Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-07

SANC SAiilldtiuti. w Hdt CEetl THIS expert
ence must have had upon him, almost every
man can measurably judge. We know how
Robert Burns, that inspired peasant, was
bewildered by brief dranght of like intox-
ication. But over Burns Shakespeare had
not alone the advantage of superior genius.
Selfpoised, reserved, instinct with tact, (this
is no more than inference, but inference that
to us is moral certainty, he was no inspired
peasant, and bore himself 50 unexceptionably
that no woman, whatever her rank or her
refinement, who looked on him with favor,
was put to shame by his weakness, his ex-
travagance or his excentricity. That there
shoald be such women was inevitable Ira
dition tells us that he went yearly to Strait
ford, where he left his wife and children.
This may well have been. The interests
which he looke,l after so carefully would
be likely to take him into the society of his
wife once in twelve-month.
Tradition also tells Us thaton his way bsck
and forth, on these dutiful journeys, he used
to stop in Oxford, at the Crown Tavern.
which was kept BY John Davenant, a grave
and melancholy citizen, who had to wife q.
beautiful and charming woman. Sir Viii
liam Davenant, who was born in February,
1866, was her son; and Shakespeare, il is
said, was his godfather And the story goes
that one day an old townsman, seeing Will
running homeward in great haste to see his
godfather Shakespeare, told him to be careful
lest he took Gods name in vain. This may
all be true; but story essentially the same
is not uncommon in very old jest-books. In
deesi, the humorous bubble is so apparent
and so inviting, that, il the tale is not as old
as the custom of having fathers, il is only be
cause it cannot be older than that of having
godfathers. Now Sir William Davenant
gave countenance to thisreport of his origin;
but what credit shall be given to the testimo-
ny of man who would welcome an asper-
sion upon his mothers reputation for the
sake of being believed to write, by inheri-
lance, with the very spirit Of Shakespeare
as he said he thought he did. Davenant
was morally poor creature, and in this he
only lid his kind.
Another story is told of Shakspeare's
fortunes with the sex. Having been long
current as tradition, it was afterwards
found recorded in Manninghams diary
among the Ashmolean MSS, under the
date, March 18th, 1901. 1t is, that woman,
Z a citizen seeing Richard Burbadge, the
great actor of the day, play Richard I'LL,
was so carried away by her admiration that
she asked him to visit her after the play
an invitation to supper from ladies to favor
lite actors being then not uncommon. Shaks-
peare overheard the appointment, (the Gus
tom of admitting spectators upon the stage
during the performance must again be re-
membered), and, resolving to supplant his
friend. went to the rendezvous before him,
announced himself as the crooked-backed
tyrant, and was as successful as his own hero
in winning female favor under adverse cir
cumlstances. Burbadge arrived soon after,
and, sending word that Richard III. was at
the door, received for answer, from source
as to which he could have had no doubt,
that William the Conqueror was before
Richard ILL.,
But it was not BY adventures of this
kind that soul like Shakspeare's could be
satisfied nor was it under the influence Of
women Of this sort that with the advance of
years striking change took place in the
traits of his female characters. For it is re-
that in bis earliest plays, those
written when his Stratford "reminiscences
we're freshest, the women are the reverse of
loveable and gentle. But after few years
Of London life had widened his observation
and mitigated his experience, there came
such a change over his creatures of this
that it is praise enough of any, the fair, /,
now and sweetest, to say she is like one Of
women. Surely not to chance,
and as surely to no evolution from the
depths of moral consciousness, is due the
differences between the women in Henry VI,
The Comedy Of Errors, Titus AdroRicus, and
Loges Ldbor's Lost, and those in the later
plays Nor could it have been merely the |
fruit of maturing judgment. For very
young men, and, most Of all, young poets, |
IRE sure to see women only with the minds |
eye through the soft lustre of those charms
which bewilder even the better instructed,
though perhaps not wiser, apprehension Of
prosaic age.
Shakspeare's mind, like Raphaeps, fur
nished forth his own ideas; but there can
be no reasonable doubt that it was in the
high-bred cultivated women into whose
society his noble and worshipful admirers
.ook him that ne found his female models.
From among these women did he go forth
with heart unscathed Among them all,
was there not one who felt that, although
she perhaps was of noble birth, that player,
though not her lord, was master of her
heart? OF the many courtly danes who
hen gave up all, even their good name, for
men they loved, was there not one who
knew the worth of Shakespeare? He, with
l painters eye for beauty, and poets soul |
or passion, who could read women's hearts |
rs in mirror, alive to all the charms of |
cultivated society, and illustrating them in |
MS person, and with a rustic wife eight years
,lder than himself away off in Stratford-he
With honey upon his tongue as well as in
his pen, of such winning ways that men
allied him sweet, and sfhf Ben. Jonson's |
leart went out to him-handsome and |
yell-shaped too-is il in mans nature,
$ it in woman's nature, that he should |
rot have loved and been beloved in |
London Z? Let only those who have |
read his sonnets answer. For |
whatever NAV have been the motives Of |
hose mysterious compositions, which alter
,ately beguile us with their seeming revela- |
ions of simple fact, and battle us with the |
hidden presentation Of impossibility, there |
,eals beneath their artificial surface a pulse |
# passion so profound, there comes from be- |
lind their impenetrable veil cry Of anguish |
% personal as well az so human, that reason |
eeks in vain to stife the intuitive convic- |
ion that in them we are face TO face and eye |
o eve with the man Shakespeare, reading, |
hough but vaguely eomprehending, the in
most secrets of his heart. They may not be
he record of his souls experience but they |
urely are its witness. They may possibly |
ave been written for others, but they are Of /
himself. They lack entirely the dramatic
dement, and tell an individual story and
10 such living, feshly birth as they ever
ook life from anothers joy, or was brought
orth by vicarious suffering.
"To what period Of Shakspeare's life we
ire to assign these sonnets canpot be decided.
lie had written some sonnets before 1898,
because in that year Meres mentioned GER
ain 'sugared sonnets among his private
riends. But were they these? These tell
# dear, a trusted and faithless friend, Of
mistress loved in spite Of reason and in the
eeth of conviction. Are these the sort Of
literary exercises that Shakespeare would be
ikeIy TO hand around among his curious,
riticising friends? Or if they revealed the
ecrets of another's heart, would he be inclined
o have them submitted 10 such publicity?
The date of their publication makes il GER
ain that these sOnnets were all written be-
ore Shakespeare was forty-fve years old and
hey probably were produced between his
hirtieth and his fortieth year. Thomas
rhorpe's dedication tells us absolutely
Iothing of their origin; only that there was
secret about il that has never been re-
'ealed. Could either Of those other persons
Fhom they concern have become 80 reduced
$ TO make merchandise OF them, or have
zen so small-sonled az to seek notoriety
bronsh their unkl icatiou7 Sadder stranger