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fancying that Shakespeare must have drawn his tavernlife from an acquaintance with its character as it was exhibited on the banks of the Thames. There was no more necessity for him to have traveled from London in search of flowers than there was to have gone there for the, "anon, anon, sir; score a pint of bastard in the Half Moon." We have, indeed, the direct testimony of Harrison, in 1586, to the effect that the metropolitan were then inferior to many of the provincial hotels. There was certainly at least one inn at Stratford-on-Avon which could bear comparison in essential respects with any to be found elsewhere in England. The Bear near the foot of the bridge possessed its large hall, its nominated rooms such as the Lion and Talbot chambers, an enormous quantity of house linen, a whole pipe of claret, two butts of sack, plenty of beer, upwards of forty tankards of different sizes, and, among its plate, "one goblet of silver, parcel-gilt." The last-named vessel need not be converted into the prototype of the one used by Mrs. Quickly in the Dolphin, nor, as a rule, in the absence of palpable evidence to the contrary, are there grounds for believing that the great dramatist was thinking of special localities when he was penning his various allusions or characterizations.

When the amazing number of different characters in the plays of Shakespeare is borne in mind, it is curious that he should have left so few traces in them of what is exclusively provincial. There are yet fewer, if any, of language or customs that can be thought to be absolutely peculiar to Stratford-upon-Avon, but examples of both are frequently to be met with that may fairly be supposed to have been primarily derived from the poet's local experiences. Among these is the expression, aroint thee, witch! one that is so rare in our literature, either in print or manuscript, that the combined labors of philologists have failed to produce a single early instance of its use in the works of other authors. That it was, however, a familiar phrase in Shakespeare's time with the lower classes of his native place, is apparent from one of the town records. It is there narrated how one Goodie Bromlie, in an altercation with a woman named Holder, was so exceedingly free-spoken that she had the audacity to wind up a torrent of abuse with the unseemly execration,-arent the, wich! There is no doubt that Stratford yielded many another unusual expression, many a quaint observation, to the recollection of the great dramatist, and it is just possible that an occasional specimen may yet be met with in the locality. One of the inhabitants, so recently as the year 1843, was put into stocks for intoxication, and a passer-by, asking the captive how he liked the discipline, was met with the reply,-"I beant the first mon as ever were in the stocks, so I don't care a farden about it." If it were not an impossible view of the case, it might be fancied that the jovial delinquent had been travestying one of the reflections that Richard II is made to utter in the dungeon of Pomfret Castle.

Those who would desire to realize the general appearance of the Stratford-on-Avon of the poet's days must deplore the absence, not merely of a genuine sketch of New Place, but of any kind of view or engraving of the town as it appeared in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. Its aspect must then have been essentially different from that exhibited at a subsequent period. Relatively to ourselves, Shakespeare may practically be considered to have existed in a different land, not more than glimpses of the real nature of which are now to be obtained by the most careful study of existing documents and material remains. Many enthusiasts of these times who visit Stratford-onAvon are under the delusion that they behold a locality which recalls the days of the great dramatist, but, with the exception of a few diffused buildings, scarcely one of which is precisely in its original condition, there is no resemblance between the present town and the Shakespearean borough, the latter with its medieval and Elizabethan buildings, its crosses, its numerous barns and thatched hovels, its water-mills, its street bridges and rivulets, its mud walls, its dunghills and fetid ditches, its unpaved walks and its wooden-spired church, with the common fields reaching nearly to the gardens of the Birth-Place. Neither can there be a much greater resemblance between the ancient and modern general views of the town from any of the neighboring elevations. The tower and lower part of the church, the top of the Guild Chapel, a few old tall chimneys, the course of the river, the mill-dam, and the outlines of the surrounding hills, would be nearly all that would be common to both prospects. There were, however, until the last few years, the old mill-bridge, which, excepting that rails had been added, preserved its Elizabethan form, the Cross-on-the-Hill, and the Wier Brake, the two latter fully retaining their original character. Now, alas, a hideous railway has obliterated all trace of the picturesque from what was one of the most interesting and charming spots in Warwickshire.

A former inhabitant of Stratford-on-Avon, writing in the year 1759, asserts that "the unanimous tradition of this neighborhood is that, by the uncommon bounty of the Earl of Southampton, he was enabled to purchase houses and land at Stratford." According to Rowe,— "there is one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespeare's that, if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted; that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." A comparison of these versions would indicate that, if the anecdote is based on truth, the gift was made on the occasion of the purchase of New Place in 1597; and it is probable that it was larger than the sum required for that object, although the amount named by Rowe must be an exaggeration. Unless the general truth of the story be accepted, it is difficult to believe that Shakespeare could have obtained, so early in his career, the ample means he certainly possessed in that and the following year. The largest emoluments that could have been derived from his professional avocations would hardly have sufficed to have accomplished such a result, and the necessity of forwarding continual remittances to Stratford-on-Avon must not be overlooked.

It was not until the year 1597 that Shakespeare's public reputation as a dramatist was sufficiently established for the booksellers to be anxious to secure the copyright of his plays. The first of his dramas so honored was the successful and popular one of King Richard II, which was entered as a tragedy on the books of the Stationers' Company by Andrew Wise, a publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard, on August 29, 1597. In the impression heralded by this entry the deposition scene was omitted for political reasons, objections having been made to its introduction on the public stage, and it was not inserted by the publishers of the history until some years after the accession of James. Considering the small space that it occupies and its inoffensive character, the omission may appear rather singular, but during the few years that closed the eventful reign of Elizabeth, the subject of the deposition of Richard II bore so close an analogy, in the important respects of the wishes of those who desired a repetition of a similar occurrence, it was an exceedingly dangerous theme for the pen of contemporary writers.

One of the most popular subjects for the historical drama at this period was the story of Richard III. A piece on the events of this reign had been acted by the Queen's Company in or before the month of June, 1594, but there is no evidence that this production was known to the great dramatist. The earliest notice of Shakepeare's play hitherto discovered is in an entry of it as a tragedy on the books of the Stationers' Company in October, 1597, and it was published by Wise in the same year. The historical portions are to a certain extent taken from More and Holinshed, but with an utter defiance of chronology, the imprisonment of Clarence, for instance, preceding the funeral of Henry VI. There are, also, slight traces of an older play to be observed, passages which may belong to an inferior hand, and incidents, such as that of the rising of the ghosts, suggested probably by similar ones in a more ancient composition. That the play of King Richard III, as we now have it, is essentially Shakespeare's, cannot admit of a doubt; but as little can it be questioned that to the circumstance of an anterior work on the subject having been used do we owe some of its weakness and excessively turbulent character. No

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