CHAPTER XVIII THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME-IV Ralph Royster Doyster and Gorboduc N my last lecture young William Shakspere, being then a boy of eighteen on his first visit to London, was left standing amid the crowd which had assembled at Paul's Cross on a certain Sunday in the year 1582 to hear the sermon. I am sorry to say that the young man did not stay as long as reverence demands after the last amen of the services. The sermon had been lengthy it was now growing afternoon, and there was barely time to reach the inn and snatch a hasty dinner before the play would begin. It was the custom at this period for a theatrical performance to commence at three o'clock in the afternoon; evening performances were not permitted, for the reason that they brought crowds on the streets at night, and in these days a crowd on the street in London meant brawls and troubles. Shakspere's dinner was matter of small moment under these circumstances. He disposed of it in a few minutes, and hastily made his way to the Blackfriars Theatre. Here, as he mingled with the crowd at the doors, a grave discussion went on within his mind. The price of admission to the "yard" or pit of the theatre, where he would have to stand throughout the performance in the midst of a motley throng of people, was sixpence (it varied from one penny to sixpence), while the better places were from a shilling to two shillings, the best, half a crown. Shakspere had but a half-crown in all the world; yet an imperious desire to see the play uninterrupted and to the best advantage possessed him; he felt a dim prophecy of new plays smouldering in his heart; what was a mere trifle and amusement to other people was matter of life and death to him. It was therefore with a sort of sublime reliance upon the God who takes care of genius-a reliance all the more sublime since it was purely instinctive, and not explicit or formulated in any way that the young man advanced, handed forth his whole earthly fortune, and asked for a place in one of the boxes, or "rooms," as they were then called. As he entered the "room" he observed that a handsome young cavalier, of charming form but slight in stature, passed lightly in behind him and seated himself modestly somewhat in the background. Beyond these circumstances, however, Shakspere noticed nothing; the crowd, the novelty of the playhouse, all that wild fascination of the theatre which is plain enough to those who have felt it and wholly unintelligible to those who have not- these wrapped him away into an ecstasy of content. He was not anxious for the play to begin: he could have sat for hours so; an indescribable glory and sweetness of potential fame filled the air about him; it was as if he caught a breath from that perfect altar of love and reverence which all the ages were to distil for him. |