William Shakespeare as he lived Part 36

In his person, the man was its singular as in his disposition--fat, and unwieldy in figure; he was upwards of six feet in height, with a round ruddy face, in which the laughing features were lost amidst the puffed-out cheeks and double chin--a sort of figure and face, which looked as if the owner had been fat and full of jollity at the time of his birth, and gone on increasing up to his present age.

What was the history of his former life none could tell, for he had come a stranger to the town. Some said, however, that in his youth he had been engaged in the wars of the Netherlands, and cashiered for cowardice; others affirmed that he was the discarded steward of some n.o.ble, dismissed for arrant knavery and dishonest practices; whilst by others, again, he was said to have been the host of a low tavern, situated in the purlieus of Whitefriars of London, and, that having ama.s.sed a small competency, he had since pretty well dissipated it, and was now living at Stratford to be out of the way.

Be that, however, as it may, at the period of our story he resided at a sort of tavern or hostel, situated in the suburbs of the town, and which hostel himself and yoke fellows princ.i.p.ally occupied, leading a roaring, rollicking life, to the great scandal of the more steady portions of the community.

In this society young Shakespeare heard many things which considerably augmented his store of knowledge. The soldier described "the toil o' the war," and the abuses of the service he had been in, where "preferment went by letter and affection." The adventurer told of seas, "whose yeasty waves confound and swallow navigation up;" of islands full of noises, and peopled by strange monsters; and the fat host spoke of the "cities usuries," "the art o' the Court," and the adventures and intrigues himself had been the hero of in various localities from his youth upwards.

In proportion to the pleasure young Shakespeare took in this society, was the dislike entertained for it by his wife; for the character of the presiding genius of the tavern she was well aware of, together with his loudness for, and capacity of, imbibing strong liquors, and carrying them steadily. His professed libertinism, and light opinion of the whole s.e.x,--his impudent boast of favours received from several of the good dames of the town, and the various cudgellings he had received from their husbands--each and all of those matters had been industriously poured into her ear by her female gossipers, with the additional information, that the unwieldy gentleman, notwithstanding his unfitness for such exploits, was much given to walking, or rather riding, by moonlight; and, with his more active friends, making free with a stray haunch occasionally, at the expense of the neighbouring gentry. Nay, it was even affirmed, that some of the midnight excursions of himself and followers had not been entirely for the purpose of coney-catching and deer-stealing, but that more than once they had stopped certain travellers between Coventry and Warwick, and eased them of their cash.

As he was, however, well known to be one of the most arrant cowards that ever buckled on a rapier, this latter story was for the most part disbelieved, as far as he was concerned.

Be that as it may, the companionship of the eccentric John Froth, and his yoke-fellows was not likely to lead a youth of the free, unsuspicious, and generous disposition of young Shakespeare into any good employment, and that his wife well knew and as roundly told him of.

Had her advice been well-timed, and gently given, perhaps it might have produced its effect; but unhappily, the fair Anne possessed a shrewd temper and little tact.

"In bed he slept not for her urging it, At board he fed not, for her urging it, Alone, it was the subject of her theme; In company she often glanced at it."

And therefore came it that the man was wretched. In short, his sleep was hindered by her railings; his head made light, and his meat sauced with her upbraidings; so that he was driven, for relief, to a.s.sociate the more with the very companions his wife was so jealous of.

"Sweet recreation barred, what doth ensue, But moody and dull melancholy-- Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair; The venom clamours of a jealous woman, Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth."

Perhaps one great charm young Shakespeare felt in the society of his fat friend, was the faculty he seemed to possess of enjoying every moment of his life to the utmost. He turned everything to mirth. Nothing could for a moment damp his spirits, unless his fears for his own personal safety were aroused; and, even then, he was the more amusing, from the very absurdity of his apprehensions, labouring, as he did, to persuade those who so well knew his infirmity, of the heroic nature of his disposition.

It was, indeed, in consequence of the amus.e.m.e.nt to be derived from this latter failing, that he had been once or twice invited by his companions to join in several of their poaching expeditions. The state of alarm he had been in, and the difficulties his a.s.sociates had led him into, having furnished, even himself, with an endless theme of amus.e.m.e.nt after the exploit was over.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE HOSTEL.

At the present time, when every street and thoroughfare of a country town has its public-house filled with the noisy refuse of an overwhelming population, and absolutely roaring with ribaldry, many of our readers have but a faint idea of the quiet comfort and cozy appearance of a hostel in the olden time. Its ample kitchen hung around with articles and implements of the good wife's occupation, the chance guests, for the most part, a.s.sembled in such apartment, and the quiet retirement of its other rooms, engaged, as they not unfrequently were, by some well-to-do retired person, half sportsman, half soldier, who paid his shot weekly, and was dependent upon chance customers, and mine host, for companionship.

Such guest not unfrequently dubbed himself gentleman, upon the strength of possessing a half-starved steed and a couple of greyhounds. Sportsman he was, of course, for every man professed knowledge of, and had a taste for, field sports, when England was less cultivated, and her woods and wastes teemed with game.

The tavern we have named as the residence of Master Froth, was called the Lucy Arms, because upon its sign were displayed the three white pike fish, or lucies, which had been the cognomen of the knights of Charlecote from the time of the Crusades downwards.

