Goethe relates that he once strolled forth alone, after an evening ramble with Lilli, and in the morning was surprised to find himself reposing under a tree, where he had passed the night. There was certainly room for surprise if not suspicion, and we could almost pair his situation with Shakespeare's, if we were not made to understand by the sentiment he has thrown over it, that he had drunk only the nectar of his own thoughts. At all events, the two adventures show a family likeness, and one may be looked upon as a romantic reflex of the other. But if Shakespeare had committed a folly, we may hope that it was rather by surprise than intent, since he now turned back repentant to his father's house. While the prodigal was still far off, nature came out to meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him; for on the top of the Bowden Hill, his eye must involuntarily sweep over the lovely scene which spread round for miles. Behind rose the blue ridge of Malvern, to which contrast and distance gave Alpine height; on his right the huge mass of the Breadon stood up alone, like a Titan in his strength; and to the left the country stretched away to the horizon, far beyond Snitterfield Bush. All between was forest and field, sloping green hills and spreading common, while before him lay the green hollow, in which his own Stratford, girded by the Avon, lay like a child in its mother's lap. There was his father's roof; the school; the grey old chapel of the guild; and there the older church, jutting up its spire through the trees, like a finger pointing to heaven. The scene might make him sadder, but his excess had made him wiser; for he was coming home with that impression of the dangers of evil companionship, and the fascination it exercises over the young, which enabled him to impart an undying moral to the orgies of Eastcheap. In Prince Henry he gives us the most complete presentment of a scapegrace ever conceived. The creation is, indeed, no imperfect reflection of his own youth, though he goes out of himself in its colouring. Nor is the hoary old rip Falstaff drawn wholly from imagination. Oldyss affirms that the character was suggested by a Stratford man, who presented several points of resemblance, and was particularly noted as a cheat. Certainly the ideal being heaves with the breath of the real; there is only one Falstaff, but he is the chief of a type; and as these seducers were not unknown in the haunts of olden Greece and Rome, as they were met with in the rookeries of medieval London, so they may still be found in our modern shades and taverns. There are few vicious resorts of the young that cannot show a grey-headed profligate, the oracle of the stye, versed in every wickedness, and making vice attractive by his good humour and wit. But Shakespeare at seventeen might already look on his boon companions with the eye of Prince Henry : "I know you all, and will awhile uphold Who doth permit the base contagious clouds 116 X. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. BOCCACIO'S Cymon, whom the spell of woman's beauty changed from à satyr to Hyperion, illustrates the transforming power of Love. But the tender passion does not produce the same effect on every nature, nor always show its might instantaneously. Over some breasts it sweeps as a zephyr over an Æolian harp, awaking a melodious strain, which only rises to expire. Some it pierces like lightning, and others it enters like light. In this way-softly and imperceptibly, like the dawn of a May morning— it stole upon Shakespeare. A short walk from Stratford brings us to the little hamlet of Shottery, lying in the fields, between the roads to Evesham and Alcester; and here still stands the cottage of Richard Hathaway, whom we have seen on intimate terms with John Shakespeare as early as 1566, when the poet was only two years' old. There is, as already shown, reason to believe that this connection was never relaxed, and, indeed, the simultaneous recurrence of the same baptismal names in the two families points to a closer bond. When we find successive generations of Hathaways bearing the Shakespearean names of William, Richard, John, Edmund, Alice, Margaret, Anne, and Joan, and keep other facts in mind, it is difficult to escape the impression that they were not united to the Shakespeares by some tie of blood. Whatever the ground of their connection, John Shakespeare gave Richard Hathaway the right hand of fellowship, and their children grew up together, and cherished the same feeling. Many a gambol had gentle Will Shakespeare with his young companions at Shottery, before he was drawn thither by a more powerful attraction. One of them, indeed, was a kindred spirit, whose society, as he was close upon his own age, must have had a special charm for him; for we seem to meet with Richard Hathaway, the dramatist, in the following entry in the baptismal register of Stratford :"Jan. 4, 1561-2, Richardus filius Richardi Hathaway, alias Gardner." Other sons there were, and daughters-Bartholomew, John, Thomas, William, Agnes, Catherine, and Margaret-as we learn from their father's will; but that document makes no mention of the bright, particular star of the galaxy, the first love of Shakespeare, ANNE. Not mentioned by her father, unsung by her lover, and left in more than her native obscurity, Anne Hathaway has survived every neglect. Tradition guarded her home, preserved her footprints, and perpetuated her name, when Shakespeare was almost forgotten. For nearly three centuries this good odour has surrounded her: it is only our own age that has linked her with scandal. Happily there is no ground for the imputations cast upon her. They rest on a perverted view of the facts, made in ignorance of the usages of the age. Anne Hathaway, enshrined in our imagination so long, maintains her place as the ideal of womanhood. We can feel that to her to her character, temper, and qualities-we owe something of the illumination of Shakespeare. She and his mother were the two women who mirrored to his eye the attributes of their sex, and unfolded to him its destiny and mission. He saw in them the spirituality of woman. They were an inspiration to him, and a revelation. From them he learnt to conceive those beautiful, touching portraitures which exhibit 1 The will of Richard Hathaway will be found in the Appendix. It was discovered by Mr. Halliwell, in the Prerogative Office, in 1848. woman as little lower than the angels-pure, gentle, and truthful, in thought spotless, in affection devoted, in faith enduring, portraitures that, like those which the cunning painter gives to the canvas, charm by their beauty, but are most valued for their resemblance. Innocent Perdita, faithful Imogen, gentle, pleading Desdemona, romantic Juliet, admired Miranda, and sparkling Beatrice, are, with all their diversity, alike in this, presenting the one common humanity under every type of disposition. The same exaltation of the sex is perceptible, indeed, even in those characters which embody its passions and frailties, or which show its fine delicate mechanism out of joint. We trace it in wanton Cressida, as well as in chaste Isabella; in Lady Macbeth, who is deterred from murder by Duncan's likeness to her father; and in poor Ophelia, not less patient in her madness than in her sorrow, when she mourns over Hamlet "blasted with ecstasy." 1 The deepest source of this appreciation of woman by Shakespeare was the true woman's heart which was most open to him, and constantly under his eye-the heart of Anne Hathaway. This association we must recognize. Then we gain a true perception of Anne Hathaway, and can account for the tender impression retained of her in her native village, when documents seemed to prove that she had never been connected with Shakespeare-that she was a myth, and had never existed. The memory of mere beauty would have faded, like beauty itself: the memory of a gentle, loving maiden became a monument, of which time preserved the design, even when the inscription was effaced. Nor has even the remembrance of her beauty passed away. Tradition depicts her as a counterpart of Perdita "The prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green sward."2 |