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Shakspere: Personal Recollections

<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h4>TAVERNS. THEATRES. VARIEGATED SOCIETY.</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Man's evil manners live in brass; Their virtues we write in water." </div> </div> The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap was one of the oldest and best inns in London for free and easy rollicking mood, where prince and peasant, king or clown, papist or puritan were welcome night and day, provided they intended no wrong and kept good nature aglow even in their cups. Magistrate and convent prior would sometimes raid the tavern until their physical and financial wants were satisfied. Dame Quickly, with ruffled collar, was the master spirit of the house, and had been its light and glory for thirty years. Her round, full face, fat neck and robust form was a constant invitation for good cheer, and her matchless wit was a marvel to the guests that nightly congregated through her three-story gabled stone monastery. A tavern is the best picture of human folly, nature wearing no garb of hypocrisy. You must know that the Boar's Head had once been the home of the "Blackfriars," then a residence of a bishop, a convent, a brewery, and finally fell into the hands of the grandfather of Dame Quickly, who bequeathed it to his posterity and the public as a depot for plum pudding, roast beef, lamb, birds, fish, ale, wine, brandy and universal pleasure. A boar's head, with a red light in its mouth was kept constantly burning from sunset to sunrise, where wandering humanity found welcome and rest. Supper parties from the adjacent theatres filled the tavern in midnight hours, where actors, authors, politicians, statesmen and ladies of all hue, reveled in jolly, generous freedom, beneath the ever-present superintendence of buxom Dame Quickly. <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "The gods are just, and oft our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. Boys, immature in knowledge, Pawn their experience to their present pleasure." </div> </div> The main bar, decorated with variegated lights and shining blue bottles and glasses, with pewter and silver mugs in theatrical rows, lent a kind of enchantment to the nightly scene. Round, square and octagonal oak tables were scattered through the various rooms, and rough leather lounges skirted the walls. Promptly at eight o'clock William and myself passed the stony portals of the Boar's Head, and were ushered into the back ground floor dining room where we met our friend Field and a playwright named Christopher Marlowe, standing before a great open chimney, with a blazing fire and a splendid supper. Field seemed to take great pride in making us acquainted with Marlowe, the greatest actor and dramatist of his day, whose plays were even then the talk and delight of London. "Tamberlaine the Great" and "Dr. Faustus" had been successfully launched at the Blackfriars, and young Marlowe was in his glory, the wit and toast of the town. He was but twenty-five years of age, finely formed, a voluptuary, high jutting forehead, dark hazel eye, and a typical image of a bohemian poet. It was a toss up as to who was the handsomest man, William or Marlowe, yet a stranger, on close inspection could see glinting out of William's eye a divine light and flashing expression that ever commanded respect and admiration. He was unlike any other mortal. I, alone at that period, knew the bursting ability of William; and that his granary of knowledge was full to the brim, needing only an opportunity to flood the world with immortal sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and the incubating passion plays that lay struggling in his burning brain for universal recognition. During the evening young actors, politicians, college students and roystering lords, filled the house and by twelve o'clock Bacchanalian folly ruled the madcaps of the town, while battered Venus with bedraggled hair and skirts languished in sensuous display. Field requested his friend Marlowe to recite a few lines from "Dr. Faustus" for our instruction and pleasure, and forthwith he gave the soliloquy of Faust, waiting at midnight for Lucifer to carry him to hell, the terrified Doctor exclaiming to the devil: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Oh mercy! heaven, look not so fierce on me, Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile; Ugly hell gape not; come not, Lucifer; I'll burn my books; oh! Mephistopheles!" </div> </div> And then mellowing his sonorous voice, gives thus his classical apostrophe to Helen of Greece: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burned the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! Her lips suck forth my soul—see where it flies; Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again; Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. O, thou art fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars! Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, When he appeared to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azure arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!" </div> </div> A loud round of applause greeted the rendition of the classical poem, not only at our own table, but through the entire hall and adjacent rooms. At a table not far away sat a number of illustrious gentlemen, favorites of Queen Elizabeth and greatly admired by the people. There sat Sir Walter Raleigh, lately returned from discoveries in America; Francis Bacon, Attorney-General to the Crown; Earl Essex, the court favorite; Lord Southampton, the gayest in the realm; with young Burleigh, Cecil and Leicester, making night melodious with their songs, speeches and tinkling silver wine cups. The young lords insisted that we give another recitation, pictorial of love and passion. Marlowe declined to say more, but knowing that William had hatched out his crude verses of Venus and Adonis, I insisted that he deliver a few stanzas for the enthusiastic audience, particularly describing the passionate pleadings of Venus to the stallion Adonis. Without hesitation, trepidation or excuse, William arose in manly attitude and drew a picture of beautiful Venus: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Sometimes she shakes her head and then his hand, Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground; Sometimes her arms infold him like a band; She would, he will not in her arms be bound; And when from thence he struggles to be gone She locks her lily fingers one in one! </div> <div class="stanza"> "'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemmed thee here, Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt on mountain or in dale; Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, Stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie. </div> <div class="stanza"> "'Within this limit is relief enough, Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain, Round rising hillocks, brake obscure and rough To shelter thee from tempest and from rain; Then be my deer since I am such a park— No dog shall rouse thee though a thousand bark!'" </div> </div> When he dropped in his chair the revelers went wild with enthusiasm, and Marlowe and Southampton wished to know where the "Stratford Boy" got the poem! William smiled, tapped his forehead and tossed off a bumper of brandy to the cheers that still demanded more mental food. But as it was two by the clock, our friend Field suggested that we retire, when Marlow and himself took us in a carriage to the Devil Tavern, where we slept off our first spree in London. <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "O thou invisible spirit of wine, If thou hast no name to be known by, Let us call thee Devil!" </div> </div> We arose the next morning a little groggy, and William had a shade of melancholy remorse flash over his usually bright countenance. He abstractedly remarked: "Well, Jack, we are making a fine start for fame and fortune. The stride we took last night, at the Boar's Head, will soon land us in Newgate or Parliament!" I replied that it made little difference to intellectual artists whether they served their country in prison or in Parliament, for many a man was in Newgate who might honor Parliament, and many secret scoundrels who had not been caught should be inmates of Newgate, or, if equal justice prevailed, their bodies be dangling on the heights of Tyburn! <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "A Daniel come to judgment; yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!" </div> <div class="stanza"> </div> <div class="stanza"> Poise the cause in justice' equal scales, Whose beam stands sure? </div> </div> It was ten o'clock when we stretched our weary legs under the breakfast table of Meg Mullen, who had prepared for us a quartette of fat mutton chops, with salt pork, baked potatoes, a huge omelet and a boiling pot of black tea, sent, as she said, by the Emperor of China for the guests of the Boar's Head Tavern! Meg was a jolly wench, and garnished her food with pleasant words and witty quips, believing that love and laughter aided digestion and cheered the traveler in his journey of life. I reminded William that he had a business engagement with the great theatrical monarch, Richard Burbage, at noon at the Blackfriars. The Bard was ready for a stroll, and after brushing our clothes and smiling at the variegated guests, we sauntered into the street toward the Thames, and soon found the entrance to the renowned Blackfriars Theatre. A call-boy ushered us into the presence of the great actor and manager, who greeted us with a snappish "Good morning!" A number of authors and actors were waiting their turn to see the prince of players, whose signet of approval or disapproval finished their expectations. It was Saturday and pay day. Turning abruptly to William, the proprietor said: "I understand you know something about theatres and acting?" "Try me; you shall be my judge." "Then, sir, from this hour you are appointed assistant property man and assistant prompter for the Blackfriars, at sixteen shillings a week, with chance of promotion, if you deserve it! "Your business hours shall be from noon, every week day, until five o'clock; and from eight o'clock in the night until eleven o'clock, when you are at liberty until the next day! "Do you accept the work?" William promptly replied: "I accept with immeasurable thanks, and like Cæsar of old, I cross the dramatic Rubicon." The Bard was then introduced to Bull Billings, the chief property man and prompter, who at once initiated William into the machinery secrets of the stage, with its scenes, ropes, chains, masks, moons, gods, swords, bucklers, guns, pikes, torches, wheels, chairs, thrones, giants, wigs, hats, bonnets, robes, brass jewels, kings, queens, dukes, lords, and all the other paraphernalia of dramatic exhibition. William was now launched upon the ocean of theatrical suns and storms, with Nature for his guide and everlasting glory for his name. <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber turns his face; But when he once attains the utmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend!" </div> </div> <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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