 8. Growing literary renown, Royal Patron Follow your envious causes, men of mellies, you have Christian warrant for them, and no doubt in time will find their fit rewards. O beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which does mock the meat it feeds on. The literary and dramatic world of London in the years 1589 to 1592 was stirred with pride and astonishment at the productions of William Shakespeare, and from the tavern and guilds of tradesmen to the craic clubs of authors, lords, and royalty itself, the dramatic magician of the blackfriars was praised to the skies and sought for by even Queen Elizabeth, who saw more than another advent spancer to glorify her reign and flesh her name down the ages with even finer, luminous colours than bedecked the silver pathway of the fairy queen. The Earl of Leicester was one of the first great men of England to recognise the divine accomplishments of the Warwickshire boy, who had made his first theatrical adventures through the domain of the old Earl, and who was ever the friend of old John Shakespeare, the impeccunist and agnostic father of our brilliant Bard. On the death of the old Earl in the autumn of 1588, his domain reverted to his stepson, the young Earl of Essex, who continued to be the patron of letters, and often attended the blackfriars, with his friend, the handsome and intellectual Earl of Southampton, Henry Widesley, who took the greatest interest in the plays of Love, Lave is Lost, Two Gentlemen of Ruona, King John, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, that were then fermenting in the brain of William. He had ransacked the history of Hollingshead and others, to illustrate on the stage the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, known as the War of the Red and White Roses, with canker and sawn to pester each royal clan and bring misery on the British people because of a family quarrel. Uneasy lies the head that wear the crown. What have kings that privates have not, too, save ceremony? The jealousy of kid Lodger and Green continued to secretly knife the Stratford butcher boy, but the more they tried to cuff him down, the more he rose in public estimation, until finally these little vipers of spide and spleen gave up their secret scandal jays, and like a rose-bug from the forest of Arden or Caledonian heather-cracks, he fleshed out of sight of all the dramatic and poetic counts who pursued him, and ever after looked down from the imperial heights of Parnassus at the dummies of theatrical pretends. They accused him of wholesome plagiarism, and of robbing the archives of every land for raw material to build up his comedies, tragedies, and histories. He laughed, and worked on, night and day, acknowledging the soft impeachment of his literary integrity, but at the same time defied them to equal or surpass the marvellous characters he created for the edification and glory of mankind. Yet, while he had a few envious literary, political, and religious detractors, he was building up constantly a bulwark of sentimental and material friends in London that kept his name on the tongue of thinkers in home, tavern, club, and palace. The keen and generous Burbidge knew the intrinsic value of Shakespeare, and to tie him to the interest of the blackfriars he gradually increased the bards' salary and gave him an interest in the stock company. Yet other theatres staged his plays. Edmund Spencer, the greatest rhythmic poet of his day, author of The Fairy Queen and Prime Favourite of Sydney and Queen Elizabeth, was lavish in his praise of the rising dramatist, while Michael Drayton and Christopher Marlowe vied with each other in admiration of the newly discovered star of intellectual brilliancy that glittered unceasingly in the sky of poetic and philosophic letters. Essex, Southampton, Raleigh, Bacon, Monmouth, Derby, Norfolk, Northumberland, Percy, Burley, Cecil, Montague, and many other lords of London club life gave a ready adherence to Shakespeare, and after his mighty acting on the blackfriars and other stages struggled with each other as to who should have the honour of entertaining him at the gay midnight suburb that delighted the amusement world of London. One of the most valuable friends William encountered in London was John Florio, a Florentine, the greatest linguist of his day, who had travelled in all lands and gathered nuggets of thought and every climb. He spoke Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Greek, with the accent of a native, and had but recently translated the works of Montaigne, the great French philosopher. The Herbert Southampton family patronised him. When not employed at the various theatres, the Stratford Miracle could be found at the rooms of his friend Florio, at the red lion across the street from Temple Bar, where law students, bailiffs, and barristers, made day and night merry with their professional antics. William employed Florio to teach him the technical and philosophic merits of the Greek and Latin languages, and at the same time furnish him with ancient stories that he might dramatise into English classics, and astonish the native writers by dressing up old subjects in new frocks, cloaks, robes, and crowns. Florio would often read by the hour gems of Latin, Greek, and French philosophy, and explain to us the intricate phrases of Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Homer, Ascalus, Plutarch, Damostinas, Plato, Petrarch, and Dante, while William drank up his imparted knowledge, as freely and quickly, as a son in his cause in hails, the sparkling dew drops from garden, veil, and mountain. From the spring of 1591, William and myself paid a flying visit to Stratford, the bard, to pay up some family debts and bury a brother who had recently migrated to the land of imagination. The mother and father of William were delighted at the London success of their son, and Anne Hathaway seemed to be mellowed and mollified by the guineas William emptied into her while Hamot and Judith, the wallocking children, were rampant with delight of the toys, sweetmeat, and dresses presented as Easter offerings. No matter what the uncomparability of temper between William and Anne, he never forgot to send part of his wages for the support of herself and children, and although he was a free lens among the ladies of London, he maintained the higher law of family purity and morality. When he violated any of the Ten Commandments, he did it with his eyes open, and took the consequent mental or physical punishment with stoke indifference. He never called on others to shoulder his sins, but on the contrary, he often bore the burden of cowardly friends who made him the scapegoat for their own iniquity, a common class of scandals. He never bothered himself about the religion-manufacturers of mankind, knowing that a whole scheme, from the Oriental Sun worshippers to the quarrelling crowd of pagans, Hebrews, Christians and Muslims, was nothing but a keen financial syndicate, or trust to keep sacitotal sharpers in place and power at the expense of plodding ignorance-hope and bigotry. The night we started back for London, by jaunting car on the road to Oxford, the bard was in a mood of lofty contemplation. He had stowed away in the bottom of the car a mass of school-day and strolling play-and-compositions evolved in the rush of vanished years. "'William,' said I, "'can you tell me anything about the silence of those sparkling eternal stars and planets?' He instantly replied. I questioned the infinite silence, and endeavoured to fathom the deep, that rests in the ocean of knowledge and dreams in the heaven of sleep, and I saw with the wing of science its mysterious realm to explore, but the wail of the wild sea-breakers drowns my soul in the never-more. The answer of finite wisdom is as fickle as ambiandere, and my wreckage of hopes are scattered on the rocks and shores of despair. Arriving at the crowned heaven in Oxford, we were, as usual, received by the old Bonifest Devon and his handsome wife, with warm words and luxurious table-chair. After a day and night of reasonable revelry, we proceeded on our way to London, and in due course found our sunny lodgings at the home of Maggie Mello. The night after our arrival, Sir Walter Relay gave a cramped banquet at the mermaid club to the printable wits of London. Burbage, Florio, Field, William, and myself were invited as special guests in honour of the Poetic and Dramatic Association. The definitive authors and actors of the various theatrical companies were present at the festive wall of wits. The queensmen, on those who played under the patronage of Leicester, Pembroke, Burleigh, and the Lord Admiral, were there, while Handelow, the owner of the Rosy Theatre on Bankside with his son-in-law, Edward Ellen, to noted actor, shone in all their borrowed glory. Spencer, Drayton, Marlowe, Kitt, Nash, Chattel, Peale, Green, and young author, Ben Johnson, were a few of the literary luminaries present. A contingent of London lords, patrons of horses and actors graced the scene. Essex, Southampton, Pembroke, Cecil, Mortimer, Burleigh, and Lord Bacon occupied prominent places at the angled table of the club, where Burleigh sat as master of ceremonies. Promptly, at eleven o'clock, the great courtier, sailor and discoverer arose from his elevated chair, and proposed a toast to the Virgin and Fairy Queen. All stood to their tankets, and drank unanimously to the Virgin Queen. I thought I observed a flash of secret smiles, pictured on the lips of Essex, Spencer, Bacon, and Relay, when Elizabeth was toasted, as the Virgin Queen, and William whispered in my ear, her verges graced with eternal gifts, due a brief love-settled passion in my heart. After tremendous cheers were given forward to Queen, Sir Walter, in his blandest mood said, We are glorified by having with us to-night the greatest poet in the realm, and I trust Sir Edmund Spencer will be gracious enough to give us a few lines from the Fairy Queen. Sir Edmund arose in his place and said, In Euna, the Fairy Queen, I beheld the purity and innocence of Elizabeth, and in the line of fashion hungry from the forest, I saw her conquer even in her naked abbey-monds. One day, nigh wary of the irksome way, from her unhasty beast she did a light, and on the grass her dainty limbs did lay, in secret shadow far from all men's sight. From her fair head, her fillet she undied, and laid her stole aside, her angel's face, as a great eye of heaven shone bright, and made the sunshine in the shady place, did never mortal eye behold such grace. It fortune'd, out of the sickest wood, a ramping line rushed suddenly, hunting full greedy, after savage blood, soon at a royal virgin he did spy, escaping months at her ran greedily, to have at once devout her tender cause, but to the prey, when as he drew more nigh, his bloody rage assuade, with remorse, and with aside a maced, forgot his furious foals. Spencer resumed his seat, while a whirl of accruing applause waved from floor to after. Then Sir William remarked, We are honoured to-night, by the presence of the Council Extraordinary of Queen Elizabeth, the orator and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, who will I trust givers a sentiment to none of her majesty, the patron of art, literature, and liberty. Bacon, handsome, proud, but obsequious, then arose and addressed the jolly banketers as follows. Gentlemen, the toast of the evening to a gracious Majesty Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, meets my solid approval, and had I the wings of fancy, instead of the plodding petals of practical administration, I should raise her virtuous statue to the skies, until its pinnacle shone above the uplands of omnipotence. Philosophy teaches us, that fires in virtue, are at eternal wall, and that worth a married or single, the happiest state of man or woman, is personal independence. Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, or pain his head. Those that live single, take it for a curse, or do things worse. Some would have children, those that have them all, or which they were gone. What is it, then, to have or have no wife, but single, frail them, or a double strive? My friends, the ocean is a solitary handmaid of eternity, cold and salt-cure alike. Men are like ants, crawling up and down. Some carry corn, some carry the young, and all go to and through, at least a lipple heap of dust. The state's attorney took a seat, with frantic applause rattling in his ears. For those the sentiments of Bacon were variable, mixed, foreign, and epigrammatic, they received great attention, for no matter who may be of the speaker at banquet, but royalty and power are the subjects at issue, there will be a great and tremendous cheering by little sycophants, who expect reward, and, of course, by those patriots, who have already received favours from the administration-pie counter. Sir Walter at last rose and said, that although the hour was late, or more properly speaking early, he earnestly desired, to noble gentlemen present to hear one whose fame, and the world of dramatic letters, like the morning sun, had already fleshed upon the horizon, and rapidly approached the high noon of earthly immortality, William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon. One could be heard rooflifting cheers by all present, who had often heard of the bard in his lofty language, and kingly strides at the black friars. William, in the flush of self-conscious, imperial splendid manhoods exclaimed, gentlemen, your toast of glory to the virgin queen, creaks high heaven with reverberation, and through the ambient air, sonorous, the echoing muses mingled the harmony of the spheres with celestial repetition. Elizabeth, I lift my song to thee, in a holy adoration, to echo down the flowing tide of ages. Within the chronicle of wasted time, I see descriptions of the fairest whites, and beauty making beautiful old rhyme, and praise of ladies dead and gallant knights, than in the blazing of sweet beauty's best, of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I know their antique pen would have expressed even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies of this hour time, or you prefiguring, and for they looked, but with defining eyes they had not skill enough your worth to sing. For me, which now behold these present days, have eyes to wander, but lack tongues to praise. Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come, can yet the least of my true love control, supposed as for it to confine doom. The mortal moon has her eclipse endured, and the sad augurs mark their own presage. Uncertainties now cram themselves assured, and peace proclaims olives of endless age, now with the drops of the most balmy time. My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes. Since spite of him I'll live in the poor rhyme, while he sweeps over dull and speechless stripes, and thou, and this shall find thy monument, and tyrant crests and tombs of praise are spent. Rapturous and universal praise and applause greeted William and his immortal sonnets, and if any critical reader or author will take pains to delve into and scan the poetry and philosophy of Spencer and Bacon with that of Shakespeare, they will quickly and honestly come to the conclusion that the former writers are merely rushlights to the fleshing electric light of the divine bard. To paraphrase the incombium of Shakespeare to Cleopatra would fit the greatness of himself. Age cannot wither him, nor customs stale is infinite variety. Other men cloy the appetites they feed, but he makes hungry, and most he satisfies. CHAPTER 9 Bohemian Hours Westminster Abbey Loves Labour's Lost I have ventured like little wanton boys that swim on bladders this many summers in a sea of glory. The literary Bohemians of London three hundred years ago were an impacunious and jealous lot of human pismires who built their dens, carried their loads, and were filled with vaulting ambition just the same as we see them today. The hack writer for publishers, the actor for theatrical managers, and the author of growing renown belonged to clubs and tavern coderies, pushing their way up the rocky heights of fame and struggling as now for bread, clothes, and shelter. Many of the bacchanalian creatures dying from hunger at the foothills of their ambition, and instead of winning a niche in the columned aisles of Westminster Abbey, dropped dead in some back alley or gloomy garret to be carted away by the beetle to the voracious potter's field. They often courted dame suicide, who never fails to relieve the wicked, wretched, insane, or desperate from their intolerable situation. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness and fierce to die? Feminism thy cheeks, need and oppression starve within thy eyes. Content and beggary hang upon thy back, the world is not thy friend, nor the world's law. How often at the mitre or falcon taverns have I seen these little great literary men swell like a toad or puff like a pigeon at the flattery bestowed on them by fawning bohemians, meaner than themselves, who sought a midnight snack and a tankard of foaming ale? Of all the despicable and miserable creatures I have ever known, it is the poor starving devil with latent genius who attempts to pay court to a cad, snob, or drunken Lord around the refuse of literary or sporting clubs in midnight hours. Lyon was always very kind to these threadbare wanderers, and although they often gave him penprods behind his back, he never betrayed any recognition of their envious stings, but like the lion in his jungle brushed these busy bees away by the underbrush of his philosophy. He mildly rebuked their pretense, but relieved their immediate wants, impressing upon them the study of nature and not the blandishments of art, having the appearance of oriental porcelain or Phoenician glass when it was really crude crockery painted to deceive the sight and auctioned off to the unwary purchaser as genuine material. How many authors, artists, and actors of today follow in the path of their London ancestors who blow and brag and strut in midnight clubs and taverns to the pity and disgust of their table-tutors? Speaking one evening at the red lion in the rooms of Florio, I asked William how it was that his plays were so successful, while those of other authors had almost been banished from the dramatic boards. He had once replied, I draw my plots from nature's law to sound the depths of human life, and through her realm I find no flaw in all her seeming varied strife, the good and bad are near allied, with sweet and sorrow forever blend, while vice and virtue side by side exist in every continent. The poison vine that climbs the tree is just as great in nature's plan as every mount and every seed displayed below for little man, and every ant and busy bee shall teach us how to build and toil, if we would mingle with the free who plow the seas or till the soil. I shall never forget the visit Shakespeare and myself paid to the cloistered, columned pinnacle proportions of Westminster Abbey. It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the twenty-fourth of December, fifteen ninety-two. The living London world was rushing in great multitudes by alley, lane, street and park, preparing for the celebration of Christmas Eve. Vanity Fair was decked off with palm, spruce, pine, myrtle, ivy, and holly to garnish home, hall, and shop in honor of Jesus, who had been crucified nearly sixteen hundred years before for telling the truth and tearing down the vested arrogance of religious tyranny. A bright winter sun was gilding the tall towers of the Abbey with golden light, and the mullied windows were blazing over the surrounding buildings like flashes of fire. We entered the court of Westminster through the old school by way of a long, low passage, dimly-lighted corridors, with glinting figures of old teachers in black gowns moving like specters from the neighboring tombs. As we passed along by cloistered walls and mural monuments to vanished glory, we were soon within the interior of the grand old Abbey. The red columns of gigantic dimensions with lofty arches springing from wall to nave met the eye of the beholder, and stunned by the solemn surroundings, vain man wonders at his own hand we work, trembling with doubt amid the monumental glory of old Albion. The Abbey clock struck the hour of five as William and myself stood in deep contemplation at Poet's Corner. The reverberating tones of time echoed from nave to floor through cloistered walls and columned aisles, noting the passing hour and ages, like billows of sound rolling over the graves of vanished splendor. Here crumble the dust and effigies of courtiers, warriors, statesmen, lords, dukes, kings, queens, and authors, and yet there is no spot in the Abbey that holds such an abiding interest for mankind as the modest corner where lie the dust of noted poets and philosophers. The great and the heroic of the world may be bravely admired in lofty contemplation of nationality, but a feeling of fondness creeps over the traveler or reader when he bows at the grave of buried genius, while tears of