Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Shakespeare's birthday and name
SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHDAY AND NAME.
First in point of time, the Stage, and then the Printing Press, have made familiar to mankind the illustrious name of William Shakespeare. He (“the divine William,” as actors affect to call him) has stood long prior to the Hanoverian succession—long prior to the fall of the House of Stuart—anterior to the Revolution—anterior to the Restoration—anterior to the Protectorate—the Great Genius of our Land, unapproached, and apparently unapproachable.
But who was he? Why the very spelling of his name (we say it tremblingly) has long been, and is still, a war-cry for critical arrogance and hard words. O, quoth Mr. Malone, with many men of talent to back him, it is “William Shakspeare;” rather, quoth Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Collier, and Mr. Dyce, “William Shakespeare.” Nay, but stop, say both Sir Frederick Madden and Mr. Charles Knight, after all it is surely “William Shakspere.”
The controversy, like that of the Big-Endians and Little-Endians in Swift, is matter of little moment, and may be shut up in an egg-shell. My only wonder is that the Christian name, “William,” has been left alone, and that the consonants comprising the great man’s name have not been called in question with the vowels.
When the illustrious author of “Tom Jones” was asked by his kinsman, the Earl of Denbigh, why he always wrote his name Fielding, and not Feilding, the reply was to the point,—“For no other reason, I suppose, my lord, than this: my ancestors could spell and your lordship’s couldn’t.”
When Elizabeth was Queen, there were many men who stood out illustrious in an age which does not seem to have suffered the existence of little men. Cecil, Lord Burleigh, now best known by his critical nod, wrote his name in at least three different ways. Dudley, Earl of Leicester, known to all by the “Kenilworth” of Walter Scott, wrote “Leycester,” and “Lecester” too. Shakespeare’s own Earl of Southampton—the same earl to whom he addresses his only dedications, his “Venus and Adonis” and “Rape of Lucrece,” and now best known through Shakespeare—signs his name to an original document now before me, “H. Southampton,”—the document so signed describing him as “Henry Earle of Sudhampton.” Sir Walter Raleigh (who gave us Ireland’s curse, the potato), wrote both “Ralegh” and “Rawley;” and Spenser, who gave us the “Faerie Queene,” seems to have prided himself on the second s, which distinguished his name from the noble house of Althorp, from which, however, it was his boast that he was sprung.
There is, says Mr. Malone, but one complete autograph signature of Shakspeare’s, and that is to the third and last brief of his Will. There the poet has written his name distinctly enough, “William Shakspeare;” and as the poet wrote his own name with his own hand, it is binding upon us to spell it. But we deny, rejoin the antagonists of Malone, that the poet has so written his name; the Shak is distinct enough, but the speare we cannot recognise. The truth is, the three signatures of his surname to the Will of the great poet are three hieroglyphs—past deciphering—and only to be read by another Cadmus hatched into life for the purpose—or, better still, by the rebirth of the poet, for the sole object of telling us what, and how many, vowels, how many ee’s and how many aa’s, really compose the letters of his world-wide name.
The combatants who have reduced this myriad-minded man’s name down to its lowest possible proportion of letters, are of a mushroom growth. They owe their origin to the accidental discovery, some thirty years since, of a folio “Florio” of 1598, that belonged, as they allege, or rather assert—to no less a person than “the divine William.” And why? The folio is produced; let the profanum vulgus “with reverence look.” That Florio, says an authority from Montagu House Museum, belonged to Shakespeare; of his little library this alone is left—this alone of Shakespeare’s library of the year 1616 has been spared to the reign of Queen Victoria: and there, He, “who was not of an age, but for all time,” has written his name unmistakeably “William Shakspere.” “Certainly,” we reply, “it is ‘Shakspere,’ but is it genuine? Will it ring? Warwickshire, we admit, but Brummagem by—the Master of the Mint.” A snort, a scowl, a shrug, and a turn on the heel meet us, and nothing more; and thus we are left to ponder on the Smiths, Smyths, and Smythes, the Sidneys and the Sydneys, and every variety connected with the surnames of Brown, Green, Grey, and White—for every colour has its caprice of spelling save “staid Wisdom’s hue” funereal Black—unless, after all, Blake is but a whitening or softening of that sable surname.
