the masculine sex: fools, simpletons, heroes, philosophers, lovers, hearts of rock, braggadocios. The universe is her domain, heaven inspires her conduct, she interprets enigmas, reveals to each his duty; all creation is at her feet. If, in "Much ado," Beatrice finds her match, and meets a Benedick capable of answering her attacks, the Rosalind of "As you like it," another heroine disguised as a page (the third now), leads the play, all the interest of which is at court when she happens to be there, and in the forest when it becomes her home. It is an imaginary forest, in the land of fancy, where an old duke, deprived of his throne, lives with his faithful lords, not troubling himself about his duchy, nor about anything else: Et je dirai, songeant aux hommes, que font-ils ? (Sully Prudhomme.) But suddenly the forest, in which are also to be met amorous shepherds, a melancholy Jaques, a jovial, rascally and wanton clown, is invaded by Rosalind, and at once all its inhabitants are subject to her laws. Pretty, petulant, amorous, she does and says everything that passes through her head, solves all difficulties and problems, dictates to each his conduct; she knows that she is one of the poet's favourites, one of his spoiled children, that she can do anything she pleases, that he will let her do it; she even boasts of her privilege. Still more visible is the poet's partiality in "The • Played ab. 1599 (1594, Lodge, Times Lit. Supt., June 4, 1925), enter. 1500, but printed only in the folio of 1623; source: the pretty and very popular novel by Lodge, "Rosalynde, Euphues golden Legacie," 1590 (8th ed. 1623). Lodge himself took his inspiration from the old "Tale of Gamelyn" that Chaucer had intended to introduce into his " Canterbury Tales"; see above, vol. I. p. 324, and "English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare," p. 202. Merchant of Venice," the most beautiful of the plays of that class, with its mixture of intense and tragic reality and its impossible, but delightful fancies, its redoubtable Shylock, so well drawn, standing out sombre of aspect and clothing, in the clear light of Venice, stamped in our memories from his first words; its Antonio, pensive and kind, with the noble mien and pallid hues of an old portrait; its young gentlemen of brilliant wit and raiment, always ready to love. The shades who haunt the Corer Museum, on the marble border of the Grand Canal, are restored to life; the noble Venetians of the Villa Maser come down from the frescoes in which Veronese has figured them. That variety of scenes on the Piazza, about the Rialto, in the Ghetto, or in the ducal palace, all these personages, gay or gloomy, are dominated, enlightened, instructed, comforted, or punished by the lady of Belmont. Take away Belmont and the drama will not stand. Belmont is fairyland; everything there is young, beautiful, radiant, and charming; from there can come only happiness, joy, and marvels. This admitted, as it needs must be, there is nothing to do but let events take their course; there is only pleasure in store. Even the Moor from Morocco and high-spoken Arragon cannot cause the least anxiety; they please, on the contrary; they are part of the scenery, shown for the delight of our eyes. Who would ' Performed about 1595, 1st ed.: "The excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the lewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh and the obtayning of Portia, by the choyse of three chests. . . Written by W. Shakespeare," London, Tho. Heyes, 1600; other ed., J. Roberts, same year (but real date 1619 according to Greg, Library, Apr. 1908; cf. Athenæum, Nos. 4237 ff.), and 1637, 1652. Source: a lost play having the same double plot (story of the three caskets and story of the pound of flesh, both very old and very popular throughout all Europe; cf. above, I. p. 185), as is shown by an allusion of Gosson's, in his "Schoole of Abuse," 1579, to the effect that this old drama, called "The Jew," represented "the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and bloody mindes of Usurers" (ed. Arber, p. 40). wish to suppress Veronese's blackamoors and apes in his "Marriage at Cana"? Why drive them away or be unkind to them? They have, it is true, nothing to do with the miracle, but they have come with friendly intentions, to offer an agreeable sight to the onlookers. At Belmont the park is incomparable, music is sweeter than elsewhere, the moon and stars are more brilliant, beauty never wanes, nor does love, nor do the inexhaustible treasures preserved there in sequins and ducats. Everything fair, young, and good is beloved, and the lady of the place is worthy of her lot. The inhabitants of Belmont are wrapped in fayerye; a magic halo follows them wherever they go, especially Portia, queen of that fairy land. Is the manner in which Antonio is saved from the Jew by the wise