Her portion equal his."

The impatient lover then again exclaims,

" Contract us 'fore these witnesses."

The shepherd takes the hands of the youth and the maiden. Again the lover
exclaims,

" Mark our contract."

The ceremony is left incomplete, for the princely father discovers himself with,
" Mark your divorce, young sir."

We have thus shown, by implication, that in the time of Shakspere betrothment
was not an obsolete rite. Previous to the Reformation it was in all probability that
civil contract derived from the Roman law, which was confirmed indeed by the
sacrament of marriage, but which usually preceded it for a definite period, some
say forty days, having perhaps too frequently the effect of the marriage of the
Church as regarded the unrestrained intercourse of those so espoused. In a work
published in 1543, "The Christian State of Matrimony," we find this passage : "Yet
in this thing also must I warn every reasonable and honest person to beware that
in the contracting of marriage they dissemble not, nor set forth any lie. Every man



158 WILLIAM 8HAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK II.



likewise must esteem the person to whom he is handfasted none otherwise than for
his own spouse ; though as yet it be not done in the church, nor in the street.
After the handfasting and making of the contract the church-going and wedding
should not be deferred too long." The author then goes on to rebuke a custom,
"that at the handfasting there is made a great feast and superfluous banquet ;" and
he adds words which imply that the Epithalamium was at this feast sung, without
a doubt of its propriety, " certain weeks afore they go to the church," where

" All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister'd."

The passage in "The Tempest" from which we quote these lines has been held
to show that Shakspere denounced, with peculiar solemnity, that impatience which
waited not for " all sanctimonious ceremonies." * But it must be remembered that
the solitary position of Ferdinand and Miranda prevented even the solemnity of a
betrothment ; there could be no witnesses of the public contract ; it would be of
the nature of those privy contracts which the ministers of religion, early in the reign
of Elizabeth, were commanded to exhort young people to abstain from. The proper
exercise of that authority during half a century had not only repressed these privy
contracts, but had confined the ancient practice of espousals, with their almost in-
evitable freedoms, to persons in the lower ranks of life, who might be somewhat
indifferent to opinion. A learned writer on the Common Prayer, Sparrow, holds
that the Marriage Service of the Church of England was both a betrothment and a
marriage. It united the two forms. At the commencement of the service the man
says, " I plight thee my troth ;" and the woman, "I give thee my troth." This
form approaches as nearly as possible to that of a civil contract ; but then comes
the religious sanction to the obligation, the sacrament of matrimony. In the form
of espousals so minutely recited by the priest in " Twelfth Night," he is only present
to seal the compact by his " testimony." The marriage customs of Shakspere's
youth and the opinions regarding them might be very different from the practice and
opinions of thirty years later, when he wrote " The Tempest." But in no case does
he attempt to show, even through his lovers themselves, that the public trothplight
was other than a preliminary to a more solemn and binding ceremonial, however it
might approach to the character of a marriage. It is remarkable that Webster, on
the contrary, who was one of Shakspere's later contemporaries, has made the heroine
of one of his noblest tragedies, " The Duchess of Main," in the warmth of her
affection for her steward, exclaim

" I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber
Per verba prcesenli is absolute marriage."

This is an allusion to the distinctions of the canon law between betrothing and
marrying the betrothment being espousals with the verba de fuiuro ; the marriage,
espousals with the verba de prcesenti. The Duchess of Main had misinterpreted the
lawyers when she believed that a secret "contract in a chamber" was "absolute
marriage," whether the engagement was for the present or the future.

It is scarcely necessary to point out to our readers that the view we have taken
presupposes that the licence for matrimony, obtained from the Consistorial Court at
Worcester, was a permission sought for under no extraordinary circumstances ;
still less that the young man who was about to marry was compelled to urge on
the marriage as a consequence of previous imprudence. We believe, on the contrary,
that the course pursued was strictly in accordance with the customs of the time, and

* Life of Shakspeare by Mr. de Quincey, in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica."



CHAP. X.]



THE TROTHPLIGHT AND THE WEDDIXG.



