Part V. HOLIDAYS, FESTIVALS, FAIRS, ETC

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THE BOUNDARY ELM

SAINT GEORGE'S DAY.

We do not know the precise date of William Shakespeare's birth. That of his baptism is recorded in the parish register at Stratford as the 26th of April, 1564. It was a common practice then to baptize infants when they were three days old, and it has therefore been assumed that William was born on the 23d of April; but the rule, if rule it can be called, was often varied from, and we have not a particle of evidence that it was followed in this instance. It should, moreover, be understood that the 23d of April, as dates were then reckoned in England, corresponded to our 3d of May.

It would be pleasant to think that the poet made his first appearance on the stage of human life on that particular day, for it was Saint George's day, a great holiday and time of feasting throughout the kingdom, Saint George being the patron saint of England.

There is a book with which Shakespeare was doubtless familiar when he grew up—a collection of ancient stories made by Richard Johnson—in which Saint George figures as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom."

From this book, as Mr. A. H. Wall tells us, we learn "how Saint George was imprisoned by the black King of Morocco, after he had fought so miraculously against the Saracens, and slain a frightful dragon, which had destroyed entire cities by the poison of its breath, and had every day devoured a beautiful virgin. Escaping from prison, he carried off a princess he had rescued from the monster, whom neither sword nor spear could pierce, and brought her to England, where the twain 'lived happily ever after,' in Warwickshire, where, sometime in the third century they died. The war-cry of England was 'Saint George!' as that of France was 'Montjoye Saint Denis!'; and to this day 'by George!' is an exclamation derived from the ancient custom of swearing by that Saint.

"The ancient ballad of Saint George and the Dragon (printed in the Percy Reliques) tells us that the shire in which he died was that in which he first saw the light; that his mother expired while giving him birth; that a weird lady of the woods stole him when an infant and educated him by magic power to become a great warrior; and that on his person, prophetic of his future career and greatness, were three very mysterious marks—on one shoulder a cross, on the breast a dragon, and round one leg a garter. Their meanings were revealed when he fought so astoundingly as a crusader in the Holy Land, when he killed the magic dragon in Egypt, and rescued the King's daughter, Silene or Sabra, and, after his death, when Edward III. founded the knightly Order of the Garter, and made Saint George its patron.

"Centuries before that, the soldiers had adopted him as their special patron, as had also not a few of the old trade guilds. In some of the provincial towns and cities regulations for the annual ceremony of 'Riding the George' were enforced by penalties more or less severe. An ancestor of Shakespeare's, John Arden, of Warwickshire, 'bequethed his white harneis complete to the church of Ashton for a George to were it.' This was in the reign of the seventh Harry.... There was also an ancient play called 'The Holy Martyr St. George,' which, sadly degenerated in modern times, used to be played by rustics as a piece of coarse buffoonery."

The "Riding of Saint George" was forbidden by Henry VIII., but the custom was nevertheless kept up in out-of-the-way places even after Edward VI. had made more stringent laws against it.

It appears from the ancient records of the Guild that Stratford was one of the very last places in which the celebration was finally suppressed. Shakespeare in his boyhood doubtless saw it carried out with all its antique splendor. Mr. Wall gives the following description of the festival:—

"How great would be the preparations! Old arms and armor from the Guild's collection would be burnished up to be used by the town watch and the archers. All sorts of choice dishes and rare wines would be in demand for mighty feasting. The suit of white armor, of an antique pattern, which hung above the altar of Saint George, would be taken down and cleaned with reverential care, and from all the surrounding towns and villages, castles and mansions, guests would come flocking in, day after day, filling the numerous inns to overflowing.

"On the day, gravel would be spread along the procession's route, and barricades erected; house fronts would be adorned with plants and tapestry. Chambers (small cannon) would be fired at daybreak, and great shouts of 'Saint George!' would drown the echoes of their explosions. The Master of the Guild, its schoolmaster (a truly learned man), with the monitors and scholars of the Grammar School in their long blue gowns and flat caps, with the priests of the Guild Chapel, would all walk in the procession, with their Guild brothers and sisters, with representatives of the trades practised in the town, and even with the old Almshouse people, smiling and chattering and wagging their ancient heads. Nobody would be forgotten who had a fair claim to be conspicuously remembered then. The 'Bedals' would be there of course in all their native dignity, solemn and severe. The town 'waits' would 'discourse most excellent music' with drums and fifes and other cheek-distending wind-instruments. The bells in the church and chapel tower would be ringing out right jovial peals. Then would come the town trumpeters marching before the High Bailiff, Aldermen, and Chamberlains, with their long furred scarlet robes, their chains of office, and the newly-gilded maces borne before them.

"Then, riding on horseback, his armor and drawn sword flashing back the rays of a fitful sun, would be seen the living representative of Saint George, with his great white plume floating from his white helm, as the soft, sweet, playing wind tossed it to and fro. Behind him, creating as he came such a roar of honest irrepressible laughter as would have done your heart good to hear, would waddle the dragon (oh! such a dragon!) a 'property' one, with two boys inside it, led in chains, with the spear of Saint George down its throat. And then the vicar, his curates, and the gentry, in all the grandeur of silk and satin lace and spangles, would do the 'Riding' honor, with gold and silver chains about their necks, spurs at their heels, and swords by their sides, the Lord and Lady of the Manor riding before them. And these last-named were indeed dignitaries of great consequence, being, you must know, no lesser personages than Ambrose Dudley, 'the Good Earl' and his good lady, patrons of learning and rewarders of virtue, from their great castle at Warwick.

"But there is one feature of the Riding which must not on any account be forgotten. This was the Egyptian Princess, personated by the prettiest girl in Stratford (where pretty girls were always found, and are still not few). She came on a raised wheeled platform with a golden crown upon her head (made of gilded pasteboard), and by her side a pretty pet lamb, garlanded with the earliest flowers of the spring, blushing (she, not the lamb) and smiling, and looking down very charming—as I tenderly imagine.

"And all the time they were passing, the bells would ring out right merrily, and the people shout most lustily; and from every throat, blending thunderously, would come the cry, the cry that England's foes had trembled at in many a desperate fight: 'Saint George for England, Saint George for Merry England!'

