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SHAKESPEARE.* ME Birmingham Shakespearean Library contains nearly ten thousand volumes relating to the great Englishman whom Voltaire, who was pedantically wedded to the rigid standards of literary classicism, had the audacity to term Mt grand fou, and the correct spelling of whose name can now never be known, for he himself, writing in the crabbed old English character which still survived in provincial England when he was a schoolboy, wrote it in four, and the local authori- ties of Stratford in no less than sixteen, different ways. None the less, a new, or, to speak more correctly, a re-edited aad greatly enlarged, Life of Shakespeare cannot be said to be superfluous: Sir Sidney Lee has devoted eighteen years of his life to a profound study of Elizabethan literature. It seems almost presumptuous to comment, even in a eulogistic strain, on such herculean literary labour. Yet it may be some gratification to the author to know that ono who can scarcely boast that he has devoted as many days as Sir Sidney Lee has years to Shakespearean study, has been able to read the seven hundred and twenty closely printed pages of his work without for one moment feeling his interest flag, or wishing that, in Horatian language, the risk of being obscure had been incurred by enforced brevity. It is, in truth, a monumental work. Every incident connected. with Shake- speare's life, and every circumstance which can, directly or indirectly, throw some light, however remote, on his character, temperament, and literary aims, is examined with reverential care. The preposterous idea that Bacon was the author of • A Lire Willieas SAnkapeare. By Sir Sidney Leo. London: Smith, Elder, ana Co. ;:i$. lid. mt.]
Shakespeare's plays is, indeed, discussed in only a few pages, which, with a very justifiable contempt, are relegated to an appendix. Even in according this treatment to the con- troversy, Sir Sidney Lee has shown himself more tolerant than Tennyson, who, on receiving a letter inviting his opinion on the subject., said : " I feel inclined to write back, Sir, don't be a fool.' " There is no point, however trivial, which in any way bears on the true comprehension of Shakespeare and his works, but what Sir Sidney Lee has not scrupulously collected all the available evidence and has pronounced judgment.
Did Shakespeare ever live in Shoreditch The " theory rests on a shadowy foundation." Did he, in very truth, ever plant a mulberry-tree The question cannot be answered with any degree of certainty, for the tradition that he did so was not put on record till 1758, when the alleged tree was cut down by a surly landlord, and its wood converted into " goblets, fancy boxes, and inkstands " by an enterprising wood-carver of Stratford. What was Shakespeare's income Sir Sidney Lee, after a searching analysis of the available facts and figures, arrives at the conclusion that up to 1599 it was about £150 a year, a sum equal to £750 at the present time, but that later it rose to £700 (now £3,500) a year. What was Shakespeare's precise position at Court when that distressful monarch, James I., conferred on himself the signal honour of enlisting into his service, but fortunately not enslaving the genius of, the greatest of his subjects ? Apparently he occupied the humble position of a
Groom of the Chamber, and in that capacity received the munificent salary of 52s. 4c1. annually, together with an occasional gift of " four and a half yards of scarlet cloth wherewith to make himself a suit of royal red." But, even thus arrayed, he was not allowed to join in any Royal cavalcade, for " the Herald's official order of precedence allotted actors no place." They were described in a contemporary play as " glorious vagabonds." We are told much that is interesting about the famous Globe Theatre. That " vertuous fabrique " was burned down in 1613 by the discharge of " certain Canons," which set fire to the thatch, and caused what was at first thought to be " an idle smoak," but eventually turned out to be a very serious conflagration. " Yet nothing did perish, but wood and straw and a few forsaken cloaks ; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottled ale." Was the theatre situated on the northern or the southern side of Maid Lane, now Park Street, Southwark ? Some two hundred and fifty years after its final demolition by the hand of a gloomy Puritanism, the controversy still continued in the pages of Notes and Queries. Sir Sidney Lee throws the weight of his authority into the scale of the north-side partisans. Again, was Shakespeare ever a lawyer's clerk, as has been surmised from his intimate acquaintance with law, which, however, was greatly exaggerated by Lord Campbell The inference is no more correct than that he was a soldier and served with Lord Leicester in the Low Countries. His legal and military knowledge is merely another proof of his wonderful receptivity. He was, in the expressive phrase of Coleridge, ityptomn—thousand.. souled. His mind, Sir Sidney Lee says, was like " a highly sensitised photographic plate." " If he came in contact in an alehouse with a burly, good-humoured toper, the conception of Falstaff found instantaneously admission to his brain." Similarly, the idea that Shakespeare ever visited Scotland, based on the accurate description he gives of Highland scenery in Macbeth, may be dismissed as unworthy of credence. lie merely assimilated the accounts of the Highlands which he received from Scotch acquaintances in London.
With no less scrupulous care does Sir Sidney Leo examine the sources from which Shakespeare drew both his plots and, in some cases, the separate characters in his plays. Every one knows that Shakespeare seized on a tale of Plutarch's, a legend of Holinshed's, or a poor story of Bandello or some other Italian author, and clothed it with all the splendour of his own inimitable genius. It is, moreover, clear that such characters as Dogberry and Verges were Elizabethan constables transported to Italian soil, and, as Mr. Madden has told us in his delightful work entitled The Diary of Master William Silence, that when Shake- speare was describing the actions of his Petruchios, Benedicks, and Beatrices his heart was really far away in the Cotswold Hills watching the feats of the tercel-gentles," "eyasses," and " haggards " of Gloucestershire falconry. But it is perhaps less well known, for instance, that C'aliban was a faithful
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