159



of the class to which Shakspere belonged. The espousals before witnesses, we have
no doubt, were then considered as constituting a valid marriage, if followed up
within a limited time by the marriage of the Church. However the Reformed
Church might have endeavoured to abrogate this practice, it was unquestionably the
ancient habit of the people. It was derived from the Roman law, the foundation of
many of our institutions. It prevailed for a long period without offence. It still
prevails in the Lutheran Church. We are not to judge of the customs of those
days by our own, especially if our inferences have the effect of imputing criminality
where the most perfect innocence existed. Because Shakspere's marriage-bond is
dated in November, 1582, and his daughter is born in May, 1583, we are not to
believe that here was " haste and secrecy." Mr. Halliwell has brought sound docu-
mentary evidence to bear upon this question ; he has shewn that the two bondsmen,
Sandels and Richardson, were respectable neighbours of the Hathaways of Shottery,
although, like Anne herself, they are described as of Stratford. This disposes of the
" secrecy." In the same year that Shakspere was married, Mr. Halliwell has shewn
that there were two entries in the Stratford Register, recording the church rite of
marriage to have preceded the baptism of a child, by shorter periods than indicated
1 y Shakspere's marriage-bond ; and that in cases where the sacrcdness of the marriage
has been kept out of view, illegitimacy is invariably noted in these registers. The
"haste" was evidently not required in fear of the scandal of Stratford. We believe
that the course pursued was strictly in accordance with the custom of the time, and
of the class to which the Shaksperes and Hathaways belonged.




[House in Charlcote Village.]



The bells of some village church near Stratford are ringing for a wedding, in the
last days of November, 1582. The out-door ceremonials are not quite so rude as
those which Ben Jonson has delineated ; but they are founded on the same primitive



160 WILLIAM SHAKSPEKE : A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK II.



customs. There are " ribands, rosemary, and bay for the bridemen ; " and some one
of the rustics may exclaim

" Look ! and the wenches ha' not found 'un out,
And do parzent un' with a van of rosemary,
And bays, to vill a bow-pot, trim the head
Of my best vore horse ! we shall all ha' bride laces,
Or points I zee."*

Like the father in Jonson's play, the yeoman of Shottery might say to his dame

" You 'd have your daughters and maids
Dance o'er the fields like fays to church :"

but he will not add

" I '11 have no roundels."

He will not be reproached that he resolved

" To let no music go afore his child
To church, to cheer her heart up." f

On the other hand, there are no court ceremonials here to be seen,

" As running at the ring, plays, masks, and tilting." J

There would be the bride-cup and the wheaten garlands ; the bride led by fair-haired
boys, and the bridegroom following with his chosen neighbours :



*' Glide by the banks of virgins then, and pass
The showers of roses, lucky four-leav'd grass ;
The while the cloud of younglings sing,
And drown ye with a flow'ry spring ;

While some repeat
Your praise, and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat,

While that others do divine
* Blest is the bride on whom the sun doth shine.' "

The procession enters the body of the church ; for, after the Keformation, the knot
was no longer tied, as, at the five weddings of the Wife of Bath, at " church-door."
The blessing is pronounced, the bride-cup is called for : the accustomed kiss is given
to the bride. But neither custom is performed after the fashion of Petrucio :

" He calls for wine : ' A health,' quoth he ; as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm : quaff'd off the muscadel,
And threw the sops all in the sexton's face ;
Having no other reason,
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly,
And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.
This done, he took the bride about the neck,
And kiss'd her lips with such a clamourous smack,
That, at the parting, all the church did echo." ||

* " Tale of a Tub," Act I., Scene n. f " Tale of a Tub," Act II., Scene i.

t "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," Act iv., Scene in. Herrick's " Hesperides.'

II " Taming of the Shrew," Act in., Scene n.