"It was customary to announce this Riding by sound of trumpet from the Market Cross some time before it took place. And so I can fancy John Shakespeare, the glover, with all his clever work-people, men and women, artists and mechanics, joining the crowd that listens to the town trumpeter's loud-ringing voice here at the Cross, and opposite the Cage, where once lived Judith Shakespeare. By John, stands—in my fancy—Mary, his wife, with little Willie holding tightly to her hand, in a state of intense excitement; and almost before the crier has spoken his lines this laughing little fellow, who has been looking on with such wide-open wondering brown eyes, is suddenly lifted into the air and from above his father's head cries, in his childishly treble voice, 'Saint George for England!' for his mother had said, ''T is his right to lead the shouting here to-day, dear neighbors all, for on Saint George's day my boy was born.'"

EASTER.

The festival of Easter would generally come before Saint George's day. When Shakespeare was a boy the Reformation had somewhat mitigated the ancient rigor and austerity of Lent, but Easter was none the less a joyous and jubilant anniversary.

"Surely," as Mr. Charles Knight remarks, "there was something exquisitely beautiful in the old custom of going forth into the fields before the sun had risen on Easter-day, to see him mounting over the hills with a tremulous motion, as if it were an animate thing bounding in sympathy with the redeemed of mankind. The young poet [Shakespeare] might have joined his simple neighbors on this cheerful morning, and yet have thought with Sir Thomas Browne, 'We shall not, I hope, disparage the Resurrection of our Redeemer if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter-day.' But one of the most glorious images of one of his early plays [Romeo and Juliet] has given life and movement to the sun:—

" 'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund Day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's tops.'

Saw he not the sun dance—heard he not the expression of the undoubting belief that the sun danced—as he went forth into Stratford meadows in the early twilight of Easter-day?"

Sir John Suckling, in his Ballad upon a Wedding, alludes prettily to this old superstition in the description of the bride:—

"But O she dances such a way!

No sun upon an Easter day

Is half so fine a sight."

Perhaps Shakespeare had this bit of folk-lore in mind when he wrote these lines in Coriolanus (v. 4. 52):—

"The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,

Tabors and cymbals and the shouting Romans,

Make the sun dance."

Easter was a favorite time for games of ball and many of the athletic sports described in the preceding pages.

THE PERAMBULATION OF THE PARISH.

On the road to Henley-in-Arden, a few hundred yards from John Shakespeare's house in Henley Street, there stood until about fifty years ago an ancient boundary-tree—an elm to which reference is made in records of the 16th century. From that point the boundary of the borough continued to "the two elms in Evesham highway"; and so on, from point to point, round to the tree first mentioned. Once a year, in Rogation Week (six weeks after Easter), the clergy, the magistrates and public officers, and the inhabitants, including the boys of the Grammar School, assembled under this elm for the perambulation of the boundaries. They marched in procession, with waving banners and poles crowned with garlands, over the entire circuit of the parish limits. Under each "gospel-tree," as at the first boundary elm, a passage from Scripture was read, a collect recited, and a psalm sung.

These parochial processions were kept up after the Reformation. In 1575 a form of devotion for the "Rogation Days of Procession" was prescribed, "without addition of any superstitious ceremonies heretofore used"; and it was subsequently ordered that the curate on such occasions "shall admonish the people to give thanks to God in the beholding of God's benefits," and enforce the scriptural denunciations against those who remove their neighbors' landmarks. Izaak Walton tells how the pious Hooker encouraged these annual ceremonies: "He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his perambulation; and most did so: in which perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people; still inclining them, and all his present parishioners, to meekness and mutual kindnesses and love, because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of infirmities."

"And so," remarks Mr. Knight, after quoting this passage, "listening to the gentle words of some venerable Hooker of his time, would the young Shakespeare walk the bounds of his native parish. One day would not suffice to visit its numerous gospel-trees. Hours would be spent in reconciling differences among the cultivators of the common fields; in largesses to the poor; in merry-making at convenient halting-places. A wide parish is this of Stratford, including eleven villages and hamlets. A district of beautiful and varied scenery is this parish—hill and valley, wood and water.... For nearly three miles from Welcombe Greenhill the boundary lies along a wooded ridge, opening prospects of surpassing beauty. There may the distant spires of Coventry be seen peeping above the intermediate hills, and the nearer towers of Warwick lying cradled in their surrounding woods.... At the northern extremity of the high land, which principally belongs to the estate of Clopton, and which was doubtless a park in early times, we have a panoramic view of the valley in which Stratford lies, with its hamlets of Bishopton, Little Wilmecote, Shottery, and Drayton. As the marvellous boy of the Stratford Grammar School then looked upon that plain, how little could he have foreseen the course of his future life! For twenty years of his manhood he was to have no constant dwelling-place in that his native town; but it was to be the home of his affections. He would be gathering fame and opulence in an almost untrodden path, of which his young ambition could shape no definite image; but in the prime of his life he was to bring his wealth to his own Stratford, and become the proprietor and the contented cultivator of the loved fields that he now saw mapped out at his feet. Then, a little while, and an early tomb under that grey tower—a tomb so to be honored in all ages to come

" 'That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.'"

MAY-DAY AND THE MORRIS-DANCE.

The first of May was in the olden time one of the most delightful of holidays; but its harmless sports were an abomination in the eyes of the Puritans. Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses (1583) says: "Against May, every parish, town, and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, and children, old and young, even all indifferently: and either going all together, or dividing themselves into companies, they go, some to the woods and groves, some to the hills and mountains, some to one place, some to another, where they spend all the night in pastimes; and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch boughs and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal.... But their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their May pole, which they bring home with great veneration, as thus:—They have twenty or forty yoke of oxen, every ox having a sweet nosegay of flowers tied on the tip of his horns, and these oxen draw home this May pole, which is covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound round about with strings, from the top to the bottom, and sometime painted with variable colors, with two or three hundred men, women, and children following it, with great devotion. And thus being reared up, with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, they strew the ground about, bind green boughs about it, set up summer halls, bowers, and arbors hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leap and dance about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idols, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or rather the thing itself."

Milton, though a Puritan, writes in a different vein in his Song on May Morning:—

"Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth and youth and warm desire!

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long."

