the day of gladness arrives a joy which even the great eye of the natural world was
to make manifest. Surely there was something exquisitely beautiful in the old
custom of going forth into the fields before the sun had risen on Easter-day, to see
him mounting over the hills with a tremulous motion, as if it were an animate thing
bounding in sympathy with the redeemed of mankind. The young poet might have
joined his simple neighbours on this cheerful morning, and yet have thought with
Sir Thomas Browne, " We shall not, I hope, disparage the Resurrection of our
Redeemer if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter-day." But one of the most
glorious images of one of his early plays has given life and movement to the sun :



"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's tops.



Saw he not the sun dance heard he not the expression of the undoubting belief
that the sun danced as he went forth into Stratford meadows in the early twilight
of Easter-day ?

On the road to Henley-in-Arden, about two or three hundred yards from the
house in Henley Street where John Shakspere once dwelt, there stood, when this
Biography was first written, a very ancient boundary-tree an elm which is recorded
in a Presentment of the Perambulation of the boundaries of the Borough of Strat-
ford, on the 7th of April, 1591, as " The Elme at the Dovehouse-Close end."* The
boundary from that elm in the Henley road continued in another direction to " the
two elms in Evesham highway." Such are the boundaries of the borough at this
day. At a period, then, when it was usual for the boys of Grammar Schools to
attend the annual perambulations in Rogation-week of the clergy, the magistrates
and public officers, and the inhabitants, of parishes and towns,t would William
Shakspere be found, in gleeful companionship, under this old boundary elm. There
would be assembled the parish priest and the schoolmaster, the bailiff and the church-
wardens. Banners would wave, poles crowned with garlands would be carried by
old and young. Under each Gospel-tree, of which this Dovehouse-Close Elm would
be one, a passage from Scripture would be read, a collect recited, a psalm sung.
With more pomp at the same season might the Doge of Venice espouse the Sea in
testimony of the perpetual domination of the Republic, but not with more heartfelt
joy than these the people of Stratford traced the boundaries of their little sway.
The Reformation left us these parochial processions. In the 7th year of Elizabeth
(1565) the form of devotion for the "Rogation days of Procession" was prescribed,
" without addition of any superstitious ceremonies heretofore used;" and it was
subsequently ordered that the curate on such occasions " shall admonish the people
to give thanks to God in the beholding of God's benefits," and enforce the scriptural
denouncements against those who removed their neighbours' landmarks. Beauti-
fully has Walton described how Hooker encouraged these annual ceremonials :
" He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both
rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and
liberties, to accompany him in his perambulation ; and most did so ; in which per-
ambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times,
and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remem-
bered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people ; still inclining
them, and all his present parishioners, to meekness and mutual kindnesses and love,
because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of infirmities." And so, per-
haps, listening to the gentle words of some venerable Hooker of his time, would the
young Shakspere walk the bounds of his native parish. One day would not suffice

* The original is in the possession of R. Wheler, Esq., of Stratford.
f See Brand's " Popular Antiquities/' by Sir H. Ellis, edit. 1841, vol. i., p. 123.



