the end.

We know very little of Shakespeare's life in London. As an actor
he never made a great name, never acted the chief character in a
play. But he acted sometimes in his own plays and took the part,
we are told, of a ghost in one, and of a servant in another,
neither of them great parts. He acted, too, in plays written by
other people. But it was as a writer that he made a name, and
that so quickly that others grew jealous of him. One called him
"an upstart Crow, beautified in our feathers . . . in his own
conceit the only Shake-scene in the country."* But for the most
part Shakespeare made friends even of rival authors, and many of
them loved him well. He was good-tempered, merry, witty, and
kindly, a most lovable man. "He was a handsome, well-shaped man,
very good company, and a very ready and pleasant smooth wit,"**
said one. "I loved the man and do honor to his memory, on this
side of idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an
open and free nature,"*** said another. Others still called him
a good fellow, gentle Shakespeare, sweet Master Shakespeare. I
should like to think, too, that Spenser called him "our pleasant
Willy." But wise folk tell us that these words were not spoken of
Shakespeare but of some one else whose name was not William at
all.

*Robert Greene, A groatsworth of Wit bought with a million of
repentance.
**John Aubrey.
***Ben Jonson.

And so although outside his work we get only glimpses of the man,
these glimpses taken together with his writings show us Will
Shakespeare as a big-hearted man, a man who understood all and
forgave all. He understood the little joys and sorrows that make
up life. He understood the struggle to be good, and would not
scorn people too greatly when they were bad. "Children, we feel
sure," says one of the latest writers about him, "did not stop
their talk when he came near them, but continued in the happy
assurance that it was only Master Shakespeare."* And so if
children find his plays hard to read yet a while they may at
least learn to know his stories and learn to love his name--it is
only Master Shakespeare. But they must remember that learning to
know Shakespeare's stories through the words of other people is
only half a joy. The full joy of Shakespeare can only come when
we are able to read his plays in his very own words. But that
will come all the more easily and quickly to us if we first know
his stories well.

*Prof. Raleigh.

There are parts in some of Shakespeare's plays that many people
find coarse. But Shakespeare is not really coarse. We remember
the vision sent to St. Peter which taught him that there was
nothing common or unclean. Shakespeare had seen that vision. In
life there is nothing common or unclean, if we only look at it in
the right way. And Shakespeare speaks of everything that touches
life most nearly. He uses words that we do not use now; he
speaks of things we do not speak of now; but it was the fashion
of his day to be more open and plain spoken than we are. And if
we remember that, there is very little in Shakespeare that need
hurt us even if there is a great deal which we cannot understand.
And when you come to read some of the writers of Shakespeare's
age and see that in them the laughter is often brutal, the horror
of tragedy often coarse and crude, you will wonder more than ever
how Shakespeare made his laughter so sweet and sunny, and how,
instead of revolting us, he touches our hearts with his horror
and pain.

About eleven years passed after Shakespeare left Stratford before
he returned there again. But once having returned, he often paid
visits to his old home. And he came now no more as a poor wild
lad given to poaching. He came as a man of wealth and fame. He
bought the best house in Stratford, called New Place, as well as
a good deal of land. So before John Shakespeare died he saw his
family once more important in the town.

Then as the years went on Shakespeare gave up all connection with
London and the theater and settled down to a quiet country life.
He planted trees, managed his estate, and showed that though he
was the world's master-poet he was a good business man too.
Everything prospered with him, his two daughters married well,
and comfortably, and when not more than forty-three he held his
first grandchild in his arms. It may be he looked forward to
many happy peaceful years when death took him. He died of fever,
brought on, no doubt, by the evil smells and bad air by which
people lived surrounded in those days before they had learned to
be clean in house and street.

Shakespeare was only fifty-two when he died. It was in the
springtime of 1616 that he died, breathing his last upon

"The uncertain glory of an April day
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun
And by and by a cloud takes all away."*

*Two Gentlemen of Verona.

He was buried in Stratford Parish Church, and on his grave was
placed a bust of the poet. That bust and an engraving in the
beginning of the first great edition of his works are the only
two real portraits of Shakespeare. Both were done after his
death, and yet perhaps there is no face more well known to us
than that of the greatest of all poets.