remembrance even wash away the sensuous bacchanalian escapades of impulsive poetic revelers. The author touched by the insanity of genius must ever live in the mind of the reader, and while posterity shall forget even warriors, kings, and queens, it never fails to preserve in marble, granite, bronze, and song the name and fame of great poets. David, Solomon, Job, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Angelo, Dante, and Plutarch are deeply embedded in the memory of mankind, and although great kingdoms, empires, and dynasties have passed away to the rubbish heap of oblivion, the poet, musician, painter, and sculptor still remain to thrill and beautify life and teach hope of immortality beyond the grave. After gazing on the statues of abbots, knights' templar, knights of the bath, bishops, statesmen, kings and queens, many mutilated by time and profane hands, William stood by the coffin of Edward the Confessor, and mournfully soliloquized, Westminster, lofty air of pagan temple, imperial in stone, a thousand years crowns the record of thy inheritance, gilding the glory of thy ancient frame with imperishable deeds, liberty of thought and action shall forever cluster about thy classic form, while new men with new creeds and reason shall overturn the religions of today as thou hast invaded and destroyed the pagan Roman rules of antiquity. These marble hands and faces appealing for remembrance to animated dust, appeal in vain, for we whose footfalls only sound in marble ears cold and listless shall ourselves follow where they lead, dying, not knowing the mysterious secrets of the grave. Here the victor and vanquished side by side sleep in dreamless rest, kings and queens in life battling for power, all conquered by tyrant death, whose universal edict irrevocable, levels prince and peasant in impalpable dust, crowns to-day, coffins to-morrow, with monuments mossed over, letter-cracked, undecipherable as the mummied remains of Egyptian kings. Vain, vain are all the monuments of man, the greatest only live a little span. We strut and shine our passing day, and then depart from all the haunts of living men with only hope to light us on the way, where billions passed beneath the silent clay, and none have yet returned to tell us where we'll bewack beyond this world of care. And these dumb mouths with ghostly spirits near will not express a word into my near, or tell me when I leave this sinning sod if I shall be transfigured with my God. In September 1592 the second play of Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost, was given at the Black Friars to a fine audience. He took the characters of the play from a French novel based on an Italian plot, and wove around the story a lot of glittering talk to please the lords and ladies who listened to the silly gable of their prototypes. Ferdinand, king of Navarre, and his attendant lords, are a set of silly bows who propose to retire from the world and leave women alone for the space of three years. The princess of France and her ladies-in-waiting, with the assistance of a gay lord named Boyet, make an incursion into the kingdom of Navarre and break into the solitude of the students. Nathaniel, a parson, and Holofernes, a pedant schoolmaster, are introduced into the play by William to illustrate the asinine pretensions of ministers and pedagogues who are constantly introducing Latin or French words in their daily conversation for the purpose of impressing common people with their great learning, when in fact they only show ridiculous pretents and expose themselves to the contempt of mankind. There are very few noted philosophic sentiments in the play, and the attempt at wit of the clown, the constable, and Holofernes, the schoolmaster, fall very flat on the ear of an audience, while the rhymes put in the mouth of the various characters are unworthy of a boy fourteen years of age. I've remonstrated with William about injecting his alleged poetry into the love letters sent by the lords and ladies, but he replied that young love was such a fool that any kind of rhyme would suit passionate parties who were playing jacks and straws with each other. Ferdinand, the king, opens up the play with a grand dash of thought. Let fame that all hunt after in their lives live registered upon our brazen tombs, and then grace us in the disgrace of death, when, spite of cormorant devouring time, the endeavour of this present breach may buy that honour, which shall bait his side's keen edge to make us heirs of all eternity. Lord Biron, who imagines himself in love with the beautiful Rosaline, soliloquizes in this fashion. What? I? I love. I sue. I seek a wife, a woman that is like a German clock, still a repairing, ever out of frame, and never going a right, being a watch but being watched that it may still go right. Is not love a hercules still climbing trees in the hasperities? Saddle as a sphinx, as sweet and musical as bright Apollo's loot, strung with his hair, and when love speaks the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Holofernes, the Latin pedagogue, criticizing Armato exclaims, Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. And then Holofernes winds up the play with the owl and cuckoo song, a rambling verse winter speaking. When icicles hang by the wall and Dick the Shepherd blows his wail, and Tom bears logs into the hall and milk comes frozen home in the pail. When blood is nipped and waves befowl, when nightly sings the staring owl, to who, to it to who, a merry note, while greasy Joan doth scum the pot. CHAPTER X. QUEEN ELIZABETH. WAR. SHAKESPERE IN IRELAND. Now all the youth of England are on fire, and silken dalliance and the wardrobe lies. Now thrive the armours, and honour's thought hangs solely in the breast of every man. Cry havoc, and let's slip the dogs of war. The reign of Queen Elizabeth was a most glorious one for the material and mental progress of England, but most disastrous for Philip of Spain, Louis and Henry of France, Mary of Scotland, O'Neill O'Brien, Desmond and Tyrone of Ireland. The reformation of Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, against the faith and financial exactions of the Pope of Rome, cracked from the Catholic sky like a clap of thunder from the noonday sun, and reverberated over the globe with startling detonation. The cry of personal liberty and personal responsibility to God went out from the German cloister like a roaring storm, and echoed in thunder-tones among the columned aisles of the Vatican. Entrenched audacity and mental tyranny was broken from its ancient pedestal, as if an earthquake had shivered the Roman dominions, leaving sacerdotal precedents and papal bulls in the back alley of bigotry and bloated ignorance. People began to think and wonder how they had been bamboozled for centuries by a set of educated harlequins, who in all lands and climes exhibited their antics and nostrums for the delectation and digestion of infatuated fools, millions yet living. Queen Elizabeth's elevation to the throne of England was a bid for the banished and persecuted Protestants, to return from foreign lands and again pursue their puritanical philosophy. But Paul demanded of Elizabeth that all the church lands, monasteries and cathedrals confiscated by her father, Henry VIII, be restored to the Roman hierarchy, and that she make a confession and submission to the divine authority of the Catholic Church. Although religion and civil law was in a very chaotic state, Queen Bess was not at all disturbed by the threats of the Vatican or the Armada of Spain. With old Lord Cecil as her prime counsel, she never hesitated to believe in her own destiny, and like her opponents, the Jesuits, the end always justified the means. When it was necessary to rob or kill anybody, the Queen did so without any compunction of conscience. She did not care for religion one way or the other, and flattered the Catholic and Protestant lords alike, manipulating them for her personal and official advantage, victory at any price, business, Bessy. She professed great love for her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, but to foil the French Catholics and satisfy the Scotch and English Protestants, Lizzie cut off the head of her beautiful sister. She professed great sorrow after Mary's head was detached. Essex and Raleigh and many other royal courtiers were sent to the tower in the block by this red-headed snaggletooth she-devil, who only thought of her own physical pleasures and official vanities, sacrificing everything to her tyrannical ambition. She died in an insane frantic fit. Yet with all her devilish conduct she pushed the material interest of Englishmen ahead for five hundred years, and by her patronage of sailors, warriors, poets, and philosophers, gave the British letters a boom that is felt to the present day, and through Shakespeare's lofty lines shall continue down the ages to tell mankind that nothing on earth is lasting but honest work and eternal truth. Intention and war is the natural condition of mankind, for all animated nature, from birth to death, struggles for food and shelter. The birds of the air, animals of the land, and fishes of the sea fight and devour each other for food, while man, the great robber and murderer of all, delights in destruction, and from his first appearance on earth to the present day, has been earnestly engaged in emigrating from land to land, seeking whom he may rob and kill for personal wealth and power. Civilization is only refined barbarism, and this very hour the unions of the world are inventing and manufacturing powder, guns, and terrible battleships for the purpose of robbing and killing each other in the next war, nearly at hand. Japan and Russia will tear each other to pieces. Peace is only a slight resting spell for the nations to trade with each other, and makes secret preparations to finally kill and secure increased dominion. The minions of monarchy and lovers of liberty have invariably despised each other, and waited only favorable opportunity to rob and murder. Even now they crouch like lions at bay, and fight to the death. Liberty is forging ahead with ten-league boots, and monarchy is silently, but surely being relegated to the tomb of defeat. Of course, right is right in the abstract, but might is the winning card in the lottery of fate, and that nation having the most brave men, money, and guns will come out victorious. Strong nations have become stronger by robbing and killing weaker nations, and the British government four thousand years, particularly from the bloody reigns of Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell, can boast that it has never failed to rob and kill the weak, while truckling and fawning at the feet of Russia and the Republic of the United States, which will soon extend from Bering Sea and Baffins Bay to the isthmus of Panama, absorbing Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, within its imperial jurisdiction. We intend to, and shall, rule the world. Then this vast Republic, looking over the globe from the dome of our national capital at Washington, can invite all lands to banquet at the table of this goddess of liberty, and in mercy to the blind tyranny of monarchy, we may lay a wreath of myrtle on the graves of lords, earls, dukes, kings, queens, and emperors, to be only remembered as the nightmare of tyranny, extirpated from the earth for ever. God grant their speedy official destruction. The gentle reader, of course, will excuse this enthusiastic digression from the story of Queen Bess, and my soul friend, William Shakespeare. If they were present at this moment, they would not dare deny the truth of this memory narrative. In the summer of 1595, the periodical plague of London was thinning out the inhabitants of that dirty city. In the lower part of the city, skirting the Thames, the sewerage was very bad, but the poorest sanitary rules existed. After a hard rain, the lanes, alleys, and streets ran with a stream of putrefaction, as the awful from many tenement houses was thrown in the public highway, where the rays from the hot sun created malarial fever or the black plague. At such times, the theaters and churches were closed, and those who could get out of London, by land or water, fled to the inland shires of England, the mountains of Scotland, or to the heather hills of Ireland. And Spencer, the poet and secretary of Lord Grey for Ireland, invited William and myself to visit his Irish estate near the city of Cork. One bright morning in May, we boarded the good ship Elizabeth, near the tower, passed out of Gravesend, then into the channel, and steered our way to Bantry Bay, until we landed in the cove of Cork, as the church bells were ringing devoutees to early mass. The green fields and hills of Ireland were blooming in rustic beauty. The thrush sang from every Hawthorne bush, the blackbird was busy in the fields, filtering grain from the ploughman, the lark and his skyward flight poured a stream of melody on the air, and all nature seemed happy, but man. He it is who makes the blooming productive earth miserable, with his voracious greed for gold and power. Elizabeth was then waging war with the various Irish chieftains, importing cunning Scotchmen and brutal Englishmen as soldiers and traitors, to colonize the lands and destroy the homes of what she was pleased to call barbarous, rebellious, wild Irish. Whenever any strong power invades a weaker one, for the purpose of robbery and official murder, war, the tyrant labels his victim a rebel. That is, the original owner of the land destined to be robbed is regarded as bigoted, barbarous, and rebellious, unless he submits to be robbed, banished, and murdered for the edification and glory of free-booters, thieves, tyrants, assassins, and foreign man-hunters. Lenster, Munster, Ulster, and Connott, the four provinces of Ireland, had been marked out for settlement by Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth, and hordes of English carpet-baggers and soldiers were turned loose on the island to rob, burn, and destroy the natives. As soon as counties and provinces were conquered, the military and lordly pets of the various monarchs were given large grants of the land stolen from the people. Colonel O'Brien, Desmond, O'Donnell, O'Connor, Burke, Clan record, and Tyrone disputed every inch of ground with Pelham, Mount Joy, Gray, Essex, Raleigh, and Cromwell. And although the original commanders and owners of the soil have been virtually banished or killed, their posterity has the proud satisfaction of knowing that more than a million of Englishmen and Scotchmen have been killed by the wild Irish, and the battle for liberty shall still go on till the Saxon robber relinquishes his blood-sucking tentacles on the Emerald Isle. Poet Spencer and Sir Walter Raleigh were rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with thousands of acres, confiscated from the greatest state of the Earl of Desmond, who lived at the castle of Kill Coleman, near the town of Donnell. Spencer paid for his stolen land by writing a dissertation on the way to conquer and kill off the Irish race, regarding them no more than the wild beasts of the forest. He also flattered Queen Bess by composing a lot of flattering verse, called the Fairy Queen, and made her believe she was the beautiful, sweet, mild, chaste, angelic individual that had thrilled his imagination in the royal realms of dreamland. What infernal lies political courtiers, religious ministers, and even poets have told, to flatter the vanity of governors, presidents, kings, queens, popes, and emperors? Yet in all the grand sentiments Shakespeare evolved out of his volcanic brain, he never bent the need to absolute vice, but pictured the horrors of royalty in its most devilish attitudes. His pen was never purchased against truth. We remained at Kill Coleman Castle with Spencer for about ten days, riding and sporting, and then with an escort of soldiers were piloted through the rebel counties on to Dublin, where the head of O'Neill graced one of the red walls of that unlucky city. On our route from Cork to Dublin, we beheld misery and ruin in every form, burned cabins, churches, monasteries and bridges, and starving women and children on the roadside, crouching under bushes, straw stacks, and leaking sheds, with smoldering turf fires crackling on the ashes of despair. We took shipping the next morning for Liverpool, as William was very anxious to get away from the land of funeral wales, where the cry of the wake over some dead peasant or defiant rebel echoed on the air continually. Where sorrow in her weeping form shed tears in sunshine and in storm, while o'er the land a rain of blood was running like a mountain flood. As we pushed away from the sight of the Irish hills, Shakespeare, leaning against the four-mast, in pathetic tone exclaimed, Farewell, old Aaron, land of nameless sorrow, Albion crushes thee for opinion's sake, twix the bulls of Rome and laws of England thy children are robbed, banished, and murdered. And cast away from native land, like leaves bestowing forest wilds, bleak and lone, merged in lands of liberty, thy children shall rise again, a newborn, glorious race, triumphant in home, church, and state, honoured masters of war, wit, eloquence, and poetry. Move out and move on, like the rising sun whose face so oft is clouded with shadows, that shall burst forth again in noonday splendour, irradiating a bleak and cruel world. CHAPTER XI RURAL INGLAND Romeo and Juliet I know a bank where the wild time blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quiet over canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses and the eglentine. Stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt. We remained in Liverpool three days, and then determined to run to London by land, passing through the inland shires, taking in Manchester, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick, and on to Stratford, where clustered the dearest objects of our affection. We were ten days walking, riding, and resting at Taverns, in our rural tour of Old Albion. The fields were furrowed for the grain, the birds sang from every hedge and forest domain. The cattle, sheep, and swine grazed in lowing, bleeding, grunting security along winding streams, public fields, or on the velvet meadows of rich yeoman or lordly estates, while the men, women, boys and girls that we encountered seemed to be infused with the delights of May blossoms, forest wildflowers, and refreshing showers, all noting the practical prosperity of England. How different these rural scenes to those we had recently encountered in poor, downtrodden Ireland, the Nairobi of nations, besprinkled with the tears of centuries for the loss of her crushed and exiled children. Yet the world is moving upward to the heights where freedom reigns, where the sunshine of redemption shall give joy for all our pains, when the cruel hands of tyrants shall be banished from the land with our God the only master of dame nature, true and grand. We arrived inside of Stratford as the sun set over the hills of Arden, and as the pigeon and rooks sought their nests for the night, a golden glow flashed over the evening landscape. The last rays of soul shone in dazzling splendour upon the pinnacle of old Trinity Church, as we gazed with ravished eyes on the winding, glistening Avon, meandering through emerald meadows and whispering wildflowers to the silvery severn. The old tavern was still there, but the old host slept in God's acre nearby, while the lads we knew ten years before had, like ourselves, gone out into the world for fame and fortune. Williams sought out his father and mother, and then Anne Hathaway and the children, who still resided at the old Hathaway cottage at Shottary. I remained at the tavern for contemplation. Time and age mellow the most violent spirits, and the temper of Anne had become modified by family troubles, inducing an inward survey of self, which brings a reasonable person to the realization of the fact that he or she is not the only stubborn oak in the forest of humanity. A practical stubborn wife and a lofty poet never can assimilate. Shakespeare had no equals or superiors, Shakespeare was simply Shakespeare. At home he found a scolding wife, abroad he felt the joys of life, while all his glory and renown were reaped at last in Lundantown. He looked for truth in crowds of men, in field, in street, and tavern, and mingled with the moving throng to hear their story and their song. He pictured life in colors true, as brilliant as the rainbow hue, and all his characters display the pride and passion of today. He cared not for the crowds of men, as fiercest beasts within a den, and looked alone to nature's God displayed in heaven, in sea, and sod, and held the scales of justice high, uplifted to the sunlit sky, weighing the passions of mankind with lofty and imperial mind. The Puritan and Pope to him were overflowing to the brim with bigotry and cruel spleen that desolated every scene. The midget minds of men in power he satirized from hour to hour, and on the stage portrayed the greed of those who live