Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (5)

We suffer now, therefore, from the combined action of the various improvers and restorers of Gerard Johnson’s clumsy workmanship. Though the crude colours of Hall shocked the sensibilities of Malone, he thought it no sacrilege to have the bust taken down, and submitted to the moulder’s mercenary hands. Several others have been allowed to sin in a similar way. Many have written discourses upon its physiognomy, and based arguments and fancies upon it, unwitting of all these facts.[27] It is comforting to be able to go back to the simple rendering of Dugdale from the original--not a picturesque or poetic rendering, of what was probably a poor representation. But in it there _is_ something biographical, something suggestive; it shows us the tired creator of poems, exhausted from lack of sleep, “Nature’s sweet restorer,” weary of the bustling London life, who had returned, as soon as possible, to seek rest at home among his own people, and met an over-early death in the unhealthy spring-damps of 1616. A happy suggestion of the thoughtful poetic soul, of which the modern restored and adapted representation had deprived us, but only a suggestion. We sadly ask, where is the true likeness of our Shakespeare? and Leonard Digges speaks for us when he says that it is to be found in

Thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb, thy name must, when that stone is rent
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still, This booke
When brasse and marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all ages.

_“Murray’s Monthly Review,” April 1904, and pamphlet
reprinted from it, same date._

PS.--When I wrote the above paper I called it “An Uncalendared Presentment of Shakespeare,” as no one had placed the drawing in the lists of credited or discredited likenesses. Dr. Gollancz and Dr. Furnivall altered the title, and the Editor accepted it, though I always thought the new title too aggressive for _my_ meaning. Since in it I first drew attention to the discrepancies between Dugdale’s representation and the present tomb, there have been many heated discussions about it. Sentimentalists did not like the notion that there had been _any_ change in the precious memorial, _critical_ sentimentalists, seeking for some support of their opinion, satisfied themselves that these discrepancies only proved the inexactitudes of Dugdale. Baconians accepted Dugdale eagerly, as they do accept everything that they think can be made to seem derogatory to Shakespeare in any way. Thereby they obscured the whole question, and ignored my work and statements. Good Shakespeareans thought they had demolished me in discrediting the value of Dugdale’s testimony. The two last articles published by Mr. Andrew Lang were on this subject, and it took a large place in the book published since his death, but I have not been allowed to reply to these. Mr. Robertson, who had ignored my “Bacon-Shakespeare Question” in his “Baconian Heresy,” also ignored my article on this subject, and says: “Incidentally by reproducing Dugdale’s version of the Carew Monument in Stratford, and confronting it with a photograph of the actual monument, he has exploded the small mystery built up by Mr. Greenwood, out of the difference between the actual Shakespeare Monument and Dugdale’s representation of it in 1656.” Mr. Greenwood had expressed strong faith in Dugdale’s general correctness, and had quoted Dr. Whitaker to the effect that “his scrupulous accuracy, united with his stubborn integrity, has elevated his ‘Antiquities of Warwickshire’ to the rank of legal evidence.” Mr. Lang in 1912 said: “Mrs. Stopes argues that the monument was entirely reconstructed....” “It is positively certain her opinion is erroneous.” Then he gives as his absolute _proof_, the Carew Monument in Stratford. (For the reversing of the position of the recumbent figures from north to south, we probably have to thank a printer’s accidental reversal of plate.) But Mr. Lang’s argument contains not one, but _two_ logical fallacies. In the first place it claims to _prove_ that because Dugdale was incorrect in one monument he must have been incorrect in all. There may have been special reasons for the carelessness; if any, Dr. Thomas has suggested them in his second edition. And the argument _against_ is no stronger than the argument _for_ Dugdale, in that the Lucy tomb is a fair representation of the present one, and therefore reasoning from it, he might be treated as correct. There were special reasons that Dugdale should have taken extra care with Shakespeare’s tomb, because he mentions the poet in his text as an honour to his native town, and Dugdale knew it well.

Mr. Lang’s second fallacy is more important. It is the old logical fallacy of _accident_, or, as some logicians put it, “of cooked meat.” I had definitely refused to accept as witness against Dugdale’s trustworthiness the evidence of any other tomb which had also been “repaired and beautified.” Now the Clopton tomb has been “repaired and beautified,” and therefore, without some stronger support, it has no convincing power at all. I fear that I made a little confusion by my use of the word “fundamental,” for Mr. Lang seems to have attached a wider meaning to it than I did. If I may take a woman’s simile, I may make it clear. When a woman sends an old dress to be “repaired and beautified,” it may be relined, turned, the worn pieces cut out and replaced, alterations made in design to make up for losses by wear, trimmings laid on to cover seams, and yet after all it would remain _the same dress_, and her male friends might notice no change in it. But the dressmaker would call it, as to her work, a _fundamental_ change. I saw that it was by some such process that it was _possible_ to harmonize the discrepancies. I did not start wishing to prove any particular point. I did not even want to prove myself right, for I have no prejudices about it, I only wanted to seek for, and to find _the truth_. None of my opponents have done any original work concerning this matter, and therefore _the question_ stands exactly where it did, _i.e._ Dugdale’s representation is different from what the tomb is to-day. Why is it so? The two answers are, Dugdale’s representation was incorrect, or, the tomb has been modified.

