works of art as were near him, would, during his early life, be silently stamping their images on his mind, but full consciousness of and command over them were to come afterwards. Still we linger as we think of the strange boy-poet, now mixing in the fervid tumult of the village sports, with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and anon retiring to his solitary walks by the side of the Avon, hearkening to the stream,

“Making music with the enamell'd stones ;"

or watching the "great thief," the sun, surrounding himself at even-tide with skiey hoards of borrowed gold, and the moon in silence

"Her pale fire snatching from the sun or listening to the wild-note of the night-wind, which, sighing amidst the sedges,

"Foretold a tempest and a blustering day;"

or at times when the night-sky was loaded with clouds, and the moon had retired as in fear, hearing horrified the steps of "Wither'd Murder,

Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy steps,

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Move like a ghost;"

or it may be now and then a glorious truant, straying in rapt reverie, till

"Jocund Day

Stood tiptoe on the misty mountain tops;"

and returning, not to sleep, but to plunge into day-dreams more fanciful and more delicious still. If such experience was his, fragments and portions of it may have reappeared in the immortal lines we have now quoted; but our, as well as Charles Knight's, picture of his early days, is one of the thousand-and-one Midsummer Night's Dreams about Shakspeare, the verification of all which is in this earth for ever impossible.

It were of more interest and importance to know when Shakspeare came in contact with the stage, a region to which

he probably looked at first as to a heaven above him, while for a century or two it has looked up to him as to its genius and tutelar god. We are told of pantomimes and other scenical doings in Kenilworth and in Stratford during his boyhood, which may have directed his ambition toward a place which, to the eyes of the young, seems an elevation above common life, as real as that of a mountain over a flat plain, although in reality it is only such an elevation as a cloud exhibits behind a mountain, the shape of which it mimics, transmitting it into aerial statuary, as frail and false as it is beautiful. We suspect, however, that it was not in the country, but only after he reached the metropolis, that the glories, real or apparent, of the stage, produced their full effect on Shakspeare's imagination.

How singular, we may here notice, that on the stage-a place far from sacred, scarcely even respectable-the Author of Nature let down his most gifted and wide-minded child, and that in an atmosphere usually accounted polluted this marvellous spirit had to live, and move, and have his being for so many years! Some have thought that this has, in a measure, consecrated the stage. We wonder, on the other hand, that it did not far more degrade and desecrate Shakspeare. It is a proof of the healthiness of his moral instincts, the soundness of his judgment, and the amazing width of his sympathies, that such a long connexion with such an element produced no permanent injury on Shakspeare's character. And whatever minor evil influences might have lighted on him, soon,

"Like dew-drops, from the lion's mane,
Were shook to air;'

and the strong genial man went on his own way, and did his own work, and returned to his own noble idiosyncrasy.

Every one has heard of Shakspeare's deer-stealing-another of the many myths which have so clustered round his history, that our wonder is that no sceptical person has written "Historic Doubts" as to the existence of Shakspeare. Indeed, the tale of the wild young poet breaking into Charlcote-park, stealing Sir Thomas Lucy's deer, getting prosecuted by the offended

knight, and avenging himself by affixing a satirical ballad on the gate, is so bound up with our thoughts and our early readings about Shakspeare, with our recollections of the plot of the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and so on, that we are sorry to be delivered from the illusion; and, like the prisoner of Chillon,

"Regain our freedom with a sigh."

And yet there is reason to believe that the story is altogether a fable, and that Shakspeare was never a worshipper of Mercury, the god of thieves, although the chief favourite of Apollo, the god of poets. In his day, indeed, deer-hunting was not counted a great offence-no greater than bird-nesting is nowand it is extremely unlikely that Sir Thomas Lucy, who was member for the county, and on friendly terms with Shakspeare's relatives, should have prosecuted the poet so severely as to make him flee the country. So that Shakspeare's deer-stealing, with Surrey's journey to Italy, and many other marvels in the history of the past, must, as Scott says of second-sight, “be abandoned to the purposes of poetry." Yet "As You Like It" seems to prove that its author was early familiar with the intricate beauties of forest scenery, and acquainted with the habitudes of the "poor dappled fools," the "native burghers of the desert city" of the woods.

