It is necessary to know rural England to enter
into the spirit of this literature, and to appreciate how thoroughly it
took hold of life in every phase. Shakespeare knew it well. He drew from
life the country gentleman, the squire, the parson, the pedantic
schoolmaster who was regarded as half conjurer, the yeoman or farmer, the
dairy maids, the sweet English girls, the country louts, shepherds,
boors, and fools. How he loved a fool! He had talked with all these
persons, and knew their speeches and humors. He had taken part in the
country festivals-May Day, Plow Monday, the Sheep Shearing, the Morris
Dances and Maud Marian, the Harvest Home and Twelfth Night. The rustic
merrymakings, the feasts in great halls, the games on the greensward, the
love of wonders and of marvelous tales, the regard for portents, the
naive superstitions of the time pass before us in his pages. Drake, in
his "Shakespeare and his Times," gives a graphic and indeed charming
picture of the rural life of this century, drawn from Harrison and other
sources.
In his spacious hall, floored with stones and lighted by large transom
windows, hung with coats of mail and helmets, and all military
accoutrements, long a prey to rust, the country squire, seated at a
raised table at one end, held a baronial state and dispensed prodigal
hospitality. The long table was divided into upper and lower messes by a
huge salt-cellar; and the consequence of the guests was marked by their
seats above or below the salt.
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