Since I wrote the paper, I have done a good deal of further work on it. I found the contemporary letters of “the restorers,” 1746-9, published them in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” and have reprinted them now in my Note XIII. I have also gone through all the consecutive _history_ of the Bust. Dugdale himself tells us his method of going through the country, by hundreds, and by rivers, _beginning with the Avon_. He says that he asked the nearest heirs of the famous individuals whose monuments he had inserted, to co-operate with him, to give him information, and, where possible, to pay the expenses of the plates. At the time he wished Shakespeare’s bust to be prepared, the poet’s daughters, granddaughter, and son-in-law, Thomas Quiney, were still alive, and would be more or less able to criticize. But Mrs. Susanna Hall died in 1649, and her only daughter had married John Barnard who evidently thought little of his father-in-law’s genius.

The tomb has generally been supposed to have been raised by Gerard Johnson, a tombmaker, entered among the lists of the Strangers in London in 1593. But I have lately found a lawsuit which proves that his wife was acting as his widow before 1616. Therefore, if the _name_ be correct, it must have been not his, but that of his son, who succeeded him in his business. It is not quite so clear which of them built Combe’s Monument. John Combe made his will in January 1612-3, leaving £60 for “a convenient tomb.” He died on 10th July 1614. There are traditions that he had been “seeing to” the preparations for his tomb while he was yet alive. He might have fixed his sculptor, and he might have secured the elder Gerard Johnson. The tradition concerning the poet’s satirical suggested epitaph, is the only tradition about the poet which has a respectable antiquity, being referred to in a Diary of Travel in 1636, when a lieutenant and two friends, travelling through some of the county, saw that Shakespeare had a “neat monument” by that time (the first definite allusion to it).

The _material_ of the monuments is worth nothing. I have seen a small piece of Combe’s Monument which has been accidentally broken off, and have been assured on the best of authority that Shakespeare’s is the same, as a little piece of the stone at the back has been left unpainted. It is a peculiarly soft and friable stone for the purpose, variously described as a “soft bluish grey stone,” a “loose freestone,” a “soft whitish grey limestone,” with pillars of marble and ornaments of alabaster.

Given a soft and friable stone, we have to consider probabilities and possibilities, as well as certainties, in duly estimating the story of its _struggle for existence_. Time works against it with greater odds in his favour than he has in reducing stronger materials.

It may not be quite irrelevant to note, that there was (“Wheler Misc.,” i, p. 124) a peculiar list of charges brought against the Vicar, the Reverend Thomas Wilson, for which “being notorious,” he was suspended for three months from 5th June 1635. Among these charges it was stated that he allowed his maids to dry linen in the chapel, his fowls to roost, his pigs and dogs to couch there, and his children to play at ball and other sports. He himself was said to have “walked about the church in the time of divine service.” In the vestry minutes it is recorded: “The minister’s study over the bone-house to be repaired.” Now, if the children also carried their sports and balls to the Church it might account for many accidents, and the very first items to fall victims to boys and balls would be the legs of the little alabaster angels above Shakespeare’s bust.

We have also to remember that every church _ran risks_ during the civil wars, as they were so frequently used as barracks.

I have found in Add. MS. 28,565, a whole volume of Bills for Damages by the Parliamentary forces in Stratford 1645, from private people[28] which are only representative of many others.

In March 1691 the Chancel was repaired, the contributors being chiefly the descendants of those who had monuments of their ancestors there. The names of most of these are given, but there is no record of any descendants or friends of Shakespeare then, so that it may be supposed the tomb was left in a worse state of repair than the others. (“Wheler Misc.,” iv, p. 99.)

The very fact of the admiration of visitors was a source of danger. Foolishly enthusiastic adorers are known to have chipped pieces from other monuments elsewhere as personal remembrances, and it is quite possible they may have done so here. At any rate, from many combined causes, we have clear testimony from contemporary records, that by 1746 it was “_in great ruin and decay_.” It is idle to attempt to estimate the degree of ruin, but that it had shocked the sensibilities of the poet’s reverent adorers, is quite clear. The mere wearing off of _paint_ could not have done so, _that_ rather creates an impression of greater antiquity. The details of the events are given in the notes, and their results. One thing must be made clear, that everybody concerned was _giving_ at that time according to his power. The Actors gave their performances, the Committee their time and trouble, the Schoolmaster was honorary secretary, and there were sundry donations. Therefore a close estimate of the purchasing power of money at that time cannot be justly made. It is nearly certain that Mr. John Hall, Limner, and his other unknown coadjutor, who was to prepare the greatly ruined monument to receive his painting, would be doing it at the lowest possible charges. So the amount of work put into the job would probably far exceed the ordinary cost price. Mr. Hall was told to “repair and beautify,” and to let it remain as like as possible to the original.

Any artist or sculptor could inferentially follow their proceedings. _Suppose_, for the time, that Dugdale had been fairly correct. The first things to have been broken off would be, as I have shown, the alabaster legs of the ridiculous little cherubs. Their trunks would probably be pushed farther back to keep them out of further danger, and would be “restored” in the safer position. By the natural wear and tear of such a soft and friable stone, the bust would have _lost outline_. This had to be made up somehow to hold the paint, either by skilfully inserted pieces of stone, or by some plastic material. We know that the tip of the nose, the index finger, and part of the thumb had been broken off, and probably many other projections. They had _no pattern to go by_, except one evolved from memory, judgment, and imagination. No one alive could remember back to the days of the unrepaired bust. They would do their best, they could do no more. Probably the outline of the moustache had been obliterated, and they moulded one after what they thought the best fashion. They would mend the nose, plump out the hollow cheeks, and fill up the eyes. When they reached the attire, they would not see the outline clearly, and, guided by the shoulder ridges, would bring the lines of the doublet straight down (it needed no farther change to make the cloak such as it is to-day). They would probably scrape down the cushion to a more normal level, and, believing that a pen should have been held between the broken finger and thumb, would put one there. Thus there would be a good many little repairs made, as in a _lining to the coat_ of paint. But the result would necessarily be very different from the original.

