coming to the ale presently, when time fitted. Do thou stand by the baskets and give out the dole as I shall tell thee. Hast thou the bag of groats ready, too? Assist.-Beadle. Yea, Master Derrick.

[They distribute the provisions and money Flute. Shall I not have a loaf and a groat for my wife? She hath had twins this morning, therefore could not come.

Old Woman. Thy wife, forsooth! my son hath worked at New Place, and helped to mend the fence i' th' garden last winter, and now is he rheumaticky and bed-rid. A dole for him, I pray you, sweet Master Derrick.

Beadle. Be not too forward, woman; thou art not too well thought on, I warrant thee.

Old Woman. Is acquaintance and service to count for nought? - 'tis a shame, then.

dles is Shakespeare's own man Adam. I will speak to him. This is a sharp sundering for thee, Adam. Leave thy basket. Step aside, and speak with me of thy good master.

Adam. O Master Drayton, I looked that he should bury me: would I were with him! Were I young, I could ne'er hope to see such another master; and being old, I have no desire but to follow him.

Drayton. Was his sickness sudden? Adam. Nay, sir, I have foreboded, this many a day, how 'twas with him. He hath pined and dwindled, and then again he hath mended for a while and would walk abroad; and ever with a kind word and a jest, as was his wont. But I found, from day to day, his step slower, his hand heavier on my shoulder, his breath shorter.

Drayton. Did himself look for his end?

66

Adam. Ay, sir; but made as though he had a long to-come before him. Four days since ('twas o' Sunday) he said to me, Adam, I have a fancy about my burial; but say nought of it as yet to my daughter. I have here set down the names of those I desire to bear me to the grave; " which he thereupon read to me, and they are even now in the house, mak

Beadle. Quiet thy tongue, mistress; it may be I shall be called on to deal with thee in other fashion than doles. Thou art deputed by many for a witch, let me tell thee; thou art suspect of keeping a toad, and, moreover, 'tis thought thou hast a familiar, one Hopdance.* (To another.) But wherefore hangst thou back, Cicely Hacket, thou that wast once a maid-ser-ing ready. vant at New Place? Press nearer, and hold out thine apron.

Cicely. Oh, sir, I came not here for the dole, but indeed to see the last of him who hath been ever kind to me and mine.

Drayton. Some of note and condition, mayhap?

Adam. Not so, not so, not so, Master Drayton; there art thou wide indeed of the mark. Never trod man among men who looked on gentle and simple with a Beadle. The more reason thou shouldst more equal brotherly eye than Master have thy part. Let her do so, Goodman Shakespeare. A fine coat or a ragged Turgis, for thou knowst that she that jerkin made no more difference in a man, humbleth herself should be exhorted; in his eyes, than whether his hair were and 'twere not ill, methinks, if thou gav'st black or brown. Nay, strange to tell of a her, moreover, a share for her sick moth-man of his gifts, he seemed oft to find as er. (Calling through the gate to boys in much matter in a fool as in a wise man; the churchyard.) Young fry, wilt thou he would take pleasure in discoursing leave leaping over the gravestones? else shall my staff and thy backs be better acquainted. I see thee, young Pickbone, drumming with thine heels on Mistress Keech's epithet; come off the stone, or 'twill be worse for thee, thou naughty varlet and thy tall slip of a sister, too, I saw her but now up with her coats and over the railing of yonder tomb like any stag.

Drayton (to Raleigh). The oldest of

these servants that came with the bea

"Hopdance cries in Tom's belly for two white herrings. Croak not, black angel!" Edgar (feigning madness) in "King Lear."

+ Cicely Hacket, described by Sly as "the woman's maid of the house," in the "Taming of the Shrew."

with many a one of this town that simple
I would have fubbed off as a lackwit. So
he saith to me, "First have I set down,
to carry the head of my coffin, Hugh Bar-
dolph and Corporal Nym,'
,"* poor men,
both, Master Drayton. Bardolph, one of
many of the name here, was a tapster;
Nym, a pensioner of the Earl of Leicester,
in whose army he served in the Low
Countries, though I did never hear with
much credit.

Raleigh. Bardolph and Nym! O brave
Shakespeare!