Kings and queens did not disdain to join in these rural sports. Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine enjoyed them; and he, in the early part of his reign, rose on May Day very early and went with his courtiers to the wood to "fetch May," or green boughs. In the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iv. 1.) Theseus, Hippolyta, and their train are in the wood in "the vaward of the day," and find the pairs of lovers sleeping under the influence of Puck's magic; and Theseus says:—

"No doubt they rose up early to observe

The rite of May, and, hearing our intent,

Came here in grace of our solemnity."

The boys and girls, as the sour Stubbes has told us, were not slack to observe this rite of May. In a manuscript in the British Museum, entitled The State of Eton School, and dated 1560, we read that "on the day of Saint Philip and Saint James [May 1st], if it be fair weather, and the master grants leave, those boys who choose it may rise at four o'clock, to gather May branches, if they can do it without wetting their feet: and that on that day they adorn the windows of the bedchamber with green leaves, and the houses are perfumed with fragrant herbs."

The May-pole was often kept standing from year to year on the village green or in some public place in town or city, and in such cases was usually painted with various colors. One described by Tollet was "painted yellow and black in spiral lines." In the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iii. 2. 296), Hermia sneers at the taller Helena as a "painted May-pole."

MORRIS-DANCE

In Henry VIII. (v. 4. 15) when the Porter is angry at the crowds that have made their way into the palace yard, and calls for "a dozen crab-tree staves" to drive them out, a man says to him:—

"Pray, sir, be patient: 't is as much impossible—

Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons—

To scatter 'em, as 't is to make 'em sleep

On May-day morning; which will never be."

Of course the day was a holiday in the Stratford school, and we may be sure that William made the most of it.

An important feature in the May-day games in Shakespeare's time was the Morris-Dance, in which a group of characters associated with the stories of Robin Hood were the chief actors. These were Robin himself; his faithful companion, Little John; Friar Tuck, to whom Drayton alludes as

"Tuck the merry friar which many a sermon made

In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade;"

Maid Marian, the mistress of Robin; the Fool, who was like the domestic buffoon of the time, with motley dress, the cap and bells, and additional bells tied to his arms and ankles; the Piper, sometimes called Tom Piper, the musician of the troop; and the Hobby-horse, represented by a man equipped with a pasteboard frame forming the head and hinder parts of a horse, with a long mantle or footcloth reaching nearly to the ground, to hide the man's legs; and the Dragon, another pasteboard device, much like the one in the Riding of Saint George described above (page 169). In addition to these characters there were a number of common dancers, in fantastic costume, with bells about their feet.

The forms and number of the characters varied much with time and place. Sometimes only one or two of those just mentioned were introduced in the dance, and sometimes others were added.

During the reign of Elizabeth the Puritans, by their sermons and invectives, did much to interfere with this feature of the May-day games. Friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery, and the Hobby-horse an impious superstition. The opposition to them became so bitter that they were generally omitted from the sport. Allusions to the omission of the Hobby-horse are frequent in the plays of the time; as in Love's Labour's Lost (iii. 1. 30): "The hobby-horse is forgot;" and Hamlet (iii. 2. 142): "or else he shall suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is, 'For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'" This "epitaph" (which is also referred to in Love's Labour's Lost) appears to be a quotation from some popular song of the time. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Women Pleased (iv. 1.) we find: "Shall the hobby-horse be forgot then?" and in Ben Jonson's Entertainment at Althorp: "But see, the hobby-horse is forgot."

Friar Tuck is alluded to by Shakespeare in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (iv. 1. 36), where one of the Outlaws who have seized Valentine exclaims:—

"By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,

This fellow were a king for our wild faction!"

That he kept his place in the morris-dance in the reign of Elizabeth is evident from Warner's Albion's England, published in 1586: "Tho' Robin Hood, little John, friar Tuck, and Marian deftly play"; but he is not heard of afterwards. In Ben Jonson's Masque of the Gipsies, written about 1620, the Clown notes his absence from the dance: "There is no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them."

Maid Marian also officiated as the Queen or Lady of the May, who had figured in the May-day festivities long before Robin Hood was introduced into them. She was probably at first the representative of the goddess Flora in the ancient Roman festival celebrated at the same season of the year.

Maid Marian was sometimes personated by a young woman, but oftener by a boy or young man in feminine dress. Later, when the morris-dance had degenerated into coarse foolery, the part was taken by a clown. In 1 Henry IV. (iii. 3. 129), Falstaff refers contemptuously to "Maid Marian" as a low character, which she had doubtless become by the time (1596 or 1597) when that play was written.

The connection of the morris-dance with May-day is alluded to in All's Well that Ends Well (ii. 2. 25): "as fit ... as a morris for May-day"; but it came to be a feature of many other holidays and festivals, and was often one of the sports introduced to amuse the crowd at fairs and similar gatherings.

Mr. Knight gives us this fancy picture of the May-day games as they probably were in Shakespeare's boyhood:—

"An impatient group is gathered under the shade of the old elms, for the morning sun casts his slanting beams dazzlingly across the green. There is the distant sound of tabor and bagpipe:—

" 'Hark, hark! I hear the dancing,

And a nimble morris prancing;

The bagpipe and the morris bells

That they are not far hence us tells.'

From out of the leafy Arden are they bringing in the May-pole. The oxen move slowly with the ponderous wain; they are garlanded, but not for the sacrifice. Around the spoil of the forest are the pipers and the dancers—maidens in blue kirtles, and foresters in green tunics. Amidst the shouts of young and old, childhood leaping and clapping its hands, is the May-pole raised. But there are great personages forthcoming—not so great, however, as in more ancient times. There are Robin Hood and Little John, in their grass-green tunics; but their bows and their sheaves of arrows are more for show than use. Maid Marian is there; but she is a mockery—a smooth-faced youth in a watchet-colored tunic, with flowers and coronets, and a mincing gait, but not the shepherdess who

" 'with garlands gay

Was made the Lady of the May.'

There is farce amidst the pastoral. The age of unrealities has already in part arrived. Even among country-folk there is burlesque. There is personation, with a laugh at the things that are represented. The Hobby-horse and the Dragon, however, produce their shouts of merriment. But the hearty morris-dancers soon spread a spirit of genial mirth among all the spectators. The clownish Maid Marian will now 'caper upright like a wild Morisco.' Friar Tuck sneaks away from his ancient companions to join hands with some undisguised maiden; the Hobby-horse gets rid of pasteboard and his foot-cloth; and the Dragon quietly deposits his neck and tail for another season. Something like the genial chorus of Summer's Last Will and Testament is rung out:—

" 'Trip and go, heave and ho,

Up and down, to and fro,

From the town to the grove,

Two and two, let us rove,

A-Maying, a-playing;

Love hath no gainsaying,

So merrily trip and go.'