Perhaps it may not be irrelevant here to refer to a paper among the “Wheler Miscellaneous Papers,” ii, f. 39.[29] It notes “The fixtures; the things left in Mr. Talbot’s house at Stratford-on-Avon, 26th September 1758”: “In ye Hall, _Shakespeare’s Head_.” “In the other rooms 6 Family Pictures,” “In ye Wildernesse a Stone-Dyal.”

Now, the family portraits might have been Cloptons or Shakespeares, but _what_ was “Shakespeare’s Head”? was it the death mask, a cast of the old Bust, or a model for the new one, then ten years old? Or was it a Bust made in Shakespeare’s life, from which the original was designed? I cannot even suggest an idea about it. But it is significant that it is noted, that in the following year “doubts arose, perhaps not unworthy of notice, whether the original monumental bust had any resemblance to the poet” (see Wivell’s book).

In regard to later vicissitudes of the Bust more is known. It was only in 1793, forty-four years after the repairing, that Malone attacked it. It is said that he had it down to examine; it is certain that he covered up Hall’s painting, by instructing a common house painter to lay over it a thick coating of common white paint. John Britton, F.S.A., writes in 1849: “In Dec. 1814 I incited Mr. George Bullock to make a cast of the monumental bust” ... “through the influence of Dr. Bell Wheler, and the Vicar, Dr. Davenport, he was allowed to take a model”.... “He was much alarmed on taking down the Effigy to find it to be in a decayed and dangerous state, and declared that it would be risking its destruction to remove it again.” Early in the nineteenth century Abraham Wivell made a most careful examination of it, and gave his report in his small volume (published in 1827).

A most important step was taken at the Shakespearean Committee Room, Stratford-upon-Avon, 23rd April 1835, announced thus: “The Shakesperean Club of Stratford-upon-Avon have long beheld with regret, the disfigurement of the Bust and Monument of Shakespeare, and the neglected condition of the interior of the Chancel which contains that monument and his grave.”

Thereafter was “a new Society formed, for the Renovation and Restoration of Shakespeare’s Monument and Bust, and of the Chancel.” Mr. John Britton was Hon. Secretary, and sent out a prospectus. In it he states: “A small and comparatively trifling tomb was raised to the memory of Shakespeare, immediately after his death; but it failed to attract anything like critical or literary notice until the time of Malone,” of whom he gives his free opinion, and the anathematizing lines.

The chief ostensible object of the Society was to _repair_ the monument, also, in order to preserve it, to repair the walls and roof of Chancel, to remove all whitewash, and to restore the colours. The subscriptions invited were limited to £1, but many sent more. The King subscribed £50, the Borough of Stratford the same. Many sent their subscriptions “only for the restoration and preservation of the Monument.” “Mr. Lucy, of Charlecote, for the Chancel £10.” One of the subscribers says that he had lately “purchased a very fine bust of Shakespeare at an auction.” Again comes the query--which one was this, was it Gastrell’s one?

“The cost of restoring Shakespeare’s Monument and the Chancel” was £1,210, 12s. on that occasion. A Bazaar was held for further repairs to the church in 1839; other subscriptions came in, and the whole amount expended amounted to £5,000. Yet they did not take off the white paint then. Mr. Britton says of the work: “Had the building been left a few years longer, it would have ranked among the Classical Monuments of Antiquity.” Mr. Britton wrote to Mr. Hunt that: “Your builder is dilatory, inefficient and embarrassing the progress and character of the Shakespeare works.” Many things can be learned from the correspondence with Mr. Hunt, now preserved in a separate volume in the Birthplace.

Again, in 1861, the bust was treated by Mr. Simon Collins, a picture restorer, “who with a bath of some detergent” removed the white paint. He found under it sufficient traces of the restoring colours of John Hall, to reproduce them again on the old lines. The only person whom I have known to have seen it in both conditions was Professor David Masson, and he said that “he had to confess _he_ preferred it _white_.” Halliwell Phillipps said in his fourth edition, 1886, “that the 1793 painting was injudicious, but did not altogether obliterate the semblance of an intellectual human being, which is more than can be said of the miserable travesty which now distresses the eye of the pilgrim.” The only really fresh remarks that have been made on it were by Dr. Keith (see “Morning Post” and “Birmingham Post,” 10th April 1914), when he estimated by anthropometric calculation of the shape and size of the skull, from which branch of the human race the poet was likely to have descended.

This was all that I had been able to find before this postscript went to press. Some hard-working student in future may find more, and give us further reasons for making up our minds.

Fortunately, before I corrected proof, Mr. Dugdale of Merivale returned from abroad, and kindly allowed me to see the volume of Sir William Dugdale’s Diary which contained his own special drawings for the tombs in Warwickshire Churches. Among these are, as I expected, Shakespeare’s Tomb. It teaches us many things. Sir William Dugdale was not an _artist_, but an Antiquary. He did not attempt to carry over the _expression_ of the human countenance, even as represented in Stowe, but he was very careful as to significant details. He works with slow and careful pen-and-ink touches. Many of the “proofs” of his untrustworthiness vanish in the study, and a new element in the question is introduced, the art of the _engraver_. One of the objections brought against his rendering was the spelling of “Judicyo” in the engraving. Dugdale himself, however, renders it “Judicio,” both in his drawing and in his copy of the epitaph by its side. The monument is important, the bust has some of the faults of the engraving. The hands are quite as clumsy, but the cushion on which they rest is not nearly so high or so woolly. The face is older even than that of the engraver, who really improved the _expression_, possibly after a personal visit. The moustache falls naturally down. The face, as Dugdale draws it, is not so far removed from Rowe’s rendering as might have been expected after “ruin and decay” had injured the outlines. And I was surprised to find that what had proved my own stumbling-block, the lines of the cloak, _are drawn by Dugdale as they appear to-day_, and the engraver must have carelessly altered the sartorial effect.

