SHAKESPEARE. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the father of the English drama, was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the year 1564.. He was the eldest of ten children. His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, had so large a family that he could give him but a slender education. He was sometime at the grammar school of Stratford, where he attained the rudiments of the Latin language. At the age of 17 he married the daughter of one Hathaway, a substantial farmer in the neighbourhood; and perhaps he would never have had an idea of the talent he received from nature but for an event which removed him from the obscure station in life to which he appeared condemned. Having by a misfortune common to young men fallen into bad company, some of whom were in the practice of deer stealing, he was prevailed upon to engage with them in robbing the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Chalecote. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman; and out of revenge Shakespeare made a ballad upon Sir Thomas, which is said to have been so bitter that the prosecution was redoubled, and he was obliged to shelter himself in London. Here he formed an acquaintance with the players, and was soon enrolled among them. Mr. Rowe observes, that he never could meet with any further account of him, as an actor, than that his highest part was the Ghost in his own Hamlet. We are equally ignorant which was the first play he wrote. All that we know is, that Queen Elizabeth had several of his plays represented before her, and, without doubt, gave him several marks of her favour. It is supposed to be this princess whom, in his "Midsummer-Night's Dream," he designates "a fair vestal, throned by the west." She was so pleased with the character of Falstaff, that it is said she commanded him to show him in love; on which occasion Shakespeare wrote his admirable comedy of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." He found a particular friend in the Earl of Southampton, who generously sent him a thousand pounds to enable him to make a purchase. Each successive year contributed to the glory of the author, who soon eclipsed the English Orestes and Pylades, Beaumont and Fletcher; who, until Shakespeare appeared, occupied the scene. Their pieces combine many real beauties and interesting situations, but are sullied by obscenities for which Shakespeare is not often to be reproached. As divested of jealousy as of pride he contributed to the advancement of genius wherever he found it; and it is to him that England is indebted for other writers who were an ornament to the stage. Shakespeare, though in the height of his glory, seemed desirous of the pleasures of a country life; and rejecting every effort that was made to detain him in London, returned to his native place, where his wit and good-humour introduced him to the acquaintance of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood. Among others was one Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted for his wealth and his usury, on whom, ENGLAND.] SHAKESPEARE. by way of epitaph, he wrote the following sarcastic verses: Ten in the hundred lies here ingraved, 'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved; If any man ask who lays in this tomb, Oh, oh, quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe. which he never forgave. Shakespeare died in 1616, and was buried at a church in Stratford, where a monument is placed to his memory. In 1740 a tomb was erected in honour of this distinguished poet in Westminster Abbey, with this inscription : Gulielmo Shakespeare, anno pest mortem 124, Among his dramatic works his most admired productions are Othello, the Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, the First Part of Henry the Fourth, and Richard the Third. Certain critics have denominated his pieces neither tragedies nor comedies; but whatever be their title, whatever their inconsistencies or defects, Shakespeare possessed above every other writer the talent of delineating man as he really is, and of displaying, in a superlative degree, all those shades and varieties of the passions which inhabit the human breast. All his personages are to be found in nature, no one is copied from the other; they are all depictured with a masterly hand, and exhibit that peculiarity of feature by which they should be characterized; from thence arise those inequalities of style so much condemned by foreign writers; but which the author, it is presumed, considered necessary to the perfection of his pictures. |