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THE DWELLING-HOUSES OF THE TIME

The house in Henley Street in which William Shakespeare was probably born and spent his early years has undergone many changes; but, as carefully restored in recent years and reverently preserved for a national memorial of the poet, its appearance now is doubtless not materially different from what it was in the latter part of the 16th century.

There are a few houses of the same period and the same class still standing in Stratford and its vicinity, which, according to the highest antiquarian authority, are almost unaltered from their original form and finish. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps mentions one in particular in the Rother Market, "the main features of which are certainly in their original state," and the sketches of the interior given by him closely resemble those of the Shakespeare house.

These houses were usually of two stories, and were constructed of wooden beams, forming a framework, the spaces between the beams being filled with lath and plaster. The roofs were usually of thatch, with dormer windows and steep gables. The door was shaded by a porch or by a pentice, or penthouse, which was a narrow sloping roof often extending along the the front of the lower story over both door and windows, as in Shakespeare's birthplace on Henley Street.

In the Merchant of Venice (ii. 6. 1) Gratiano says:—

In Much Ado About Nothing (iii. 3. 110) Borachio says to Conrade: "Stand thee close, then, under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain." We find a figurative allusion to the penthouse in Love's Labour's Lost (iii. 1. 17): "with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes"; and another in Macbeth (i. 3. 20):—

the projecting eyebrow being compared to this part of the Elizabethan dwelling.

The better houses, like New Place, were of timber and brick, instead of plaster, though sometimes entirely of stone. Shakespeare appears to have rebuilt the greater part of New Place with stone. The roofs of this class of dwellings were usually tiled, but occasionally thatched. We read of one Walter Roche, who in 1582 replaced the tiles of his house in Chapel Street with thatch. The wood-work in the front of some houses, as in a fine example still to be seen in the High Street (page 59 below), was elaborately carved with floral and other designs.

The gardens were bounded by walls constructed of clay or mud and usually thatched at the top. Fruit-trees were common in these gardens, and the orchard about the Guild buildings was noted for its plums and apples. When the mulberry-tree was first introduced into England, Shakespeare bought one and set it out in his grounds at New Place, where it grew to great size. It survived for nearly a century and a half after the death of the poet, but in 1758 was cut down by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who had bought the estate in 1756.

There was little of what we should regard as comfort in those picturesque old English houses, with their great black beams chequering the outer walls into squares and triangles, their small many-paned windows, their low ceilings and rude interior wood-work, their poor and scanty furnishings.

Chimneys had but just come into general use in England, and, though John Shakespeare's house had one, the dwellings of many of his neighbors were still unprovided with them. In 1582, when William was eighteen years old, an order was passed by the town council that "Walter Hill, dwelling in Rother Market, and all the other inhabitants of the borough, shall, before St. James's Day, 30th April, make sufficient chimneys," under pain of a fine of ten shillings.

This was intended as a precaution against fires, the frequent occurrence of which in former years had been mainly due to the absence of chimneys.

William Harrison, in 1577, referring to things in England that had been "marvellously changed within the memory of old people," includes among these "the multitude of chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of their lords always excepted), but each one made his fire against a reredos[1] in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat."

In another chapter Harrison says: "Now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did never ache. For as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reported a far better medicine to keep the goodman and his family from the quack or pose, wherewith, as then, very few were acquainted."

THE HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE.

Of the furniture in these old houses we get an idea from inventories of the period that have come down to us. We have, for instance, such a list of the household equipment of Richard Arden, Shakespeare's maternal grandfather, who was a wealthy farmer; and another of such property belonging to Henry Field, tanner, a neighbor of John Shakespeare, who was his chief executor.

From these and similar inventories we find that the only furniture in the hall, or main room of the house—often occupying the whole of the ground floor—and the parlor, or sitting-room, when there was one, consisted of two or three chairs, a few joint-stools—that is, stools made of wood jointed or fitted together, as distinguished from those more rudely made—a table of the plainest construction, and possibly one or more "painted cloths" hung on the walls.

These painted cloths were cheap substitutes for the tapestries with which great mansions were adorned, and they were often found in the cottages of the poor. The paintings were generally crude representations of Biblical stories, together with maxims or mottoes, which were sometimes on scrolls or "labels" proceeding from the mouths of the characters.