The greatest “_proof_” of Dugdale’s inexactitude, so triumphantly brought forward by my opponents, is utterly extinguished by this volume. The drawing of the Carew Clopton Monument does not appear in the Diary, which means, that _the Clopton family, and not Dugdale, was responsible for its drawing and its inaccuracies_. He only drew those which had not been sent on to him by the families whom he had invited to do so. He evidently thought Shakespeare’s Monument, though not sent on, specially important, and did it carefully himself. The present Mr. Dugdale thinks, from its position in the volume, and from some notes in the Diary, that it therefore was one of the latest of the drawings before the final publication in 1656. I have to thank him warmly for his help, which has satisfied somewhat my hunger for truth. These facts, with due attention to the contemporary letters about the restoration in 1746-9, given in Note XIII, conclude all I have to say concerning the Shakespeare Monument.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Halliwell-Phillipps knew of the alterations and doubted the exact likeness of the present restoration to the old, but as he says nothing but what Abraham Wivell said before him, and did not notice the difference in Dugdale’s print, I have not brought him into the necessarily contracted space of this article.

[28] Perhaps the most amusing entry is in the bill from Elizabeth Wheeler. “Lost a pigg when the Earl of Essex passed by worth 4/.”

[29] New Place had been bought by Sir Edward Walker and given to his daughter on her marriage with Hugh Clopton. Henry Talbot, her son-in-law, sold it to Rev. Mr. Gastrell.

XIV

SIXTEENTH CENTURY LOCKS AND WEIRS ON THE THAMES

The use of steam, steel, and electricity has changed not only the methods of travelling, but the appearance of the highways of the country. The facilities of transit have enormously multiplied the number of travellers and the quantities of goods consigned. We have been taught to picture the difference between the railroad of to-day and the highway of the sixteenth century--deficient in construction and beset by highwaymen, who lay in wait (as spiders watch for flies) for the saddle horses, pack horses, and lumbering cars and carriages of the time. Sometimes the difficulties of the road were artfully made or increased, so as to bring the prey more easily within reach of the spiders.

But there has been little or no attention paid to the changes on another highway--a Queen’s highway, under Elizabeth as well as Victoria--I mean the royal river of Thames. I started on the subject years ago, because I thought it more than likely that Shakespeare had travelled between Oxford and London by water, and I desired to understand the appearance the river would present in “Shakespeare’s England.” Harrison does not speak of it, nor do novelists romance of it. The passage would not be made in the light skiffs that to-day lend themselves to the picturesque and ideal, in quite dream-like motion through an Arcadian land, apart from the hurry and scurry of everyday life, where all seems peace and joy, and the only modern representative of the old dragon is the snorting steam-yacht that churns the water. Not such a Thames could Shakespeare see, not such a passage could Shakespeare know--but a descent in heavily-laden barges on a busy stream, more cumbered with dangerous locks and weirs than it is to-day, at each of which was a struggle for life and property, and probably a battle with the lock keepers “who sold water.”

From the earliest recorded times there had been a war waged on the waters of the Thames between landed and vested or local interests and travelling or commercial requirements. One of the clauses of Magna Charta determined “that all locks and wears should be utterly pulled down,” a clause expanded and enforced by every succeeding sovereign who confirmed Magna Charta (see M. C. Hen. III, c. 23; 25 Ed. III, st. iii, c. 4; 45 Ed. III, c. 2. In 21 Ric. II, c. 19, there is a recital of the Act of 25 Ed. III, st. iii, c. 4).

The Commons shewing by their petition that the passage of boats in the Rivers, and also Meadows, Pastures, and Arable Lands adjoining the said Rivers be greatly troubled, drowned, wasted, and destroyed by the outrageous inhansing and straitening of Wears, Mills, Stanks, and Kiddles of old Time made, and levied before the time of the said King Edward, son to King Henry, whereof great damages and losses have oftentimes happened to the people of the Realm, and daily shall happen if remedy thereof be not provided: It is accorded and stablished, by the Assent aforesaid, that the said Statutes in all their articles shall be firmly holden and kept, and also duly executed.

