CHAPTER II.

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL-DAYS.

1571-1579.

Shakespeare's boyhood-He is silent about himself-Educated at the Free Grammar School of Stratford-School founded in 1482-Kept in the Chapel of the Guild-The extent of Shakespeare's classical education-His knowledge of nature and of character-Stratford names and charaeters in his plays-Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth.

Or Shakespeare's boyhood and youth we know hardly anything, except by inference, and he himself gives us no information. Goethe, in his "Autobiography," has given the most minute details of his early life. Looking back on his youth, he depicts the pleasures, the dreams, and the aspirations of " the boy," and creates anew the ideal world in which he lived. But of himself Shakespeare is either silent or speaks obscurely. In the creations of his wonderful mind, men see themselves as in a mirror, but they see not the personality of the genius that created these pictures of human life. We have certainly a few trifling facts regarding the youth of Shakespeare; but if we would really know anything about his education, and the forming of his mind, we are thrown back on a study of old English life in Queen Elizabeth's time as the only reliable source.

There can be no doubt he was educated at the free school of Stratford. A grammar school for giving instruction in Greek and Latin had existed there from the time of Edward IV., having been founded in 1482

by Thomas Jolyffe, and it was afterwards chartered by Edward VI. Between 1570 and 1580, Walter Roche, Thomas Hunt, and Thomas Jenkins, were masters in succession, and as this was Shakespeare's school period, these must have been his instructors. It is probable that at this time the school was kept in the Chapel of the Guild, and not in the Grammar School, for in the corporation books there is an entry against the date February 18, 1594-5: "At this hall it was agreed by the bailiff and the greater number of the company now present, that there shall be no school kept in the chapel from this time following." Whether this occupation of the chapel as a school was temporary or permanent, there is a "possibility of a sly notice of his schoolmaster in Twelfth Night, Act iii., Scene 2, where the dramatist describes Malvolio as in yellow stockings and most villanously cross-gartered, 'like a pedant that keeps a school i' the church."" The only notice of Shakespeare's education at that second act on the stage of human life, of which he says,

"And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school,"

is in Ben Jonson's "Verses to his Memory," in which the line occurs,―

"And though thou hadst small Latine and lesse Greeke."

It would be absurd to infer from this that Shakespeare's education in the classical tongues was grossly defective, and that he knew the authors of antiquity only through the medium of the wretched translations then in existence. It is true he did not fill his dramas

with pedantic stuff and learned conceits after Ben Jonson's fashion. His genius was essentially creative, and therefore above slavish imitation. Still, if he was not a learned man in classic lore, the exact knowledge of the Roman character and of the institutions of Rome which he shows in "Julius Cæsar" and "Coriolanus," and of classical antiquity in other plays, is a proof that his information was not had at second-hand, or at least that he had the power of verifying it by a study of the originals. As he was at a grammar school perhaps till his fourteenth year, how could he fail to acquire a competent knowledge of Latin at least, where that language must have been the staple of education? Probably the Bible had been the book upon which his home education was grounded. Whatever may have been the extent of his acquirements at school, his real education was the observation of nature and of human character. In none of his plays, it is true, have we that exquisite picturing of giant hills and placid lakes, of forest and glacier, of smiling pasture-lands and scenes of wild desolation, which we have in Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," the work of a more descriptive poet; but everywhere amid things of a much higher character, we find nature painted with the most delicate touches. Of the extraordinary minuteness of his observation, a thousand illustrations might be given. With all the phenomena of nature, with the natural history of plants and animals, with the skill of the gardener and all the labours. of the husbandman, he is most familiar. But he is no less at home in the manners, customs, pastimes, and occupations of men, Yet, however perfect the great

dramatist is in his knowledge of the outer world, and of mankind as seen from without, his proper sphere is the human heart. His comprehension of characterhis insight into the motives, the secret workings, the feelings of the human mind-is the most astonishing thing about him. Even of woman's heart he describes the impulses, the aims, the weaknesses, as if he felt those things. None of his characters are described objectively. In all, the mind that fashions them is not seen: it enters into them, and looks from their point of view. Now, it is in youth that these impressions of character are got, although they come in at that time as raw materials only, which are afterwards to be fashioned by the plastic power of imagination. It is only in youth that a man can see the character and imbibe the spirit of a people; and this is the chief reason why a foreigner can never thoroughly comprehend the genius of a nation. Had those writers who have made it their business to grasp the individuality of Shakespeare's characters but lived at Stratford-uponAvon, they would have found the types of many of those that play their part on an ideal stage. It is ascertained that there were originals for most of Sir Walter Scott's characters, who were very well known to his neighbours and his personal friends, and in this point Shakespeare did not differ from other mortals. Halliwell points out, on the authority of extant documents, that Bardolf and Fluellen were names well known in his native Stratford, and also that Sly, Herne, Horne, Brome, Page, and Ford, are names found in MSS. in the Council Chamber there. He adds

that Herne the Hunter is called Horne in the first sketch of the "Merry Wives," and that Brome will be found to be Ford's assumed name in the first folio.

Among the events which took place in Shakespeare's schoolboy-days, and which would doubtless awaken his youthful imagination, was Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth in the summer of 1575. On this occasion she was entertained with regal magnificence by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Everything was present which might contribute to the pleasures of the court. Splendid shows, dramatic entertainments, plays and spectacles, succeeded one another, and were varied by the pastimes of bear-fights and the chase. There was a great concourse from the surrounding country, and as Stratford is only fourteen miles from Kenilworth, and the shows lasted a number of days, there is every reason to think that young Shakespeare, then in his twelfth year, was present. Among the shows, there was one, according to Gascoigne, in which "Triton, in likeness of a mermaid, came towards the Queen's Majesty." "Arion appeared sitting on a dolphin's back." The probability that the future dramatist was present on this occasion is increased by the occurrence of a passage in "Midsummer Night's Dream," which seems to allude to this scene by the lake at Kenilworth :