SHAKSPERE'S TIMES.

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traveller, and Half-can who stabbed Pots. Costard and Bottom might have been rustics of Stafford, and Sir Nathaniel and Sir Oliver Martext hedge priests not a mile from Warwick.

In the Tempest we find him talking of the "Dead Indian," and such penny shows as were to be seen any day in Fleet Street or the Strand, and somewhat akin to that motion of the Prodigious Son that Autolycus once compassed: the serenades in the Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline were strains heard at a hundred terrace windows any bright morning of the Elizabethan year: the porter in Macbeth is just such a porter as whipped out Lance's dog, when he misbehaved himself in the Duke's chamber: Madam Silvia wears the Elizabethan fardingale, just as the ladies mentioned by Bassano wear wigs as Shakspere's noble mistress herself did: the Shrew has ruffs, and cuffs, and scarfs, and fans, and beads, and amber bracelets, like any lady that swam down the terraces of Windsor, swan-like in white satin: Hero's wedding dress, cloth of gold laced with silver, set with pearls, and underlaid with bluish tinsel, would have become Elizabeth herself: Slender brags of his feats at bear-beating, and how he took Saccarson by his chain: Henry VI. is full of allusions drawn from the scenes in the Paris Garden adjoining Shakspere's Theatre: Slender the simpleton is

cunning of fence like Mercutio: and Sir Andrew Aguecheek uses the phrases of Saviolo and the fencing masters of the day: Pistol mouths scraps of plays just as the play-going bullies used at the Three Cranes in the Vintry or at the Devil in Fleet Street: Dr. Caius is the French physician of the day, just as Sir Armado is the conventional Spaniard, Shylock the conventional Jew, and Evans the conventional Welshman: Mother Pratt of Brentford is a white witch, the mere fortuneteller of the age, just as the Macbeth spirits are beings of the same family elevated into poetry, but still working with the vulgar machinery of such witches as Hopkins gave over to the flames, or James I. denounced: the German rank riders, who take in mine host of the Garter, only carried out a well-known cony-catching trick of the seventeenth century: Autolycus, first a pedlar, then a cutpurse, might have stood in a London pillory with Nym and Bardolph, who were stealers of cloaks at taverns: the Windsor Fairies, like those of the Midsummer's Night, had not yet fled at the first shriek of the railway whistle, and were still visible to the believing. Shakspere is full of London allusions: in the Merry Wives of Windsor he mentions Bucklersbury and Pickthatch; in another play Smithfield; in Henry IV., Moorditch and Finsbury; in Henry VIII., Moorfields; in Henry VI.,

SHAKSPERE'S GALLANTS.

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Fish Street, St. Magnus, and London Stone, and Temple Gardens.

His articles of food are of the age: Banbury cheese, and stewed pruins, and burnt sack, and possets, and cakes, and ale, pippins, and cheese, and curds, and creams. The money he talks of is ducats, and groats, testoons, and mill sixpences, spur rials, and Edward shovel boards. His rustic sports are maypole dancing, and nine men's morris, and bowls, loggats, archery, bear-baiting, cudgel-playing, and wrestling, or bringing in the May and December boughs. His musical instruments are soft recorders and hautboys, viol-de-gambos, the theorbo virginals, and drums, and trumpets, and the "ear-piercing fife." He talks of the Star Chamber, and the headsman, the hangman, the torturer, the stocks, and the beadles' whips. His kings rule absolutely, and he is feudal and aristocratic. He talks of the Puritans in Twelfth Night, and Timon of Athens, and of the bygone faith affectionately through the mouths of many monks and priests. All his gallants dance, and sing, and fence, and quibble, and prattle, and pun. The mask in the Tempest is such a court mask as Jonson might have written; and the plays in Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Taming the Shrew are performed by such strolling actors as overran every county of England. Jesters, such as Touchstone

and Sir Oliver, were still to be found sunning themselves in country gentlemen's courtyards, chatting with Marias or teasing Malvolios. Romeo's friend and Sir Andrew both talk scraps of fashionable French and quote Spanish. Sir Nathaniel, the Schoolmaster, and Evans the village curate, speak Latin; and Holofernes knows Italian. Sir Andrew's duel, Benedict's challenge, and Mercutio's death, were daily incidents of a period when the duello was a science. King John is a controversial Protestant, and Iago a sceptic of the Reformation age. The Watchmen in Much Ado about Nothing, and Measure for Measure, are the rug-gowned billmen who guarded Aldersgate or Temple Bar. Cleopatra on the Cydnus is Queen Elizabeth passing from Whitehall to Greenwich, attended by the same perfumes, silks, gilded barges, and shouting crowds. His gardens, and terraces, and orchards, and pleached bowers are all Elizabethan.

His salutations, "God dig you good den!" "Bless thee!" "Save you!" "Now, good Master, give you good morrow, sir!" "Madam and Mistress, a thousand good morrows!" are all phrases that might have been heard at Hampton Court or Theobald's. We have the country justice of the time (Shallow); the small country gentlemen (Ford and Page); the young country gull (Aguecheek); the fool (Touchstone); the town gallant (Mercutio);

the court gallant (Benedict); the waiting-woman (Maria) ; the steward (Malvolio); the serving-man (Peter); the page (Robin); the housekeeper (Mrs. Quickly); the statesman (Polonius); the fop (Osrick); the tinker (Sly); the pedlar (Autolycus); the weaver (Bottom); the merchant (Antonio); the village pedant (Holofernes); the malcontent (Jacques); the usurer (Shylock); the tavern wit (Falstaff); the disbanded soldier (Parolles); the town doctor (Caius); the hedge priest (Sir Oliver); the landlord (of the Garter); the drawer (Francis); besides 'prentices, cooks, musicians, nurses, thieves, carriers, — all of the age in which he lived. He quotes the ballads of his day: "Jephtha and his Daughter; “The King and the Beggar;" "The Humour of Forty Fancies;" "Fire, fire, Jack boy, ho boy." His domestic scenery is that of his own house: the rushes are strewed, the jacks and jills cleaned, the carpets laid, and the serving-men in new fustian and white stockings, their blue coats brushed, and their hair sleek combed: he has ivory coffers with Turkey cushions bossed with pearl, arras of purple, and valance of Venice.

His ceremonies are Elizabethan: muscadel is drunk in the church after the wedding; rosemary handed round at funerals, gloves and favours at his bridals. He has

hints, too, of the New World, in the Tempest, Merry