The statute also provided that, if any freeholder had an old weir erected before King Edward’s time, and the Commissioners of the Thames desired him to improve it, he should do it at his own cost. No new ones were to be built and no old ones enlarged. This was confirmed 1 Hen. IV, c. 12; enforced 4 Hen. IV, c. 11, with new reference to the destruction of young fish; confirmed in 1 Hen. V, and in 2 Hen. VI, c. 12. “Because of much mischief done in destruction of people, ships, merchandise, fry of fish in the river of Thames without the bounds of London.” In 12 Ed. IV, c. 7, and 14 Ed. IV, the statutes again were confirmed against “Wears, Fishgarths, Kidels, &c., by Thamys,” which were reconfirmed in 11 Hen. VII. But it may be noticed that the statutes did not affect those weirs privileged by ancient rights or by royal possession. For instance, in the “History of Oxford,” by William Henry Turner (p. 54), there is given the Act 17 Hen. VIII (25 Sept.) for the regulating of the flood-gates, etc., of the City Mills; and in the June of 1545 “at a council held 24th June, 37 Hen. VIII., yt ys agreed that a certen lokk, lately erected, and called Ruly Myddell Lokk, shall be stopped upp, so that Mr Doctor Owen and his assignes shall not drawe the same and torne the water from the Kynges Mylle of the Cyty of Oxford; and also that all other sluces and lokks belonging to Ruly shall be stopped at such tymes as nede shall requyer to cause the water to have hys right course to the seid mylls,” p. 177. All the inhabitants were bound to grind their corn at “the Castle Mills,” p. 179. At the putting down of the monasteries, Oseney Abbey was leased to William Stumpe, Clothier, of Malmesbury, and “the Mylles, the Waters, with the fyshyng, apperteyning to Oseney, with the benefits of the water of Ruly, to helpe the mylles of Oseney.”

In the Harleian Manuscript, 2084, f. 165, there is a record of discussions about the mills and weirs of Chester, 1607, and precedents were brought forward showing how divers had been “presented” for obstructing the Thames, and had been acquitted. This shows that in Easter, 3 Hen. IV, John Shelforde, Lord of Gatehampton, held one lock on the Thames and one at Rumford, Berks; and the “Priorissa de Goring” held one weir in the same river. In 5 Hen. IV, Thomas Camoys narrowed the Thames at Chiselhampton, and in 6 Hen. IV, Elizabeth, Prioress of Goring, proved that all her predecessors had a right to a lock on the Thames.

In Stow’s Survey, Book I, p. 30 (ed. 1598, revised by Strype), he says of the Thames, that “it is lamentable to see how it is and hath been choaked of late with lands and shelves by the penning and wresting of the course of the water for commodities’ sake”; and at page 39 he speaks of Bishop’s complaints.

I had found these and several other manuscripts on the subject in the British Museum, before I turned to Stow. They seem to be the same that he referred to; but the originals are so interesting, both to the historian and to the lover of the river, that, as they have never been reproduced, I think it would interest all to read the words themselves. The first “complaint” does not seem to have been preserved, but the “reply” appears in Lansdowne Manuscript, XVIII, 62, endorsed “The Reasons of the Mylls, Locks and Weares to be uppon the River of Thames, 1574.” It runs thus:

A declaration of what is to be said and proved for the maytenance of Mylles, Lockes, and Weares, within the River of Thamys.

Fyrst the said Mylles, Locks, and Weres were erected and made, and so have contynewed for manye hundred yeres beyonde the memorye of anie man nowe livinge, without any challendge or interrupcion. The Lawes and Statutes of this Reallme, whereof the last was made in the XIIth yere of Edward the Fowerth that towcht the Reformacion of Locks and Weares, extends onelie to such as then were erected, to the disturbance of barges and other vessells, whereas at that tyme there was no comon passaige for barges, so farre as Marlowe or Byssham, as it is upon vehement presumpcion thought. And it is further to be moost manyfestlie proved that within the memorye of such as be yet liveinge, there were not above the nomber of fower barges, that passed so ferre into the Ryver of Thamyse as the said Marlowe or Byssham. And that such as then so passed were not above half the burden of such as nowe comonlie passe by the said River, beinge neare abowte the nomber of three score.

Item, it is most certeyne and true that such inconsiderate people, and namelie of the said Bargemen as wishe or desier the decaye or pulling downe of the said Lockes and Weares, desier therein but their owne greate hindrance, or rather undoinge, considering that it is most manifestlie to be proved, that without the said lockes and weares they could not passe. And that many tymes, and specyallie at lowe waters, they are inforced to desier the shuttinge of the said Locks to thende to convey water for the removinge of their barges when they are sett on grownde. And it is also very certeyne that if the said weares should be pulled downe there be such quantities of chalke and other rubbyshe therein, as that by the losinge thereof, such hills would growe in many places within the River of Thamyse, as that a small bote in many places thereof would hardly passe.

Item, that in case the said passaige should be disturbed, yt should not onelie tende to the greate lett and hindraunce of the Queenes Maties. provision and of her Highnes Cyttie of London, but also of divers of her subjects and people.

Item, that the provision for gryndynge of a greate parte of the Inhabitants corne within the counties of Bucks, Berks, and Oxon, resteth upon the mylles, that ben scituate and beinge within the said Ryver, which, without the said Locks and Weares could not be mainteyned, or grynde anye thinge, which, in case they did decaye, shoulde tende to be to the greate losse and hindraunce of the said inhabytaunts, who without the said mylls should be to seeke where to grynde their corne.

Item, in all the commissions of Sewers, that in anye aige or tyme have been awarded, theis Mylls, Locks and Weares were never thought to be within the precyncts of anye Lawes or in anye respecte meete to be reformed.

Item, that the said Mylles, Lockes and Weares are the inherytaunce some of the Queenes Highnes, and others of dyvers personaiges, wherein, if any disorder were, the same is to be reformed by the ordinarye proceedinge of the Queenes Maties. Lawes and not otherwise.

In Lansdowne MS., xxx, 16 and 20, are preserved two petitions which are entered as if in the same year, but which can be seen, from slight differences among general resemblances, not to be exactly contemporary. The one was probably written by John Bishop, the other certainly was so. “To Sir William Burleigh, Lord High Treasurer,” the first complaint is presented of the dangers, and a list is given of “the holders of the locks and wears, and of the Keepers of the same, which sell the Queenes Majesties watter in the same river.”