CHAP. X.] THE TROTHPLIGHT AND THE WEDDING. 161



They drink out of the bride-cup with as much earnestness (however less the for-
mality) as the great folks at the marriage of the Elector Palatine to the daughter of
James I. : " In conclusion, a joy pronounced by the King and Queen, and seconded
with congratulation of the lords there present, which crowned with draughts of
Ippocras out of a great golden bowl, as an health to the prosperity of the marriage,
began by the Prince Palatine, and answered by the Princess." *

We will not think that "when they come home from church then beginneth
excess of eating and drinking ; and as much is wasted in one day as were sufficient
for the two new-married folk half a year to live upon." t The Dance follows the
banquet :

'* Hark ! hark ! I hear the minstrels play." f

* Quoted in Reed's " Shakspeare," from Finet's " Philoxenis."
f " Christian State of Matrimony." J " Taming of the Shrew," Act HI., Scene 11.



M 2




j



o \V

f BOOKIIlI





[Clifford Church.]



CHAPTER I.



LEAVING HOME.



" THIS William, being inclined^ naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I
guess about eighteen, and was an actor at one of the playhouses, and did act exceed-
ingly well. Now Ben Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor.
He began early to make Essays at Dramatic Poetry, which at that time was very
low, and his plays took well." So writes honest Aubrey, in the year 1680, in his
"Minutes of Lives" addressed to his "worthy friend, Mr. Anthony a Wood, Anti-
quary of Oxford." Of the value of Aubrey's evidence we may form some opinion
from his own statement to his friend : " T is a task that I never thought to have
undertaken till you imposed it upon me, saying that I was fit for it by reason of my
general acquaintance, having now not only lived above half a century of years in the
world, but have also been much tumbled up and down in it ; which hath made me
so well known. Besides the modern advantage of coffee-houses in this great city,
before which men knew not how to be acquainted but with their own relations or
societies, I might add that I come of a longaevous race, by which means I have wiped



166 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE: A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK in.



some feathers off the wings of time for several generations, which does reach high."*
It must not be forgotten that Aubrey's account of Shakspere, brief and imperfect as
it is, is the earliest known to exist. Eowe's "Life" was not published till 1707 ;
and although he states that he must own a particular obligation to Betterton, the
actor, for the most considerable part of the passages relating to this life "his vene-
ration for the memory of Shakspeare having engaged him to make a journey into
Warwickshire on purpose to gather up what remains he could of a name for which
he had so great a veneration" we have no assistance in fixing the date of Better-
ton's inquiries. Betterton was born in 1635. From the Eestoration until his
retirement from the stage, about 1700, he was the most deservedly popular actor of
his time ; " such an actor," says " The Tatler," " as ought to be recorded with the
same respect as Roscius among the Romans." He died in 1710 ; and looking at
his busy life, it is probable that he did not make this journey into Warwickshire
until after his retirement from the theatre. Had he set about these inquiries earlier,
there can be little doubt that the "Life" by Rowe would have contained more
precise and satisfactory information. Shakspere's sister was alive in 1646 ; his
eldest daughter, Mrs. Hall, in 1649 ; his second daughter, Mrs. Quiney, in 1662 ;
and his grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, in 1670. The information which might be
collected in Warwickshire, after the death of Shakspere's lineal descendants, would
necessarily be mixed up with traditions, having for the most part some foundation,
but coloured and distorted by that general love of the marvellous \vhich too often
hides the fact itself in the inference from it. Thus, Shakspere's father might have
sold his own meat, as the landowners of his time are reproached by Harrison for
doing, and yet in no proper sense of the word have been a butcher. Thus, the
supposition that the poet had intended to satirize the Lucy family, in an allusion to
their arms, might have suggested that there was a grudge between him and the
knight ; and what so likely a subject of dispute as the killing of venison ? The
tradition might have been exact as to the dispute ; but the laws of another century
could alone have suggested that the quarrel would compel the poet to fly the
country. Aubrey's story of Shakspere's coming to London is a simple and natural
one, without a single marvellous circumstance about it: " This William, being
inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London." This, the elder story,
appears to us to have much greater verisimilitude than the later : "He was obliged
to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself
in London." Aubrey, who has picked up all the gossip " of coffee-houses in this
great city," hears no word of Rowe's story, which would certainly have been handed
down amongst the traditions of the theatre to Davenant and Shadwell, from whom
he does hear something : "I have heard Sir William Davenant and Mr. Thomas
Shadwell (who is counted the best comedian we have now) say, that he had a most
prodigious wit." Neither does he say, nor indeed any one else till two centuries
and a quarter after Shakspere is dead, that, " after four years' conjugal discord, he
would resolve upon that plan of solitary emigration to the metropolis, which, at the
same time that released him from the humiliation of domestic feuds, succeeded so
splendidly for his worldly prosperity, and with a train of circumstances so vast for
all future ages."t It is certainly a singular vocation for a writer of genius to bury
the legendary scandals of the days of Rowe, for the sake of exhuming a new scandal,
which cannot be received at all without the belief that the circumstance must have
had a permanent and most evil influence upon the mind of the unhappy man who
thus cowardly and ignominiously is held to have severed himself from his duty as a
husband and a father. We cannot trace the evil influence, and therefore we reject

* This letter, which accompanies the "Lives," is dated London, June 15, 1680.
f " Encyclopaedia Britannica."



CHAP. I.] LEAVING HOME. 167



the scandal. It has not even the slightest support from the
weakest tradition. It is founded upon an imperfect com-
parison of two documents, judging of the habits of that period
by those of our own day ; supported by quotations from a
dramatist of whom it would be difficult to affirm that he ever
wrote a line which had strict reference to his own feelings
and circumstances, and whose intellect in his dramas went so
completely out of itself that it almost realizes the description
of the soul in its first and pure nature that it " hath no
idiosyncrasies ; that is, hath no proper natural inclinations
which are not competent to others of the same kind and
condition." *

In the baptismal register of the parish of Stratford for the
year 1583 is the entry of the birth of Susanna. This record
necessarily implies the residence of the wife of William Shak-
sperc in the parish of Stratford. Did he himself continue to
reside in this parish ? There is no evidence of his residence.
His name appears in no suit in the Bailiff's Court at this
] period. He fills no municipal office such as his father had
filled before him. But his wife continues to reside in the
native place of her husband, surrounded by his relations and
her own. His father and his mother no doubt watch with
anxious solicitude over the fortunes of their first son. He has
a brother Gilbert, seventeen years of age, and a sister of four-
teen. His brother Richard is nine years of age ; but Edmund
is young enough to be the playmate of his little Susanna. In
1585 there is another entry in the parochial register, the
birth of a son and a daughter.

William Shakspere has now nearly attained his majority.
While he is yet a minor he is the father of three children.
The circumstance of his minority may perhaps account for
the absence of his name from all records of court-leet, or
bailiffs court, or common-hall. He was neither a constable,
^Q nor an ale-conner, nor an overseer, nor a jury-man, because

^i he was a minor. We cannot affirm that he did not leave

Stratford before his minority expired ; but it is to be inferred,
^\ that, if he had continued to reside at Stratford after he was
^ legally of age, we should have found traces of his residence
C^ in the^records of the town. If his residence were out of
^^ the borough, as we have supposed his father's to have been
at this period, some trace would yet have been found of
him, in all likelihood, within the parish. Just before the termina-
tion of his minority we have an undeniable record that he was a second
time a father within the parish. It is at this period, then, that we
would place his removal from Stratford ; his flight, according to the
old legend ; his solitary emigration, his unamiable separation from his
family, according to the new discovery. That his emigration was even
solitary we have not a tittle of evidence. The one fact we know with
reference to Shakspcre's domestic arrangements in London is this:
that as early as 1596 he was the occupier of a house in Southwark. "From a

* " Enquiry into the Opinion of the Eastern Sages concerning the Prae-existence of Souls." By
the Rev. Joseph Glanvil.