"The early-rising moon still sees the villagers on that green of Shottery. The Piper leans against the May-pole; the featliest of dancers still swim to the music:—

" 'So have I seen

Tom Piper stand upon our village-green,

Backed with the May-pole, whilst a jocund crew

In gentle motion circularly threw

Themselves around him.'

The same beautiful writer—one of the last of our golden age of poetry—has described the parting gifts bestowed upon the 'merry youngsters' by

" 'the Lady of the May

Set in an arbor (on a holiday)

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains

Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,

When envious night commands them to be gone.' "

These latter quotations are from William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (book ii. published in 1616), and the poet goes on to tell how the Lady

"Calls for the merry youngsters one by one,

And, for their well performance, soon disposes

To this a garland interwove with roses;

To that a carved hook or well-wrought scrip;

Gracing another with her cherry lip;

To one her garter; to another then

A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again:

And none returneth empty that hath spent

His pains to fill their rural merriment."

WHITSUNTIDE.

Whitsuntide, the season of Pentecost, or the week following Whitsunday (the seventh Sunday after Easter), was another period of festivity in old English times.

The morris-dance was commonly one of its features, as of the May-day sports. In Henry V. (ii. 4. 25) the Dauphin alludes to it:—

" 'I say 't is meet we all go forth

To view the sick and feeble parts of France;

And let us do it with no show of fear,

No, with no more than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance."

Another custom connected with the festival was the "Whitsun-ale." Ale was so common a drink in England that it became a part of the name of various festal meetings. A "leet-ale" was a feast at the holding of a court-leet; a "lamb-ale" was a sheep-shearing merry-making; a "bride-ale" was a bridal, as we now call it—always a festive occasion; and a "church-ale" was connected with some ecclesiastical holiday.

John Aubrey, the eminent antiquary, writing in the latter part of the 17th century, says that in his grandfather's days the church-ale at Whitsuntide furnished all the money needed for the relief of the parish poor. He adds: "In every parish is, or was, a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, etc., utensils for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, without scandal."

The Puritan Stubbes, in the book before quoted (page 176, above), took a different view of these social gatherings. He says: "In certain towns, where drunken Bacchus bears sway, against Christmas and Easter, Whitsuntide, or some other time, the churchwardens of every parish, with the consent of the whole parish, provide half a score or twenty quarters of malt, whereof some they buy of the church stock, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his ability; which malt, being made into very strong ale or beer, is set to sale, either in the church or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then when this is set abroach, well is he that can get the soonest to it, and spend the most at it."

Old parish records show that considerable money was obtained at these festivals, not only by the sale of ale and food, but from the charges made for certain games, among which "riffeling" (raffling) is included. Neighboring parishes often united in these church picnics, as they might be called. Richard Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall (1602), says: "The neighboring parishes at these times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankly spend their money together."

Whitsuntide was also a favorite time for theatrical performances. Long before Shakespeare's day the miracle-plays and moralities had been popular at this season; and these, as we have seen (page 17), were still kept up when he was a boy, together with "pastorals" and other "pageants" such as Perdita alludes to in The Winter's Tale (iv. 4. 134):—

"Come, take your flowers:

Methinks I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals;"

and such as the disguised Julia describes in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (iv. 4. 163):—

"At Pentecost,

When all our pageants of delight were play'd,

Our youth got me to play the woman's part,

And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown,

Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,

As if the garment had been made for me;

Therefore, I know she is about my height.

And at that time I made her weep a-good,

For I did play a lamentable part.

Madam, 't was Ariadne, passioning

For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight,

Which I so lively acted with my tears

That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,

Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead

If I in thought felt not her very sorrow!"

This is in one of the earliest of his plays, and may be a reminiscence of some simple attempt at dramatic representation which he had seen at Stratford.

MIDSUMMER EVE.

The Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, or the evening before the day (June 24) dedicated to that Saint, was commonly called Midsummer Eve, and was observed with curious ceremonies in all parts of England. On that evening the people used to go into the woods and break down branches of trees, which they brought home and fixed over their doors with great demonstrations of joy. This was originally done to make good the Scripture prophecy concerning the Baptist, that many should rejoice in his birth.

It was also customary on this occasion for old and young, of both sexes, to make merry about a large bonfire made in the street or some open place. They danced around it, and the young men and boys leaped over it, not to show their agility, but in compliance with an ancient custom. These diversions they kept up till midnight, and sometimes later.

According to some old writers these fires were made because the Saint was said in Holy Writ to be "a shining light." Others, while not denying this, added that the fires served to drive away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one asserts that in some countries bones were burnt in this "bone-fire," or bonfire, "for the dragons hated nothing more than the stench of burning bones."

In the Ordinary of the Company of Cooks at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1575, we read among other regulations: "And also that the said Fellowship of Cooks shall yearly of their own cost and charge maintain and keep the bone-fires, according to the ancient custom of the town on the Sand-hill; that is to say, one bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Even, and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle, if it shall please the mayor and aldermen of the town for the time being to have the same bone-fires."

In a manuscript record of the expenses of the royal household for the first year of the reign of Henry VIII. (1513), under date of July 1st is the entry: "Item, to the pages of the hall, for making of the King's bone-fire upon Midsummer Eve, xs."

There were many popular superstitions connected with Midsummer Eve. It was believed that if any one sat up fasting all night in the church porch, he would see the spirits of those who were to die in the parish during the ensuing twelve months come and knock at the church door, in the order in which they were to die.

It was customary on this evening to gather certain plants which were supposed to have magical properties. Fern-seed, for instance, being on the back of the leaf and in some species hardly discernible, was thought to have the power of rendering the possessor invisible, if it was gathered at this time. In some places it was believed that the seed must be got at midnight by letting it fall into a plate without touching the plant.

