it is the purpose of the present paper to give some glimpses of every-day life in the english metropolis in the latter part of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth centuries. our subject will take us from the main highways of history into by-paths illuminated by the popular literature of the time. it is not the grave historian, the statesman, or the philosopher, but rather the common playwright, the ballad-monger, the pamphleteer, whom we must take here as our guides. yet ere we intrust ourselves to their care it will not be amiss if, with the view of making the clearer what we shall presently have to say, we pause for a moment at the outset to consider some of the more general aspects of the period with which we are to deal.
looking, then, first of all, at the political conditions of the time, we may describe the history of the reign of elizabeth as the history of consolidation rather than of superficial change. 2what strikes us most is not the addition of fresh culture-elements, but the reorganization and expansion of elements already existing. the forces of evolution had turned inward, acting more upon the internal structure than upon the external forms of society. the wars of the roses were now things of recollection only, the fierce contentions which the struggle between york and lancaster had produced having subsided with most of the bitter feelings engendered by them. save for the collision with spain, which ended in the defeat of the great armada, england enjoyed a singular immunity from complications with foreign powers; and an opportunity, freely made use of, was thus offered for the development of foreign trade. the growth of a strong commercial sentiment, consequent on this, acted as a powerful solvent in the dissolution of feudal ideas and the disintegration of feudal forms of life. the conflict was now mainly between opinions—between rival forces of an intellectual and moral character. the power of the upper classes—the representatives of the ancient régime of chivalry—was on the wane; the power of the middle classes—the representatives of the modern régime of commerce—showed corresponding growth. the voice of the people, through 3their delegates in parliament, began to be acknowledged by the caution exhibited on sundry critical occasions by the crown; the country at large was growing richer and stronger; the sense of english unity was intensified by the very dangers which menaced the national life; and as men came more and more to recognize their individualities, they demanded greater freedom of thought and speech. “england, alone of european nations,” as mr. symonds pointed out, “received the influences of both renaissance and reformation simultaneously.” the mighty forces generated by these two movements in combination—one emancipating the reason, the other the conscience, from the trammels of the middle ages—told in countless ways upon the masses of society. but with all this,—partly, indeed, in consequence of all this,—there was a deep-seated restlessness at the very springs of life. the contests of opposing parties were carried on with a fierceness and acerbity of which we know little in these more moderate days; the minds of men were set at variance and thrown into confusion by a thousand distracting issues; and, unrealized as yet in all their significance and power, those titanic religious and political agencies were beginning to take shape which were 4by and by to rend english society to its very core.
when we turn from the political character of the age to the moral character of the people, we find it difficult to avoid having recourse to a series of antitheses, after the familiar manner of macaulay, so violent and surprising are the contrasts, so diverse the component qualities which analysis everywhere brings to light. the age was virile in its power, its restlessness, its amazing energy and fertility; it was virile, too, in its unrestraint, its fierceness, its licentiousness and brutality. men gloried in their newly conquered freedom, and in that wider knowledge of the world which had been opened up to them by the study of the past, by the scientific researches of copernicus, kepler, and galileo, by the discoveries of amerigo vespucci, columbus, jenkinson, willoughby, drake. national feeling was strong; the national pulse beat high. yet, in spite of protestantism and an open bible, it was essentially a pagan age; in spite of its platonism and euphuism, a coarse and sensual one. you had only to scratch the superficial polish to find the old savagery beneath. your smiling and graceful courtier would discourse of seneca and aristotle, but he would relish the obscenest jest 5and act his part in the grossest intrigue. your young gallant would turn an italian sonnet, or “tune the music of an ever vain tongue,” but within an hour he might have been found in all the blood and filth and turmoil of the cockpit or the bear-ring. the unseemliest freedom prevailed throughout society—amidst the noble ladies in immediate attendance upon the queen, and thence all down the social scale. laws were horribly brutal, habits revoltingly rude. all the powerful instincts of a fresh, buoyant, self-reliant, ambitious, robust, sensuous manhood had burst loose, finding expression now in wild extravagance, indulgence, animalism, now in great effort on distant seas, now in the mighty utterances of the drama; for these things were but different facets of the same national character. still, with all its gigantic prodigality of energy, with all its untempered misuse of genius and power, the english renaissance kept itself free from many of the worst features of the spanish and italian revivals. it was all very well for benvenuto cellini to call the english “wild beasts.” deep down beneath the casuistry and euphuism, beneath the artificiality and the glittering veneer, beneath the coarseness and the brutalism, there was ever to be found that which was lacking in 6the southern character—a stern, hardy, tough-fibred moral sense, which in that critical period of disquietude and upheaval formed indeed the very sheet-anchor of the nation’s hopes. it must never be forgotten that it was this age of new-found freedom, and of that license which went with it like its shadow, that produced such types of magnificent manhood as raleigh, strong “the fierce extremes of good and ill to brook”; as spenser, sweetest and purest of poets and of men; as sidney, whom that same spenser might well describe as “the most noble and virtuous gentleman, most worthy of all titles, both of learning and chivalry”; as shakspere, whom, all slanders notwithstanding, we, like his own close friends, still think and speak of as our “gentle will.”
such, so far as we are able to sum them up in a few brief sentences, were some of the salient characteristics of the great age of the virgin queen—an age, as dean church has said, “of vast ambitious adventure, which went to sea, little knowing whither it went, and ill-provided with knowledge or instrument”; but an age of magnificent enterprise and achievement, none the less. and now it is for us to follow down into some of the details of their private, every-day 7existence the men and women who, to use a suggestive phrase of goethe’s, were the citizens of this period, and whose little lives shared, no matter in how small and obscure a way, in the movements and destinies of the large world into which they were born.
just a quarter of a century before queen elizabeth’s death, a proclamation was issued, reciting that her majesty foresaw that “great and manifold inconveniences and mischiefs” were likely to arise “from the access and confluence of the people” to the metropolis, and making certain stringent provisions with a view to keeping down the population of the city. this enactment is useful as showing us that even at that early date,—as later on, in the time of smollett,—the enormous growth of london was held to be matter for alarm. london was indeed increasing rapidly in extent, population, wealth, and power; and lyly was hardly guilty of extravagance when, in his “euphues,” he wrote of it as a place that “both for the beauty of building, infinite riches, variety of all things,” “excelleth all the cities of the world; insomuch that it may be called the storehouse or mart of all europe.” yet we are most of us probably unable without much effort to 8realize how different was the english metropolis of elizabeth’s time from the metropolis of the present day.
we have to remember, in the first place, that the london with which we are now concerned was a walled city, and that the territory which lay within the walls,—that is, the metropolis proper,—represented but a very small portion of what is now included within the civic area. newgate, ludgate, aldgate, bishopsgate, cripplegate, and aldersgate, still mark out and perpetuate by their names the narrow lines of those protecting walls which held snug and secure the mere handful of folk of which london was then composed. at nine o’clock in the evening, when bow-bell rang, and the voices of the other city churches took up the curfew-strain, the gates were shut for the night, and the citizens retired to their dwellings under the protection of armed watchmen who guarded their slumbers along the walls. westward from fleet street and holborn, beyond which so much of modern london lies, the city had not then penetrated.
