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ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Globe Theatre . . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Elizabeth Hawking .... Facing page 20 
 
 A Puritan Family " " 36 
 
 Haymaking " " 50 
 
 A Supper Party " "60 
 
 Velvet Breeches and Cloth 
 
 Breeches " " 76 
 
 The Swan Theatre .... " " 96 
 
 A Family Group " no 
 
 Charlecote Hall " n 130 
 
 The Bellman of London . . " " 146 
 
 William Kemp Dancing ... " " 160 
 
 An English Printing-office . "176 
 
The People 
 
 for whom 
 
 Shakespeare Wrote 
 
 BY 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER &* BROTHERS 
 
 MDCCCXCVII 
 
 ( JUJ 
 
 V* 
 
 
 f 
 
By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 
 
 THE RELATION OF LITERATURE TO LIFE. Post 8vo, 
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 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE first two chapters of these stud- 
 ies of the people for whom Shakespeare 
 wrote were printed in the Atlantic Month- 
 ly, and permission to reproduce them 
 here is kindly given by Messrs. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co. The last two are 
 from a MS. written subsequently, to il- 
 lustrate the relation of English life in 
 the times of Elizabeth to its literature. 
 The last two traverse, therefore, some- 
 thing of the same ground as the first, 
 and the reader may perceive some repe- 
 titions. It is thought best, however, to 
 let them remain, rather than to destroy 
 the structure of the second part of this 
 
PREFACE 
 
 little volume. With this explanation, 
 which will advise the reader of one of 
 the things he is to criticise, the study is 
 respectfully submitted to an over-kind 
 public. 
 
 C. D. W. 
 
 Hartford, June i, 1897. 
 
The People 
 
 for whom 
 
 Shakespeare Wrote 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Queen Elizabeth being dead about 
 ten o'clock in the morning, March 24, 
 1603, Sir Robert Cary posted away, un- 
 sent, to King James of Scotland to in- 
 form him of the "accident"; and got 
 made a baron of the realm for his ride. 
 On his way down to take possession 
 of his new kingdom the king distribu- 
 ted the honor of knighthood right and 
 left liberally ; at Theobald's he created 
 eight-and-twenty knights, of whom Sir 
 Richard Baker, afterwards the author 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 of "A Chronicle of the Kings of Eng- 
 land," was one. " God knows how many 
 hundreds he made the first year," says 
 the chronicler, " but it was indeed fit 
 to give vent to the passage of Honour, 
 which during Queen Elizabeth's reign 
 had been so stopped that scarce any 
 county of England had knights enow 
 to make a jury." 
 
 Sir Richard Baker was born in 1568, 
 and died in 1645; his " Chronicle" ap- 
 peared in 1 641. It was brought down 
 to the death of James in 1625, when, he 
 having written the introduction to the 
 life of Charles I., the storm of the sea- 
 son caused him to " break off in amaze- 
 ment," for he had thought the race of 
 "Stewards" likely to continue to the 
 " world's end " ; and he never resumed 
 his pen. In the reign of James two 
 things lost their lustre — the exercise of 
 tilting, which Elizabeth made a special 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 solemnity, and the band of Yeomen of 
 the Guard, choicest persons both for stat- 
 ure and other good parts, who graced 
 the court of Elizabeth; James " was so 
 intentive to Realities that he little re- 
 garded shows," and in his time these 
 came utterly to be neglected. The virgin 
 queen was the last ruler who seriously 
 regarded the pomps and splendors of 
 feudalism. 
 
 It was characteristic of the age that 
 the death of James, which occurred in 
 his fifty-ninth year, should have been 
 by rumor attributed to "poyson"; but 
 " being dead, and his body opened, there 
 was no sign at all of poyson, his inward 
 parts being all sound, but that his Spleen 
 was a little faulty, which might be cause 
 enough to cast him into an Ague : the 
 ordinary high - way, especially in old 
 bodies, to a natural death." 
 
 The chronicler records among the 
 3 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 men of note of James's time Sir Francis 
 Vere, " who as another Hannibal, with 
 his one eye, could see more in the Mar- 
 tial Discipline than common men can do 
 with two "; Sir Edward Coke ; Sir Fran- 
 cis Bacon, " who besides his profounder 
 book, of Novum Organum, hath written 
 the reign of King Henry the Seventh, 
 in so sweet a style, that like Manna, it 
 pleaseth the tast of all palats "; Will- 
 iam Camden, whose Description of Brit- 
 ain " seems to keep Queen Elizabeth 
 alive after death"; " and to speak it in 
 a word, the Trojan Horse was not fuller 
 of Heroick Grecians, than King James 
 his Reign was full of men excellent in 
 all kindes of Learning." Among these 
 was an old university acquaintance of 
 Baker's, " Mr. John Dunne, who leav- 
 ing Oxford, lived at the Innes of Court, 
 not dissolute, but very neat ; a great 
 Visitor of Ladies, a great frequenter 
 
 4 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 of Playes, a great writer of conceited 
 Verses ; until such times as King James 
 taking notice of the pregnancy of his 
 Wit, was a means that he betook him 
 to the study of Divinity, and thereupon 
 proceeding Doctor, was made Dean of 
 Pauls ; and became so rare a Preacher, 
 that he was not only commended, but 
 even admired by all who heard him." 
 
 The times of Elizabeth and James 
 were visited by some awful casualties 
 and portents. From December, 1602, to 
 the December following, the plague de- 
 stroyed 30,518 persons in London; the 
 same disease that in the sixth year of 
 Elizabeth killed 20,500, and in the 
 thirty-sixth year 17,890, besides the lord 
 mayor and three aldermen. In Jan- 
 uary, 1606, a mighty whale came up the 
 Thames within eight miles of London, 
 whose body, seen divers times above 
 water, was judged to be longer than the 
 
 5 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 largest ship on the river ; " but when she 
 tasted the fresh water and scented the 
 Land, she returned into the sea." Not 
 so fortunate was a vast whale cast upon 
 the Isle of Thanet, in Kent, in 1575, 
 which was " twenty Ells long, and thir- 
 teen foot broad from the belly to the 
 backbone, and eleven foot between the 
 eyes. One of his eyes being taken out 
 of his head was more than a cart with 
 six horses could draw; the Oyl being 
 boyled out of his head was Parmacit- 
 tee." Nor the monstrous fish cast ashore 
 in Lincolnshire in 1564, which measured 
 six yards between the eyes and had a tail 
 fifteen feet broad ; " twelve men stood 
 upright in his mouth to get the Oyl." 
 In 1612 a comet appeared, which in the 
 opinion of Dr. Bainbridge, the great 
 mathematician of Oxford, was as far 
 above the moon as the moon is above 
 the earth, and the sequel of it was that 
 
 6 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 infinite slaughters and devastations fol- 
 lowed it both in Germany and other coun- 
 tries. In 1613, in Standish, in Lanca- 
 shire, a maiden child was born having 
 four legs, four arms, and one head with 
 two faces — the one before, the other be- 
 hind, like the picture of Janus. (One 
 thinks of the prodigies that presaged 
 the birth of Glendower.) Also, the same 
 year, in Hampshire, a carpenter, lying 
 in bed with his wife and a young child, 
 " was himself and the childe both burned 
 to death with a sudden lightning, no 
 fire appearing outwardly upon him, and 
 yet lay burning for the space of almost 
 three days till he was quite consumed to 
 ashes." This year the Globe playhouse, 
 on the Bankside, was burned, and the 
 year following the new playhouse, the 
 Fortune, in Golding Lane, " was by neg- 
 ligence of a candle, clean burned down 
 to the ground." In this year also, 1614, 
 
 7 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 the town of Stratford -on -Avon was 
 burned. One of the strangest events, 
 however, happened in the first year 
 of Elizabeth (1558), when " dyed Sir 
 Thomas Cheney, Lord Warden of the 
 Cinque Ports, of whom it is reported for 
 a certain, that his pulse did beat more 
 than three quarters of an hour after he 
 was dead, as strongly as if he had been 
 still alive." In 1580 a strange appari- 
 tion happened in Somersetshire — three 
 score personages all clothed in black, a 
 furlong in distance from those that be- 
 held them ; " and after their appearing, 
 and a little while tarrying, they van- 
 ished away, but immediately another 
 strange company, in like manner, color, 
 and number appeared in the same place, 
 and they encountered one another and 
 so vanished away. And the third time 
 appeared that number again, all in bright 
 armour, and encountered one another, 
 
 8 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 and so vanished away. This was ex- 
 amined before Sir George Norton, and 
 sworn by four honest men that saw it, 
 to be true." Equally well substantiated, 
 probably, was what happened in Here- 
 fordshire in 1 571 : "A field of three 
 acres, in Blackmore, with the Trees 
 and Fences, moved from its place and 
 passed over another field, travelling in 
 the highway that goeth to Heme, and 
 there stayed." Herefordshire was a fa- 
 vorite place for this sort of exercise of 
 nature. In 1575 the little town of Kin- 
 naston was visited by an earthquake : 
 " On the seventeenth of February at six 
 o'clock of the evening, the earth began 
 to open and a Hill with a Rock under it 
 (making at first a great bellowing noise, 
 which was heard a great way off) lifted 
 itself up a great height, and began to 
 travel, bearing along with it the Trees 
 that grew upon it, the Sheep-folds, and 
 
 9 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Flocks of Sheep abiding there at the 
 same time. In the place from whence 
 it was first moved, it left a gaping dis- 
 tance forty foot broad, and forescore Ells 
 long ; the whole Field was about twen- 
 ty Acres. Passing along, it overthrew a 
 Chappell standing in the way, removed 
 an Ewe-Tree planted in the Churchyard, 
 from the West into the East ; with the 
 like force it thrust before it High-wayes, 
 Sheep-folds, Hedges, and Trees, made 
 Tilled ground Pasture, and again turned 
 Pasture into Tillage. Having walked 
 in this sort from Saturday in the even- 
 ing, till Monday noon, it then stood 
 still." It seems not improbable that 
 Birnam wood should come to Dunsi- 
 nane. 
 
 It was for an age of faith, for a people 
 whose credulity was fed on such prodi- 
 gies and whose imagination glowed at 
 such wonderful portents, that Shake- 
 
 IO 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 speare wrote, weaving into the realities 
 of sense those awful mysteries of the 
 supernatural which hovered not far away 
 from every Englishman of his time. 
 
 Shakespeare was born in 1564, when 
 Elizabeth had been six years on the 
 throne, and he died in 1616, nine years 
 before James I., of the faulty spleen, 
 was carried to the royal chapel in West- 
 minster, " with great solemnity, but with 
 greater lamentation." Old Baker, who 
 says of himself that he was the unwor- 
 thiest of the knights made at Theobald's, 
 condescends to mention William Shake- 
 speare at the tail end of the men of note 
 of Elizabeth's time. The ocean is not 
 more boundless, he affirms, than the 
 number of men of note of her time ; and 
 after he has finished with the statesmen 
 (" an exquisite statesman for his own 
 ends was Robert Earl of Leicester, and 
 for his Countries good, Sir William Ce- 
 
 11 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 till, Lord Burleigh"), the seamen, the 
 great commanders, the learned gentle- 
 men and writers (among them Roger 
 Askam, who had sometime been school- 
 master to Queen Elizabeth, but, taking 
 too great delight in gaming and cock- 
 fighting, lived and died in mean estate), 
 the learned divines and preachers, he 
 concludes: " After such men, it might 
 be thought ridiculous to speak of Stage- 
 players ; but seeing excellency in the 
 meanest things deserve remembring, 
 and Roscius the Comedian is recorded in 
 History with such commendation, it may 
 be allowed us to do the like with some 
 of our Nation. Richard Bourbidge and 
 Edward Allen, two such actors as no 
 age must ever look to see the like ; and 
 to make their Comedies compleat, Rich- 
 ard Tarleton, who for the Part called 
 the Clowns Part, never had his match, 
 never will have. For Writers of Playes, 
 
 12 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 and such as have been players them- 
 selves, William Shakespeare and Ben- 
 jamin Johnson have especially left their 
 Names recommended to posterity." 
 
 Richard Bourbidge (or Burbadge) was 
 the first of the great English tragic ac- 
 tors, and was the original of the great- 
 er number of Shakespeare's heroes — 
 Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Shylock, Mac- 
 beth, Richard III., Romeo, Brutus, etc. 
 Dick Tarleton, one of the privileged 
 scapegraces of social life, was regarded 
 by his contemporaries as the most witty 
 of clowns and comedians. The clown 
 was a permitted character in the old 
 theatres, and intruded not only between 
 the acts, but even into the play itself, 
 with his quips and antics. It is prob- 
 able that he played the part of clown, 
 grave-digger, etc., in Shakespeare's com- '" 
 edies, and no doubt took liberties with 
 his parts. It is thought that part of 
 
 13 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Hamlet's advice to the players — " and 
 let those that play your clowns speak no 
 more than is set down for them," etc. — 
 was levelled at Tarleton. 
 
 The question is often asked, but I 
 consider it an idle one, whether Shake- 
 speare was appreciated in his own day 
 as he is now. That the age was unable 
 to separate him from itself, and see his 
 great stature, is probable ; that it en- 
 joyed him with a sympathy to which we 
 are strangers there is no doubt. To us 
 he is inexhaustible. The more we study 
 him, the more are we astonished at his 
 multiform genius. In our complex civ- 
 ilization, there is no development of pas- 
 sion, or character, or trait of human nat- 
 ure, no social evolution, that does not 
 find expression somewhere in those mar- 
 vellous plays ; and yet it is impossible 
 for us to enter into a full, sympathetic 
 enjoyment of those plays unless we can 
 14 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 in some measure recreate for ourselves 
 the atmosphere in which they were writ- 
 ten. To superficial observation great 
 geniuses come into the world at rare 
 intervals in history, in a manner inde- 
 pendent of what we call the progress of 
 the race. It may be so ; but the form 
 the genius shall take is always deter- 
 mined by the age in which it appears, 
 and its expression is shaped by the en- 
 vironments. Acquaintance with the 
 Bedouin desert life of to-day, which 
 has changed little for three thousand 
 years, illumines the book of Job like an 
 electric light. Modern research into 
 Hellenic and Asiatic life has given a 
 new meaning to the Iliad and the Odys- 
 sey, and greatly enhanced our enjoy- 
 ment of them. A fair comprehension of 
 the Divina Commedia is impossible with- 
 out some knowledge of the factions that 
 rent Florence ; of the wars of Guelf and 
 
 15 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Ghibelline; of the spirit that banished 
 Dante, and gave him an humble tomb 
 in Ravenna instead of a sepulchre in the 
 pantheon of Santa Croce. Shakespeare 
 was a child of his age ; it had long been 
 preparing for him ; its expression culmi- 
 nated in him. It was essentially a dra- 
 matic age. He used the accumulated 
 materials of centuries. He was play- 
 wright as well as poet. His variety and 
 multiform genius cannot otherwise be 
 accounted for. He called in the coin- 
 age of many generations, and reissued it 
 purified and unalloyed, stamped in his 
 own mint. There was a Hamlet prob- 
 ably, there were certainly Romeos and 
 Juliets, on the stage before Shakespeare. 
 In him were received the imaginations, 
 the inventions, the aspirations, the su- 
 perstitions, the humors, the supernat- 
 ural intimations ; in him met the con- 
 verging rays of the genius of his age, as 
 16 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 in a lens, to be sent onward thenceforth 
 in an ever-broadening stream of light. 
 
 It was his fortune to live not only in 
 a dramatic age, but in a transition age, 
 when feudalism was passing away, but 
 while its shows and splendors could still 
 be seriously comprehended. The dignity 
 that doth hedge a king was so far abat- 
 ed that royalty could be put upon the 
 stage as a player's spectacle ; but the 
 reality of kings and queens and court 
 pageantry was not so far past that it 
 did not appeal powerfully to the imag- 
 inations of the frequenters of the Globe, 
 the Rose, and the Fortune. They had 
 no such feeling as we have in regard to 
 the pasteboard kings and queens who 
 strut their brief hour before us in ana- 
 chronic absurdity. 
 
 But, besides that he wrote in the 
 
 spirit of his age, Shakespeare wrote in 
 
 the language and the literary methods 
 b 17 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 of his time. This is not more evident 
 in the contemporary poets than in the 
 chroniclers of that day. They all de- 
 lighted in ingenuities of phrase, in neat 
 turns and conceits; it was a compliment 
 then to be called a " conceited" writer. 
 
 Of all the guides to Shakespeare's 
 time, there is none more profitable or 
 entertaining than William Harrison, 
 who wrote for Holinshed's chronicle 
 " The Description of England," as it 
 fell under his eyes from 1577 to 1587. 
 Harrison's England is an unfailing mine 
 of information for all the historians of 
 the sixteenth century ; and in the edi- 
 tion published by the New Shakespeare 
 Society, and edited, with a wealth of 
 notes and contemporary references, by 
 Mr. Frederick J. Furnivall, it is a new 
 revelation of Shakespeare's England to 
 the general reader. 
 
 Harrison himself is an interesting 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 character, and trustworthy above the 
 general race' of chroniclers. He was 
 born in 1534, or, to use his exactness 
 of statement, "upon the 18th of April, 
 hora 11, minut 4, Secunde 56, at Lon- 
 don, in Cordwainer streete, otherwise 
 called bowe-lane." This year was also 
 remarkable as that in which " King 
 Henry 8 polleth his head ; after whom 
 his household and nobility, with the rest 
 of his subjects do the like." It was the 
 year before Anne Boleyn, haled away 
 to the Tower, accused, condemned, and 
 executed in the space of fourteen days, 
 " with sigheingteares" said to the rough 
 Duke of Norfolk, " Hither I came once 
 my lord, to fetch a crown imperial; but 
 now to receive, I hope, a crown im- 
 mortal." In 1544, the boy was at St. 
 Paul's school ; the litany in the English 
 tongue, by the king's command, was 
 that year sung openly in St. Paul's, and 
 
 19 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 we have a glimpse of Harrison with the 
 other children, enforced to buy those 
 books, walking in general procession, as 
 was appointed, before the king went to 
 Boulogne. Harrison was a student at 
 both Oxford and Cambridge, taking the 
 degree of bachelor of divinity at the 
 latter in 1569, when he had been an 
 Oxford M.A. of seven years' standing. 
 Before this he was household chaplain 
 to Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham, 
 who gave him, in 1588-89, the rectory 
 of Radwinter, in Essex, which he held 
 till his death, in 1593. In 1586 he was 
 installed canon of Windsor. Between 
 1559 and 1 571 he married Marion Ise- 
 brande, of whom he said in his will, 
 referring to the sometime supposed un- 
 lawfulness of priests' marriages, " by the 
 laws of God I take and repute in all 
 respects for my true and lawful wife." 
 At Radwinter, the old parson, working 
 
 20 
 
ELIZABETH HAWKING 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 in his garden, collected Roman coins, 
 wrote his chronicles, and expressed his 
 mind about the rascally lawyers of Es- 
 sex, to whom flowed all the wealth of 
 the land. The lawyers in those days ; 
 stirred up contentions, and then reaped 
 the profits. " Of all that ever I knew 
 in Essex," says Harrison, " Denis and 
 Mainford excelled, till John of Ludlow, 
 alias Mason, came in place, unto whom 
 in comparison these two were but chil- 
 dren." This last did so harry a client 
 for four years that the latter, still called 
 upon for new fees, " went to bed, and 
 within four days made an end of his 
 woeful life, even with care and pensive- 
 ness." And after his death the lawyer 
 so handled his son " that there was 
 never sheep shorn in May, so near 
 clipped of his fleece present, as he was 
 of many to come." The Welsh were 
 the most litigious people. A Welsh- 
 
 21 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 man would walk up to London bare- 
 legged, carrying his hose on his neck, 
 to save wear and because he had no 
 change, importune his countrymen till 
 he got half a dozen writs, with which he 
 would return to molest his neighbors, 
 though no one of his quarrels was worth 
 the money he paid for a single writ. 
 