The number of locks given is twenty-five between Maidenhead and Abingdon, and the paper is indorsed by another hand “Sept. 6, 1580.” The second is addressed to “Sir William Cecill, Lorde High Treasurer,” and more forcibly brings forward the danger and losses of property and life of the Queen’s subjects; being signed by “John Bishop, 1580.” The list varies in number, as there are thirty-six mentioned; and there are several slight variations in facts, and many in detail. The parish of each is given, and the names of the owners have a genealogical interest. Rea Locke belonged to Harry Merrye, a yeoman of the Queen’s Chamber; Hedgeworth Wear to Hugh Cotterell. Marlowe Locke, belonging to Thomas Farmer, gent., is by all reckoned to be the most dangerous.

Temple Locke belonged to John Brinkys, gent., and Newe Locke to Mr. Bowde and Mr. Lovelace; Mr. Scroope’s Locke at Hambledon was “kept by Thomas Bulter, a seller of water”; Fraunces Stonor, gent., at the Marsh, held one locke, and Robert Wolley, yeoman, another; Bowney Weare (Mr. Anthony Elmes), Waregroves Weare, Shiplacke Weare followed; Sunning Locke, belonging to Mr. Richard Blunte, was kept by two sellers of water. Then came Cawsam Locke, Chansey Weare; Mapledurham Locke, said to belong to Mr. William Blunte in one petition, and to Mr. Michael Blunt in the other; Whitchurch, to Harry Knappes in both; Harte Lock, Goringe Lock, and another, owners unnamed. Cleve Locke was the Earl of Derby’s; of South Mill Weare the owner is unnamed; North Stock Weare and Wallingford Lock belonged to Raphe Pollington, another locke and Benson Locke belonging to Robert George (one of the keepers being named Jacob Buishoppe). At Little Witenham, a locke and two weares, one owned by Edmund Fettiplace, the other by Mr. William Dunshe; a weare at Long Witenham, belonging to Widow Sanger; Thomas Trullock’s Lock of Appleforde; an old, ruinous wear belonging to Clement Dabnet; two locks and one weare, called Sutton Weare; Collombe Weare, belonging to Edward Wilmott, gent.; Abingdon Locke, “being Mr. William Blackmanne’s Locke”; three locks, at Newnam, Samford Locke, and “Ifle Lock, being kept by one Mrs. Pitte.” “Every one of these being most perillous for all passengers, and the Kepers of every locke making sale of the water, keping the same severall which ought to be comon to all her Matⁱᵉˢ subjects, and whereunto in truth they have noe right.”

The petitioner then goes on to state, and mentions witnesses ready to prove, that fifteen men had been drowned within four years, and all their goods lost, and begs his lordship’s earnest attention to this serious state of affairs. Neither of these petitions seems to have been very successful. Local interests had outweighed travelling necessities.

But Bishop was not crushed. He designed a more elaborate composition on a larger sheet of paper, and addressed it directly to Queen Elizabeth herself. Believing in her poetic sympathies, he wrote it in verse, which, though nearly as bad as it could be, was full of earnest feeling and a certain original quaintness. He spoke movingly of the “exceeding loss and spoil” of the goods and commodities of poor men, of £300 a year spent by them in buying water, of the “murthers” of Her Majesty’s loving subjects, and of the sorrows of many woeful widows and fatherless children. Twenty men had been drowned during the last seven years. The great wrongs he had seen had moved his heart to write. He had previously complained to many and found no remedy, though good laws had been made by many kings “against the mills, wears, and locks that doe annoy this worthie streame.” Some men neither care for laws nor for drowning men, and have no fear of hell before their eyes. The worst of these is Thomas Farmer, who is as great a persecutor as Pharaoh. To the widow of one drowned at his lock he had given, in lieu of life, the sum of 5s. Another man had been cast into prison by him for complaining, but had been drowned in his lock at last. Farmer’s Lock at Marlow alone has cost the poor bargemen a thousand pounds and more. The water falls so high it often sinks ships and men, and it is a wonder any escape. Four City aldermen had come to view it, and Bishop refers to them in proof of his words. He is willing to die if they be proved false. He had complained four years or more before to the Lord Treasurer in vain, and since then seven men had been drowned. For his interference Farmer had tried to work him mischief, and had complained of him to his captain, whom he loved much, but who had apparently dismissed him. Bishop was well acquainted with the perils of the river. He brings them before the notice of the Queen because he was her faithful subject born; and the murder of her people, and loss of their goods, was her loss. He was sure that if she knew the truth her merciful heart would find means to help, and that she would command the Lords that understood the Laws of Parliament to look into the matter before more blood was spent.

He then gives a list of the men that had been drowned, and another of his witnesses. This is signed by him, and is endorsed 13th October 1585.