within and about the walls there were many “fair churches for divine service,” with old st. paul’s in their midst—the gothic st. paul’s of the days before the great fire; and many prisons 9to help the churches in their philanthropic work. open spaces were very numerous; trees were everywhere to be seen; fields invaded the most sacred strongholds of commercial activity; conduits and brooks (whereof lamb’s conduit street to-day carries a nominal reminiscence) flowed through every part of the town. the narrow, straggling streets ran hither and thither with no very marked definity of aim; for county councils had not as yet come into existence, and metropolitan improvements were still hidden in the womb of time; and so unsanitary were the general conditions that they were seldom free from epidemic disease. cheap, with its old cross just opposite the entrance to wood street, was a famous spot for trading of all kinds; but there were other localities which had their specialized activities. st. paul’s, for instance, was the acknowledged quarter for booksellers, as indeed it has continued to be down to the present time. houndsditch, like the houndsditch of to-day, and long lane in smithfield, abounded in shops for second-hand clothing—fripperies, as they were called. “he shows like a walking frippery,” says one of the characters in “the city madam”; while it was in the latter place that mistress birdlime in “westward ho” speaks of “hiring three 10liveries.” in st. martin’s-le-grand clustered the foreign handicraftsmen of doubtful character, who manufactured copper lace and imitation jewellery; and watling street and birchin lane were the haunts of the tailors. then, again, it was in bucklersbury that the grocers and druggists most did congregate. “go to bucklersbury and fetch me two ounces of preserved melons,” says mistress tenterhook in “westward ho.” fleet lane and pie corner were so famous for their cook-shops that anne in “the city madam” might well exclaim, when the porters enter with their baskets of provisions, that they smell unmistakably of these localities; while to panyer alley repaired all true lovers of tripe. even religious opinions had their special homes. bloomsbury and drury lane, for example, were favorite haunts of catholics; and the puritans were particularly strong in blackfriars. this explains the words put by webster into the mouth of one of his characters: “we are as pure about the heart as if we dwelt amongst ’em in blackfriars,” and doll common’s description of face, in “the alchemist,” as—
“a rascal, upstart, apocryphal captain,
whom not a puritan in blackfriars will trust.”
11and through all this jumble of wealth and dirt, away past the suburbs and into the open country beyond, ran “the famous river thames”—the “great silent highway,” as it has been called,—fed by the fleet and other forgotten and now hidden streams, and bearing upon its majestic current its hundreds of watermen, its boats, its barges, and its swans. it was spanned by a single bridge, of which lyly speaks enthusiastically in his “euphues,” and which is described by the german traveller, paul hentzner, as “a bridge of stone, eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work. it is supported,” this writer continues, “upon twenty piers of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter.” and he adds, touching in a brief sentence upon a characteristic of its structure which must seem particularly curious to modern readers: “the whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge.”
but if the difference between to-day and three centuries ago is striking enough within the city walls, still more striking does it become as we pass beyond the gates. fleet street, where dr. johnson was presently to enjoy watching the 12ceaseless ebb and flow of the great tide of human life, was still suburban; chancery lane, with its wide gardens on the eastern side and lincoln’s inn enclosure on the western, possessed only a few scattered houses at either end. the strand—
“that goodly thoroughfare between
the court and city,”
as a puritan poet called it—was a long country road flanked with noblemen’s houses (“a continual row of palaces, belonging to the chief nobility,” hentzner says), the gardens of which on the one side ran down to the river, and on the other backed upon the fine open space of pasture-land called covent (that is, convent) garden. at charing there was an ancient cross, and beyond, wide fields known as the haymarket, the quiet stretches of st. james’s park, and the wide country road called piccadilly, the regular highway to reading and the west. st. martin’s lane ran up between hedgerows and meadows to tottenham, or totten court. in the other direction, towards westminster, there was the court, with its tiltyard, standing where the horseguards now stand, and beyond this the city of westminster, with its abbey and great hall, lying in the quiet fields. just opposite, on the other bank, in an unbroken expanse of country, 13stood lambeth palace, whence a long, lonely road led eastward, through lambeth marsh, to the city purlieus on the surrey side of the water.
what we know as the suburbs of london were then separate villages, to reach which one had to make a tedious journey over open country and along desolate lanes. finsbury field was covered with windmills, and there the archers met for practice. islington was famous, to quote ben jonson, for the citizens that went a-ducking—that is, duck-hunting—in its ponds. pimlico and holloway were favorite resorts of pleasure-seeking townsfolk on sunday afternoons. hoxton and hampstead and willesden lay far away in the country; holborn was a rural highway running through the little village of st. giles’s towards oxford; and the edgeware road took you away to tyburn, the spot which has acquired such grim notoriety in the annals of crime. highway robberies took place at kentish town and hampstead; even the queen’s majesty was mobbed by a handful of ruffians in the sequestered neighborhood of islington, which stood alone among the hills to the north; while no man who valued his life would venture to walk after nightfall, unarmed or unprotected, as far into the country as hyde park corner.
14let us now look a little more closely at the street life of the city which we have thus roughly sketched.
there was little of that never-ceasing bustle with which we are familiar—little of the eternal hurry, the intense strain, the rush and turmoil of our modern existence; but the buzz of commerce was everywhere to be heard, telling us that the world was not asleep. the streets were rough, ill-paved, and narrow, and the appearance of a vehicle in them was sufficiently rare an occurrence to attract attention; though the ostentation of the rich in making use of carriages on every possible occasion was already beginning to be satirized by the writers of the time—as, for instance, by massinger in “the city madam,” and by cooke in “greene’s tu quoque.” there were the churches—six score or so of them, lyly tells us, within the walls; the inns, with their wide hostleries; the private houses, built not in long uniform rows, but irregularly, as though they desired to preserve some traces of personal character. their upper stories were frequently built out, and sometimes projected so far across the narrow streetway that jonson pictures a lady and her lover exchanging confidences from the topmost windows of opposite tenements—“arguing 15from different premises,” as dr. holmes would say. there, too, were the shops, looking more like booths in a fair, with their quaint and picturesque signs, and their merchandise exposed to public gaze on open stalls, while in front of them paced the young apprentices, besieging the ears of every passer-by with their ceaseless clamor of “what d’ye lack?” and their long-winded recommendations of the articles which they had for sale. in middleton’s “michaelmas term” we have a scene before quomodo’s shop, and quomodo himself calling out to easy and shortyard: “do you hear, sir? what lack you, gentlemen? see, good kerseys and broadcloths here—i pray you come near.” many other passages of similar import might be added. nor were these the only, or even the noisiest, symptoms of commercial enterprise. itinerant vendors of the autolycus tribe also patrolled the streets, murdering the queen’s english, like their descendants of to-day, as in loud, hoarse voices they advertised their miscellaneous wares. there were fishwives, orange-women, and chimney-sweeps, broom-men, hawkers of meat pies and pepper, of rushes for the floor, of mats, oat-cakes, milk, and coal; and numerous irish costermongers (of the kind face refers to in 16“the alchemist”) who trafficked in fruit and vegetables. in addition to all these, and to complete the confusion of the streets, there were mountebanks, jugglers, and ballad-singers, full of strange tricks and new songs, whereby to attract attention and pick up a few odd coins.
