Shakespeare.
by Robert G. Ingersoll.
I.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to us the richest legacy of all the dead--the treasures of the rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures, robes and gems of thought. He was the greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and tears, we call the world.
It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius.
Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked--meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance.
Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest heaven of invention"--he should have "a kingdom for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene."
More than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race was born. He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were no celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and both had the cheerful habit of living in this world. The cradle in which he was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins there was no drop of royal blood.
This babe became the wonder of mankind. Neither of his parents could read or write. He grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks of the Avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years ago. There was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, and nothing in the murmuring stream, to excite the imagination--nothing, so far as we can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sublimest thought.
So there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of education, that in any way accounts for what he did. It is supposed that he attended school in his native town--but of this we are not certain.
Many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood, but the fact seems to be the other way. Some of his biographers have sought to do him honor by showing that he was patronized by Queen Elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest proof.
As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne, a king, queen, or emperor who could have honored William Shakespeare.
Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, the children of the rich, finding that gold does not produce happiness, are apt to underrate the value of wealth. So the children of the educated often care but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. The children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers.
Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.
Possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys of savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing for knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, Genius is born. It may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for generations, gathers strength.
Shakespeare"s father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and cla.s.s. About the only thing we know of him is that he was officially reported for not coming monthly to church. This is good as far as it goes. We can hardly blame him, because at that time Richard Bifield was the minister at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read the Psalter by Sternhold and Hopkins.
The church was at one time Catholic, but in John Shakespeare"s day it was Puritan, and in 1564, the year of Shakespeare"s birth, they had the images defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John Shakespeare that he refused to listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the Puritan Bifield.
Nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name--Mary Arden.
In those days but little attention was given to the biographies of women. They were born, married, had children, and died. No matter how celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. In old times, when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find out about the father and grandfather--the idea being that genius is inherited from the father"s side. The truth is, that all great men have had great mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers.
The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of women. She dowered her son with pa.s.sion and imagination and the higher qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care--and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think.
The children of the great are often small. Pigmies are born in palaces, while over the children of genius is the roof of straw. Most of the great are like mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and the depression of posterity on the other.
In his day Shakespeare was of no particular importance. It may be that his mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was unconscious of the immortal child. He was never engaged in a reputable business. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law described him as "a st.u.r.dy vagabond." He was neither a n.o.ble, a soldier, nor a priest. Among the half-civilized people of England, he who amused and instructed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius.
Mozart was patronized by an Archbishop--lived in the palace,--but was compelled to eat with the scullions.
The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of the composer.
We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or of what may be called the outward Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that so little is known. He might have been belittled by friendly fools.
What silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have been remembered by those who scarcely saw him! We have his best--his sublimest--and we have probably lost only the trivial and the worthless.
All that is known can be written on a page.
We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and of his death. We think he went to London in 1586, when he was twenty-two years old. We think that three years afterwards he was part owner of Blackfriars" Theatre. We have a few signatures, some of which are supposed to be genuine. We know that he bought some land--that he had two or three law-suits. We know the names of his children. We also know that this incomparable man--so apart from, and so familiar with, all the world--lived during his literary life in London--that he was an actor, dramatist and manager--that he returned to Stratford, the place of his birth,--that he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children of his brain--that he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church where the images had been defaced, and that on his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph.
No letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written by him can be shown.
And here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. Shakespeare was an actor--a disreputable business--but he made money--always reputable. He came back from London a rich man. He bought land, and built houses. Some of the supposed great probably treated him with deference. When he died he was buried in the church. Then came a reaction. The pious thought the church had been profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of an actor were fit to lie in holy ground. The people began to say the body ought to be removed. Then it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall, Shakespeare"s son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb:
"Good friend, for Jesus" sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed heare: Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones, And curst be he yt moves my bones."
Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be violated. How could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a threat and a blessing, upon his grave? But the ignorant people of that day were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so feeling they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the dust was left in peace.
This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It puzzled me to explain why he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,--great ranges of mountains--should put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I stood beside the grave and read the ignorant words, the explanation I have given flashed upon me.
II.
IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. This is a mistake. In 1600 a book was published called "_England"s Parna.s.sus_"
and it contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. In the same year was published the "_Garden of the Muses_" containing several pieces from Shakespeare, Chapman, Marston and Ben Johnson. "_England"s Helicon_"
was printed in the same year, and contained poems from Spenser, Greene, Harvey and Shakespeare.
In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which Shakespeare was alluded to as follows: "Why, here"s our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all down." John Weaver published a book of poems in 1595, in which there was a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 1598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem to Shakespeare. Francis Meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both universities, compiler of school books," was the author of the "Wits"
Treasury." In this he compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and mentions Marlowe, Peel, Kyd and Shakespeare. So he compares the writers of comedies, and mentions Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He speaks of elegiac poets, and names Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, Raleigh and Shakespeare. He compares the lyric poets, and names Spencer, Drayton, Shakespeare and others. This same writer, speaking of Horace, says that England has Sidney, Shakespeare and others, and that "as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." He also says: "If the Muses could speak English, they would speak in Shakespeare"s phrase." This was in 1598. In 1607, John Davies alludes in a poem to Shakespeare.
Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben Jonson wrote. Henry Chettle took Shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death of Queen Elizabeth.
It may be wonderful that he was not better known. But is it not wonderful that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, and that twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the first?
III.
BUT there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of Shakespeare: In the Plays there is no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. We do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, statesman, priest, n.o.bleman, king, or queen, that Shakespeare directly mentioned.
Is it not marvellous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of adventures in far off lands and unknown seas--in a time of religious wars--in the days of the Armada--the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew--the Edict of Nantes--the a.s.sa.s.sination of Henry III.--the victory of Lepanto--the execution of Marie Stuart--did not mention the name of any man or woman of his time? Some have insisted that the paragraph ending with the lines:
"The imperial votress pa.s.sed on in maiden meditation fancy free,"
referred to Queen Elizabeth; but it is impossible for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen Elizabeth could by any possibility have inspired these marvellous lines.
It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare"s writings that he knew but little of the n.o.bility, little of kings and queens. He gives to these supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their mouths and makes them speak--not as they really did--but as Shakespeare thought such people should. This demonstrates that he did not know them personally.
Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions Queen Elizabeth in the last Scene of Henry VIII. The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not write the last Scene in that Play. The probability is that Fletcher was the author.
Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when Europe emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of America had made England, that blossom of the Gulf-Stream, the centre of commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, thinkers, soldiers and discoverers were produced.
Cervantes was born in 1547, dying on the same day that Shakespeare died.
He was undoubtedly the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens was born in 1577. Camoens, the Portuguese, the author of the _Lusiad_, died in 1597. Giordano Bruno--greatest of martyrs--was born in 1548--visited London in Shakespeare"s time--delivered lectures at Oxford, and called that inst.i.tution "the widow of learning." Drake circled the globe in 1580. Galileo was born in 1564--the same year with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. Kepler--he of the Three Laws--born in 1571. Calderon, the Spanish dramatist, born in 1601.
Corneille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, greatest of painters, 1607. Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin died. What a glorious exchange!