Beneath the bust are written these lines:

"Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
Read, if thou-canst, whom envious Death hath plast
Within this monument; Shakespeare with whome
Quick nature dide: whose name doth deck ys tombe,
Far more than cost, sith all yt he hath writt,
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt."

Upon a slab over the grave is carved:

"Good frend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare;
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones."

And so our greatest poet lies not beneath the great arch of
Westminster but in the quiet church of the little country town in
which he was born.

Chapter LXVII SHAKESPEARE--"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE"

IN this chapter I am going to tell you in a few words the story
of one of Shakespeare's plays called The Merchant of Venice. It
is founded on an Italian story, one of a collection made by Ser
Giovanni Fiorentino.

The merchant of Venice was a rich young man called Antonio. When
the story opens he had ventured all his money in trading
expeditions to the East and other lands. In two months' time he
expects the return of his ships and hopes then to make a great
deal of money. But meantime he has none to spare, and when his
great friend Bassanio comes to borrow of him he cannot give him
any.

Bassanio's need is urgent, for he loves the beautiful lady Portia
and desires to marry her. This lady was so lovely and so rich
that her fame had spread over all the world till "the four winds
blow in from every coast renowned suitors." Bassanio would be
among these suitors, but alas he has no money, not even enough to
pay for the journey to Belmont where the lovely lady lived. Yet
if he wait two months until Antonio's ships return it may be too
late, and Portia may be married to another. So to supply his
friend's need Antonio decides to borrow the money, and soon a Jew
named Shylock is found who is willing to lend it. For Shylock
was a money-lender. He lent money to people who had need of it
and charged them interest. That is, besides having to pay back
the full sum they had borrowed they had also to pay some extra
money in return for the loan.

In those days Jews were ill-treated and despised, and there was
great hatred between them and Christians. And Shylock especially
hated Antonio, because not only did he rail against Jews and
insult them, but he also lent money without demanding interest,
thereby spoiling Shylock's trade. So now the Jew lays a trap for
Antonio, hoping to catch him and be revenged upon his enemy. He
will lend the money, he says, and he will charge no interest, but
if the loan be not repaid in three months Antonio must pay as
forfeit a pound of his own flesh, which Shylock may cut from any
part of his body that he chooses.

To this strange bargain Antonio consents. It is but a jest, he
thinks.

"Content in faith, I'll seal to such a bond,
And say, there is much kindness in the Jew."

But Bassanio is uneasy. "I like not fair terms," he says, "and a
villain mind. You shall not seal to such a bond for me." But
Antonio insists and the bond is sealed.

All being settled, Bassanio receives the money, and before he
sets off to woo his lady he gives a supper to all his friends, to
which he also invites Shylock. Shylock goes to this supper
although to his daughter Jessica he says,

"But wherefore should I go?
I am not bid for love; they flatter me:
But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
The prodigal Christian."

But Jessica does not join her father in his hatred of all
Christians. She indeed has given her heart to one of the hated
race, and well knowing that her father will never allow her to
marry him, she, that night while he is at supper with Bassanio,
dresses herself in boy's clothes and steals away, taking with her
a great quantity of jewels and money.

When Shylock discovers his loss he is mad with grief and rage.
He runs about the streets crying for justice.

"Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter!
A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
Of double ducats stol'n from me by my daughter!"

And all the wild boys in Venice follow after him mocking him and
crying, "His stones, his daughter and his ducats!"

So finding nowhere love or sympathy but everywhere only mockery
and cruel laughter, Shylock vows vengeance. The world has
treated him ill, and he will repay the world with ill, and
chiefly against Antonio does his anger grow bitter.

Then Antonio's friends shake their heads and say, "Let him beware
the hatred of the Jew." They look gravely at each other, for it
is whispered abroad that "Antonio hath a ship of rich lading
wreck'd on the narrow seas."

Then let Antonio beware.

"Thou wilt not take his flesh," says one of the young merchant's
friends to Shylock. "What's that good for?"

"To bait fish withal," snarls the Jew. "If it will feed nothing
else it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered
me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains,
scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,
heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the
same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a
Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle
us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you
wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what
is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what
should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard
but I will better the instruction."