Shakspere, Personal Recollections | Page 7

the temple of knowledge marked exactly the
seventh milestone of our fleeting years.
Will was a very lusty, rollicking boy and was as full of innocent
mischief as a pomegranate is of seeds. He was handsome and bright,
wearing a thick suit of auburn curls, that rippled over his shoulders like
a waterfall in the sunshine. His eyes were very large, a light hazel hue,
that glinted into blue when his soul was stirred by passion. His
forehead was broad and high, even as a boy, rounding off into that
"dome of thought" that in later years, when a six-foot specimen of
splendid manhood caused him to conjure up such a universal group of
immortal characters.
His nose was long and high, but symmetrical, and his distended nostrils,
when excited at play, would remind you of a Kentucky racehorse in
motion. His voice was sonorous and musical, and when stirred by
passion or pleasure it rose and fell like the sound of waves upon a
stormy or summer sea. His lips were red and full, marked by Nature,
with the "bow of beauty," and when his luminous countenance was
flushed with celestial light, he shot the arrows of love-lit glances
around the schoolroom and fairly magnetized the boys, and particularly
the girls, with the radiant influence of his unconscious genius.
Will was a constant source of anxiety and wonder to the teacher, who
often marked him as the scapegoat to carry off the surface sins of
sneaking and cowardly pupils. Corporal punishment was part of school

discipline, and William and myself got our share of the rule and rod.
Through all the centuries, in youth and age, private and public, the
scapegoat has been the real hero in all troubles and misfortunes. He
seems to be a necessary mortal, but while persecution relentlessly
pursues him, he almost invariably triumphs over his enemies, and when
even devoted to the prison, the stake or the scaffold, as a martyr, he
triumphs over the grave and is monumented in the memory of mankind
for his bravery and silent self-sacrifice!
For seven school years Will and myself were daily companions. Spring,
with its cowslips and primroses, and hawthorn blossoms, found us
rambling through the woods and fields, and angling for the finny tribe
disporting in the purling waters of the crystal Avon.
Summer brought its grain and fruits, with boys and girls scrambling
over hedges, fences, stiles and brooks, in search of berries and ripe
apples; autumn with its nuts, birds and hares, invited us to hunting
grounds, along the rolling ridges and the dense forest of Arden, even
poaching on the domain of Sir Thomas Lucy and the royal reaches of
Warwick Castle, and old winter with his snowy locks and whistling airs
brought the roses to our young cheeks, skipping and sporting through
his fantastic realm like the snow birds whirling in clumps of clouds
across the withered world.
Looking back over the fields, forests and waters of the past through the
variegated realms of celestial imagination, I behold after the lapse of
more than three centuries of human wrecks, the brilliant boys and
glorious girls I played with in childhood years--still shining as bright
and fresh as the flowers and fruits of yesterday!
"For we are the same our fathers have been, We see the same sights
our fathers have seen, We drink the same streams and view the same
sun, And run the same course our fathers have run!"
I remember well the first time Will and myself attended a theatrical
performance. It was on the first of April, 1573, when we were about
nine years of age.

A strolling band of comic, and Punch and Judy players had made a
sudden invasion of Stratford and established themselves in the big barn
of the old Bear Tavern on Bridge street.
The town was alive with expectation and the school children were wild
to behold the great play of "The Scolding Wife," which was advertised
through the streets, in the daytime, by a cartload of bedizened
harlequins, belaboring each other with words and gestures, the wife
with bare arms, short dress and a bundle of rods, standing rampant over
the prostrate form of a drunken husband.
Fifes, drums and timbrels kept up a frantic noise, filling the bylanes and
streets of Stratford with astonished country louts and tradesmen, until
the fantastic parade ended in the wagon yard of the tavern.
The old barn had been rigged up as a rustic playhouse, the stage
covering one end, elevated about three feet from the threshing floor.
Curtains with daub pictures were strung across the stage, separated in
the center and shifted backward and forward, as the varying scenes of
the family play were presented for the hisses or cheers of the variegated
audience.
The play