 The humblest mechanic of England 
 to-day has comforts and conveniences 
 which the richest nobles lacked in Har- 
 rison's day, but it was nevertheless an 
 age of great luxury and extravagance ; 
 of brave apparel, costly and showy be- 
 yond that of any Continental people, 
 though wanting in refined taste ; and of 
 mighty banquets, with service of mas- 
 sive plate, troops of attendants, and a 
 surfeit of rich food and strong drink. 
 
 In this luxury the clergy of Harrison's 
 rank did not share. Harrison was poor 
 on forty pounds a year. He complains 
 
 22 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 that the clergy were taxed more than 
 ever, the church having become "an 
 ass whereon every man is to ride to mar- 
 ket and cast his wallet." They paid 
 tenths and first-fruits and subsidies, so 
 that out of twenty pounds of a bene- 
 fice the incumbent did not reserve more 
 than £13 6s. Sd. for himself and his fam- 
 ily. They had to pay for both prince 
 and laity, and both grumbled at and 
 slandered them. Harrison gives a good 
 account of the higher clergy; he says 
 the bishops were loved for their pain- 
 ful diligence in their calling, and that 
 the clergy of England were reputed on 
 the Continent as learned divines, skil- 
 ful in Greek and Hebrew and in the 
 Latin tongue. There was, however, a 
 scarcity of preachers and ministers in 
 Elizabeth's time, and their character 
 was not generally high. What could be 
 expected when covetous patrons can- 
 
 23 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 celled their debts to their servants by 
 bestowing advowsons of benefices upon 
 their bakers, butlers, cooks, grooms, 
 pages, and lackeys — when even in the 
 universities there was cheating at elec- 
 tions for scholarships and fellowships, 
 and gifts were for sale ! The morals of 
 the clergy were, however, improved by 
 frequent conferences, at which the good 
 were praised and the bad reproved ; and 
 these conferences were " a notable spur 
 unto all the ministers, whereby to ap- 
 ply their books, which otherwise (as in 
 times past) would give themselves to 
 hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, 
 tipling at the ale house, shooting, and 
 other like vanities." The clergy held 
 a social rank with tradespeople ; their 
 sons learned trades, and their daughters 
 might go out to service. Jewell says 
 many of them were the " basest sort 
 of people " — unlearned, fiddlers, pipers, 
 
 24 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 and what not. " Not a few," says Har- 
 rison, " find fault with our thread-bare 
 gowns, as if not our patrons but our 
 wives were the causes of our woe." He 
 thinks the ministers will be better when 
 the patrons are better, and he defends 
 the right of the clergy to marry and to 
 leave their goods, if they have any, to 
 their widows and children instead of to 
 the church, or to some school or alms- 
 house. What if their wives are fond, 
 after the decease of their husbands, to 
 bestow themselves not so advisedly as 
 their calling requireth ; do not duch- 
 esses, countesses, and knights' wives 
 offend in the like fully so often as they ? 
 And Eve, remarks the old philosopher 
 of Radwinter — " Eve will be Eve, 
 though Adam would say nay." 
 
 The apparel of the clergy, at any rate, 
 was more comely and decent than it 
 ever was in the popish church, when 
 
 25 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 the priests " went either in divers colors 
 like players, or in garments of light hue, 
 as yellow, red, green, etc. ; with their 
 shoes piked, their hair crisped, their 
 girdles armed with silver ; their shoes, 
 spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with like 
 metal ; their apparel (for the most part) 
 of silk, and richly furred; their caps 
 laced and buttoned with gold; so that 
 to meet a priest, in those days, was to 
 behold a peacock that spreadeth his tail 
 when he danceth before the hen." 
 
 Hospitality among the clergy was 
 never better used, and it was increased 
 by their marriage; for the meat and 
 drink were prepared more orderly and 
 frugally, the household was better looked 
 to, and the poor oftener fed. There 
 was perhaps less feasting of the rich 
 in bishops' houses, and " it is thought 
 much peradventure, that some bishops 
 in our time do come short of the ancient 
 26 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 gluttony and prodigality of their prede- 
 cessors"; but this is owing to the cur- 
 tailing of their livings, and the excessive 
 prices whereunto things are grown. 
 
 Harrison spoke his mind about digni- 
 taries. He makes a passing reference 
 to Thomas a Becket as " the old Cocke 
 of Canturburie," who did crow in be- 
 half of the see of Rome, and the " young 
 cockerels of other sees did imitate his 
 demeanour." He is glad that images, 
 shrines, and tabernacles are removed 
 out of churches. The stories in glass 
 windows remain only because of the cost 
 of replacing them with white panes. He 
 would lft£ to stop the wakes, guilds, 
 paternities, church-ales, and brides-ales, 
 with all their rioting, and he thinks 
 they could get on very well without the 
 feasts of apostles, evangelists, martyrs, 
 the holy-days after Christmas, Easter, 
 and Whitsuntide, and those of the Vir- 
 
 27 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 gin Mary, with the rest. " It is a world 
 to see," he wrote of 1552, "how ready 
 the Catholicks are to cast the commun- 
 ion tables out of their churches, which 
 in derision they call Oysterboards, and 
 to set up altars whereon to say mass." 
 And he tells with sinful gravity this tale 
 of a sacrilegious sow : " Upon the 23d 
 of August, the high altar of Christ 
 Church in Oxford was trimly decked up 
 after the popish manner; and about the 
 middest of evensong, a sow cometh into 
 the quire, and pulled all to the ground ; 
 for which heinous fact, it is said she 
 was afterwards beheaded ; but to that I 
 am not privy." Think of the condition 
 of Oxford when pigs went to mass ! 
 Four years after this there was a sick- 
 ness in England, of which a third part 
 of the people did taste, and many clergy- 
 men, who had prayed not to live after 
 the death of Queen Mary, had their de- 
 28 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 sire, the Lord hearing their prayer, says 
 Harrison, " and intending thereby to 
 give his church a breathing time." 
 
 There were four classes in England 
 — gentlemen, citizens, yeomen, and ar- 
 tificers or laborers. Besides the nobles, 
 any one can call himself a gentleman 
 who can live without work and buy a 
 coat of arms — though some of them 
 " bear a bigger sail than his boat is 
 able to sustain." The complaint of 
 sending abroad youth to be educated is 
 an old one ; Harrison says the sons of 
 gentlemen went into Italy, and brought 
 nothing home but mere atheism, infidel- 
 ity, vicious conversation, and ambitious, 
 proud behavior, and retained neither 
 religion nor patriotism. Among citizens 
 were the merchants, of whom Harrison 
 thought there were too many ; for, like 
 the lawyers, they were no furtherance to 
 the commonwealth, but, raised the price 
 
 29 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 of all commodities. In former, free- 
 trade times, sugar was sixpence a pound, 
 now it is two shillings sixpence ; rai- 
 sins were one penny, and now sixpence. 
 Not content with the old European 
 trade, they have sought out the East 
 and West Indies, and likewise Cathay 
 and Tartary, whence they pretend, from 
 their now and then suspicious voyages, 
 they bring home great commodities. 
 But Harrison cannot see that prices are 
 one whit abated by this enormity, and 
 certainly they carry out of England the 
 best of its wares. 
 
 The yeomen are the stable, free men, 
 who for the most part stay in one place, 
 working the farms of gentlemen, are 
 diligent, sometimes buy the land of un- 
 thrifty gentlemen, educate their sons to 
 the schools and the law courts, and leave 
 them money to live without labor. These 
 are the men that made France afraid. 
 
 30 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Below these are the laborers and men 
 who work at trades, who have no voice 
 in the commonwealth, and crowds of 
 young serving-men who become old beg- 
 gars, highway-robbers, idle fellows, and 
 spreaders of all vices. There was a 
 complaint then, as now, that in many 
 trades men scamped their work, but, on 
 the whole, husbandmen and artificers 
 had never been so good ; only there were 
 too many of them, too many handicrafts 
 of which the country had no need. It 
 appears to be a fault all along in history 
 that there are too many of almost every 
 sort of people. 
 
 In Harrison's time the greater part of 
 the building in cities and towns was of 
 timber, only a few of the houses of the 
 commonalty being of stone. In an old 
 plate giving a view of the north side 
 of Cheapside, London, in 1638, we see 
 little but quaint gable ends and rows of 
 
 31 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 small windows set close together. The 
 houses are of wood and plaster, each 
 story overhanging the other, terminat- 
 ing in sharp pediments ; the roofs pro- 
 jecting on cantilevers, and the windows 
 occupying the whole front of each of the 
 lower stories. They presented a lively 
 and gay appearance on holidays, when 
 the pentices of the shop fronts were 
 hung with colored draperies, and the 
 balconies were crowded with spectators, 
 and every pane of glass showed a face. 
 In the open country, where timber was 
 scarce, the houses were, between studs, 
 impanelled with clay — red, white, or blue. 
 One of the Spaniards who came over in 
 the suite of Philip remarked the large 
 diet in these homely cottages : " These 
 English," quoth he, " have their houses 
 made of sticks and dirt, but they 
 fare commonly so well as the king." 
 " Whereby it appeareth," comments 
 
 32 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Harrison, " that he liked better of our 
 good fare in such coarse cabins, than of 
 their own thin diet in their prince-like 
 habitations and palaces." The timber 
 houses were covered with tiles ; the other 
 sort with straw or reeds. The fairest 
 houses were ceiled within with mortar 
 and covered with plaster, the whiteness 
 and evenness of which excited Harrison's 
 admiration. The walls were hung with 
 tapestry, arras-work, or painted cloth, 
 whereon were divers histories, or herbs, 
 or birds, or else ceiled with oak. Stoves 
 had just begun to be used, and only in 
 some houses of the gentry, " who build 
 them not to work and feed in, as in 
 Germany and elsewhere, but now and 
 then to sweat in, as occasion and need 
 shall require." Glass in windows, which 
 was then good and cheap, and made 
 even in England, had generally taken the 
 place of the lattices and of the horn, and 
 c 33 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 of the beryl which noblemen formerly 
 used in windows. Gentlemen were be- 
 ginning to build their houses of brick and 
 stone, in stately and magnificent fashion. 
 The furniture of the houses had also 
 grown in a manner " passing delicacy," 
 and not of the nobility and gentry only, 
 but of the lowest sort. In noblemen's 
 houses there was abundance of arras, 
 rich hangings of tapestry, and silver ves- 
 sels, plate often to the value of one 
 thousand and two thousand pounds. 
 The knights, gentlemen, and merchants 
 had great provision of tapestry, Turkie 
 work, pewter, brass, fine linen, and cup- 
 boards of plate worth perhaps a thou- 
 sand pounds. Even the inferior ar- 
 tificers and many farmers had learned 
 also to garnish their cupboards with 
 plate, their joined beds with silk hang- 
 ings, and their tables with fine linen — 
 evidences of wealth for which Harrison 
 
 34 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 thanks God and reproaches no man, 
 though he cannot see how it is brought 
 about, when all things are grown to such 
 excessive prices. 
 
 Old men of Radwinter noted three 
 things marvellously altered in England 
 within their remembrance. The first 
 was the multitude of chimneys lately 
 erected ; whereas in their young days 
 there were not, always except those in 
 the religious and manor houses, above 
 two or three chimneys in most upland 
 towns of the realm ; each one made his 
 'fire against a reredos in the hall, where 
 he dined and dressed his meat. The 
 second was the amendment in lodging. 
 In their youth they lay upon hard straw 
 pallets covered only with a sheet, and 
 mayhap a dogswain coverlet over them, 
 and a good round log for pillow. If in 
 seven years after marriage a man could 
 buy a mattress and a sack of chaff to 
 
 35 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 rest his head on, he thought himself as 
 well lodged as a lord. Pillows were 
 thought meet only for sick women. As 
 for servants, they were lucky if they 
 had a sheet over them, for there was 
 nothing under them to keep the straw 
 from pricking their hardened hides. 
 The third notable thing was the ex- 
 change of treene (wooden) platters into 
 pewter, and wooden spoons into silver 
 or tin. Wooden stuff was plenty, but a 
 good farmer would not have above four 
 pieces of pewter in his house ; with all 
 his frugality, he was unable to pay his 
 rent of four pounds without selling a 
 cow or horse. It was a time of idleness, 
 and if a farmer at an ale-house, in a 
 bravery to show what he had, slapped 
 down his purse with six shillings in it, 
 all the rest together could not match it. 
 But now, says Harrison, though the rent 
 of four pounds has improved to forty, 
 
 36 
 
00 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 the farmer has six or seven years' rent 
 lying by him, to purchase a new term, 
 garnish his cupboard with pewter, buy 
 three or four feather-beds, coverlets, 
 carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a nest 
 of bowls for wine, and a dozen spoons. 
 All these things speak of the growing 
 wealth and luxury of the age. Only a 
 little before this date, in 1568, Lord 
 Buckhurst, who had been ordered to 
 entertain the Cardinal de Chatillon in 
 Queen Elizabeth's palace at Sheen, 
 complains of the meanness of the furni- 
 ture of his rooms. He showed the offi- 
 cers who preceded the cardinal such 
 furniture and stuff as he had, but it did 
 not please them. They wanted plate, he 
 had none ; such glass vessels as he had 
 they thought too base. They wanted 
 damask for long tables, and he had only 
 linen for a square table, and they re- 
 fused his square table. He gave the 
 
 37 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 cardinal his only unoccupied tester and 
 bedstead, and assigned to the bishop the 
 bedstead upon which his wife's waiting- 
 women did lie, and laid them on the 
 ground. He lent the cardinal his own 
 basin and . ewer, candlesticks from his 
 own table, drinking-glasses, small cush- 
 ions, and pots for the kitchen. My 
 Lord of Leicester sent down two pair 
 of fine sheets for the cardinal and one 
 pair for the bishop. 
 
 Harrison laments three things in his 
 day : the enhancing of rents, the daily 
 oppression of poor tenants by the lords 
 of manors, and the practice of usury — 
 a trade brought in by the Jews, but now 
 practised by almost every Christian, so 
 that he is accounted a fool that doth 
 lend his money for nothing. He prays 
 the reader to help him, in a lawful man- 
 ner, to hang up all those that take cent, 
 per cent, for money. Another griev- 
 
 38 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ance, and most sorrowful of all, is that 
 many gentlemen, men of good port and 
 countenance, to the injury of the farm- 
 ers and commonalty, actually turn gra- 
 ziers, butchers, tanners, sheep-masters, 
 and woodmen. Harrison also notes the 
 absorption of lands by the rich ; the de- 
 cay of houses in the country, which 
 comes of the eating up of the poor by 
 the rich ; the increase of poverty ; the 
 difficulty a poor man had to live on an 
 acre of ground ; his forced contentment 
 with bread made of oats and barley, and 
 the divers places that formerly had good 
 tenants and now were vacant, hop-yards 
 and gardens. 
 
 Harrison says it is not for him to de- 
 scribe the palaces of Queen Elizabeth ; 
 he dare hardly peep in at her gates. 
 Her houses are of brick and stone, neat 
 and well situated, but in good masonry 
 not to be compared to those of Henry 
 
 39 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 VIII. 's building ; they are rather curi- 
 ous to the eye, like paper-works, than 
 substantial for continuance. Her court 
 is more magnificent than any other in 
 Europe, whether you regard the rich 
 and infinite furniture of the household, 
 the number of officers, or the sumptuous 
 entertainments. And the honest chroni- 
 cler is so struck with admiration of the 
 virtuous beauty of the maids of honor 
 that he cannot tell whether to award 
 pre-eminence to their amiable counte- 
 nances or to their costliness of attire, 
 between which there is daily conflict and 
 contention. The courtiers of both sexes 
 have the use of sundry languages and 
 an excellent vein of writing. Would to 
 God the rest of their lives and conver- 
 sation corresponded with these gifts ! 
 But the courtiers, the most learned, 
 are the worst men when they come 
 abroad that any man shall hear or read 
 
 40 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 of. Many of the gentlewomen have 
 sound knowledge of Greek and Latin, 
 and are skilful in Spanish, Italian and 
 French ; and the noblemen even surpass 
 them. The old ladies of the court avoid 
 idleness by needle-work, spinning of silk, 
 or continual reading of the Holy Script- 
 ures or of histories, and writing diverse 
 volumes of their own, or translating for- 
 eign works into English or Latin ; and 
 the young ladies, when they are not 
 waiting on her majesty, " in the mean 
 time apply their lutes, citherns, prick- 
 song, and all kinds of music." The 
 elders are skilful in surgery and the dis- 
 tillation of waters, and sundry other 
 artificial practices pertaining to the orna- 
 ture and commendation of their bodies ; 
 and when they are at home they go into 
 the kitchen and supply a number of deli- 
 cate dishes of their own devising, mostly 
 after Portuguese receipts ; and they pre- 
 
 41 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 pare bills of fare (a trick lately taken up) 
 to give a brief rehearsal of all the dishes 
 of every course. I do not know whether 
 this was called the " higher education of 
 women " at the time. 
 
 In every office of the palaces is a 
 Bible, or book of acts of the church, or 
 chronicle, for the use of whoever comes 
 in, so that the court looks more like a 
 university than a palace. Would to 
 God the houses of the nobles were ruled 
 like the queen's ! The nobility are fol- 
 lowed by great troops of serving-men in 
 showy liveries ; and it is a goodly sight 
 to see them muster at court, which, be- 
 ing filled with them, " is made like to 
 the show of a peacock's tail in the full 
 beauty, or of some meadow garnished 
 with infinite kinds and diversity of 
 pleasant flowers." Such was the disci- 
 pline of Elizabeth's court that any man 
 who struck another within it had his 
 
 42 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 right hand chopped off by the execu- 
 tioner in a most horrible manner. 
 
 The English have always had a pas- 
 sion for gardens and orchards. In the 
 Roman time grapes abounded and wine 
 was plenty, but the culture disappeared 
 after the Conquest. From the time of 
 Henry IV. to Henry VIII. vegetables 
 were little used, but in Harrison's day 
 the use of melons, pompions, radishes, 
 cucumbers, cabbages, turnips, and the 
 like was revived. They had beautiful 
 flower-gardens annexed to the houses, 
 wherein were grown also rare and me- 
 dicinal herbs ; it was a wonder to see 
 how many strange herbs, plants, and 
 fruitswere daily brought from the Indies, 
 America, and the Canaries. Every rich 
 man had great store of flowers, and in 
 one garden might be seen from three 
 hundred to four hundred medicinal herbs. 
 Men extol the foreign herbs to the neg- 
 
 43 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 lect of the native, and especially tobac- 
 co, "which is not found of so great effi- 
 cacy as they write." In the orchards 
 were plums, apples, pears, walnuts, fil- 
 berts; and in noblemen's orchards store 
 of strange fruit — apricots, almonds, 
 peaches, figs, and even in some oranges, 
 lemons, and capers. Grafters also were 
 at work with their artificial mixtures, 
 " dallying, as it were, with nature and her 
 course, as if her whole trade were perfect- 
 ly known unto them : of hard fruits they 
 will make soft, of sour sweet, of sweet 
 yet more delicate ; bereaving also some 
 of their kernels, others of their cores, 
 and finally endowing them with the flavor 
 of musk, amber, or sweet spices at their 
 pleasure." Gardeners turn annual into 
 perpetual herbs, and such pains are 
 they at that they even used dish-water 
 for plants. The Gardens of Hesperides 
 are surely not equal to these. Pliny 
 
 44 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 tells of a rose that had sixty leaves on 
 one bud, but in 1585 there was a rose in 
 Antwerp that had one hundred and 
 eighty leaves ; and Harrison might have 
 had a slip of it for ten pounds, but 
 he thought it a " tickle hazard." In 
 his own little garden, of not above 
 three hundred square feet, he had near 
 three hundred samples, and not one of 
 them of the common, or usually to be 
 had. 
 