the daily round of existence in the city streets offered, therefore, no small amount of interest and variety; while from time to time the ordinary routine was broken in upon by fresh elements of excitement. now it might be a splendid procession—perhaps of one of the great livery companies, purse-proud and ostentatious; perhaps of the newly-installed lord mayor, on his way back from westminster; perhaps of the virgin queen and her retinue, coming cityward on some state occasion from richmond or whitehall. now, again, it might be a procession of a very different kind—a mob following a thief who was going to be put into the pillory, or a woman of disreputable character who, meeting the fate dreaded by doll common, was carted through the streets to the accompaniment of a brass band, and amid the cries and hootings of the populace; or a group of felons who were led out of the city along holborn to tyburn, there to pay the last penalty of the law. sometimes, too, there were 17large gatherings in st. paul’s churchyard to hear some famous preacher—like bishop jewell—discourse from the steps of the great cross; and sometimes there were street fights between retainers of rival houses, or bands of hot-tempered ’prentices belonging to the different city guilds—fights which generally ended in bloodshed and broken heads. the ’prentices of the city were indeed notoriously a turbulent tribe, and they figure in many a brawl and squabble in the plays of the time. “if he were in london, among the clubs, up went his heels for striking of a ’prentice,” says gazet, in massinger’s “renegado,” referring in this phrase to the fact that clubs were habitually kept in the shops ready for use in the event of any affray. so that the london streets were not so dull as one might at first suppose; while for the rest there was plenty of quiet, steady activity from dawn till dusk. though the struggle for wealth was not then so keen as it is to-day, and men on the whole took things more easily, life was full of earnestness and purpose, and commercial ambition shared the magnificent vigor and energy of the elizabethan nature with the fever of adventure and a youthful, spontaneous, and unabashed delight in the pleasures of sense. wide roads were open to the young man 18of brains and courage, roads which would lead to place and power. fortunes were to be made, positions won; and the ’prentice, starting out in his career, had many examples of self-made and successful men to remind him that the world was all before him where to choose, and that the future largely depended upon himself. thus, though the london of shakspere’s time was far different from the london of to-day as regards its commerce, its activities, its habits and daily life, it was still a thriving city, the object of ambition, the dreamland of the aspiring youth, the great heart which set the blood pulsing and dancing through all the arteries of the land.
as for the shops themselves, we must dismiss them with a very few words. the modern difficulty—the importation of foreign wares, and the immigration of foreign dealers—was already to the front; and italian, french, german, spanish, and flemish tradesmen were to be found in almost every street—each with his peculiar class of custom. some writers of the time, like william stafford, in his “brief conceit,” grow violent over the inroads of these aliens, and roundly proclaim, with bishop hall, that all the vice of the city was to be laid at their doors. but in the ordinary walks of business the englishman, in 19spite of a good deal of characteristic bluster and grumbling, still held his ground. the apothecary sold love-charms and philters, tobacco, cane, and pudding, as well as drugs; but there were regular tobacco merchants, also, whose shops were of unrivalled splendor. the immense vogue of this novel luxury is sufficiently shown by the statement made by barnaby riche in “the honesty of this age,” that seven thousand shops in london “vented” tobacco, and by the passing remark of hentzner, that it was smoked (or “drunk,” as the phrase then went) everywhere. at the theatre and all such places of public resort, the pipe was the englishman’s habitual companion, and from sundry passages in jonson, dekker, marston, and other dramatists, we infer that it was sometimes carried even to church.
among the most noteworthy of the tradesmen of the time were the barbers, who, be it remembered, were surgeons as well, and would cut your beard or bleed you, trim your hair or pull out your teeth, with absolute impartiality. their shops were the favorite resorts of idlers, as they had been long since in the days of lucian; and owing to the immense attention then paid to hair and beard, the more accomplished among them 20drove an enormous trade. their garrulity was proverbial. “oh, sir, you know i am a barber and cannot tittle-tattle,” says dello, in lyly’s “midas,” in a scene which is full of curious information concerning the barbers of the time. the cutbeard of jonson’s “silent woman,” is another illustration in point. it may be mentioned, as an odd feature of their establishments, that a lute was commonly kept in readiness for the amusement of those who might have to wait for attention, as the newspapers and comic weeklies are kept to-day. “barbers shall wear thee on their citterns,” says rhetias to coculus, in ford’s “lover’s melancholy,” referring to the grotesque figureheads by which these instruments were often decorated.
in the matter of the relations of sellers and purchasers, we may note, as one of those little touches of nature which make the whole world kin, that customers, as we learn from more than one old play, often indulged in the quite modern practice of having half the goods in a shop laid out for inspection before buying the most trumpery article. nor, on the other hand, were the dealers of the time much behind their descendants of to-day in what are known as the tricks of trade. adulteration was a crying evil; some of 21the methods often employed, for example, for the “sophistication” of tobacco, will be recalled by all readers of “the alchemist.” another common practice among shopkeepers was that of darkening their stores to disguise the inferiority of their merchandise. this is constantly referred to by contemporary writers. the sturdy stubbs attacks the abuse in his “display of corruptions.” “they have their shops and places where they sell their cloth very dark and obscure,” he writes, referring to the mercers and drapers of his time, “of purpose to deceive buyers.” webster, in “the duchess of malfi,” employs this familiar abuse in the turn of a compliment: “this darkening of your worth is not like that which tradesmen use in the city; their false lights are to rid bad wares off;” and quomodo, in “michaelmas term,” boasts, humanly enough, that his shop is not “so dark as some of his neighbors’.” again, brome, in the “city wit”: “what should the city do with honesty? why are your wares gummed? your shops dark?” in “westward ho” we read that the shop of a linen-draper was generally “as dark as a room in bedlam,” and, not to multiply quotations, middleton, in “anything for a quiet life,” speaks of shopwares being habitually “set in 22deceiving lights.” colliers, too, were so notorious for short measure and other crafty practices that greene, in his “notable discovery of cosenage,” includes a special “delightful discourse” on purpose to lay bare their knavery.
the houses were not yet numbered, and all trading establishments were known by their tokens—great signboards decorating every shop with strange mottoes and fantastic devices, which took the place of the advertising media of the present day. milton, we remember, was born at the spread eagle, in bread street, and well on in the eighteenth century the imprints of publishers still refer to these customary signs; as in the case of the famous “left-legged tonson,” who did business at “shakespeare’s head, over against catherine street, in the strand.” quotations illustrative of these trading tokens and the part they played in the commercial life of the time might be indefinitely multiplied; but we must content ourselves with a single bit of evidence from “the alchemist.” abel drugger, the young tradesman, is opening a new shop, and comes to subtle to take his advice about the choice of a suitable device. in the one suggested by subtle, jonson satirizes the wildly absurd combinations frequently employed, like 23the foolish advertisements of our own century, to attract or compel public attention:—
“he shall have a bel, that’s abel;
and by it standing one whose name is dee,
in a rug gown, there’s d and rug, that’s drug;
and right anenst him a dog snarling er—
there’s drugger, abel drugger—there’s his sign.”
it is hardly necessary to add that though these signs have practically disappeared from general use, they survive in trademarks and in the odd and often outlandish trading tokens still to be seen over the doors of english public houses and inns; though just why public houses should have kept up a practice otherwise almost universally abandoned since the numbering of houses came into vogue, it would be difficult to say.
