-
Articles/Ads
Article SHAKSPERE, HIS FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. ← Page 3 of 7 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Shakspere, His Friends And Acquaintances.
Judging from my OAVU experience , and from my closest observation of others , as well as from the accounts I haA'e read of most men who have really distinguished themselves for anything good , I should most unhesitatingly say , that the great bard , in all probability , owed most of that lovable nature , Avhich won for him , from his contemporaries , the highly honourable title of the " gentle Shakspere , " almost entirely to his mother , the Mary Arden Avhom the once substantial John Shakspere had won , from her pleasant Wilmcote home , to be his bride , little thinking that , she was to give birth to , and
nurture , a son Avhose fame will last until "the crack of doom . " They who feel an interest in the Avelfare of the human race , as every Freemason professes to do , should look most assiduously to the true education of the future wives ancl mothers of their country ; for on them mainly depends the training of its citizens , Avhen their plastic minds are susceptible of indelible impressions for good or for evil . That Mary Arden must have exercised a beneficent influence over " gentle Willie " is a firm faith of mine , and one may see its reasonableness confirmed through all his productions .
Ancl next in order I Avould take that Anne Hathaway , of whom he sings so SAveetly m his Sonnets ; to win whom his footsteps have doubtless often paced that pleasant footpath from Stratford to Shottery : and her house at Shottery , though least visited by my brother Shaksperean pilgrims , is realty the most genuine , because least tampered with , relic of the poet , except his monument and the Shakspere graves in the chancel of the fine old church by the willow-fringed Avon . For the birthplace of the poet had been
-awfully transmogrified—part into a public-house , and part into a butcher ' s shop—and though noAV properly enough restored to its former appearance , is necessarily partly neAV . The wife of his bosom , the mother of his children , and surviving him seven years , during Avhich time the Stratford monument , as Ave learn from Ben Jonson ' s verses , had been erected ( most probably by her ) , I look upon it as a piece of doAvnright impertinence for anyone to write and speak , as many have done , and some still do , about Shakspere ' s
being an unhappy marriage , seeing that there is not the skacloAv of a proof of the assertion , but every reason to believe that they Avere as clear to each other Avhen Death did them part , as ever they Avere when the priest made them one . The fact is that , on its being first noticed by some Avould-be clever writers that the Avise bard had only left her , in his will , the second-best bedstead , they immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had been one of the too many fools who have made awful mistakes in their
marriagethe most important step in life—not being aware that she Avas entitled to dower , besides being , for anything Ave IUIOAV to the contrary , otherwise provided for . Really , the impudent Avay in which some writers poke their pens into matters which do not concern them , and Avhich they cannot possibly understand , and their diabolical Avish to blacken the characters of their betters by blotting their worse-than-useless ink upon them , is to me a sorroAvful sight , seeing that the profession of letters should be a holy one , used to
enli ghten , not to confuse ; to elevate the human race , instead of degrading it to deeper depths of sensualism , by destining all faith in the good and gifted of the great brotherhood of man . Unfortunately , too many literary men are like spiders , very much given to Avorrying one another . Those of them who keep scribbling on about the unhappy marriage of William Shakspere and Anne HathaAvay are totally unfit for their vocation ; and , in the language of the bard they traduce , " Let no such men be trusted . " They are just as inane as the AATetched drivellers on the very dangerous revolutionary character of Freemasonry in England .
. An undoubted friend of Shakspere was Henry Wriothesley , third Earl of Southampton , grandson of that first Earl Avho Avas Harry the Eighth ' s Lord Chancellor , ancl whose memory is to be held in eternal detestation for his cruel torturing of poor , gentle Anne Askew , for no other offence than refusing to own the dogma of transubstantiation . Of the wealth of the second Earl , father of the poet's patron , Ave can form some idea from G-ervase Markham ' s description of him moving about Avith " a whole troop of at least a hundred Avell-mounted gentlemen and yeomen , " all Avearing gold chains and
other adornments . As he died in 1581 , leaving only two children , —a son , Henry , the third Earl , then only eight years old , and a daughter , Mary , —there must have been an immense accumulation of money during the thirteen years of the non-age , or legal
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Shakspere, His Friends And Acquaintances.
