Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-07
THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS OF
WILLIAM sHAKsPEARE.

4
| WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Richard Grant Whites Memoirs of the
life of William Shakespeare havet the advan-
tage Of presenting in Ineligible form all
that is known Of the man Shakespeare the
facts having been separated from the fables
with which they were mingled, with con-
scientious care, after vigilant research and
able and laborious analysis. No new and
remarkable discoveries have been made and
| added to the few authenticated particulars
of the life of Shakspeare-no mysterious
manuscripts have been picked up in out of
the way places, by unheard-of antiquarians
no blurred memoranda found in the dim
| pencilings on the margins of dusty old books
| discovered by accident in obscure libraries
| that relate to Shakespeare; and yet Mr. Rich
| ard Grant White has written volume that
! gives almost full length likeness of the
man, and certainly defines his image upon
the retina of the eye Of mankind, in
| clearer outlines and more natural colors,
| than those in which it has heretofore been
presented.
The Spectator, in general criticism, says
of Whites memoirs of Shakespeare, as il
observes he somewhat fancifully calls them,
that they have "one peculiar claim to
attention. They are sifted and digested by
thoroughly practical man, whose sense Of
practical reality supplies him with an adj
ditional critical faculty, and discriminates
for us all that commentators and antiquaries
have piled up respecting Shakspeare's life
and antecedents. A connected account,
stripped of all accessories and individual
views, Of what is really known of Shaks-
peare, and compiled by highly cultivated
man of the world, may or may not excite
controversies will always have value of
its own"
1t was after years of laborious study of
the works of Shakespeare, and the publica-
ton of his deservedly famous edition Of
chose works, that Mr.. White proceeded to
the most difficult part of his task, that of
giving the world a real picture of the man
William Shakespeare and he preiaces his
handsome volume by informing us that it is
the result of an endeavor to present in a
narrative form what is known and may
be reasonably inferred concerning Shaks-
peare's life We had almost missed know
ing anything of Shakespeare except as he is
revealed in his writings, and yet Mr.. White
tells us:
1.-TWO generations had not followed that
which gave to the world the great poet of
our race and mankind, when Thomas Better
ton, the most celebrated London actor of
his day, journeys from the scene of Sh&k-
speare's metropolitan distinction to that of
his rustic youth and rural retirement, in the
hope of finding in the latter those traces of
his private life which had been so entirely
obliterated in the former. The grateful and
reverential player who had gained compe-
tence and reputation chiefly by performing
Shakspeare's characters, gathered and pre-
served few fading but important traditions
to those the assiduous investigation of more
than century and half has added the re-
cords of few other facts of hardly more
significance, and confirmation of those tradi-
tons; and this is all the faint and uncertain
light which fell from the past upon the man
whose works cast such blaze of ever bright
ening glory upon our literature"
Out of this little, taken in connection with
the invaluable public reeords-the Parish
registry of England-so stability neglected
here-and that which is irresistibly inferred
from the plays of Shakespeare, much is made
by the author whose work We have under
consideration.
Shakespeare married when eighteen wears
of age, Anne Hathaway, who was twenty
six. They were married upon once asking
of the banns, and the bond given for the Sc
curity of the Bishop of Worcester, for this
departure from custom, was dated on the 18th
of November, 1882. The first daughter of
the happy couple was baptised May rs, 1888,
not quite six months after the suspicious
marriage. The father of Shakspeare's wife
passed her without mention in his will,
though he carefully and infinitely remem-
bered all but one of his other children, and
Shakespeare himself bestowed upon her only
his Second best bed" probably the one she
slept upon. OF this well known circun-
stance Mr.. White remarks:
"a second best bed might be passed over;
but what can be done with second best |
thoughts? And second best, if good at all,
seem to have been all the thoughts which |
Shakespeare gave her; for there is not line |
of his writing known which can be regarded |
as addressed to her as maid or matron. Did
ever poet thus slight the woman thathe loved,
and that, too, during years Of separation?
His works are full of passages to write which,
if he had loved his wife and honored her,
would have been gall and wormwood-to his
soul; nay, which, if he had loved her, he
would not have written. The nature of the |
subject forbids the marshalling of this terri |
bic array, but did the fax wench whom
he uses for the most degrading of all COM
PARSONS, do more before her 80 plight |
than the woman who bore his and !
whom his children called mothefS
As to the unfortunate marriage of Shaks- |
peare, the author makes this reflection:
"a youth whose person, whose manner, |
and whose mental gifts have made him the |
admired favorite of some rural neighbor- |
hood, capivated ere he is yet man by some |
L. IL
ton, married and father before be should |
be well beyond fathers care, or bound as
much in honor, according to the matrimo- |
NAL code, as if he were married, developing |
into man Of mark and culture, attaining |
social position and distinction which would |
make him the welcome suitor Of the fairest |
and most accomplished woman of the circle |
into which he has risen, by right of worth |
and intellect, yet tied to one who is inferior |
to him in all respects, except, perhaps, |
in simple truthfulness, and who does not
poor creature, who cannot, if she would |
keen peace with him; and all that
the consequence of a boyish passion, |
which opposition might have confirmed, but
which tact and a little time--so little -
might easily have dissipated; this case so
pitiable $50 pitiable for both parties, even |
add to all this that the man was William
Shakespeare, and that he met his fate at only |
eighteen years of age, and that the woman
who came to him with a stain upon her
name, was eight years his senior, and could
we but think of their life and leave out the
worlds interest in him, should we not wish
that one Of them, even if itwere he, had
died before that ill-starred marriage%
1t is suggested that it would have been
impossible for Shakespeare to have written
passage in the Twelfth Night which he put
in Duke 0rsino's mouth, without thinking
of his own experience.
-" Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
SO sways she level in ner husbands heart,
For boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our faneies are more giddy and infrin.
More longing, wavering sooner lost and worn
Than womans are.
Then let thy love be younger than myself
Or thy affection cannot hold the heart"
In 1884 Shakspeare's twin children, Ham,