only the faintest show of the delicate moustache. He was equally open to criticism in his costume :-"Your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man: you are rather point-device in your accoutrements." 1

They walk round the garden to the cottage-door, past the moss-grown well-his Helicon, where, while Anne stood by, he often drank inspiration and-water. Perhaps it was here he produced his "woful ballad to his mistress' eyebrow." But, in truth, he had to woo more seriously to remove Anne's scruples. From the intimacy of the two families and his own winning manners, he always met a kindly reception at Shottery, but this did not extend to his suit. An attachment so unequal in years suggested to the old husbandman and his wife little promise of happiness for their daughter, nor could they see an eligible son-in-law in a young lad whose father was insolvent, and who was himself sowing wild oats. Anne knew what a nature was beneath this cloud. She discerned the generous qualities, the sterling worth, and the noble mind which her lover's lapses might obscure, but could not deface. If his little trespasses made others shake their heads, here she found assurance doubly sure. Yet she had a misgiving, too. There were moments when the little chasm of years between them looked wider, when she pondered over all that busy friends said of it, and trembled. Well for her that she revealed her fears to him! He could tell her that love depended not on the eye, but was enduring as the heart; that her beauty was a prize indeed, animating and inspiring him; but when her eye dimmed, when her cheek blanched, when that sunny brow was overcast by age, she would still be the kindred

1 'As You Like It,' act iii. 2.

spirit who had won his first love, endeared to him by associations more captivating than youth. Such are plainly the feelings which dictated his 116th Sonnet.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh, no! it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken!"

Nothing could be more applicable to their courtship and the grave objections it had to meet. She would alter indeed, and he must see the alteration; but that could not alter his love. This would remain firm, unbent, through every change, like the beacon which looks on the storm and is never shaken. For it was their MINDS that were to be married-their kindred, "true minds." And so he continues:

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ and no man ever loved."

Time's" brief hours and weeks" are all the tenure he allows

for Anne's "rosy lips and cheeks." Boy as he was, he did not contract this engagement without seeing its bearings.

The favourite time for declarations of love was St. Valentine's day. This probably arose from a Pagan custom connected with the Lupercali of ancient Rome, and was associated with St. Valentine by mere chance, for how he became the patron of lovers there is no legend to tell. The usage is mentioned by Shakespeare in the wild strain of Ophelia ; and Theseus, in saluting his court in the wood,

1 'Hamlet,' act iii. 5.

alludes to an impression still current that birds choose their mates on Valentine's day

"St. Valentine is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?” 1

This sociable practice of the feathered creation appeared to the maids and bachelors of old a very rational proceeding, and as suitable to themselves as to woodlarks. Accordingly they were wont to meet on the eve of the festival to decide by lot who should be Valentines for the day. If not thus selected, the Valentine was usually the first person of the opposite sex seen in the morning. Maidens adopted the most subtle precautions to reserve this glance for the proper person; and, indeed, there was generally an understanding as to the moment and spot for its delivery, so that the right swain might be in the right place. Thus, when Anne Hathaway stepped forth with closed eyes on St. Valentine's morning, she would not be greatly surprised to find Will Shakespeare at the door.

May morning was another festival for lovers; for then young men and maidens went in the dark to the woods, to gather May dew at daybreak. Poor old Stubbs regards this custom as perfectly shocking, and the more so because, as he declares, it was followed by "both men, women, and children, old and young, even all indifferently." It was a sort of juvenile fête for the children, who were so wicked as to "spend all the night in pastimes," just as they do Twelfth Night in the present age; and their elders deported themselves in such a manner as to prove they were only children of a larger growth. In the morning, they came home fresh enough for another night of it, "bringing with them birch,”which Stubbs would like to have laid about them,—“ boughs and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withal." 2

1 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' act iv. 1.

2 Anatomy of Abuses.'

Such were the "May meetings" of Shakespeare's youth. The notion that they were a pagan institution has been adopted by himself, in Midsummer Night's Dream,' which, though tripping over the Christian St. Valentine, lays its action in pagan times. Nevertheless, he and Anne Hathaway held the custom in as much reverence as Lysander and Hermia

"No doubt they rose up early to observe
The rite of May."1

We may believe that they could no longer meet without difficulty. Anne's family did not look with more favour on Shakespeare's suit, because he persisted in it; and, in that case, would afford him few opportunities of seeing her. But love laughs at locksmiths, and Shakespeare would find a way to secure a meeting—

"If thou lov'st me, then,

Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night,
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,

To do observance to a morn of May;

There will I stay for thee."2

1 Midsummer Night's Dream,' act iv. 1.

2 Ibid., act i, 1.

128

XI.

SHAKESPEARE, THE WOODMAN.

It is remarked by Hume, that the character of our great Alfred has come down to us so free from blemish, and so untainted by the passions and frailties of human nature, that we are led to doubt that he ever existed. Some writers have whitewashed Shakespeare, as Malone did his bust in Stratford church, until his natural features, like Alfred's, are lost. The poet was not one to obtrude himself on the public gaze-" I love the people, but do not like to stage me to their eyes;" and he might prefer his actions being forgotten; but since the world claims the story, we may hear him tell from the tomb in what spirit his life should be related-"nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." 2

However they may be disputed, the traditions of his youthful trespasses will never be plucked from the popular belief. In a biographical sense, they are as dear to us as his works; for they are almost our only impressions of his personal history, the remains of the man. Especially we cherish the old deer-stalking adventure, that turning-point of his life, and link between his life and works. But it would have little claim to this reverence, if it rested only on the loose statement of Davies, or the idle fabrications of

3 The Rev. Richard Davies was vicar of Sapperton, in Gloucestershire, and became possessed of some biographical memoranda by the Rev. W. Fulman, who died in 1688. One of these referred to Shakespeare, and simply mentioned his birth and death at Stratford, and that he was an actor and