but with the oncoming of the night, silence, for the most part, fell over the city and its surroundings. there was as yet no public lighting of the streets, but the good citizens were supposed to do their individual shares towards illuminating the dark thoroughfares, to insure which the watchmen, with lanterns and halberts, would pace their solemn rounds, hoarsely bawling at every doorway, “lantern and a whole candle-light! hang out your lights here!” writing from paris in 1620, and referring to the terrible 24condition of the streets in the french capital, howell says: “this makes one think often of the excellent nocturnal government of our city of london, where one may pass and repass securely all hours of the night, if he gives good words to the watch.” yet it is to be feared that this patriotic comment puts the matter in a somewhat too favorable way. the impression one derives from reading the plays and pamphlets of the time certainly is that the roads were always more or less dangerous after dark, and that good, law-abiding townsfolk were best off within doors, or, at all events, in the immediate neighborhood of their own houses. if they were forced to go farther afield, they would do well to take a link-boy with them to guide them with his light, unless they were like falstaff, who, as we remember, once told bardolph that he been saved a thousand marks in links and torches walking between tavern and tavern, owing to the fiery and luminous character of the said bardolph’s nose. a stout ’prentice boy with a well-weighted club was a desirable companion, too, for those who valued purses and pates. for the streets were infested by “roaring boys” and wild young bloods, whose principal amusement, besides fighting among themselves, was in persecuting 25quiet citizens, and who came into almost nightly conflict with the doting old dogberry watchmen, who endeavored to cope with them, often with but very slight success. these are the fine fellows described in shirley’s “gamester,”—
“that roar
in brothels, and break windows, fright the streets,
and sometimes set upon innocent bell-men to beget
discourse for a week’s diet,”
and whom jonson’s kastril looked up to with so much admiration and respect.
i could not hope by any series of thumbnail sketches to conjure up the manifold details of the daily life of elizabethan london as one finds it portrayed in the plays of jonson, middleton, dekker, cooke, and the strange pamphlets of nash and greene. but we must not linger over these street scenes. it is ample time that we should pass on to consider a little the various classes which went to make up the population of the metropolis in the days of which we speak.
in the common relationships of class with class the age of elizabeth differed widely from our own. sociability was one of the main characteristics of the time, and this the guild life of the larger towns did much to foster. in the places 26of common resort—in the tavern, the theatre, at st. paul’s walk, or the archery ground at finsbury, men daily met their neighbors and brother-citizens, and rubbed shoulders and chopped opinions with a warmth and open-heartedness which, if they had little of modern propriety, also knew little of modern restraint. moreover, london was not then the vast, overgrown, incoherent city which it has since become, and its inhabitants still took that personal interest in one another’s doings, and felt, to some extent at any rate, that sense of family sympathy which, though they are common traits of provincial town life, are characteristic of the metropolis no longer. nevertheless, the classes remained absolutely distinct, cut off from one another by chasms of custom and interest, and even law, which were never, save with the rarest exceptions, bridged over. the enactments which had been promulgated at the beginning of the reign to fix with rigid certainty the special garbs of the various ranks of the community, are sufficient to show to what extent the caste system, with its attendant prejudices and conventions, was still rooted deep in english life. the young ’prentice might haply make a fortune, and reach a position of great civic distinction. this much was open to 27him; but for his helpmeet in life he looked no higher than his master’s daughter. the successful merchant might even reach the lord mayor’s bench, but he was still a citizen, and laid no claim to set his foot within the charmed circle of gentle life. this condition of things is illustrated again and again in the plays of the time, as in middleton’s “city madam” and dekker’s “shoemaker’s holiday.” there was practically no overlapping of interests, no intermingling of class with class. money could do much, but it could not, as it will at present, purchase an entrance into the most select society; nor, in the matrimonial market of that day, was a coronet ever knocked down for a dower. but this is only one side of the question. if there was little class sympathy, there was little class rivalry also. society was more diffuse than it is to-day—held together less firmly, but with less of the friction which is a necessary preliminary to that readjustment of social arrangements which the industrial movements of the modern world are tending slowly to bring about. the classes touched externally, but that was all. in spirit they stood aloof—each content to go its own way, to live its own life, but each, for the most part, equally ready to let the others freely do the same.
28of the various classes which went to the making of the population of shakspere’s london, two only will here demand attention—the gentry and the citizens. of course, within both of these great groups there were many grades, but time will not allow us to subdivide. of course, too, beyond and outside these altogether, lay the seething mass of miscellaneous humanity—the vast fringe of the population—which then, as now, formed so dark and so dangerous an unabsorbed element in the city’s general life. threads from this dingy and tangled social frilling were sometimes caught up and woven for picturesque purposes into the pattern of the plays of the time. but the epic of the submerged tenth was as yet undreamed of; and all this side of elizabethan civilization must for the present be left out of view.
the citizens lived for the most part at their shops or places of business; the gentlefolk were more distributed. some still had their habitations in the commercial portions of the city, and those of them who regularly lived in the country and came to town during term-time—which then constituted the london season,—were often content to find temporary lodging over some druggist’s or barber’s shop. but the exodus of 29the gentry and courtiers from the centres of trade and labor was already beginning, and the aristocratic neighborhoods were admittedly outside the walls. in “greene’s tu quoque” when lionel nash is knighted, he delivers up his store to his head ’prentice, and announces his intention of moving the next day into the strand; which may be taken as showing that for the retired tradesman,—and still more, therefore, for the gentleman or courtier,—a residence well removed from the city was deemed the proper thing.
it is difficult to speak in general terms of the houses of the time, since, naturally enough, the comfort and luxury of the domestic arrangements varied considerably as one passed up or down the social scale. a few broad statements may, however, be made. in the average dwelling the ceilings were covered with plaster of paris, and the inner walls wainscoted and tapestried; the tapestry being worked with landscapes and figures often of a very elaborate character. this explains lyly’s simile in “midas”—“like arras, full of device.” enough space was left for any one to hide between the arras and the wall—a fact, it will be remembered, frequently made use of by the elizabethan dramatists, as by webster 30in “the duchess of malfi,” where cariola conceals herself behind the hanging to overhear what goes on between the duchess and antonio; and by shakspere in “henry the fourth,” where falstaff goes to sleep and has his pocket picked; and even more notably in the famous rat-killing scene in “hamlet.” in addition, pictures were often used for decoration, and when valuable were protected by curtains. “i yet but draw the curtain; now to the picture,” says monticelso in webster’s “white devil”; and, again, “we will draw the curtain and show you the picture,” says olivia in “twelfth night,” as she removes her veil. the halls were lighted by candelabras or torch-bearers, and watch-lights, or night-lights, were in common use. at the foot of the master’s bed, rolled under during the day and drawn out at night, was a truckle-bed for his page. “well, go thy ways for as sweet a breasted page as ever lay at his master’s feet in a truckle-bed,” says dondolo in middleton’s “more dissemblers besides women.” the tables had flaps, and the floors were strewn with rushes, for carpets were as yet unknown. these rushes were renewed for fresh-comers. “strangers have green rushes, while daily guests are not worth a rush,” says lyly, in “sapho and phao”—a 31remark in which, by the way, we are reminded of the origin of one of our familiar phrases. brick was costly, and the buildings were mostly of wood; but a new fashion was just coming in—that of employing well-constructed stoves in place of the open, smoky fireplaces hitherto general. the houses were now, too, provided with glass for the windows, which had not been the case a hundred years before, horn or wicker lattice-work having been used for the purpose. but this new notion was opposed by william stafford, who saw in it the symptom of growing fondness for what he contemptuously called foreign nick-nacks. chimneys, too, of which some years before there had been a few specimens only in every large town, were now general in the ordinary dwellings of the middle classes. the old wooden platters were giving way to pewter, which, though still rare, was gradually coming into use. tin spoons also were making their appearance. china, gold, and silver plate were to be seen on the tables of the wealthy, and venetian glass was sometimes employed, though, as this was very expensive, many people still drank from their mugs of burnt stone. instead of the straw bundle and log on which people had formerly been content to sleep, proper 32sheets, pillows, and bolsters were now employed; not, however, without incurring the ridicule or the wrath of lovers of the good old times and moralists of severe complexion. “what makes us so weak as we now are?” demands sir lionel, in “greene’s tu quoque,” abusing the new generation with all the vigor of a hale old man. “a feather bed! what so unapt for exercise? a feather bed! what breeds such pains and aches in our bones? why, a feather bed!” yet houses were so scantily furnished that uninvited or unexpected guests often used to bring their own stools with them, a practice referred to by massinger in his “unnatural combat,” where he speaks of those who, “like unbidden guests, bring their own stools.” many of the household arrangements, especially in the way of sanitation, were from our own point of view still crude and primitive enough. but the age of elizabeth, as regards domestic economy generally, was distinctly a period of progress, and we have only to compare the sixteenth century with the centuries which went before, to sympathize with old harrison, when, dealing with this very matter, he exclaims in a kind of fervent rapture—“god be thankt for his good gifts!”