Inn signs were, indeed, in former days for the most part of an heraldic character. Many of the town residences of the n.o.bility and the great ecclesiastics were sometimes called inns, and in the front of them the family arms displayed. Such inns afterwards became appropriated to the purpose of the hostel, and the armorial decorations retained, under the denomination of signs, directed the guest to them as places of accommodation and refreshment. This we retain even in the present degenerate age, the signs of the white, red, black, and golden lions of the Crusades; and the blue boars, golden crosses, swans, dragons, and dolphins, which ornamented the knightly helmet or shield, now do duty at the entrance of the beer-shop.

"Thus chances mock and changes fill the cup of alteration."

It was one evening in the merry month of May, about a year after the marriage of young Shakespeare, that Jack Froth, and several of his a.s.sociates, were a.s.sembled at the Lucy Arms.

The apartment in which they were congregated was one which Froth had appropriated to his own especial use,--a good-sized room, whose windows looked into the orchard in rear of the hostel, one of those sweet and verdant orchards peculiar to the time, and which are now, for the most part, destroyed; but which, in Elizabeth's day, were attached to every goodly dwelling, or hostel, in a country town.

A half-open door, on one side of the apartment, gave a peep into a smaller room, in which, as the sun streamed from the lattice-window, its rays fell upon, and lighted up, the deep red curtains and square-topped hangings of an antique bed; and at the same time gilded the high-backed chairs with which the room was furnished.

On the ample hearth of the first-named apartment two enormous deer-hounds were to be seen, sprawling at full length, their occasional disturbed sleep, and short sharp bark, shewing that their dreams were of the woodland and the chase.

The occupants of the room were five in number. They were seated round a ma.s.sive oaken table, which placed near the window, gave them a delicious view of the green and bowery orchard.

The fat and jovial Froth, "the lord o' the feast," as he leaned back in his strong oaken chair, whilst he occasionally looked out upon the orchard, listened to the recital of some verses his opposite neighbour was reading aloud. Seated directly opposite the window was a tall thin man, of about five-and-twenty years of age, clad in the faded suit of an officer of pikemen, an enormous rapier tacked to his waist, with dagger to match. His chair being drawn so close to the table that he sat bolt-upright, and, as he dallied with the gla.s.s he ever and anon carried to his lips, he also listened with attention to the words of the poem.

Opposite to him sat another man, about thirty years of age, clad in a tawdry suit, which in our own days would have been shrewdly suspected of having done duty on the boards of a theatre. Beside him, with ap.r.o.n doffed, and his cap thrown aside, sat mine host of the tavern--a portly and jolly-looking companion.

Such was the party a.s.sembled, and, as the reader finished the fragment of verse, his hearers seemed so much interested in its recital that for some moments there was a pause of expectation. It was like the expiring sound of sweet music, which has a soothing effect upon the listener, making him long for a renewal of the melody.

"There is more?" said Froth, inquiringly, as he turned his eye upon the reader.

"No more have I written," said young Shakespeare, who was indeed the reader of the poetry; "nor deemed I this deformed offspring of my brain worthy of notice."

"Then I pr'ythee, good William," said Froth, "repair thy voice by another draught of Canary, and give the two first verses over again."

"Has my verse, then, so much pleased you?" inquired Shakespeare.

"It hath more than pleased, it has delighted me," said Froth; "so to't again, lad."

"Two verses you shall have," said Shakespeare, smiling, "but no more."

And he again read from his ma.n.u.script the following lines of a poem he had that morning commenced writing,--

"Even as the sun with purple-coloured face--"

"'Fore gad, bully host," interrupted Froth, "but thy countenance at this moment, round, fiery, and covered with huge angry welks and k.n.o.bs, must have suggested that line. Was't not so, sweet William; didst thou not call the sun's face purple-coloured from the reflection of our host's mulberry visage?"

"Go to, go to," said the host; "'fore gad, if my face took but a t.i.the of the good vivers to keep it in colour that thine doth, I were altogether a ruined landlord."

"I cry you mercy, good William," said Froth; "proceed with thy stanzas.

Mine host here is one of those prating knaves who would rather talk than listen, let who will be the orator."

And the poet again read from his ma.n.u.script,--

"Even as the sun with purple-coloured face Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn, Rose cheeked, Adonis hied him to the chase; Hunting he loved, but love he laugh'd to scorn.

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, And, like a bold-faced suitor, 'gins to woo him.

'Thrice fairer than myself'--thus she begun; 'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare, Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man, More white and red than doves or roses are.

Nature that made thee with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.'"

"And how call ye the poem?" inquired Froth, as young Shakespeare finished the second verse, and then thrust the paper into the breast of his doublet.

"I think of calling it 'Venus and Adonis,'" he said, "for fault of a better name."

"Call it what thou wilt, lad," said Froth, "'tis a glorious commencement. Like everything else thou dost, 'tis excellent."

"Ha, ha," said Pierce Caliver, "thou art full of thy ropery, Froth; thou word'st him, thou word'st him. See, he blusheth at thy praise."

"I word him not, but as I mean," said Froth; "an his cheek blusheth, 'tis more than thine was ever guilty of. I hate flattery as I hate an unfilled flasket in the woodlands at midnight. He hath but one fault, that lad."

"Ah, a fault," said Caliver, "can Will Shakespeare own a fault in thy eyes? I pr'ythee let's hear it."