We find many allusions to fern-seed in Elizabethan writers. In 1 Henry IV. (ii. 1. 95) Gadshill says: "We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible"; to which the Chamberlain replies: "Nay, by my faith, I think ye are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible." In Ben Jonson's New Inn (i. 1) one of the characters says:—

"I had

No medicine, sir, to go invisible,

No fern-seed in my pocket."

In Plaine Percevall, a tract of the time of Elizabeth, we read: "I think the mad slave hath tasted on a fern-stalk, that he walks so invisible."

Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), directs us, as protection against witches, to "hang boughs (hallowed on Midsummer Day) at the stall door where the cattle stand."

St. John's wort, vervain, orpine, and rue were among the plants gathered on Midsummer Eve on account of their supernatural virtue. Each was supposed to have its peculiar use in popular magic. Orpine, for instance, was set in clay upon pieces of slate, and called a "Midsummer man." According as the stalk was found next morning to incline to the right or the left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not. Young women also sought at this time for what they called pieces of coal, but in reality hard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort; and these they put under their pillows that they might dream of their lovers. Lupton, in his Notable Things (1586), says: "It is certainly and constantly affirmed that on Midsummer Eve there is found, under the root of mugwort, a coal which saves or keeps them safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, the quartan ague, and from burning, that bear the same about them." He also says it is reported that the same remarkable "coal" is found at the same time of the year under the root of plantain; and he adds that he knows this "to be of truth," for he has found it there himself!

Midsummer Eve was also thought to be a season productive of madness. In Twelfth Night (iii. 4. 61) Olivia says of Malvolio's eccentric behavior, "Why, this is very midsummer madness." Steevens, the Shakespearian critic, believed that the Midsummer-Night's Dream owed its title to this association of mental vagaries with the season. John Heywood, writing in the latter part of the 16th century, alludes to the same belief when he says:—

"As mad as a March hare; when madness compares,

Are not Midsummer hares as mad as March hares?"

It is not improbable, however, that the Midsummer-Night's Dream was so called because it was to be first represented at Midsummer, or because it was like the plays commonly performed in connection with the festivities of that season. A drama in which fairies were leading characters was in keeping with the time of year when fairies and spirits were supposed to manifest themselves to mortal vision either in vigils or in dreams.

CHRISTMAS.

CLOPTON HOUSE ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Passing by sundry minor festivals of the year, we come to Christmas, which is a day of feasting and merrymaking in England even now, though but a "starveling Christmas" compared with that of the olden time. "Where now," as Mr. Knight asks, "is the real festive exhilaration of Christmas; the meeting of all ranks as children of a common father; the tenant speaking freely in his landlord's hall; the laborers and their families sitting at the same great oak table; the Yule Log brought in with shout and song? 'No night is now with hymn or carol blest.' There are singers of carols even now at a Stratford Christmas. Warwickshire has retained some of its ancient carols. But the singers are wretched chorus-makers, according to the most unmusical style of all the generations from the time of the Commonwealth.... But in an age of music we may believe that one young dweller in Stratford gladly woke out of his innocent sleep, after the evening bells had rung him to rest, when in the stillness of the night the psaltery was gently touched before his father's porch, and he heard, one voice under another, these simple and solemn strains:—

" 'As Joseph was a-walking

He heard an angel sing,

This night shall be born

Our heavenly King.

" 'He neither shall be born

In housen nor in hall,

Nor in the place of Paradise,

But in an ox's stall.

" 'He neither shall be clothed

In purple nor in pall,

But all in fair linen,

As were babies all.

" 'He neither shall be rock'd

In silver nor in gold,

But in a wooden cradle

That rocks on the mould.'

London has perhaps this carol yet, among its halfpenny ballads. A man who had a mind attuned to the love of what was beautiful in the past has preserved it; but it was for another age. It was for the age of William Shakespeare. It was for the age when superstition, as we call it, had its poetical faith....

"Such a night was a preparation for a 'happy Christmas.' The Cross of Stratford was garnished with the holly, the ivy, and the bay. Hospitality was in every house; but the hall of the great landlord of the parish was a scene of rare conviviality. The frost or the snow will not deter the principal tenants and friends from the welcome of Clopton. There is the old house, nestled in the woods, looking down upon the little town. Its chimneys are reeking; there is bustle in the offices; the sound of the trumpeters and the pipers is heard through the open door of the great entrance; the steward marshals the guests; the tables are fast filling. Then advance, courteously, the master and the mistress of the feast. The Boar's head is brought in with due solemnity; the wine-cup goes round; and perhaps the Saxon shout of Waes-hael and Drink-hael may still be shouted. The boy-guest who came with his father, the tenant of Ingon, has slid away from the rout; for the steward, who loves the boy, has a sight to make him merry. The Lord of Misrule and his jovial attendants are rehearsing their speeches; and the mummers from Stratford are at the porch. Very sparing are the cues required for the enactment of this short drama. A speech to the esquire, closed with a merry jest; something about ancestry and good Sir Hugh; the loud laugh; the song and the chorus; and the Lord of Misrule is now master of the feast. The Hall is cleared.... There is dancing till curfew; and then a walk in the moonlight to Stratford, the pale beam shining equally upon the dark resting-place in the lonely aisle of the Clopton who is gone, and upon the festal hall of the Clopton who remains, where some loiterers of the old and young still desire 'to burn this night with torches.'"

This is a fancy picture, but it is in keeping with the life of the time. Whether the boy Shakespeare spent a Christmas in just this manner or not, we may be sure that he enjoyed the merriment of the season to the full.

There are a few allusions to Christmas in the plays, besides the beautiful one in Hamlet already quoted (page 138) in another connection. In Love's Labour's Lost (v. 2. 462) "a Christmas comedy" is alluded to; and in The Taming of the Shrew (ind. 2. 140), when Sly the tinker learns that a comedy is to be played for his entertainment, he asks whether a "comonty" is "like a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick."

SHEEP-SHEARING.

Our English ancestors had other holidays than those associated with the ecclesiastical year, but only one or two of them can be mentioned here.

The time of sheep-shearing was celebrated by a rural feast such as Shakespeare has introduced in The Winter's Tale. The shearing took place in the spring as soon as the weather became warm enough for the sheep to lay aside their winter clothing without danger. John Dyer, in his poem entitled The Fleece (1757), fixes the proper time thus:—

"If verdant elder spreads

Her silver flowers, if humble daisies yield

To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass,

Gay shearing-time approaches."

