natural scenery, but none havė approached him in their portrayal of life. When there is any dominating passion in the mind of any man, it arises from enthusiasm, and enthusiasm shows itself by absorption in what is placed before the eye of the mind. Hence, in the presence of humanity, humanity absorbs the dramatist's attention. Even in the country scenes we feel that element is supreme, although Nature is much in evidence as a background or setting. But when Shakespeare is dealing with towns, the spots with which presumably his audience would be more familiar, the setting is but faint; yet the master-hand is there.

Each scene has its appropriate background even if not described, and such occasional words and touches as there are indicate that Shakespeare was equally observant and appreciative of the aesthetic and informative side of all that pertains to a great city. Indeed, we may infer so from some lines in the Comedy of Errors. Here, Antipholus of Syracuse has an hour to spare, and thus determines:

Within this hour it will be dinner-time: Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,

Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,

And then return, and sleep within mine inn.

Whether or no the poet's real heart was not, perhaps, more in that beautiful Warwickshire where he had spent his earlier life can only be a matter of conjecture. However, he must have loved London. His plays are so full of reference and allusion to all sides and all phases of London scenery and life, so conversant with all London lore, that we must be convinced that he felt himself in very truth "a citizen of no mean city."

The London in which Shakespeare lived may still be termed medieval, LIVING AGE. VOL. LII. 2746

though the long period of similarity of architecture and design which we identify with that of the Middle Ages had just begun to pass away, and a new era of improvement and higher civilization to begin. Perhaps, in the outward appearance of the city the event which may be said to coincide with this turning-point was the burning down of that great landmark, the spire of Old St. Paul's in 1561, a beautiful structure of over 500 feet high. date synchronizes within a few years with that of the poet's birth.

This

To gain an idea of the appearance of the town the first thing to realize is its extent. An illustration will give some idea of the difference in this respect between Shakespearean and modern London. If the size of London at the present day is represented by the extent of an open sheet of ordinary octavo-sized notepaper, then the area of Elizabethan London would, roughly speaking, equal the area of two postage stamps.

Most of the houses were built of wood, picturesquely beamed, with storeys jutting out over each other in that way with which we are familiar. Shakespeare has a metaphor from this appearance in Love's Labor Lost, where he says:

With your hat penthouse like o'er the shop of your eyes.

And in Henry VI. we read of Cade:

I made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive to this day to testify of it;

whereby one may infer that the greater part of the buildings were of wood.

There were, however, a large number of stone and brick fabrics, and old monastery buildings, especially along the banks of the river, of which the present Charterhouse is an example.

There were also a number of stone churches, and others of wood, of which

some of the former exist to the present day, e.g., St. Bartholomew the Great. The title of this article is, however, "London as Shown by Shakespeare," and it will be, perhaps, of interest to endeavor to reconstruct the town solely from names of places and indications which he has given us, supplementing these only by further information when required to make any point clear, or to describe the appearance of any particular building, which it has been seen Shakespeare does not attempt to do at any length.

It should be noted that Shakespeare is not an exact chronologist, and generally any description he gives of the appearance of buildings or of customs, although the events therewith connected are those of previous reigns, is such as would apply to the times in which he lived. Moreover, between the reigns of the Houses of York and Lancaster, wherein the scene of the majority of his English plays is laid, and that of Elizabeth, no great changes in architecture or design took place, and, therefore, what he describes from his own observation probably contains no anachronism.

In any description of London the place of honor should be accorded to that natural feature which has been the determining factor of the city's greatness-the river on whose banks it stands.

Shakespeare, however, beyond referring to the Thames, has little definite description: the most we can gain from him is that the care of it by the ordinary citizens was not more conspicuous than it is at the present day, for we read of "the muddy ditch by Thames side," and of Falstaff being thrown "like a barrel of butchers' offal into the Thames."

In point of frequency of mention by the dramatist the Tower stands easily first among the buildings of London. We have already noted the scant de

scription applied to it, but the varied part it plays in history is duly chronicled, and it figures alike as palace, fortress, council chamber, armory, prison, and grave. The death of two of England's Kings is enacted within its walls.

A telling touch as to its impregnability is supplied by the order of Cade, in the drama of Henry VI., to his followers: "Set fire to London Bridge, and if you can to the Tower too."