by crime and creed. He tore the masks from royal brows and showed their guilt and broken vows, exposing to the laughing throng the horrid face of vice and wrong. In every land and every climb he honored truth and punctured crime, and down the years his godlike rhyme shall be synonymous with time. We remained among relatives and friends in Warwickshire until the middle of September, when we heard that the London Plague had abated, and the theatrical profession were busy preparing for a winter campaign of dramatic glory. Shakespeare had several plays partly or nearly finished, and as Burbage and Henslow desired our immediate services we took our departure from Stratford, with the friendship of the town echoing in our ears. The flowers and growing fields, the leafy forests and circling and singing birds seemed to say, good-bye, good luck, and God bless you. We felt happy and hopeful ourselves, and consequently, dame nature echoed the feeling of our souls. All was joy, song, feasting, and laughter. William, on our way to Oxford, in one of his original flights, taken from an ode of Horace, impulsively exclaimed, Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep, and you weep alone. This grand old earth must borrow its mirth, it has troubles enough of its own. Sing and the hills will answer, sigh, it is lost on the air. The echoes bound to a joyful sound but shrink from voicing care. Be glad and your friends are many, be sad and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine, but alone we must drink life's skull. There's room in the halls of pleasure for a long and lordly train, but one by one we must all file on, through the narrow aisles of pain. Fast and your halls are crowded, fast and the world goes by. Succeed and give, till help you live, but no one can help you die. Rejoice and men will seek you, grieve and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, but they do not want your woe. These lines impressed me very much at the time, and from that day to this I have never ceased to act on the philosophy of the poem. It has been part of my nature, and during my wanderings for the past 320 years I have never failed to carry in my train of thought and action, sunshine, beauty, song, love and laughter, advance agents to secure welcome in all hearts and homes throughout the world. We were beautifully entertained by Mrs. Daisy Davenett at the Crown Tavern in Oxford and many of the college boys who heard of our arrival in the city, hurried to pay their classic friendship to the divine William. We arrived in London on the 20th of September and found that our old maid landlady had died of the plague, but had kindly sent all our literary and wardrobe effects to Florio, who was still alive and well at the Red Lion. In a couple of days William was up to his head and ears in theatrical composition and stage structure. A few years before, the bard had dashed off a love tragedy entitled Romeo and Juliet, taken from an Italian novel of the 13th century and a translation of the old family feud in poetry by Walter Brooke, who had but recently delighted London with the story. Shakespeare never hesitated to take crude ore and rough ashler from any quarry of thought, and out of the dull, leaden material of others, produced characters in living form to walk the stage of life forever, teaching the lesson of virtue triumphant over vice. The exemplification of true love as pictured in the pure affection of Juliet and the intense heroic devotion of Romeo has never been equaled or surpassed by any other dramatic characters. The lordly and wealthy gentry of Italy have been noted for their family feuds for the past three thousand years, and the party followers of these bloodstained rivals have desolated many happy homes in Rome, Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice, and Verona. Shakespeare showed the finished play of Romeo and Juliet to Burbage, and the old manager fairly jumped with joy and astonishment at the eloquence of the love and ruined drama. The families of Capulet and Montague of Verona, stuffed with foolish pride about the matrimonial choice of their daughters and sons, can be found in every city in the world where a tyrant father or purse-proud mother insists on selecting life partners for their children. The story of Romeo and Juliet shows the utter failure of such parental folly. The play was largely advertised among the lights of London and announced to come off in all its glory at the Black Friars on the last Saturday of December, 1595. Queen Elizabeth, in a special box, was there in cog, with a royal train of lords and ladies, and such another audience for dress and stunning show was never seen in London. Burley, Bacon, Essex, Southampton, Derby, Raleigh, Spencer, Warwick, Gray, Montague, Lancaster, Mountjoy, Blake, and all the great soldiers and sailors of the realm then in London were boxed for a sight of the greatest love tragedy ever enacted on the dramatic stage. All the dramatic authors were present. William himself took the part of Romeo, for he was a perfect exemplification of the hero of the play. Joe Taylor took the part of Juliet, and I can assure you that his makeup in the form and dress of the fourteen-year-old Italian beauty was a great success. Dick Burbridge took the part of Friar Lawrence, Condell played Mercutio, Arnim the part of Paris, Field played Old Capulet, and Florio played Montague, Hemmings played Benvolio, and John Underwood played the part of Tybalt, and Escalus the Prince was played by Phillips. The curtain went up on a street scene in Verona where the partisans of the houses of Capulet and Montague quarrelled, while Paris, Mercutio, Romeo, and Tybalt worked up their hot blood and came to blows. Romeo and his friends in mask attended a ball at the home of Juliet in a clandestine fashion, and on first sight of this immaculate beauty Romeo exclaims, Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright. Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiopes ear. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows as yonder lady or her fellow shows. The dancing done I'll watch her place of stand, and touching hers make happy my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? For swear it, sight, for I never saw true beauty till to-night. The poetic apostrophe of Romeo to his new discovered beauty elicited universal applause, led by the Virgin Queen who imagined, no doubt, that his tribute to beauty was intended for herself. She never lost an opportunity to appropriate anything that came her way. An epigram of strenuous audacity, a winner. In the second act, Romeo climbs the wall, hemming in his beautiful Juliet, and in defiance of the family feud, locks in bars of old man-capulet, and seeks clandestine interview with his true love, although at the risk of his life. It was the evening of the twenty-first birthday of Romeo, and with love as his guidance subject, he felt strong enough to attack a warring world. Seek the window of the fair Juliet, Romeo soliloquizes. He jests at scars that never felt a wound. Juliet appears at an upper window. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, it is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon who was already sick and pale with grief, that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady, oh, it is my love, oh, that she knew she were. She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold, says not to me, she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, day in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight dot the lamp. Her eye in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek. Juliet speaks, and finally out of her fevered, lovelet mind says, oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a capulet. Romeo replies, I take thee at thy word, call me but love, and I'll be new baptized, henceforth I never will be Romeo. She says, how camest thou hither, the orchard walls are too high and hard to climb, and the place death considering who thou art? Romeo quickly responds, with love's light wings did I or perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt, therefore thy kinsmen are no hindrance to me. I am no pilot, yet worth thou as far as that vast shore washed with the further sea I would adventure for such merchandise. Then Juliet, with her fine Italian cunning, makes the following declaration of her love, and considering that she is only fourteen years of age, yet in the hands of a house nurse, older and wiser girls could not give a better gush of affectionate eloquence. Thou noest the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou has heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain, fain deny what I have spoke, but farewell compliment. Does thou love me? I know that will say I, and I will take thy word. Yet if thou swearsest, thou mayest prove false. At lover's perjuries they say, jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, if thou dost love pronounce it faithfully, or if thou thinks I am too quickly one, I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay, so that will woo. But else, not for the world, in truth, fair Montague, I am too fond. And therefore thou mayst think my conduct light, but trust me, gentlemen, I'll prove more true than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more shy, I must confess, but that thou overheardst ere I was aware, my true love's passion. Therefore pardon me, and not impute this yielding to light love which the dark night has so discovered. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love is deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. The lover's part, promising eternal love and marriage tomorrow at the cell of good friar Lawrence, the confessor of the Fair Juliet. The friar, priest, preacher, and bishop have ever been great matrimonial matchmakers. And when love's young dream is foiled or withered by parental tyranny, these velvet-handed philosophers find a way to tie the hymenial knot, even in personal and legal defiance of cruel social dictation. Friar Lawrence, in contemplation of tying love knots, soliloquizes in the following lofty lines. The grey-eyed mourn smiles on the frowning night, checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, and fleckard darkness like a drunkard reels from fourth day's pathway made by Titan's wheels. Now ere the sun advances burning eye, the day to cheer, and night's dark dew to try, I must fill up this ozure cage of ours with baleful needs and precious juiced flowers. The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb. What is her burying grave, that is her womb? And from her womb children of diverse kind, we, sucking on her natural bosom find, many for many virtues excellent, none but for some, and yet all different. O, Mikkel is the powerful grace that lies in herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities, for not so vile that on the earth doth live but to the earth some special good doth give, nor art so good but strained from that fair use revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower poison hath residence and medicine power, for this being smelt with that part cheers each part, pain-tasted slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed foes encamp them still in man as well as herbs, grace and rude will, and where the worser is predominant, full soon the canker death eats up that plant. Romeo implores the holy friar, do thou but close our hands with holy words, then love devouring death do what he dare, it is enough I may but call her mine. Juliet addressing Romeo in the friar's cell exclaims, Imagination more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance, not of ornament. They are but beggars that can count their worth, but my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth. The good old friar then says, Come, come with me and we will make short work, for by your leaves you shall not stay alone till holy church incorporate two in one. Mercutio entibbled fight, infaction of the Capulet and Montague houses. Mercutio is killed, and then Romeo kills tibbled, and is banished from the state by Prince Escalus. Juliet awaits Romeo in her room the night after marriage, and with passionate, impatient longing exclaims, Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so bright that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. I have bought the mansion of a love but not possessed it, and though I am sold, not yet enjoyed. So tedious is this day, as is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them. Although the verdict of banishment was pronounced against Romeo to go to Mantua Instanter, he found means through the old nurse and good friar Lawrence to visit his new-made bride the night before his forced departure, and in spite of locks, bars, law, parents, and princes plucked the ripe fruit from the tree of virginity. Romeo must be gone before the first crowing of the cock, and ere the rosy fingers of the dawn light up the bridal chamber, else death would be his portion. Juliet importunes him to stay and says, Will that be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale and not the lark that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yon palm-granate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. Romeo replies, it was the lark, the herald of the moor, no nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt, and jock and day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die. Juliet further implores him to stay. Yon light is not daylight. I know it. It is some meteor that the sun exhales to be to thee this night a torchbearer, and light thee on thy way to Manchua. Therefore stay yet, thou needs not be gone. Romeo willingly consents. Let me be taken, let me be put to death. I am content so thou wilt have it so. I'll say Yon Gray is not the morning's eye, it is but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow. Nor that it is not the lark whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come death and welcome, Juliet wills it so. How is it my soul? Let's talk, it is not day. Juliet alarmed exclaims. It is, it is, high hence be gone away. It is the lark that sings so out of tune, straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division. The stuff not so, for she divided us. Some say the lark and lothed toad change eyes. Oh, now I would they had changed voices, too, since arm from arm that voiced doth us affray. Huntingly hencewith hunts up to the day, now be gone, more light and light it grows. Romeo descends the ladder, saying his last words to the beautiful Juliet. And trust me, love, in mine eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu. After the banishment of Romeo, old Capulet and his wife insisted that Juliet marry young Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus, and sorrows unnumbered, crowded on the new-made secret bride. To escape marriage with Paris, Juliet consulted friar Lawrence, who gives her a drug to be taken the night before the pre-arranged marriage, that will dull all life, and the body remain as dead for 42 hours. This scheme of the friar works out favorably, until Juliet is laid away with her ancestors in the grand tomb of the Capulets. But Romeo hears of the whole trouble and hurries back from banishment, dashing his way through all impediments until he kills Paris, grieving at midnight by the grave of Juliet. Then, tearing his way into the tomb of Juliet, throws himself upon the gorgeous beer and exclaims, oh, my love, my wife, death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty, thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet is crimson on thy lips and in thy cheeks, and death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tibbled, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? Oh, what more favor can I do thee than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin, oh, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean of horrid monster keeps thee here in the dark to be his paramour? For fear that I will still stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart again. Here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chambermaids. Oh, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-weird flesh. Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And lips, oh, you, the doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss, a dateless bargain to engrossing death. Come, bitter conductor, come, unsavory guide, thou desperate pilot, now and at once run on the dashing rocks, thy seasick, weary bark. Here's to my love, drinks poison. Oh, true apothecary, thy drugs are quick. Thus, with a kiss, I die. Friar Lawrence and Balthazar, with dark lantern, at this moment approach the tomb to extricate and save Juliet from the sleeping drug. She awakes with the noise in the tomb and views the deadly situation. The Friar implores her to come, departed once, as the night watch approach. She says, go, get thee hence, for I will not away. What's here? A cup close in my true love's hand. Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. Oh, churl, drink all and leave me no friendly drop to help me after. I will kiss thy lips. Happily some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm. Yay, noise? Then I'll be brief. Oh, happy dagger. This is thy sheath. There, rust and let me die. The Prince, Capulet and Montague family soon discover all, and Friar Lawrence tells the true story, punishment follows, and the two contending houses of Verona clasp hands over the ruin they have wrought, while the Prince exclaims, for never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo. The drop curtain was wrung down and up three times, and the storm of applause that greeted Shakespeare and Taylor as the representatives of Romeo and Juliet was never equaled before at the Black Friars. The Queen called William and Joe to the royal box, and by her own firm hand presented a signet ring to Romeo and a lace handkerchief to Juliet. What fates impose that men must needs abide, it boots not to resist both wind and tide. End of Chapter 11. Recording by Colinda in Lüneburg, Germany, on February 16, 2009. Chapter 12 of Shakespeare Personal Recollections This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Shakespeare Personal Recollections by John A. Joyce Chapter 12 Julius Caesar O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? The assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus, Cassius, Casca, and 20 other Roman senators in the capital of the empire in broad daylight was one of the most cowardly and infamous crimes recorded in the annals of time. The historical and philosophical friends of Brutus and Cassius have tried to justify the conspiracy and assassination by imputing the deep design of tyranny to Caesar, who was bent on trampling down the rights of the people and for securing himself a kingly crown. They say the motive of the conspirators and the deep damnation of Caesar's taking off was pure patriotism. Many murderers have used the same argument. The facts do not justify the excuse. For more than thirty years Julius Caesar had been a star performer on the boards of the Roman Empire, and his family has been illustrious for five hundred years. Scylla, Marius, Cicero, Cato, Brutus, and Pompeii had crossed lances with his civil and military genius, and had all become very jealous of his increasing fame. From boyhood Caesar had been a mixer with the common people, and in midnight hours in Rome, among tradesmen, merchants, students, authors, sailors, and soldiers, he became imbued with their wants and impulsive nature. He had no reason to doubt or to oppress the people. As commander of invincible troops in Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain, Caesar had secured a worldwide reputation, for the eagles of his victorious legions had swept across the mountains and seized to the shore end of Europe and screamed in triumph among the palms and sands of Africa and Asia. Caesar was a poet, orator, historian, warrior, and statesman. In the imperial families and politicians of Rome, who were forced to sit in the shade of his triumphs and glory, felt a secret pang of jealousy at the stride of this colossal character. He was the pride and idol of his soldiers, and whether in the forests of Gaul and Germany, the swamps of Britain, mountains of Spain, or among Ionian isles, his presence was ever worth a thousand men in battle action. His plans were mathematical, his soul sublime, and his purpose eternal victory. Bravery and Caesar were synonymous terms, and the little, mean, pismire ambitions of Roman politicians he despised, striding over their corrupt schemes for pelf and office like a winter whirlwind. Brutus, while professing horror at the contemplated assassination of his friend and natural father, Caesar, lent a willing ear and sympathetic voice to the prime conspirator, Cassius, and although seemingly dragged into the murderous plot, he was in the heart the grand villain of the conspiracy, believing he might rise to supreme control of the Roman Empire when Julius the Great lay weltering in his heroic