Adam. "Next," he saith, "I have set down John Rugby and James Gurney,"

* See "King Henry V."

Assist-Beadle. I will govern myself as thou desirest, good neighbour.

Adam. I have here herbs, for those I who will bear them at the funeral. Will ye have cypress or rosemary, sirs?

Drayton. Thanks, good Adam ; we will bear each a branch of cypress, and will long wear it in our hearts, too. [The Beadles and Servants depart for New Place. Drayton and Raleigh pass into the Churchyard.

bearing a branch of yew, cypress, or rosemary in one hand, a taper in the other. As the Choristers enter the Churchyard they begin to sing the following:—]

FUNERAL HYMN.

I.

Part of our hearts thou bear'st with thee
To silence and to dust,

Fond hopes that now must withered be,
Unfading love and trust;

So thou wilt lie not all alone
Beneath thy monumental stone.

II.

No echoes of this fretful world,

No glimmer of the day,

Can reach thee, in thy shroud enfurled,

Thou canst not hear us pray,

Nor seest our tears, nor heed'st our moan,
Beneath thy monumental stone.

III.

The good thou didst thy brother here,
The evil put aside,

The victory gained o'er sloth and fear,

O'er avarice, hate, and pride,
These make the wealth thou still canst own
Above thy monumental stone.

IV.

With these for warrant thou shalt go
Where sorrows enter not;
Still new thy paths, when here below
Thy sculptured name's forgot,
The roof decayed, the grasses grown
Above thy monumental stone.

Raleigh. Methinks, Master Drayton, these verses might better befit some good husband and father of the common sort, than Shakespeare, whose glorious intellect, shining through his works, is his indefeasible title to remembrance. To sing of him thus, is to speak of a falcon and say nought of her wings; to commend Behemoth for other qualities than his strength; to sum up. Cæsar and forget his universal empire.

with flushed, tear-bedewed face (yet with a corner of an eye to beholders, methinks) his other and younger daughter, the buxom Judith, married, 'tis two months since, to that comfortable vintner, Master Quiney, who trieth vainly to cover his natural contentment with a decorous mask of woe.

Raleigh. And who handleth his taper and his branch as 'twere a bottle and a glass. Sir Thomas and Master Thynne I already know, but who are the next?

Drayton. He with the shrewd pale face, and bushy eyebrows is Julius Shaw, with whom walks jovial William Reynoldsboth friends and neighbours of Shakespeare; and after them come two other of his friends,- Antony Nash, whose face of gloom is the endowment of nature, and lendeth poignancy to his many jests and Thomas Combe, son of Johna-Combe. The pair that follow are Hamnet and Judith Sadler, the god-parents of Shakespeare's twin-children. And marked you the austere aspect of the minister? he is one of the Puritan sort, much thought of by the Halls, out of favour to whom he comes, doubtless, to do this office. The rest be town dignities, as aldermen and burgesses, and other townsfolk.

[The Procession passes into the Church, Drayton and Raleigh joining it, and the service begins. After prayers at the grave, the Minister preaches a short Sermon, which ends in this wise:-]

"So, friends, having essayed to draw from the presence of death in our midst some matter for edification, I will speak a word of this particular brother who hath departed, dwelling, as is at these seasons the custom, chiefly on what may do him grace, and serve to sweeten his memory in the nostrils of those whom he hath left still in the bonds of the flesh. And, first, Drayton. It is apparent, Walter, that of the fountain of his charities-it hath these good citizens believe they have in been known in Stratford for a perennial hand one who differs from them only in spring, abundant in refreshment to the that his steps have lain in paths apart poor, and in counsel and all good offices from theirs, even as an ostrich differs to those who needed countenance of from a swan in strangeness rather than another kind; and if (as must be said in excellence. Therefore it may seem to were a man to speak truly) he ever rethem that this hymn, which hath, doubt-garded necessity more than deserving, less, heralded many an honest alderman to his grave, may also serve very well for Shakespeare.