Shakespeare refers to these cloths several times; for instance, in As You Like It (iii. 2. 291), where Jaques says to Orlando: "You are full of pretty answers; have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives and conned them out of rings?"—referring to the mottoes, or "posies," as they were called, often inscribed in finger-rings. Orlando replies: "Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions." Falstaff (1 Henry IV. iv. 2. 28) says that his recruits are "ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth."

In an anonymous play, No Whipping nor Tripping, printed in 1601, we find this passage:—

When carpets are mentioned in these inventories, they are coverings for the tables, not for the floors, which, even in kings' palaces, were strewn with rushes. Grumio, in The Taming of the Shrew (iv. 1. 52) sees "the carpets laid" for supper on his master's return home. A Stratford inventory of 1590 mentions "a carpet for a table." Carpets were also used for window-seats, but were seldom placed on the floor except to kneel upon, or for other special purposes.

The bedroom furniture was equally rude and scanty, though better than it had been when the old folk of the time were young. Harrison says:—

"Our fathers and we ourselves have lien full oft upon straw pallets covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots [coarse, rough cloths], and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster. If it were that our fathers or the good man of the house had a mattress or flock-bed, and thereto a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, so well were they contented."

But feather beds had now come into use, with pillows, and "flaxen sheets," and other comfortable appliances. Henry Field had "one bed-covering of yellow and green" among his household goods.

Kitchen utensils and table-ware had likewise improved within the memory of the old inhabitant, though still rude and simple enough. Harrison notes "the exchange of treen [wooden] platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin."

He adds: "So common were all sorts of treen stuff in old time that a man should hardly find four pieces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmer's house"; but now they had plenty of pewter, with perhaps a silver bowl and salt-cellar, and a dozen silver spoons.

The table-linen was hempen for common use, but flaxen for special occasions, and the napkins were of the same materials. These napkins, or towels, as they were sometimes called, were for wiping the hands after eating with the fingers, forks being as yet unknown in England except as a curiosity.

Elizabeth is the first royal personage in the country who is known to have had a fork, and it is doubtful whether she used it. It was not until the middle of the 17th century that forks were used even by the higher classes, and silver forks were not introduced until about 1814.

Thomas Coryat, in his Crudities, published in 1611, only five years before Shakespeare died, gives an account of the use of forks in Italy, where they appear to have been invented in the 15th century. He says:—

"The Italian and also most strangers do always at their meals use a little fork when they do cut their meat. For while with their knife, which they hold in one hand, they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten the fork, which they hold in their other hand, upon the same dish; so that whosoever he be that, sitting in the company of others at meals, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat with his fingers, from which all the table do cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners."

Coryat adds that he himself "thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of meat," not only while he was in Italy, but after he came home to England, where, however, he was sometimes "quipped" for what his friends regarded as a foreign affectation.

The dramatists of the time also refer contemptuously to "your fork-carving traveller"; and one clergyman preached against the use of forks "as being an insult to Providence not to touch one's meat with one's fingers!"

Towels, except for table use, are rarely noticed in inventories of the period, and when mentioned are specified as "washing towels." Neither are wash-basins often referred to, except in lists of articles used by barbers.

Bullein, in his Government of Health, published about 1558, says: "Plain people in the country use seldom times to wash their hands, as appeareth by their filthiness, and as very few times comb their heads."

Their betters were none too particular in these matters, and in personal cleanliness generally. Baths are seldom referred to in writings of the time, except for the treatment of certain diseases.

Reference has already been made to the use of rushes for covering floors. It was thought to be a piece of unnecessary luxury on the part of Wolsey when he caused the rushes at Hampton Court to be changed every day. From a letter of Erasmus to Dr. Francis, Wolsey's physician, it would appear that the lowest layer of rushes—the top only being renewed—was sometimes unchanged for years—the latter says "twenty years," which seems hardly credible—becoming a receptacle for beer, grease, fragments of victuals, and other organic matters.

Perfumes were used for neutralizing the foul odors that resulted from this filthiness. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, says: "The smoke of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers." [See also page 25 above.]

From the correspondence of the Earl of Shrewsbury with Lord Burleigh, during the confinement of Mary Queen of Scots at Sheffield Castle, in 1572, we learn that she was to be removed for five or six days "to cleanse her chamber, being kept very uncleanly."

