Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

The signature of Shakspeare appears in three different places on the will. The above is a fac-simile of the last, the clearest and firmest.

Shakspeare's bequest to his wife of his 'second-best bed, with the furniture' had long been regarded as evidence of an unhappy union, and an intentional mark of disrespect in the testator; but Mr. Knight, by calling attention to the operation of the law, showed the utter fallacy of that opinion. Shakspeare's property, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly mentioned in his will, was freehold, and it was, therefore, unnecessary to provide for his widow in his will, as she was legally entitled to a life interest of a third of the whole.

Dr.

Ann Shakspeare survived her husband seven years. She died on the 6th August, 1623. The children of the marriage, and their issue, passed away within a few years afterwards. Judith Quyney lived till 1662, and died childless, having survived several children she had borne to her husband. Hall died in 1635; and his widow in 1649, leaving an only daughter, Elizabeth, who was married twice, first to Thomas Nash, who died in 1647, and secondly to John Barnard, afterwards Sir John Barnard, of Abingdon, in Northamptonshire. She died in 1670, without issue by either of her marriages. She was the last of Shakspeare's lineal descendants.

POEMS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

VENUS AND ADONIS.

[THIS poem was published in 1593. The entry in the books of the Stationers' Company is dated on the 18th April in that year. We learn from the Dedication that it was Shakspeare's first production; and as in 1593 he was twenty-nine years old, and had acquired sufficient distinction as a dramatist to obtain the notice of Lord Southampton, and excite the satire of Greene, Venus and Adonis must be referred to a much earlier period, possibly anterior to his departure from Stratford. Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence to determine the date of the authorship.

Numerous contemporary allusions testify the popularity which immediately attended the publication of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; and there can be no doubt that, whatever success Shakspeare's early dramatic productions obtained, his fame was founded in the first instance upon these pieces. The sweetness of the verse was specially commended; and Meres, in his Wit's Treasury, 1598, says that 'as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare. Witness his Venus and Adonis; his Lucrece; his sugred Sonnets among his private friends.' In 1598, Shakspeare had produced fifteen or sixteen plays; yet we here find him chiefly applauded for the minor poems he had given to the press, and not for

SHAKSPEARE.

3

the works he had contributed to the theatre, five of which were then printed. It is evident, therefore, that he enjoyed a high reputation with the reading public for these Ovidian exercises before his great claims as a dramatic writer were fully recognized. We have additional proof of this in the fact noted by Malone, that in thirteen years after their appearance, six impressions of each of them were printed, while in nearly the same period his Romeo and Juliet (one of his most popular plays) passed only twice through the press.'

It has been suggested that Shakspeare may have drawn the story of Venus and Adonis from Spenser's description of the tapestry in Castle Joyeous, or from a short piece entitled The Sheepheard's Song of Venus and Adonis, by Henry Constable, published in England's Helicon in 1600. Malone adds that Shakspeare had without doubt read the account of Venus and Adonis in Golding's translation, 1567, of Ovid's Metamorphoses. With the first of these sources it is reasonable to presume he must have been familiar; but the use he makes of the story is altogether different, not only in its greater amplitude of detail, Spenser's relation occupying only five stanzas, but in its incidents, colouring, and dénouement. The song, subscribed H. C. in England's Helicon, and ascribed to Henry Constable, the author of a collection of sonnets called Diana, is much closer to Shakspeare's poem in the management of the story, and bears an occasional resemblance to it in particular passages, which are referred to in the notes. Yet it cannot be safely inferred from these coincidences that Shakspeare took the story from Constable. An examination of such circumstances as have transpired concerning the latter, would rather seem to lead to an opposite conclusion. Constable was probably a few years older than Shakspeare, having taken his degree at Cambridge in 1579; but he was not known as a poet till 1594, when he published Diana, a year after the publication of Venus and Adonis. The earliest copy extant of The Sheepheard's Song is that in the Helicon, which was not published till 1600. Malone is of opinion, notwithstanding, that it was written before Shak

speare's poem, although he admits that he does not possess the means of establishing the fact. That it was not written till afterwards, however, is more likely, on the assumption that Constable would have included it in his collection in 1594, had it been then written. The coincidences in expression are slight, and the conclusion is different. Shakspeare departs at the close from the mythological story, which is strictly followed to its termination by Constable.

