If the traveller looked from the town, he beheld the high road he was to traverse on leaving it, o'ercanopied by the forest scene without, whilst on entering the suburbs, the sloping roof, gable ends, and heavy chimneys were only here and there to be caught sight of amongst the living verdure in which they were embosomed.
Besides this, as he proceeded, the picture was added to by the various signs of the several trades, which proclaimed the occupation of the indwellers, and before many of the houses were placed long benches on which, in fine weather, the townsfolk were to be found seated, conversing cozily together in their quaint-cut doublets and steeple-crowned hats. Large tubs of water also, by order of the chief magistrate, were placed beside each dwelling, as a precautionary preventative against the spread of fire amongst these stout-timbered edifices. The highways, however, even in the outskirts of the town, were by no means so well cared for as in our own times, and in foul weather, in place of a well-paved or Macadamized thoroughfare, the road was knee-deep in mud, and cut up fearfully with cart wheels and other traffic of the time.
In what would now be called a small and somewhat mean-looking dwelling, but which in the reign of Elizabeth constituted the habitation of a good substantial citizen, resided John Shakespeare, a dealer in wool in Stratford-upon-Avon. The house itself had nothing in its outward appearance to recommend it, except the strength of its build and the stoutness of its timbers.
It was neither "a goodly dwelling or a rich." Its rooms were both stinted to space and somewhat low in roof. But little did its inmates suspect that from the mere legend of one of its indwellers having first drawn breath beneath its roof, that house would create more interest in the world than the most magnificent palace the world contained, and that in after-ages the four corners of the earth would send forth votaries to see, to worship, and to offer adoration at its shrine. And still less did its occupants imagine that in the person of one of their own children they possessed a treasure, whose very name, unthought of and slightly regarded as he then was, would prove dearer than Pluto's mine, more rich than gold.
Let us for a moment take a glance at the interior of this hallowed residence, and view it at the precise period of time to which the minds of those who now visit it are wont to revert; and when he who was in after-times to throw so great an interest over every cupboard, corner, and cranny of its stout-timbered walls, was in life, and dwelling idly in its apartments.
In an inner apartment of the ground-floor was seated on a high-backed oaken chair, a female of some thirty years of age. If the reader has ever bestowed his attention upon the portrait Rubens has left us of his first wife, it will save much trouble in the description, since both in feature and figure this very handsome middle-aged female was the counterpart presentment of that portrait.
Opposite to her, and apparently engaged with books and accounts pertaining to his business, pen in hand, and inditing what, in the present day, would be called a cramped piece of penmanship, sits a very comely and respectable-looking man. Nay, if we look closely at him we shall pronounce him to be a splendid specimen of an Englishman, both in countenance and figure. His face is exceedingly handsome, the complexion of a rich brown, the features high and aquiline, hair of a dark auburn, slightly tinged with grey, whilst a close-clipped curly beard worn round the chin, and a thick moustachio on the upper lip, complete the picture of one of those true-born English yeomen whose ancestors drew their arrows to the ear in the fields of Cressey, Poietiers, and Agincourt. If our readers then look upon this pair they will behold the father and mother of England's pride and glory, John and Joan Shakespeare.
In the female there is a dignity of look and manner which seems somewhat out of keeping with so lowly a home as the one we find her in. She looks one whose presence would have better suited the hall than the cottage. One come of gentle blood, and born to fortune instead of being the wife of a tradesman in a country town, handsome and genteel-looking as nature hath made that husband.—Such is in truth the case, as John Shakespeare married one of the daughters and heirs of Arden of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick.
This pair, however, were not the only occupants of the small inner apartment in which we have found them, as some half-a-dozen curly-headed varlets, male and female, of various ages, from three to ten, were sitting and sprawling about the floor, clambering upon chairs, exercising their lungs in concert, and ever and anon calling forth a short reproof or a caress from their handsome parents.
After a while, the wool-comber shuts up his books, places his pen in the inkstand, and folding his arms, remains wrapt in deep meditation.
There is something of care and anxiety in his countenance. His thoughts and cogitations, as he occasionally glances upon his good-looking spouse, and then watches the young fry upon the floor, become more troubled; and, apparently to hide the growing heaviness of his brow, he rises, walks into the shop in front, reaches down his steeple-crowned hat, and looks forth into the street—the little curly brood breaking cover as he opens the door, and bounding joyously into the sunshine in the streets.
As they do so, they are met, caught up, and kissed, (at least the younger ones,) by their elder brother, just now returning to his home.
"Ah, Will, good Will," cries one, "where have you been tarrying so long?" "Naughty truant Willy," cries another, "you've been rambling over to Warwick with Dick, the tanner's wild son, duck-hunting, I dare be sworn." "Nay," cries a third, "I know he has been otter-hunting all night in the river; see his staff is red with blood. Yon have brought us some skins, good William, hast thou not?"
"Nay, in good sooth, you varlets," said the elder brother, entering the door with the whole fry clinging round him, "I have neither wild fowl from the marshes, nor otters from the river; for none have I been in search of. I come home empty-handed this afternoon, for which you must forgive me."
"And where, then, hast thou been, William?" said his father, somewhat gravely. "This idle wandering life of thine will, I fear me, lead to nothing. Master Pouncet Grasp has fairly given me warning that he will have no more to do with thee. He complains that you keep no regular hours; you heed no orders or directions he gives; that you set him at naught, in sooth, and make his other lads more idle than yourself. Nay, he says you spoil his parchments, spill his ink in waste, and that, in truth, he must either be ruined or be rid of thee."
"Out upon the miserable scrivener," returned William, laughing. "I did but pen a stanza in place of drawing a lease, and lo! he has never forgotten it. But, in good sooth, dear father," continued the youth, "I fear me I shall never thrive in the office of Pouncet Grasp. I find the dry work of a copying-clerk but an idle waste of the life Heaven hath blessed me with. I was not formed to draw leases, wills, and other tenures and tricks of lawcraft.
"Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two girls, which hath the merrier eye—
I have, perchance, some shallow spirit of judgment;
But in the nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a jackdaw."
"Thou canst rhapsodize at a good rate, my son," said the father, "that I well know. But in good truth thou must turn over a new leaf with Lawyer Grasp, or he will turn thee off, William!"
"Nay," urged the youth, "since we have entered upon this matter, I must tell thee, father, that never since the pupil age of Adam was there poor wight more unfitted for a lawyer than myself; my pen runs riot when I put it upon parchment; I cannot indite the undoing of the widow and the orphan, even when the foul copy lies before my nose. I turn a writ into a love-song, and when I should copy out an ejectment, lo! I find I have penned the words of a madrigal."
"The more the pity, William," said the father, "for to speak sooth to thee, I find myself by no means in so thriving a condition as I could wish. There be a many of us now in family, great and small. Business slackens with me, and in good sooth, lad, an I do not better in the next three months than I have done the last, I may e'en close my books, shut the house, and stick up bills to let the premises. Ruin, William, stares me in the face, if matters mend not anon. A bad time such