Somewhat inconsistently with this story about deer-stealing, it is held by Malone that our young poet was several years in an attorney's office, and we suspect Walter Scott must have applauded the theory that Shakspeare, like himself, was a gigantic (and lame) "limb of the law." Of this, however, beyond the use of a number of law terms, which intercourse with Templars in London might have taught him, there is no evidence. Hundreds of legal documents connected with the place and the period have been examined, but the immortal "William Shakspeare," occurs in none.

name,

At an early age-ere he was nineteen-he married Ann Hathaway, daughter of John Hathaway, of Shottery, near Stratford. Hathaway was a substantial yeoman, and his daughter was seven years older than the poet. This was in 1582.

A

great deal of malignant and meretricious nonsense has been uttered about Shakspeare's marriage and wedded life. Some say that he married so soon because he was compelled to do so in order to vindicate the lady's fair fame. Others say he was unhappy with his wife, because, firstly, she was older than he; because, secondly, he only left her in his will "his second best bed;" because, thirdly, all poets are or should be unhappy in their domestic connexions; we wonder they did not add, because, fourthly, he was married in the month of November, which, next to May, superstition has tabooed as an unlucky month for the nuptial ceremony. Such are specimens of the silly and gossipping manner in which some parts of Shakspeare's life have been treated by persons who were, no doubt, disappointed because they found no mention of the name "Shakspeare" in the records of Doctors' Commons, and could never forgive him because he died in his wife's arms. Anne Hathaway appears to have been a suitable match to him in degree, in substance, and in external appearance, and probably made him happier than Lady Jane Grey with all her Greek, or Madame de Stael with all her German, would have done. That at one period of his life he fell into errors and estrangements has been argued doubtfully from the Sonnets; but whatever these errors were, they seem to have passed away long before, at Stratford, he surrendered his spirit to its Creator. That he was compelled to marry her is proved to be false, and the statement is founded on a confusion of marriage with the then common practice of previous betrothal before witnesses.

How, why, and when this supreme spirit first visited London, are questions which have puzzled all his biographers and commentators extremely. The common cry about his journey there used to be "stole away," some saying from a butcher's shop, others from an attorney's office, others from a broken deer park, and others from a scolding or snarling wife! It appears now, however, that all these theories are incredible, and that Shakspeare's visit to London was not a flight, nor a desertion, but a voluntary emigration. In the baptismal register of Stratford, for May 1583, we find the mention of the

baptism of Susanna, eldest child of the poet. Two years after, the baptism of Harriet and Judith Shakspeare is recorded. It follows from this that his wife continued to reside in Stratford. On the other hand, we discover no trace of him in the records of Court-leet, Bailiff's court, or Commonhall. This might, however, have been because he was a minor; but even after he became of age, there is still no mention of his name. It is inferred, therefore, that he left Stratford for London at or about the termination of his minority-i.e. in the year 1585; and as he continued to return there every year, it is evident that he had gone to push his fortune for the sake of his family, whom probably he brought to reside with him as soon as he could. On repairing to London, he seems immediately to have connected himself with the theatres. The well-known story of his holding horses at the door of the theatre is another of those fables which have yielded to the stern research of later times. An ingenious writer in Blackwood has finely described the supposed effects of the first sight of a London theatre on the enthusiastic mind of the poet. Shakspeare thus speaks, "I remember when I first came to London, and began to be a hanger-on at the theatres, a great desire grew on me for more learning than had fallen to my share at Stratford, but fickleness and impatience, and the bewilderment caused by new objects, dispersed that wish into empty air. Ah! my lord [Bacon], you cannot conceive what a strange thing it was for so impressible a rustic to find himself turned loose in the midst of Babel. My faculties wrought to such a degree that I was in a dream all day long. My bent was not then toward comedy, for most objects seemed noble and of much consideration. The music at the theatre ravished my young heart, and, amidst the goodly company of spectators, I beheld afar off, with dazzled sight, beauties who seemed to outparagon Cleopatra of Egypt. Some of these primitive fooleries were afterwards woven into Romeo and Juliet."

Extreme obscurity rests on many questions connected with Shakspeare's early life in London-such as whether he commenced his connexion with the stage as an actor or a playwriter; and how it was that he became so soon as 1589 a