 Our kin beyond sea have always been 
 stout eaters of solid food, and in Eliz- 
 abeth's time their tables were more 
 plentifully laden than those of any other 
 nation. Harrison scientifically accounts 
 for their inordinate appetite. " The 
 situation of our region," he says, "ly- 
 ing near unto the north, does cause the 
 heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat 
 greater force ; therefore our bodies do 
 crave a little more ample nourishment 
 
 45 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 than the inhabitants of the hotter re- 
 gions are accustomed withal, whose di- 
 gestive force is not altogether so vehe- 
 ment, because their internal heat is not 
 so strong as ours, which is kept in by 
 the coldness of the air, that from time 
 to time (specially in winter) doth envi- 
 ron our bodies." The north Britons in 
 old times were accustomed often to great 
 abstinence, and lived when in the woods 
 on roots and herbs. They used some- 
 times a confection, " whereof so much as 
 a bean would qualify their hunger above 
 common expectation"; but when they 
 had nothing to qualify it with, they 
 crept into the marsh water up to their 
 chins, and there remained a long time, 
 " only to qualify the heat of their stom- 
 achs by violence." 
 
 In Harrison's day the abstemious 
 Welsh had learned to eat like the Eng- 
 lish, and the Scotch exceeded the lat- 
 
 4 6 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ter in " over much and distemperate 
 gormandize." The English eat all they 
 can buy, there being no restraint of any 
 meat for religion's sake or for public 
 order. The white meats — milk, but- 
 ter, and cheese — though very dear, are 
 reputed as good for inferior people, but 
 the more wealthy feed upon the flesh of 
 all sorts of cattle and all kinds of fish. 
 The nobility (" whose cooks are for the 
 most part musical-headed Frenchmen 
 and strangers ") exceed in number of 
 dishes and change of meat. Every day 
 at dinner there is beef, mutton, veal, 
 lamb, kid, pork, conie, capon, pig, or 
 as many of these as the season yielded, 
 besides deer and wild-fowl and fish, and 
 sundry delicacies " wherein the sweet 
 hand of the seafaring Portingale is not 
 wanting." The food was brought in 
 commonly in silver vessels at tables of 
 the degree of barons, bishops, and up- 
 
 47 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 wards, and referred first to the principal 
 personage, from whom it passed to the 
 lower end of the table, the guests not 
 eating of all, but choosing what each 
 liked; and nobody stuffed himself. The 
 dishes were then sent to the servants, 
 and the remains of the feast went to the 
 poor, who lay waiting at the gates in 
 great numbers. 
 
 Drink was served in pots, goblets, 
 jugs, and bowls of silver in noblemen's 
 houses, and also in Venice glasses. It 
 was not set upon the table, but the cup 
 was brought to each one who thirsted ; 
 he called for such a cup of drink as he 
 wished, and delivered it again to one of 
 the bystanders, who made it clean by 
 pouring out what remained, and restored 
 it to the sideboard. This device was 
 to prevent great drinking, which might 
 ensue if the full pot stood always at the 
 elbow. But this order was not used in 
 
 48 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 noblemen's halls, nor in any order under 
 the degree of knight or squire of great 
 revenue. It was a world to see how the 
 nobles preferred to gold and silver, which 
 abounded, the new Venice glass, whence 
 a great trade sprang up with Murano 
 that made many rich. The poorest 
 even would have glass, but home-made 
 — a foolish expense, for the glass soon 
 went to bits, and the pieces turned to 
 no profit. Harrison wanted the philos- 
 opher's stone to mix with this molten 
 glass and toughen it. 
 
 There were multitudes of dependants 
 fed at the great houses, and everywhere, 
 according to means, a wide-open hospi- 
 tality was maintained. Froude gives a 
 notion of the style of living in earlier 
 times by citing the details of a feast 
 given when George Neville, brother of 
 Warwick the king - maker, was made 
 archbishop of York. There were pres- 
 
 d 49 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 ent, including servants, thirty-five hun- 
 dred persons. These are a few of the 
 things used at the banquet : three hun- 
 dred quarters of wheat, three hundred 
 tuns of ale, one hundred and four tuns 
 of wine, eighty oxen, three thousand 
 geese, two thousand pigs, four thousand 
 conies, four thousand heronshaws, four 
 thousand venison pasties cold and five 
 hundred hot, four thousand cold tarts, 
 four thousand cold custards, eight seals, 
 four porpoises, and so on. 
 
 The merchants and gentlemen kept 
 much the same tables as the nobles, es- 
 pecially at feasts, but when alone were 
 content with a few dishes. They also 
 desired the dearest food, and would have 
 no meat from the butcher's but the most 
 delicate, while their list of fruits, cakes, 
 cates, and outlandish confections is as 
 long as that at any modern banquet. 
 Wine ran in excess. There were used 
 
 50 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 fifty-six kinds of light wines, like the 
 French, and thirty of the strong sorts, 
 like the Italian and Eastern. The strong- 
 er the wine, the better it was liked. The 
 strongest and best was in old times called 
 theologicum, because it was had from the 
 clergy and religious men, to whose houses 
 the laity sent their bottles to be filled, 
 sure that the religious would neither 
 drink nor be served with the worst ; for 
 the merchant would have thought his 
 soul should have gone straightway to the 
 devil if he had sent them any but the 
 best. The beer served at noblemen's 
 tables was commonly a year old, and 
 sometimes two, but this age was not 
 usual. In households generally it was 
 not under a month old, for beer was 
 liked stale if it were not sour, while 
 bread was desired as new as possible so 
 that it was not hot. 
 
 The husbandman and artificer ate such 
 51 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 meat as they could easiest come by and 
 have most quickly ready ; yet the ban- 
 quets of the trades in London were not 
 inferior to those of the nobility. The 
 husbandmen, however, exceed in pro- 
 fusion, and it is incredible to tell what 
 meat is consumed at bridals, purifica- 
 tions, and such like odd meetings ; but 
 each guest brought his own provision, 
 so that the master of the house had only 
 to provide bread, drink, house-room, and 
 fire. These lower classes Harrison found 
 very friendly at their tables — merry 
 without malice, plain without Italian or 
 French subtlety — so that it would do a 
 man good to be in company among them; 
 but if they happen to stumble upon a 
 piece of venison or a cup of wine or very 
 strong beer, they do not stick to com- 
 pare themselves with the lord-mayor — 
 and there is no public man in any city 
 of Europe that may compare with him 
 
 52 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 in port and countenance during the term 
 of his office. 
 
 Harrison commends the great silence 
 used at the tables of the wiser sort, and 
 generally throughout the realm,and like- 
 wise the moderate eating and drinking. 
 But the poorer countrymen do babble 
 somewhat at table, and mistake ribaldry 
 and loquacity for wit and wisdom, and 
 occasionally are cup-shotten ; and what 
 wonder, when they who have hard diet 
 and small drink at home come to such 
 opportunities at a banquet ! The wealth- 
 ier sort in the country entertain their 
 visitors from afar, however long they 
 stay, with as hearty a welcome the last 
 day as the first; and the countrymen 
 contrast this hospitality with that of 
 their London cousins, who joyfully re- 
 ceive them the first day, tolerate them 
 the second, weary of them the third, and 
 wish 'em at the devil after four days. 
 
 53 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 The gentry usually ate wheat bread, 
 of which there were four kinds ; and the 
 poor generally bread made of rye, bar- 
 ley, and even oats and acorns. Corn 
 was getting so dear, owing to the fore- 
 stalled and middle-men, that, says the 
 historian, " if the world last a while after 
 this rate, wheat and rye will be no grain 
 for poor men to feed on ; and some 
 catterpillers [two - legged speculators] 
 there are that can say so much al- 
 ready." 
 
 The great drink of the realm was, of 
 course, beer (and it is to be noted that 
 a great access of drunkenness came into 
 England with the importation much later 
 of Holland gin) made from barley, hops, 
 and water, and upon the brewing of it 
 Harrison dwells lovingly, and devotes 
 many pages to a description of the proc- 
 ess, especially as "once in a month prac- 
 tised by my wife and her maid servants." 
 
 54 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 They ground eight bushels of malt, add- 
 ed half a bushel of wheat meal, half a 
 bushel of oat meal, poured in eighty gal- 
 lons of water, then eighty gallons more, 
 and a third eighty gallons, and boiled 
 with a couple of pounds of hops. This, 
 with a few spices thrown in, made three 
 hogsheads of good beer, meet for a poor 
 man who had only forty pounds a year. 
 This two hundred gallons of beer cost al- 
 together twenty shillings ; but although 
 he says his wife brewed it " once in a 
 month," whether it lasted a whole month 
 the parson does not say. He was particu- 
 lar about the water used : the Thames is 
 best, the marsh worst, and clear spring 
 water next worst ; " the fattest standing 
 water is always the best." Cider and 
 perry were made in some parts of Eng- 
 land, and a delicate sort of drink in 
 Wales, called metheglin ; but there was 
 a kind of " swish-swash " made in Es- 
 
 55 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 sex from honey-combs and water, called 
 mead, which differed from the metheglin 
 as chalk from cheese. 
 
 In Shakespeare's day much less time 
 was spent in eating and drinking than 
 formerly, when, besides breakfast in the 
 forenoon and dinners, there were " bev- 
 erages" or " nuntion " after dinner, and 
 supper before going to bed — "a toie 
 brought in by hardie Canutus," who 
 was a gross feeder. Generally there 
 were, except for the young who could 
 not fast till dinner-time, only two meals 
 daily, dinner and supper. Yet the Nor- 
 mans had brought in the habit of sitting 
 long at the table — a custom not yet al- 
 together abated, since the great people, 
 especially at banquets, sit till two or 
 three o'clock in the afternoon ; so that it 
 is a hard matter to rise and go to even- 
 ing prayers and return in time for sup- 
 per. 
 
 56 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Harrison does not make much account 
 of the early meal called " breakfast "; 
 but Froude says that in Elizabeth's time 
 the common hour of rising, in the coun- 
 try, was four o'clock, summer and win- 
 ter, and that breakfast was at five, after 
 which the laborers went to work and 
 the gentlemen to business. The Earl 
 and Countess of Northumberland break- . 
 fasted together and alone at seven. The 
 meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart 
 of wine, and a chine of beef; a loaf of 
 bread is not mentioned, but we hope 
 (says Froude) it may be presumed. The 
 gentry dined at eleven and supped at 
 five. The merchants took dinner at 
 noon, and, in London, supped at six. 
 The university scholars out of term ate 
 dinner at ten. The husbandmen dined at 
 high noon, and took supper at seven or 
 eight. As for the poorer sort, it is need- 
 less to talk of their order of repast, for 
 
 57 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 they dined and supped when they could. 
 The English usually began meals with 
 the grossest food and ended with the 
 most delicate, taking first the mild wines 
 and ending with the hottest ; but the 
 prudent Scot did otherwise, making 
 his entrance with the best, so that 
 he might leave the worse to the me- 
 nials. 
 
 .1 will close this portion of our sketch 
 of English manners with an extract from 
 the travels of Hentzner, who visited 
 England in 1598, and saw the great 
 queen go in state to chapel at Green- 
 wich, and afterwards witnessed the lay- 
 ing of the table for her dinner. It was 
 on Sunday. The queen was then in her 
 sixth-fifth year, and " very majestic," 
 as she walked in the splendid procession 
 of barons, earls, and knights of the gar- 
 ter: " her face, oblong, fair, but wrin- 
 kled ; her eyes small, yet black and pleas- 
 
 58 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ant ; her nose a little hooked ; her lips 
 narrow, and her teeth black (a defect 
 the English seem subject to from their 
 great use of sugar). She had in her 
 ears two pearls with very rich drops ; 
 she wore false hair, and that red ; upon 
 her head she had a small crown, reported 
 to be made of some of the gold of'the 
 celebrated Lunebourg table. Her bosom 
 was uncovered, as all the English ladies 
 have it till they marry ; and she had on 
 a necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her 
 hands were small, her fingers long, and 
 her stature neither small nor low; her 
 air was stately, her manner of speaking 
 mild and obliging. That day she was 
 dressed in white silk, bordered with 
 pearls of the size of beans, and over it 
 a mantle of black silk, shot with silver 
 threads ; her train was very long, and 
 the end of it borne by a marchioness; 
 instead of a chain she had an oblong col- 
 
 59 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 lar of gold and jewels." As she swept 
 on in this magnificence, she spoke gra- 
 ciously first to one, then to another, and 
 always in the language of any foreigner 
 she addressed ; whoever spoke to her 
 kneeled, and wherever she turned her 
 face, as she was going along, everybody 
 fell down on his knees. When she pulled 
 off her glove to give her hand to be 
 kissed, it was seen to be sparkling with 
 rings and jewels. The ladies of the court, 
 handsome and well shaped, followed, 
 dressed for the most part in white ; 
 and on either side she was guarded 
 by fifty gentlemen pensioners with gilt 
 battle-axes. In the ante-chapel, where 
 she graciously received petitions, there 
 was an acclaim of " Long live Queen 
 Elizabeth !" to which she answered, " I 
 thank you, my good people." The music 
 in the chapel was excellent, and the 
 whole service was over in half an hour. 
 
 60' 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 This is Hentzner's description of the 
 setting out of her table : 
 
 " A gentleman entered the room bear- 
 ing a rod, and along with him another 
 who had a table-cloth, which, after they 
 had both kneeled three times, he spread 
 upon the table ; and after kneeling again 
 they both retired. Then came two 
 others, one with the rod again, the other 
 with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread ; and 
 when they had kneeled as the others had 
 done, and placed what was brought upon 
 the table, they two retired with the same 
 ceremonies performed by the first. At 
 last came an unmarried lady (we were 
 told she was a countess) and along with 
 her a married one, bearing a tasting- 
 knife ; the former was dressed in white 
 silk, who, when she had prostrated her- 
 self three times, in the most graceful 
 manner approached the table, and rubbed 
 the plates with bread and salt, with as 
 
 61 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 much awe as if the Queen had been pres- 
 ent. When they had waited there a lit- 
 tle while the Yeomen of the Guard en- 
 tered, bare-headed^ clothed in scarlet, 
 with a golden rose upon their backs, 
 bringing in at each turn a course of twen- 
 ty-four dishes, served in plate, most of 
 it gilt ; these dishes were received by a 
 gentleman in the same order they were 
 brought, and placed upon the table, while 
 the Lady Taster gave to each of the 
 guard a mouthful to eat, of the particu- 
 lar dish he had brought, for fear of any 
 poison. During the time that this guard, 
 which consists of the tallest and stout- 
 est men that can be found in all Eng- 
 land, being carefully selected for this 
 service, were bringing dinner, twelve 
 trumpets and two kettle-drums made 
 the hall ring for half an hour together. 
 At the end of all this ceremonial, a num- 
 ber of unmarried ladies appeared, who 
 
 62 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 with particular solemnity lifted the meat 
 of! the table and conveyed it into the 
 Queen's inner and more private cham- 
 ber, where, after she had chosen for her- 
 self, the rest goes to the Ladies of the 
 court." 
 
 The queen dined and supped alone, 
 with very few attendants. 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 We now approach perhaps the most 
 important matter in this world, namely, 
 dress. In nothing were the increasing 
 wealth and extravagance of the period 
 more shown than in apparel. And in it 
 we are able to study the origin of the 
 present English taste for the juxtapo- 
 sition of striking and uncomplementary 
 colors. In Coryat's "Crudities," 1611, 
 we have an Englishman's contrast of the 
 dress of the Venetians and the English. 
 The Venetians adhered, without change, 
 to their decent fashion, a thousand years 
 old, wearing usually black: the slender 
 doublet made close to the body, without 
 much quilting ; the long hose plain, the 
 
 jerkin also black — but all of the most 
 
 64 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 costly stuffs Christendom can furnish, 
 satins and taffetas, garnished with the 
 best lace. Gravity and good taste char- 
 acterized their apparel. " In both these 
 things," says Coryat, " they differ much 
 from us Englishmen. For whereas they 
 have but one color, we use many more 
 than are in the rainbow, all the most 
 light, garish, and unseemly colors that 
 are in the world. Also for fashion we 
 are much inferior to them. For w.e 
 wear more fantastical fashions than any 
 nation under the sun doth, the French 
 only excepted." On festival days, in 
 processions, the senators wore crimson 
 damask gowns, with flaps of crimson 
 velvet cast over their left shoulders ; and 
 the Venetian knights differed from the 
 other gentlemen, for under their black 
 damask gowns, with long sleeves, they 
 wore red apparel, red silk stockings, and 
 red pantofles. 
 
 E 65 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Andrew Boord, in 1547, attempting to 
 describe the fashions of his countrymen, 
 gave up the effort in sheer despair over 
 the variety and fickleness of costume, 
 and drew a naked man with a pair of 
 shears in one hand and a piece of cloth 
 in the other, to the end that he should 
 shape his apparel as he himself liked ; 
 and this he called an Englishman. Even 
 the gentle Harrison, who gives Boord 
 the too harsh character of a lewd popish 
 hypocrite and ungracious priest, admits 
 that he was not void of judgment in this ; 
 and he finds it easier to inveigh against 
 the enormity, the fickleness, and the fan- 
 tasticality of the English attire than to 
 describe it. So unstable is the fashion, 
 he says, that to-day the Spanish guise 
 is in favor; to-morrow the French toys 
 are most fine and delectable ; then the 
 high German apparel is the go ; next the 
 Turkish manner is best liked, the Mo- 
 
 66 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 risco gowns, the Barbary sleeves, and 
 the short French breeches ; in a word, 
 " except it were a dog in a doublet, you 
 shall not see any so disguised as are my 
 countrymen in England." 
 
 This fantastical folly was in all de- 
 grees, from the courtier down to the 
 carter. " It is a world to see the cost- 
 liness and the curiosity, the excess and 
 the vanity, the pomp and the bravery, 
 the change and the variety, and finally 
 the fickleness and the folly that is in all 
 degrees ; insomuch that nothing is more 
 constant in England than inconstancy of 
 attire. So much cost upon the body, so 
 little upon souls ; how many suits of ap- 
 parel hath the one, or how little furni- 
 ture hath the other !" And how men 
 and women worry the poor tailors, with 
 endless fittings and sending back of gar- 
 ments, and trying on ! " Then must the 
 long seams of our hose be set with a 
 
 67 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 plumb line, then we puff, then we blow, 
 and finally sweat till we drop, that our 
 clothes may stand well upon us." 
 
 The barbers were as cunning in vari- 
 ety as the tailors. Sometimes the head 
 was polled; sometimes the hair was 
 curled, and then suffered to grow long 
 like a woman's locks, and many times 
 cut off, above or under the ears, round 
 as by a wooden dish. And so with the 
 beards : some shaved from the chin, like 
 the Turks ; some cut short, like the beard 
 of the Marquis Otto ; some made round, 
 like a rubbing - brush ; some peaked, 
 others grown long. If a man have a 
 lean face, the Marquis Otto's cut makes 
 it broad ; if it be platter-like, the long, 
 slender beard makes it seem narrow ; 
 "if he be weasel-beaked, then much 
 hair left on the cheeks will make the 
 owner look big like a bowdled hen, and 
 so grim as a goose." Some courageous 
 
 68 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 gentlemen wore in their ears rings of 
 gold and stones, to improve God's work, 
 which was otherwise set off by mon- 
 strous quilted and stuffed doublets, that 
 puffed out the figure like a barrel. 
 
 There is some consolation, though I 
 don't know why, in the knowledge that 
 writers have always found fault with 
 women's fashions, as they do to-day. 
 Harrison says that the women do far 
 exceed the lightness of the men ; " such 
 staring attire as in time past was sup- 
 posed meet for light housewives only is 
 now become an habit for chaste and so- 
 ber matrons." And he knows not what 
 to say of their doublets, with pendant 
 pieces on the breast full of jags and cuts ; 
 their " galligascons," to make their 
 dresses stand out plumb round ; their 
 farthingales and divers colored stock- 
 ings. " I have met," he says, " with 
 some of these trulls in London so dis- 
 
 69 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 guised that it hath passed my skill to 
 determine whether they were men or 
 women." Of all classes the merchants 
 were most to be commended for rich but 
 sober attire ; " but the younger sort of 
 their wives, both in attire and costly 
 housekeeping, cannot tell when and how 
 to make an end, as being women in- 
 deed in whom all kind of curiosity is to 
 be found and seen." Elizabeth's time, 
 like our own, was distinguished by new 
 fashionable colors, among which are 
 mentioned a queer greenish-yellow, a 
 pease-porridge-tawny, a popinjay of blue, 
 a lusty gallant, and the " devil in the 
 hedge." These may be favorites still, 
 for aught I know. 
 