In a memoir written by Anne, Countess of Dorset, in 1603, we read: "We all went to Tibbals to see the King, who used my mother and my aunt very graciously; but we all saw a great change between the fashion of the Court as it was now and of that in the Queen's, for we were all lousy by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskine's chambers."

FOOD AND DRINK.

The food of the common people was better in some respects than it is nowadays, and better than it was in Continental countries. Harrison says that whereas what he calls "white meats"—milk, butter, and cheese—were in old times the food of the upper classes, they were in his time "only eaten by the poor," while all other classes ate flesh, fish, and "wild and tame fowls."

Wheaten bread, however, was little known except to the rich, the bread of the poor being made of rye or barley, and, in times of scarcity, of beans, oats, and even acorns.

Tea and coffee had not yet been introduced into England, but wine was abundant and cheap. It is rather surprising to learn that from twenty to thirty thousand tuns of home-grown wine were then made in the country.

Of foreign wines, thirty kinds of strong and fifty-six of light were to be had in London. The price ranged from eightpence to a shilling a gallon. The drink of the common people, however, was beer, which was generally home-brewed and cheap withal.

Harrison, who was a country clergyman with forty pounds a year, tells how his good wife brewed two hundred gallons at a cost of twenty shillings, or less than three halfpence a gallon. When nobody drank water, and the only substitute for malt liquors was milk, the consumption of beer was of course enormous.

The meals were but two a day. Harrison says: "Heretofore there hath been much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days, for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon, beverages or nuntions [luncheons] after dinner, and thereto rear-suppers [late or second suppers] generally when it was time to go to rest, now these odd repasts—thanked be God—are very well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young hungry stomach that cannot fast till dinner time) contenteth himself with dinner and supper only."

Of the times of meals he says: "With us the nobility, gentry, and students do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or between five and six at afternoon. The merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon and six at night, especially in London. The husbandmen dine also at high noon, as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of the term in our universities the scholars dine at ten. As for the poorest sort, they generally dine and sup when they may, so that to talk of their order of repast it were but needless matter."

Rising at four or five in the morning, as was the custom with the common people, and going until ten or even noon without food must have been hard for other than the "young hungry stomachs" of which Harrison speaks so contemptuously.

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

In the 16th century, children of the middle and upper classes were strictly brought up. The "Books of Nurture," published at that time, give minute directions for the behavior of boys like William at home, at school, at church, and elsewhere. These manuals were generally in doggerel verse, and several of them have been edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall for the Early English Text Society.

Among them is one by Francis Seager, published in London in 1557, entitled The Schoole of Vertue, and booke of good Nourture for Chyldren and youth to learne their dutie by. Another is The Boke of Nurture, or Schoole of good maners for men, servants, and children, compiled by Hugh Rhodes, of which at least five editions were printed between 1554 and 1577.

The Schoole of Vertue begins thus[2] (the spelling being modernized):—

A prayer of eighteen lines follows, with directions to repeat the Lord's Prayer after it. Then come rules "how to order thyself when thou risest, and in apparelling thy body."

The child is to rise early, dress carefully, washing his hands and combing his head. When he goes down stairs he is to salute the family:—

Elsewhere, politeness out of doors is enjoined:—

At meals his first duty is to wait upon his parents, after saying this grace:—

He is then to make low curtsy, saying "Much good may it do you!" and, if he is big enough, he is to bring the food to the table.

In filling the dishes he must take care not to get them so full as to spill anything on his parents' clothes. He is to have spare trenchers and napkins ready for guests, to see that all are supplied with "bread and drink," and that the "voiders"—the baskets or vessels into which bones are thrown—are often emptied.

When the course of meat is over he is to clear the table, cover the salt, put the dirty trenchers and napkins into a voider, sweep the crumbs into another, place a clean trencher before each person, and set on "cheese with fruit, with biscuits or caraways" [comfits containing caraway seeds, which were considered favorable to digestion, and, according to a writer on health, in 1595, "surely very good for students"], also wine, "if any there were," or beer.

