The record-union., 1896-04-05

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"Charlecote, or the Trial Of William
shakespeare" is by John Boyd Thacher,
Illustrated beautifully by Charles Louis
Hinton, and printed in the best style
Of topographic art by Dodd, Mead &
Co., New York. This is at once story
and a drama A most clever conceit
built upon that of Landor, but yet orig
inal in its method and thought. We
quote very literally from Mr.. Thacher's S
preface, which is at once defense and
introduction to a very charming tale,
an adroit drama, and a story of finish
and high literary excellence.
| Mr. Thacher excuses himself for
what may be thought literary vandal-
ism. Walter Savage Landor in his
Citation Of William Shakespeare" gave
to English literature one of it's master
pieces. The conceit of the poet Thacher
has appropriated, yet has so interviewer
1t with his own, and has so wrapped
1t about with original thought that it
is really no taking, for the adoption is
frankly confessed. Mr.. Thacher says:
| I'VE have appropriated the conceit of
Landor that in his early youth Shake
| speare was cited before Sir Thomas
Lucy, charged with the killing of a
deer in the Knights forest We have
taken his dramaltis personae and added
to the company the figure of Hannah
Hathaway. We have in a few instances
employed the very words found in his
work. We haverun the Landorian thread
IN and out of our own poor loom and
II the product be unsatisfactory it is be-
cause OF the imperfection of our me-
| chan1cal contrivanceS and the infelicity
or the workman. But here endeth our
| OFFENDING. The very richness of the
| poets fancy, the elegance of his die
tion, the loftiness of his style, the con-
stant presence of his personality, all are
gifts which belong to Landor alone and
which we can neither ape nor wear.
| when the Baconian theory of the
authorship Of Shakespeare's plays was
| first suggested it found some accept
ance because Of the unsubstantial sup
port on which rested the personality of
| Shakespeare. Information concerning
his life is meager and incomplete. Cloud
| and shadow hide from us his presence.
| Where men hear voice and behold no
figure they yield to uncertain fears and
doubt gets hold on them. Could a man
speak as he spake, utter such thoughts,
SO unfold natures secrets, so unriddle
the human heart, unless that man had
/ been part Of the lives of a multitude of
| his kind? Could such a man have
walked abroad without touching hun
dreds of other real men in his London
| life? Must not such a man have writ
| ten countless letters? Must he not have
somewhere registered his share in pass
ing events? Yet we know less of this man
than of any other literary character of
his age. We do not know he lived nor
with whom he lived. We do not know
how he looked in form and in feature.
| His mighty brain must have dwelt be-
| hind a high forehead and so men have
draw for us the Droeshout portrait. We
do not know in what he was like unto
! other men, nor in what he was differing
from other men. We have no specimen
Of his handwriting, unless 1t be found
among five disputed signatures.
Tradition has not been bold enough
to tread further on way in which fact
dare not venture. AS there are scarcely
| three authentic facts connected with
his career-beyond the record of his
christening, his purchase of property
and his death-so have there come down
| to US only about three traditions. He
perhaps killed a deer in Charlecote
| forest. He perhaps held the horse of
some courtier before the door Of play
house. He perhaps had a drinking bout
! with Ben Jonson in some country tav-
ern. And this is all-all Of fact and all
of tradition! History may have thought
| the elements of his soul too great to
suffer the relation of their union with
| the common existence of the body, and
so have swept from the record the do
ings of his life. To US Shakespeare is
a real man who once lived in real
world.
"Landor has taken one of these few
| traditions and treated it as a fact. He
| has thus become a historian and no
historian may have exclusive use of a.
| fact We have accepted this story Of
the slain deer and of Shakespeare's trial
before Sir Thomas Lucy. If we acknowl-
edge that the tale we here tell was first
made by Landor, we may justly expect
Landor to account for discrepancies and
apparent inaccuracies. If there was no
/ law against Devastating punishable
with death in the reign Of Queen Eliza
beth, the indictment was drawn by Lam
/ dor and the degree of the crime was
| fixed by him.
I'VE here try to represent Shake
speare, the youth, in three characters
| tic poses In the first scene we present
him as the lover, tender of affection and
true in constancy. We take more than
| lustrum from the years of Hannah
Hathaway, that the fire Of a more ar
dent look may be in her eye as she turns
/ her face loveward. If she Is shrewiSh,
neither Shakespeare nor we shall guess
| it, Arms Of love were never made so
strong that they could hold a soul like his
| in Stratford town, and we hear Shake
/ sreare revealing to Hannah the chal-
llenge his spirit hath had from the outer
world and for a larger life. In the sec
ond scene we present Shakespeare as
| the village neer-do-well, exchanging
badinage with the yokels in the forest.
He mocks but obeys the authority they
magnify In the third scene we have
repainted Landor's setting Of the trial,
and present the youth in the conscious
ness of his mental supremacy, playing
with the will and purposes of the Judge
| as deftly as Hamlet fingered the stops
of his flute. If his departure through