CHAP. VI.] HOLIDAYS. 43



;o visit its numerous Gospel-trees. Hours would be spent in reconciling differences
amongst the cultivators of the common-fields ; in largesses to the poor ; in merry-
making at convenient halting-places. A wide parish is this of Stratford, including
leven villages and hamlets. A district of beautiful and varied scenery is this parish
hill and valley, wood and water. Following the Avon upon the north bank, against
the stream, for some two miles, the processionists would walk through low and
fertile meadows, unenclosed pastures then in all likelihood. A little brook falls into
,he river, coming down from the marshy uplands of Ingon, where, in spite of modern
mprovement, the frequent bog attests the accuracy of Dugdale's description
' Inge signifyeth in our old English a meadow or low ground." The brook is traced
upwards into the hills of Welcombe ; and then for nearly three miles from Welcombe
Grreenhill the boundary lies along a wooded, ridge, opening prospects of surpassing
jeauty. There may the distant spires of Coventry be seen peeping above the
ntermediate hills, and the nearer towers of Warwick lying cradled in their surround-
ng woods. In another direction a cloud-like spot in the extreme distance is the
far-famed Wrekin ; and turning to the north-west are the noble hills of Malvern,
with their well-defined outlines. The Cotswolds lock-in the landscape on another
side ; while in the middle distance the bold Bredon-hill looks down upon the vale
of Evesham. All around is a country of unrivalled fertility, with now and then
a plain of considerable extent ; but more commonly a succession of undulating hills,
some wood-crowned, but all cultivated. At the northern extremity of this high
land, which principally belongs to the estate of Clopton, and which was doubtless a
park in early times, we have a panoramic view of the valley in which Stratford
lies, with its hamlets of Bishopton, Little Wilmecote, Shottery, and Drayton. As
the marvellous boy of the Stratford grammar-school looked upon that plain, how
little could he have foreseen the course of his future life ! For twenty years of his
manhood he was to have no constant dwelling-place in that his native town ; but it
was to be the home of his affections. He would be gathering fame and opulence in
an almost untrodden path, of which his young ambition could shape no definite
image ; but in the prime of his life he was to bring his wealth to his own Stratford,
and become the proprietor and the contented cultivator of some of the loved fields
that he now saw mapped out at his feet. Then, a little while, and an early tomb
under that gray tower a tomb so to be honoured in all ages to come,

" That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."

For some six miles the boundary runs from north to south, partly through land
which was formerly barren, and still known as Drayton Bushes and Drayton Wild
Moor. Here,

" Far from her nest the lapwing cries away." *

The green bank of the Avon is again reached at the western extremity of the
boundary, and the pretty hamlet of Luddington, with its cottages and old trees
standing high above the river sedges, is included. The Avon is crossed where the
Stour unites with it ; and the boundary extends considerably to the south-east,
returning to the town over Clopton's Bridge.

Shottery, the prettiest of hamlets, is scarcely a mile from Stratford. Here, in all
probability dwelt one who in a few years was to have an important influence upon
the destiny of the boy-poet. A Court Roll of the 34th Henry VIII. (1543) shows
us that John Hathaway then resided at Shottery ; and the substantial house which
the Hathaway s possessed, now divided into several cottages, remained with their
descendants till the very recent period of 1838. There were Hathaways, also, living

* " Comedy of Errors."



44 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK I.



in the town of Stratford, contemporaries of John Shakspere. We cannot say,
absolutely, that Anne Hathaway, the future wife of William Shakspere, was of
Shottery ; but the prettiest of maidens (for the veracious antiquarian Oldys says
there is a tradition that she was eminently beautiful) would have fitly dwelt in the
pleasantcst of hamlets. Pass the back of the cottage in which the Hathaways lived,
and enter that beautiful meadow which rises into a gentle eminence commanding the
hamlet at several points. Throw down the hedges, and there is here the fittest of
localities for the May-games. An impatient group is gathered under the shade of
the old elms, for the morning sun casts his slanting beams dazzlingly across that
green. There is the distant sound of tabor and bagpipe :
" Hark, hark ! I hear the dancing,

And a nimble inorris prancing ;

The bagpipe and the morris bells,

That they are not far hence us tells." *

From out of the leafy Arden are they bringing in the May-pole. The oxen move
slowly with the ponderous wain : they are garlanded, but not for the sacrifice.
Around the spoil of the forest are the pipers and the dancers maidens in blue
kirtles, and foresters in green tunics. Amidst the shouts of young and old, child-
hood leaping and clapping its hands, is the May-pole raised. But there are great
personages forthcoming not so great, however, as in more ancient times. There
are Robin Hood and Little John, in their grass-green tunics ; but their bows and
their sheaves of arrows are more for show than use. Maid Marian is there ; but
she is a mockery a smooth-faced youth in a watchet-coloured tunic, with flowers
and coronets, and a mincing gait, but not the shepherdess who

" With garlands gay
Was made the lady of the May." f

There is farce amidst the pastoral. The age of unrealities has already in part
arrived. Even amongst country-folks there is burlesque. There is personation,
with a laugh at the things that are represented. The Hobby-horse and the Dragon,
however, produce their shouts of merriment. But the hearty Morris-dancers soon
spread a spirit of genial mirth amidst all the spectators. The clownish Maid Marian
will now