 Mr. Furnivall quotes a description of 
 a costume of the period, from the man- 
 uscript of Orazio Busino's " Anglipo- 
 trida." Busino was the chaplain of Piero 
 Contarina, the Venetian ambassador to 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 James I., in 1617. The chaplain was 
 one day stunned with grief over the 
 death of the butler of the embassy ; and 
 as the Italians sleep away grief, the 
 French sing, the Germans drink, and 
 the English go to plays to be rid of it, 
 the Venetians, by advice, sought conso- 
 lation at the Fortune Theatre ; and there 
 a trick was played upon old Busino, by 
 placing him among a bevy of young 
 women, while the concealed ambassa- 
 dor and the secretary enjoyed the joke. 
 " These theatres," says Busino, " are 
 frequented by a number of respectable 
 and handsome ladies, who come freely 
 and seat themselves among the men 
 without the slightest hesitation. . . . 
 Scarcely was I seated ere a very elegant 
 dame, but in a mask, came and placed 
 herself beside me. . . . She asked me 
 for my address both in French and Eng- 
 lish ; and, on my turning a deaf ear, 
 
 71 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 she determined to honor me by show- 
 ing me some fine diamonds on her fin- 
 gers, repeatedly taking off no fewer than 
 three gloves, which were worn one over 
 the other. . . . This lady's bodice was 
 of yellow satin, richly embroidered, her 
 petticoat* of gold tissue with stripes, 
 her robe of red velvet with a raised pile, 
 lined with yellow muslin with broad 
 stripes of pure gold. She wore an 
 apron of point lace of various patterns ; 
 her head-tire was highly perfumed, and 
 the collar of white satin beneath the 
 delicately wrought ruff struck me as ex- 
 ceedingly pretty." It was quite in keep- 
 ing with the manners of the day for a 
 
 * It is a trifle in human progress, perhaps 
 scarcely worth noting, that the " round 
 gown," that is, an entire skirt, not open in 
 front and parting to show the under petti- 
 coat, did not come into fashion till near the 
 close of the eighteenth century. 
 
 72 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 lady of rank to have lent herself to this 
 hoax of the chaplain. 
 
 Van Meteren, a Netherlander, 1575, 
 speaks also of the astonishing change or 
 changeableness in English fashions, but 
 says the women are well dressed and 
 modest, and they go about the streets 
 without any covering of mantle, hood, 
 or veil ; only the married women wear 
 a hat in the street and in the house ; 
 the unmarried go without a hat ; but 
 ladies of distinction have lately learned 
 to cover their faces with silken masks 
 or vizards, and to wear feathers. The 
 English, he notes, change their fashions 
 every year, and when they go abroad 
 riding or travelling they don their best 
 clothes, contrary to the practice of other 
 nations. Another foreigner, Jacob Rath- 
 geb, 1592, says the English go dressed 
 in exceeding fine clothes, and some will 
 even wear velvet in the street, when 
 
 73 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 they have not at home perhaps a piece 
 of dry bread. " The lords and pages of 
 the royal court have a stately, noble air, 
 but dress more after the French fashion, 
 only they wear short cloaks and some- 
 times Spanish caps." 
 
 Harrison's arraignment of the English 
 fashions of his day may be considered 
 as almost commendative beside the dia- 
 tribes of the old Puritan Philip Stubbes, 
 in " The Anatomie of Abuses," 1583. The 
 English language is strained for words 
 hot and rude enough to express his in- 
 dignation, contempt, and fearful expec- 
 tation of speedy judgments. The men 
 escape his hands with scarcely less dam- 
 age than the women. First he wreaks 
 his indignation upon the divers kinds of 
 hats, stuck full of feathers, of various 
 colors, "ensigns of vanity," "fluttering 
 sails and feathered flags of defiance to 
 virtue" ; then upon the monstrous ruffs 
 
 74 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 that stand out a quarter of a yard from 
 the neck. As the devil, in the fulness of 
 his malice, first invented these ruffs, so 
 has he found out two stays to bear up 
 this his great kingdom of ruffs — one is a 
 kind of liquid matter they call starch ; 
 the other is a device made of wires, for 
 an under-propper. Then there are shirts 
 of cambric, holland, and lawn, wrought 
 with fine needle-work of silk and curi- 
 ously stitched, costing sometimes as 
 much as five pounds. Worse still are 
 the monstrous doublets, reaching down 
 to the middle of the thighs, so hard 
 quilted, stuffed, bombasted, and sewed 
 that the wearer can hardly stoop 
 down in them. Below these are the 
 gally-hose of silk, velvet, satin, and 
 damask, reaching below the knees. So 
 costly are these that "now it is a small 
 matter to bestow twenty nobles, ten 
 pound, twenty pound, fortie pound, yea 
 
 75 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 a hundred pound of one pair of Breeches. 
 (God be merciful unto us !)" To these 
 gay hose they add nether-socks, curi- 
 ously knit with open seams down the 
 leg, with quirks and clocks about the 
 ankles, and sometimes interlaced with 
 gold and silver thread as is wonderful 
 to behold. Time has been when a man 
 could clothe his whole body for the 
 price of these nether-socks. Satan was 
 further let loose in the land by reason 
 of cork shoes and fine slippers, of all 
 colors, carved, cut, and stitched with 
 silk, and laced on with gold and silver, 
 which went flipping and flapping up and 
 down in the dirt. The jerkins and 
 cloaks are of all colors and fashions ; 
 some short, reaching to the knee ; others 
 dragging on the ground ; red, white, 
 black, violet, yellow, guarded, laced, and 
 faced ; hanged with points and tassels 
 of gold, silver, and silk. The hilts of 
 
 76 
 
VELVET BREECHES AND CLOTH BREECHES 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 daggers, rapiers, and swords are gilt 
 thrice over, and have scabbards of vel- 
 vet. And all this while the poor lie in 
 London streets upon pallets of straw, 
 or else in the mire and dirt, and die 
 like dogs ! 
 
 Stubbes was a stout old Puritan, bent 
 upon hewing his way to heaven through 
 all the allurements of this world, and 
 suspecting a devil in every fair show. I 
 fear that he looked upon woman as only 
 a vain and trifling image, a delusive toy, 
 away from whom a man must set his 
 face. Shakespeare, who was country- 
 bred when he came up to London, and 
 lived probably on the roystering South 
 Side, near the theatres and bear-gardens, 
 seems to have been impressed with the 
 painted faces of the women. It is prob- 
 able that only town-bred women painted. 
 Stubbes declares that the women of Eng- 
 land color their faces with oils, liquors, 
 
 77 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 unguents, and waters made to that end, 
 thinking to make themselves fairer than 
 God made them — a presumptuous au- 
 dacity to make God untrue in his word ; 
 and he heaps vehement curses upon the 
 immodest practice. To this follows the 
 trimming and tricking of their heads, the 
 laying out their hair to show, which is 
 curled, crisped, and laid out on wreaths 
 and borders from ear to ear. Lest it 
 should fall down it is under-propped with 
 forks, wires, and what not. On the edges 
 of their bolstered hair (for it standeth 
 crested round about their frontiers, and 
 hanging over their faces like pendices 
 with glass windows on every side) is laid 
 great wreaths of gold and silver curious- 
 ly wrought. But this is not the worst 
 nor the tenth part, for no pen is able to 
 describe the wickedness. " The women 
 use great ruffs and neckerchers of Hol- 
 land, lawn, camerick, and such cloth, as 
 78 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 the greatest thread shall not be so big as 
 the least hair that is : then, lest they 
 should fall down, they are smeared and 
 starched in the Devil's liquor, I mean 
 Starch ; after that dried with great dili- 
 gence, streaked, patted and rubbed very 
 nicely, and so applied to their goodly 
 necks, and, withall, under-propped with 
 supportasses, the stately arches of pride ; 
 beyond all this they have a further fetch, 
 nothing inferior to the rest ; as, namely, 
 three or four degrees of minor ruffs, 
 placed gradatim, step by step, one be- 
 neath another, and all under the Master 
 devil ruff. The skirts, then, of these 
 great ruffs are long and side every way, 
 pleted and crested full curiously, God 
 wot." 
 
 Time will not serve us to follow old 
 Stubbes into his particular inquisition of 
 every article of woman's attire, and his 
 hearty damnation of them all and several. 
 
 79 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 He cannot even abide their carrying of 
 nosegays and posies of flowers to smell 
 at, since the palpable odors and fumesof 
 these do enter the brain to degenerate 
 the spirit and allure to vice. They must 
 needs carry looking-glasses with them; 
 " and good reason," says Stubbes, sav- 
 agely, " for else how could they see the 
 devil in them ? for no doubt they are the 
 devil's spectacles [these women] to al- 
 lure us to pride and consequently to de- 
 struction forever." And, as if it were 
 not enough to be women, and the devil's 
 aids, they do also have doublets and 
 jerkins, buttoned up the breast, and made 
 with wings, welts, and pinions on the 
 shoulder points, as man's apparel is, for 
 all the world. We take reluctant leave 
 of this entertaining woman-hater, and 
 only stay to quote from him a " fearful 
 Judgment of God, shewed upon a gen- 
 tlewoman of Antwerp of late, even the 
 80 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 27th of May, 1582," which may be as 
 profitable to read now as it was then : 
 " This gentlewoman being a very rich 
 Merchant man's daughter: upon a time 
 was invited to a bridal, or wedding, which 
 was solemnized in that Toune, against 
 which day she made great preparation, 
 for the pluming herself in gorgeous ar- 
 ray, that as her body was most beauti- 
 ful, fair, and proper, so her attire in ev- 
 ery respect might be correspondent to 
 the same. For the accomplishment 
 whereof she curled her hair, she dyed 
 her locks, and laid them out after the 
 best manner, she colored her face with 
 waters and Ointments : But in no case 
 could she get any (so curious and dainty 
 she was) that could starch, and set her 
 Ruffs and Neckerchers to her mind : 
 wherefore she sent for a couple of Laun- 
 dresses, who did the best they could to 
 please her humors, but in any wise they 
 
 F 8l 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 could not. Then fell she to swear and 
 tear, to curse and damn, casting the Ruffs 
 under feet, and wishing that the Devil 
 might take her when she wear any of 
 those Neckerchers again. In the mean- 
 time (through the sufference of God) 
 the Devil transforming himself into the 
 form of a young man, as brave and 
 proper as she in every point of outward 
 appearance, came in, feigning himself 
 to be a wooer or suitor unto her. And 
 seeing her thus agonized, and in such a 
 pelting chase, he demanded of her the 
 cause thereof, who straightway told him 
 (as women can conceal nothing that lieth 
 upon their stomachs) howshe was abused 
 in the setting of her Ruffs, which thing 
 being heard of him, he promised to 
 please her mind, and thereto took in 
 hand the setting of her Ruffs, which he 
 performed to her great contentation and 
 liking, in so much as she looking herself 
 82 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 in a glass (as the Devil bade her) became 
 greatly enamoured of him. This done, 
 the young man kissed her, in the doing 
 whereof she writhe her neck in sunder, 
 so she died miserably, her body being 
 metamorphosed into black and blue col- 
 ors, most ugglesome to behold, and her 
 face (which before was so amorous) be- 
 came most deformed, and fearful to look 
 upon. This being known, preparaunce 
 was made for her burial, a rich coffin 
 was provided, and her fearful body was 
 laid therein, and it covered very sumpt- 
 uously. Four men immediately assay- 
 ed to lift up the corpse, but could not 
 move it ; then six attempted the like, but 
 could not once stir it from the place 
 where it stood. Whereat the standers- 
 by marveling, caused the coffin to be 
 opened to see the cause thereof. Where 
 they found the body to be taken away, 
 and a black Cat very lean and deformed 
 
 83 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 sitting in the coffin, setting of great 
 Ruffs, and frizzling of hair, to the great 
 fear and wonder of all beholders." 
 
 Better than this pride which fore- 
 runneth destruction, in the opinion of 
 Stubbes, is the habit of the Brazilian 
 women, who " esteem so little of appar- 
 el" that they rather choose to go naked 
 than be thought to be proud. 
 
 As I read the times of Elizabeth, there 
 was then greater prosperity and enjoy- 
 ment of life among the common people 
 than fifty or a hundred years later. Into 
 the question of the prices of labor and 
 of food, which Mr. Froude considers so 
 fully in the first chapter of his history, 
 I shall not enter any further than to re- 
 mark that the hardness of the laborer's 
 lot, who got, mayhap, only twopence a 
 day, is mitigated by the fact that for a 
 penny he could buy a pound of meat 
 which now costs a shilling. In two re- 
 84 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 spects England has greatly changed for 
 the traveller, from the sixteenth to the 
 eighteenth century — in its inns and its 
 roads. 
 
 In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign 
 travellers had no choice but to ride on 
 horseback or to walk. Goods were trans- 
 ported on strings of pack-horses. When 
 Elizabeth rode into the city from her 
 residence at Greenwich, she placed her- 
 self behind her lord chancellor, on a 
 pillion. The first improvement made 
 was in the construction of a rude wagon — 
 a cart without springs, the body resting 
 solidly on the axles. In such a vehicle 
 Elizabeth rode to the opening of her 
 fifth Parliament. In 1583, on a certain 
 day, Sir Harry Sydney entered Shrews- 
 bury in his wagon, " with his trompeter 
 blowynge, verey joyfull to behold and 
 see." Even such conveyances fared hard 
 on the execrable roads of the period. 
 
 85 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Down to the end of the seventeenth 
 century most of the country roads were 
 merely broad ditches, water-worn and 
 strewn with loose stones. In i64oQueen 
 Henrietta was four weary days dragging 
 over the road from Dover to London, 
 the best in England. Not till the close 
 of the sixteenth century was the wagon 
 used, and then rarely. Fifty years later 
 stage-wagons ran, with some regularity, 
 between London and Liverpool; and be- 
 fore the close of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the stage-coach, a wonderful inven- 
 tion, which had been used in and about 
 London since 1650, was placed on three 
 principal roads of the kingdom. It aver- 
 aged two to three miles an hour. In 
 the reign of Charles II. a Frenchman 
 who landed at Dover was drawn up to 
 London in a wagon with six horses in a 
 line, one after the other. Our Venetian, 
 Busino, who went to Oxford in the coach 
 
 36 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 with the ambassador in 1617, was six 
 days in going one hundred and fifty 
 miles, as the coach often stuck in the 
 mud, and once broke down. So bad 
 were the main thoroughfares, even, that 
 markets were sometimes inaccessible for 
 months together, and the fruits of the 
 earth rotted in one place, while there 
 was scarcity not many miles distant. 
 
 But this difficulty of travel and liabil- 
 ity to be detained long on the road were 
 cheered by good inns, such as did not 
 exist in the world elsewhere. All the 
 literature of the period reflects lovingly 
 the home-like delights of these comfort- 
 able houses of entertainment. Every 
 little village boasted an excellent inn, 
 and in the towns on the great thorough- 
 fares were sumptuous houses that would 
 accomodate from two to three hundred 
 guests with their horses. The land- 
 lords were not tyrants, as on the Conti- 
 
 87 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 nent, but servants of their guests ; and 
 it was, says Harrison, a world to see 
 how they did contend for the entertain- 
 ment of their guests — as about fineness 
 and change of linen, furniture of bed- 
 ding, beauty of rooms, service at the 
 table, costliness of plate, strength of 
 drink, variety of wines, or well-using of 
 horses. The gorgeous signs at their 
 doors sometimes cost forty pounds. The 
 inns were cheap too, and the landlord 
 let no one depart dissatisfied with his 
 bill. The worst inns were in London, 
 and the tradition has been handed down. 
 But the ostlers, Harrison confesses, did 
 sometimes cheat in the feed, and they 
 with the tapsters and chamberlains were 
 in league (and the 'landlord was not 
 always above suspicion) with highway- 
 men outside, to ascertain if the traveller 
 carried any valuables ; so that when he 
 left the hospitable inn he was quite likely 
 
 88 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 to be stopped on the highway and re- 
 lieved of his money. The highwayman 
 was a conspicuous character. One of the 
 most romantic of these gentry at one 
 time was a woman named Mary Frith, 
 born in 1585, and known as Mall Cut- 
 Purse. She dressed in male attire, was 
 an adroit fencer, a bold rider, and a 
 staunch royalist ; she once took two 
 hundred gold jacobuses from the Parlia- 
 mentary General Fairfax on Hounslow 
 Heath. She is the chief character in 
 Middleton's play of the " Roaring Girl "; 
 and after a varied life as a thief, cut-purse, 
 pickpocket, highwayman, trainer of ani- 
 mals, and keeper of a thieves' " fence," she 
 died in peace at the age of seventy. To 
 return to the inns, Fyner Morrison, a 
 traveller in 161 7, sustains all that Harri- 
 son says of the inns as the best and 
 cheapest in the world, where -the guest 
 shall have his own pleasure. No sooner 
 
 89 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 does he arrive than the servants run to 
 him — one takes his horse, another shows 
 him his chamber and lights his fire, a 
 third pulls off his boots. Then come the 
 host and hostess to inquire what meat 
 he will choose, and he may have their 
 company if he like. He shall be offered 
 music while he eats, and if he be solitary 
 the musicians will give him good-day 
 with music in the morning. In short, 
 " a man cannot more freely command 
 at home, in his own house, than he may 
 do in his inn." 
 
 The amusements of the age were often 
 rough, but certainly more moral than 
 they were later; and although the thea- 
 tres were denounced by such reformers 
 as Stubbes as seminaries of vice, and 
 disapproved by Harrison, they were bet- 
 ter than after the Restoration, when the 
 plays of Shakespeare were out of fash- 
 ion. The Londoners went for amuse- 
 90 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ment to the Bankside, or South Side of 
 the Thames, where were the famous 
 Paris Gardens, much used as a rendez- 
 vous by gallants ; and there were the 
 places for bear and bull baiting ; and 
 there were the theatres — the Paris Gar- 
 dens, the Swan, the Rose, the Hope, 
 and the Globe. The pleasure -seekers 
 went over usually in boats, of which 
 there were said to be four thousand ply- 
 ing between banks ; for there was only 
 one bridge, and that was crowded with 
 houses. All distinguished visitors were 
 taken over to see the gardens and the 
 bears baited by dogs ; the queen herself 
 went, and perhaps on Sunday, for Sun- 
 day was the great day, and Elizabeth is 
 said to have encouraged Sunday sports, 
 she had been (we read) so much hunted 
 on account of religion ! These sports 
 are too brutal to think of ; but there are 
 amusing accounts of lion-baiting both by 
 
 91 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 bears and dogs, in which the beast who 
 figures so nobly on the escutcheon near- 
 ly always proved himself an arrant cow- 
 ard, and escaped away as soon as he 
 could into his den, with his tail between 
 his legs. The spectators were once much 
 disgusted when a lion and lioness, with 
 the dog that pursued them, all ran into 
 the den, and, like good friends, stood 
 very peaceably together looking out at 
 the people. 
 
 The famous Globe Theatre, which was 
 built in 1599, was burned in 1613, and 
 in the fire it is supposed were consumed 
 Shakespeare's manuscripts of his plays. 
 It was of wood (for use in summer 
 only), octagon shaped, with a thatched 
 roof, open in the centre. The daily per- 
 formance here, as in all theatres, was at 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, and boys 
 outside held the horses of the gentlemen 
 who went in to the play. When thea- 
 
 92 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 tres were restrained, in 1600, only two 
 were allowed, the Globe and the Fort- 
 une, which was on the north side, on 
 Golden Lane. The Fortune was fifty- 
 feet square within, and three stories 
 high, with galleries, built of wood on a 
 brick foundation, and with a roof of tiles. 
 The stage was forty-three feet wide, and 
 projected into the middle of the yard (as 
 the pit was called), where the ground- 
 lings stood. To one of the galleries ad- 
 mission was only twopence. The young 
 gallants used to go into the yards and 
 spy about the galleries and boxes for 
 their acquaintances. In these theatres 
 there was a drop-curtain, but little or no 
 scenery. Spectators had boxes looking 
 on the stage behind the curtain, and 
 they often sat upon the stage with the 
 actors; sometimes the actors all remain- 
 ed upon the stage during the whole play. 
 There seems to have been great famil- 
 
 93 
 
' THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 iarity between the audience and the act- 
 ors. Fruits in season, apples, pears, and 
 nuts, with wine and beer, were carried 
 about to be sold, and pipes were smoked. 
 There was neither any prudery in the 
 plays or the players, and the audiences 
 in behavior were no better than the 
 plays. 
 