I have been able to find out nothing more about Bishop than what he himself relates. If really _born_ a subject of Elizabeth’s, as he states, he could not have been more than twenty-seven years old; he was evidently a bargeman, and Farmer had undone him by complaining of him to his “captain.” The lock-keeper at Benson is Jacob Bishop, and may have been a connection. About Fermor more may be known. The Archæological Institute of Oxford in 1850 published “The expenses of the Fermor family on the death of Thomas Fermor or Farmer of Somerton, County Oxford, who died Aug. 8, 1580.” If he was the “Pharaoh” above alluded to, there is some discrepancy in the dates assigned to the petitions. An official answer sent up to this petition is preserved in Lansdowne MS., xliv, f. 40, but it is in such an imperfect condition that I could only understand it by collating it with the paper of 1574, already referred to, “Reasons alleged for the maintenance of the Locks, Wears, etc., on the River Thames, 1584.” They are of as great antiquity as any town or village; that many of the inhabitants of the villages between Maidenhead and Oxford would not know where to grind their corn without them; that the water is preserved for the passage of barges; that, notwithstanding divers laws made for the advantage of ships and barges, “yet were the milles, lockes, and weares never impeached as things repugnant to lawe or offensive to the Commonwealth before one _Busshop_ begonne outragious attempt therein.” That, though they number in all about seventy, they are in part the Queen’s royal inheritance; that the residue are the inheritance of others of the subjects of the Queen, having only a way for the passage of herself and her people through the said Locks. Touching Marlow Lock, that it was as well maintained as it had been in any age past. This lock had been obtained from the Queen in the tenth year of her reign, and had been as carefully used as it ever had been, as may be proved by depositions taken before the Commissioners of Sewers, and preserved in the Star Chamber. The Causes that the passage of this Lock has become so much more perilous are, that the Barges are laden with greater burdens than formerly, sometimes nearly double. They used to carry eight or ten loads, now they carry twenty loads; they lade and unlade with little care; and are often up and down so late and so early that they cannot see where they are going. “They commonly observe neyther Sabbath dayes nor other dayes, besides many evil demeanours too long to narrate”; the number of barges has increased from ten or twelve to about forty.

The statements of Bishop about the men drowned are criticized, and opinions brought on the other side. The accidents were often caused by neglect of the watermen’s duties, and the lock-keepers often helped them in ways that could not otherwise be provided for.

Another perplexity not much alluded to in these papers arose from the fact that, though the bed of the _stream_ was a highway for the people, the _banks_ belonged to the owners of the adjoining lands; hence many struggles between the bargemen and landowners over the use of the towpaths. In 1605 (3 Jac. I, c. 20) it was decreed that the Lord Chancellor might appoint commissioners to clear the Thames so that it might carry barges to Oxford and beyond, cutting down the banks if necessary. In 21 Jac. I, c. 32, fuller powers were granted them. They were to make compensation to owners of land required, and to assess the University and city of Oxford for reasonable sums; and as the passage up against the stream made it necessary that the barges “should be haled up by the strength of men, horses, winches, engines, &c., that it should be lawful for them to use the banks” for this purpose, if they did no harm. The ancient right to tow on the Thames had been brought forward in a case heard before Lord Chief Justice Popham as to a similar right upon the river Lea, which was contested (State Papers, Domestic Series, 1594; see Calendar, pp. 499-501).

John Taylor, the self-styled “water poet,” a contemporary of Shakespeare, though writing a little after his date, published in 1632 “A description of the two famous Rivers of Thames and Isis ... with all the Flats, Shoales, Shelves, Sands, Weares, Stops, Rivers, Brooks, &c., as also a discovery of the Hindrances which doe impeach the passage of Boats and Barges between the famous University of Oxford and the City of London.” Taylor commences by regretting the death of Lord Dorchester, who had determined to make the river passable, and then enumerates the dangers and difficulties in verses and spirit somewhat resembling those of Bishop’s petition. He refers to “learned Camden, Speed and Holinshead, and Drayton’s painfull Poly Olbion,” and then describes his own journey down. At Sutton Lock they were nearly upset, the water fell with such violence; after Cullam they ran aground; at Clifden there were rocks and sands and flats; and everywhere were shoals and piles. More than once a sunken tree nearly cleft his barge. Near Goring the party was entertained by “Master Cotton,” and near Henley by “Judge Whitlocke.” The river did not want much repair below Staines Bridge, for that was under the power of the Mayor of London. To Taylor also Marlow Lock was the worst, though he anathematizes many others:

Shall Thames be barr’d its course with stops and locks,
With Mils and Hils, with gravell beds and rocks,
With weares and weedes, and forced Ilands made
To spoile a publike for a private Trade?
Shame fall the doers, and Almighty’s blessing
Be heaped upon their heads that seek redressing.

Thus John Taylor ends, like John Bishop.[30]

These old discussions are interesting, not only to the historian and antiquarian, but to engineers and boating men of to-day, as they have never been collected, and the Thames Conservancy have no papers of so old a date.

The old system of “flashing” was probably the method used in those days at the locks mentioned as dangerous. The chamber-lock is said to have been invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1497, but there is no clear notice of the date of its introduction into English rivers. The beautiful mechanical invention of working the sluices lately placed at Richmond Lock opens a new era in the river navigation, and under the Thames Conservators the dangers of the water are reduced to a minimum. But we must not forget that, but for the outlet of the railway and the high-road, and the relief of the heavy traffic carried thereon, this waterway would present a very different aspect to-day from that which so often soothes the worried, rests the weary, and calms the troubled soul.

_“The Field,” 9th February 1895._

FOOTNOTES:

[30] I reproduced the whole of Bishop’s poem at the end of the fourth volume of Harrison’s “England,” edited by Dr. Furnivall.

XV

THE FRIENDS IN SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

I take it, until proof yields a better date, that Shakespeare came to London in 1587. We know nothing definitely about him, until 1592, when Greene’s address to his fellow actors makes it clear that some time before that date he must have turned to the stage as a profession, and must have achieved some degree of success, for Greene bitterly describes him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with _his tiger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide_, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a countrie.”[31]

When Shakespeare had come to London he had found theatres built, players performing, and dramatists writing for them, Lyly, Peele, Lodge, Greene, and Marlowe, who, had Shakespeare never come, would have been the greatest of all. But Shakespeare did come, and developed the perfect flower and fruit of the English Romantic Drama.