The meal ended, he is to remove the cloth, turning in each side and folding it up carefully; "a clean towel then on the table to spread," and bring basin and ewer for washing the hands. He now clears the table again, and when the company rise, he must not "forget his duty":—

The boy can now eat his own dinner, and equally minute directions are given as to his behavior while doing it. He is not to break his bread, but "cut it fair," not to fill his spoon too full of soup, nor his mouth too full of meat—

He must keep his fingers clean with a napkin, wipe his mouth before drinking, and be temperate in eating—"For 'measure is treasure,' the proverb doth say."

The directions "how to behave thyself in talking with any man" are very minute and specific:—

Though this may be very poor poetry, it is very good advice; and so is this which follows, on "how to order thyself being sent of message":—

Similar counsel is added "against the horrible vice of swearing":

There are also admonitions "against the vice of filthy talking" and "against the vice of lying"; and a prayer follows, "to be said when thou goest to bed."

The rules laid down in the Boke of Nurture are similar and in the same doggerel measure. It is interesting, by the bye, to compare the alterations in successive editions as indicating changes in the manners and customs of the time. A single illustration must suffice.

When the first edition appeared, handkerchiefs had not come into general use; and how to blow the nose without one was evidently a difficulty with the writer and other early authorities on deportment. Even in 1577, when handkerchiefs began to be common, Rhodes says:—

The Booke of Demeanor, printed in 1619, says:—

The introduction of toothpicks, the gradual adoption of forks, already referred to, and sundry other refinements, can be similarly traced in these interesting hand-books.

It would appear that this Schoole of Vertue, or some other book with the same title, was used in schools for boys. John Brinsley, in his Grammar Schoole of 1612 (quoted by Dr. Furnivall), enumerates the "Bookes to be first learned of children." After mentioning the Primer, the Psalms in metre—"because children will learne that booke with most readinesse and delight through the running of the metre"—and the Testament, he adds: "If any require any other little booke meet to enter children, the Schoole of Vertue is one of the principall, and easiest for the first enterers, being full of precepts of civilitie, and such as children will soone learne and take a delight in, thorow [through] the roundnesse of the metre, as was sayde before of the singing Psalmes: and after it the Schoole of good manners, called the new Schoole of Vertue, leading the childe as by the hand, in the way of all good manners."

INDOOR AMUSEMENTS.

Of the indoor amusements of country people we get an idea from Vincent's Dialogue with an English Courtier, published in 1586. He says: "In foul weather we send for some honest neighbors, if haply we be with our wives alone at home (as seldom we are) and with them we play at Dice and Cards, sorting ourselves according to the number of players and their skill; ... sometimes we fall to Slide-Thrift, to Penny Prick, and in winter nights we use certain Christmas games very proper, and of much agility; we want not also pleasant mad-headed knaves, that be properly learned, and will read in divers pleasant books and good authors; as Sir Guy of Warwick, the Four Sons of Aymon, the Ship of Fools, the Hundred Merry Tales, the Book of Riddles, and many other excellent writers both witty and pleasant. These pretty and pithy matters do sometimes recreate our minds, chiefly after long sitting and loss of money."

"Slide-thrift," called also "slip-groat" and "shove-groat," is a game frequently mentioned by writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes of England, describes it thus:—

"It requires a parallelogram to be made with chalk, or by lines cut upon the middle of a table, about twelve or fourteen inches in breadth, and three or four feet in length: which is divided, latitudinally, into nine sections, in every one of which is placed a figure, in regular succession from one to nine. Each of the players provides himself with a smooth halfpenny, which he places upon the edge of the table, and, striking it with the palm of his hand, drives it towards the marks; and according to the value of the figure affixed to the partition wherein the halfpenny rests, his game is reckoned; which generally is stated at thirty-one, and must be made precisely: if it be exceeded, the player goes again for nine, which must also be brought exactly or the turn is forfeited; and if the halfpenny rests upon any of the marks that separate the partitions, or over-passes the external boundaries, the go is void. It is also to be observed that the players toss up to determine which shall go first, which is certainly a great advantage."

Shovel-board, or shuffle-board, which some writers confound with slide-thrift, was also played upon a table with coins or flat pieces of metal; but the board was longer and the rules of the game were different.

In 2 Henry IV. (ii. 4. 206), when Falstaff wants Pistol put out of the room, he says to Bardolph: "Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling."