In this play Shakespeare seems, with a kind of grim humor, to enjoy letting loose the "filth and scum of Kent" to play havoc in the capital. "Up Fish Street, down St. Magnus' Corner; kill and knock down. Throw them into the Thames," is the beginning of one scene in the words of Cade. With the next the commencement is "Go, some and pull down the Savoy; others to the Inns of Court; down with them all." And in another place of the same scene a follower calls out "Let's kill all the lawyers." On Blackheath, after the fight, the rebel leader directs "the bodies shall be dragged at my horse's heels till I do come to London, where we will have the Mayor's sword borne before us." And in like manner they ruffle it for several scenes

more.

It is the first named usage of the Tower which gives the key to the appearance of Shakespeare's London as essentially a city of palaces. "Proud London," says the Archbishop in Henry IV. There are no less than ten palaces, besides the Tower, all occupied at different times by Royalty; Westminster Palace, Ely House, Bridewell, Barnard Castle a fort, pulled down in the eighteenth century-the Savoy, Eltham Palace, Placentiaspoken of as Greenwich in Richard III. -Crosby Hall, Whitehall and York Place. Of the last two, two gentlemen thus speak in Henry VIII.:-"Sir, you must not now call it York Place;

that's past; for since the Cardinal fell that title's lost; 'tis now the King's and called Whitehall," giving an apt epitome of the change of name and

owner.

Bridewell was a palace in the time of Henry IV., who is spoken of as being there but was in the time of the Tudors taken over for charitable purposes. Westminster was essentially the chief residence of Shakespeare's Kings, and probably it is the locality of those scenes that are only indicated by the direction-"the Council Chamber"; "the Court"; or "the Palace." We know that from the fourteenth century onwards Parliament always sat at Westminster unless there was any special reason to the contrary, generally in the Chapter House, which is spoken of by Shakespeare, as it was then called, as the "Parliament House." The Palace adjoined the river in much the same position as the present Houses of Parliament now stand, but was burnt down in 1834. Westminster Hall, we have already referred to.

Of Westminster Abbey Shakespeare thus speaks by the mouth of Duchess Eleanor in Henry VI.:—

Methought I sat in seat of majesty In the Cathedral Church of Westminster,

In that chair where Kings and Queens are crowned.

In contrast with this passage we have a reference to a similar topic appropriate to the present time, in Henry IV., in lighter vein. At a public place, near Westminster Abbey, two grooms exclaim:

More rushes-more rushes!

The trumpets have sounded twice; 'twill be two o'clock ere they come from the Coronation; dispatch-dispatch!

From Westminster to London it was probably a pleasant rural road, open on one side, with palaces and gardens on the other. That the two places

were separate we may infer from the passage where Henry IV. bids his courtiers at Westminster, "Seek him in London in the taverns there." Before reaching the outskirts of the city, the village of Charing with its cross would have to be traversed-which Shakespeare refers to as the destination of two "razes of ginger" from Gadshilland the Strand passed as at the present time. Besides the palaces and inns upon the right there were probably other houses, for Shakespeare tells us in Henry VIII. of a haberdasher's wife there quartered.

The view of the city would be dominated by the splendid pile of Old St. Paul's and its great tower, bereft of the spire which was burnt down some years before, as we have seen. Of the Cathedral Shakespeare speaks on several occasions; but, though Richard III. swears by St. Paul, the poet only calls the sacred building "Paul's," the name it was generally known by-an indication of the profane use to which it was constantly put as a place of public resort and business. This practice is well illustrated in the plays where Richard III. gives order that "the indictment of good Lord Hastings may be read over this day in Paul's." Falstaff, too, "bought" (sic) a lacquey "in Paul's." Other ecclesiastical buildings mentioned by Shakespeare are St. Katherine, St. Lawrence Poultney, and St. Bennett with its bells, in addition to the numerous monastic foundations which in his day had been partly appropriated to other uses.

Whitefriars is spoken of in Richard III., and the Hall of Blackfriars is chosen by Henry VIII., with courtierlike phrase, for the trial of the Queen

as:-

The most convenient place that I can think

For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars.

It may be noted here that in the reign of this sovereign nearly twothirds of the area of the town was taken up by religious buildings or enclosures, which, although now in Elizabeth's reign they had been put to other uses or partially destroyed, must have brought it about that a large portion of London was of noble aspect.

Of other famous halls mentioned by Shakespeare there are the Guildhall and (Middle) Temple Hall. In the latter spot his own play of Twelfth Night was acted in 1601 before James I., and he thus speaks of it in Henry VI.:Within the Temple Hall one were too loud;

The garden here is more convenient. And in this garden, which in the presend day is still famous for its flowers, was the initiation of that terrible quarrel we know by the name of the Wars of the Roses, which forms the theme of four of the plays.