Drayton, writing in Shakespeare's day (page 3 above), describes a shearing-feast in the Vale of Evesham, not far from Stratford:—

"The shepherd-king,

Whose flock hath chanced that year the earliest lamb to bring,

In his gay baldric sits at his low, grassy board,

With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties stored;

And whilst the bagpipe plays, each lusty jocund swain

Quaffs syllabubs in cans to all upon the plain;

And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear,

Some roundelays do sing, the rest the burden bear."

In The Winter's Tale, instead of the shepherd-king we have the more poetical shepherdess-queen. Dr. F. J. Furnivall, in his introduction to this play, remarks: "How happily it brings Shakespeare before us, mixing with his Stratford neighbors at their sheep-shearing and country sports, enjoying the vagabond peddler's gammon and talk, delighting in the sweet Warwickshire maidens, and buying them 'fairings,' opening his heart afresh to all the innocent mirth and the beauty of nature around him!" Doubtless he enjoyed these rural festivities in his later years, after he settled down in his own house at Stratford, no less heartily than he did in his boyhood, when his father may have had sheep to shear.

Mr. Knight remarks: "There is a minuteness of circumstance amidst the exquisite poetry of this scene [in The Winter's Tale] which shows that it must have been founded upon actual observation, and in all likelihood upon the keen and prying observation of a boy occupied and interested with such details. Surely his father's pastures and his father's homestead might have supplied all these circumstances. His father's man might be the messenger to the town, and reckon upon 'counters' the cost of the sheep-shearing feast. 'Three pounds of sugar, five pounds of currants, rice'—and then he asks, 'What will this sister of mine do with rice?' In Bohemia the clown might, with dramatic propriety, not know the use of rice at a sheep-shearing; but a Warwickshire swain would have the flavor of cheese-cakes in his mouth at the first mention of rice and currants. Cheese-cakes and warden-pies were the sheep-shearing delicacies."

Shakespeare evidently knew for what the rice was wanted at the feast; but the clown, who was no cook, might be familiar with the flavor of the cakes without understanding all the ingredients that entered into their composition.

Thomas Tusser, in his Five Hundred Points of Husbandry (1557), describing this festival, makes the shepherd say:—

"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corn,

Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorn;

At sheep-shearing, neighbors none other things crave

But good cheer and welcome like neighbors to have."

HARVEST-HOME.

The ingathering of the harvest was a season of great rejoicing from the most remote antiquity. "Sowing is hope; reaping, fruition of the expected good." To the husbandman to whom the fear of wet, blights, and other mischances has been a source of anxiety between seedtime and harvest, the fortunate completion of his long labors cannot fail to be a relief and a delight.

Paul Hentzner, writing in 1598 at Windsor, says: "As we were returning to our inn we happened to meet some country-people celebrating their harvest-home. Their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and women, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." In the reign of James I., Moresin, another foreigner, saw a figure made of corn drawn home in a cart, with men and women singing to the pipe and the drum.

Matthew Stevenson, in the Twelve Months (1661), under August, alludes to this festival thus: "The furmenty-pot welcomes home the harvest-cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work; and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. O, 't is the merry time wherein honest neighbors make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth."

Robert Herrick, in his Hesperides (1648), refers to the harvest-home as follows:—

"Come, sons of summer, by whose toil

We are the lords of wine and oil,

By whose tough labor and rough hands

We rip up first, then reap our lands,

Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come,

And to the pipe sing harvest-home.

Come forth, my lord, and see the cart,

Drest up with all the country art.

See here a mawkin, there a sheet

As spotless pure as it is sweet:

The horses, mares, and frisking fillies

Clad all in linen, white as lilies;

The harvest swains and wenches bound

For joy to see the hock-cart crown'd.

About the cart hear how the rout

Of rural younglings raise the shout;

Pressing before, some coming after,

Those with a shout, and these with laughter.

Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves,

Some prank them up with oaken leaves;

Some cross the fill-horse; some, with great

Devotion, stroke the home-borne wheat.

* * * * *

Well, on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,

Glittering with fire; where, for your mirth,

You shall see, first, the large and chief

Foundation of your feast, fat beef;

With upper stories, mutton, veal,

And bacon (which makes full the meal),

With several dishes standing by,

And here a custard, there a pie,

And here all-tempting frumenty."

The "hock-cart" was the cart that brought home the last load of corn. It was sometimes called the "hockey-cart"; and one of the dainties of the feast was the "hockey-cake." In an almanac for 1676, under August, we read:—

"Hocky is brought home with hallowing,

Boys with plum-cake the cart following."

The harvest-home is alluded to in 1 Henry IV. (i. 3. 35), where Hotspur, describing the "popinjay" lord who came to demand his prisoners, says:—

"and his chin new-reap'd

Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home."

In The Merry Wives of Windsor (ii. 2. 287) Falstaff says of Mistress Ford, to whom he intends to make love, "and there's my harvest-home."

In the interlude in The Tempest (iv. 1. 134) the dance of the Reapers was apparently a reminiscence of harvest-home sports. Iris says:—

"You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary,

Come hither from the furrow and be merry.

Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,

And these fresh nymphs encounter every one

In country footing."

The following passage in the 12th Sonnet, though it has nothing of festival joyousness, may have been suggested by the ceremonial bringing home of the last load of grain:—

"When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard," etc.

MARKETS AND FAIRS.

In a quiet country town like Stratford the weekly market was an occasion of some interest to the boys as to their elders. There is still such a market on Fridays at Stratford, when wares of many sorts are exposed for sale in the streets, and people from the neighboring villages come to buy. In old times there would have been a greater throng of buyers and sellers. "The housewife from her little farm would ride in gallantly between her paniers laden with butter, eggs, chickens, and capons. The farmer would stand by his pitched corn, and, as Harrison complains, if the poor man handled the sample with the intent to purchase his humble bushel, the man of many sacks would declare that it was sold. There, before shops were many and their stocks extensive, would come the dealers from Birmingham and Coventry, with wares for use and wares for show,—horse-gear and women-gear, Sheffield whittles, and rings with posies."

We find a number of allusions to these markets in Shakespeare's plays. In Love's Labour's Lost (v. 2. 318) Biron, ridiculing Boyet, says of him:—

"He is art's pedler, and retails his wares

At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs."

In the same play (iii. 1. 111) there is an allusion to the old proverb, "Three women and a goose make a market," where Costard, referring to Moth's nonsense about "the fox, the ape, and the humble-bee," followed by the goose that made up four, says, "And he [the goose] ended the market."

In As You Like It (iii. 2. 104) Touchstone, making fun of Orlando's verses which Rosalind has just read, says: "I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the right butter-women's rank to market"; that is, the metre is just like the jog-trot of countrywomen riding to market one after another, with their butter and eggs.

In Richard III. (i. 1. 160) Gloster, after saying that he means to "marry Warwick's youngest daughter," adds:—

"But yet I run before my horse to market:

Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;

When they are gone, then must I count my gains."

He means, in the language of a more familiar proverb, that he is counting his chickens before they are hatched; that is, he is too hasty in reckoning upon the success of his plans.

THE FAIR

In 1 Henry VI. (iii. 2) Joan of Arc gets into Rouen with her soldiers in the guise of countrymen bound for market:—

"Enter La Pucelle, disguised, and Soldiers dressed like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs.

Pucelle. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,

Through which our policy must make a breach.

Take heed, be wary how you place your words;

Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men,

That come to gather money for their corn.

If we have entrance—as I hope we shall—

And that we find the slothful watch but weak,

I'll by a sign give notice to our friends

That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.

1 Soldier. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,

And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;

Therefore we'll knock. [Knocks.

Guard. [Within.] Qui est la?

Pucelle. Paisans, pauvres gens de France:

Poor market-folks, that come to sell their corn.

Guard. [Opening the gates.] Enter, go in; the market-bell

is rung.

Pucelle. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the

ground."

The "market-bell" was rung at the hour when the market was to begin.

In the same play (v. 5. 54), when a dower is proposed for Margaret, who is to marry Henry, Suffolk says:—

"A dower, my lords! disgrace not so your king,

That he should be so abject, base, and poor,

To choose for wealth, and not for perfect love.

Henry is able to enrich his queen,

And not to seek a queen to make him rich:

So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,

As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse."

In 2 Henry VI. (v. 2. 62), when Cade has said boastingly, "I am able to endure much," Dick makes the comment, aside: "No question of that; for I have seen him whipped three market-days together."

There are many other allusions to markets, market-men, market-maids, etc., in the plays, but these will suffice for illustration here.

The semi-annual Fair was a market on a grander scale. The increased crowd of dealers called for certain police regulations, and these were strictly enforced. The town council appointed to each trade a particular station in the streets. Thus, raw hides were to be exposed for sale in the Rother Market. Sellers of butter, cheese, wick-yarn, and fruits were to set up their stalls by the cross at the Guild Chapel. A part of the High Street was assigned to country butchers. Pewterers were ordered to "pitch" their wares in Wood Street, and to pay fourpence a square yard for the ground they occupied. Salt-wagons, whose owners did a large business when salted meats formed the staple supply of food, were permitted to stand about the cross in the Rother Market. At various points victuallers could erect booths. These regulations were necessary to prevent strife concerning locations, and violations were punished by heavy fines.

Mr. Knight remarks: "At the joyous Fair-season it would seem that the wealth of a world was emptied into Stratford; not only the substantial things, the wine, the wax, the wheat, the wool, the malt, the cheese, the clothes, the napery, such as even great lords sent their stewards to the Fairs to buy, but every possible variety of such trumpery as fills the pedler's pack,—ribbons, inkles, caddises, coifs, stomachers, pomanders, brooches, tapes, shoe-ties. Great dealings were there on these occasions in beeves and horses, tedious chafferings, stout affirmations, saints profanely invoked to ratify a bargain. A mighty man rides into the Fair who scatters consternation around. It is the Queen's Purveyor. The best horses are taken up for her Majesty's use, at her Majesty's price; and they probably find their way to the Earl of Leicester's or the Earl of Warwick's stables at a considerable profit to Master Purveyor. The country buyers and sellers look blank; but there is no remedy. There is solace, however, if there is not redress. The ivy-bush is at many a door, and the sounds of merriment are within, as the ale and the sack are quaffed to friendly greetings. In the streets there are morris-dancers, the juggler with his ape, and the minstrel with his ballads. We may imagine the foremost in a group of boys listening to the 'small popular musics sung by these cantabanqui upon benches and barrels' heads,' or more earnestly to some one of the 'blind harpers, or such-like tavern minstrels, that give a fit of mirth for a groat; their matters being for the most part stories of old time as The Tale of Sir Topas, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for the recreation of the common people.' A bold fellow, who is full of queer stories and cant phrases, strikes a few notes upon his gittern, and the lads and lasses are around him ready to dance their country measures....

"The Fair is over; the booths are taken down; the woolen statute-caps, which the commonest people refuse to wear because there is a penalty for not wearing them, are packed up again; the prohibited felt hats are all sold; the millinery has found a ready market among the sturdy yeomen, who are careful to propitiate their home-staying wives after the fashion of the Wife of Bath's husbands.... The juggler has packed up his cup and balls; the last cudgel-play has been fought out:—

"'Near the dying of the day

There will be a cudgel-play,

Where a coxcomb will be broke

Ere a good word can be spoke:

But the anger ends all here,

Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.'

Morning comes, and Stratford hears only the quiet steps of its native population."

There are many allusions, literal and figurative, to these fairs in Shakespeare's plays, a few of which may be cited here as specimens.

In Love's Labour's Lost, besides the one quoted above (page 199), we find the following simile in Biron's eulogy of Rosaline (iv. 3. 235):—

"Of all complexions the cull'd soverignty

Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek."

In the same play (v. 2. 2), the Princess says to her ladies, referring to the presents they have received:—

"Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart

If fairings come thus plentifully in."

It was so common a practice to buy presents at fairs that the word fairing, which originally meant presents thus bought, came to be used in a more general sense, as in this passage and many others that might be quoted.

In The Winters Tale (iv. 3. 109) the Clown says of the merry peddler Autolycus that "he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings." Later (iv. 4) we meet the rogue at the sheep-shearing, where he finds a good market for ribbons, gloves, and other "fairings," which the swains buy for their sweethearts; and when the festival is over he says: "I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting; they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer."

