SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BMOILAPNICAL ROMANCZ,

The Pictorial Edition of Shakspere, Part XLV. William Shakspere, • Biography.

No. I Knight and Co. Foams. The Salamandrine; or Love and Immortality. By Charles Mackay, Author of" The Hope of the World," " Longbeard," " The Thames audits Tributaries." &c.

How and Parsons.

ISIBLICAL A IICIINAILOGY,

An Equalization of every item of Scripture Money. Weight, and Measure, whether of liquids, dry goods, or of distance, with the British; in which the monies are calculated at par, aud the weights awl measures regulated agreeably to the Im-

perial standard of Great Britain. By Joseph Palethorpe Hooper. :Marlow,

Tales of the Draganza; with Scenes and Sketches. By T. H. Usborne. Esq.. Au- thor of "A New Guide to the Leraut, Egypt, Syria, Greece." 8.:e..Cradock and Co. lIzaamotr, A General Armorie of England. Scotland. and Ireland. By John Burke. Esq.. Author of " The Peerage and Barouetage." 8.:c.; and John Bernard Burke. Esq..

of the Middle Temple, 13arrister.at-law Churton.

KNIGHT'S WILLIAM SHAKSPERE A BIOGRAPHY.

'Tun intention of this work is to furnish a prefix Life to The Pictorial Edition of Shalispere, and a companion to the octavo edition grounded on the Pictorial, now in the course of publication ; though it will then of course be reprinted in another form, and may, we believe, be purchased as a separate book. The object of Mr. KNIGHT is to establish the good repute of the family of SHAKSPERE, and of his own gentle breeding and learned education. This object is sought to be effected by a most microscopical research into every particular relating to the life and times of SHAKSPERE, that can by any possibility be connected with the biographer's main purpose, and by a train of reasoning always keen and ingenious, but too often farfetched ; and which, though leaving an impression of the general truth of Mr. KNIGHT'S view, fails to establish almost any particular beyond what is already known ; our biographer dealing somewhat too much in "perhaps," "might," "probably," "in all likelihood," "no doubt," and "we may be sure "—though we are not sure, and, having no evidence whatever, cannot be sure. Having before us only the First Part of William Shakspere a Biography, consisting but of sixty pages, and getting no further than the fifth chapter, called "The Schoolboy's World," no defi- nite opinion can be passed upon the work. So far as we can judge, the main outlines of Mr. KNIGHT'S views of SHAKSPERE'S life and family have already appeared in his very valuable contri- bution to The Stare of Knowledge, which we noticed at the time of its publication ; the real additions of the nature of fact to the pre- sent book being rather fanciful or conjectural than founded upon that fair induction which carries a conviction of truth to the mind. In a word, we think a good deal of what is added will, as a life of SHAKSPERE, be baseless. To use Mr. KNIGHT'S phraseology, the incidents " might " have happened ; "perhaps," " probably, ' even "in all likelihood," some of them did happen. But as there is not a tittle of evidence upon the subject beyond what might be predicated of any human being of the same generic family—a yeoman's or gentleman-farmer's son of the same period — Mr. KNIGHT'S William Shakspere will be rather a romance than "a biography."

it will, however, be a romance of a very peculiar, instructive,

and interesting character; exhibiting the result of most extensive black-letter reading of every kind, as well as of profound learning of the Elizabethan age. But Mr. KNIGHT, in his labour of love and years, has not confined himself to books. He has made pilgrimages to Stratford and its vicinity, exploring the town and neighbourhood in every direction, looking at the landscape not only as it now is, but endeavouring from descriptions and existing indications to picture what it was in SHAKSPERE'S boyhood ; he has made acquaintance with Stratford folks, and consulted all existing memorials ; he has studied the history and antiquities of the town ; he has gone over with unwearied industry and sleepless attention the works.of everybody who has written about the bard of Avon, from old AUBREY down to PAYNE COLLIER ; weighing their statements, not altogether like a judge, but With the perhaps greater keenness of a judge-advocate ; and he has animated the whole by a quaint spirit and peculiar character, which somewhat resemble the kindly feeling and pleasant manner of LEIGH HUNT, but with more of massiness, strength, and homely English sense. This biographical romance, too, differs from the historical ro- mance in never altering the truth. It may supply things' which " might " have occurred, but it does not falsify by suppressing or altering. It should also be said that the known facts are suffi- ciently discriminated from the things inferred, or the things assumed,

t o be easily separated if the reader will give' his attention to the task.

Such seems to us the general character of William Shakspere a Biography. An idea of the manner and style of the work can only be conveyed by example. The following account of SHAH- SPERE'S boyish home-reading is a good specimen. The critical catalogue raisonnee of old English books is curious: and the easy manner in which, at the opening, Mr. KNIGHT modulates from fact to assumption, with the proportion which the latter bears to the former, indicates the extent to which biographical romance predo- minates over biographical reality.

SHARSPERE'S HOME MEANS or READING BOOKS. Its was an age of few books. Yet, believing, as we do, that Ms father and -mother were well-educated persons, there would be volumes in their house -capable of exciting the interest of an inquiring boy—volumes now rarely seen, and very precious. Some of the first *mks of the English press might be :there • but the changes of language in the ninety years that had passed .since the introduction of pnwtmg mta Bnglaud would almost seal them against a There are many traces la the works of §iinAspc a bin fauoptq orotA old

boy's perusal. Caxton's books were essentially of a popular character ; but, as he himself complained, the language of his time was greatly unsettled, showing

that " we Englishmen ben born under the domination of the III whiclija never steadfast." Caxton's Catalogue was rich in romantic and poetical lore— the " Confessio Amantis," the "Canterbury Tales," " Troilos and Creseide," the " Book of Troy," the "Dictes of the Philosophers," the " Mirror of the World," the "Siege of Jerusalem," the "Book of Chivalry,"-the Life of Kink Arthur." Hem were legends of faith and love, of knightly deeds and painful perils—glimpses of history through the wildest -romance—enough to till the mind of a boy-poet with visions of unutterable loveliness and splendour. The famous successors of the first printer followed in the same career ; they adapted their works to the great body of purchasers—they left the learned to their manuscripts. What a present must " Dame Julyana Berries " have bestowed upon her countrymen in her book of Hunting, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, with other books of sports ! Master Skelton, Laureate, would rejoice the hearts of the most orthodox, by his sly hits at the luxury and domination of the priesthood ; Robert Copland, who translated "Kynge Appolyne of,Thyre," sent perhaps the story of that prince's " malfortunes and perilous adventures into a soil in which they were to grow into a " Pericles"; and Stephen Hawes, inhis " Passe Tyme of Pleasure," he being " one of the grooms of the most honour- able chamber of our Sovereign Lord King Henry the Seventh," would deserve the especial favour of the descendant of Robert Arden. Subsequently came the English " Froissart " of Lord Berners, and other great books hereafter to be mentioned. But if these, and such as these, were not to be read by the child undisciplined by school, there were pictures in some of those old books which of themselves would open a world to him. -That wondrous book of "Bartholomieus de Proprietatibus Rerum," describing and exhibiting in .ap- propriate wood-cuts every animate and inanimate thing, and even the most complex operations of social life, whether of cooking ablution, or the ancient and appropriate use of the comb for the destruction of " beasts of prey, the child Shakspere would have turned over its leaven with delight. " The Chronicle of England, with the Fruit of Times "—the edition of 1527, with cuts innu- merable—how must it have taken that boy into the days of " fierce wars," and have shown him the mailed knights, the archers, and the billmen that fought at Poitiers for a vain empery, and afterwards turned their swords and their arrows against each other at Barnet and Tewkesbury! What dim thoughts of earthly mutations, unknown to the quiet town of Stratford, must the young Shakspere have received as he looked upon the pictures of "the boke of John Bochas, describing the fall of princes, princesses, and other nobles"; and 'espe- cially as he beheld the portrait of John Lydgate, the translator, kneeling in a long black cloak, admiring the vicissitude of the wheel of Fortune, the divinity being represented by a mile figure in a robe, with expanded wings ! Rude and incongruous works of art, ye were yet an intelligible language to theyoung and the uninstructed; and the things ye taught through the visual sense were not readily to be forgotten.

From long habits of reverential study and inquiry, going back, it seems, for at least twenty years, the mind of Mr. KNIGHT has be- come thoroughly saturated with an old English spirit, which shows itself in a regard for ancestral fashions—sometimes undiscriminating, as in the first of the following extracts, on agriculture—sometimes more reasonable, as in the second, on grammar-schools.

THE AGRICULTURE THAT SHAKSPERE KNEW.