33turning from the houses themselves to the home life of the time, we may notice that in the establishments of the ancient nobility the arrangements were still on a large and almost regal scale, savoring yet, in spite of the slow movements conspicuous throughout society, of the feudalism which was now on the wane, and the old customs which, in an age of transition, were gradually being left behind. in the greater households a number of young gentlemen of good family, usually the younger sons of knights and esquires, continued to offer personal service as in former days. beneath these were the retainers, so-called, who, not living in the house or being liable to any menial duty, attended their lord on occasions of public ceremony; while, in the third place, there were the servants proper, who formed actual portions of the establishment, and on whom its various duties devolved. these were headed by the steward, under whose control was the common herd of serving men and women and pages. with these must be reckoned the poor tutor, passing rich on five marks a year, who sat below the salt, and, as hall’s satire shows, had to endure all kinds of indignity. and, finally, there was the jester, the privileged personage of the household, who 34could say and do things on which no one else would venture. “there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail,” says olivia in “twelfth night”; while the melancholy jaques, speaking of his desire to assume the motley dress, protests:—
“i must have liberty
withal, as large a charter as the wind,
to blow on whom i please; for so fools have.”
thus the jester was able to find in his wit and position an excuse generally, though not invariably, sufficient to cover every freedom taken with master or guests. but in shakspere’s time this ancient and long-famous appurtenance to the larger households was already passing out of existence, a fact to which the dramatist himself makes reference in “as you like it”: “since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes the greater show.”
but when we pass from these huge and ostentatious establishments to the dwellings of the middle and trading classes, we find the transitional character of the period far more marked. evidences of domestic development and improvement reveal themselves on every side. the 35essential traits of medi?valism were gradually disappearing; and with the steady realization on the part of the commercial elements in the community of their increasing importance in the complex life of the time, there went many significant changes, indicating the slow collapse of the old régime and the consolidation of society upon its modern foundations.
nevertheless, in the internal policy and arrangement of the elizabethan household there was still much that would strike a present-day observer as remarkable—for the older spirit still made itself felt, though ancient forms were passing away. for instance, the relations existing between the head of the house and those about him and dependent upon him, if no longer what they were a hundred years before, had not yet begun to assume their distinguishing modern characteristics. the position of servant, ’prentice, or journeyman still partook of a certain suggestion of servitude, which it has required many years of social evolution to wear partially away. our nineteenth-century notion of contract based upon terms something like equal, at least in theory,—of so much money paid in return for such and such services rendered,—had not yet established itself; and while the 36understanding between employer and employed was gradually acquiring more and more of a commercial quality, it had not by any means lost all its personal implications. the ’prentices of the time, for example, were something more and something less than those occupying analogous positions in our own days. they belonged to the establishment, lived with their master, ate at his table, formed part of the family; yet at the same time wore coats of blue—the color which everywhere symbolized servitude, and even constituted, as we know from “the city madam” and other plays, the livery of bridewell. they not only were their master’s assistants in the work of the shop; they furnished him also a kind of body-guard, or retinue,—for on occasions when he had to make excursions after dark they went with him, bearing torches or lanterns to light the way, and stout clubs, for use in case of sudden assault. but the personal character of such relationships is perhaps most fully shown in the fact that masters and mistresses dealt out corporal punishment to their servants, a universal practice, which, as chamberlayne tells us in his “survey,” was expressly sanctioned by law. in heywood’s “english traveller,” young geraldine accounts for the circumstance that bess, 37mrs. winscott’s maid, tells slanderous stories about her, by the supposition that—
“perhaps her mistress
hath stirred her anger by some word or blow,
which she would thus revenge.”
in the establishments of the gentry, the porter’s lodge was the recognized place for the corporal punishment of servants, male and female, a fact to which many references will be found in the contemporary drama; as, for instance, in shirley’s “grateful servant” and “triumph of peace,” and massinger’s “duke of milan” and “the city madam.” indeed, the whole domestic economy of the time still exhibited much of the semi-patriarchal character of former centuries, when those in authority not only exacted due service from the men and maidens beneath them, but held it also as part of their paternal responsibility to educate and chastise.
as for the children, they too were far differently situated from the boys and girls of the present day. there was as yet no talk of the rights of childhood, and household law was rigid and severe. at school the rudiments of knowledge were pounded into young brains by sheer force of arm; and when the children went from the schoolhouse to the home, they merely 38exchanged one form of despotism for another. in every well-ordered family, the young people habitually stood or knelt in the presence of their elders, not venturing to sit down without express permission; while correction by blows continued to be their lot so long as they remained under the parental roof and control. even the children of the wealthiest and noblest families in the land were subjected to the same kind of treatment; and we know that in their early years queen elizabeth and lady jane grey had been pinched and cuffed and smacked like their less famous sisters. all this has been changed now, and we have grown in some respects wiser, in others simply more sentimental. yet, with whatever feelings we may look back at the harshness of the past, let us, at all events, have the candor to acknowledge that the discipline which produced men like sidney and raleigh and spenser, and women like the two just referred to, cannot be pronounced altogether a failure.
and now a word or two about some of the every-day habits of the time. among the middle classes, as a whole, the ancient doctrine of early to bed and early to rise, upon which charles lamb threw such well-merited ridicule, was currently 39accepted, and this almost of necessity. artificial lights were as yet in little use, and being thus more dependent upon the natural alternations of day and night, the good folks under the virgin queen inevitably kept better hours than do the londoners of the present time. in dekker’s “shoemaker’s holiday,” the master shoemaker is depicted roundly rating his wife and maids for their laziness in not having breakfast ready, and his anger seems at least a trifle excessive to the modern cockney, since it subsequently turns out that it is not yet seven o’clock. in reading the old comedies, we are again and again struck by the complementary facts that the activities of life were well advanced while the day was still young, and that few scenes of a social character are laid in the evening time.