 The actors were all men. The fe- 
 male parts were taken usually by boys, 
 but frequently by grown men, and when 
 Juliet or Desdemona was announced, 
 a giant would stride upon the stage. 
 There is a story that Kynaston, a hand- 
 some fellow, famous in female charac- 
 ters, and petted by ladies of rank, once 
 kept Charles I. waiting while he was be- 
 ing shaved before appearing as Evadne 
 in " The Maid's Tragedy." The innova- 
 tion of women on the stage was first in- 
 troduced by a French company in 1629, 
 but the audiences would not tolerate it, 
 
 94 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 and hissed and pelted the actresses off 
 the stage. But thirty years later wom- 
 en took the place they have ever since 
 held ; when the populace had once ex- 
 perienced the charm of a female Juliet 
 and Ophelia, they would have no other, 
 and the rage for actresses ran to such 
 excess at one time that it was a fashion 
 for women to take the male parts as well. 
 But that was in the abandoned days 
 of Charles II. Pepys could not control 
 his delight at the appearance of Nell 
 Gwynne, especially " when she comes 
 like a young gallant, and hath the mo- 
 tions and carriage of a spark the most 
 that ever I saw any man have. It makes 
 me, I confess, admire her." The acting 
 of Shakespeare himself is only a faint 
 tradition. He played the ghost in 
 " Hamlet," and Adam in " As You Like 
 It." William Oldys says (Oldys was an 
 antiquarian who was pottering about in 
 
 95 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 the first part of the eighteenth century, 
 picking up gossip in coffee-houses, and 
 making memoranda on scraps of paper 
 in book -shops) Shakespeare's brother 
 Charles, who lived past the middle of 
 the seventeenth century, was much in- 
 quired of by actors about the circum- 
 stances of Shakespeare's playing. But 
 Charles was so old and weak in mind 
 that he could recall nothing except the 
 faint impression that he had once seen 
 " Will " act a part in one of his own 
 comedies, wherein, being to personate a 
 decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, 
 and appeared so weak and drooping and 
 unable to walk that he was forced to be 
 supported and carried by another per- 
 son to a table, at which he was seated 
 among some company who were eating, 
 and one of them sang a song. And 
 that was Shakespeare ! 
 
 The whole Bankside, with its taverns, 
 96 
 
N^ ^X oHciuatia tuuus i^ortd<ne/nkffW. 
 
 THE SWAN THEATRE, 1 596 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 play-houses, and worse, its bear pits and 
 gardens, was the scene of roystering and 
 coarse amusement. And it is surprising 
 that plays of such sustained moral great- 
 ness as Shakespeare's should have been 
 welcome. 
 
 The more private amusements of the 
 great may well be illustrated by an ac- 
 count given by Busino of a masque (it 
 was Ben Jonson's " Pleasure Reconciled 
 to Virtue ") performed at Whitehall on 
 Twelfth-night, 1617. During the play, 
 twelve cavaliers in masks, the central 
 figure of whom was Prince Charles, chose 
 partners, and danced every kind of dance, 
 until they got tired and began to flag ; 
 whereupon King James, " who is nat- 
 urally choleric, got impatient, and shout- 
 ed aloud, ' Why don't they dance ? 
 What did you make me come here for? 
 Devil take you all, dance !' On hear- 
 ing this, the Marquis of Buckingham, 
 
 G 97 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 his majesty's most favored minion, im- 
 mediately sprang forward, cutting a 
 score of lofty and very minute capers, 
 with so much grace and agility that he 
 not only appeased the ire of his angry 
 sovereign, but moreover rendered him- 
 self the admiration and delight of every- 
 body. The other masquers, being thus 
 encouraged, continued successively ex- 
 hibiting their powers with various ladies, 
 finishing in like manner with capers, 
 and by lifting their goddesses from the 
 ground. . . . The prince, however, ex- 
 celled them all in bowing, being very 
 exact in making his obeisance both to 
 the king and his partner ; nor did we ever 
 see him make one single step out of time 
 — a compliment which can scarcely be 
 paid to his companions. Owing to his 
 youth, he has not much wind as yet, 
 but he nevertheless cut a few capers 
 very gracefully." The prince then went 
 
 98 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 and kissed the hand of his serene parent, 
 who embraced and kissed him tenderly. 
 When such capers were cut at White- 
 hall, we may imagine what the revelry 
 was in the Bankside taverns. 
 
 The punishments of the age were not 
 more tender than the amusements were 
 refined. Busino saw a lad of fifteen led 
 to execution for stealing a bag of cur- 
 rants. At the end of every month, be- 
 sides special executions, as many as 
 twenty-five people at a time rode through 
 London streets in Tyburn carts, singing 
 ribald songs, and carrying sprigs of rose- 
 mary in their hands. Everywhere in 
 the streets the machines of justice were 
 visible — pillories for the neck and hands, 
 stocks for the feet, and chains to stretch 
 across, in case of need, and stop a mob. 
 In the suburbs were oak cages for noc- 
 turnal offenders. At the church doors 
 might now and then be seen women en- 
 
 99 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 veloped in sheets, doing penance for their 
 evil deeds. A bridle, something like a 
 bit for a restive horse, was in use for the 
 curbing of scolds ; but this was a later 
 invention than the cucking-stool, or 
 ducking-stool. There is an old print of 
 one of these machines standing on the 
 Thames's bank : on a wheeled platform 
 is an upright post with a swinging beam 
 across the top, on one end of which the 
 chair is suspended over the river, while 
 the other is worked up and down by a 
 rope ; in it is seated a light sister of the 
 Bankside, being dipped into the unsav- 
 ory flood. But this was not so hated by 
 the women as a similar discipline — be- 
 ing dragged in the river by a rope after 
 a boat. 
 
 Hanging was the common'punishment 
 for felony, but traitors and many other 
 offenders were drawn, hanged, bowelled, 
 and quartered; nobles who were traitors 
 
 IOO 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 usually escaped with having their heads 
 chopped off only. Torture was not prac- 
 tised ; for, says Harrison, our people de- 
 spise death, yet abhor to be tormented, 
 being of frank and open minds. And 
 " this is one cause why our condemned 
 persons do go so cheerfully to their 
 deaths, for our nation is free, stout, 
 hearty, and prodigal of life and blood, 
 and cannot in any wise digest to be used 
 as villains and slaves." Felony covered 
 a wide range of petty crimes — breach of 
 prison, hunting by night with painted or 
 masked faces, stealing above forty shil- 
 lings, stealing hawks' eggs, conjuring, 
 prophesying upon arms and badges, 
 stealing deer by night, cutting purses, 
 counterfeiting coin, etc. Death was 
 the penalty for all these offences. For 
 poisoning her husband a woman was 
 burned alive ; a man poisoning an- 
 other was boiled to death in water 
 
 IOI 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 or oil ; heretics were burned alive ; 
 some murderers were hanged in chains; 
 perjurers were branded on the fore- 
 head with the letter P ; rogues were 
 burned through the ears ; suicides were 
 buried in a field with a stake driven 
 through their bodies ; witches were 
 burned or hanged ; in Halifax thieves 
 were beheaded by a machine almost ex- 
 actly like the modern guillotine; scolds 
 were ducked ; pirates were hanged on 
 the sea-shore at low-water mark, and 
 left till three tides overwashed them ; 
 those who let the sea-walls decay were 
 staked out in the breach of the banks, 
 and left there as parcel of the foun- 
 dation of the new wall. Of rogues — 
 that is, tramps and petty thieves — the 
 gallows devoured three to four hun- 
 dred annually, in one place or another ; 
 and Henry VIII. in his time did hang 
 up as many as seventy-two thousand 
 
 102 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 rogues. Any parish which let a thief 
 escape was fined. Still the supply held 
 out. 
 
 The legislation against vagabonds, 
 tramps, and sturdy beggars, and their 
 punishment by whipping, branding, etc., 
 are too well known to need comment. 
 But considerable provision was made 
 for the unfortunate and deserving poor 
 — poor-houses were built for them, and 
 collections taken up. Only sixty years 
 before Harrison wrote there were few 
 beggars, but in his day he numbers 
 them at ten thousand ; and most of 
 them were rogues, who counterfeited 
 sores and wounds, and were mere thieves 
 and caterpillars on the commonwealth. 
 He names twenty-three different sorts 
 of vagabonds known by cant names, 
 such as " ruffers," " uprightmen," " prig- 
 gers," "fraters," " palliards," "Abrams," 
 " dummerers"; and of women," demand- 
 103 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 ers for glimmer or fire," " mortes," 
 " walking mortes," " doxes," " kinching 
 coves." 
 
 London was esteemed by its inhabi- 
 tants and by many foreigners as the 
 richest and most magnificent city in 
 Christendom. The cities of London 
 and Westminster lay along the north 
 bank in what seemed an endless stretch; 
 on the south side of the Thames the 
 houses were more scattered. But the 
 town was mostly of wood, and its rapid 
 growth was a matter of anxiety. Both 
 Elizabeth and James again and again 
 attempted to restrict it by forbidding 
 the erection of any new buildings with- 
 in the town, or for a mile outside ; and 
 to this attempt was doubtless due the 
 crowded rookeries in the city. They 
 especially forbade the use of wood in 
 house-fronts and windows, both on ac- 
 count of the danger from fire, and be- 
 104 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 cause all the timber in the kingdom, 
 which was needed for shipping and 
 other purposes, was being used up in 
 building. They even ordered the pull- 
 ing down of new houses in London, 
 Westminster, and for three miles around. 
 But all efforts to stop the growth of the 
 city were vain. 
 
 London, according to the Venetian 
 Busino, was extremely dirty. He did 
 not admire the wooden architecture ; the 
 houses were damp and cold, the stair- 
 cases spiral and inconvenient, the apart- 
 ments " sorry and ill connected." The 
 wretched windows, without shutters, he 
 could neither open by day nor close by 
 night. The streets were little better 
 than gutters, and were never put in 
 order except for some great parade. 
 Hentzner, however, thought the streets 
 handsome and clean. When it rained 
 it must have been otherwise. There 
 105 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 was no provision for conducting away 
 the water; it poured off the roofs upon 
 the people below, who had not as yet 
 heard of the Oriental umbrella; and the 
 countryman, staring at the sights of the 
 town, knocked about by the carts, and 
 run over by the horsemen, was often 
 surprised by a douche from a conduit 
 down his back. And, besides, people 
 had a habit of throwing water and slops 
 out of the windows, regardless of pass- 
 ers-by. 
 
 The shops were small, open in front, 
 when the shutters were down, much like 
 those in a Cairo bazaar, and all the 
 goods were in sight. The shopkeepers 
 stood in front and cried their wares, 
 and besought customers. Until 1568 
 there were but few silk shops in Lon- 
 don, and all those were kept by women. 
 It was not till about that time that 
 citizens' wives ceased to wear white knit 
 106 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 woollen caps, and three-square Minever 
 caps with peaks. In the beginning of 
 Elizabeth's reign the apprentices (a 
 conspicuous class) wore blue cloaks in 
 winter and blue gowns in summer; un- 
 less men were threescore years old, it 
 was not lawful to wear gowns lower 
 than the calves of the legs, but the 
 length of cloaks was not limited. The 
 journeymen and apprentices wore long 
 daggers in the daytime at their backs 
 or sides. When the apprentices at- 
 tended their masters and mistresses in 
 the night they carried lanterns and can- 
 dles, and a great long club on the neck. 
 These apprentices were apt to lounge 
 with their clubs about the fronts of 
 shops, ready to take a hand in any 
 excitement — to run down a witch, or 
 raid an objectionable house, or tear 
 down a tavern of evil repute, or spoil 
 a playhouse. The high - streets, espe- 
 107 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 cially in winter-time, were annoyed by 
 hourly frays of sword and buckler men ; 
 but these were suddenly suppressed 
 when the more deadly fight with rapier 
 and dagger came in. The streets were 
 entirely unlighted and dangerous at 
 night, and for this reason the plays at 
 the theatres were given at three in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 About Shakespeare's time many new 
 inventions and luxuries came in : masks, 
 muffs, fans, periwigs, shoe-roses, love- 
 handkerchiefs (tokens given by maids 
 and gentlewomen to their favorites), 
 heath -brooms for hair-brushes, scarfs, 
 garters, waistcoats, flat-caps; also hops, 
 turkeys, apricots, Venice glass, tobacco. 
 In 1524, and for years after, was used 
 this rhyme : * 
 
 " Turkeys, Carpes, Hops : Piccarel, and beere, 
 Came into England : all in one year." 
 10S 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 There were no coffee-houses as yet, for 
 neither tea nor coffee was introduced 
 till about 1661. Tobacco was first made 
 known in England by Sir John Haw- 
 kins in 1565, though not commonly 
 used by men and women till some years 
 after. It was urged as a great medicine 
 for many ills. Harrison says, 1573, "In 
 these days the taking in of the smoke 
 of the Indian herb called ' Tabaco,' by 
 an instrument formed like a little ladle, 
 whereby it passeth from the mouth 
 into the head and stomach, is greatly 
 taken up and used in England, against 
 Rewmes and some other diseases en- 
 gendered in the lungs and inward parts, 
 and not without effect." Its use spread 
 rapidly, to the disgust of James I. and 
 others, who doubted that it was good 
 for cold, aches, humors, and rheums. 
 In 1614 it was said that seven thousand 
 houses lived by this trade, and that 
 109 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 ^"399,375 a year was spent in smoke. 
 Tobacco was even taken on the stage. 
 Every base groom must have his pipe ; 
 it was sold in all inns and ale-houses, 
 and the shops of apothecaries, grocers, 
 and chandlers were almost never, from 
 morning till night, without company 
 still taking, of tobacco. 
 
 There was a saying on the Continent 
 that " England is a paradise for women, 
 a prison for servants, and a hell or pur- 
 gatory for horses." The society was 
 very simple compared with the complex 
 condition of ours, and yet it had more 
 striking contrasts, and was a singular 
 mixture of downrightness and artifici- 
 ality; plainness and rudeness of speech 
 went with the utmost artificiality of 
 dress and manner. It is curious to 
 note the insular, not to say provincial, 
 character of the people even three cen- 
 turies ago. When the Londoners saw 
 no 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 a foreigner very well made or particu- 
 larly handsome, they were accustomed 
 to say, " It is a pity he is not an ENGLISH- 
 MAN." It is pleasant, I say, to trace 
 this " certain condescension " in the 
 good old times. Jacob Rathgeb (1592) 
 says the English are magnificently 
 dressed, and extremely proud and over- 
 bearing ; the merchants, who seldom go 
 unto other countries, scoff at foreigners, 
 who are liable to be ill-used by street 
 boys and apprentices, who collect in 
 immense crowds and stop the way. Of 
 course Cassandra Stubbes, whose mind 
 was set upon a better country, has little 
 good to say of his countrymen: "As 
 concerning the nature, propertie, and 
 disposition of the people they be desir- 
 ous of new fangles, praising things past, 
 contemning things present, and covet- 
 ing after things to come. Ambitious, 
 proud, light, and unstable, ready to be 
 in 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 carried away with every blast of wind." 
 The French paid back with scorn the 
 traditional hatred of the English for 
 the French. Perlin (1558) finds the 
 people proud and seditious, with bad 
 consciences and unfaithful to their 
 word — " in war unfortunate, in peace 
 unfaithful"; and there was a Spanish 
 or Italian proverb : " England, good 
 land, bad people." But even Perlin 
 likes the appearance of the people : 
 " The men are handsome, rosy, large, 
 and dexterous, usually fair-skinned ; the 
 women are esteemed the most beau- 
 tiful in the world, white as alabaster, 
 and give place neither to Italian, Flem- 
 ish, nor German ; they are joyous, cour- 
 teous, and hospitable (de bon recueil)." 
 He thinks their manners, however, lit- 
 tle civilized : for one thing, they have 
 an unpleasant habit of eructation at the 
 table (car iceux routent a la table sans 
 112 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 honie & ignominie)', which recalls Chau- 
 cer's description of the Trumpington f 
 miller's wife and daughter : — 
 
 " Men might her rowtyng hearen a forlong, 
 The wenche routeth eek par companye." 
 
 Another inference as to the table man- 
 ners of the period is found in Coryat's 
 " Crudities " (161 1). He saw in Italy gen- 
 erally a curious custom of using a little 
 fork for meat, and whoever should take 
 the meat out of the dish with his fingers 
 would give offence. And he accounts for 
 this peculiarity quite naturally : " The 
 reason of this their curiosity is, because 
 the Italian cannot by any means indure 
 to have his dish touched with fingers, 
 seeing all mens fingers are not alike 
 cleane." Coryat found the use of the 
 fork nowhere else iri Christendom, and 
 when he returned, and, oftentimes in 
 h 113 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 England, imitated the Italian fashion, 
 his exploit was regarded in a humorous 
 light. Busino says that fruits were sel- 
 dom served at dessert, but that the 
 whole population were munching them 
 in the streets all day long, and in the 
 places of amusement; and it was an 
 amusement to go out into the orchards 
 and eat fruit on the spot, in a sort of 
 competition of gormandize between the 
 city belles and their admirers. And he 
 avers that one young woman devoured 
 twenty pounds of cherries, beating her 
 opponent by two pounds and a half. 
 
 All foreigners were struck with the 
 English love of music and drink, of ban- 
 queting and good cheer. Perlin notes 
 a pleasant custom at table: during the 
 feast you hear more than a hundred 
 times, " Drink ion" (he loves to air his 
 English), that is to say, " Je m'en vois 
 boyre a toy." You respond, in their 
 
 114 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 language, " Iplaigin " ; that is to say, 
 " Je vous plege." If you thank them, 
 they say in their language, "God tanque 
 artelay" ; that is, " Je vous remercie de 
 bon coeur." And then, says the artless 
 Frenchman, still improving on his Eng- 
 lish, you should respond thus : "Bigod, 
 sol drink ion agoud oin." At the great 
 and princely banquets, when the pledge 
 went round and the heart's desire of 
 lasting health, says the chronicler, " the 
 same was straight wayes knowne, by 
 sound of Drumme and Trumpet, and 
 the cannon's loudest voyce." It was 
 so in Hamlet's day: — 
 
 "And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish 
 down, 
 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out 
 The triumph of his pledge." 
 
 According to Hentzner (1598), the 
 English are serious, like the Germans, 
 115 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 and love show and to be followed by 
 troops of servants wearing the arms of 
 their masters ; they excel in music and 
 dancing, for they are lively and active, 
 though thicker of make than the French; 
 they cut their hair close in the middle 
 of the head, letting it grow on either 
 side ; " they are good sailors, and bet- 
 ter pyrates, cunning, treacherous, and 
 thievish"; and, he adds, with a touch 
 of satisfaction, " above three hundred 
 are said to be hanged annually in Lon- 
 don." They put a good deal of sugar 
 in their drink; they are vastly fond of 
 great noises, firing of cannon, beating of 
 drums, and ringing of bells, and when 
 they have a glass in their heads they go 
 up into some belfry, and ring the bells 
 for hours together, for the sake of exer- 
 cise. Perlin's comment is that men are 
 hung for a trifle in England, and that 
 r ou will not find many lords whose par- 
 116 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ents have not had their heads chopped 
 off. 
 