In 2 Henry IV. (iii. 2. 43) Shallow asks his cousin Silence, "How a good yoke of bullocks now at Stamford fair?" and Silence replies, "By my troth, I was not there." Later (v. 1. 26) Davy asks Shallow: "Sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair?"

In Henry VIII. (v. 4. 73) the Chamberlain, seeing the crowd gathered to get a sight of the royal procession, exclaims:—

"Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!

They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,

As if we kept a fair here."

In Lear (iii. 6. 78) Edgar, in his random talk while pretending to be insane, cries: "Come, march to wakes and fairs and market-towns!"

The "wakes," mentioned so often in connection with fairs, were annual feasts kept to commemorate the dedication of a church; called so, as an old writer tells us, "because the night before they were used to watch till morning in the church." The next day was given up to feasting and all sorts of rural merriment. In the churchwardens' accounts of the time we find charges for "wine and sugar," for "bread, wine, and ale," and the like, for "certain of the parish," for "the singing men and singing children," and others, on these occasions.

At these wakes, as at the fairs and other large gatherings, whether festal or commercial, hawkers and peddlers came to sell their wares and merchants set up their stalls and booths, often in the very churchyard and even on a Sunday. The clergy naturally denounced this profanation of the Sabbath, but it was not entirely suppressed until the reign of Henry VI.

Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses (1583), inveighed against these wakes, as against the May-day sports (page 176 above), especially on account of the money wasted at them, "insomuch as the poor men that bear the charges of these feasts and wakes are the poorer and keep the worser houses a long time after: and no marvel, for many spend more at one of these wakes than in all the whole year besides."

Herrick, in his Hesperides (page 196 above) took a more cheerful view of such rural holidays:—

"Come, Anthea, let us two

Go to feast, as others do.

Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,

Are the junkets still at wakes;

Unto which the tribes resort,

Where the business is the sport.

Morris-dancers thou shalt see,

Marian too in pageantry;

And a mimic to devise

Many grinning properties.

Players there will be, and those

Base in action as in clothes;

Yet with strutting they will please

The incurious villages.

* * * * *

Happy rustics, best content

With the cheapest merriment;

And possess no other fear

Than to want the wake next year;"

that is, to miss or lack it.

RURAL OUTINGS.

Much of the recreation, as of the education, of William Shakespeare was in the fields. "He is rarely a descriptive poet, distinctively so called; but images of mead and grove, of dale and upland, of forest depths, of quiet walks by gentle rivers,—reflections of his own native scenery,—spread themselves without an effort over all his writings. All the occupations of a rural life are glanced at or embodied in his characters. He wreathes all the flowers of the field in his delicate chaplets; and even the nicest mysteries of the gardener's art can be expounded by him. His poetry in this, as in all other great essentials, is like the operations of nature itself; we see not its workings. But we may be assured, from the very circumstance of its appearing so accidental, so spontaneous in its relations to all external nature and to the country life, that it had its foundation in very early and very accurate observation. Stratford was especially fitted to have been the 'green lap' in which the boy-poet was 'laid.' The whole face of creation here wore an aspect of quiet loveliness."

The surrounding country was no less beautiful; and William would naturally become familiar with it in his boyish rambles and in his visits to his relatives. The village of Wilmcote, the home of his mother, was within walking distance; and so was Snitterfield, where his father lived before he came to Stratford, and where his uncle Henry still resided. All through the wooded district of Arden the name of Shakespeare was very common, and among those who bore it were probably other families more or less closely related to John Shakespeare's.

However that may have been, the enterprising glover and wool-merchant must have had large dealings with the neighboring farmers; and William must have seen much of rural life and employments in the company of his father, or when wandering at his own free will in the country about Stratford. In no other way could he have gained the intimate acquaintance with farming and gardening operations of which his works bear evidence. He went to London before his literary career began, and lived there until it closed, with only brief occasional visits to Warwickshire. In the metropolis he could not have added much to his early lessons in the country life and character of which he has given us such graphic and faithful delineations. These are thoroughly fresh and real; they tell of the outdoor life he loved, and never smell of the study-lamp, as Milton's and Spenser's allusions to plants, flowers, and other natural objects often do.

Volumes have been written on the plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare; and the authors dwell equally on the poet's ingrained love of the country and his keen observation of natural phenomena and the agricultural practice of the time.

In Richard II. (iii. 4. 29–66) the Gardener and his Servant draw lessons of political wisdom from the details of their occupation:—

"Gardener. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,

Which, like unruly children, make their sire

Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;

Give some supportance to the bending twigs.

Go thou, and like an executioner

Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,

That look too lofty in our commonwealth;

All must be even in our government.

You thus employ'd, I will go root away

The noisome weeds, that without profit suck

The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

Servant. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,

Keep law, and form, and due proportion,

Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,

When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,

Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,

Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,

Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs

Swarming with caterpillars?

Gardener. Hold thy peace!

He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring

Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.

The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,

That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,

Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke;

I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

Servant. What, are they dead?

Gardener. They are; and Bolingbroke

Hath seiz'd the wasteful king.—O, what pity is it,

That he hath not so trimm'd and dress'd his land

As we this garden! We at time of year

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,

Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,

With too much riches it confound itself:

Had he done so to great and growing men,

They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste

Their fruits of duty. All superfluous branches

We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:

Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,

Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down."

Mr. Ellacombe, commenting upon this dialogue, remarks: "This most interesting passage would almost tempt us to say that Shakespeare was a gardener by profession; certainly no other passages that have been brought to prove his real profession are more minute than this. It proves him to have had practical experience in the work, and I think we may safely say that he was no mere 'prentice hand in the use of the pruning-knife." But this play was written in London, when he could hardly have known anything more of practical gardening than he had learned in his boyhood and youth at Stratford.

Grafting and the various ways of propagating plants by cuttings, slips, etc., are described or alluded to with equal accuracy; also the mischief done by weeds, blights, frosts, and other enemies of the husbandman and horticulturist. He writes on all these matters as we might expect him to have done in his last years at Stratford, after he had had actual experience in the management of a large garden at New Place and in farming operations on other lands he had bought in the neighborhood; but all these passages, like the one quoted from Richard II., were written long before he had a garden of his own. They were reminiscences of his observation as a boy, not the results of his experience as a country gentleman.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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