The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-17

WI The sTrue storyr Of Her Life, Done Up
in the Stowe Style. nN

~ seized the occasion Of the ByronStowe scan
dal 10 exercise his power of satire, to display
his knowledge of Shakespeare and to show
w" his wit, by torturing the words of the great
lv at poet into elf-acousahons Of secret crime Il
a. has always been supposed that the domestic
relations of William Shakespeare and Anne
sc ENQr Hathaway were of the pleasantest Sort and
whether or not the reader of this brochure
main of that opinion, they viii certainly
smile at the plausibility of the authors theory
TO the contrary. 1t is amusing as literary
curiosity; and the critical reader viii find in
n n enough merit to condone for the erroneous
n imputation as to the motives Of the author of
the ssTroe Story of Lord and Lady Byron. y
ulutr Although it cannot be denied that the inn
proved taste and higher moral sense OF the
sNetl ~ more educated closses both in England and
,.,, America. have completely driven the plays of
William Shakespeare from the stage yet this
advance is unfortunately more than counter
balanced by the enormous increase OF cheap
editions of his works, daily issuing from
cfoi9 corrupt and venal press thus bringing the
uvna nnredecting populace and guileless youth
,s,--, of both countries again under the power of
ftf5si that brilliant and seductive genius, from
~ which it was hoped they had escaped nAt
In order still further to easnare and allure
t, the thouqhtless, these cheap editions are too
often garnished with biographical notices OF
t'.. the authors life described in garish and at
-s.s tractive language; and the editors OF these
dangerous works, not content with exalting
to the skies genius only too likely to en-
chant and entlral the unwary, endeavor to
blind the Judgment of the unthinking reader.
bV
some aduation lavished upon Mr.. Shake
speare by the boon companions of the tavern
wherein he accustomed to seek Oblivion
of the dark thoughts by which his soul was
haunted, in the widest excesses OF madden
ing intoxcation
Thus it is upon the authority of his fellow
rioters that we repeatedly told that he
'aaA ~ f-Aas "cenfle spirit from whose pen
Large Of honey and sweet nectar now"
qelf "The man whom Natures self had
Te mock herself and Truth to initiate .t8S
WEN Our pleasant Why 'T
'''' Truth to smState! we shall presently see
with fell intent. Again, it has been said.
"a genter shepherd nowhere may be found"
"a & Such is the magic of genius even when the
go ~ life of its possessor is known to have been
one of lewd and unhallowed riot, that it is
fact that the poets personality, fate, and hap
piress have had interest for the whole
civilized world, which we will venture to say was
fe unparalleled 1t is within the writer's recol-
lection how, in the obscure mountain town
where she spent her early days, the life of
crUoa William Shakespeare had penetrated, and the
belief in the genAeaess of 'fancy's child"
- t,,. universal ,s.f 81 s-s-.r strf y tr-
~ All this while it does not appear to occur to
thse ~ the thousands of unreaectng readers that
they are listening merely to the story of his
fellow-mummers and that the one witness
tI whose evidence would be best worth having
has neoer spoken at all. Nay, more, this wit
ness, this unhappy but devoted soJe, who was
a being possessed of almost supernatural
sesss power Of moral divination, and grasp of the
very highest and most comprehensive things,
that made her HghteSt opinions Slngularly
sen impressive, has been assumed to have been
68ssfaa unworthy of her accomplished husband; and
sep1gtg the artless Mr.. Moore, in his life of the
tgtlt8 lately -unmasked demon, Lord Byron, thus
t8gi aludes to this angelic 'woman:-s' By
tes9ee whatever austerity of temper habits the
teynN poets Dante and Milton may have drawn upon
t3t3AR themselves such fate, it might be expected
that the gentle Shakespeare would have
os1sl' stood exempt from the common calamity of
his brethren. But amongst the very few
~ facts of his life that have been transmitted to
,.. us, there is more clearly proved than the
~NVr unhappiness of his marriage"
c,.,ee It was of this one witness, whose faithful
lips were sealed by affection, and of her terri
esesos, BILE existence while her husband roting
in London, shut up in the lonely country
home made hideous to her by her knowledge
etais of the dark and guilty secret hidden within
its wallis that the poet was evidently thinking
when he wrote the awful lines ~
3e@ "But that I forbid h
iss ss sssss aaS % % sStsst word
81 Would harrow up my soul;p =
but she remained silent, even to her own pa
ee rents. whose feelings she magnanimousy
The veil which has hitherto covered this
etf dark history may now be withdrawn The
time has come when the truth may be told.
All the actors in the scene have long disap-
peared from the stage of mortal existence,
and passed. let us have faith to hspe, into q
world where they would desire to expiate their
faults by instituting-did not the lapse of
time unfortunately render all scientific inyes-
igation useless-d coroner's inquest upon TIE
saan remains which, several centuries earlier,
ao0asld have been found beneath certain
crab and certain mulberry tree, in the vici-
eerf nifty of Stratford-u -upon-Avon.
eeus From the height at which he might have
been happy az q most successful dramatist
eeie and the husband of almost divine woman
Mr. Shakespeare fell into the depths of secret
sei criminal homicide, sssisted in the latter part
of his career, by blood relation--discovery
must have been utter ruin and expulsion from
civilized society.
From henceforth this guilty, damnine
secret became the ruling force of his life
holding him with morbid fascination, yet
hlling him with remorse and anguish and in
dreadof detection His various friends
stc seeing that he was wretched, pressed mar
rIanar NM hilnl