 It is a pleasure to turn to the simple 
 and hearty admiration excited in the 
 breasts of all susceptible foreigners by 
 the English women of the time. Van 
 Meteren, as we said, calls the women 
 beautiful, fair, well dressed, and modest. 
 To be sure, the wives are, their lives 
 only excepted, entirely in the power of 
 their husbands, yet they have great lib- 
 erty; go where they please; are shown 
 the greatest honor at banquets, where 
 they sit at the upper end of the table 
 and are first served ; are fond of dress 
 and gossip and of taking it easy ; and 
 like to sit before their doors, decked out 
 in fine clothes, in order to see and be 
 seen by the passers-by. Rathgeb also 
 agrees that the women have much more 
 liberty than in any other place. When 
 old Busino went to the Masque at 
 117 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Whitehall, his colleagues kept exclaim- 
 ing, " Oh, do look at this one — oh, do 
 see that ! Whose wife is this ? — and that 
 pretty one near her, whose daughter is 
 she?" There was some chaff mixed in, 
 he allows, some shrivelled skins and 
 devotees of S. Carlo Borromeo, but the 
 beauties greatly predominated. 
 
 In the great street pageants, it was 
 the beauty and winsomeness of the Lon- 
 don ladies, looking on, that nearly drove 
 the foreigners wild. In 1606, upon the 
 entry of the king of Denmark, the chron- 
 icler celebrates " the unimaginable num- 
 ber of gallant ladies, beauteous virgins, 
 and other delicate dames, filling the win- 
 dows of every house with kind aspect." 
 And in 1638, when Cheapside was all 
 alive with the pageant of the entry of 
 the queen mother, " this miserable old 
 queen," as Lilly calls Marie de Medicis 
 (Mr.. Furnivall reproduces an old cut of 
 118 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 the scene), M. de la Serre does not try 
 to restrain his admiration for the pretty- 
 women on view: only the most fecund 
 imagination can represent the content 
 one has in admiring the infinite number 
 of beautiful women, each different from 
 the other, and each distinguished by 
 some sweetness or grace to ravish the 
 heart and take captive one's liberty. No 
 sooner has he determined to yield to 
 one than a new object of admiration 
 makes him repent the precipitation of 
 his judgment. 
 
 And all the other foreigners were in 
 the like case of " goneness." Kiechel, 
 writing in 1585, says, "Item, the women 
 there are charming, and by nature so 
 mighty pretty as I have scarcely ever 
 beheld, for they do not falsify, paint, or 
 bedaub themselves as in Italy or other 
 places" ; yet he confesses (and here is 
 another tradition preserved) " they are 
 119 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 somewhat awkward in their style of 
 dress." His second " item" of gratitude is 
 a Netherland custom that pleased him — 
 whenever a foreigner or an inhabitant 
 went to a citizen's house on business, 
 or as a guest, he was received by the 
 master, the lady, or the daughter, and 
 "welcomed " (as it is termed in their 
 language) ; "he has a right to take them 
 by the arm and to kiss them, which is 
 the custom of the country ; and if any 
 one does not do so, it is regarded and 
 imputed as ignorance and ill -breeding 
 on his part." Even the grave Erasmus, 
 when he visited England, fell easily into 
 this pretty practice, and wrote with un- 
 theological fervor of the " girls with 
 angel faces," who were " so kind and 
 obliging." "Wherever you come," he 
 says, " you are received with a kiss by 
 all ; when you take your leave you are 
 dismissed with kisses ; you return, kisses 
 1 20 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 are repeated. They come to visit you, 
 kisses again ; they leave you, you kiss 
 them all round. Should they meet you 
 anywhere, kisses in abundance : in fine, 
 wherever you move there is nothing but 
 kisses" — a custom, says this reformer, 
 who has not the fear of Stubbes before 
 his eyes, " never to be sufficiently com- 
 mended." 
 
 We shall find no more convenient op- 
 portunity to end this part of the social 
 study of the age of Shakespeare than 
 with this naive picture of the sex which 
 most adorned it. Some of the details 
 appear trivial ; but grave history which 
 concerns itself only with the actions of 
 conspicuous persons, with the manoeu- 
 vres of armies, the schemes of politics, 
 the battles of theologies, fails signally 
 to give us the real life of the people by 
 which we judge the character of an age. 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHEN we turn from France to Eng- 
 land in the latter part of the sixteenth 
 and the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, we are in another atmosphere ; 
 we encounter a literature that smacks 
 of the soil, that is as varied, as racy, 
 often as rude, as human life itself, and 
 which cannot be adequately appreciated 
 except by a study of the popular mind 
 and the history of the time which pro- 
 duced it. 
 
 " Voltaire," says M. Guizot, " was the 
 first person in France who spoke of 
 Shakespeare's genius ; and although he 
 spoke of him merely as a barbarian gen- 
 ius, the French public were of the opin- 
 ion that he had said too much in his 
 
 122 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing 
 less than profanation to apply the words 
 genius and glory to dramas which they 
 considered as crude as they were coarse." 
 Guizot was one of the first of his na- 
 tion to approach Shakespeare in the 
 right spirit — that is, in the spirit in which 
 he could hope for any enlightenment ; 
 and in his admirable essay on " Shake- 
 speare and His Times," he pointed out 
 the exact way in which any piece or 
 period of literature should be studied, 
 that is worth studying at all. He in- 
 quired into English civilization, into the 
 habits, manners, and modes of thought 
 of the people for whom Shakespeare 
 wrote. This method, this inquiry into 
 popular sources, has been carried much 
 further since Guizot wrote, and it is 
 now considered the most remunerative 
 method, whether the object of study is 
 literature or politics. By it not only is 
 123 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 the literature of a period for the first 
 time understood, but it is given its just 
 place as an exponent of human life and 
 a monument of human action. 
 
 The student who takes up Shake- 
 speare's plays for the purpose of either 
 amusement or cultivation, I would rec- 
 ommend to throw aside the whole load 
 of commentary, and speculation, and dis- 
 quisition, and devote himself to trying 
 to find out first what was the London 
 and the England of Shakespeare's day, 
 what were the usages of all classes of 
 society, what were the manners and the 
 character of the people who crowded to 
 hear his plays, or who denounced them 
 as the works of the devil and the allies 
 of sin. I say again to the student that 
 by this means Shakespeare will become 
 a new thing to him, his mind will be 
 enlarged to the purpose and scope of 
 the great dramatist, and more illumi- 
 124 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 nation will be cast upon the plays than 
 is received from the whole race of in- 
 quisitors into his phrases and critics of 
 his genius. In the light of contempo- 
 rary life, its visions of empire, its' spirit 
 of adventure, its piracy, exploration, and 
 warlike turmoil, its credulity and super- 
 stitious wonder at natural phenomena, 
 its implicit belief in the supernatural, 
 its faith, its virility of daring, coarseness 
 of speech, bluntness of manner, luxury 
 of apparel, and ostentation of wealth, 
 the mobility of its shifting society, these 
 dramas glow with a new meaning, and 
 awaken a profounder admiration of the 
 poet's knowledge of human life. 
 
 The experiences of the poet began 
 with the rude and rural life of England, 
 and when he passed into the presence 
 of the court and into the bustle of great 
 London in an age of amazing agitation, 
 he felt still in his veins the throb of the 
 125 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 popular blood. There were classic af- 
 fectations in England, there were masks 
 and mummeries and classic puerilities 
 at court and in noble houses — Eliza- 
 beth's court would well have liked to be 
 classical, remarks Guizot — but Shake- 
 speare was not fettered by classic con- 
 ventionalities, nor did he obey the uni- 
 ties, nor attempt to separate on the 
 stage the tragedy and the comedy of 
 life — " immense and living stage," says 
 the writer I like to quote because he is 
 French, " upon which all things are rep- 
 resented, as it were, in their solid form, 
 and in the place which they occupied in 
 a stormy and complicated civilization. 
 In these dramas the comic element is 
 introduced whenever its character of re- 
 ality gives it the right of admission and 
 the advantage of opportune appearance. 
 Falstaff appears in the train of Henry 
 V., and Doll Tear-Sheet in the train of 
 126 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Falstaff ; the people surround the kings, 
 and the soldiers crowd around their gen- 
 erals ; all conditions of society, all the 
 phases of human destiny appear by 
 turns in juxtaposition, with the nature 
 which properly belongs to them, and in 
 the position which they naturally oc- 
 cupy. . . . Thus we find the entire world, 
 the whole of human realities, reproduced 
 by Shakespeare in tragedy, which, in his 
 eyes, was the universal theatre of life 
 and truth." 
 
 It is possible to make a brutal picture 
 of the England of Shakespeare's day 
 by telling nothing that is not true, and 
 by leaving out much that is true. M. 
 Taine, who has a theory to sustain, does 
 it by a graphic catalogue of details and 
 traits that cannot be denied ; only there 
 is a great deal in English society that he 
 does not include, perhaps does not ap- 
 prehend. Nature, he thinks, was never 
 127 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 so completely acted out. These robust 
 men give rein to all their passions, de- 
 light in the strength of their limbs like 
 carmen, indulge in coarse language, un- 
 disguised sensuality, enjoy gross jests, 
 brutal buffooneries. Humanity is as 
 much lacking as decency. Blood, suf- 
 fering, does not move them. The court 
 frequents bull and bear baitings ; Eliza- 
 beth beats her maids, spits upon a court- 
 ier's fringed coat, boxes Essex's ears ; 
 great ladies beat their children and their 
 servants. " The sixteenth century," he 
 says, "is like a den of lions. Amid pas- 
 sions so strong as these there is not one 
 lacking. Nature appears here in all its 
 violence, but also in all its fulness. If 
 nothing has been softened, nothing has 
 been mutilated. It is the entire man 
 who is displayed, heart, mind, body, 
 senses, with his noblest and finest aspi- 
 rations, as with his most bestial and 
 128 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 savage appetites, without the prepon- 
 derance of any dominant passion to cast 
 him altogether in one direction, to exalt 
 or degrade him. He has not become 
 rigid as he will under Puritanism. He 
 is not uncrowned as in the Restoration." 
 He has entered like a young man into 
 all the lusty experiences of life, every 
 allurement is known, the sweetness and 
 novelty of things are strong with him. 
 He plunges into all sensations. " Such 
 were the men of this time, Raleigh, 
 Essex, Elizabeth, Henry VIII. himself, 
 excessive and inconstant, ready for de- 
 votion and for crime, violent in good 
 and evil, heroic with strange weak- 
 nesses, humble with sudden changes of 
 mood, never vile with premeditation like 
 the roisterers of the Restoration, never 
 rigid on principle like the Puritans of 
 the Revolution, capable of weeping like 
 children, and of dying like men-, often 
 i 129 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 base courtiers, more than once true 
 knights, displaying constantly, amidst 
 all these contradictions of bearing, only 
 the overflowing of nature. Thus pre- 
 pared, they could take in everything, 
 sanguinary ferocity and refined gener- 
 osity, the brutality of shameless de- 
 bauchery, and the most divine inno- 
 cence of love, accept all the characters, 
 wantons and virgins, princes and moun- 
 tebanks, pass quickly from trivial buf- 
 foonery to lyrical sublimities, listen al- 
 ternately to the quibbles of clowns and 
 the songs of lovers. The drama even, 
 in order to satisfy the prolixity of their 
 nature, must take all tongues, pompous, 
 inflated verse, loaded with imagery, and 
 side by side with this vulgar prose ; 
 more than this, it must distort its natu- 
 ral style and limits, put songs, poetical 
 devices in the discourse of courtiers and 
 the speeches of statesmen ; bring on the 
 130 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 stage the fairy world of opera, as Mid- 
 dleton says, gnomes, nymphs of the 
 land and sea, with their groves and 
 meadows; compel the gods to descend 
 upon the stage, and hell itself to furnish 
 its world of marvels. No other theatre 
 is so complicated, for nowhere else do 
 we find men so complete." 
 
 M. Taine heightens this picture in 
 generalizations splashed with innumera- 
 ble blood-red details of English life and 
 character. The English is the most 
 warlike race in Europe, most redoubt- 
 able in battle, most impatient of slavery. 
 " English savages " is what Cellini calls 
 them ; and the great shins of beef with 
 which they fill themselves nourish the 
 force and ferocity of their instincts. To 
 harden them thoroughly, institutions 
 work in the same groove as nature. 
 The nation is armed. Every man is a 
 soldier, bound to have arms according to 
 131 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 his condition, to exercise himself on 
 Sundays and holidays. The State re- 
 sembles an army ; punishments must 
 inspire terror ; the idea of war is ever 
 present. Such instincts, such a history, 
 raises before them with tragic severi- 
 ty the idea of life ; death is at hand, 
 wounds, blood, tortures. The fine pur- 
 ple cloaks, the holiday garments, else- 
 where signs of gayety of mind, are stain- 
 ed with blood and bordered with black. 
 Throughout a stern discipline, the axe 
 ready for every suspicion of treason ; 
 " great men, bishops,achancellor,princes, 
 the king's relations, queens, a protector 
 kneeling in the straw, sprinkled the 
 Tower with their blood; one after the 
 other they marched past, stretched out 
 their necks ; the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Cath- 
 erine Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Ad- 
 miral Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, 
 132 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Lady Jane Grey and her husband, the 
 Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of 
 Essex, all on the throne, or on the steps 
 of the throne, in the highest ranks of 
 honor, beauty, youth, genius ; of the 
 bright procession nothing is left but 
 senseless trunks, marred by the tender 
 mercies of the executioner." 
 
 The gibbet stands by the highways, 
 heads of traitors and criminals grin on 
 the city gates. Mournful legends mul- 
 tiply, church-yard ghosts, walking spir- 
 its. In the evening, before bedtime, in 
 the vast country houses, in the poor 
 cottages, people talk of the coach which 
 is seen drawn by headless horses, with 
 headless postilions and coachmen. All 
 this, with unbounded luxury, unbridled 
 debauchery, gloom, and revelry hand in 
 hand. " A threatening and sombre fog 
 veils their mind like their sky, and joy, 
 like the sun, pierces through it and 
 i33 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 upon them strongly and at intervals." 
 All this riot of passion and frenzy of 
 vigorous life, this madness and sorrow, 
 in which life is a phantom and destiny 
 drives so remorselessly, Taine finds on 
 the stage and in the literature of the 
 period. 
 
 To do him justice, he finds something 
 else, something that might give him a 
 hint of the innate soundness of English 
 life in its thousands of sweet homes, 
 something of that great force of moral 
 stability, in the midst of all violence 
 and excess of passion and performance, 
 which makes a nation noble. " Op- 
 posed to this band of tragic figures," 
 which M. Taine arrays from the dramas, 
 "with their contorted features, brazen 
 fronts, combative attitudes, is a troop 
 (he says) of timid figures, tender before 
 everything, the most graceful and love- 
 worthy whom it has been given to man 
 134 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 to depict. In Shakespeare you will 
 meet them in Miranda, Juliet, Desde- 
 mona, Virginia, Ophelia, Cordelia, Imo- 
 gen ; but they abound also in the oth- 
 ers ; and it is a characteristic of the race 
 to have furnished them, as it is of the 
 drama to have represented them. By 
 a singular coincidence the women are 
 more of women, the men more of men, 
 here than elsewhere. The two natures 
 go to its extreme — in the one to bold- 
 ness, the spirit of enterprise and resist- 
 ance, the warlike, imperious, and unpol- 
 ished character ; in the other to sweet- 
 ness, devotion, patience, inextinguisha- 
 ble affection (hence the happiness and 
 strength of the marriage tie), a thing 
 unknown in distant lands, and in France 
 especially : a woman here gives herself 
 without drawing back, and places her 
 glory and duty in obedience, forgiveness, 
 adoration, wishing, and pretending only 
 i35 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 to be melted and absorbed daily deeper 
 and deeper in him whom she has freely 
 and forever chosen." This is an old 
 German instinct. The soul in this race 
 is at once primitive and serious. Wom- 
 en are disposed to follow the noble 
 dream called duty. " Thus, supported 
 by innocence and conscience, they in- 
 troduce into love a profound and up- 
 right sentiment, abjure coquetry, vanity, 
 and flirtation ; they do not lie, they are 
 not affected. When they love they are 
 not tasting a forbidden fruit, but are 
 binding themselves for their whole life. 
 Thus understood, love becomes almost 
 a holy thing ; the spectator no longer 
 wishes to be malicious or to jest; wom- 
 en do not think of their own happi- 
 ness, but of that of the loved ones ; 
 they aim not at pleasure, but at devo- 
 tion." 
 
 Thus far M. Taine's brilliant antith- 
 136 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 eses — the most fascinating and most 
 dangerous model for a young writer. 
 But we are indebted to him for a most 
 suggestive study of the period. His 
 astonishment, the astonishment of the 
 Gallic mind, at what he finds, is a meas- 
 ure of the difference in the literature of 
 the two races as an expression of their 
 life. It was natural that he should 
 somewhat exaggerate what he regards 
 as the source of this expression, leaving 
 out of view, as he does, certain great 
 forces and currents which an outside 
 observer cannot feel as the race itself 
 feels. We look, indeed, for the local 
 color of this English literature in the 
 manners and habits of the times, traits 
 of which Taine has so skilfully made a 
 mosaic from Harrison, Stubbes, Stowe, 
 Holinshed, and the pages of Reed and 
 Drake ; but we look for that which 
 made it something more than a mirror 
 137 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 of contemporary manners, vices, and 
 virtues, made it representative of uni- 
 versal men, to other causes and forces — 
 such as the Reformation, the immense 
 stir, energy, and ambition of the age 
 (the result of invention and discovery), 
 newly awakened to the sense that there 
 was a world to be won and made trib- 
 utary ; that England, and, above all 
 places on the globe at that moment, 
 London, was the centre of a display of 
 energy and adventure such as has been 
 scarcely paralleled in history. And un- 
 derneath it all was the play of an un- 
 easy, protesting democracy, eager to 
 express itself in adventure, by changing 
 its condition, in the joy of living and 
 overcoming, and in literature, with small 
 regard for tradition or the unities. 
 
 When Shakespeare came up to Lon- 
 don with his first poems in his pocket, 
 the town was so great and full of mar- 
 138 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 vels, and luxury, and entertainment, as 
 to excite the astonishment of continen- 
 tal visitors. It swarmed with soldiers, 
 adventurers, sailors who were familiar 
 with all seas and every port, men with 
 projects, men with marvellous tales. It 
 teemed with schemes of colonization, 
 plans of amassing wealth by trade, by 
 commerce, by planting, mining, fishing, 
 and by the quick eye and the strong 
 hand. Swaggering in the coffee-houses 
 and ruffing it in the streets were the 
 men who had sailed with Frobisher and 
 Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Haw- 
 kins, and Sir Richard Granville ; had 
 perhaps witnessed the heroic death of 
 Sir Philip Sidney, at Zutphen ; had 
 served with Raleigh in Anjou, Picardy, 
 Languedoc, in the Netherlands, in the 
 Irish civil war ; had taken part in the 
 dispersion of the Spanish Armada, and 
 in the bombardment of Cadiz; had filled 
 139 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 their cups to the union of Scotland with 
 England; had suffered shipwreck on the 
 Barbary Coast, or had, by the fortune 
 of war, felt the grip of the Spanish In- 
 quisition ; who could tell tales of the 
 marvels seen in new-found America and 
 the Indies, and, perhaps, like Captain 
 John Smith, could mingle stories of the 
 naiVe simplicity of the natives beyond 
 the Atlantic, with charming narratives 
 of the wars in Hungary, the beauties of 
 the seraglio of the Grand Turk, and 
 the barbaric pomp of the Khan of Tar- 
 tary. There were those in the streets 
 who would see Raleigh go to the block 
 on the scaffold in Old Palace Yard, who 
 would fight against King Charles on the 
 fields of Newbury or Naseby, Kineton or 
 Marston Moor, and perchance see the 
 exit of Charles himself from another 
 scaffold erected over against the Ban- 
 queting House. 
 
 140 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 Although London at the accession of 
 James I. (1603) had only about one 
 hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants 
 — the population of England then num- 
 bering about five million — ■ it was so 
 full of life and activity, that Frederick, 
 Duke of Wtirtemberg, who saw it a few 
 years before, in 1592, was impressed 
 with it as a large, excellent, and mighty 
 city of business, crowded with people 
 buying and selling merchandise, and 
 trading in almost every corner of the 
 world, a very populous city, so that one 
 can scarcely pass along the streets on 
 account of the throng; the inhabitants, 
 he says, are magnificently apparelled, 
 extremely proud and overbearing, who 
 scoff and laugh at foreigners, and no one 
 dare oppose them lest the street boys 
 and apprentices collect together in im- 
 mense crowds and strike to right and left 
 unmercifully without regard to persons. 
 