168 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK III.



paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn, the player,
our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear-garden, in 1596."*
Malone does not describe this paper ; but Mr. Collier found it at Dulwich College,
and it thence appears that the name of " Mr. Shaksper " was in a list of " Inhabitants
of Sowtherk as have complaned, this of Jully, 1596." It is immaterial to know
of what Shakspere complained, in company with " Wilson the piper," and sundry
others. The neighbourhood does not seem to have been a very select one, if we
may judge from another name in this list. "We cannot affirm that Shakspere was
the solitary occupier of this house in Southwark. Chalmers says, " it can admit of
neither controversy nor doubt, that Shakspere in very early life settled in a family
way where he was bred. Where he thus settled, he probably resolved that his wife
and family should remain through life ; although he himself made frequent excursions
to London, the scene of his profit, and the theatre of his fame." Mr. Hunter has
discovered a document which shews that " William Shakespeare was, in 1598, assessed
in a large sum to a subsidy upon the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopgate. He was
assessed, also, in the Liberty of the Clink, Southwark, in 1609 ; but whether for a
dwelling-house, or for his property in the Globe, is not evident. His occupation as
an actor both at the Blackfriars and the Globe, the one a winter, the other a summer
theatre, continued till 1603 or 1604. His interest as a proprietor of both theatres
existed in all probability till 1612. In 1597 Shakspere became the purchaser of
the largest house in Stratford, and he resided there with his family till the time of
his death in 1616. Many circumstances show that his interests and affections were
always connected with the place of his birth.

William Shakspere, "being inclined naturally to poetry and acting," naturally
became a poet and an actor. He would become a poet, without any impelling
circumstances not necessarily arising out of his own condition. " He began early to
make essays at dramatic poetry, which at that time was very low." Aubrey's
account of his early poetical efforts is an intelligible and consistent account.
Shakspere was familiar with the existing state of dramatic poetry, through his
acquaintance with the stage in the visits of various companies of actors to Stratford.
In 1584, there had been three sets of players at Stratford, remunerated for their
performances out of the public purse of the borough. These were the players of
"my Lord of Oxford," the Earl of Warwick, and the Earl of Essex. In 1585 we
have no record of players in the borough. In 1586 there is only one performance
paid for by the Corporation. But in 1587 the Queen's players, for the first time,
make their appearance in that town ; and their performances are rewarded at a
much higher rate than those of any previous company. Two years after this, that
is in 1589, we have undeniable evidence that Shakspere had not only a casual
engagement, was not only a salaried servant, as many players were, but was a share-
holder in this very Queen's company, with other shareholders below him in the list.
The fair inference is, that he did not at once jump into his position. Rowe says
that, after having settled in the world in a family manner, and continued in this
kind of settlement for some time, the extravagance of which he was guilty in robbing
Sir Thomas Lucy's park obliged him to leave his business and family. He could
not have so left, even according to the circumstances which were known to Rowe,
till after the birth of his son and daughter in 1585. But the story goes on : "It
is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is said to have made his first
acquaintance in the playhouse. He was received into the company then in being,
at first in a very mean rank ; but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to
the stage, soon distinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent

* Malone : "Inquiry," Sec., p. 215.



CHAP. I.] LEAVING HOME. 169



writer." Sixty years after the time of Howe the story assumed a more circum-
stantial shape, as far as regards the mean rank which Shakspere filled in his early
connexion with the theatre. Dr Johnson adds one passage to the " Life," which he
says " Mr. Pope related, as communicated to him by Mr. Howe." It is so remarkable
an anecdote that it is somewhat surprising that Rowe did not himself add it to his
own meagre account :

" In the time of Elizabeth, coaches being yet uncommon, and hired coaches not
at all in use, those who were too proud, too tender, or too idle to walk, went on
horseback to any distant business or diversion. Many came on horseback to the
play ; and when Shakspeare fled to London from the terror of a criminal prosecu-
tion, his first expedient was to wait at the door of the playhouse, and hold the
horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready again after the
performance. In this office he became so conspicuous for his care and readiness,
that in a short time every man as he alighted called for Will Shakspeare, and
scarcely any other waiter was trusted with a horse while Will Shakspeare could be
had. This was the first dawn of better fortune. Shakspeare, finding more horses
put into his hand than he could hold, hired boys to wait under his inspection, who,
when Will Shakspeare was summoned, were immediately to present themselves.
1 1 am Shakspeare's boy, Sir.' In time, Shakspeare found higher employment ; but
as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held
the horses retained the appellation of Shakspeare's boys."