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    Tihmimt JLUU-lUUlU '

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    in the presenee of the Park family was . not to be lightly passed over t 7 culprit was sent to prison , and thence brought for examination beW

    The anniversary of Shaksfeabe ' s birthday having this week been celebrated in his native town , it cannot be out of place , in connexion with that event , to notice a curious document introduced by Mr . Hkwokth Dixon to the readers of the Athenaeum last week under the title of " Something New About Shakspeare's Birth-Place . " This document is not only very interesting as a narrative , froin its minute and graphic detail , but historically important in con . nexion with the meagre accounts we possess of Shakspeare ' s early life . The

    writer is Sir William : Lucy , of Charlcote , father of the Sir Thomas whose deer the poet is reputed to have stolen , and whose subsequent wrath he depicted , as the story goes , in a ballad affixed to the park gates . The paper contains an account of the trial before three Commissioners ( the writer himself being one ) of a Stratford artisan , one Rich akd Coocxon , on a charge of brawling in the church of a neighbouring village while the puritanical curate , Sir Edwakd Labge , was preaching ; and of an indictment for heresy and sedition subsequently preferred by the good people of Stratford against this obnoxious preacher . Sir William ' s description of these proceedings , though prolix , is by no means tedious , his quaint and picturesque touches giving us a vivid picture of what took place in the village of Hampton on that Easter Monday holiday , just three hundred and twenty years ago .

    In order to understand this ' -. fully , it should be remembered that in the year 1537 the country was religiously in a most unsettled state ; though the King had broken with Home , the nation had not yet renounced the Catholic Church . Still every day its authority grew weaker , the minds of men became more unsettled , conflicts between the old and the new sprang up , and , as a , natural result , considerable freedom both of opinion and practice prevailed . This is sufficiently illustrated in the proceedings at Hampton , described in the paper before us . . The curate , Sir Edward Large , performs mass as a Catholic priest one day , and arouses the indignation of the people as a Puritan preacher the next . That he really favoured the heretics was , however , no secret , " being noted , " says Sir Wilxiam , " one of the new learning , as they commonly call a'll

    them that preach that pure , true , and sincere word of God , and also all them that favour them that preach the same . " Sir Willlam himself sympathized with the curate , and regularly attended his preaching ; for while telling us that he was absent through illness from the particular sermon in question , he adds ., "Else he never preached , I being at home , but I heard him . " The people of Stratford , on the other hand , hearty , straightforward ; , and with a thoroughly English dislike of all innovations , set their faces against the new learning ; and having little sympathy with the knight , and none at all with the curate , indirectly opposed the one , and openly denounced the other . Such was the state of affairs on the Easter Monday of the narrative . This holiday was generally kept up with a good deal of festivity at Hampton , Church-ale being distributed on

    the occasion ; but this year a larger number of visitors than usual flocked from the neighbouring town , one of the Hampton churchwardens , who had a sister married to a " man of good substance" at Stratford , having urged him to come over and bring as many of his friends as he could . * Sir Edward Large , being naturally anxious to " improve" such an important occasion , determined to give a full exposition of Iris views to the unfriendly burgesses of Stratford , and put off his sermon till the afternoon in order that all who came over might have the opportunity of hearing it . It was an impressive gathering—the High Bailiff of Stratford and his brother attended ; so did the family from Charlcote Park . " There was also , " says Sir William , with grave unconsciousness , " my wife , two of my brethren , with divers other of my servants . " The

    preacher fully realized the importance of his position , as is evident from his solemn address to the audience at the outset , " desiring them patiently to hear him to the end ; and if they thought he spoke anything he could not justify , if they would come to him when the sermon was done they should have his own handwriting , or if any there could write , he said that he had laid therefor them pen and ink and paper ready . Only he desired them that they would not report his words otherwise than he did speak them . " Just fancy that ! In the pedantry of his zeal for accurate representation , the good man had actually arranged a reporter's table in the church . Or were his preparations restricted to cross-logged stools , with ink-bottles and scrolls , the people being expected to write upon their knees like the medieval scribes in the first act of JiichardJL at the Princess ' s P

    ^ ihe sermon was along one , " two hours at least , " Sir William tells us . This would be rather trying at any time , even to those who like sermons ; much more ao to those who care little for them , or have only the interest of opposition to sustain their attention ; most trying of all to holiday people , anxious for fresh air and out-door enjoyment ; and it proved too much for at least one of the Stratford visitors—the Richard Cotton aforesaid . He interrupted the preacher ; in what way wo arc not told ; perhaps simply to suggest towards the close of the second hour that they had heard enough . It seems more probable , however , that he audibly objected to some of the doctrines advanced . However tins may be , such a public affront to their favourite preacher

