THE HOUSE KNOWN AS SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE.

THE recent purchase by trustees created by act of Parliament for the preservation of Shakespeare relics of the Anne Hathaway cottage recalls the matters and things which had led previously to the purchase of the house in Henley Street, known, and very properly so, as the house in which William Shakespeare was born.

We say, "very properly so known," since, although there is the preliminary doubt-growing from the long state of truly British neglect. in which all Stratford-on-Avon matters connected with the actual life of Shakespeare remained-the records in this case point to genuineness.

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When Dr. Johnson said that the death of David Garrick eclipsed the gayety of nations," he was only indulging in one of his sonorous hyperboles. Garrick was not known out of England, nor outside of that not very grand division which constituted its theatre-goers in the eighteenth century. What reputation Garrick may be said to have had, or to have to-day, among "nations" comes from the fact that, from whatever motive, he did first call attention to the Stratford vestiges of Shakespeare, and so first suggest their preser

vation.

In the year 1769 Garrick, who had found the stage still resonant of Shakespeare, and Hamlet and Richard III. its standards then as now, conceived the idea of going down to William Shakespeare's birth-town,

236 HOUSE KNOWN AS SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE.

and there holding a series of pageants to constitute a jubilee in the great dramatist's honor. Dr. Halliwell-Phillipps is right in speaking very contemptuously of this jubilee, and is warranted, we think, in intimating that the jubilee was proposed more as an advertisement to the living David Garrick than to a glorification of the dead William Shakespeare. Indeed a résumé of the programme seems to suggest as much. "The opening of the celebration," says Dr. Halliwell-Phillipps, "having been announced in early morning by a cannonade, the lady visitors were serenaded in rotation by young men attired in fancy costume, and when everybody had thus been thoroughly aroused Garrick was presented by the corporation with a medal and a wand, both made from relics of the famous mulberry tree, bells and cannon announcing the actor's acceptance of the gifts. Then there were. public feasts, more serenading, an oratorio at the church, elaborate processions, masquerade balls, illuminations, fireworks, horse-races and an unlimited supply of drummers. In the midst of this tomfoolery the presiding genius of the show recited an ode in praise of the great dramatist." But even this was more than had been done before.

This jubilee was in 1769. At that date there stood in Henley Street the tenement of which our frontispiece (from a picture made in 1708) is an accurate semblance. It had been mentioned in one Winter's plan of Stratford as "the house where Shakespeare was born." We know now, principally from Dr. Halliwell-Phillipps' exhaustive investigations, that this house and one other were purchased by John Shakespeare, the dramatist's father, in 1556. The fact of this purchase being established, the selection of this particular house as the actual birthplace of William Shakespeare seems to have been acquiesced in upon Garrick's arrival in Stratford with his jubilee. And the house he saw is the one represented in the frontispiece of the present number of SHAKESPEARIANA. That Garrick's disinterestedness did not extend further than the glorification of the memory of the dramatist is apparent from the fact that he left the old house as it stood: remaining in private hands; so that, as appears by our view of the premises in 1806, it was on that date an inn. And it remained in private hands until the proposition of the late Mr. Barnum in 1849 to purchase the building and transport it intact to the United States roused up the British pride in their greatest poet, and proceedings were taken by which the premises passed by auction into the hands of a committee of gentlemen, who in their turn in 1866 surrendered the legal estate, under a public trust, into the hands of the corporation of Stratford.

MISTRESS QUICKLY OF WINDSOR.

THAT the fact of Mistress Quickly, housekeeper to Dr. Caius of Windsor, having the same name as the hostess of the Boar's Head tavern at Eastcheap should induce most readers of Shakespeare to identify the two women as one and the same person is not surprising. That scholars and commentators of Shakespeare should fall into the same error is as incomprehensible as it is that most of them admit being entirely at sea concerning the period in Falstaff's career at which his adventures at Windsor are supposed to have taken place, although the author seems to have taken especial pains to fix the time beyond all peradventure.

In the very first scene of the Merry Wives, Justice Shallow informs us that he had come over from Gloucester to make complaint before the Council against Sir John Falstaff for having beaten his men, killed his deer and broken open his lodge. Now as we learn from 2 Hen. IV., iii. 2, that Sir John Falstaff's requisition upon Shallow for recruits when on his way to join the army in Yorkshire was the occasion of their first meeting since the former was a boy and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and the latter a law student at Clement's Inn; and as Falstaff stopped at Gloucestershire on his way home when the campaign was over, to pay Shallow a visit, and on the very evening of the day of his arrival, the news brought by Pistol of the king's death caused both of them to set off post-haste to London to offer their allegiance and congratulations to his successor, there was no time during the life of King Henry IV. when the quarrel between them could possibly have arisen, and therefore the events recorded in the Merry Wives of Windsor must have occurred during the reign of King Henry V. That monarch came to the throne in March, 1413, and as he did not start on his expedition to France until some time in 1415 and Falstaff died just before the army embarked, we have a period of about two years during which his adventures at Windsor could have taken place. In the last scene of 2 Henry IV. (3255 F.) the new king says to Falstaff,

"When thou dost hear I am as I have been,

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil;

And as we hear you do reform yourselves, we will, according to your strength and qualities, give you advancement;"

and then says to the lord chief justice,

"Be it your charge, my lord,

To see performed the tenour of our word."

The chief justice begins to perform the duty thus imposed upon him by directing his attendants to "carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet," and to "take all his company with him; " but as there were no accusations of a criminal character then pending against any of them, we may presume that this arrest was merely a precautionary measure to keep them out of the king's way during the coronation festivities, then in progress, and until definite arrangements could be made for Sir John's future residence. It will be remembered that Falstaff had just borrowed from Shallow a thousand pounds, which the latter was very anxious to get back before his debtor could have an opportunity to spend them. How they and the chief justice finally arranged matters we are not informed, but from the facts that Shallow, in reciting afterward the wrongs done him by Falstaff, makes no reference whatever to the money he had borrowed, and that the latter admits himself to have been the aggressor in their quarrel, the natural inference would be that Falstaff had been somehow induced to return the money, and that Shallow thereupon took him back to Gloucestershire, where, after remaining for a while, he picked a quarrel with his former entertainer, and then came over to Windsor and put up at the Garter Inn. His reason for going to Windsor was manifestly to be near the court, and thus able to take advantage of any opportunity that might offer to ingratiate himself once more, if possible, with the king. Although he could not venture to thrust himself again into the royal presence without permission, yet he doubtless hoped that chance might some time bring him face to face with his comrade of former days and afford another opportunity of exercising over him once more the spell of his irresisti ble humor.

As time rolled on, however, and the wished-for opportunity did not come, he found himself getting very short of funds to meet his current expenses, and so resolved to turn away some of his followers and reduce his establishment to himself "and skirted page." The readiness of mine host of the Garter to take Bardolph into his employ as a tapster, and the voluntary proffer by Sir Hugh and Master Page of their services to affect an amicable settlement of his controversy with Justice Shallow, indicate the prevalence at Windsor of a general anticipation that Sir John might once more be restored to the royal favor. We can well understand that Falstaff, who had upon a former occasion (1 Henry IV., iii. 2, 2179 F.) recorded his dislike to "paying back," must have refunded Justice Shallow's thousand pounds with great reluctance, but as the latter and the chief justice had him at a