 141 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 There prevailed an insatiable curios- 
 ity for seeing strange sights and hearing 
 strange adventures, with an eager de- 
 sire for visiting foreign countries, which 
 Shakespeare and all the play -writers 
 satirize. Conversation turned upon the 
 wonderful discoveries of travellers, whose 
 voyages to the New World occupied 
 much of the public attention. The ex- 
 aggeration which from love of impor- 
 tance inflated the narratives, the poets 
 also take note of. There was also a 
 universal taste for hazard in money as 
 well as in travel, for putting it out on 
 risks at exorbitant interest, and the 
 habit of gaming reached prodigious ex- 
 cess. The passion for sudden wealth 
 was fired by the success of the sea- 
 rovers, news of which inflamed the im- 
 agination. Samuel Kiechel, a merchant 
 of Ulrri, who was in London in 1585, 
 records that, " news arrived of a Spanish 
 142 
 
• SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 ship captured by Drake, in which it was 
 said there were two millions of un- 
 coined gold and silver in ingots, fifty 
 thousand crowns in coined reals, seven 
 thousand hides, four chests of pearls, 
 each containing two bushels, and some 
 sacks of cochineal — the whole valued 
 at twenty-five barrels of gold ; it was 
 said to be one year and a half's tribute 
 from Peru." 
 
 The passion for travel was at such a 
 height that those who were unable to 
 accomplish distant journeys, but had 
 only crossed over into France and Italy, 
 gave themselves great airs on their re- 
 turn. " Farewell, monsieur traveller," 
 says Shakespeare ; " look, you lisp, and 
 wear strange suits ; disable all the ben- 
 efits of your own country ; be out of 
 love with your nativity, and almost 
 chide God for making you that counte- 
 nance you are, or I will scarce think 
 143 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 you have swam in a gondola." The 
 Londoners dearly loved gossip, and in- 
 dulged in exaggeration of speech and 
 high-flown compliment. One gallant 
 says to another : " O, signior, the star 
 that governs my life is contentment; 
 give me leave to interre myself in your 
 arms." " Not so, sir, it is too unworthy 
 an enclosure to contain such precious- 
 ness ! 
 
 Dancing was the daily occupation 
 rather than the amusement at court and 
 elsewhere, and the names of dances ex- 
 ceeded the list of the virtues — such as 
 the French brawl, the pavon, the meas- 
 ure, the canary, and many under the 
 general titles of corantees, jigs, galliards, 
 and fancies. At the dinner and ball given 
 by James I. to Juan Fernandez de Ve- 
 lasco, Constable of Castile, in 1604, fifty 
 ladies of honor, very elegantly dressed 
 and extremely beautiful, danced with 
 144 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 the noblemen- and gentlemen. Prince 
 Henry danced a galliard with a lady, 
 " with much sprightliness and modesty, 
 cutting several capers in the course of 
 the dance "; the Earl of Southampton 
 led out the queen, and with three other 
 couples danced a brando, and so on, the 
 Spanish visitors looking on. When Eliz- 
 abeth was old and had a wrinkled face 
 and black teeth, she was one day dis- 
 covered practising the dance step alone, 
 to the sound of a fiddle, determined to 
 keep up to the last the limberness and 
 agility necessary to impress foreign am- 
 bassadors with he_r grace and youth. 
 There was one custom, however, -that 
 may have made dancing a labor of love : 
 it was considered ill -manners for the 
 gentleman not to kiss his partner. In- 
 deed, in all households, and in all ranks 
 of society the guest was expected to 
 salute thus all the ladies — a custom 
 
 k 145 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 which the grave Erasmus, who was in 
 England in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 found not disagreeable. 
 
 Magnificence of display went hand in 
 hand with a taste for cruel and barbarous 
 amusements. At this same dinner to 
 the Constable of Castile, the two buffets 
 of the king and queen in the audience- 
 chamber, where the banquet was held, 
 were loaded with plate of exquisite work- 
 manship, rich vessels of gold, agate, and 
 other precious stones. The constable 
 drank to the king the health of the 
 queen from the lid of a cup of agate of 
 extraordinary beauty and richness, set 
 with diamonds and rubies, praying his 
 majesty would condescend to drink the 
 toast from the cup, which he did ac- 
 cordingly, and then the constable di- 
 rected that the cup should remain in 
 his majesty's buffet. The constable 
 also drank to the queen the health of 
 146 
 
THE BELLMAN OF LONDON, l6l6 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 the king from a very beautiful dragon- 
 shaped cup of crystal garnished with 
 gold, drinking from the cover, and the 
 queen, standing up, gave the pledge 
 from the cup itself, and then the consta- 
 ble ordered that the cup should remain 
 in the queen's buffet. The banquet 
 lasted three hours, when the cloth was 
 removed, the table was placed upon the 
 ground — that is, removed from the dais 
 — and their majesties, standing upon it, 
 washed their hands in basins, as did the 
 others. After the dinner was the ball, 
 and that ended, they took their places 
 at the windows of a room that looked 
 out upon a square, where a platform 
 was raised and a vast crowd was assem- 
 bled to see the king's bears fight with 
 greyhounds. This afforded great amuse- 
 ment. Presently a bull, tied to the end 
 of a rope, was fiercely baited by dogs. 
 After this tumblers danced upon a rope 
 147 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 and performed feats of agility on horse- 
 back. The constable and his attendants 
 were lighted home by half an hundred 
 halberdiers with torches, and, after the 
 fatigues of the day, supped in private. 
 We are not surprised to read that 
 on Monday, the 30th, the constable 
 awoke with a slight attack of lum- 
 bago. 
 
 Like Elizabeth, all her subjects were 
 fond of the savage pastime of bear and 
 bull baiting. It cannot be denied that 
 this people had a taste for blood, took 
 delight in brutal encounters, and drew 
 the sword and swung the cudgel with 
 great promptitude ; nor were they fas- 
 tidious in the matter of public execu- 
 tions. Kiechel says that when the crim- 
 inal was driven in the cart under the 
 gallows, and left hanging by the neck 
 as the cart moved from under him, his 
 friends and acquaintances pulled at his 
 148 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 legs in order that he might be strangled 
 the sooner. 
 
 When Shakespeare was managing his 
 theatres and writing his plays London 
 was full of foreigners, settled in the city, 
 who no doubt formed part of his au- 
 dience, for they thought that English 
 players had attained great perfection. 
 In 162 1 there were as many as ten thou- 
 sand strangers in London, engaged in 
 one hundred and twenty- one different 
 trades. The poet need not go far from 
 Blackfriars to pick up scraps of Ger- 
 man and folk-lore, for the Hanse mer- 
 chants were located in great numbers 
 in the neighborhood of the steel-yard 
 in Lower Thames Street. 
 
 Foreigners as well as contempora- 
 ry chronicles and the printed diatribes 
 against luxury bear witness to the. pro- 
 fusion in all ranks, of society and the 
 variety and richness in apparel. There 
 149 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 was a rage for the display of fine 
 clothes. Elizabeth left hanging in her 
 wardrobe above three thousand dresses 
 when she was called to take that un- 
 seemly voyage down the stream, on 
 which the clown's brogan jostles the 
 queen's slipper. The plays of Shake- 
 speare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, 
 and of all the dramatists, are a perfect 
 commentary on the fashions of the day, 
 but a knowledge of the fashions is nec- 
 essary to a perfect enjoyment of the 
 plays. We see the fine lady in a gown 
 of velvet (the foreigners thought it odd 
 that velvet should be worn in the street), 
 or cloth of gold and silver tissue, her hair 
 eccentrically dressed, and perhaps dyed, 
 a great hat with waving feathers, some- 
 times a painted face, maybe a mask or a 
 muffler hiding all the features except 
 the eyes, with a muff, silk stockings, 
 high -heeled shoes, imitated from the 
 150 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 " chopine " of Venice, perfumed brace- 
 lets, necklaces, and gloves — " gloves 
 sweet as damask roses" — a pocket- 
 handkerchief wrought in gold and sil- 
 ver, a small looking-glass pendent at the 
 girdle, and a love-lock hanging wantonly 
 over the shoulder, artificial flowers at 
 the corsage, and a mincing step. " These 
 fashionable women, when they are dis- 
 appointed, dissolve into tears, weep with 
 one eye, laugh with the other, or, like 
 children, laugh and cry they can both 
 together, and as much pity is to be 
 taken of a woman weeping as of a 
 goose going barefoot," says old Burton. 
 The men had even greater fondness 
 for finery. Paul Hentzner, the Bran- 
 denburg jurist, in 1598, saw, at the Fair 
 of St. Bartholomew, the lord mayor, 
 attended by twelve gorgeous aldermen, 
 walk in a neighboring field, dressed in 
 a scarlet gown, and about his neck a 
 151 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 golden chain, to which hung a Golden 
 Fleece. Men wore the hair long and flow- 
 ing, with high hats and plumes of feath- 
 ers, and carried muffs like the women; 
 gallants sported gloves on their hats as 
 tokens of ladies' favors, jewels and roses 
 in the ears, a long love-lock under the 
 left ear, and gems in a ribbon round the 
 neck. This tall hat was called a " cap- 
 atain." Vincentio, in the "Taming of 
 the Shrew," exclaims : " O fine villain ! 
 A silken doublet ! A velvet hose ! A 
 scarlet cloak ! And a capatain hat !" 
 There was no limit to the caprice and 
 extravagance. Hose and breeches of 
 silk, velvet, or other rich stuff, and 
 fringed garters wrought of gold or sil- 
 ver, worth five pounds apiece, are some 
 of the items noted. Burton says, " 'Tis 
 ordinary for a gallant to put a thousand 
 oaks and an hundred oxen into a suit of 
 apparel, to wear a whole manor on his 
 152 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 back." Even serving -men and tailors 
 wore jewels in their shoes. 
 
 We should note also the magnificence 
 in the furnishing of houses, the arras, 
 tapestries, cloth of gold and silver, silk 
 hangings of many colors, the splendid 
 plate on the tables and sideboards. 
 Even in the houses of the middle class- 
 es the furniture was rich and comforta- 
 ble, and there was an air of amenity in 
 the chambers and parlors strewn with 
 sweet herbs and daily decked with pret- 
 ty nosegays and fragrant flowers. Lights 
 were placed on antique candelabras, or, 
 wanting these at suppers, there were liv- 
 ing candle-holders. "Give me a torch," 
 says Romeo ; " I'll be a candle-holder, 
 and look on." Knowledge of the de- 
 tails of luxury of an English home of the 
 sixteenth century will make exceedingly 
 vivid hosts of allusions in Shakespeare. 
 
 Servants were numerous in great 
 153 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 households, a large retinue being a mark 
 of gentility, and hospitality was un- 
 bounded. During the lord mayor's 
 term in London he kept open house, 
 and every day any stranger or foreigner 
 could dine at his table, if he could find 
 an empty seat. Dinner, served at eleven 
 in the early years of James, attained a 
 degree of epicureanism rivalling dinners 
 of the present day, although the guests 
 ate with their fingers or their knives, 
 forks not coming in till 1611. There 
 was mighty eating and swigging at the 
 banquets, and carousing was carried to 
 an extravagant height, if we may judge 
 by the account of an orgy at the king's 
 palace in 1606, for the delectation of the 
 King and Queen of Denmark, when the 
 company and even their majesties aban- 
 doned discretion and sobriety, and " the 
 ladies are seen to roll about in intoxica- 
 tion." 
 
 154 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 The manners of the male population 
 of the period, says Nathan Drake, seem 
 to have been compounded from the 
 characters of the two sovereigns. Like 
 Elizabeth, they are brave, magnanimous, 
 and prudent ; and sometimes, like James, 
 they are credulous, curious, and dissi- 
 pated. The credulity and superstition 
 of the age, and its belief in the su- 
 pernatural, and the sumptuousness of 
 masques and pageants at the court and 
 in the city, of which we read so much in 
 the old chronicles, are abundantly re- 
 flected in the pages of Jonson, Shake- 
 speare, and other writers. 
 
 The town was full of coffee-houses 
 and pleasure -gardens, but, curiously 
 enough, the favorite place of public 
 parading was the middle aisle of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral— " Paul's Walk," as it 
 was called — which was daily frequented 
 by nobles, gentry, perfumed gallants, 
 i55 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 and ladies, from ten to twelve and three 
 to six o'clock, to talk on business, pol- 
 itics, or pleasure. Hither came, to ac- 
 quire the fashions, make assignations, 
 arrange for the night's gaming, or shun 
 the bailiff, the gallant, the gamester, the 
 ladies whose dresses were better than 
 their manners, the stale knight, the 
 captain out of service. Here Falstaff 
 purchased Bardolph. " I bought him," 
 says the knight, " at Paul's." The tai- 
 lors went there to get the fashions of 
 dress, as the gallants did to display 
 them, one suit before dinner and an- 
 other after. What a study was this 
 varied, mixed, flaunting life, this dance 
 of pleasure and license before the very 
 altar of the church, for the writers of 
 satire, comedy, and tragedy ! 
 
 But it is not alone town life and court 
 life and the society of the fine folk that 
 is reflected in the English drama and 
 156 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 literature of the seventeenth century, 
 and here is another wide difference be- 
 tween it and the French literature of 
 the same period ; rural England and the 
 popular life of the country had quite as 
 much to do in giving tone and color to 
 the writings of the time. It is necessary 
 to know rural England to enter into the 
 spirit of this literature, and to appreciate 
 how thoroughly it took hold of life in 
 every phase. Shakespeare knew it well. 
 He drew from life the country gentle- 
 man, the squire, the parson, the pedantic 
 school-master who was regarded as half 
 conjurer, the yeoman or farmer, the 
 dairy maids, the sweet English girls, the 
 country louts, shepherds, boors, and 
 fools. How he loved a fool ! He had 
 talked with all these persons, and knew 
 their speech and humors. He had tak- 
 en part in the country festivals — May 
 Day, Plough Monday, the Sheep Shear- 
 157 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 ing, the Morris Dances and Maud Ma- 
 rian/ the Harvest Home and Twelfth 
 Night. The rustic merry-makings, the 
 feasts in great halls, the games on the 
 greensward, the love of wonders and of 
 marvellous tales, the regard for portents, 
 the naive superstitions of the time pass 
 before us in his pages. Drake, in his 
 " Shakespeare and his Times," gives a 
 graphic and indeed charming picture of 
 the rural life of this century, drawn 
 from Harrison and other sources. 
 
 In his spacious hall, floored with 
 stones and lighted by large transom 
 windows, hung with coats of mail and 
 helmets, and all military accoutrements, 
 long a prey to rust, the country squire, 
 seated at a raised table at one end, held 
 a baronial state and dispensed prodigal 
 hospitality. The long table was divided 
 into upper and lower messes by a huge 
 salt-cellar, and the consequence of the 
 158 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 guests was marked by their seats above 
 or below the salt. The distinction ex- 
 tended to the fare, for wine frequently 
 circulated only above the salt, and be- 
 low it the food was of coarser quality. 
 The literature of the time is full of al- 
 lusions to this distinction. But the lux- 
 ury of the table and good cooking were 
 well understood in the time of Elizabeth 
 and James. There was massive eating 
 done in those days, when the guests 
 dined at eleven, rose from the banquet 
 to go to evening prayers, and returned 
 to a supper at five or six, which was 
 often as substantial as the dinner. Ger- 
 vase Markham in his " English House- 
 wife," after treating of the ordering of 
 great feasts gives directions for " a more 
 humble feast of an ordinary proportion." 
 This " humble feast," he says, should 
 consist for the first course of " sixteen 
 full dishes, that is, dishes of meat that 
 159 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 are of substance, and not empty, or for 
 shew — as thus, for example: first, a 
 shield of brawn with mustard ; second- 
 ly, a boyl'd capon ; thirdly, a boyl'd 
 piece of beef ; fourthly, a chine of beef 
 rosted ; fifthly, a neat's tongue rosted ; 
 sixthly, a pig rosted ; seventhly, chewets 
 bak'd ; eighthly, a goose rosted; ninthly, 
 a swan rosted ; tenthly, a turkey rosted ; 
 the eleventh, a haunch of venison rosted ; 
 the twelfth, a pasty of venison ; the thir- 
 teenth, a kid with a pudding in the bel- 
 ly; the fourteenth, an olive-pye; the fif- 
 teenth, a couple of capons ; the six- 
 teenth, a custard or dowsets. Now to 
 these full dishes may be added sallets, 
 fricases, quelque choses, and devised 
 paste, as many dishes more as will make 
 no less than two and thirty dishes, which 
 is as much as can conveniently stand 
 on one table, and in one mess ; and 
 after this manner you may proportion 
 160 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 both your second and third course, 
 holding fullness on one half the dishes, 
 and shew in the other, which will be 
 both frugal in the splendor, content- 
 ment to the guest, and much pleasure 
 and delight to the beholders." After 
 this frugal repast it needed an interval 
 of prayers before supper. 
 
 The country squire was a long-lived 
 but not always an intellectual animal. 
 He kept hawks of all kinds, and all sorts 
 of hounds that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, 
 and badger. His great hall was com- 
 monly strewn with marrow-bones, and 
 full of hawks'-perches, of hounds, span- 
 iels, and terriers. His oyster-table stood 
 at one end of the room, and oysters he 
 ate at dinner and supper. At the upper 
 end of the room stood a small table 
 with a double desk, one side of which 
 held a church Bible, the other Fox's 
 " Book of Martyrs." He drank a glass 
 l 161 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 or two of wine at his meals, put syrup 
 of gilly-flower in his sack, and always 
 had a tun-glass of small beer standing 
 by him, which he often stirred about 
 with rosemary. After dinner, with a 
 glass of ale by his side he improved his 
 mind by listening to the reading of a 
 choice passage out of the " Book of 
 Martyrs." This is a portrait of one 
 Henry Hastings, of Dorsetshire, in Gil- 
 pin's " Forest Scenery." He lived to be 
 a hundred, and never lost his sight 
 nor used spectacles. He got on horse- 
 back without help, and rode to the 
 death of the stag till he was past four- 
 score. 
 
 The plain country fellow, ploughman, 
 or clown, is several pegs lower, and de- 
 scribed by Bishop Earle as one that 
 manures his ground well, but lets him- 
 self lie fallow and untilled. His hand 
 guides the plough, and the plough his 
 162 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 thoughts. His mind is not much dis- 
 turbed by objects, but he can fix a half- 
 hour's contemplation on a good fat 
 cow. His habitation is under a poor 
 thatched roof, distinguished from his 
 barn only by loop-holes that let out the 
 smoke. Dinner is serious work, for he 
 sweats at it as much as at his labor, 
 and he is a terrible fastener on a piece 
 of beef. His religion is a part of his 
 copyhold, which he takes from his land- 
 lord and refers it wholly to his dis- 
 cretion, but he is a good Christian in 
 his way, that is, he comes to church in 
 his best clothes, where he is capable 
 only of two prayers — for rain and fair 
 weather. 
 
 The country clergymen, at least those 
 of the lower orders, or readers, were dis- 
 tinguished in Shakespeare's time by the 
 appellation " Sir," as Sir Hugh, in the 
 " Merry Wives," Sir Topas, in " Twelfth 
 163 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Night," Sir Oliver, in " As You Like 
 It." The distinction is marked between 
 priesthood and knighthood when Vista 
 says, " I am one that would rather go 
 with Sir Priest than Sir Knight." The 
 clergy were not models of conduct in 
 the days of Elizabeth, but their position 
 excites little wonder when we read that 
 they were often paid less than the cook 
 and the minstrel. 
 
 There was great fondness in cottage 
 and hall for merry tales of errant knights, 
 lovers, lords, ladies, dwarfs, friars, thieves, 
 witches, goblins, for old stories told by 
 the fireside, with a toast of ale on the 
 hearth, as in Milton's allusion 
 
 " — to the nut-brown ale, 
 With stories told of many a feat." 
 