Raleigh. Tell me of the mourners: who is she that stoops her long hood so low between her taper and her branch of rosemary?

and inquired not over closely into the way of life of those he relieved — nay, would ofttimes succour and comfort the godless no less than the godly, and bestow his bounty where it was like to be ill-spent

Probably the same Preacher who is mentioned in

Drayton. His daughter, Mistress Hall; old records of the Stratford Corporation as having been beside whom walks her husband. Next, la guest at New Place a year or two before.

[The Sermon ended, the Coffin is borne to the grave, the Minister and Mourners stand around, the service is concluded, and all depart from the Church.]

yet is that to be accounted better than | profess not to have that acquaintance the withholding altogether of alms, as with the writings called plays, nor poems some use. Next, of his excellent charity other than godly hymns, to judge his of another sort, I mean the brotherly re- handiwork), cannot be held profitable for lation he held with all conditions of men; him that writes nor him that hears them. it hath been noted among you that he, And therefore, whatsoe'er of wit and who was used elsewhere to consort with sense they may contain must be acthe great, and hath been favoured even counted as water poured out on the sand, by princes, would yet converse with the which, better bestowed, might have sollowly on a general level of goodwill, as if aced the thirsty, and nourished the herbs the only apparel he took thought of were and the fruits, whereof many would have the skin we are all born with; for which, eaten and been strengthened. But though indeed, he had great ensample. And, I may not altogether hold my peace on again, he hath ever gone among his fel- these matters, yet am I loth to dwell on lows with a cheerful spirit, so that his them at this time; rather would I point presence hath been as wine among to the hope that our departed brother had, friends, and as oil among makebates. in the soberer life he of late led among And though I dare not say that he in- you, put aside such toys as unworthy, clined of preference to the conversation and given us warrant to forget in him of the godly, nor could be counted of the their author, and, moreover, to believe fellowship of saints, nor even a favourer that, had he been spared unto us, he would of them, yet have I ever found him apt at have removed himself further, year by serious converse, courteous in bearing, year, from such vanities and lightnesses weighty in reply, and of unshakeable se- of his youth, until, haply, by the ensamrenity when I have adventured to press ple of a godly household, and the ministhe truth on him somewhat instantly; in-trations of faithful expounders of God's somuch that I, whose vocation 'tis to bat- Word, he should have attained even to tle for the truth, have myself, ere now, the perfect day." been sore put to it to hold mine own, and found me in straits to oppose him, so 'nimble was his wit; though I doubt not that (the clear right being with me) I should, with time for recollection, have had vouchsafed to me the wherewithal to give him sufficient answer. And it hath, at these times, seemed to me that he was a goodly vessel full of merchandise, yet driven by the wind apart from the port where alone her cargo could be bartered for that which is bread; and I have travailed over him with a sore travail; for I have hardly doubted that, with such gifts, he might, had it been so ordered, have justly aspired to be chief magistrate of your town, or even to serve you in Parliament; or again, with diligent study and prayer, to become a preacher of weight, and have struck in the pulpit, a good stroke for God's honour and the devil's discomfiture. But, alas! it is known to all of you, and I dare not dissemble it, that his calling hath been one that delighteth the carnal-minded, and profiteth the idle, and maketh the godly sad of heart; while, as for his talent, it hath been put out to use where the only return is the praise which fleeteth as the bubble on the stream, and the repute which perisheth as the leaves of autumn; for the making of rhymes and verses which flatter the ear, and the art of representing the vain shows of things, which, howe'er skilfully practised (and I

SCENE V.- The Street near New Place.

Raleigh (hastening to rejoin Drayton). Your pardon, sir, for seeming to forsake you; I did but stay to throw my branch of cypress into the grave, and have kept only this handful, which I will preserve as a memorial, and make of it an heirloom. But, Master Drayton, I had some ado to refrain from answering that preacher even in the church; for I have somewhat of my father's bluntness, and cannot abide that folly or conceit, in the guise whether of honesty, or religion, or philosophy, should go unchallenged; and here was a man who, having the vision of a mole, mistook Parnassus for a molehill, and went about to measure it with his ell-wand, and even thought to do men service by persuading them that the golden lights and purple shadows of the mountain, its fountains and dells, the forests that clothe it, the clouds that crown it, and the Muses that make it their haunt, are all vain illusions together.