Judging from my OAVU experience , and from my closest observation of others , as well as from the accounts I haA'e read of most men who have really distinguished themselves for anything good , I should most unhesitatingly say , that the great bard , in all probability , owed most of that lovable nature , Avhich won for him , from his contemporaries , the highly honourable title of the " gentle Shakspere , " almost entirely to his mother , the Mary Arden Avhom the once substantial John Shakspere had won , from her pleasant Wilmcote home , to be his bride , little thinking that , she was to give birth to , and
nurture , a son Avhose fame will last until "the crack of doom . " They who feel an interest in the Avelfare of the human race , as every Freemason professes to do , should look most assiduously to the true education of the future wives ancl mothers of their country ; for on them mainly depends the training of its citizens , Avhen their plastic minds are susceptible of indelible impressions for good or for evil . That Mary Arden must have exercised a beneficent influence over " gentle Willie " is a firm faith of mine , and one may see its reasonableness confirmed through all his productions .
Ancl next in order I Avould take that Anne Hathaway , of whom he sings so SAveetly m his Sonnets ; to win whom his footsteps have doubtless often paced that pleasant footpath from Stratford to Shottery : and her house at Shottery , though least visited by my brother Shaksperean pilgrims , is realty the most genuine , because least tampered with , relic of the poet , except his monument and the Shakspere graves in the chancel of the fine old church by the willow-fringed Avon . For the birthplace of the poet had been
-awfully transmogrified—part into a public-house , and part into a butcher ' s shop—and though noAV properly enough restored to its former appearance , is necessarily partly neAV . The wife of his bosom , the mother of his children , and surviving him seven years , during Avhich time the Stratford monument , as Ave learn from Ben Jonson ' s verses , had been erected ( most probably by her ) , I look upon it as a piece of doAvnright impertinence for anyone to write and speak , as many have done , and some still do , about Shakspere ' s
being an unhappy marriage , seeing that there is not the skacloAv of a proof of the assertion , but every reason to believe that they Avere as clear to each other Avhen Death did them part , as ever they Avere when the priest made them one . The fact is that , on its being first noticed by some Avould-be clever writers that the Avise bard had only left her , in his will , the second-best bedstead , they immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had been one of the too many fools who have made awful mistakes in their
marriagethe most important step in life—not being aware that she Avas entitled to dower , besides being , for anything Ave IUIOAV to the contrary , otherwise provided for . Really , the impudent Avay in which some writers poke their pens into matters which do not concern them , and Avhich they cannot possibly understand , and their diabolical Avish to blacken the characters of their betters by blotting their worse-than-useless ink upon them , is to me a sorroAvful sight , seeing that the profession of letters should be a holy one , used to
enli ghten , not to confuse ; to elevate the human race , instead of degrading it to deeper depths of sensualism , by destining all faith in the good and gifted of the great brotherhood of man . Unfortunately , too many literary men are like spiders , very much given to Avorrying one another . Those of them who keep scribbling on about the unhappy marriage of William Shakspere and Anne HathaAvay are totally unfit for their vocation ; and , in the language of the bard they traduce , " Let no such men be trusted . " They are just as inane as the AATetched drivellers on the very dangerous revolutionary character of Freemasonry in England .
. An undoubted friend of Shakspere was Henry Wriothesley , third Earl of Southampton , grandson of that first Earl Avho Avas Harry the Eighth ' s Lord Chancellor , ancl whose memory is to be held in eternal detestation for his cruel torturing of poor , gentle Anne Askew , for no other offence than refusing to own the dogma of transubstantiation . Of the wealth of the second Earl , father of the poet's patron , Ave can form some idea from G-ervase Markham ' s description of him moving about Avith " a whole troop of at least a hundred Avell-mounted gentlemen and yeomen , " all Avearing gold chains and
other adornments . As he died in 1581 , leaving only two children , —a son , Henry , the third Earl , then only eight years old , and a daughter , Mary , —there must have been an immense accumulation of money during the thirteen years of the non-age , or legal