as regards eating, important as the subject doubtless is, we need not say much. comparing the elizabethan age with the immediate past, we may safely assert that men were more temperate now than they had been—that they fed less grossly, and spent less time at table. but the abstemiousness was, after all, only relative. it was still, from our point of view, a period of gluttony. the early breakfast of meat and ale; the morning luncheon, or bever; the twelve-o’clock 40dinner, with its exceedingly substantial fare; and, finally, in the evening, what don armado, in “love’s labor’s lost,” described as “the nourishment which is called supper,”—all these made up a series of gastronomic undertakings at which we can look back only with mingled amazement and disgust. the staple articles of diet were the various kinds of meat, which were partaken of in immense quantities, with but little bread and only a limited accompaniment of vegetables. but almost as important as the meats was the pudding, for which the english had acquired so great a reputation that a contemporary foreigner fairly goes into a transport of enthusiasm about it. the worst feature of all was the enormous consumption of intoxicating liquors. tea, coffee, and cocoa—those delightful cups that cheer but not inebriate, for which we moderns can hardly be too thankful—were as yet unknown in england; and, in their absence, every meal was washed down with mighty draughts of ale and sack. testimony to the drunkenness of the english at this time is appalling, whether we turn to the plays themselves, or to the writings of professed moralists, such as camden’s “elizabeth,” reeve’s “god’s plea for nineveh,” tryon’s “way to health,” dekker’s “seven deadly 41sins,” wither’s “abuses stript and whipt,” and thomas young’s “england’s bane,” which may be mentioned as specimens of a voluminous output of similar character. no wonder that, as iago and hamlet remind us, the english people had become a byword for inebriety among the nations of the continent.
it must, however, be added, as one favorable sign of the times, that table manners were, on the whole, distinctly improving. bad as they still were in many important particulars, a change for the better was quite perceptible. for instance, people thought it incumbent on them now to wash before and after dinner, a ceremony all the more needful, as fingers were still commonly used where we use forks, “the laudable use” of which, as jonson has it, came in towards the close of shakspere’s life; and generally a certain amount of delicacy in what ouida has pronounced the essentially disgusting operation of eating, was for the first time beginning to be looked for, at any rate amongst those in the higher ranks of society.
hardly less important in social economy than eating is dress, which in turn demands a share of our attention. unfortunately, however, it is impossible in the small space here at our disposal 42to give any adequate idea of the extent, variety, and extravagance of the fashions prevalent during the period with which we are now dealing, and which form a curious offset to the crudities we have noticed in household furniture and appliances. harrison, in his “description of england,” declares that the taste for change and novelty had simply run wild; and he and the outspoken stubbs are never weary of declaring that while other nations have their own special extravagances, the english gather up and adopt the follies of all the rest of europe. here is a passage from another contemporary writer, thomas becon, on the same subject: “i think no realm in the world, no, not among the turks and saracens, doth so much in the variety of their apparel as the englishmen do at this present. their coat must be made after the italian fashion, their cloak after the use of the spaniards, their gown after the manner of the turks; their cap must be of the french fashion; and at the last their dagger must be scottish with a venetian tassel of silk. to whom may the englishman be compared worthily, but to esop’s crow? for as the crow decked himself with feathers of all kinds of birds, even so doth the vain englishman.... he is an englishman; but he is also 43an italian, a spaniard, a turk, a frenchman, a scotch, a venetian, and at last what not?”
this is only a sample; passages of similar import might be multiplied almost without number. the fashions of the day were indeed absurd and extravagant to the last degree. richness and picturesqueness were the two things aimed at alike in male and in female costume; and in both cases the colors were as brilliant as the stuffs were costly. the following speech of sir glorious tipto, in jonson’s “new inn,” will give some idea of the run of masculine modes, as seen by the vigorous old satirist:—
“i would put on
the savoy chain about my neck, the ruff
and cuffs of flanders; then the naples hat
with the rome hatband and the florentine agate,
the milan sword, the cloak of genoa, set
with brabant buttons—all my given pieces,
except my gloves, the natives of madrid.”
over against such a strange human specimen as is thus pictured in the imagination, we may well set the women of the time, as painted, rouged, highly scented, bejewelled, bewigged, in french hoods, starched cambric ruffs, close-fitting jerkins, and embroidered velvet gowns, they look down upon us from the walls of many an elizabethan 44house, and fill the busy scene in many a contemporary play. women, lyly thought—so far had the artifices of the toilet carried them,—were in reality the least part of themselves. some of their freaks of fashion in particular drew down the ire alike of the playwright and of the more serious satirist. one was the habit of painting the face, so frequently referred to by shakspere and others. a second was the very common practice of wearing false hair, treated at length, along with nearly all similar extravagances of the period, by the irrepressible stubbs. every reader of shakspere will recall the passage from bassanio’s moralizings on “outward shows,” in which this fashion is alluded to:—
“look on beauty,
and you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight;
which therein works a miracle in nature,
making them lightest that wear most of it;
so are those crisped snaky golden locks
which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
upon supposed fairness, often known
to be the dowry of a second head,
the skull that bred them in the sepulchre;”
and the parallel lines in the sixty-eighth sonnet, in which the same point is touched on, with striking similarity of phrasing. the “golden” 45color of the locks, here specially emphasized, it may be noted in passing, was particularly popular, on account of the reddish, or, as her flatterers would insist, the golden, hue of queen elizabeth’s head-gear. finally, a great deal was said about the altogether needless and reprehensible extravagance shown in certain small details of dress. we may take the one item of foot-covering as an example. herein all the worst taste of the day was illustrated; for shoes were made of the most expensive materials, and were frequently covered with artificial flowers and other kinds of decoration. thus, massinger, in “the city madam,” speaks of rich “pantofles in ostentation shown, and roses worth a family”; while stubbs, in his “anatomy of abuses,” refers to shoes “embroidered with gold and silver all over the foot.”
yet, upon the whole, truth compels us to admit that, if we are to trust contemporary evidence, masculine fashions exceeded in wildness, absurdity, and monstrous barbarity those of the other sex. “women are bad, but men are worse,”—such is the distinct judgment of burton, in his “anatomy of melancholy”; and while we know from the speculative jaques that “the city madam,” would sometimes bear “the 46cost of princes on unworthy shoulders,” burton again is our authority for the statement that it was no uncommon thing for a man to put a thousand oxen into a suit of apparel, and to wear a whole manor on his back.
i mentioned incidentally just now that class distinctions were severely marked out by differences in costume. certain sumptuary enactments promulgated about this time undertook to regulate down to the minutest details what should and what should not be worn by the various classes of the community, wealth and social standing being taken together as the basis on which to settle the problems of the toilet and personal adornment. but within the limits allowed by such regulations, and sometimes even irrespective of them (for grandmotherly legislation here as always stood foredoomed to failure) extravagance in fashion remained throughout one of the salient characteristics of the day. the dress of the citizen and his wife, if less elegant, was equally showy, and sometimes quite as expensive, as that of the man of mode and the woman of the court; and so it was through all grades of society, from the highest to the lowest, or, as harrison put it in his vivid phrase, from the courtier to the carter.