The obvious source from whence the subject was derived is the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was not necessary that Shakspeare should have read it in the original, as the fables were all well known in English. The fifteen books of the Metamorphoses were translated and moralized by Caxton, and are supposed to have been printed by him in Westminster in 1480; the first four books were translated by Arthur Golding, and published in 1565; the whole was completed in 1567; and successive editions appeared in 1572, 1584, 1587, and 1593; so that the work was common, and in general circulation at the period when Shakspeare adopted the subject of Venus and Adonis. Taking the course which was most consonant to his own genius, he dropped out all extraneous matter, and wonderfully enhanced the beauty and spirit of the story, by concentrating the whole interest upon the passion of the goddess. In this poem some of his most remarkable characteristics are distinctly revealed; richness and fitness of diction, melody of numbers, and luxuriance of imagination. Here, also, may be found, as in his larger works, familiar illustrations and verbal conceits sown thickly in passages of exquisite tenderness and pathos.

The first edition of Venus and Adonis, licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was published by Richard Field, in 1593. It was republished by John Harrison in 1596 and 1600; by William Leake in 1602 (of this edition only two copies are known to be in existence); and by John Wreittoun, in Edinburgh, in 1607. Other editions appeared in 1617, 1620, 1630, and 1640; and there are entries in the Stationers' books of the intervening dates of 1594, 1616, and 1619.]

THE EPISTLE.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.*

RIGHT HONOURABLE,-I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry

*The third Earl of Southampton, born Oct. 6, 1573. In 1585 he became a student of St. John's College, Cambridge, and in four years took the degree of Master of Arts. Three years afterwards he was admitted by incorporation to the same degree at Oxford. Upon leaving the University he is said to have studied at Lincoln's Inn; and his connexion with that society seems to be confirmed by his gift to the chapel of stained windows with his arms emblazoned. He early acquired a reputation for his attachment to literature, of which we have ample testimonies in the tributes of his contemporaries. His patronage of Shakspeare commenced before he took his degree at Oxford. When the dedication of Venus and Adonis appeared, Lord Southampton was scarcely twenty years of age; and in the dedication of The Rape of Lucrece, published in the following year, Shakspeare indicates the favours he had in the interval received from his youthful patron. The course of Lord Southampton's life, however, carried him into other and more turbulent pursuits. While he was yet young, he evinced the chivalry of his character by assisting the escape of two of his friends, Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, who had The transaction appears to killed a person in an affray in Wiltshire. have been marked by great violence; but, as the culprits ultimately obtained the royal pardon, there is ground for supposing that there In 1597 Lord Southwere some extenuating circumstances in the case. ampton embarked as a volunteer in the expedition against Spain, commanded by the Earl of Essex, on which occasion he was appointed captain of one of the principal ships. He afterwards had a squadron under his command, and was knighted by Essex for the gallantry he displayed in a situation of imminent peril. In the following year he attended Essex to Ireland as General of the Horse, but was dismissed from his office by the Queen for marrying the cousin of Lord Essex When Essex fell under the royal diswithout her Majesty's consent. pleasure, Southampton was committed to the Tower, and, although his life was spared, he was kept in prison during the remainder of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Soon after his release he was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight; but, through the machinations of Lord Salisbury, the implacable enemy of Essex, he was secretly accused of being on terms of too great intimacy with the Queen, and King James, giving credit to the imputation, caused him to be arrested. charge, however, being unsustained by proofs, he was speedily liberated;

The

« ForrigeFortsæt »