In The Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1. 159), Slender, when asked if Pistol had picked his purse, replies: "Ay, by these gloves, did he ... of seven groats in mill-sixpences and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shillings and twopence apiece." "Edward shovel-boards" were the broad shillings of Edward VI. which were generally used in playing the game. It has been suggested that Slender was a fool to pay two shillings and twopence for a shilling worn smooth; but it is possible that these old coins commanded a premium on account of being in demand for this game. The silver groat (fourpence) was originally used for the purpose, but the shilling, especially of this particular coinage, came to be preferred by players. Taylor the Water Poet makes one of these coins say:—

"Penny-prick" is described as "a game consisting of casting oblong pieces of iron at a mark." Another writer explains it as "throwing at halfpence placed on sticks which are called hobs." It was a common game as early as the fifteenth century, and is reproved by a religious writer of that period, probably because it was used for gambling.

Card-playing had become so general in the time of Henry VIII. that a statute was enacted forbidding apprentices to use cards except in the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses. Many different games with cards are mentioned by writers of the time, but few of them are described minutely enough to make it clear how they were played.

Backgammon, or "tables," as it was called, was popular in Shakespeare's time. He refers to it in Love's Labour's Lost (v. 2. 326), where Biron, ridiculing Boyet, says:—

"Tick-tack" was a kind of backgammon; alluded to, figuratively, in Measure for Measure (i. 2. 196): "thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack."

"Tray-trip" was a game of dice, in which success depended upon throwing a "tray" (the French trois, or three); mentioned in Twelfth Night (ii. 5. 207): "Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?"

"Troll-my-dames" was a game resembling the modern bagatelle. The name is a corruption of the French trou-madame. It was also known as "pigeon-holes." Dr. John Jones, in his Ancient Baths of Buckstone (1572) refers to it thus: "The ladies, gentlewomen, wives and maids, may in one of the galleries walk; and if the weather be not agreeable to their expectation, they may have in the end of a bench eleven holes made, into the which to troll pummets, or bowls of lead, big, little, or mean, or also of copper, tin, wood, either violent or soft, after their own discretion: the pastime troule-in-madame is called."

In The Tempest (v. 1. 172) Ferdinand and Miranda are represented as playing chess; but there is no other clear allusion to the game in Shakespeare's works. It was introduced into England before the Norman Conquest, and became a favorite pastime with the upper classes, but appears to have been little known among the common people.

POPULAR BOOKS.

Of books there were probably very few at the house in Henley Street. Some of those mentioned by Vincent were popular with all classes. The story of Guy of Warwick had been told repeatedly in prose and verse from the twelfth century down to Shakespeare's day, and some of the books and ballads would be likely to be well known in Stratford, which, as we have seen, was in the immediate vicinity of the hero's legendary exploits. The Four Sons of Aymon was the translation of a French prose romance, the earliest form of which dated back to songs or ballads of the 13th century. Aymon, or Aimon, a prince of Ardennes whose history was partly imaginary, and his sons figure in the works of Tasso and Ariosto, and other Italian and French poets and romancers.

The Hundred Merry Tales was a popular jest-book of Shakespeare's time, to which he alludes in Much Ado About Nothing (ii. 1. 134), where Beatrice refers to what Benedick had said about her: "That I was disdainful, and that I had my wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales."

The Book of Riddles was another book mentioned by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1. 205), in connection with a volume of verse which was equally popular in the Elizabethan age:—

The title-page of one edition reads thus: "The Booke of Merry Riddles. Together with proper Questions, and witty Proverbs to make pleasant pastime. No lesse usefull than behoovefull for any yong man or child, to know if he bee quick-witted, or no."

A few of the shortest riddles may be quoted as samples:—

A bottom of thread was a ball of it. The word occurs in The Taming of the Shrew (iv. 3. 138), where Grumio says, in the dialogue with the Tailor: "Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread; I said a gown." The verb is used in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (iii. 2. 53):—

This old meaning of bottom doubtless suggested the name of Bottom the Weaver in the Midsummer-Night's Dream.

STORY-TELLING.

If books were scarce in the homes of the common people when Shakespeare was a boy, there was no lack of oral tales, legends, and folk-lore for the entertainment of the family of a winter evening. The store of this unwritten history and fiction was inexhaustible.