While we are in this mood we remember that the true pronunciation of “the divine William’s” name seems settled by a discovery of our own. In the manuscript accounts of the Master of the Revels of King James I., written and rendered and signed by the Master, when Shakespeare was alive (many years before Sir J. Romilly), the name attached to more than one of his never-dying plays is “Skaxberd.” We therefore drew our inference that Shaxspeare was his own way of pronouncing his own name, until we remembered (how devious are the ways to truth!) that the printers of his plays in his own lifetime gave the full Shakes to the Revels’ “Shax;” and that on two books (his two poems)—the only works of his own to which he gave an imprimatur of publication—his name stands affixed, in unmistakeable printers’ type, as “William Shakespeare.”
The spelling of the poet’s name being once settled after this very unsatisfactory fashion, both commentators and biographers agree that William Shakespeare, alias Shakspeare, alias Shakspere, alias Shaxberd, was the son of John S, &c., and Mary Arden, his wife, and that he was baptised (vide parish register) at Stratford-upon-Avon on the 26th of April, 1564. But when was he born? On Sunday, the 23rd, it is said. And why? Because the poet died on the 23rd of April; and it is only fair to believe that if the poet was destined to die (as die he did) in April, he, or rather his Fates, would have made him die on his birthday; for what says Pope?
Is this a birthday? ’tis alas too clear
’Tis but the funeral of a former year.
Thomas De Quincey inclines to allow of more than three days’ grace, and would fix the “natal day” on the 22nd. The Opium Eater has his “why,” like Hudibras:
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.
And what are the grounds of his assertion? Ten years after the great poet’s death, his grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall, chose that day (Shakespeare’s supposed birthday, the anniversary of his death, certainly) for the day of the solemnization of her own marriage:—a curious rattling together, it must be owned, of christening cups, apostle spoons, wedding rings, and bed-curtain rings, fonts, favours, altars, caudle cups, wine cups, cradles, beds of Ware, coffins, and funeral baked meats.
As there is no authority for fixing the twenty-third (the day of St. George, the patron saint of England) as Shakespeare’s birthday, and no real ground for fixing a particular day, and setting it apart as one to be observed with the honours due to the day that gave us a giant among giants—let us see what was the ordinary interval of time observed between birth and baptism when Shakespeare was in the flesh, and even later. Edward Alleyn, the actor (a man well known to Shakespeare), was baptised the day after his birth. Oliver Cromwell was baptised four days after his birth, and Milton eleven days after. Aubrey, the antiquary and astrologer, was born on the 11th of March, 1625, and being “very weak and like to die,” was christened before morning prayer the same day. Ashmole, the astrologer and herald, was born on the 23rd of May, 1617, and was baptised the 2nd of June following. The great Earl of Clarendon was baptised four days after his birth. Coming nearer to our own time, the author of “The Seasons” was four days old when carried to the font; and the author of the “Pleasures of Imagination” twenty-one. Eighteen days elapsed between Hogarth’s birth and his baptism; and Boswell’s “Johnson” was baptised ten days after birth. I will not weary my readers with other instances.
As to the godfathers of the “divine William”—who were they? The question is put, and Echo answers of necessity, “I do not know.” In this dilemma, Malone rushes to our aid with his “perhaps” and “may be,” forgetting that perhapses are seldom profitable, and that “Maybees are never honey-bees.” In a borough of the size of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, more than one William was to be found when Shakespeare was born. The parish register would fully prove this fact, and to this Malone had recourse, as the only Post Office Directory, Blue Book, Red Book, Trades’ Directory, and Court Guide of Stratford-upon-Avon in the year 1564. He unearthed two Williams,—both Smyths (of course)—the one a mercer, the other a haberdasher. It is idle to attempt to guess which Smyth gave the name of William to England’s greatest poet. Could it have been William of Cloudesley, or William Rufus, or that William of Hastings, who reigned before Richard the Third, celebrated in seventeenth-century story books of scandal as William the Conqueror, or, peradventure, William of Malmesbury?
Next year, A.D. 1864, is the third centenary of Shakespeare’s birth. What day in April shall we choose for our exhibition of gratitude and admiration to this great benefactor of mankind—to the great poet who has given, and will long continue to give, employment and bread to printers, stationers, binders, and publishers, to actors and to scene-painters? To take no higher view than is implied in this mercantile estimate of the great poet’s value, even in this lowest sense think what a true benefactor to the world has this man, William Shakespeare, been. What day, then, shall we choose? “Nay, Gots lords and his ladies,” says Sir Hugh Evans, “you must speak possitable.” What mulberry-tree table shall we find large enough to give ample room and verge enough for his still circling admirers? What chairman’s voice will ever reach the furthest seat of the Walhalla of that day—be it the 22nd or the 23rd of April, 1864,—when we shall celebrate with all due honours the third centenary of William Shakespeare’s birth?