The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1890-10-30
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
THE PERSONAL o5ScURlTY OF THE
POET CONSIDERED.

General Appreciation in America-His
Bold Borrowings.
copyright by American Press Association
New YORK, Oct. 'I.-One of the most
extraordinary thing about the most ex-
traordinary man, William Shakespeare,
is that, wonderful as his genius is,
overshadowing as his reputation, we
know next to nothing of him per
sonally. We are even ignorant Of the
date of his birth; but the tradition
is that he was born on the day of the
month on which he died-April 23-and
that it is three hundred and twenty-siX
years since that event. 1t would not be
so strange if the poet had failed of APP
probation during his life, and his great
ness had been discovered by posterity.
But he was regarded as the first drama
fist of his own time, not by critics alone,
who are generally above their contempt
raries, but by the people who flocked to
see and enjoy his plays.
Not until nearly century after his
death was there any regular collection
or editing of his works; but since then
| he has been edited, corrected and inter-
| preted as no other mortal has ever BEEN
| That there has been anything intelligi-
BILE left of him is the best evidence Of
his marvellous power and significance.
Despite almost two hundred years of in
cessant investigation of everything even
remotely connected with him, the mys-
terry of Shakespeare, the man, is not a
whit abated. Not line of his manu-
script is extant beyond four of his sigma
lures, all of which are sacredly preserved
in London, and which will be remem-
bered by most Americans of culture and
travel. Even the spelling of his name
is in doubt-his blind signature does not
remove it-but he himself, as well as his
friend Ben Jonson, appears to have writ
ten it Shakespeare when they printed it.
In his day men wrote their names vari-
ously. He sometimes wrote his surname
Shakspere, and his contemporaries
spelled it in dozen different ways.
What claim to be portraits of him are
familiar to everybody, but the bulk of
these are copies of the Chandos picture,
which has no relation to the original.
The only representations that can lay
claim to authenticity are the well known
bust at Stratford and the Droeshout en-
craving. They are both very hard and
stiff, not answering at all to our ideal Of
the poet, but they have striking sim
litude, which Justifies their claim. They
who have studied Shakespeare have a
feeling and II half belief that he was
singularly handsome and distinguished.
If we could see him as he was in the
flesh we should doubtless find that he
looked very unlike the man ought to
look who had created Hamlet, Othello,
Lear. Eminent characters very seldom
bear the appearance we ascribe to them.
Alcibiades Aspasia, Julius Caesar, Cleo
patra must have been very different in
form and feature from what we fancy
them.
The facts of Shakespeare's life are poor
and few-that he was born at Stratford:
married at 10, for urgent reasons Anne
Hathaway, eight years his senior; hao
three children. one son and two daugh-
tiers; that he went to London to better
his fortunes; became an actor and a
dramatist; succeeded; returned to his
native place. died in n few years, and
was buried there. What meager rec
ord this for the mighty master, whose
name is immortal, whose fame, beyond
that of all others, fills every part of civil
cation! AS we detect almost nothing of
his personality in his plays-in this he
was supremacy dramatic-so he man
aged to hide his personality from the
world. He must have considered life
drama. He certainly treated it object
lively. All the indications are that he
had no concern for his plays after they
had served him in the theatre. There is
every reason to believe that he had no
hand in their publication; that they often
appeared without his consent, even with
out his knowledge. Yet he does not ap-
pear to have been wholly Indifferent to
fame, for he seems to have looked after
the printing of Venus and Adonis"
and "Lucrece," as we'll as his sonnets.
Remarkable as these are, or would be
were they by anybody else, they are
cheap and commonplace compared with
his matchless dramas.
This strange apparent want of dis
elimination, of literary judgment, has
been accounted for by his editors and
commentators on the ground that during
the Sixteenth and early in the Seven
teenth century plays and players were
held in no esteem, while poems proper
were very differently regarded. But
this fact hardly explains so incompre-
hensible neglect. Notwithstanding all
that has been said to the contrary,
genius is, and must be, self recognizing;
and why should the greatest genius of
all time fail to appreciate work that had
never been equaled? The question is
hard to answer. The necessary infer
ence is that he was either consciously
capable, or believed himself capable, of
so much higher achievements that what
he had achieved seemed of small conse-
quence. And this theory gives us Il more
exalted idea of his genius than do the
imperishable monuments he has left us.
1t makes the mind giddy to contemplate
the possibilities of his performance, if
he felt that he could afford to forego the
prodigious, deathless reputation which
his dramas must certainly secure him.