1774 Ann the Word and eight of her disciples emigrated to America, and landed at New York on August 1st of that year. Abraham Stanley, not relishing his wife’s celibate creed, abandoned her for another woman. The “Believers” settled at Neuskenna, now called Watervliet, and were imprisoned for refusing to take the oath, for which reason they were suspected of being unfavourable to the cause of the Revolution. On being released they preached their creed and gradually gained converts. Ann Lee died at Watervliet 8th September 1780. She was succeeded by James Whittaker, who died in 1788, when Joseph Meacham succeeded to the leadership and organized the society on that communistic basis which now distinguishes it. In the early history of the Shakers various charges were brought against them, including flagellation and naked dancing, but they have outlived these scandals and are now generally respected. There is an interesting sketch of a Shaker community in Howell’s Undiscovered Country. They all work; they are capital agriculturists; they have a widespread reputation for thoroughness, frugality, and temperance. They believe in the reality of constant intercourse with the world of spirits. There are “poems” by Mother Ann which it is claimed have been dictated by her from the spirit world. They claim from time to time the exercise of the gift of tongues and the gift of healing. The theological ideas of the Shakers are set forth in the Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing exemplified by the Principle and Practice of the True Church of Christ, of which a fourth edition, printed in 1856, was extensively circulated. A compactor statement is that in F. W. Evans’s Shakers’ Compendium, which was printed at New Lebanon in 1859. Elder Evans, who is the best-known representative of Shakerism, is of English birth, and has published an autobiography. In 1870 there were eighteen distinct Shaker communities, with eighteen church buildings capable of seating 8850 persons, and possessing property valued at $86,900. These socialist villages are in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
The best known of the settlements is that at New Lebanon, where there are three separate societies in view of each other. The North Family, the Church Family, and the Second Family are distinct groups, whose members live together and have a common right to land, house, hats, tools, books, and all that there is. The only form of government is that supplied by the public opinion of the community, as expressed in its social meetings for mutual confession, counsel, and criticism. Mr Hepworth Dixon’s New America gives an interesting account of their communistic methods.[1]
There is an extensive literature respecting the Shakers; a bibliography is appended to W. E. A. Axon’s Biographical Notice of Ann Lee, Liverpool, 1876.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616), the national poet of England, the greatest dramatist that modern Europe has produced, was born in April, in the year 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick. The known facts of the poet’s personal history are comparatively few, and before giving them in order we purpose considering in some detail the larger educational influences which helped to stimulate his latent powers, to evoke and strengthen his poetical and patriotic sympathies, and thus prepare and qualify him for his future work. In dealing with these influences we are on firm and fruitful ground. We know, for example, that Shakespeare was born and lived for twenty years at Stratford-upon-Avon; and we can say therefore with certainty that all the physical and moral influences of that picturesque and richly-storied Midland district melted as years went by into the full current of his ardent blood, became indeed the vital element, the very breath of life his expanding spirit breathed. We know a good deal about his home, his parents, and his domestic surroundings; and these powerful factors in the development of any mind gifted with insight and sensibility must have acted with redoubled force on a nature so richly and harmoniously endowed as that of the Stratford poet. It would be difficult indeed to overestimate the combined effect of these vital elements on his capacious and retentive mind, a mind in which the receptive and creative powers were so equally poised and of such unrivalled strength. This review of the larger influences operating with concentrated force during the critical years of youth and early manhood will help to connect and interpret the few and scattered particulars of Shakespeare’s personal history. These particulars must indeed be to some extent connected and interpreted in order to be clearly understood, and any intelligible account of Shakespeare’s life must therefore take the shape of a biographical essay, rather than of a biography proper. We may add that the sketch will be confined to the points connected with Shakespeare’s local surroundings and personal history. The large literary questions connected with his works, such as the classification, the chronology, and analysis of the plays, could not of course be adequately dealt with in such a sketch. It is the less necessary that this wider task should be attempted as the main points it embraces have recently been well handled by competent Shakespearian scholars. The best and most convenient manuals embodying the results of recent criticism and research will be referred to at the close of the article. Meanwhile we have first to look at the locality of Shakespeare’s birth, both in its material and moral aspects.
WarwickshireWarwickshire was known to Shakespeare’s contemporaries as the central county or heart of England. It was the middle shire of the Midlands, where the two great Roman roads crossing the island from east to west and west to east met,—forming at their point of junction the centre of an irregular St Andrew’s cross, of which the arms extended from Dover to Chester on the one side and from Totnes to Lincoln and the north on the other. The centre in which these roads—Watling Street and the Fosse Way—thus met was early known from this circumstance as the High Cross. Being the most important Midland position during the Roman occupation of the country, several Roman stations were formed in the neighbourhood of this venerable Quatre Bras. Of these Camden specifies the ancient and flourishing city of Clychester, represented in part by the modern Clybrook, and Manduessidum, the memory of which is probably retained in the modern Mancettar. Important Roman remains have also been found within a few miles of Stratford, at Alcester, a central station on the third great Roman road, Ricknild Street, which runs from south to north across the western side of the county. In later times, when means of communication were multiplied, the great roads to the north-west still
- ↑ There is considerable similarity between the American disciples of Ann Lee and the English Shakers of the New Forest, who came into public notice in 1874. One of their members had bought 31 acres of land, which they cultivated under the direction of “Mother” Mary Ann Girling, who was at once their foundress and prophetess. As the result of some litigation the Shakers were ejected in 1874, and, after having shelter for a time on a farm belonging to the Hon. Auberon Herbert, they then became a tent community. Charges were made against them of naked dancing in the course of their religious ecstasies. They believe in the second advent, regard Mrs Girling as the woman Messiah, have all property in common, and preach the doctrine of celibacy.