    GoxioN was sent back to prison again , where it seems likely he might have been long detained as a warning and example , had not a country squire of the neighbourhood , Master William Clapton , come to the rescue . Master Clapxon evidently shared in . the popular feeling against the " new learning " its representatives and abettors ; and coming forward as the champion of tie Stratford people , devoted himself with hearty good-will to the liberation of their imprisoned fellow-townsman . He went to the Commissioners , talked the matter over with them , urged that the case should be represented in the proper quarter and the man set at liberty . . Provoked , however , by tlieir dilatory movements he

    soon took the matter into his own hands , sent messengers to London , made a full statement of the case to the authorities there , and , as the result of his efforts in a few days Cotton left his solitary cell in Warwick Castle , and returned to his wife and family at Stratford . Sir William : Lxjcy , however , by havia » so evidently favoured the schismatic preacher , incurred the displeasure of his superiors ; so much so , that his conduct was strongly censured in open court by M . v . Justice Pitzherbert , one of the judges of Assize . In this documeat , which Sir William writes to exculpate himself from the charge of partiality he evinces throughout an anxious desire , by detailing minutely all the

    circumstances of the case , to remove the unfavourable impression which ' , he is evidently painfully conscious his conduct had produced . .. . ¦ ' The historical and biographical value of the document is to be found in the light it throws on the feeling that existed between the family at Charlcote Park and the inhabitants of Stratford . "Evidently this feeling- was anything but a cordial one . Sir William Lucy was by no means popular . Clearly he was not a . man to inspire popular confidence , or even popular regard . At Stratford he was feared by the few who depended on him , and disliked by the majority . They disliked his ecclesiastical leanings , his formal , reserved disposition , his puritanical ways ; and though he laboured to stand well with all classes in the town , it seems clear that he was never

    able to command tie hearty support of any . Now , the evidence of such a state of feeling is surely very important in connexion with the deer-stealing tradition . It should be remembered , that though often attacked , that story has never been disproved , and is therefore , as we may now see , very likely to be true . What more natural , for example , than that the son of a popular Stratford burgess , knowing the feeling generally entertained towards the Lucys , and at a time when there was nothing criminal in such an adventure , should look upon a moonlight raid on the deer , or any other game in the park , as capital fun , and thoroughly enjoy the commotion that followed ? The daring trespass would not be likely to excite any strong indignation amongst the good people o £ Stratford , and the verses in which he is said to have commemorated the event and satirised Sir Tjiomas , as the expression of a strong traditional feeling would be popular enough to gratify the most passionate youthful thirst for local

    ame . Passing from the matter to the style of this old document , its archaisms of language arc worth noticing as thoroughly characteristic of the era ; such , for example , as the prefix " Sir" to a priest ' s name , us in SiiAKsrEARis ' s Sir Hugh the Welsh preacher , and Sir Tor as the curate ; the use of the double negative so common in SiiAKsrnAitE , " I will never belie no m an falsely ; " of " noise" for rumour ; of " sort" in the sense of number or company—a use also familiar to Shakspeauk's , as in the passage nightly given at the Princess ' s : — Mine eyes arc full of toara , I cannot see ; And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can ace a sort of traitors hero .

    This use of the word occurs in the passage already quoted—" a great sort , of more reputation and wisdom , and that knew better what to do than ho . " The use of the word " incontinent" in the sense of suddenly , without deliberate or delay , may also be noted , a writer in the Mhenaum , a fortnight ago , having complained that this abuse of the word , as he styles it , was unknown to tho language till within the last ton years . In this case , however , as m many others , what is stigmatised and denounced as new is rcixlly very old . It is common in Siiakspismik , as in the closing lines of Richard i / ., where it rhymes to lament : —

    Oomo , mourn with mo for what I do lament , And put on sullen black incantiiwnt . " It ocenrs twico in this letter , which is older than Siiaksi-kake-- " And then incontinent lie sent for him again ; " "He said if the letter was rotidy he w ould send ono of his servants with iti incontinent . " But , in fi \ Qt , this use of tlic

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    Critics are not fhe legislators , but the judges and policeof literature . They do not make Iaw 3—they interpret and try- to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .

    Tihmimt Jluu-Luulu '

    ITitonttir ^

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    w ™ , J \ f 1 ' S 1 trociu f 1 tory no « c ° ° f the paper , gives another reason for the ¦ ifrSrSSJ ??* ^ toto y-QHt a marriage was to be celebrated between a man of Stratford and a maid of Hampton , but wo diacovev no wUiorUy in the . document itwlf tor tuo statement , ^

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    400 THE LEADER . CHo . 370 , SA-nm ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 25, 1857, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2190/page/16/