 A designation of winter in " Love's 
 Labour 's Lost " is 
 
 ■' When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl." 
 164 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 To " turne a crab " is to roast a wild 
 apple in the fire in order to throw it 
 hissing hot into a bowl of nut-brown 
 ale, into which had been put a toast 
 with some spice and sugar. Puck de- 
 scribes one of his wanton pranks : 
 
 " And sometimes I lurk in a gossip's bowl, 
 In very likeness of a roasted crab, 
 And when she drinks against her lips I 
 bob." 
 
 I love no roast, says John Still, in 
 " Gammer Gurton's Needle," 
 
 " I love no rost, but a nut-browne toste, 
 And a crab layde in the fyre ; 
 A lytle bread shall do me stead, 
 Much bread I not desire." 
 
 In the bibulous days of Shakespeare, 
 the peg tankard, a species of wassail or 
 wish-health bowl, was still in use. In- 
 troduced to restrain intemperance, it 
 became a cause of it, as every drinker 
 165 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 was obliged to drink down to the peg. 
 We get our expression of taking a man 
 "a peg lower," or taking him ''down a 
 peg," from this custom. 
 
 In these details I am not attempting 
 any complete picture of the rural life at 
 this time, but rather indicating by illus- 
 trations the sort of study which illu- 
 minates its literature. We find, indeed, 
 if we go below the surface of man- 
 ners, sober, discreet, and sweet domestic 
 life, and an appreciation of the virtues. 
 Of the English housewife, says Gervase 
 Markham, was not only expected sanc- 
 tity and holiness of life, but " great 
 modesty and temperance, as well out- 
 wardly as inwardly. She must be of 
 chaste thoughts, stout courage, patient, 
 untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleas- 
 ant, constant in friendship, full of good 
 neighborhood, wise in discourse, but not 
 frequent therein, sharp and quick of 
 
 1 66 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 speech, but not bitter or talkative, secret 
 in her affairs, comportable in her coun- 
 sels, and generally skillful in the worthy 
 knowledges which do belong to her 
 vocation." This was the mistress of 
 the hospitable house of the country 
 knight, whose chief traits were loyalty 
 to church and state, a love of festivity, 
 and an ardent attachment to field sports. 
 His well-educated daughter is charm- 
 ingly described in an exquisite poem by 
 Drayton : 
 
 " He had, as antique stories tell, 
 A daughter cleaped Dawsabel, 
 
 A maiden fair and free ; 
 And for she was her father's heir, 
 Full well she ycond the leir 
 
 Of mickle courtesy. 
 
 " The silk well couth she twist and twine, 
 And make the fine march-pine, 
 And with the needle work : 
 167 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 And she couth help the priest to say 
 His matins on a holy day, 
 And sing a psalm in Kirk. 
 
 "She wore a frock of frolic green 
 Might well become a maiden queen, 
 
 Which seemly was to see ; 
 A hood to that so neat and fine, 
 In color like the columbine, 
 
 Ywrought full featously. 
 
 " Her features all as fresh above 
 As is the grass that grows by Dove, 
 
 And lythe as lass of Kent. 
 Her skin as soft as Lemster wool, 
 As white as snow on Peakish Hull, 
 
 Or swan that swims in Trent. 
 
 "This maiden in a morn betime 
 Went forth when May was in the prime 
 
 To get sweet setywall, 
 The honey-suckle, the harlock, 
 The lily, and the lady-smock, 
 
 To deck her summer hall." 
 
 How late such a simple and pretty 
 
 168 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 picture could have been drawn to life 
 is uncertain, but by the middle of the 
 seventeenth century the luxury of the 
 town had penetrated the country, even 
 into Scotland. The dress of a rich farm- 
 er's wife is thus described by Dunbar. 
 She had "a robe of fine scarlet, with 
 a white hood, a gay purse and gingling 
 keys pendant at her side from a silken 
 belt of silver tissue ; on each finger she 
 wore two rings, and round her waist 
 was bound a sash of grass-green silk, 
 richly embroidered with silver." 
 
 Shakespeare was the mirror of his 
 time in things small as well as great. 
 How far he drew his characters from 
 personal acquaintances has often been 
 discussed. The clowns, tinkers, shep- 
 herds, tapsters," and such folk, he prob- 
 ably knew by name. In the Duke of 
 Manchester's " Court and Society from 
 Elizabeth to Anne "is a curious sug- 
 169 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 gestion about Hamlet. Reading some 
 letters from Robert, Earl of Essex, to 
 Lady Rich, his sister, the handsome, 
 fascinating, and disreputable Penelope 
 Devereaux, he notes, in their humorous 
 melancholy and discontent with man- 
 kind, something in tone and even lan- 
 guage which suggests the weak and 
 fantastic side of Hamlet's mind, and 
 asks if the poet may not have conceived 
 his character of Hamlet from Essex, 
 and of Horatio from Southampton, his 
 friend and patron. And he goes on to 
 note some singular coincidences. Essex 
 was supposed by many to have a good 
 title to the throne. In person he had 
 his father's beauty and was all that 
 Shakespeare has described the Prince 
 of Denmark. His mother had been 
 tempted from her duty while her noble 
 and generous husband was alive, and 
 this husband was supposed to have 
 170 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 been poisoned by her and her para- 
 mour. After the father's murder the 
 seducer had married the guilty mother. 
 The father had not perished without 
 expressing suspicion of foul play against 
 himself, yet sending his forgiveness to 
 his faithless wife. There are many other 
 agreements in the facts of the case and 
 the incidents of the play. The relation 
 of Claudius to Hamlet is the same as 
 that of Leicester to Essex : under pre- 
 tence of fatherly friendship he was sus- 
 picious of his motives, jealous of his 
 actions ; kept him much in the country 
 and at college ; let him see little of his 
 mother, and clouded his prospects in 
 the world by an appearance of benig- 
 nant favor. Gertrude's relations with 
 her son Hamlet, were much like those of 
 Lettice with Robert Devereaux. Again, 
 it is suggested, in his moodiness, in his 
 college learning, in his love for the the- 
 171 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 atre and the players, in his desire for 
 the fiery action for which his nature was 
 most unfit, there are many kinds of 
 hints calling up an image of the Danish 
 Prince. 
 
 This suggestion is interesting in the 
 view that we find in the characters of 
 the Elizabethan drama not types and 
 qualities, but individuals strongly pro- 
 jected, with all their idiosyncrasies and 
 contradictions. These dramas touch our 
 sympathies at all points, and are repre- 
 sentative of human life to-day, because 
 they reflected the human life of their 
 time. This is supremely true of Shake- 
 speare, and almost equally true of Jonson 
 and many of the other stars of that 
 marvellous epoch. In England as well 
 as in France, as we have said, it was the 
 period of the classic revival ; but in 
 England the energetic reality of the 
 time was strong enough to break the 
 172 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 classic fetters, and to use classic learn- 
 ing-for modern purposes. The English 
 dramatists, like the French, used classic 
 histories and characters. But two things 
 are to be noted in their use of them. 
 First, that the characters and the play 
 of mind and passion in them are thor- 
 oughly English and of the modern time. 
 And second, and this seems at first a 
 paradox, they are truer to the classic 
 spirit than the characters in the contem- 
 porary French drama. This results from 
 the fact that they are truer to the 
 substance of things, to universal human 
 nature, while the French seem to be in 
 great part an imitation, having root 
 neither in the soil of France nor Atti- 
 ca. M. Guizot confesses that France, 
 in order to adopt the ancient models, 
 was compelled to limit its field in some 
 sort to one corner of human existence. 
 He goes on to say that the present 
 i73 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 " demands of the drama pleasures and 
 emotions that can no longer be supplied 
 by the inanimate representation of a 
 world that has ceased to exist. The 
 classic system had its origin in the life 
 of the time ; that time has passed away; 
 its image subsists in brilliant colors in its 
 works, but can no more be reproduced." 
 Our own literary monuments must rest 
 on other ground. " This ground is not 
 the ground of Corneille or Racine, nor is it 
 that of Shakespeare ; it is our own ; but 
 Shakespeare's system, as it appears to me, 
 may furnish the plans according to which 
 genius ought now to work. This sys- 
 tem alone includes all those social condi- 
 tions and those general and diverse feel- 
 ings, the simultaneous conjuncture and 
 activity of which constitute for us at 
 the present day the spectacle of human 
 things." 
 
 That is certainly all that any one can 
 174 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 claim for Shakespeare and his fellow- 
 dramatists. They cannot be models in 
 form any more than Sophocles and Eu- 
 ripides ; but they are to be followed 
 in making the drama, or any literature, 
 expressive of its own time, while it is 
 faithful to the emotions and feeling of 
 universal human nature. And herein, 
 it seems to me, lies the broad distinction 
 between most of the English and French 
 literature of the latter part of the six- 
 teenth and the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth centuries. Perhaps I may be 
 indulged in another observation on this 
 topic, touching a later time. Notwith- 
 standing the prevalent notion that the 
 French poets are the sympathetic heirs 
 of classic culture, it appears to me that 
 they are not so imbued with the true 
 classic spirit, art, and mythology as some 
 of our English poets, notably Keats and 
 Shelley. 
 
 i75 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 Ben Jonson was a man of extensive 
 and exact classical erudition ; he was a 
 solid scholar in the Greek and Roman 
 literatures, in the works of the philoso- 
 phers, poets, and historians. He was 
 also a man of uncommon attainments 
 in all the literary knowledge of his time. 
 In some of his tragedies his classic 
 learning was thought to be ostenta- 
 tiously displayed, but this was not true 
 of his comedy, and on the whole he was 
 too strong to be swamped in pseudo- 
 classicism. For his experience of men 
 and of life was deep and varied. Before 
 he became a public actor and dramatist, 
 and served the court and fashionable 
 society with his entertaining, if pedantic, 
 masques, he had been student, trades- 
 man, and soldier ; he had travelled in 
 Flanders and seen Paris, and wandered 
 on foot through the length of England. 
 London he knew as well as a man 
 176 
 

SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 knows his own house and club, the 
 comforts of its taverns, the revels of 
 lords and ladies, the sports of Bartholo- 
 mew Fair, and the humors of suburban 
 villages ; all the phases, language, crafts, 
 professions of high and low city life 
 were familiar to him. And\in his com- 
 edies, as Mr. A. W. Ward pertinently 
 says, his marvellously vivid reproduction 
 of manners is unsurpassed by any of his 
 contemporaries. "The age lives in his 
 men and women, his country gulls and 
 town gulls, his imposters and skeldering 
 captains, his court ladies and would-be 
 court ladies, his puling poetasters and 
 whining Puritans, and, above all, in the 
 whole ragamuffin rout of his Barthol- 
 omew Fair. Its pastimes, fashionable 
 and unfashionable, its games and vapors 
 and jeering, its high-polite courtships 
 and its pulpit-shows, its degrading su- 
 perstitions and confounding hallucina- 
 m 177 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 tions, its clubs of naughty ladies and its 
 offices of lying news, its taverns and its 
 tobacco shops, its giddy heights and its 
 meanest depths — all are brought before 
 us by our author." 
 
 No, he was not swamped by classicism, 
 but he was affected by it, and just here, 
 and in that self- consciousness which 
 Shakespeare was free from, and which 
 may have been more or less the result 
 of his classic erudition, he fails of being 
 one of the universal poets of mankind. 
 The genius of Shakespeare lay in his 
 power to so use the real and individual 
 facts of life as to raise in the minds of 
 his readers a broader and nobler con- 
 ception of human life than they had 
 conceived before. This is creative genius ; 
 this is the idealist dealing faithfully with 
 realistic material ; this is, as we should 
 say in our day, the work of the artist 
 as distinguished from the work of the 
 178 . 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 photographer. It may be an admirable 
 but it is not the highest work of the 
 sculptor, the painter, or the writer, that 
 does not reveal to the mind that comes 
 into relation with it something before 
 out of his experience and beyond the 
 facts either brought before him or with 
 which he is acquainted. 
 
 What influence Shakespeare had upon 
 the culture and taste of his own time 
 and upon his immediate audience would 
 be a most interesting inquiry. We 
 know what his audiences were. He 
 wrote for the people, and the theatre in 
 his day was a popular amusement for 
 the multitude, probably more than it 
 was a recreation for those who enjoyed 
 the culture of letters. A taste for letters 
 was prevalent among the upper class, 
 and indeed was fashionable among both 
 ladies and gentlemen of rank. In this 
 the court of Elizabeth set the fashion. 
 179 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 The daughter of the duchess was taught 
 not only to distil strong waters, but to 
 construe Greek. When the queen was 
 translating Socrates cfr Seneca, the maids 
 -of honor found it convenient to affect at 
 least a taste for the classics. For the 
 nobleman and the courtier an intimacy 
 with Greek, Latin, and Italian was es- 
 sential to "good form." But the taste 
 for erudition was mainly confined to the 
 metropolis or the families who fre- 
 quented it, and to persons of rank, and 
 did not pervade the country or the 
 middle classes. A few of the country 
 gentry had some pretension to learning, 
 but the majority cared little except for 
 hawks and hounds, gaming and drinking; 
 and if they read it was some old chron- 
 icle, or story of knightly adventure, 
 "Amadis de Gaul," or a stray play- 
 book, or something like the " History of 
 Long Meg of Westminster," or perhaps 
 1 80 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 a sheet o( news. To read and write 
 were still rare accomplishments in the 
 country, and Dogberry expressed a 
 common notion when he said reading 
 and .writing come by nature. Sheets of 
 news had become common in the town 
 in James's time, the first newspaper 
 being the English Mercury, which ap- 
 peared in April, 1588, and furnished 
 food for Jonson's satire in his " Staple 
 of News." His accusation has a famil- 
 iar sound when he says that people had 
 a " hunger and thirst after published 
 pamphlets of news, set out every Satur- 
 day, but made all at home, and no 
 syllable of truth in them." 
 
 Though Elizabeth and James were 
 warm patrons of the theatre, the court 
 had no such influence over the plays 
 and players as had the court in Paris at 
 the same period. The theatres were 
 built for the people, and the audience 
 181 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 included all classes. There was a dis- 
 tinction between what were called pub- 
 lic and private theatres, but the public 
 frequented both. The Shakespeare the- 
 atres, at which his plays were exclusively 
 performed, were the Globe, called public, 
 on the Bankside, and the Blackfriars, 
 called private, on the City side, the one 
 for summer, the other for winter per- 
 formances. The Blackfriars was smaller 
 than the Globe, was roofed over, and 
 needed to be lighted with candles, and 
 was frequented more by the better class 
 than the more popular Globe. There is 
 no evidence that Elizabeth ever attend- 
 ed the public theatres, but the companies 
 were often summoned to play before 
 her in Whitehall, where the appoint- 
 ments and scenery were much better 
 than in the popular houses. 
 
 The price of general admission to 
 the Globe and Blackfriars was six- 
 182 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 pence, at the Fashion Theatre two- 
 pence, and at some of the inferior thea- 
 tres one penny. The boxes at the 
 Globe were a shilling, at the Blackfriars 
 one -and -six. The usual net receipts 
 of a performance were from nine to ten 
 pounds, and this was about the sum 
 that Elizabeth paid to companies for 
 a performance at Whitehall, which was 
 always in the evening and did not in- 
 terfere with regular hours. The the- 
 atres opened as early as one o'clock 
 and not later than three in the after- 
 noon. The crowds that filled the pit 
 and galleries early, to secure places, 
 amused themselves variously before the 
 performance began : they drank ale, 
 smoked, fought for apples, cracked nuts, 
 chaffed the boxes, and a few read the 
 cheap publications of the day that were 
 hawked in the theatre. It was a rough 
 and unsavory audience in pit and gal- 
 183 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 lery, but it was a responsive one, and 
 it enjoyed the acting with little help to 
 illusion in the way of scenery. In fact, 
 scenery did not exist, as we understand 
 it. A board inscribed with the name 
 of the country or city indicated the 
 scene of action. Occasionally movable 
 painted scenes were introduced. The 
 interior roof of the stage was painted 
 sky-blue, or hung with drapery of that 
 tint, to represent the heavens. But 
 when the idea of a dark, starless night 
 was to be imposed, or tragedy was to 
 be acted, these heavens were hung with 
 black stuffs, a custom illustrated in 
 many allusions in Shakespeare, like that 
 in the line, 
 
 " Hung be the heavens in black, yield day to 
 night." 
 
 To hang the stage with black was to 
 prepare it for tragedy. The costumes 
 of the players were sometimes less nig- 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 gardly than the furnishing of the stage, 
 for it was an age of rich and picturesque 
 apparel, and it was not difficult to pro- 
 cure the cast-off clothes of fine gentle- 
 men for stage use. But there was no 
 lavishing of expense. I am recalling 
 these details to show that the amuse- 
 ment was popular and cheap. The or- 
 dinary actors, including the boys and 
 men who took women's parts (for 
 women did not appear on the stage 
 till after the' Restoration) received 
 only about five or six shillings a week 
 (for Sundays and all), and the first-class 
 actor, who had a share in the net re- 
 ceipts, would not make more than 
 ninety pounds a year. The ordinary 
 price paid for a new play was less than 
 seven pounds ; Oldys, on what authority 
 is not known, says that Shakespeare 
 received only five pounds for " Hamlet." 
 The influence of the theatre upon 
 185 
 
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM 
 
 politics, contemporary questions that 
 interested the public, and morals, was 
 early recognized in the restraints put 
 upon representations by the censorship, 
 and in the floods of attacks upon its 
 licentious and demoralizing character. 
 The plays of Shakespeare did not es- 
 cape the most bitter animadversions of 
 the moral reformers. We have seen 
 how Shakespeare mirrored his age, but 
 we have less means of ascertaining what 
 effect he produced upon the life of his 
 time. Until after his death his influ- 
 ence was mainly direct, upon the play- 
 goers, and confined to his auditors. He 
 had been dead seven years before his 
 plays were collected. However the peo- 
 ple of his day regarded him, it is safe to 
 say that they could not have had any 
 conception of the importance of the 
 work he was doing. They were doubt- 
 less satisfied with him. It was a great 
 186 
 
SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 age for romances and story-telling, and 
 he told stories, old in new dresses, but 
 he was also careful to use contempo- 
 rary life, which his hearers understood. 
 
 It is not to his own age, but to those 
 following, and especially to our own 
 time, that we are to look for the shap- 
 ing and enormous influence upon hu- 
 man life of the genius of this poet. 
 And it is measured not by the libraries 
 of comments that his works have called 
 forth, but by the prevalence of the lan- 
 guage and thought of his poetry in all 
 subsequent literature, and by its en- 
 trance into the current of common 
 thought and speech. It may be safely 
 said that the English-speaking world 
 and almost every individual of it are 
 different from what they would have 
 been if Shakespeare had never lived. Of 
 all the forces that have survived out of 
 his creative time, he is one of the chief. 
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 Illustrations. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 §ZT" For sale by all booksellers, or -urill be mailed by the pub- 
 lishers* *>os£aj?e /><repaia, on receipt of the price. 
 
By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. Three Volumes. 
 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $3 50 each. 
 
 FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. i6mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental $1 00. 
 
 FROM THE EASY CHAIR. Second Series. With 
 Portrait. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 
 
 FROM THE EASY CHAIR. Third Series. With 
 
 Portrait. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 
 PRUE AND I. Illustrated Edition. 8vo, Illuminated 
 Silk, $3 50. Also i2mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, $1 50. 
 
 LOTUS -EATING. Illustrated. i 2 mo, Cloth, Gilt 
 
 Top, $1 50. 
 NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI. i 2 mo, Cloth, 
 
 Gilt Top, $i 50. 
 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. ramo, Cloth, Gilt 
 
 Top, $1 50. 
 
 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS. Illustrated. i2mo, 
 Cloth, Gilt Top, $1 50. 
 
 TRUMPS. A Novel. Illustrated, ismo, Cloth, Gilt 
 Top, $1 50. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Illustrated. 3 2mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents. 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS. A Eulogy. 8vo, Paper, 
 25 cents. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 GEJP^ For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the 
 publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United 
 States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 
 
 LRE N '26 
 
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