doctor of Padua unbelievable ? Not at all; it is the magic of Belmont at work. It works to the utmost with the sans-gène little doctor, a fairy doctor obviously. Before him, no more doge, no more "magnificoes," no more tribunal; it is he who pleads, renders the sentence, and devises the penalty; no one dreams of objecting he comes from Belmont. The elegant Gratiano marries at the end, without so much as wincing, nor without any one being in the least surprised, a mere "waiting-maid," but she is a waiting-maid from Belmont. And so great is the charm of that enchanted park for lovers that, as soon as Lorenzo and Jessica arrive there, the spectator includes them in the sympathy and indulgence granted to all the inhabitants of the place, and forgets to hate and despise those young thieves. VI. Shakespeare's life continued to oscillate between two centres, London and Stratford. In London he earns and spends; in Stratford he lays by. In the capital he acquires much fame and money, and wastes in common adventures much of his good repute. In Stratford he accumulates treasures of respectability; there he has father, mother, wife and children, goodly houses and fair lands. He remains faithful to the plan of life which he had adopted from the beginning. The citizens of the little town now saw the rich Mr. Shakespeare come back better and better off, a more and more important personage, a well-to-do landowner, influential yonder in the great city, where he played before the Queen and frequented the peers of the realm: great things were said of him. People came to him when in trouble and requested his help, and asked him, as Ronsard had been asked in his old age, to be godfather to a new-born child. Jovial, hearty, hospitable, but a man of order, and keeping his accounts with care, he bought a hundred and seven acres of good land in 1602, and farmed a moiety of the tithes of Stratford in 1605, an operation which brought him gains and law-suits in abundance.1 He brooked no trifling in matters of business, and his debtors learnt with scant pleasure of his visits to the country. In the capital his profits and his literary renown went on increasing; his theatre, the Globe, was the most popular of all; on the accession of James I. his comrades and he received the title of the King's Servants; they performed at court much oftener than in the time of Elizabeth. The company was sent for, at Whitehall, eleven times during the winter of 1604-5, and acted, among other plays, "Othello." When James I. gave in The chapter of the collegial church of Stratford had farmed in 1544 the tithes of Stratford, etc., for 92 years. In 1605 it was a question of buying from the lessee one half of his rights for the years still to run. Shakespeare, qualified as "generosus" (gentleman) in the indenture (Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," ii. 19), paid for it £440. On his living in 1604 with a French wig-maker, Silver Street, London (Wallace's discovery), see below, App. II. marriage to the Elector Palatine, Frederick V., his daughter who was to be the ancestress of the present Kings of England, seven plays of Shakespeare's were performed during the festivities.1 Whether from the influence of his surroundings, from temptations, personal inclination, or the part which must be allotted to the weaker sides of human nature, certain it is that the famous "Will" did not, in London, set the example of domestic virtues. Belonging to the theatrical world, he lived in the manner habitual to that world, as a wealthy and popular player; he was not the man to disdain the favours of those city dames whose heads, as is well known, were easily turned by the stage and its actors; and he was not restrained by the presence of either wife or children. Why did he never bring them to London, but leave his daughters to grow up, his son to die, and her who had given herself to him in her youth to live as a widow most of the time, far from him? "Let it be borne in mind," replies a modern biographer, " that Shakespeare's occupations debarred him from the possibility of his sustaining even an approach to a continuous domestic life." 2 But those occupations in no way differed from those of Alleyn, Heminge, Condell, Burbage, and other actors who led domestic lives in the same place, at the same time, the former with the "sweet mouse," his wife, the latter with the spouse whom he made his sole executrix. If Shakespeare lived differently, it was from choice, not from necessity. He observed, however, some measure in his follies; he never plunged into over-scandalous excesses, for the rumour of it would have come down to us, as has been the 64 "Much Ado," "Tempest," "Winter's Tale," 46 Merry Wives," "Othello," "Julius Cæsar," 1 Henry IV.," May, 1613.-" Centurie of Prayse," p. 103. 2 Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," vol. i. p. 129. |