In Milton's L'Allegro we have a pleasant picture of a rustic group listening to fairy stories round the evening fire:—

Of "fairy Mab" we have a graphic description from the merry Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (i. 4. 53–94); and the "drudging goblin," or Robin Goodfellow, is the Puck of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, to whom the Fairy says (ii. 1. 40):—

In the same scene Puck himself tells of the practical jokes he plays upon "the wisest aunt telling the saddest tale" to a fireside group, and of many another sportive trick with which he "frights the maidens" and vexes the housewives.

The children had their stories to tell, like their elders; and Shakespeare has pictured a home scene in The Winter's Tale (ii. 1. 21) which may have been suggested by his own experience as a boy. As Mr. Charles Knight asks, "may we not read for Hermione, Mary Shakespeare, and for Mamillius, William?"

Just then his father, Leontes, comes in, and the tale is interrupted, never to be resumed.

Mr. Knight assumes, with a good degree of probability, that William had access to some of the books from which he drew material for the story of his plays later in life, and that he may have told these tales, whether "merry or sad," to his brothers and sisters at home.

"He had," says this genial biographer, "a copy, well thumbed from his first reading days, of 'The Palace of Pleasure, beautified, adorned, and well furnished with pleasant histories and excellent novelles, selected out of divers good and commendable authors; by William Painter, Clarke of the Ordinaunce and Armarie.' In this book, according to the dedication of the translator to Ambrose Earl of Warwick, was set forth 'the great valiance of noble gentlemen, the terrible combats of courageous personages, the virtuous minds of noble dames, the chaste hearts of constant ladies, the wonderful patience of puissant princes, the mild sufferance of well-disposed gentlewomen, and, in divers, the quiet bearing of adverse fortune.' Pleasant little apothegms and short fables were there in the book; which the brothers and sisters of William Shakespeare had heard him tell with marvellous spirit, and they abided therefore in their memories. There was Æsop's fable of the old lark and her young ones, wherein 'he prettily and aptly doth premonish that hope and confidence of things attempted by man ought to be fixed and trusted in none other but himself.' There was the story, most delightful to a child, of the bondman at Rome, who was brought into the open place upon which a great multitude looked, to fight with a lion of a marvellous bigness; and the fierce lion, when he saw him, 'suddenly stood still, and afterwards by little and little, in gentle sort, he came unto the man as though he had known him,' and licked his hands and legs; and the bondman told that he had healed in former time the wounded foot of the lion, and the beast became his friend. These were for the younger children; but William had now a new tale, out of the same storehouse, upon which he had often pondered, the subject of which had shaped itself in his mind into dialogue that almost sounded like verse in his graceful and earnest recitation. It was a tale which Painter translated from the French of Pierre Boisteau.... It was 'The goodly history of the true and constant love between Romeo and Julietta.' ... From the same collection of tales had the youth before half dramatized the story of 'Giletta of Narbonne,' who cured the King of France of a painful malady, and the king gave her in marriage to the Count Beltramo, with whom she had been brought up, and her husband despised and forsook her, but at last they were united, and lived in great honor and felicity.

"There was another collection, too, which that youth had diligently read,—the 'Gesta Romanorum,' translated by R. Robinson in 1577,—old legends, come down to those latter days from monkish historians, who had embodied in their narratives all the wild traditions of the ancient and modern world. He could tell the story of the rich heiress who chose a husband by the machinery of a gold, a silver, and a leaden casket; and another story of the merchant whose inexorable creditor required the fulfilment of his bond in cutting a pound of flesh, nearest the merchant's heart, and by the skilful interpretation of the bond the cruel creditor was defeated.

"There was the story, too, in these legends, of the Emperor Theodosius, who had three daughters; and those two daughters who said they loved him more than themselves were unkind to him, but the youngest, who only said she loved him as much as he was worthy, succoured him in his need, and was his true daughter....

"Stories such as these, preserved amidst the wreck of time, were to that youth like the seeds that are found in the tombs of ruined cities, lying with the bones of forgotten generations, but which the genial influence of nature will call into life, and they shall become flowers, and trees, and food for man.

"But, beyond all these, our Mamillius had many a tale 'of sprites and goblins'.... Such appearances were above nature, but the commonest movements of the natural world had them in subjection:—

" 'I have heard,

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the god of day; and at his warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine.'