47while we are still concerned with this item of dress it is amusing to notice that three hundred years ago people were to be found worrying their tailors and abusing their dressmakers as it is the custom to do at the present day. we might quote illustrations from more than one comedy; but let us once more fall back upon harrison. “how many times,” says this quaint old writer, “must a garment be sent back to him that made it? what chafing, what fretting, what reproachful language doth the poor workman bear away.... for we must puff and blow and sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon us.” as we read such a passage as this in its original strange old spelling (which, for the sake of uniformity, we have not here reproduced), we have surely to acknowledge—though it goes much against the grain to do so—that our manners have at bottom changed less than our orthography.
and now we must leave the ranks of the citizens and trading folks to deal for a moment or two with the more fashionable world.
the society of the time, to employ the word which in modern parlance has assumed a highly specialized meaning, was artificial to an absurd 48and almost inconceivable extent. affectations, indeed, made up the larger part of life; and yet beneath them all were a core of sound reality and a healthy element of spontaneity. euphuism and italianism had for the time being taken full possession of the whole aristocratic world. yet euphuism and italianism were but external crazes; and it was one mission of the age to show that men could be heroes in the foolishest dress, and do great deeds with the most ridiculous of phrases upon their lips. we could not here enter upon the task of analyzing the life and aims of the men and women who surrounded the queen at her court; but as an offset to the steady-going middle classes of whom we have had much to say, we must try to present, if only in rapidly sketched outline, the typical elizabethan gallant, or fashionable young man about town, as we find him portrayed for us in the plays and pamphlets of the time.
the accomplishments of the young man of this description were numerous and varied enough; but they were all in keeping with the character of the perfect gentleman as set forth by castiglione in his “cortegiano,” a work which had been translated by thomas hoby in 1561, and had forthwith become a kind of text-book 49or bible for the youthful fashionable world. he could dance, sing, and play the viol de gamba; fence, ride, and hunt; write verses, turn pretty compliments, and take his part in the exchange of witty repartees, stocking his memory with scraps of plays and stories, lest his own mother-sense should fail him. he could read the three languages of portia’s summary of requirements in which falconbridge was lacking—latin, french, and italian,—and was perfectly at home in what jonson calls the “perfumed terms of the day”; he had some acquaintance with the poets in vogue; played cards, tennis, and other fashionable games, as a matter of course; and, last but not least, was learned in all matters connected with the drama, etiquette, and dress.
these were not great qualifications; but such a young man had little need of great qualifications, since he had no great aims or ideals. let us read over his every day’s experiences and doings as we find them given in dekker’s “gull’s horn book” and other similar productions, and this statement will call for no further commentary.
he was not an early riser—for, wearied with his overnight exertions, he scarcely ever left his couch till the plebeian londoner was already 50thinking seriously about his midday meal. then began the first important task of the day—the toilet, which was so elaborate a matter that lyly, in his “midas,” speaks of its being almost “a whole day’s work to dress.” but when at length he stood erect in his scented doublet and gold-laced cloak, with the roses in his shoes, the bunch of toothpicks in his hat, the watch hung about his neck, his earrings, and his sword, he was ready to partake of a breakfast of meat and ale with such appetite as he could muster for the occasion, and then, jumping on his horse, with his page and horse-boy behind him, to sally forth upon the regular adventures of the day.
curiously enough, as it may well seem to us, his first place of resort would very probably be st. paul’s cathedral. one may well ask what object could possibly take him thither. the answer lies in the fact that st. paul’s church in those days was the great place of rendezvous for all the gay and fashionable world. “thus,” says dekker, “doth my middle aisle show like the mediterranean sea, in which as well the merchant hoists sails to purchase wealth honestly as the rover to light upon prize unjustly. thus am i like a common mart, where all the commodities (both the good and the bad) are to be 51bought and sold. thus, while devotion kneels at her prayers, doth profanation walk under her nose, in contempt of religion.” francis osborne, writing as late as 1658, says that it was a fashion of the times for the principal gentry, lords, commons, and professions, to meet in st. paul’s church by eleven, and walk in the middle aisle till twelve, and after dinner from three till six, “during which time some discourse of business, others of news.” many bustling scenes in the old comedies are laid in this same middle aisle, where, amid bills posted as advertisements, and crowds of servants looking out for places, of sharpers, like jonson’s shift, with a keen eye for prey, and of loafers, with nothing else to do, all sorts of people strolled about, with their hats on, chatting, laughing, and discussing finance or politics or scandal, till the whole place was alive with the hum of voices, the rustle of raiment, and the jingle of spurs. “i walked in st. paul’s to see the fashions,” remarks a character in one of middleton’s plays. there face threatened to advertise subtle’s misdeeds; and it is a matter of common history that falstaff picked bardolph up in the same spot. it was thus its reputation as a place of general convenience, and one in which to see and to be seen, that gave st. paul’s 52the importance it undoubtedly possessed in the social life of the time.
st. paul’s walk and its varied interests would keep our young man occupied till the hour of dinner, a meal of which he would probably partake in the bustle and excitement of the ordinary. the ordinary—the forerunner of the modern restaurant and table d’h?te—was then a novel institution, and as such enjoyed immense popularity among the gilded youth. three grades were commonly recognized—the aristocratic ordinary, for which, to judge from a remark in middleton’s “trick to catch the old one,” about two shillings would be charged; the twelvepenny ordinary, frequented by tradesmen, professional people, and middle-class citizens; and the threepenny, to which flocked only the lowest and most questionable characters. the first-named of the three, dekker tells us, was the great resort of all the court gallants. there friends and acquaintances met, ate, gossiped, laughed, and not infrequently quarrelled, together; there braggarts, like lafeu in “all’s well that ends well,” “made vent of their travel”; there the latest intelligence was circulated, the latest scandal discussed, the latest fads of fashion displayed in all their grotesqueness. 53a good picture of the ordinary during the dinner hour will be found in the twelfth chapter of scott’s “fortunes of nigel”; but the genuine atmosphere is best caught in such a contemporary piece of writing as the “gull’s horn book.”
dinner over, with its customary game of primero, there were many ways in which our gallant could kill time. there was the theatre, with its more intellectual attractions; the bull-ring and the cockpit; the juggler’s booth and the tennis-court; the shops along cheapside and about st. paul’s, among which the connoisseur in letters, jewellery, and kickshaws would find it easy enough to while away an afternoon. but however he might pass the hours between dinner and supper, he would probably appear in full time for the latter meal, for which he might repair to “the devil,” in fleet street, or “the mitre,” in cheap, or “the mermaid,” in bread street; at which last-named place he might peradventure catch snatches of the conversation and laughter of a little group of men in one corner, among whom we should recognize, though he might not, the burly form and surly face of rare old ben, and the serene countenance and deep, clear eyes of one who is more to all of us to-day than 54any other englishman who ever lived—will shakspere, playwright and actor. after that would not improbably follow the wildest episodes of the day, which likely enough would end in deep carousal behind the flaming red doors of a tavern, or at the gambling-table, or even in more doubtful places of resort. when in heywood’s “wise woman” old chartley is looking for his son, he bids his servants “inquire about the taverns, ordinaries, bowl-alleys, tennis-courts, and gaming-houses, for there i fear he will be found,” a direction which gives us a fair idea of the favorite haunts of the young men of the day. gambling particularly, in all its forms, was one of the prevalent manias of the time, and was often carried to such an extent that men would stake their very clothes, and even their beards, which might be used to stuff tennis-balls. in “greene’s tu quoque” will be found a wonderfully realistic scene of a quarrel following a dispute over the cards and dice, and ending in a challenge for a duel. then when the time came for him to reel homeward through the darkness with one sleepy page to light his way with a torch, our gallant would be either uproariously cheerful, or contentious, or maudlin, as his habit might be when in his cups. he would bellow 55out loose songs upon the night air, molest straggling by-passers, come sometimes into conflict with the watch, and once in a while, when luck went against him, might find himself lodged for the night in one of the prisons of the metropolis. so the day would end; and with it must close this part of our study. but, after all, very inadequate justice can be done to such a theme in so brief and rapid a sketch. we must go straight to the pages of dekker, greene, nash, and peele, if we would gain any adequate conception of the wilder aspects of elizabethan social life.
