way, which opens into the court and the principal entrance. We would desire to people that hall with kindly inmates; to imagine the fine old knight, perhaps a little too puritanical, indeed, in his latter days, living there in peace and happiness with his family; merry as he ought to have been with his first wife, Jocosa (whose English name, Joyce, soundeth not quite so pleasant), whose epitaph, by her husband, is honourable alike to the deceased and to the survivor. We can picture him planting the second avenue, which leads obliquely across the park from the great gateway to the porch of the parish church. It is an avenue too narrow for carriages, if carriages then had been common; and the knight and his lady walk in stately guise along that grassy pathway, as the Sunday bells summon them to meet their humble neighbours in a place where all are equal. Charlcote is full of rich woodland scenery. The lime-tree avenue may, perhaps, be of a later date than the age of Elizabeth; and one elm has evidently succeeded another from century to century. But there are old gnarled oaks and beeches dotted about the park. Its little knolls and valleys are the same as they were two centuries ago. The same Avon flows beneath the gentle elevation on which the house stands, sparkling in the sunshine as brightly as when that house was first built. There may we still lie "Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood," and doubt not that there was the place to which "A poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, There may we still see "A careless herd, Full of the pasture," leaping gaily along, or crossing the river at their own will in search of fresh fields and low branches whereon to browse. The village of Charlcote is now one of the prettiest of objects. Whatever is new about it-and most of the cottages are new-looks like a restoration of what was old. The same character prevails in the neighbouring village of Hampton Lucy; and it may not be too much to assume that the me mory of him who walked in these pleasant places in his younger days, long before the sound of his greatness had gone forth to the ends of the earth, has led to the desire to preserve here something of the architectural character of the age in which he lived. CHAPTER V. THE hospitality of our ancestors was founded upon their sympathies with each other's joys and sorrows. The festivals of the church, the celebrations of sheep-shearing and harvesthome, the Mayings, were occasions of general gladness. But upon the marriage of a son or of a daughter, at the christening of a child, the humblest assembled their neighbours to partake of their particular rejoicing. So was it also with their sorrows. Death visited a family, and its neighbours came to mourn. To be absent from the house of mourning would have seemed as if there were not a fellowship in sorrow as well as in joy. Christian neighbours in those times looked upon each other as members of the same family. Their intimacy was much more constant and complete than in days that are thought more refined. Privacy was not looked upon as a desirable thing. The latch of every door was lifted without knocking, and the dance in the hall was arranged the instant some young taborer struck a note; or the gossip's bowl was passed around the winter fire-side, to jest and song: "And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe, A merrier hour was never wasted there." a Young men married early. In the middle ranks there was little outfit required to begin housekeeping. A few articles of useful furniture satisfied their simple tastes; and we doubt not there was as much happiness seated on the wooden bench as now on the silken ottoman, and as light hearts tripped over the green rushes as over the Persian carpet. A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act II., Scene 1. A silver bowl or two, a few spoons, constituted the display of the more ambitious; but for use, the treen platter was at once clean and substantial, though the pewter dish sometimes graced a solemn merry-making. Employment, especially agricultural, was easily obtained by the industrious; and the sons of the yeomen, whose ambition did not drive them into the towns to pursue commerce, or to the universities to try for the prizes of professions, walked humbly and contentedly in the same road as their fathers had walked before them. They tilled a little land with indifferent skill, and their herds and flocks gave food and raiment to their household. Surrounded by the cordial intimacies of the class to which he belonged, it is not difficult to understand how William Shakspere married early; and the very circumstance of his so marrying is tolerably clear evidence of the course of life in which he was brought up. Shakspere's marriage-bond, which was discovered a few years since, has set at rest all doubt as to the name and residence of his wife. She is there described as Anne Hathaway, of Stratford, in the diocese of Worcester, maiden. Rowe, in his 'Life,' says,-"Upon his leaving