Mention has been made hitherto chiefly of the larger buildings of London and their connection with the great of the land. No true picture of London would be given if we could not represent the London of the ordinary life, and it is such conception of a town that Shakespeare enables us, from a number of incidental touches and references, to have very vividly before us; it is probably this London that Davy, the rustic of Gloucestershire, refers to when he says, "I hope to see London once ere I die."

It must be confessed that the view we get of this side of the capital is not a view of working London. We hear of "Master Smooth the silkman in Lumbert Street"; "Cheapside," as a place to get "commodities on our bills"; "Pie Corner," "where 'a comes continually to buy a saddle"; but there is not much else to denote that the town was the port of the land or a thriving industrial community. There is, however, certainly a more rural atmos

phere imparted to it by Shakespeare than would be given by a modern poet. We read of "strawberries in Holborn," of "York Gardens," the "smell like Bucklersbury in simple time”—(because there the druggists lived)—"of Moorfields," the "melancholy of Moorditch," of "Finsbury," as a distance to walk to, of St. George's Fields with its ,windmill; of other fields and open spaces. Shakespeare records Smithfield, or Smoothfield, the open ground beyond the North-west gate of the city, as being utilized for that peaceful industry of cattle-dealing with which it so long has been connected, and also for the gruesome practice for which it is equally famous, the execution of criminals. Thus in Henry VI. the King condemns "the witch in Smithfield to be burnt to ashes." Other localities for punishment also referred to are the Fleet Prison, to which Sir John Falstaff is finally sent; the Marshalsea, and Newgate incidentally, in the words of Bardolph: "March, two and two, Newgate fashion"; the Counter or Debtor's Prison opposite Greyfriars and in Love's Labor Lost (of all plays). "the shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity."

Ludgate, presumably, was equally used with other gates for the purpose of holding up the wrong to shame, for in Cymbeline the King determines "On the gates of Lud's town set your heads."

It is, however, the more cheerful features of the everyday London life which Shakespeare cares most to dwell upon, and especially does he like to portray tavern life and what goes on beneath the "ale-house paltry sign."

"Seek him in London," King Henry says, as we have seen, of the missing Hal, "among the taverns there"; adding, "which he doth frequent with loose companions. Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, to beat our watch and rob our passengers."

Such places of entertainment would be the White Hart in Southwark, and the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, where the dramatist lays the scene of many a merry carouse of Falstaff and his companions. The boy in Henry V. before the battle cries, "Would I were in an ale-house in London." On the field of Shrewsbury, the fat knight strikes the same key and jokes:

Though I should escape shot free (or "scot"-i.e., payment) in London,

I fear the shot here.

Falstaff and his comrade Shallow have many haunts in the capital associated with their early frolics. Quoth Shallow:

"O! Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in Saint George's field?"

"No more of that, good master Shallow; no more of that!"

is the reply.

From one's knowledge of Falstaff one cannot help surmising that from this particular adventure he had not come out with much credit. However, Shallow is more confident in his past, for in the same scene he refers to the "fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer behind Gray's Inn." Shallow at this time must have indeed been gay, for his historian also tells us when he studied law in London he was "Sir Dagonet in a show." However, Falstaff would have none of it; braggadocio in another calls forth his sarcasm, of the bitterest. "This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street, and every third word a lie. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a man made after supper like a cheese paring and now is this vice's' dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of 1 The vice was the "villain" of the Masque or moralty play, and was often armed with a dagger of lath with which he would stab without doing much harm.

John o' Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him."

Shakespeare evidently associates the lawyers' quarters with revelry, for in another place he tells us:

"You had not four such swinge bucklers in all the Inns of Court again."

Other places of revels for the convivial, we read, are the "Elephant in the Southern Suburbs," and Paris Garden, where various sports were carried on, on the south side of the river.

To the other places of amusement in that quarter-theatres, the bear gardens and cockpits-the dramatist does not refer directly, beyond the allusion to the "Wooden O" which has already been noticed.

In reference to the second-named attraction he tells us of a famous bear which one cannot help thinking must have been a "character" in the capital. Slender says in the Merry Wives:

I love the sport well, an I shall soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

That's meat and drink to me; I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain, but I warrant you the women have so cried and shrieked that it passed; but women indeed cannot abide them; they are very ill-favored, rough things.

However, the passage in Shakespeare most pregnant with bourgeois life in London and direct reference to varied localities is in Henry VIII.

The scene is the Yard outside the Palace; the procession is immediately expected from the christening ceremony, and some of the crowd have got over the paling into the enclosure.

The Porter and his Man thus speak and remonstrate:

Porter: Is this Moorfields to muster in, or have we some strange Indian come to court

Man (he explains): There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near