309 XXVIII. LAST SCENE OF ALL. HALLAM has remarked that the latter productions of Shakespeare are imbued with a feeling of gloom, as if his mind. had undergone a change, and saw life from a darker point of view. He had reached an age when we all grow staider and think more soberly, and both his experiences of the few previous years and his own situation were calculated to produce such a result. In the height of his success he was reminded of the instability of earthly fortune by the death of his only son; the grave was next opened for his father; and he already saw it yawning for himself. It is impossible to misinterpret the allusions in his sonnets: "No longer mourn for me when I am dead, And he evidently looks to an early dissolution: "In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by."2 Coleridge considers this passage to intimate that he was in a decline; but such a view is not reconcilable with his appearance in the bust in Stratford church, which Chantrey pronounced to be taken from a cast after death. There the face is full and plump, indicating a man inclined to corpulency-with fat capon lined. Nor does the verse apply to the nourishment derived from food. It points to his blood, which should nourish, but consumed him, whence we may believe that he was subject to internal hæmorrhage, and, indeed, the word "comsumed" suggests consumption rather than decline. Here we see him, then, in broken health, and familiar with sorrow, while he still toiled with his pen, and it is no wonder that a reflection of this feeling is apparent in what he writes. The death of his son left him without inducement to continue his exertions when he had acquired a competence; and he instantly began his preparations to retire, purchasing New Place in the following year. Other purchases followed, as we have seen; and in 1605 a mighty effort completed the task he had set himself. It is all but certain that he then produced three of his noblest playsMacbeth,''King Lear,' and 'Cymbeline.' We venture to look upon Cymbeline' as his latest production; and, indeed, the dirge over Imogen seems to announce his retirement in a manner that would be understood by his friends : : The last lines of the dirge apply to himself, far more than to Imogen : "Quiet consummation have; And renowned be thy grave! "2 No renown could attach to the grave of a nameless fugitive, whose very sex was unknown; but how striking are the words in connection with Shakespeare !1 The "wages" that he took home were little more than the thousand pounds he received from Southampton. The whole of the purchases of property he is known to have made scarcely exceeds that amount,' so that he could never have obtained high prices for his plays; and the report of Vicar Ward that he wrote two plays a year after his retirement to Stratford and sold them for 5007. each, is a pure fable. None of his plays can be proved to be written later than 1605. As for his means, his largest investment was the lease of the Stratford tithes, which yielded him an annuity of sixty pounds for sixty-one years, subject to a proportion of a rent-charge of twenty-seven pounds thirteen and fourpence a year, which he was to pay jointly with the other lessees; and this, at its outside value, was not more than 1907. of our money. His income from all sources may be estimated at about 3007. a year of the present currency. "Quiet consummation!" He wanted no recognition from princes, and no coats of arms from Dethick-not even riches, but just enough, and quiet. As for courts, and gilded honour, and the strifes of the world, with its corruptions and oppressions, and the spectacle of "captive good attending captain ill," he was tired with all these, and takes leave of them in this very play. He found no pleasure but in being on the spot where he had passed the innocent days of childhood, before he dreamt of such seared wisdom. So we imagine him pacing his garden at New Place, where he can see over the wall as he walks right into the chapel, exposed to view by its noble windows, and there he may mark the very place where he stood as a boy before Thomas Jenkins. Now it was changed, like himself: the gloom in his mind. rested, indeed, on the whole town. Where now were the sheep-shearers, the morris dancers, the merry shooters at the 1 This estimate includes a house and premises near the Blackfriars theatre, purchased in 1612-13. It is not known that he ever possessed any share in the theatre itself, the only evidence on this point having been pronounced a fabrication; and no mention is made of such property in his will. butts? The Puritan who sang Psalms to hornpipes had driven them out. The Earl of Leicester's players would receive no welcome from the High Bailiff; for as early as 1602, it was decreed by the firm of Quiney, Sturley, and Co., who were the present Corporation, that "there shall be no plays or interludes played in the chamber, the guildhall, nor in any parts of the house or court," and anybody who "gave leave or licence thereunto was to be fined ten shillings. But the townsmen of Shakespeare were stubborn on this point, and it was deemed necessary to make a more stringent decree, which raised the penalty to twelve shillings. No sooner had Shakespeare taken up his abode at New Place, than the Puritans made a set at Stratford. His ridicule of their "bibble-babble" in "Twelfth Night,' wounded them in the tenderest point, their gift of exorcism, and they doubtless looked upon the town as lost, if left under his influence. The task of conversion was lightened for them by the efforts already made by the Corporation, and by two fires, which providentially almost destroyed Stratford for its lukewarmness in the cause-" chiefly for profaning the Lord's day, and contemning His Word by the mouth of His faithful minister," and the parochial register records the fate of one offender after this kind:-"1601, April 27, buried Thomas Bailey, slain at the sign of the Swan upon the Sabbath day, at the time of the sermon, being there drinking." The sign of the SWAN! the very tavern where in old time Sir Thomas Lucy, and my Lady, and Mr. Sheriff, had drunk their sack, and where Sir Thomas had consumed his burnt sugar, and which was the emblem of Shakespeare himself. But now there were to be no more such doings. The Corporation had grown virtuous, and spent the money in bribery and sermons. Dr. Harris, of Banbury, came in haste to 1 Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments.' their aid, and as a supplement to the ordinary services, established a fortnightly lecture in the church. Nicholas Bifield, the Vicar, was also very active, and Davies calls Shakespeare a "papist," because he discountenanced their innovations. No one has instanced the refutation of this assertion in the explicit declaration in his will-"I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the ONLY MERITS of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." But he never swerved from his old maxims of charity. Tradition still marks the pew in which he sat in the Guild Chapel ; an entry in the Corporation accounts refers to his entertainment of one of the Puritan lecturers; and on the 5th June, 1607, he gave the hand of his eldest daughter to a Puritan leader, John Hall, a physician at Stratford. The sermons under the new system must have been of prodigious length, for they were thirsty work, and the preacher who was the guest of Shakespeare received from the Corporation a ration of "a quart of sack, and a quart of claret wine," so that he might be said to have "drowned his tongue in sack." The fee paid for the supply would say little for Shakespeare's hospitality, if the guest were anyone but a Puritan preacher, between whom and himself there could be nothing in common. Tradition, indeed, reports that he had become very religious, but we can imagine no period of his life when he was uninfluenced by such a feeling, and even the lapse of his youth at Bidford brought out his reverence for Sunday. But what religion could he see in a man who refreshed his spiritual energies with half a gallon of sack and claret? His own was to repeat day by day prayers divine," to teach and practise forgiveness and charity, and to raise his soul by the contemplation of its 66 16 |