school, he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his father proposed to him; and in order to settle in the world, after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford." At the hamlet of Shottery, which is in the parish of Stratford, the Hathaways had been settled forty years before the period of Shakspere's marriage; for in the Warwickshire Surveys, in the time of Philip and Mary, it is recited that John Hathaway held property at Shottery, by copy of Court-Roll, dated 20th of April, 34th of Henry VIII. (1545). The Hathaway of Shakspere's time was named Richard; and the intimacy between him and John Shakspere is shown by a prccept in an action against Richard Hathaway, a The Shottery property, which was called Hewland, remained with the descendants of the Hathaways till 1838. Amongst the laudable objects of the Shakspere Club of Stratford was the purchase and preservation of this property. That has been abandoned for want of means. dated 1566, in which John Shakspere is his bondman. Before the discovery of the marriage-bond, Malone had found a confirmation of the traditional account that the maiden name of Shakspere's wife was Hathaway; for Lady Barnard, the grand-daughter of Shakspere, makes bequests in her will to the children of Thomas Hathaway, "her kinsman." But Malone doubts whether there were not other Hathaways than those of Shottery, residents in the town of Stratford, and not in the hamlet included in the parish. This is possible. But, on the other hand, the description in the marriage-bond of Anne Hathaway, as of Stratford, is no proof that she was not of Shottery; for such a document would necessarily have regard only to the parish of the persons described. Tradition, always valuable when it is not opposed to evidence, has associated for many years the cottage of the Hathaways of Shottery with the wife of Shakspere. Garrick purchased relics out of it at the time of the Stratford Jubilee; Samuel Ireland afterwards carried off what was called Shakspere's courting-chair; and there is still in the house a very ancient carved bedstead, which has been handed down from descendant to descendant as an heirloom. The house was no doubt once adequate to form a comfortable residence for a substantial and even wealthy yeoman. It is still a pretty cottage, embosomed by trees, and surrounded by pleasant pastures; and here the young poet might have surrendered his prudence to his affections: "As in the sweetest buds The eating canker dwells, so eating love The very early marriage of the young man, with one more than seven years his elder, has been supposed to have been a rash and passionate proceeding. Upon the face of it, it appears an act that might at least be reproved in the words which follow those we have just quoted : "As the most forward bud a 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act I., Scene 1. VOL. I. 4 This is the common consequence of precocious marriages ; but we are not therefore to conclude that “the young and tender wit" of our Shakspere was "turned to folly "—that his "forward bud" was "eaten by the canker"—that "his verdure" was lost "even in the prime,” by his marriage with Anne Hathaway before he was nineteen. The influence which this marriage must have had upon his destinies was no doubt considerable; but it is too much to assume, as it has been assumed, that it was an unhappy influence. All that we really know of Shakspere's family life warrants the contrary supposition. We believe, to go no farther at present, that the marriage of Shakspere was one of affection; that there was no disparity in the worldly condition of himself and the object of his choice; that it was with the consent of friends; that there were no circumstances connected with it which indicate that it was either forced or clandestine, or urged on by an artful woman to cover her apprehended loss of character. There is every reason to believe that Shakspere was remarkable for manly beauty ::- "He was a handsome, wellshaped man," says Aubrey. According to tradition, he played Adam in As You Like It,' and the Ghost in 'Hamlet.' Adam says, 66 Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty." Upon his personation of the Ghost, Mr. Campbell has the following judicious remarks:-" It has been alleged, in proof of his mediocrity, that he enacted the part of his own Ghost, in 'Hamlet.' But is the Ghost in 'Hamlet' a very mean character? No: though its movements are few, they must be awfully graceful; and the spectral voice, though subdued and half-monotonous, must be solemn and full of feeling. It gives us an imposing idea of Shakspere's stature and mien to conceive him in this part. The English public, accustomed to see their lofty nobles, their Essexes, and their Raleighs, clad in complete armour, and moving under it with a majestic air, would not have tolerated the actor Shakspeare, unless he had presented an appearance worthy of the buried majesty of Denmark." a That he per • Remarks prefixed to Moxon's edition of the Dramatic Works |