Drayton. You shall find, Master Walter, as you grow older, that all greatness which is not gross and palpable doth require some keenness of vision to discern

it; therefore doth fame ofttimes grow | Shakespeare's child. But what of the slowly, and from small beginnings, as wife who helped him to these daughters? when a man notes, of a sudden, in the Drayton. 'Twas Shakespeare's mishap, else familiar aspect of the heavens, an sir (and I say it for your warning), to wed eclipse or a comet, and others gather to at an age when the fancy and heat of him, till the crowd swells, and the rumour youth o'ercrow the judgment. He had, goes abroad of a portent. And thus will seen few women, and none of the finest. it be with the fame of Shakespeare, who Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's elder by had so much in common with common eight years, was buxom as Judith is now; men that they accounted him one of them- his fancy dressed her in qualities not selves, as Mercury passed among herds-hers; the secrecy of their meetings lent men for a herdsman, and Apollo among shepherds for a shepherd.

Raleigh. Lo you, where the mourners of his household approach the house. Let us wait here while they enter, and I pray you beguile the minute by telling me of them. Of what fashion is Mistress Hall?

Drayton. Susannah is, from a child, of an earnest nature and a serious wit. Learning little from books, she hath learned much from converse and observation, and so in her hath her father found a companion; somewhat retiring at first, but upon occasion speaking warmly with spirit; devout withal, capable of strict argument for conscience' sake, yet of a becoming humility; so that I have oft thought her father drew the Isabella of "Measure for Measure" from her, she being about twenty years old when 'twas writ; even her who says

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good
But graciously to know I am no better.
Raleigh. Is her helpmate worthy of
her?

a flavour of adventure; and so he became bound to one who matched with him as finch with falcon, in youth a country lass, in age a mere housewife, something fretful, but, in the sum, contented; and Shakespeare, who was of a temper to fit himself to what is, dwelt with her here in much kindness. But see- Doctor Hall doth await us on the steps of the entrance.

Doctor Hall. Master Drayton, I pray
you that you pass not by the house of
your departed friend without entering; I
beseech you, sir, you and your friend;
'twill be a kindness to come in. You shall,
not be excused, sirs.

SCENE VI.—A Room in Shakespeare's House.
DOCTOR HALL, DRAYTON, and RALEIGH.

Doctor Hall. Here, sirs, is my fatherin-law's parlour, where he hath mostly abided in this last illness. Be pleased to sit while I fetch my wife, who will part with a few moments of her sorrow in seeing so old a friend.

[He goes out.

Drayton. A worthy man is Doctor Hall Raleigh. By Saint George, sir, the poet - who consorts with Susannah in piety was bravely lodged! How rich the stainas in love: one who, next to God and ing of this window, where, through the his wife, loveth his most honourable call-lower panes, we look on the garden! and ing, and hath grown to a physician of repute here in Warwickshire, much sought after by great ones of the shire.

Raleigh. Taketh the fair Judith in aught after her father?

above, there stands emblazoned the falcon with his golden spear, steel-pointed, that Sir Thomas told us of. This wainscot, too, is quaintly carved, and the chimney-front of a rich design. But, soft you now- -whose graven portrait is this that hangs in the midst of it? By my troth, 'tis my father's !

Drayton. Hardly sir; though her twinbrother, Hamnet, who died young, was a child of rare promise. The girl is sprightly, but of small depth or substance, fa- Drayton. Ay, Master Raleigh; think vouring the mother. She might have sat not but that the poet, with his wide emfor Anne Page, being about sixteen when brace for his fellow-men, took such merit her father drew Anne; and she is well-as Sir Walter's near his soul. The darmatched with Master Quiney, whose witing that went forth on the unknown deep, o'ertops not hers, who is gay and jovial as becometh a vintner, taking pleasure in what pleases her. Marry, he hath the merit of being the son of her father's old friend Richard Quiney.

Raleigh. Sir, a nobleman might have fittingly found in her a mate, she being

the search for El Dorado, the finding of strange lands and stranger peoples, all these fired his fancy. 'Tis to our great mariners we owe the sweet magic of Prospero's isle, the innocence of Miranda, the savageness of Caliban, the witcheries of Ariel.