blood. Brutus was a dastard, an ingrate, a coward, and a murderer, and no pretense of patriotism can save him from the contempt and condemnation of mankind. There is no justification for assassination. The death of Caesar was the first great blow in the final destruction of the Roman Empire. For up to this time the people had a voice in electing their tribunes, consuls, and governors, and were consulted as to the burden of taxation, although many of their previous rulers had been terrible tyrants. Brutus and Cassius, and their co-conspirators, city senators who dipped their hands in Caesar's sacred blood, were finally driven from all political power, their estates confiscated. Fleeing like frightened wolves to foreign fields and forests and perishing in battle as enemies to their country. When bought to bay at Philippi, Brutus and Cassius mustered up enough courage to commit suicide, which is confession of guilt. In the winter of 1597, William was deeply studying the new translation of Petrarch, and Florio was nightly teaching us the lofty philosophy of Grecian and Roman classics. The lives of noted ancient poets, orators, warriors, statesmen, governors, kings, and philosophers, as written or compiled by the great Plutarch, had furnished a mind of historical thought for the dramatic artist, and Shakespeare, above all the men who ever thought, wrote, or talked on the stage, took most advantage of the lines of Plutarch. The British people were clamoring for grand historical plays, not only for the actions of their own kings and queens, but demanded the enactment of the reigns of great, ancient warriors, and kings who had given glory to Greece and Rome and left imperishable memories for posterity to avoid or emulate. Burbage, Henslow, and other theatrical managers were ever on the lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and, of course, the bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the various stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compiers struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow dips of dramatic thought. He knew, and I knew, that his plays would be enacted down the circling centuries as long as vice and virtue, hate and love, cowardice and bravery, fun, folly, wit, and wisdom characterized humanity. William told Essex and Southampton that he had just composed a play with Julius Caesar as the central figure, and wished an opportunity to test its merits before a private party of authors, students, and lords at the Holburn House, the Grand Castle of Southampton. These noblemen were delighted with the suggestion, and on the night of the 1st of March, 1597, Burbage, with his whole tribe of theatrical rounders, appeared in the great banquet room of Southampton, and under the guidance of Shakespeare, rendered for the first time Julius Caesar. Joe Taylor took the part of Caesar, Dick Burbage acted Brutus, Condell represented Cassius, and Shakespeare played Marcus Antonius, while the other characters were distributed among the stocks, as their various talents justified. Calpurnia, wife to Caesar, and Portia, wife to Brutus, were represented respectively by Hemmings and Arnim. The play opens with the street scene in Rome, filled with working rabble citizens who have turned out to give Caesar a great triumph on his return from successful war. Flavius and Marulis, tribunes, enter and rebuke the people for greeting Caesar. Flavius twits the turncoat rabble in this style. O ye hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, new ye not Pompey? Many a time and off have you climbed up to walls and battlements, to towers and windows, yea to chimney tops, your infants in your arms, and there have sat the live-long day with patient expectation to see great Pompey past the streets of Rome, and when you saw his chariot but appear, have you not made a universal shout that Tybur trembled under her banks to hear the replication of your sounds made in her concave shores? And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now call out a holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his way that comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Brutus and Cassius witness the triumphal march of Caesar with jealous and vengeful and dagger hearts, and Cassius the old and desperate soldier first hints at bloody conspiracy. Brutus asks, What is it that you would impart to me, if it be ought towards the general good, set honor in I and death in the other, and I will look on both indifferently? Fine talk. Brutus is not the only political murderer that talks of honor through the centuries, a cloak for devils in human shape to work a personal purpose and not the general good. Cassius delivers this eloquent indictment against Caesar, the grandest of its kind in all history. Well, honor is the subject of my story. I cannot tell what you and other men think of this life. But for my single self I had as leave not to be, as live to be in awe of such a thing as I, myself. I was born free, as Caesar, so were you. We have both fed as well, and we can both endure the winter's cold as well as he. For once, upon a raw and gusty day, the troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, Darius thou, Cassius, now, leap in with me into this angry flood, and swim to yonder point. Upon the word, accrued her as I was, I plunged in, and bade him follow. And so indeed he did, the torrent roared, and we did buffet it, with lusty sinners throwing it aside, and stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive at the point proposed, Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, did the flames of Troy upon his shoulders the old, Aeneas bear. So from the waves of Tiber did I the tired Caesar, and this man is now become a God, and Cassius is a wretched creature and must bend his body, if Caesar carelessly but not on him. He had a fever when he was in Spain, and when the fit was on him I did mark how he did shake, to his true, this God did shake his cowered lips did, from thy color fly. And that same I, whose bend doth all the world, did lose its luster. I did hear him groan. I, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans, mark him, and write his speeches in their books. Alas, it cried, give me some drink to Tinius, as a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, it doth amaze me, a man of such feeble temper should get the start of the majestic world, and bear the palm alone. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings Brutus. And Caesar, what should be in that Caesar? Why should that name be sounded more than yours? Write them together. Yours is as fair a name. Sound them. It doth become the mouth as well. Weigh them. It is as heavy. Conjure with them. Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar. Now in the name of all the gods at once, upon what meat doth this Caesar feed, that he has grown so great. Unanimous applause followed this cunning conspiracy speech, and Johnson, Lodge, and Drayton gave loud exclamations of approval. Caesar, with his staff, returning from the games in his honor, sees Cassius and remarks to Antonius. Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep of knights. Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous, and never at heart's ease, whilst they behold it greater than themselves. Casca, one of the senatorial conspirators, tells Cassius that Caesar is to be crowned king, and he replies thus, contemplating suicide. I know where I will wear this dagger, then. Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius. Therein ye gods, you make the weak most strong. Therein ye gods, you tyrants do defeat. Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, can be retentive to the strength of spirit. But life, being weary of these worldly bars, never lacks power to dismiss itself. That part of tyranny that I do bear, I can shake off at pleasure. Brutus, contemplating assassination, says in soliloquy. To speak the truth of Caesar, I have not known when his affection swayed more than his reason. But it is a common proof that lowliness is young ambition's ladder. Where to, the climate upwards turns his face. But when he once obtains the utmost round, he then, unto the ladder, turns his back, looks into the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend. This in gratitude of the great to the people is often recompensed by defeat and death. After senatorial conspirators decided that Caesar should die, Cassius insisted wisely that Marcus Antonius should not outlive the great Julius, and said, Let Antony and Caesar fall together. But Brutus were not consent to the death of Antony, believing that he was not dangerous to their future, insisting that Caesar must bleed for it. Let's kill him bodily, but not wrathfully. Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, not hue him as a carcass fit for hounds, and let our hearts, as subtle masters do, stir up their servants to an active rage, and after seem to chide them. And yet this is the sweet-scented assassin who prates of honor, and is sometimes known as the noblest robin of them all. Portia, the wife of Brutus, felt a strange alarm in his recent conduct, and Calpurnia, the wife of Caesar, implored him not to attend the session of the Senate, reminding him of the suitstayer's warning. Beware the Ides of March. Yet Caesar threw off all fear and suspicion, and said, What could be avoided? Whose end is proposed by the mighty gods? Yet Caesar shall go forth, for these predictions are to the world in general, not to Caesar. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once. The hour of assassination had arrived, and Caesar seated in the chair of state says, What is now a miss that Caesar in his Senate must redress? Senator Metellus, one of the chief conspirators, throws himself at the feet of Caesar, and implores pardon for his traitor brother. Caesar says, Be not fawn to think that Caesar bears such rebel blood, that will be thawed from the true quality with that which Metith fools, I mean, sweet words, low crooked courtesies, and base, Spaniel fawning. Thy brother by decree is banished. If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him, I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. No, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause will he be satisfied, but I am constant as the northern star, of whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament. The conspirators at this moment crowd round the doomed hero with pretended petitions, and instantly Casca stabs Caesar in the neck, while several other murdering senators stab him through the body, and at last Marcus Brutus plunges a dagger in the heart of his benefactor and father. When, with glaring eyes and dying breath, the noble Caesar exclaims, Et tu, Brute? And you, Brutus? Thus tumbled down at the base of Pompey's statue, the greatest man the world has ever known. Then the citizens of Rome, royal, rabble, and conspirators, were filled with consternation, while Brutus tried to stem the rising flood of indignation. Mark Antony was allowed to weep and speak over the pulseless clay of his official partner and friend. Gazing on the cold, bloody form of the amazing Julius, he utters these pathetic phrases. Oh mighty Caesar, dust thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? Fair thee well, I know not, gentlemen, what you intend. Who else must be let blood? Who else is rank? If I myself, if there is no hour so fit, as Caesar's death hour, nor no instrument of half that worth, as those your swords made rich, with the noble blood of all this world. I do beseech thee if you bear me hard. Now, while your purpled hands do reek and smoke, fulfill your pleasure, live a thousand years. I shall not find myself so apt to die. No place will please me so, no mean of death, as here by Caesar and by you cut off the choice and master spirit of this age. Brutus gave orders for a grand funeral, turning the body of the dead lion over to Antony, who might make the funeral oration to the people, within such bounds of discretion as the conspirators dictated. Standing alone by the dead body of Caesar in the Senate, Antony pours out thus the overflowing vengeance of his soul. Oh pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! Over thy wounds now do I prophecy, which like dumb mouths do open their ruby lips, to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue. A curse shall light upon the limbs of men. Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy. Blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar, that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered with the hands of war. All pity choked with custom of fell deeds, and Caesar's spirit raging for revenge, with Atte by his side come hot from hell. Shaw in these confines, with a monarch's voice cry, Havoc, and let's slip the dogs of war. The wild citizens of Rome clamored for the reason of Caesar's death, and Brutus mounted the rostrum in the forum, and delivered this cunning and bold aeration in the defense of the conspirators. Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Centure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may be the better judge. If there be any in this assembly any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus loved to Caesar was no less than his. If, then, any friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer. Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than Caesar were dead to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it. As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him. There was tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any speak, for him I have offended. Who is here so rude that would be a Roman? If any speak, for him I have offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any speak, for him I have offended. I pause for a reply. And then the rabble, vacillating, full citizen said, None, Brutus, none, and continued to yell, Live, Brutus, live, live! Brutus leaves the forum and requests the human cattle to remain, and here Antony relate the glories of Caesar. Finally Antony is persuaded to take the rostrum, and delivers this greatest funeral oration of all the ages. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do, live after them. The good is often turd with their bones. So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus, hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault. And grievously hath Caesar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, for Brutus is an honorable man. So there are all honorable men. Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me. But Brutus says that he was ambitious. And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome. What ransoms did the general call for his fill? Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? And that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see that on the looper-cow, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and sure he is an honorable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, but am here to speak what I know. You all did love him once, not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to mourn from him? O judgment, thou art fled to Brutus' beasts, and men have lost their reason. Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar. I must pause until it come back to me. But yesterday the word of Caesar might have stood against the world. Now lies he there, and none so poor to do him reverence. O masters, if I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong, who, you all know, are honorable men. I will not do them wrong. I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you. Then I will wrong such honorable men. But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar. I found it in his closet, to his will. But the commenters hear this statement, which part of me I do not mean to read. And they will go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, and dip their napkins in his sacred blood, yea, beg a hair of him from memory. And dying mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their issue. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle. I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on. It was on a summer evening in his tent, the day he overcome the Nevere. Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through. See what a rent the envious cascum made. Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed. And as he plucked his cursed steel away, mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, as rushing out of doors to be resolved, if Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no. For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, O ye gods, how Caesar loved him. This was the most unkindest cut of all. For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, in gratitude, more strong than trader's arms, once vanquished him, and then burst his mighty heart, and in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base of Pompey's statue, which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. Oh, what a fall there was there, my countrymen. Then I and you and all of us fell down. Wilt bloody trees and flourished over us. Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel. The impression of pity, these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what weep you? When you, but behold, our Caesar's vesture wounded. Here is himself marred as you see with traitors. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honorable. What private griefs they have, alas, I know not. That made them do it. They are wise and honorable, and will no doubt with reasons answer you. I come not, my friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is. But as you know me all, a plain blunt man, that love my friends, and that they know full well, that they gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that, which you yourselves do know. Show you, sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus and Brutus Antony, there were an Antony would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue in every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise in mutiny. The oration fired the Roman people to mutiny, and Brutus and Cassius with their followers fled from the city, and prepared for war with Antony and Octavius, who had suddenly returned to Rome. The passionate quarrel between Brutus and Cassius in their military camp at Sardis was the natural outcome of conspirators. Cassius accused Brutus of having wronged him, and Brutus twitted his brother assassin thus. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm to sell and mark your offices for gold to undeservers. Cassius fires back this reply. I, an itching palm, you know that you are Brutus that speak this, or by the gods this speech were else your last. The night before the battle of Philippi the spirit of Caesar appeared in the tent of Brutus, who startles with this blumbering trance and exclaims, Ha! Who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes, that shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me, art thou anything, art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, that make us my blood cold, and my hair to stare. Speak to me, what thou art? The ghost replies, thy evil spirit Brutus, Brutus, why comest thou, ghost, to tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi? Brutus, well, then I shall see thee again, ghost, I at Philippi, the armies of Antony and Octavius, and Brutus and Cassius meet in crash of battle. Cassius is hotly pursued by the enemy, and to prevent capture and exhibition at Rome, craves the service of Pidrus to run him through with his sword. He says, Now, be a freeman, and with this good sword, that ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom, stand not to answer, here, take thou the hilt, and when my face is covered, as to his now, guide thou the sword, Caesar, thou art revenged, even with the sword that killed thee, dies. Brutus is run to earth, and most of his generals dead or fled. He imposed Stratto to assist him to suicide, and says, I pray thee, Stratto, stay thou by thy lord, thou art a fellow of good respect. Thy life hath had some smack of honor in it. Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face, while I do run upon it. Farewell, good Stratto, Caesar now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will. Runs on his sword and dies. Antony and Octavius and his army soon find Brutus slain by his own sword, and with a most magnificent and undeserved generosity Antony pronounces the benediction over the dead body of the vilest and most intelligent conspirator who ever lived. This was the noblest robin of them all. All the conspirators save only he, did that they did in envy of great Caesar, he only in a general honest thought, and in common good to all made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man. The whole audience, led by Southampton, Essex, Bacon, and Drayton, gave three cheers and a lion roar for Julius Caesar, the greatest historical and classical play ever composed, and destined to run down the ages for a million years.