This remark would have been irrelevant to the subject in hand, but that I hold that the poet bore the same relation to the sonnet that he did to the Drama.

The Sonnet was not, as the Drama was, of native growth; it had been imported from Italy early in the century by the Earl of Surrey and his friend, Sir Thomas Wyat. They did not closely adhere to their Italian models, but varied them somewhat to suit the English language and taste. They had a group of courtly imitators, and various miscellanies appeared of verses, often but loosely called “sonnets,” poems written to be said or sung, which we now would rather call lyrics.

There were “The Court of Venus,”[32] much reprobated by serious writers, no copy of which has come down to us, “The Newe Court of Venus,”[32] which seems to have been an attempt to improve the old songs in tone, while adhering to their form, some of the verses having been written by Sir Thomas Wyat himself; “The Book of Songs and Sonnets,” 1557, or “Tottell’s Miscellany,” a collection chiefly of poems written by Wyat and Surrey, but also including some of the works of their imitators. We know that Shakespeare had read this volume, because he gave a copy to Slender (“Merry Wives,” i, 1).

It is interesting to know that Van der Noodt published a series, avowedly translated from the sonnets of Petrarch and Du Bellay, a translation of which, into English, in blank verse, was produced by Spenser in 1569, which were included in his works in 1591. Spenser’s “Shepherd’s Kalendar” came out in 1572.

The most important later miscellany was “The Paradise of Dainty Devises,” 1576, which we also may be sure that Shakespeare had read.

The harbinger of the new harvest of Elizabethan Sonnet Literature was Thomas Watson, who, in 1582, published his “Hecatompathia, or the Passionate Century of Love.” Two points may be noted concerning this: (1) That he named each sonnet a “Passion,” which explains Shakespeare’s use of the word in the phrase, “The Master-mistress of my passion;”[33] (2) that W. C., in his “Polimanteia,” 1595, in a marginal reference, not very clear in its bearing, said, “All praiseworthy Lucrecia, sweet Shakespeare, wanton Adonis, Watson’s heir.”

Puttenham’s “Art of English Poetry” was printed by Field, 1589. The first three books of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” appeared in 1590, and Sir Philip Sidney’s “Arcadia” in the same year, which, quite as much as any sonnets, affected the thought of Shakespeare’s early works.

In 1591 was published Sidney’s “Astrophel and Stella,” with some of Daniel’s Sonnets, and in 1592 Daniel published a collection of “Sonnets to Delia,” after French models, dedicated to Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke. At the same time Henry Constable brought out “Diana: the Praises of his Mistress in certain Sonnets,” and “Four Letters and certain Sonnets” were published by Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Spenser.

Here I must pause, having reached the time of Shakespeare’s proved association with the Stage, in order to trace his career up to that date in his private life, and make clear my reasons for my main proposition concerning the necessarily early date of the Sonnets. Starting with Shakespeare’s arrival in London we must remember that the traditions concerning his being driven from Stratford by Thomas Lucy or by anybody else, can be disproved by fact and legitimate inference.

The only two facts we are sure of are, that he had married a wife and had a family before he was able to support them; and that neither his father nor he was in financial prosperity. His mother’s inheritance of Asbies, which, it is clear, his father meant as the sphere of his son’s career, had been lost through a mortgage and some juggling on the part of Edmund Lambert. In 1587 the Shakespeares, in despair of regaining it, had offered to sell it outright to John Lambert for another £20, and to this the poet, then of age and the heir apparent, had agreed, but that the money had never been paid is clear from later litigation.

We cannot _prove_ to the sceptical anything concerning the poet for the next five years. But as Tennyson’s lover says of Maud,

I know the way she went
Home with her maiden posy,
For her feet have touched the meadows
And have left the daisies rosy:

a student may, with the fine sense acquired by patient loving study, read signs into known facts as clearly as that of Tennyson, that the morning daisies and buds when trodden on, lay their crimson under petals to the side, and the path is _really made rosy_. Our poet’s path may be traced in printer’s ink.

I believe that Shakespeare went to London in 1587 hoping to earn his fortune there, but that his plans were somewhat guided by business concerning this desired arrangement with John Lambert. There is little doubt he would first go to take counsel with Richard Field, the apprentice, who was about to become the son-in-law and successor of Thomas Vautrollier the great French printer. But the following morning, when he started on his mission, I venture to put forward a suggestion that his footsteps took a very different direction from what has usually been accepted; indeed, that Shakespeare began by seeking his fortune not at the play-house, but at the Court!

I find that a John Lambert, possibly the poet’s cousin, was a Yeoman of the Chamber at the time, and young Shakespeare might have hoped to persuade him to agree to the payment of that extra £20, or make up for it in Court influence. Why not? John Arden of Park Hall had been Esquire of the Body to Henry VII, his younger brother Robert, Yeoman of the Chamber to Henry VII and Henry VIII, his nephew or relative William held the same office to Queen Elizabeth down to 1584, and his son Robert was associated with him; John Scarlet, so friendly with the Ardens of Wilmcote, had been also Yeoman of the Chamber; Roger Shakespeare had held the same office in the reign of Mary, and Thomas Shakespeare was the Royal Messenger, at least down to 1575, possibly later. William Shakespeare was a man of good appearance and of manly courage, the two essentials for the post; he may have had many introductions, and evidently had high hopes. But he failed. We may realize his feelings during his first months in London by his works. It was not Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who had learned by personal experience:

Who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
... the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns,
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.