" Caper upright like a wild Morisco : " J

Friar Tuck sneaks away from his ancient companions to join hands with some
undisguised maiden ; the Hobby-horse gets rid of his pasteboard and his foot-cloth ;
and the Dragon quietly deposits his neck and tail for another season. Something
like the genial chorus of " Summer's Last Will and Testament " is rung out :

" Trip and go, heave and ho,
Up and down, to and fro,
From the town to the grove,
Two and two, let us rove,
A Maying, a playing ;
Love hath no gainsaying :
So merrily trip and go."

The early-rising moon still sees the villagers on that green of Shottery. The piper
leans against the May-pole ; the featliest of dancers still swim to his music :

" So have I seen

Tom Piper stand upon our village green,
Back'd with the May -pole, whilst a jocund crew
In gentle motion circularly threw
Themselves around him."

* Weclkes's "Madrigals," 1600. f Nicholas Breton. J " Henry VI.," Part II.

Browne's " Britannia's Pastorals," Book ii. Second Song.



CHAP. VI.]



HOLIDAYS.



45



The same beautiful writer one of the last of our golden age of poetry has

described the parting gifts bestowed ^DOU the " merry youngsters" by

" The lady of the May
Set in an arbour, (on a holy-day,)
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,
"When envious night commands them to be gone."*




[Shottery.J

Eight villages in the neighbourhood of Stratford have been characterized in well-
known lines by some old resident who had the talent of rhyme. It is remarkable
how familiar all the country-people are to this day with these lines, and how inva-
riably they ascribe them to Shakspere :

" Piping Pelnvorth, dancing Marston,
Haunted Hilborough, hungry Grafton,
Dudgingf Exhall, Papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford."

It is maintained that the.se epithets have a real historical truth about them ; and

* Browne's " Britannia's Pastorals," Book ii. Fourth Song.
f Sulky, stubborn, in dudgeon.



46



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY.



[BOOK I.



so we must place the scene of a Whitsun-Ale at Bidford. Aubrey has given a sen-
sible account of such a festivity : " There were no rates for the poor in my grand-
father's days ; but for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the Church- Ale of
Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is, or was, a church-house, to which
belonged spits, crocks, &c., utensils for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers
met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there, too, and
had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c., the ancients sitting gravely by and
looking on. All things were civil, and without scandal."* The puritan Stubbs took
a more severe view of the matter than Aubrey's grandfather : " In certain towns
where drunken Bacchus bears sway, against Christmas and Easter, Whitsuntide, or
some other time, the churchwardens of every parish, with the consent of the whole
parish, provide half a score or twenty quarters of malt, whereof some they buy of
the church-stock, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, every one
conferring somewhat, according to his ability ; which malt, being made into very
strong ale or beer, is set to sale, either in the church or some other place assigned
to that purpose. Then, when this is set abroach, well is he that can get the
soonest to it, and spend the most at it."t Carew, the historian of Cornwall,
(1602), says, " The neighbour parishes at those times lovingly visit one another,
and this way frankly spend their money together." Thus lovingly might John
Shakspere and his friends, on a Whit-Monday morning, have ridden by the
pleasant road to Bidford now from some little eminence beholding their Avon
flowing amidst a low meadow on one side and a wood-crowned steep on t"he
other, turning a mill-wheel, rushing over a dam now carefully wending their way



>-..




[Bidford Bridge.]

through the rough road under the hill, or galloping over the free downs, glad
to escape from rut and quagmire. And then the Icknield Street t is crossed,



Miscellanies."



f " Anatomy of Abuses," 1585.



The Roman way which runs near Bidford.



CHAP. VL] HOLIDAYS. 47



and they look down upon the little town with its gabled roofs ; and they pass
the old church, whose tower gives forth a lusty peal ; and the hostel at the bridge
receives them ; and there is the cordial welcome, the outstretched hand and the
full cup.

But nearer home Whitsuntide has its sports also. Had not Stratford its " Lord
of Whitsuntide 1 " Might not the boy behold at this season innocence wearing a
face of freedom like his own Perdita ?