Through these pleasant places would the boy William Shakspere walk band in hand with his father, or wander at his own free-will with his school com- panione. All the simple processes of farming life would be familiar to him. The profitable mysteries of modern agriculture would not embarrass his youth- ful experience. He would witness none of that anxious diligence which com- pels the earth to yield double crops, and places little reliance upon the unas- sisted operations of nature. The seed-time and the harvest in the corn-fields, the gathering-in of the thin grass on the uplands and of the ranker produce of the flooded meadows, the folding of the flocks on the hills, the sheep-shearing, would seem to him like the humble and patient waiting of man upon a boun- teous Providence. There would be no systematic rotation of crops to make him marvel at the skill of the cultivator. Implements most skilfully adapted for the saving of animal labour would be unknown to him. The rude plough of his Saxon ancestors would be dragged along by a powerful team of sturdy oxen ; the sound of the flail alone would be heard in the barn. Around him would, however' be the glad indications of .plenty. The farmer would have abundant stacks, and beeves, and kine, though the supply would fail in pre- carious seasons, when price did not regulate consumption ; he would brew his beer and bake his rye-bread; his swine would be fatteping on the beech-mast and the acorns of the free wood; his skeps of bees would be 'numerous in his garden ; the colewort would sprout from spring to winter for his homely meal, and in the fruitful season the strawberry would present its much-coveted. luxury. The old orchard would be rich with the Choicest apples, grafts front the curious monastic varieties; the rarer fruits from Southern climates would be almost wholly unknown. There would be no niggard economy defeating itself; the stock, such as it was, would be of the best, although no Bakewell had arisen to preside over its improvement.

SIIMISPERE.S BIOGRAPHER ON GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS.

Let us pass over for a time the young Shakspere at his school-desk; inquiring not when be went from "The Short Dictionary" forward to the use of "Cooper's Lexicon," or whether he was most drilled in the " Eclogues " of Virgil or those of the "good old Mantuan." Of one thing we may be well assured, that the instruction of -the grammar-school was the right instruction for the most vivacious mind, as for him of slower capacity. To spend a con- siderable portion of the years of boyhood in the acquirement of Latin and Greek, was not to waste them, as modern illumination would instruct us. Something was to be acquired, accurately and completely, that was of universal application, and within the boy's power of acquirement. The particular-know- ledge that would fit him for a chosen course of life would be an after acquire- ment; and having attained the habit of patient study, and established in his own mind a standard to apply to all branches of knowledge by knowing one branch well, he would enter upon the race of life without being overweighted with the elements of many arts and sciences, which it belongs only to the mature intellect to bear easily and gracefully, and to employ to lasting profit. Our grammar-schools were wise itistitutions. They opened the road to rise- fulness and honour to the humblest in the land; they bestowed -upon the son of the peasant the same advantages of education as She son of the noble could receive from the most accomplished teacher in his father's halls. ' Long may they be preserved among us in their integrity ; not converted by the meddlings of innovation into lecture-rooms for cramming children with the nomenclature of every science, presenting little idea even of the physical world beyond that of its being a vast aggregation of objects that may be classified and catalogued, and leaving the spiritual world utterly uneared for, as a region whose products cannot be readily estimated by a money-value! Mixed with these passages of an imaginative kind, are many 41 which the view sought to be established is infetzed, and sometimes concluded, from more specific facts, with-spip.0 of a nice and jest CritiNSM.

SHAKSPERE'S STRINO-P,OXIR. romances and old ballads; but, like all his other acquirementa. thee is no re- production of the same thing under a MVO form. Rowe fancied that Shak- opere's knowledge of the learned languages was but small, because "it is with- out controversy that in his works ire scarce find any traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of the ancients." It is for inferior men to imitate. It was for Sbakspere to subject his knowledge to his original power of thought, so that his knowledge and his invention should become one perfect and entire substance; and thus the minute critic, who desires to find the classical jewels set in the English gold, proclaims that they are not there, because they were unknown and unappreciated by the uneducated poet. So of the traditionary lore with which Shakspere must have been familiar from his very boyhood. That lore is not in his writinp in any very palpable shape, but its spirit is there. The simplicity, the vigour, the pathos, the essential dramatic power of the ballad poetry, stood out in Shakspere's boyhood in remarkable contrast to the drawling pedantry of the moral plays of the early stage. The ballads kept the love and the knowledge of real poetry in the hearts of the people. There was something high, and generous, and tolerant, in those which were most popular; something which demonstratively told they belonged to a nation which admired courage, which loved truth, which respected misfortune. Percy, speaking of the more ancient ballad of "Chevy Chase," says, "One may also observe a generous impartiality in the old original bard, when in the conclusion of his tale he represents both nations as quitting the field without any reproach- ful reflection on either; though he gives to his own countrymen the credit of being the smaller number." The author of that ballad was an Englishman ; and we may believe this " impartiality " to have been an ingredient of the old English patriotism. At any rate it entered into the patriotism of Shakspere.

Whilst an idea of Mr. KNIGHT'S biographical romance will be gathered, from these extracts, it will also be seen that for variety, vigour, and the exhibition of a large and truthful picture of the age, this work, if not a biography, is something better. Things are so constituted that every evil has a countervailing good of some • sort. Jostrisoiv says, in the Idler, "If the Alexandrian library had not been burnt, the Idler could not have written an essay on its loss "; and if the particulars of SHAKSPERE'S life had been more fully recorded, the world must have wanted William Shakspere a Biography.