in such a paper as the present, there is always danger lest the final impression left should be, if not a false, at any rate an inadequate one; for the temptation is strong to seize only the picturesque traits, and to pay such undue attention to grouping, color, and general effect, that we fail in preserving proper perspective, and throw portions of our description into unnatural relief. the risk of doing this is, of course, increased when, as in our own case, we take the point of view of the playwright and the popular writer, and study the world of men and affairs mainly through the medium of their pages. i trust none the less, that we have not erred on the side 56of painting life in shakspere’s london in too bright or seductive colors. yet, to tone down our picture, let us say a closing word about its darker aspects; for these were many, and they were very dark indeed.
as mr. swinburne has pointed out, one of the most difficult problems meeting the student of the elizabethan drama, is that of reconciling the elements of lofty thought and gross passion, of high idealism and coarse savagery, which lie so close together, which are indeed bound up inextricably, in the very woof and texture of the plays of shakspere’s time. the literature of the stage shows us with startling distinctness how in the world of the playwright there frequently went, along with the deepest and most original thought a revolting ferocity of manners, and along with a lofty sense of the beautiful and the pure a crude love of violence, a revelling in blood, a thirst for wanton outrage and low excitement. all these diverse elements are, separately, prominent enough in modern letters, as in modern civilization; what seems so strange and puzzling in our great romantic drama is the way in which they constantly blend in the most intimate association.
now, these extraordinary incongruities are 57not alone to be found in the world of the playwright; they penetrated the life of elizabethan society. to some phases of the coarse brutalism which formed one aspect of the complex spirit of the english renaissance incidental reference has more than once been made. did space permit, we might here add much corroborative testimony. but as space does not permit, i will content myself with accentuating very briefly the difference in temper between the age of elizabeth and our own, as exemplified in one very crucial matter—in the treatment of the large criminal class.
we who are privileged to live in an epoch of growing humanity may well be startled and shocked at many of the facts brought to light by even a casual inquiry in this direction. executions, be it remembered, were almost invariably public, and formed, as we have seen, not infrequent distractions in the monotonous round of life. felons were hanged, drawn, and quartered; pirates were hanged on the seashore at low water; and capital punishment was in use for an enormous number of petty offences, including even theft from the person above the value of one shilling. the mere circumstance that we read of seventy-four persons being sentenced to 58death in one county in a single year, itself speaks volumes. indeed, the severity of punishments was held something to boast of, and men were still of the opinion of fortescue, who, in the reign of henry the sixth, had proudly proclaimed that “more men are hanged in england in one year than in france in seven, because the english have better parts.” public malefactors of position were usually beheaded, and their heads exposed in prominent places, as on london bridge or temple bar. on the tower of the former, hentzner “counted above thirty” placed “on iron spikes.”[1] witches were burnt alive; a horrible fate also reserved for women who killed their husbands, which crime stood on the statute-books not as murder, but as petty treason. heretics, too, were frequently burnt. perjury was punished by the pillory and branding, and rogues and vagabonds, irrespective of age and sex, were sent to the public stocks and whipping-post.
“in london, and within a mile, i ween,
there are of jails and prisons full eighteen,
and sixty whipping-posts, and stocks, and cages,”
59writes taylor, the water poet. scolds were ducked, and many minor offences were rewarded by burning the hand, cropping the ears, and similar mutilations. finally, felons refusing to plead were subjected to the peine forte et dure, notwithstanding the proud and oft-repeated boast that torture has always been unknown to the english law.
surely it is needless for us to go farther than all this, unless it be to add the striking fact that, despite such brutal severity in punishment, crimes and outrages of every description remained alarmingly common throughout the whole of the period with which we have been concerned. enough has been said to throw in some of the heavier shadows necessary to complete the slight sketch we have been trying to furnish of the social life and every-day manners of shakspere’s time.
with this as our last word, then, we take leave of “the spacious times of great elizabeth,” and become once more denizens of our own century. and here it would be easy, of course, to fall into the cheap macaulay-vein of moralizing; to strike a contrast between present and past, point out all the manifold and magnificent 60achievements of modern civilization, and end with rhetorical rhapsodies over our “wondrous, wondrous age.” it would be easy, i say, to do this; and i doubt not that it would be effective. but when in my study of the literature of any bygone generation i make myself at home for a time among dead things and long-forgotten people, i do not, i must confess, find myself in any mood for brass-band celebrations. the feeling left with me is a vaguer and sadder one. for, as i turn back into our own world, i remember that this past was once verily and actually the present; that these dead things, these long-forgotten people, were once intensely alive; that the tragedy and the comedy of existence went on then as it goes on to-day; and that in the breasts of men and women fashioned like ourselves beat human hearts, after all, very like our own. hope and disappointment, joy and despair; the memory of yesterday, the expectation of the morrow; the hunger and thirst of the spirit; the lust of the eye; the pride of life; the “ancient sorrow of man,”—all that goes to make up the sum total of our little earthly lot,—was their portion, too, as it will presently be the portion of the countless generations by which we in our turn shall be replaced. and thus, 61musing, i think of the nameless young men and maidens of that dim, far-off age, who repeated the sweet old story of love, as their fathers and mothers had done before them, as their distant descendants do to-day, while there was confusion in high places, and storm and struggle about the land. i think of the tears that were shed as gentle hearts broke in anguish; of the brave deeds wrought; of the tales of the faith of sturdy manhood and the trust of womanly devotion, which will never be retold. i think of the lives that ran their placid course; of the children that came as years went by, bringing “hope with them and forward-looking thoughts”; of mothers weeping over empty cradles; of tiny graves, long since obliterated, where many a bright promise found “its earthly close.” i think of lives that were successful, and of lives that were failures; of prophecies unfulfilled; of splendid ambitions realized only to bring the inevitable disillusion; of sordid aims accomplished; of vile things said and done. the whole dead world seems to take form and flesh in my imagination; the men and women start from the pages of the book i have been reading—a mad world, my masters, and a strange one; but behold, a world singularly, almost grotesquely, like our own. and then 62my thought takes a sudden spin; and this age of ours seems to slip some three centuries back into the past, and becomes weird, and phantasmal, and unreal. and i find myself peering across the misty years into this throbbing world of multitudinous enterprise and activity from the standpoint of an era when you and i will be long since forgotten—when no one will know how we toiled and suffered and loved and died, when no one will care where we lie at rest. how curious to think of it all in this way! and with what tempered enthusiasms and sobered judgments must we needs go back to take up again the burden of life knowing that the deep, silent current of time is sweeping us slowly into the great darkness, and that hereafter the tale will be told of us as it has been told generation after generation since the world began: lo, their glory endured but for a season, and the fashion of it has passed away forever!