" Come take your flowers :
Methinks, I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals."*

Would there not be in some cheerful mansion a simple attempt jat dramatic
representation, such as his Julia has described in her assumed character of a
page ?

" At Pentecost,

When all our pageants of delight were play'd,

Our youth got me to play the woman's part ;

And I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown ;

Which served me as fit, in all men's judgments,

As if the garment had been made for me :

Therefore I know she is about my height.

And at that time I made her weep a-good,

For I did play a lamentable part :

Madam, 'twas Ariadne, passioning

For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight."f

Certainly on that holiday some one would be ready to recite a moving tale from
Gower or from Chaucer a fragment of the " Confessio Amantis" or of the " Troilus
and Creseide :"

" It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves, and holy-ales."!

The elements of poetry would be around him ; the dramatic spirit of the people
would be strugglij|g to give utterance to its thoughts, and even then he might
cherish the desire to lend it a voice.

The sheep-shearing that, too, is dramatic. Drayton, the countryman of our
poet, has described the shepherd-king :

" But, Muse, return to tell how there the shepherd-king,
Whose flock hath chanc'd that year the earliest lamb to bring,
In his gay baldric sits at his low grassy board,
With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties stor'd :
And, whilst the bagpipe plays, each lu&ty jocund swain
Quaffs syllabubs in cans to all upon the plain ;
And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear,
Some roundelays do sing, the rest the burden bear."

The vale of Evesham is the scene of Drayton's sheep-shearing. But higher up the
Avon there are rich pastures ; and shallow bays of the clear river, where the wash-
ing may be accomplished. Such a bay, so used, is there near the pretty village
of Alveston, about two miles above Stratford. One of the most delicious scenes
of the " Winter's Tale " is that of the sheep-shearing, in which we have the more
poetical shepherd-<^<m. There is a minuteness of circumstance amidst the exqui-
site poetry of this scene which shows that it must have been founded upon actual
observation, and in all likelihood upon the keen and prying observation of a boy

* "Winter's Tale," Act iv., Scene in. f " Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act IV., Scene m.

$ "Pericles/' Act I. " Polyolbion," Song XIV.



48 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY. [BOOK I.



occupied and interested with such details. Surely his father's pastures and his
father's homestead might have supplied all these circumstances. His father's man
might be the messenger to the town, and reckon upon "counters" the cost of the
sheep-shearing feast. "Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants, rice" and
then he asks, " What will this sister of mine do with rice ] " In Bohemia, the clown
might, with dramatic propriety, not know the use of rice at a sheep-shearing ; but a
Warwickshire swain would have the flavour of cheese-cakes in his mouth at the first
mention of rice and currants. Cheese-cakes and warden-pies were the sheep-
shearing delicacies. How absolutely true is the following picture :

" Fie, daughter ! when my old wife liv'd, upon
This day she was both pantler, butler, cook ;
Both dame and servant : welcom'd all, serv'd all :
Would sing her song, and dance her turn ; now here
At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle ;
On his shoulder, and his : her face o' fire
With laboiir ; and the thing she took to quench it
She would to each one sip."

This is the literal painting of a Teniers ; but the same hand could unite the unri-
valled grace of a Correggio. William Shakspere might have had some boyish dreams
of a " mistress o' the feast," who might have suggested his Perdita ; but such a
creation is of higher elements than those of the earth. Such a bright vision is
something more than " a queen of curds and cream."
The poet who says

" Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn ;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' exir,
And draw her home with music," *

