Shakspere, Personal Recollections

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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 C?sar" 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:
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
The poet finds in Shakspere a blooming garden of perennial roses, the painter finds colors of heavenly hues, the musician finds seraphic songs and celestial aspirations, the sculptor finds models of beauty and truth, the doctor finds pills and powders of Providence, the lawyer finds suits and briefs of right and reason, the preacher finds prophecies superior to Isaiah or Jeremiah, the historian finds lofty romance more interesting than facts and the