"Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear! And in the fourth scene of the second act, after posting from the ungrateful and inhospitable Goneril, when he addresses the equally unkind Regan, whom he fondly hopes "better know'st The offices of nature, bond of childhood, Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude," there is something so simply pathetic, that one is sure the dramatist well knew and felt the affection that should always exist between parent and child :— "Beloved Regan, Thy sister's naught. Oh, Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here; [Points to his heart.] I can scarce speak to thee: thou'lt not believe And then (act ini, scene 4th) when he is abroad on the barren heath, with Kent and the fool, exposed to "the pelting of the pitiless storm," how fine is the exclamation of Lear, who is indeed "a man more sinned against than sinning:" "When the mind's free, The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand Well might the faithful Glo'ster, loyal to the last, tell the perfidious Regan, that he would see "The winged vengeance overtake such children." When Shakspere wrote the passages I have here quoted, his father had paid the debt of nature, and been in his grave some six years; whilst his mother would be an aged and infirm woman,-most probably upon her death-bed, for she died soon after. Have we here, then, no index to the heart of “gentle Willy" in his prosperity? But it is not as a man of forty-three years, the popular dramatist, the wealthy player, the friend of Lord Southampton, that we are now considering him; only these passages let us into the very heart of Shakspere, and prove, to my individual satisfaction at least, what good parents this boy Shakspere (for as such we are now to consider him) possessed in his Stratford home. In the political world we have Mary, Queen of Scots, raising an army to oppose the arms of her rebellious subjects, defeated by Murray, flying to England for protection, and detained as a prisoner. We have also the commencement of a war with Spain, and the papists establish an English college at Douay, to supply England with their priests. In the church, the puritans create divisions; and a new and beautiful edition of the Bible is printed in London, revised by the bishops, under the auspices of Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The engravings are curiously chosen,-portraits of Queen Elizabeth, and of her favourites, Leicester and Burleigh; and St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews is illustrated by a woodcut from the heathen, instead of the Christian mythology,-the story of Leda and Jupiter!-The English Bible is this year introduced into Scotland. The poems of the brave Sir David Lyndsay, whose powerful pen was alike dreaded by the corruptionists in church and state, are now collected and given to the Scottish readers in a corrected edition; Sir David having died about thirteen years before.--From the English press we have "A new, merry, and witty comedy or interlude, newly imprinted, treating upon the history of Jacob and Esau, taken out of the first book of Moses, entitled Genesis." The secular drama continues to develope itself. "Tancred and Gismunda," the first English play known to be derived from an Italian novel, was this year acted before Elizabeth; and the play of "Like will to Like" was also produced this year. John Stow being reported to the queen's council as a dangerous character, with heretical books in his possession, the bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, sends Watts his chaplain, a parson named Williams, and Bedel the clerk to the Ecclesiastical Commission, to search the study of the historian. The result of their search is thus related by his editor, the Rev. John Strype : "That he had great collections of his own for the English Chronicles, wherein, as Watts signified to the bishop, he seemed to have bestowed much travel. They found also a great sort of old books printed; some fabulous, as of Sir Gregory Triamour, etc, and a great parcel of old MS. Chronicles, both in parchment and paper. And that besides he had miscellaneous tracts touching physic, surgery, and herbs, and medical recipts; and also fantastic popish books, printed in old time; and also others written in old English, in parchment. But another sort of books he had more modern; of which the said searchers thought fit to take an inventory, as likely most to touch him; and they were books lately set forth in the realm or beyond sea, in defence of papistry: which books, as the chaplain said, declared him a great fautor [favourer] of that religion,” etc. How Stow fared upon the occasion of this second accusation is not known, but we shall find him again accused in 1570. On his first accusation before the Star Chamber, in 1544, the perjured priest himself was sentenced to the pillory, and to have the letters F.A., for false accuser, branded on his cheek! On the twentieth of May, died Miles Coverdale, formerly bishop of Exeter, a puritan, and translator of the Bible. He was born about the year 1486, in Yorkshire, became an Augustine monk, embraced protestant principles, and was an exile for his freedom of opinion. Protestantism tri umphed in England, so he returned to his native land, and was made almoner, or distributer of alms, to Queen Catherine Parr. During Edward the Sixth's reign, he was promoted to the see of Exeter, of which he was deprived by cruel Mary, and thrown into prison; but, at the request of Christian III., of Denmark, he was liberated on condition of his leaving the kingdom. On Elizabeth ascending the throne, he returned to England, but refused his bishopric; he however accepted the small living of St. Magnus, near London-bridge, given him by Bishop Grindal ; but he was deprived of that for nonconformity, and died in great poverty. He was interred in the church of St. Bartholomew, under the communion-table. He was a man of great learning, piety, and industry; had assisted Tyndale in his translation of the Pentateuch; and was the first who published a translation of the whole Bible in English, which he did in 1535. Honour to his name! On the thirtieth of December, Roger Ascham, the learned tutor of Elizabeth, and afterwards her Latin secretary, died at the age of fifty-six years. His writings prove him to have been in advance of his age, and one is sorry to find such a man addicted to dice and cock-fighting. He was a native of Kirby-Wiske, in the north riding of Yorkshire. Whilst some men, in the economy of nature, are going down to their graves, there are ever others coming into the world to supply their place. Sir Richard Baker, the historian, and Sir Henry Wotton, the diplomatist, poet, and general author, were both born this year.-William Kay, the Dutch painter, died this year, aged forty-eight years, being born at Breda in 1520. Another Dutch painter, Miervelt, was this year born at Delft. There is a portrsit from the pencil of each of them in the collection at Hampton Court. SHAKSPERE'S SIXTH YEAR. ROBERT COOKE, Clarencieux king-at-arms, now A.D. makes to Master John Shakspere, of Stratford-upon1569. Avon, a grant of arms, or armorial bearings; a proof of the rank he then held: his great grandfather having been rewarded with something more substantial by Henry VII., for his faithful services to that prince. "It is not difficult," says a pleasant writer, Charles Knight, "to imagine the youthful Shakspere sitting at his mother s feet, to listen to the tale of his antecessor's' prowess; or to picture the boy led by his father over the field of Bosworth,-to be shown the great morass which lay between both armies,-and Radmoor Plain, where the battle began, -and Dickon's Nook, where the tyrant harangued his army, and the village of Dadlington, where the graves of the slain still indented the ground. Here was the scene of his antecessor's 'faithful and approved service."" The inhabitants of Shakspere's native town appear to have been amongst the greatest of the patrons of the secular drama. According to Skottowe, "no less than twenty visitations were made unto them by companies of comedians, between 1569, when Shakspere was five years old, and 1587. The names of Burbage and Green occur, both in the London companies of actors, and in the list of the townsmen of Stratford. From his earliest childhood, therefore, to his advancement into manhood, the attention of Shakspere was directed to the stage, by frequently reeurring attraction, and in all probability, by an acquaintance and association with comedians. When a change of life became unavoidable, it is natural to suppose that he yielded to the predeliction of his youth. His fugitive steps were directed to London; he there embraced the occupation of a player, and subsequently of a writer for the stage."-Between this year, 1569, of which I now write, when the father of the boy Shakspere is high bailiff or chief magistrate, and the year 1580, when Shakspere will have attained to sixteen years of age, seven different companies of players were engaged in the performance of the bailiff's plays, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Often, no doubt, had the future master of the English drama in his boyish days said, with his own Hamlet (act ii., scene 2nd):-"He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for it.' And if the youthful admirer of the drama asked, like Hamlet, "What players are they?" then might his father reply, like old Polonius:—“The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-eomical-historical-pastoral, scene indivi dable, or poem unlimited : Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men.' It was necessary, at that period, for every company of players to place themselves under the special patronage and protection of some high personage: thus the seven companies alluded to are respectfully called, the Queen's Players, the Earl of Leices ter's, the Earl of Worcester's, the Earl of Warwick's, Lord Strange's, the Countess of Essex's, and the Earl of Derby's. Man is ever the creature of circumstances; and perhaps this never was more apparent than in the history of the world's greatest writer, William Shakspere. From his cradle was the greatest of all our dramatists familiar with that stage on which he was in future life so well to act his part, for his own profit and glory, and the good of the whole world. In his day, great was the demand for actors and dramatic literature; and it is easy to perceive how, to one of his fine poetic temperament, the stage would offer great attractions. What wonder, then, that when the follies of his youth and the enmity of a neighbouring Justice Shallow should compel him to seek his bread in some place far distant from that native town which all his life he seems so to have loved; what wonder, then, that the profession of an actor and a writer for the stage should become alike his necessity and his choice!— |