There was the famous London Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral, and palaces and markets and taverns and bear gardens, and long streets full of shops. 16. Then, too, there were the daily crowds where could be seen people from all over the world. Knights and courtiers jostling county squires, and scholars and divines touching, as they passed, the highwayman or thief who had won notoriety by his clever robberies. 17. Here, also, were noblemen dressed in velvet and gold, from Italy and Spain and France; slaves from Spanish America, sea captains and priests, soldiers and servants—all held by chance or interest within the gray walls which circled London, and whose gates gave welcome to as strange a crowd as could be found in the world. 18. Into this curious crowd came Shakspere, quick to see and eager to learn, and before long all these strange sights were as familiar to him as the faces of his own townsfolk. Each one told its story to him so plainly that, as before he had learned the secrets of the fields and woods, so now he learned men and the interests which make up the great world. 19. And he learned these lessons so well that when he came to write his plays he made such use of them as no writer ever made before or since; for it is the use of this knowledge of the world, combined with his own genius, that makes Shakspere the greatest dramatist that has ever lived. 20. But when Shakspere first entered London, the objects of greatest interest to him were the theaters, for since his boyhood two or three regular theaters had been opened. One of the principal was that called Blackfriars, which had been made out of some dwelling houses, and which took its name from the monastery of Blackfriars near by. lit by 21. It was this poor little playhouse candles, and with its floor of earth, and its stage. covered with rushes, and with an audience that smoked, laughed, talked, and ate as the play went on that Shakspere entered soon after he reached. London, and by so doing crowned it with a fame as immortal as that which rests upon Stratford itself. 22. The plays that were then the most popular were in many cases written by the actors themselves, and as the company at Blackfriars consisted of some of the leading actors of the day, Shakspere was at once thrown into the society that would best bring out his talents as an actor and playwright. Shakspere frequented the theaters and acted in a small way for a while, and then in a year or two began to write for the stage himself. 23. At first he simply joined with some fellowactor in writing a new play or in rewriting an old one, but this only continued for a short time, and soon he began the series of wonderful plays which stand alone in all literature. 24. Shakspere gathered the materials for his plays from many sources, for nearly all the authors of ancient times had been translated into English, and the playwright of the day could choose his plot from many different scenes. In fact, the literature that was open to Shakspere was as rich and varied as a casket of precious stones, and he made good use of it. 25. He was familiar with the old writers of Greece and Rome, and knew all the old tales of love and adventure and revenge which filled the pages of Italian writers. He was wise in the old chronicles of England, whose history was as romantic and interesting as a fairy tale. 26. And besides this, he read the tales of those adventurers who had traveled in the far East and told thrilling stories of Arab and Moor and Turk, or excited the imagination by relating the dangers of the Southern Ocean or the Arctic Sea, and the perils among the hostile tribes and savage beasts in distant America. 27. And all this knowledge of books he combined with his knowledge of men, and put both into his plays, and made them so real and true that when people saw them on the stage, they forgot that what they saw was acting, and could fancy that they were looking at the real scenes which Shakspere had in mind when he was writing. And so they laughed over his clowns and fools and jesters, and wept over his unhappy kings and wretched queens and murdered princes, whose pitiful stories made them think the more tenderly of their own children safe at home. And when the play was over, and they came back to everyday life again, it was to declare that this Shakspere was the greatest writer of dramas that had yet appeared. 28. Shakspere always considered Stratford his home, and bought there an estate, where he visited his family from time to time. When he had made a good sum of money, he retired to Stratford. There he died four years later, on the anniversary of his fifty-second birthday, and was buried in the parish church so closely connected with his first childish memories. 29. Outside of his plays he is known as the author of a few poems and songs, and more than a hundred sonnets full of beauty, but it is his great dramas which have won for Shakspere the fame which has placed his name far above and beyond any other writer in the history of the world. I. Mǎn'or nouse: a country house of some importance. War of the Roses: an English civil war in the fifteenth century, so called because the rival parties took as emblems the red and the white rose. Sir Martin Frobisher (1535?-1594): Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595): an an English navigator. English naval commander. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539 ?— 1584): an English navigator. Sir Francis Drake (1540?–1596): an English navigator. II. Court'iers: gentlemen in attendance on the court of a prince. Di vines': priests; clergymen. Mon'ăs těr ỹ: a house of religious retirement; a convent. Forest Scene - from "As You Like It" BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE ACT II SCENE I The Forest of Arden Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, and two or three Lords like foresters DUKE S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods |