A FEW FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. A PAPER READ BEFORE THE ERDINGTON LITERARY BY JAMES TURNER, A MEMBER OF THE BIRMINGHAM SHAKESPEARE READING CLUB. "Love in idleness." A Midsummer Night's Dream. PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. BIRMINGHAM: PRINTED BY JOSIAH ALLEN, 74, SUFFOLK STREET. MDCCCLXXXII. A FEW FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. SHAKESPEARE says "To business that we love we rise betimes, and go to it with delight." It has been remarked by a brother member that this being a work of love on my part, the night should be a red-letter one. I think, my friend has mistaken the issue, which lies not in the love but in the ability; if my ability were equal to my love it might be as he is kind enough to intimate, but I feel almost afraid to say anything about this truly great man, of whom so much has been said, and about whom I can say so little. I feel, as Hamlet says, "A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause; This king of poets-this prophet of the people—he is so full of everything: full of beauty, full of instruction, full of humour, full of love, full of philosophy, full of poetry, full of wisdom and truth, that whatever we are able to bring to the surface to-night will be but a small sample of that mine of wealth we shall leave untouched; and the few poor words I may be able to utter must necessarily be "As petty to his ends As is the morn-dew on myrtle leaf Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." I consider that an honour has been thrust upon me in being asked to say a few words about this many-sided man. His own words about that wild and wicked youth, who afterwards became so good a king in Henry V, will partially describe himself: "Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prelate: You would say it hath been all-in-all his study: The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, And truly there is a ring in his words, and music in the lines, which take possession of our senses even before we understand his meaning. He is so universal in his knowledge that he has been claimed by nearly all trades and professions: his knowledge of gardening, of medicine, of building is remarkable; his law phrases are so frequent, and betray such a technical knowledge, that many have thought he must have spent some part of his time in a solicitor's office; while his perfect knowledge of human nature and of all sorts of people is simply wonderful. There are upwards of a thousand characters in his plays, the majority having a distinct individuality, ranging from the thick-headed constable Goodman Dull-who, on being reminded in company that he had not spoken a word all the while, replied, "Nor understood none neither"-to the philosophical Hamlet who understood a deal of this world and seemed to look into the next-from Audrey, the country girl and shepherdess, who said she did not know what poetical was-to Juliet, who is poetry itself; from Caliban, half man, half monster, to "My dainty Ariel." "We are familiar at first."-Cymbeline. We all know more about him than we think we do; like the Bourgeoise Gentilhomme of Molière, who found he had been talking prose all his life, and didn't know it, so we quote Shakespeare all our lives without knowing it, his words are so woven into our daily talk. I will read a few familiar sayings culled from his works: A little pot soon hot.-Make a virtue of necessity.-Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.-The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.-Ill-will never said well.-A fool's bolt is soon shot.-Hold fast is the only dog.-Tell truth and shame the devil.-It is a good divine that follows his own instruction.-Hanging and wiving go by destiny.Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.-A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.-Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.-A light heart lives long.-There's a time for all things.-The fool thinks he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.-There is divinity in odd numbers.—When the age is in the wit is out.-All that glisters is not gold.-Brevity is the soul of wit.-They laugh that win.-A dog's obeyed in office. The night is long that never finds the day.—Pride must have a fall.—The better part of valour is discretion.-Give the devil his due. Great weeds do grow apace.-Few words to fair faith. 66 Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, The very few facts regarding his life may be briefly stated: born at Stratford-on-Avon in April, 1564, his father seems to have been a substantial tradesman of the town where he was, first, high bailiff, and afterwards alderman. Our poet was sent to Stratford Grammar School, and nothing more is known of him until he married, before he was nineteen years old, Ann Hathaway, the daughter of a well-to-do yeoman at Stratford, a woman eight years his senior. There was a little hurry about it; he was married after the publication of the banns once only, by permission-that is known for certain, because there was a bond entered into by Fulk Sandells and John Rychardson for the indemnity of the officers of the Consistorial Court of Worcester in granting that permission, dated the 28th of November, 1582, and the marriage is supposed to have taken place about Christmas. His first child, Susanna, was born in May of the year following, and in 1585 his wife presented him with twins-Hamnet and Judith-so that before he had reached his twenty-first year he had begun the responsibilities of housekeeping in earnest. It is conjectured that he, like many others, married in haste and repented at leisure, that this unequal |