Indeed, she may have sat for that portrait, and the very sheep-shearing may have been held at Shottery, where, to this day, sheep dot the fields like flakes of snow. They formed the most available portion of Richard Hathaway's riches, for in his will he bequeaths a sheep to each of his nieces, and he makes special mention of his shepherd, Whittington. So perhaps it was, after all, Anne Hathaway, and not Mopsa, who betrayed the kitchen secrets to Shakespeare on the occasion of the shearers' feast.

We must expect that the love of Shakespeare would take a form different from that of ordinary men-that not beauty alone, not the mere bloom of a youthful cheek, swelled the poet's breast with the tender passion. And it was so. This passion of his rose under the genial influence of mind ; and as a plant always in the sun comes early to prime, it grew up in his boyhood and ripened in his youth. Anne Hathaway may have borne him in her arms when he was an infant, for she was then eight years old. Their ages were parted by such a gulf, that while he was still a child, she might have been a mother. The blooming girl of seventeen could without impropriety twine her arm round the boy of nine, push back his clustering auburn curls, and grace his forehead with a kiss. When he had attained the same age, she was a woman of five-and-twenty, in the full glory of her charms. It is said that the first love of every youth falls to a maiden older than himself. But though this be true, as we believe, the love thus given is ephemeral, a mere passing sentiment, and Shakespeare's was singular in being a passion. In tracing the course of love, he places, indeed, disparity of age second in its catalogue of obstacles:

"The course of true love never did run smooth,

But either it was different in blood

Or else mis-graffed in respect of years."

But he speaks of this love as "true," that is, as earnest, constant, and abiding. If alluding to his own case, therefore, he asserts the genuineness of his love, and we learn from himself that his attachment to Anne was real and permanent.

Here, again, we meet a coincidence in the youthful experiences of Goethe. The German poet was also but a lad when he gave his heart to Gretchen, who was nearly as much his senior as Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's. It was an attachment of the same kind-his first, his "true" love. The affairs with Frederika and Lilli were flirtations; he loved the Gretchen. All the tenderness he possessed while his nature was young and fresh, all his real sensibility and affection were given to her. The record of his meetings with her is a living romance. Nowhere does he rise in fiction to the same pathos and power, and tame indeed are his Charlottes, his Ottilies, and his Philinas, by the side of this "low-born lass," this Anne Hathaway of Frankfort. When she disappears he falls sick unto death, and the remembrance of her beauty, her natural grace, the pure spirit that animated her form, and which low associations could not sully, remains with him for ever.

Shakespeare tells us that "base men being in love, have then a nobility in their nature, more than is native to them." How much more must the nobility which in him was native have shown itself under this influence ! Time has not

calendared the precise date when he became-

"The lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 2

But there are several reasons for concluding that he was a lover at seventeen. The fact may have been apparent to Anne before it was known to himself; and, perhaps, was mutually understood before it was avowed. And what

1 'Othello,' act ii. 1.

2 As You Like It,' act ii. 7.

maiden, although she were twenty-five, could resist such a suitor with the nobility aforesaid by her thoroughly known, even while it was under a cloud-with those deep eyes confronting her and appealing to her, lighting up that kingly forehead, still crowned with clustering auburn curls-this suitor, moreover, sighing like furnace! Would the few years' difference in age then seem indeed such a barrier! Anne could not but know her charms; and her glass did not remind her that beauty is but skin-deep. That moment of triumph, when she was listening to protestations more eloquent, more persuasive than maiden had ever heard before, was not likely to foreshadow the distant time when her face would be wan and wrinkled, while his was still fresh; when she would be old, and he hardly in his prime. She knew who spoke, and what was his innate quality, for he had grown and unfolded under her eye. If he pleaded, it was natural for her to yield; and what he vowed, she could too easily believe.

There was no need "to tell this youth what 't is to love," for none knew better that

"It is to be all made of sighs and tears,

It is to be all made of faith and service-
It is to be made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all endurance." 1

In this inflammable mood he strolls off to Shottery on his Saturday half-holiday. We can imagine his sunny face to reflect the brightness of nature, which looks smilingly down from the green Welcomb hills, lights up the sward of the common then surrounding Stratford, and gladdens his path

1 In the last line of this quotation I have ventured to substitute the word "endurance" for "observance" as following most naturally after “trial;" besides that Shakespeare would not repeat the word "observance" at an interval of only one line.

through the fields. Soon he catches sight of Shottery farm, standing then much as it does at present, with its old substantial house, its tiled barns, looking all roof, its ricks, and its orchard. Over the stile he is in the village road, and strides on to the brook, now bridged by a broad culvert, but which the passenger of those days crossed as he best could. It comes sweeping down beneath an arcade of trees, a sylvan aqueduct, worthy of being known to Jacques; for not in the forest of Arden could he have found a "babbling brook" more to his taste. Here Shakespeare could see the Hathaway cottage, basking in the sun under its thatched gable, and inhaling the balmy air at all its lattice windows. Perhaps he saw Anne, too, accidentally standing at the gate-of course, not thinking that he would appear. He quickens his pace; he is at her side; he-but we are not expected to tattle of what may not have occurred.

The aspect of the garden is changed since then, but persons living near remember what it was half a century ago, and they were told by old folks of that time that it had so existed from the days of Shakespeare. Thus are these traditions cherished by the simple people of the village!

A walk shut in by tall box led round the garden to an arbour, also formed of box, and screened from view by a high hedge. Here was a bench of oak, which fifty years ago was removed into the house, and is still preserved there. Tradition calls it the COURTING CHAIR.1

And on this bench they sat-so young, so beautiful, so

1 This interesting relic, which has never been mentioned before, was shown to me by the present occupant of the cottage, Mrs. Baker, the greatgrand-daughter of William Taylor, who married Susan Hathaway, the last known descendant of Richard Hathaway. She received the tradition from an old man who died in the cottage two years ago, and who was present when the bench was removed and the arbour cut down, on which occasion he was told their history by William Taylor.

full of life and hope and joy: those two lovers, whose graves we have just left in the church. All those joys, those hopes, that beauty, that radiant youth put out centuries ago! What a sermon is this Courting Chair! To think of the ardent vows and the whispered trust, the jests, the mirth, and, alas! the tears, of which it has been the witness! And all unknown—all passed, as if they had not been!

But not so the lovers! They are here still, despite the graves in the church. We open the register of visitors, and the last entry records the name of a resident of New York: a page back appears a Hindoo from Calcutta. The Brahmin has crossed the dark water, the American has traversed the Atlantic, to tread this charmed ground! In the same way, the humble room in which Shakespeare was born exhibits tokens of pilgrims from all lands and of all ranks. The register contains the autographs of two kings; the beam supporting the ceiling is inscribed with a tributary stanza by a Bonaparte; the mantelpiece bears the signature of Wellington; the name of Walter Scott appears on the window; and Byron's and Tennyson's on the wall. The mighty of the earth shrink before this worship of genius. In the little garden of Shottery, we ask what conqueror or autocrat, from Cheops to Napoleon, claims the veneration which is here shown for the butcher-boy of Stratford and his peasant mistress?

Shakespeare presented himself in the arbour as smart as Orlando when he paraded before Rosalind, and could have been rallied by Anne in Rosalind's words, seeing that he lacked all the outward marks of a true lover,—“ a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue." The handsome pointed beard of later years was, in truth, not yet visible, and at seventeen there was 1 George IV. and William IV. 2 Prince Lucien Bonaparte.