had seen the Hock-Cart of the old harvest-home. It was the same that Paul
Hentzner saw at Windsor in 1598 : " As we were returning to our inn we happened
to meet some country-people celebrating their Harvest-home. Their last load
of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which
perhapst hey would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and
women, men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud
as they can till they arrive at the barn." In the reign of James I., Moresin, another
foreigner, saw a figure made of com drawn home in a cart, with men and women
singing to the pipe and the drum. And then Puritanism arose, to tell us that all
such expressions of the heart were pagan and superstitious, relics of Popery, abomi-
nations of the Evil One. Robert Herrick, full of the old poetical feeling, sang the
glories of the Hock-Cart in the time of Charles I. : but a severe religion, and there-
fore an unwise one, denounced all such festivals as the causes of debauchery ; and
so the debauchery alone remained with us. The music and the dancing were ban-
ished, but the strong drinks were left. Herrick tells us that the ceremonies of the
Hock-Cart were performed " with great devotion." Assuredly they were. Devotion
is that which knocks the worldly shackles off the spirit ; strikes a spark out of our
hard and dry natures ; enforces the money-getter for a moment to forego his gain,
and the penniless labourer to forget his hunger-satisfying toil. Devotion is that
which brings the tear into the eye and makes the heart throb against the bosom, in
silent forests where the doe gazes fearlessly upon the unaccustomed form of man,
by rocks overhanging the sea, in the gorge of the mountains, in the cloister of the
cathedral when the organ-peal comes and goes like the breath of flowers, in the
crowded city when joyous multitudes shout by one impulse. Devotion lived

* " Merchant of Venice," Act V., Scene I.



CHAP. VI.] HOLIDAYS. 49

amidst old ceremonials derived from a long antiquity ; it waited upon the seasons ;
it hallowed the seed-time and the harvest, and made the frosts cheerful. And thus
it grew into Religion. The feeling became a principle. But the formalists came,
and required men to be devout without imagination ; to have faith, rejecting tradi-
tion and authority, and all the genial impulses of love and reverence associated with
the visible world, the practical poetry of life, which is akin to faith. And so we
are what we are, and not what God would have us to be.

We have retained Christmas ; a starveling Christmas ; one day of excessive
eating for all ages, and Twelfth-cake for the children. It is something that rela-
tions meet on Christmas-day ; that for one day in the year the outward shows of
rivalry and jealousy are not visible ; that the poor cousin puts on his best coat to
taste port with his condescending host of the same name ; that the portionless nieces
have their annual guinea from their wealthy aunt. But where is the real festive
exhilaration of Christmas ; the meeting of all ranks as children of a common father ;
the tenant speaking freely in his landlord's hall ; the labourers and their families
sitting at the same great oak-table ; the Yule Log brought in with shout and song ?

" No night is now with hymn or carol blest." *

There are singers of carols even now at a Stratford Christmas. Warwickshire has
retained some of its ancient carols. But the singers are wretched chorus-makers,
according to the most unmusical style of all the generations from the time of the
Commonwealth. There are no " three-man song-men " amongst them, no " means
and bases ; " there is not even " a Puritan " who " sings psalms to hornpipes." t
They have retained such of the carols as will most provoke mockery :

" Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,

And come along with me,
For you 've a place provided in hell,
Upon a sarpant's knee."

And then the crowd laugh, and give their halfpennies. But in an age of music we
may believe that one young dweller in Stratford gladly woke out of his innocent
sleep, after the evening bells had rung him to rest, when in the stillness of the night
the psaltery was gently touched before his father's porch, and he heard, one voice
under another, these simple aiid solemn strains :

" As Joseph was a- walking He neither shall be clothed^

He heard an angel sing, In purple nor in pall,

This night shall be born But all in fair linen,
Our heavenly king. As were babies all.

He neither shall be born He neither shall be rock'd

In housen nor in hall, In silver nor in gold,

Nor in the place of Paradise, But in a wooden cradle

But in an ox's stall. That rocks on the mould."

London has perhaps this carol yet, amongst its halfpenny ballads. A man whose
real vocation was mistaken in his busy time, for he had a mind attuned to the love
of what was beautiful in the past, instead of being enamoured with the ugly dispu-
tations of the present, has preserved it ; t but it was for another age. It was for
the age of William Shakspere. It was for the age when superstition, as we call it,
had its poetical faith :

" Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

* " Midsummer Night's Dream." f " Winter's Tale."

t William Hone's " Ancient Mysteries," p. 92.



50



WILLIAM BHAKSPERE : A BIOGRAPHY.



[l?OOK I.



This bird of dawning singeth all night long ;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm :
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." *

Surely it is the poet himself who adds, in the person of Horatio,