Shakspere, Personal Recollections

Personal Recollections, by John
A. Joyce

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Title: Shakspere, Personal Recollections
Author: John A. Joyce
Release Date: January 31, 2007 [EBook #20487]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SHAKSPERE
Personal Recollections

BY
COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE
Author of "Checkered Life," "Peculiar Poems," "Zig-Zag," "Jewels of
Memory," "Complete Poems," "Oliver Goldsmith," "Edgar Allan Poe,"
"Brick-bats and Bouquets," "Beautiful Washington," "Songs," etc.
Nations unborn, adown the tides of time Shall keep thy name and fame
and thought sublime, And o'er the rolling world from age to age Thy
characters shall thrill the mimic stage!
--JOYCE.
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY 835
BROADWAY, NEW YORK
Copyrighted, in 1904.
BY
COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE
All Rights Reserved.
[Illustration]
DEDICATION.
I dedicate this book to the reader who has energy enough to borrow it,
bullion enough to buy it, and brains enough to understand its
philosophy, with the fervent hope that posterity may reap, thresh and
consume the golden grain of my literary harvest.
J. A. J.

PREFACE.
It would be a flagrant presumption and a specimen of magnificent
audacity for any man, but myself, to attempt, to give anything new
about the personal and literary character of William Shakspere!
I speak of William as I knew him, child, boy and man, from a spiritual
standpoint, living with him in soul-lit love for three hundred and forty
years!
Those who doubt my dates, facts and veracity are to be pitied, and have
little appreciation of romantic poetry, comedy, tragedy and history!
It is well known among my intimate friends, that I sprang from the race
of Strulbugs, who live forever, originating on the island of Immortality,
on the coast of Japan--more than a million years ago.
I do not give the name of the play, act or scene, in head or foot lines, in
my numerous quotations from Shakspere, designedly leaving the reader
to trace and find for himself a liberal education by studying the wisdom
of the Divine Bard.
There are many things in this volume that the ordinary mind will not
understand, yet I only contract with the present and future generations
to give rare and rich food for thought, and cannot undertake to furnish
the reader brains with each book!
J. A. J.

CONTENTS.
Page Sweepstakes ix
CHAPTER I.
Birth. School Days. Shows 1

CHAPTER II.
Launched. Apprentice Boy. Ambition 11
CHAPTER III.
Farm. Life. Sporting. Poaching on Lucy 19
CHAPTER IV.
In Search of Peace and Fortune 27
CHAPTER V.
London. Its Guilt and Glory 37
CHAPTER VI.
Taverns. Theatres. Variegated Society 45
CHAPTER VII.
Theatrical Drudgery. Compositions 53
CHAPTER VIII.
Growing Literary Renown. Royal Patrons 61
CHAPTER IX.
Bohemian Hours. Westminster Abbey. "Love's Labor's Lost" 73
CHAPTER X.
Queen Elizabeth. War. Shakspere in Ireland 82
CHAPTER XI.

Rural England. "Romeo and Juliet" 91
CHAPTER XII.
"Julius Cæsar" 110
CHAPTER XIII.
Two Tramps. By Land and Sea 130
CHAPTER XIV.
Windsor Park. "Midsummer Night's Dream" 156
CHAPTER XV.
The Jew. Shylock. "Merchant of Venice" 175
CHAPTER XVI.
The Supernatural. "Hamlet" 202
CHAPTER XVII.
Death of Queen Elizabeth. Coronation of King James 233
CHAPTER XVIII.
Shakspere as Monologist. King James 244
CHAPTER XIX.
Stratford. Shakspere's Death. Patriotism Down the Ages 270
* * * * *
FACSIMILE PAGES.

Autograph Letter of Shakspere xxiii
Autograph Poem of Shakspere 170
Autograph Letter of King James 248
Autograph Epitaph of Shakspere 280

SWEEPSTAKES.
Shakspere was the greatest delver into the mysterious mind of man and
Nature, and sunk his intellectual plummet deeper into the ocean of
thought than any mortal that ever lived, before or after his glorious
advent upon the earth. He was a universal ocean of knowledge, and the
ebb and flow of his thoughts pulsated on the shores of every human
passion.
He was a mountain range of ideals, and has been a quarry of love, logic
and liberty for all writers and actors since his day and age, out of which
they have built fabrics of fame.
No matter how often and numerous have been the "blasts" set off in his
rocky foundations, the driller, stone mason and builder of books have
failed to lessen his mammoth resources, and every succeeding age has
borrowed rough ashlers, blocks of logic and pillars of philosophy from
the inexhaustible mine of his divine understanding.
He was an exemplification and consolidation of his own definition of
greatness: