Looking, then, first of all, at the political conditions of the time, we may describe the history of the reign6 of Elizabeth as the history of consolidation7 rather than of superficial change. 2What strikes us most is not the addition of fresh culture-elements, but the reorganization and expansion of elements already existing. The forces of evolution had turned inward, acting8 more upon the internal structure than upon the external forms of society. The Wars of the Roses were now things of recollection only, the fierce contentions9 which the struggle between York and Lancaster had produced having subsided10 with most of the bitter feelings engendered11 by them. Save for the collision with Spain, which ended in the defeat of the great Armada, England enjoyed a singular immunity12 from complications with foreign powers; and an opportunity, freely made use of, was thus offered for the development of foreign trade. The growth of a strong commercial sentiment, consequent on this, acted as a powerful solvent14 in the dissolution of feudal15 ideas and the disintegration16 of feudal forms of life. The conflict was now mainly between opinions—between rival forces of an intellectual and moral character. The power of the upper classes—the representatives of the ancient régime of chivalry—was on the wane17; the power of the middle classes—the representatives of the modern régime of commerce—showed corresponding growth. The voice of the people, through 3their delegates in Parliament, began to be acknowledged by the caution exhibited on sundry18 critical occasions by the crown; the country at large was growing richer and stronger; the sense of English unity13 was intensified19 by the very dangers which menaced the national life; and as men came more and more to recognize their individualities, they demanded greater freedom of thought and speech. “England, alone of European nations,” as Mr. Symonds pointed20 out, “received the influences of both Renaissance21 and Reformation simultaneously22.” The mighty23 forces generated by these two movements in combination—one emancipating24 the reason, the other the conscience, from the trammels of the Middle Ages—told in countless25 ways upon the masses of society. But with all this,—partly, indeed, in consequence of all this,—there was a deep-seated restlessness at the very springs of life. The contests of opposing parties were carried on with a fierceness and acerbity26 of which we know little in these more moderate days; the minds of men were set at variance27 and thrown into confusion by a thousand distracting issues; and, unrealized as yet in all their significance and power, those Titanic28 religious and political agencies were beginning to take shape which were 4by and by to rend29 English society to its very core.
When we turn from the political character of the age to the moral character of the people, we find it difficult to avoid having recourse to a series of antitheses30, after the familiar manner of Macaulay, so violent and surprising are the contrasts, so diverse the component31 qualities which analysis everywhere brings to light. The age was virile32 in its power, its restlessness, its amazing energy and fertility; it was virile, too, in its unrestraint, its fierceness, its licentiousness33 and brutality34. Men gloried in their newly conquered freedom, and in that wider knowledge of the world which had been opened up to them by the study of the past, by the scientific researches of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, by the discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci, Columbus, Jenkinson, Willoughby, Drake. National feeling was strong; the national pulse beat high. Yet, in spite of Protestantism and an open Bible, it was essentially36 a pagan age; in spite of its Platonism and Euphuism, a coarse and sensual one. You had only to scratch the superficial polish to find the old savagery37 beneath. Your smiling and graceful38 courtier would discourse39 of Seneca and Aristotle, but he would relish40 the obscenest jest 5and act his part in the grossest intrigue41. Your young gallant42 would turn an Italian sonnet43, or “tune the music of an ever vain tongue,” but within an hour he might have been found in all the blood and filth44 and turmoil45 of the cockpit or the bear-ring. The unseemliest freedom prevailed throughout society—amidst the noble ladies in immediate46 attendance upon the queen, and thence all down the social scale. Laws were horribly brutal35, habits revoltingly rude. All the powerful instincts of a fresh, buoyant, self-reliant, ambitious, robust47, sensuous48 manhood had burst loose, finding expression now in wild extravagance, indulgence, animalism, now in great effort on distant seas, now in the mighty utterances49 of the drama; for these things were but different facets50 of the same national character. Still, with all its gigantic prodigality51 of energy, with all its untempered misuse52 of genius and power, the English Renaissance kept itself free from many of the worst features of the Spanish and Italian revivals53. It was all very well for Benvenuto Cellini to call the English “wild beasts.” Deep down beneath the casuistry and Euphuism, beneath the artificiality and the glittering veneer54, beneath the coarseness and the brutalism, there was ever to be found that which was lacking in 6the Southern character—a stern, hardy55, tough-fibred moral sense, which in that critical period of disquietude and upheaval56 formed indeed the very sheet-anchor of the nation’s hopes. It must never be forgotten that it was this age of new-found freedom, and of that license57 which went with it like its shadow, that produced such types of magnificent manhood as Raleigh, strong “the fierce extremes of good and ill to brook”; as Spenser, sweetest and purest of poets and of men; as Sidney, whom that same Spenser might well describe as “the most noble and virtuous58 gentleman, most worthy59 of all titles, both of learning and chivalry”; as Shakspere, whom, all slanders61 notwithstanding, we, like his own close friends, still think and speak of as our “Gentle Will.”
Such, so far as we are able to sum them up in a few brief sentences, were some of the salient characteristics of the great age of the Virgin63 Queen—an age, as Dean Church has said, “of vast ambitious adventure, which went to sea, little knowing whither it went, and ill-provided with knowledge or instrument”; but an age of magnificent enterprise and achievement, none the less. And now it is for us to follow down into some of the details of their private, every-day 7existence the men and women who, to use a suggestive phrase of Goethe’s, were the citizens of this period, and whose little lives shared, no matter in how small and obscure a way, in the movements and destinies of the large world into which they were born.
Just a quarter of a century before Queen Elizabeth’s death, a proclamation was issued, reciting that her Majesty64 foresaw that “great and manifold inconveniences and mischiefs” were likely to arise “from the access and confluence65 of the people” to the metropolis, and making certain stringent66 provisions with a view to keeping down the population of the city. This enactment67 is useful as showing us that even at that early date,—as later on, in the time of Smollett,—the enormous growth of London was held to be matter for alarm. London was indeed increasing rapidly in extent, population, wealth, and power; and Lyly was hardly guilty of extravagance when, in his “Euphues,” he wrote of it as a place that “both for the beauty of building, infinite riches, variety of all things,” “excelleth all the cities of the world; insomuch that it may be called the storehouse or mart of all Europe.” Yet we are most of us probably unable without much effort to 8realize how different was the English metropolis of Elizabeth’s time from the metropolis of the present day.
We have to remember, in the first place, that the London with which we are now concerned was a walled city, and that the territory which lay within the walls,—that is, the metropolis proper,—represented but a very small portion of what is now included within the civic69 area. Newgate, Ludgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, and Aldersgate, still mark out and perpetuate71 by their names the narrow lines of those protecting walls which held snug72 and secure the mere73 handful of folk of which London was then composed. At nine o’clock in the evening, when Bow-bell rang, and the voices of the other city churches took up the curfew-strain, the gates were shut for the night, and the citizens retired74 to their dwellings75 under the protection of armed watchmen who guarded their slumbers77 along the walls. Westward78 from Fleet Street and Holborn, beyond which so much of modern London lies, the city had not then penetrated79.
Within and about the walls there were many “fair churches for divine service,” with old St. Paul’s in their midst—the Gothic St. Paul’s of the days before the great fire; and many prisons 9to help the churches in their philanthropic work. Open spaces were very numerous; trees were everywhere to be seen; fields invaded the most sacred strongholds of commercial activity; conduits and brooks81 (whereof Lamb’s Conduit Street to-day carries a nominal82 reminiscence) flowed through every part of the town. The narrow, straggling streets ran hither and thither83 with no very marked definity of aim; for county councils had not as yet come into existence, and metropolitan84 improvements were still hidden in the womb of time; and so unsanitary were the general conditions that they were seldom free from epidemic85 disease. Cheap, with its old cross just opposite the entrance to Wood Street, was a famous spot for trading of all kinds; but there were other localities which had their specialized86 activities. St. Paul’s, for instance, was the acknowledged quarter for booksellers, as indeed it has continued to be down to the present time. Houndsditch, like the Houndsditch of to-day, and Long Lane in Smithfield, abounded87 in shops for second-hand88 clothing—fripperies, as they were called. “He shows like a walking frippery,” says one of the characters in “The City Madam”; while it was in the latter place that Mistress Birdlime in “Westward Ho” speaks of “hiring three 10liveries.” In St. Martin’s-le-Grand clustered the foreign handicraftsmen of doubtful character, who manufactured copper90 lace and imitation jewellery; and Watling Street and Birchin Lane were the haunts of the tailors. Then, again, it was in Bucklersbury that the grocers and druggists most did congregate91. “Go to Bucklersbury and fetch me two ounces of preserved melons,” says Mistress Tenterhook in “Westward Ho.” Fleet Lane and Pie Corner were so famous for their cook-shops that Anne in “The City Madam” might well exclaim, when the porters enter with their baskets of provisions, that they smell unmistakably of these localities; while to Panyer Alley92 repaired all true lovers of tripe93. Even religious opinions had their special homes. Bloomsbury and Drury Lane, for example, were favorite haunts of Catholics; and the Puritans were particularly strong in Blackfriars. This explains the words put by Webster into the mouth of one of his characters: “We are as pure about the heart as if we dwelt amongst ’em in Blackfriars,” and Doll Common’s description of Face, in “The Alchemist,” as—
“A rascal94, upstart, apocryphal95 captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust.”
11And through all this jumble96 of wealth and dirt, away past the suburbs and into the open country beyond, ran “the famous River Thames”—the “great silent highway,” as it has been called,—fed by the Fleet and other forgotten and now hidden streams, and bearing upon its majestic97 current its hundreds of watermen, its boats, its barges98, and its swans. It was spanned by a single bridge, of which Lyly speaks enthusiastically in his “Euphues,” and which is described by the German traveller, Paul Hentzner, as “a bridge of stone, eight hundred feet in length, of wonderful work. It is supported,” this writer continues, “upon twenty piers99 of square stone, sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty feet diameter.” And he adds, touching100 in a brief sentence upon a characteristic of its structure which must seem particularly curious to modern readers: “The whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge.”
But if the difference between to-day and three centuries ago is striking enough within the city walls, still more striking does it become as we pass beyond the gates. Fleet Street, where Dr. Johnson was presently to enjoy watching the 12ceaseless ebb101 and flow of the great tide of human life, was still suburban102; Chancery Lane, with its wide gardens on the eastern side and Lincoln’s Inn enclosure on the western, possessed103 only a few scattered104 houses at either end. The Strand105—
“That goodly thoroughfare between
The court and city,”
as a Puritan poet called it—was a long country road flanked with noblemen’s houses (“a continual row of palaces, belonging to the chief nobility,” Hentzner says), the gardens of which on the one side ran down to the river, and on the other backed upon the fine open space of pasture-land called Covent (that is, Convent) Garden. At Charing106 there was an ancient cross, and beyond, wide fields known as the Haymarket, the quiet stretches of St. James’s Park, and the wide country road called Piccadilly, the regular highway to Reading and the west. St. Martin’s Lane ran up between hedgerows and meadows to Tottenham, or Totten Court. In the other direction, towards Westminster, there was the Court, with its Tiltyard, standing62 where the Horseguards now stand, and beyond this the city of Westminster, with its abbey and great hall, lying in the quiet fields. Just opposite, on the other bank, in an unbroken expanse of country, 13stood Lambeth Palace, whence a long, lonely road led eastward107, through Lambeth Marsh108, to the city purlieus on the Surrey side of the water.
What we know as the suburbs of London were then separate villages, to reach which one had to make a tedious journey over open country and along desolate109 lanes. Finsbury Field was covered with windmills, and there the archers110 met for practice. Islington was famous, to quote Ben Jonson, for the citizens that went a-ducking—that is, duck-hunting—in its ponds. Pimlico and Holloway were favorite resorts of pleasure-seeking townsfolk on Sunday afternoons. Hoxton and Hampstead and Willesden lay far away in the country; Holborn was a rural highway running through the little village of St. Giles’s towards Oxford111; and the Edgeware Road took you away to Tyburn, the spot which has acquired such grim notoriety in the annals of crime. Highway robberies took place at Kentish Town and Hampstead; even the Queen’s Majesty was mobbed by a handful of ruffians in the sequestered112 neighborhood of Islington, which stood alone among the hills to the north; while no man who valued his life would venture to walk after nightfall, unarmed or unprotected, as far into the country as Hyde Park Corner.
14Let us now look a little more closely at the street life of the city which we have thus roughly sketched113.
There was little of that never-ceasing bustle115 with which we are familiar—little of the eternal hurry, the intense strain, the rush and turmoil of our modern existence; but the buzz of commerce was everywhere to be heard, telling us that the world was not asleep. The streets were rough, ill-paved, and narrow, and the appearance of a vehicle in them was sufficiently116 rare an occurrence to attract attention; though the ostentation117 of the rich in making use of carriages on every possible occasion was already beginning to be satirized118 by the writers of the time—as, for instance, by Massinger in “The City Madam,” and by Cooke in “Greene’s Tu Quoque.” There were the churches—six score or so of them, Lyly tells us, within the walls; the inns, with their wide hostleries; the private houses, built not in long uniform rows, but irregularly, as though they desired to preserve some traces of personal character. Their upper stories were frequently built out, and sometimes projected so far across the narrow streetway that Jonson pictures a lady and her lover exchanging confidences from the topmost windows of opposite tenements—“arguing 15from different premises,” as Dr. Holmes would say. There, too, were the shops, looking more like booths in a fair, with their quaint119 and picturesque120 signs, and their merchandise exposed to public gaze on open stalls, while in front of them paced the young apprentices121, besieging122 the ears of every passer-by with their ceaseless clamor of “What d’ye lack?” and their long-winded recommendations of the articles which they had for sale. In Middleton’s “Michaelmas Term” we have a scene before Quomodo’s shop, and Quomodo himself calling out to Easy and Shortyard: “Do you hear, sir? What lack you, gentlemen? See, good kerseys and broadcloths here—I pray you come near.” Many other passages of similar import might be added. Nor were these the only, or even the noisiest, symptoms of commercial enterprise. Itinerant123 vendors124 of the Autolycus tribe also patrolled the streets, murdering the Queen’s English, like their descendants of to-day, as in loud, hoarse125 voices they advertised their miscellaneous wares126. There were fishwives, orange-women, and chimney-sweeps, broom-men, hawkers of meat pies and pepper, of rushes for the floor, of mats, oat-cakes, milk, and coal; and numerous Irish costermongers (of the kind Face refers to in 16“The Alchemist”) who trafficked in fruit and vegetables. In addition to all these, and to complete the confusion of the streets, there were mountebanks, jugglers, and ballad-singers, full of strange tricks and new songs, whereby to attract attention and pick up a few odd coins.
The daily round of existence in the city streets offered, therefore, no small amount of interest and variety; while from time to time the ordinary routine was broken in upon by fresh elements of excitement. Now it might be a splendid procession—perhaps of one of the great livery companies, purse-proud and ostentatious; perhaps of the newly-installed Lord Mayor, on his way back from Westminster; perhaps of the Virgin Queen and her retinue127, coming cityward on some state occasion from Richmond or Whitehall. Now, again, it might be a procession of a very different kind—a mob following a thief who was going to be put into the pillory128, or a woman of disreputable character who, meeting the fate dreaded129 by Doll Common, was carted through the streets to the accompaniment of a brass130 band, and amid the cries and hootings of the populace; or a group of felons131 who were led out of the city along Holborn to Tyburn, there to pay the last penalty of the law. Sometimes, too, there were 17large gatherings132 in St. Paul’s churchyard to hear some famous preacher—like Bishop70 Jewell—discourse from the steps of the great cross; and sometimes there were street fights between retainers of rival houses, or bands of hot-tempered ’prentices belonging to the different city guilds—fights which generally ended in bloodshed and broken heads. The ’prentices of the city were indeed notoriously a turbulent tribe, and they figure in many a brawl134 and squabble in the plays of the time. “If he were in London, among the clubs, up went his heels for striking of a ’prentice,” says Gazet, in Massinger’s “Renegado,” referring in this phrase to the fact that clubs were habitually136 kept in the shops ready for use in the event of any affray. So that the London streets were not so dull as one might at first suppose; while for the rest there was plenty of quiet, steady activity from dawn till dusk. Though the struggle for wealth was not then so keen as it is to-day, and men on the whole took things more easily, life was full of earnestness and purpose, and commercial ambition shared the magnificent vigor137 and energy of the Elizabethan nature with the fever of adventure and a youthful, spontaneous, and unabashed delight in the pleasures of sense. Wide roads were open to the young man 18of brains and courage, roads which would lead to place and power. Fortunes were to be made, positions won; and the ’prentice, starting out in his career, had many examples of self-made and successful men to remind him that the world was all before him where to choose, and that the future largely depended upon himself. Thus, though the London of Shakspere’s time was far different from the London of to-day as regards its commerce, its activities, its habits and daily life, it was still a thriving city, the object of ambition, the dreamland of the aspiring138 youth, the great heart which set the blood pulsing and dancing through all the arteries139 of the land.
As for the shops themselves, we must dismiss them with a very few words. The modern difficulty—the importation of foreign wares, and the immigration of foreign dealers140—was already to the front; and Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Flemish tradesmen were to be found in almost every street—each with his peculiar141 class of custom. Some writers of the time, like William Stafford, in his “Brief Conceit,” grow violent over the inroads of these aliens, and roundly proclaim, with Bishop Hall, that all the vice80 of the city was to be laid at their doors. But in the ordinary walks of business the Englishman, in 19spite of a good deal of characteristic bluster142 and grumbling143, still held his ground. The apothecary144 sold love-charms and philters, tobacco, cane145, and pudding, as well as drugs; but there were regular tobacco merchants, also, whose shops were of unrivalled splendor146. The immense vogue147 of this novel luxury is sufficiently shown by the statement made by Barnaby Riche in “The Honesty of this Age,” that seven thousand shops in London “vented” tobacco, and by the passing remark of Hentzner, that it was smoked (or “drunk,” as the phrase then went) everywhere. At the theatre and all such places of public resort, the pipe was the Englishman’s habitual135 companion, and from sundry passages in Jonson, Dekker, Marston, and other dramatists, we infer that it was sometimes carried even to church.
Among the most noteworthy of the tradesmen of the time were the barbers, who, be it remembered, were surgeons as well, and would cut your beard or bleed you, trim your hair or pull out your teeth, with absolute impartiality149. Their shops were the favorite resorts of idlers, as they had been long since in the days of Lucian; and owing to the immense attention then paid to hair and beard, the more accomplished150 among them 20drove an enormous trade. Their garrulity151 was proverbial. “Oh, sir, you know I am a barber and cannot tittle-tattle,” says Dello, in Lyly’s “Midas,” in a scene which is full of curious information concerning the barbers of the time. The Cutbeard of Jonson’s “Silent Woman,” is another illustration in point. It may be mentioned, as an odd feature of their establishments, that a lute148 was commonly kept in readiness for the amusement of those who might have to wait for attention, as the newspapers and comic weeklies are kept to-day. “Barbers shall wear thee on their citterns,” says Rhetias to Coculus, in Ford’s “Lover’s Melancholy152,” referring to the grotesque153 figureheads by which these instruments were often decorated.
In the matter of the relations of sellers and purchasers, we may note, as one of those little touches of nature which make the whole world kin5, that customers, as we learn from more than one old play, often indulged in the quite modern practice of having half the goods in a shop laid out for inspection154 before buying the most trumpery155 article. Nor, on the other hand, were the dealers of the time much behind their descendants of to-day in what are known as the tricks of trade. Adulteration was a crying evil; some of 21the methods often employed, for example, for the “sophistication” of tobacco, will be recalled by all readers of “The Alchemist.” Another common practice among shopkeepers was that of darkening their stores to disguise the inferiority of their merchandise. This is constantly referred to by contemporary writers. The sturdy Stubbs attacks the abuse in his “Display of Corruptions157.” “They have their shops and places where they sell their cloth very dark and obscure,” he writes, referring to the mercers and drapers of his time, “of purpose to deceive buyers.” Webster, in “The Duchess of Malfi,” employs this familiar abuse in the turn of a compliment: “This darkening of your worth is not like that which tradesmen use in the city; their false lights are to rid bad wares off;” and Quomodo, in “Michaelmas Term,” boasts, humanly enough, that his shop is not “so dark as some of his neighbors’.” Again, Brome, in the “City Wit”: “What should the city do with honesty? Why are your wares gummed? Your shops dark?” In “Westward Ho” we read that the shop of a linen-draper was generally “as dark as a room in Bedlam,” and, not to multiply quotations158, Middleton, in “Anything for a Quiet Life,” speaks of shopwares being habitually “set in 22deceiving lights.” Colliers, too, were so notorious for short measure and other crafty159 practices that Greene, in his “Notable Discovery of Cosenage,” includes a special “delightful160 discourse” on purpose to lay bare their knavery161.
The houses were not yet numbered, and all trading establishments were known by their tokens—great signboards decorating every shop with strange mottoes and fantastic devices, which took the place of the advertising162 media of the present day. Milton, we remember, was born at the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, and well on in the eighteenth century the imprints163 of publishers still refer to these customary signs; as in the case of the famous “left-legged Tonson,” who did business at “Shakespeare’s Head, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand.” Quotations illustrative of these trading tokens and the part they played in the commercial life of the time might be indefinitely multiplied; but we must content ourselves with a single bit of evidence from “The Alchemist.” Abel Drugger, the young tradesman, is opening a new shop, and comes to Subtle to take his advice about the choice of a suitable device. In the one suggested by Subtle, Jonson satirizes164 the wildly absurd combinations frequently employed, like 23the foolish advertisements of our own century, to attract or compel public attention:—
“He shall have a bel, that’s Abel;
And by it standing one whose name is Dee,
In a rug gown, there’s D and Rug, that’s drug;
And right anenst him a dog snarling165 Er—
There’s Drugger, Abel Drugger—there’s his sign.”
It is hardly necessary to add that though these signs have practically disappeared from general use, they survive in trademarks166 and in the odd and often outlandish trading tokens still to be seen over the doors of English public houses and inns; though just why public houses should have kept up a practice otherwise almost universally abandoned since the numbering of houses came into vogue, it would be difficult to say.
But with the oncoming of the night, silence, for the most part, fell over the city and its surroundings. There was as yet no public lighting167 of the streets, but the good citizens were supposed to do their individual shares towards illuminating168 the dark thoroughfares, to insure which the watchmen, with lanterns and halberts, would pace their solemn rounds, hoarsely169 bawling170 at every doorway171, “Lantern and a whole candle-light! Hang out your lights here!” Writing from Paris in 1620, and referring to the terrible 24condition of the streets in the French capital, Howell says: “This makes one think often of the excellent nocturnal government of our city of London, where one may pass and repass securely all hours of the night, if he gives good words to the watch.” Yet it is to be feared that this patriotic172 comment puts the matter in a somewhat too favorable way. The impression one derives173 from reading the plays and pamphlets of the time certainly is that the roads were always more or less dangerous after dark, and that good, law-abiding townsfolk were best off within doors, or, at all events, in the immediate neighborhood of their own houses. If they were forced to go farther afield, they would do well to take a link-boy with them to guide them with his light, unless they were like Falstaff, who, as we remember, once told Bardolph that he been saved a thousand marks in links and torches walking between tavern174 and tavern, owing to the fiery175 and luminous176 character of the said Bardolph’s nose. A stout177 ’prentice boy with a well-weighted club was a desirable companion, too, for those who valued purses and pates178. For the streets were infested179 by “roaring boys” and wild young bloods, whose principal amusement, besides fighting among themselves, was in persecuting180 25quiet citizens, and who came into almost nightly conflict with the doting181 old Dogberry watchmen, who endeavored to cope with them, often with but very slight success. These are the fine fellows described in Shirley’s “Gamester,”—
“that roar
In brothels, and break windows, fright the streets,
And sometimes set upon innocent bell-men to beget182
Discourse for a week’s diet,”
and whom Jonson’s Kastril looked up to with so much admiration183 and respect.
I could not hope by any series of thumbnail sketches184 to conjure185 up the manifold details of the daily life of Elizabethan London as one finds it portrayed186 in the plays of Jonson, Middleton, Dekker, Cooke, and the strange pamphlets of Nash and Greene. But we must not linger over these street scenes. It is ample time that we should pass on to consider a little the various classes which went to make up the population of the metropolis in the days of which we speak.
In the common relationships of class with class the age of Elizabeth differed widely from our own. Sociability187 was one of the main characteristics of the time, and this the guild133 life of the larger towns did much to foster. In the places 26of common resort—in the tavern, the theatre, at St. Paul’s Walk, or the Archery Ground at Finsbury, men daily met their neighbors and brother-citizens, and rubbed shoulders and chopped opinions with a warmth and open-heartedness which, if they had little of modern propriety188, also knew little of modern restraint. Moreover, London was not then the vast, overgrown, incoherent city which it has since become, and its inhabitants still took that personal interest in one another’s doings, and felt, to some extent at any rate, that sense of family sympathy which, though they are common traits of provincial189 town life, are characteristic of the metropolis no longer. Nevertheless, the classes remained absolutely distinct, cut off from one another by chasms190 of custom and interest, and even law, which were never, save with the rarest exceptions, bridged over. The enactments191 which had been promulgated192 at the beginning of the reign to fix with rigid193 certainty the special garbs194 of the various ranks of the community, are sufficient to show to what extent the caste system, with its attendant prejudices and conventions, was still rooted deep in English life. The young ’prentice might haply make a fortune, and reach a position of great civic distinction. This much was open to 27him; but for his helpmeet in life he looked no higher than his master’s daughter. The successful merchant might even reach the Lord Mayor’s bench, but he was still a citizen, and laid no claim to set his foot within the charmed circle of gentle life. This condition of things is illustrated196 again and again in the plays of the time, as in Middleton’s “City Madam” and Dekker’s “Shoemaker’s Holiday.” There was practically no overlapping197 of interests, no intermingling of class with class. Money could do much, but it could not, as it will at present, purchase an entrance into the most select society; nor, in the matrimonial market of that day, was a coronet ever knocked down for a dower. But this is only one side of the question. If there was little class sympathy, there was little class rivalry198 also. Society was more diffuse199 than it is to-day—held together less firmly, but with less of the friction200 which is a necessary preliminary to that readjustment of social arrangements which the industrial movements of the modern world are tending slowly to bring about. The classes touched externally, but that was all. In spirit they stood aloof—each content to go its own way, to live its own life, but each, for the most part, equally ready to let the others freely do the same.
28Of the various classes which went to the making of the population of Shakspere’s London, two only will here demand attention—the gentry201 and the citizens. Of course, within both of these great groups there were many grades, but time will not allow us to subdivide202. Of course, too, beyond and outside these altogether, lay the seething203 mass of miscellaneous humanity—the vast fringe of the population—which then, as now, formed so dark and so dangerous an unabsorbed element in the city’s general life. Threads from this dingy204 and tangled205 social frilling were sometimes caught up and woven for picturesque purposes into the pattern of the plays of the time. But the epic206 of the submerged tenth was as yet undreamed of; and all this side of Elizabethan civilization must for the present be left out of view.
The citizens lived for the most part at their shops or places of business; the gentlefolk were more distributed. Some still had their habitations in the commercial portions of the city, and those of them who regularly lived in the country and came to town during term-time—which then constituted the London season,—were often content to find temporary lodging207 over some druggist’s or barber’s shop. But the exodus208 of 29the gentry and courtiers from the centres of trade and labor209 was already beginning, and the aristocratic neighborhoods were admittedly outside the walls. In “Greene’s Tu Quoque” when Lionel Nash is knighted, he delivers up his store to his head ’prentice, and announces his intention of moving the next day into the Strand; which may be taken as showing that for the retired tradesman,—and still more, therefore, for the gentleman or courtier,—a residence well removed from the city was deemed the proper thing.
It is difficult to speak in general terms of the houses of the time, since, naturally enough, the comfort and luxury of the domestic arrangements varied211 considerably212 as one passed up or down the social scale. A few broad statements may, however, be made. In the average dwelling76 the ceilings were covered with plaster of Paris, and the inner walls wainscoted and tapestried213; the tapestry214 being worked with landscapes and figures often of a very elaborate character. This explains Lyly’s simile215 in “Midas”—“like arras, full of device.” Enough space was left for any one to hide between the arras and the wall—a fact, it will be remembered, frequently made use of by the Elizabethan dramatists, as by Webster 30in “The Duchess of Malfi,” where Cariola conceals216 herself behind the hanging to overhear what goes on between the Duchess and Antonio; and by Shakspere in “Henry the Fourth,” where Falstaff goes to sleep and has his pocket picked; and even more notably217 in the famous rat-killing scene in “Hamlet.” In addition, pictures were often used for decoration, and when valuable were protected by curtains. “I yet but draw the curtain; now to the picture,” says Monticelso in Webster’s “White Devil”; and, again, “We will draw the curtain and show you the picture,” says Olivia in “Twelfth Night,” as she removes her veil. The halls were lighted by candelabras or torch-bearers, and watch-lights, or night-lights, were in common use. At the foot of the master’s bed, rolled under during the day and drawn218 out at night, was a truckle-bed for his page. “Well, go thy ways for as sweet a breasted page as ever lay at his master’s feet in a truckle-bed,” says Dondolo in Middleton’s “More Dissemblers Besides Women.” The tables had flaps, and the floors were strewn with rushes, for carpets were as yet unknown. These rushes were renewed for fresh-comers. “Strangers have green rushes, while daily guests are not worth a rush,” says Lyly, in “Sapho and Phao”—a 31remark in which, by the way, we are reminded of the origin of one of our familiar phrases. Brick was costly219, and the buildings were mostly of wood; but a new fashion was just coming in—that of employing well-constructed stoves in place of the open, smoky fireplaces hitherto general. The houses were now, too, provided with glass for the windows, which had not been the case a hundred years before, horn or wicker lattice-work having been used for the purpose. But this new notion was opposed by William Stafford, who saw in it the symptom of growing fondness for what he contemptuously called foreign nick-nacks. Chimneys, too, of which some years before there had been a few specimens220 only in every large town, were now general in the ordinary dwellings of the middle classes. The old wooden platters were giving way to pewter, which, though still rare, was gradually coming into use. Tin spoons also were making their appearance. China, gold, and silver plate were to be seen on the tables of the wealthy, and Venetian glass was sometimes employed, though, as this was very expensive, many people still drank from their mugs of burnt stone. Instead of the straw bundle and log on which people had formerly222 been content to sleep, proper 32sheets, pillows, and bolsters223 were now employed; not, however, without incurring224 the ridicule225 or the wrath226 of lovers of the good old times and moralists of severe complexion227. “What makes us so weak as we now are?” demands Sir Lionel, in “Greene’s Tu Quoque,” abusing the new generation with all the vigor of a hale old man. “A feather bed! What so unapt for exercise? A feather bed! What breeds such pains and aches in our bones? Why, a feather bed!” Yet houses were so scantily228 furnished that uninvited or unexpected guests often used to bring their own stools with them, a practice referred to by Massinger in his “Unnatural229 Combat,” where he speaks of those who, “like unbidden guests, bring their own stools.” Many of the household arrangements, especially in the way of sanitation231, were from our own point of view still crude and primitive232 enough. But the age of Elizabeth, as regards domestic economy generally, was distinctly a period of progress, and we have only to compare the sixteenth century with the centuries which went before, to sympathize with old Harrison, when, dealing233 with this very matter, he exclaims in a kind of fervent234 rapture—“God be thankt for his good gifts!”
33Turning from the houses themselves to the home life of the time, we may notice that in the establishments of the ancient nobility the arrangements were still on a large and almost regal scale, savoring235 yet, in spite of the slow movements conspicuous236 throughout society, of the feudalism which was now on the wane, and the old customs which, in an age of transition, were gradually being left behind. In the greater households a number of young gentlemen of good family, usually the younger sons of knights237 and esquires, continued to offer personal service as in former days. Beneath these were the retainers, so-called, who, not living in the house or being liable to any menial duty, attended their lord on occasions of public ceremony; while, in the third place, there were the servants proper, who formed actual portions of the establishment, and on whom its various duties devolved. These were headed by the steward238, under whose control was the common herd239 of serving men and women and pages. With these must be reckoned the poor tutor, passing rich on five marks a year, who sat below the salt, and, as Hall’s satire240 shows, had to endure all kinds of indignity241. And, finally, there was the jester, the privileged personage of the household, who 34could say and do things on which no one else would venture. “There is no slander60 in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail,” says Olivia in “Twelfth Night”; while the melancholy Jaques, speaking of his desire to assume the motley dress, protests:—
“I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have.”
Thus the jester was able to find in his wit and position an excuse generally, though not invariably, sufficient to cover every freedom taken with master or guests. But in Shakspere’s time this ancient and long-famous appurtenance to the larger households was already passing out of existence, a fact to which the dramatist himself makes reference in “As You Like It”: “Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes the greater show.”
But when we pass from these huge and ostentatious establishments to the dwellings of the middle and trading classes, we find the transitional character of the period far more marked. Evidences of domestic development and improvement reveal themselves on every side. The 35essential traits of medi?valism were gradually disappearing; and with the steady realization243 on the part of the commercial elements in the community of their increasing importance in the complex life of the time, there went many significant changes, indicating the slow collapse244 of the old régime and the consolidation of society upon its modern foundations.
Nevertheless, in the internal policy and arrangement of the Elizabethan household there was still much that would strike a present-day observer as remarkable—for the older spirit still made itself felt, though ancient forms were passing away. For instance, the relations existing between the head of the house and those about him and dependent upon him, if no longer what they were a hundred years before, had not yet begun to assume their distinguishing modern characteristics. The position of servant, ’prentice, or journeyman still partook of a certain suggestion of servitude, which it has required many years of social evolution to wear partially245 away. Our nineteenth-century notion of contract based upon terms something like equal, at least in theory,—of so much money paid in return for such and such services rendered,—had not yet established itself; and while the 36understanding between employer and employed was gradually acquiring more and more of a commercial quality, it had not by any means lost all its personal implications. The ’prentices of the time, for example, were something more and something less than those occupying analogous246 positions in our own days. They belonged to the establishment, lived with their master, ate at his table, formed part of the family; yet at the same time wore coats of blue—the color which everywhere symbolized247 servitude, and even constituted, as we know from “The City Madam” and other plays, the livery of Bridewell. They not only were their master’s assistants in the work of the shop; they furnished him also a kind of body-guard, or retinue,—for on occasions when he had to make excursions after dark they went with him, bearing torches or lanterns to light the way, and stout clubs, for use in case of sudden assault. But the personal character of such relationships is perhaps most fully248 shown in the fact that masters and mistresses dealt out corporal punishment to their servants, a universal practice, which, as Chamberlayne tells us in his “Survey,” was expressly sanctioned by law. In Heywood’s “English Traveller,” young Geraldine accounts for the circumstance that Bess, 37Mrs. Winscott’s maid, tells slanderous249 stories about her, by the supposition that—
“Perhaps her mistress
Hath stirred her anger by some word or blow,
Which she would thus revenge.”
In the establishments of the gentry, the porter’s lodge250 was the recognized place for the corporal punishment of servants, male and female, a fact to which many references will be found in the contemporary drama; as, for instance, in Shirley’s “Grateful Servant” and “Triumph of Peace,” and Massinger’s “Duke of Milan” and “The City Madam.” Indeed, the whole domestic economy of the time still exhibited much of the semi-patriarchal character of former centuries, when those in authority not only exacted due service from the men and maidens251 beneath them, but held it also as part of their paternal252 responsibility to educate and chastise253.
As for the children, they too were far differently situated254 from the boys and girls of the present day. There was as yet no talk of the rights of childhood, and household law was rigid and severe. At school the rudiments255 of knowledge were pounded into young brains by sheer force of arm; and when the children went from the schoolhouse to the home, they merely 38exchanged one form of despotism for another. In every well-ordered family, the young people habitually stood or knelt in the presence of their elders, not venturing to sit down without express permission; while correction by blows continued to be their lot so long as they remained under the parental256 roof and control. Even the children of the wealthiest and noblest families in the land were subjected to the same kind of treatment; and we know that in their early years Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey had been pinched and cuffed257 and smacked258 like their less famous sisters. All this has been changed now, and we have grown in some respects wiser, in others simply more sentimental259. Yet, with whatever feelings we may look back at the harshness of the past, let us, at all events, have the candor260 to acknowledge that the discipline which produced men like Sidney and Raleigh and Spenser, and women like the two just referred to, cannot be pronounced altogether a failure.
And now a word or two about some of the every-day habits of the time. Among the middle classes, as a whole, the ancient doctrine261 of early to bed and early to rise, upon which Charles Lamb threw such well-merited ridicule, was currently 39accepted, and this almost of necessity. Artificial lights were as yet in little use, and being thus more dependent upon the natural alternations of day and night, the good folks under the Virgin Queen inevitably262 kept better hours than do the Londoners of the present time. In Dekker’s “Shoemaker’s Holiday,” the master shoemaker is depicted263 roundly rating his wife and maids for their laziness in not having breakfast ready, and his anger seems at least a trifle excessive to the modern Cockney, since it subsequently turns out that it is not yet seven o’clock. In reading the old comedies, we are again and again struck by the complementary facts that the activities of life were well advanced while the day was still young, and that few scenes of a social character are laid in the evening time.
As regards eating, important as the subject doubtless is, we need not say much. Comparing the Elizabethan age with the immediate past, we may safely assert that men were more temperate264 now than they had been—that they fed less grossly, and spent less time at table. But the abstemiousness265 was, after all, only relative. It was still, from our point of view, a period of gluttony. The early breakfast of meat and ale; the morning luncheon266, or bever; the twelve-o’clock 40dinner, with its exceedingly substantial fare; and, finally, in the evening, what Don Armado, in “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” described as “the nourishment267 which is called supper,”—all these made up a series of gastronomic268 undertakings269 at which we can look back only with mingled270 amazement271 and disgust. The staple272 articles of diet were the various kinds of meat, which were partaken of in immense quantities, with but little bread and only a limited accompaniment of vegetables. But almost as important as the meats was the pudding, for which the English had acquired so great a reputation that a contemporary foreigner fairly goes into a transport of enthusiasm about it. The worst feature of all was the enormous consumption of intoxicating273 liquors. Tea, coffee, and cocoa—those delightful cups that cheer but not inebriate274, for which we moderns can hardly be too thankful—were as yet unknown in England; and, in their absence, every meal was washed down with mighty draughts275 of ale and sack. Testimony276 to the drunkenness of the English at this time is appalling277, whether we turn to the plays themselves, or to the writings of professed278 moralists, such as Camden’s “Elizabeth,” Reeve’s “God’s Plea for Nineveh,” Tryon’s “Way to Health,” Dekker’s “Seven Deadly 41Sins,” Wither’s “Abuses Stript and Whipt,” and Thomas Young’s “England’s Bane,” which may be mentioned as specimens of a voluminous output of similar character. No wonder that, as Iago and Hamlet remind us, the English people had become a byword for inebriety279 among the nations of the continent.
It must, however, be added, as one favorable sign of the times, that table manners were, on the whole, distinctly improving. Bad as they still were in many important particulars, a change for the better was quite perceptible. For instance, people thought it incumbent280 on them now to wash before and after dinner, a ceremony all the more needful, as fingers were still commonly used where we use forks, “the laudable use” of which, as Jonson has it, came in towards the close of Shakspere’s life; and generally a certain amount of delicacy281 in what Ouida has pronounced the essentially disgusting operation of eating, was for the first time beginning to be looked for, at any rate amongst those in the higher ranks of society.
Hardly less important in social economy than eating is dress, which in turn demands a share of our attention. Unfortunately, however, it is impossible in the small space here at our disposal 42to give any adequate idea of the extent, variety, and extravagance of the fashions prevalent during the period with which we are now dealing, and which form a curious offset282 to the crudities we have noticed in household furniture and appliances. Harrison, in his “Description of England,” declares that the taste for change and novelty had simply run wild; and he and the outspoken283 Stubbs are never weary of declaring that while other nations have their own special extravagances, the English gather up and adopt the follies284 of all the rest of Europe. Here is a passage from another contemporary writer, Thomas Becon, on the same subject: “I think no realm in the world, no, not among the Turks and Saracens, doth so much in the variety of their apparel as the Englishmen do at this present. Their coat must be made after the Italian fashion, their cloak after the use of the Spaniards, their gown after the manner of the Turks; their cap must be of the French fashion; and at the last their dagger285 must be Scottish with a Venetian tassel286 of silk. To whom may the Englishman be compared worthily287, but to Esop’s crow? For as the crow decked himself with feathers of all kinds of birds, even so doth the vain Englishman.... He is an Englishman; but he is also 43an Italian, a Spaniard, a Turk, a Frenchman, a Scotch288, a Venetian, and at last what not?”
This is only a sample; passages of similar import might be multiplied almost without number. The fashions of the day were indeed absurd and extravagant289 to the last degree. Richness and picturesqueness290 were the two things aimed at alike in male and in female costume; and in both cases the colors were as brilliant as the stuffs were costly. The following speech of Sir Glorious Tipto, in Jonson’s “New Inn,” will give some idea of the run of masculine modes, as seen by the vigorous old satirist291:—
“I would put on
The Savoy chain about my neck, the ruff
And cuffs292 of Flanders; then the Naples hat
With the Rome hatband and the Florentine agate293,
The Milan sword, the cloak of Genoa, set
With Brabant buttons—all my given pieces,
Except my gloves, the natives of Madrid.”
Over against such a strange human specimen221 as is thus pictured in the imagination, we may well set the women of the time, as painted, rouged294, highly scented295, bejewelled, bewigged, in French hoods210, starched296 Cambric ruffs, close-fitting jerkins, and embroidered297 velvet298 gowns, they look down upon us from the walls of many an Elizabethan 44house, and fill the busy scene in many a contemporary play. Women, Lyly thought—so far had the artifices299 of the toilet carried them,—were in reality the least part of themselves. Some of their freaks of fashion in particular drew down the ire alike of the playwright and of the more serious satirist. One was the habit of painting the face, so frequently referred to by Shakspere and others. A second was the very common practice of wearing false hair, treated at length, along with nearly all similar extravagances of the period, by the irrepressible Stubbs. Every reader of Shakspere will recall the passage from Bassanio’s moralizings on “outward shows,” in which this fashion is alluded300 to:—
“Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it;
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols301 with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull302 that bred them in the sepulchre;”
and the parallel lines in the sixty-eighth sonnet, in which the same point is touched on, with striking similarity of phrasing. The “golden” 45color of the locks, here specially230 emphasized, it may be noted303 in passing, was particularly popular, on account of the reddish, or, as her flatterers would insist, the golden, hue68 of Queen Elizabeth’s head-gear. Finally, a great deal was said about the altogether needless and reprehensible304 extravagance shown in certain small details of dress. We may take the one item of foot-covering as an example. Herein all the worst taste of the day was illustrated; for shoes were made of the most expensive materials, and were frequently covered with artificial flowers and other kinds of decoration. Thus, Massinger, in “The City Madam,” speaks of rich “pantofles in ostentation shown, and roses worth a family”; while Stubbs, in his “Anatomy of Abuses,” refers to shoes “embroidered with gold and silver all over the foot.”
Yet, upon the whole, truth compels us to admit that, if we are to trust contemporary evidence, masculine fashions exceeded in wildness, absurdity305, and monstrous306 barbarity those of the other sex. “Women are bad, but men are worse,”—such is the distinct judgment307 of Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy”; and while we know from the speculative308 Jaques that “the city madam,” would sometimes bear “the 46cost of princes on unworthy shoulders,” Burton again is our authority for the statement that it was no uncommon309 thing for a man to put a thousand oxen into a suit of apparel, and to wear a whole manor310 on his back.
I mentioned incidentally just now that class distinctions were severely311 marked out by differences in costume. Certain sumptuary enactments promulgated about this time undertook to regulate down to the minutest details what should and what should not be worn by the various classes of the community, wealth and social standing being taken together as the basis on which to settle the problems of the toilet and personal adornment312. But within the limits allowed by such regulations, and sometimes even irrespective of them (for grandmotherly legislation here as always stood foredoomed to failure) extravagance in fashion remained throughout one of the salient characteristics of the day. The dress of the citizen and his wife, if less elegant, was equally showy, and sometimes quite as expensive, as that of the man of mode and the woman of the court; and so it was through all grades of society, from the highest to the lowest, or, as Harrison put it in his vivid phrase, from the courtier to the carter.
47While we are still concerned with this item of dress it is amusing to notice that three hundred years ago people were to be found worrying their tailors and abusing their dressmakers as it is the custom to do at the present day. We might quote illustrations from more than one comedy; but let us once more fall back upon Harrison. “How many times,” says this quaint old writer, “must a garment be sent back to him that made it? What chafing313, what fretting314, what reproachful language doth the poor workman bear away.... For we must puff315 and blow and sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon us.” As we read such a passage as this in its original strange old spelling (which, for the sake of uniformity, we have not here reproduced), we have surely to acknowledge—though it goes much against the grain to do so—that our manners have at bottom changed less than our orthography316.
And now we must leave the ranks of the citizens and trading folks to deal for a moment or two with the more fashionable world.
The society of the time, to employ the word which in modern parlance317 has assumed a highly specialized meaning, was artificial to an absurd 48and almost inconceivable extent. Affectations, indeed, made up the larger part of life; and yet beneath them all were a core of sound reality and a healthy element of spontaneity. Euphuism and Italianism had for the time being taken full possession of the whole aristocratic world. Yet Euphuism and Italianism were but external crazes; and it was one mission of the age to show that men could be heroes in the foolishest dress, and do great deeds with the most ridiculous of phrases upon their lips. We could not here enter upon the task of analyzing318 the life and aims of the men and women who surrounded the Queen at her court; but as an offset to the steady-going middle classes of whom we have had much to say, we must try to present, if only in rapidly sketched outline, the typical Elizabethan gallant, or fashionable young man about town, as we find him portrayed for us in the plays and pamphlets of the time.
The accomplishments319 of the young man of this description were numerous and varied enough; but they were all in keeping with the character of the perfect gentleman as set forth320 by Castiglione in his “Cortegiano,” a work which had been translated by Thomas Hoby in 1561, and had forthwith become a kind of text-book 49or Bible for the youthful fashionable world. He could dance, sing, and play the viol de gamba; fence, ride, and hunt; write verses, turn pretty compliments, and take his part in the exchange of witty321 repartees, stocking his memory with scraps322 of plays and stories, lest his own mother-sense should fail him. He could read the three languages of Portia’s summary of requirements in which Falconbridge was lacking—Latin, French, and Italian,—and was perfectly323 at home in what Jonson calls the “perfumed terms of the day”; he had some acquaintance with the poets in vogue; played cards, tennis, and other fashionable games, as a matter of course; and, last but not least, was learned in all matters connected with the drama, etiquette324, and dress.
These were not great qualifications; but such a young man had little need of great qualifications, since he had no great aims or ideals. Let us read over his every day’s experiences and doings as we find them given in Dekker’s “Gull’s Horn Book” and other similar productions, and this statement will call for no further commentary.
He was not an early riser—for, wearied with his overnight exertions325, he scarcely ever left his couch till the plebeian326 Londoner was already 50thinking seriously about his midday meal. Then began the first important task of the day—the toilet, which was so elaborate a matter that Lyly, in his “Midas,” speaks of its being almost “a whole day’s work to dress.” But when at length he stood erect327 in his scented doublet and gold-laced cloak, with the roses in his shoes, the bunch of toothpicks in his hat, the watch hung about his neck, his earrings328, and his sword, he was ready to partake of a breakfast of meat and ale with such appetite as he could muster329 for the occasion, and then, jumping on his horse, with his page and horse-boy behind him, to sally forth upon the regular adventures of the day.
Curiously330 enough, as it may well seem to us, his first place of resort would very probably be St. Paul’s Cathedral. One may well ask what object could possibly take him thither. The answer lies in the fact that St. Paul’s Church in those days was the great place of rendezvous331 for all the gay and fashionable world. “Thus,” says Dekker, “doth my middle aisle332 show like the Mediterranean333 Sea, in which as well the merchant hoists334 sails to purchase wealth honestly as the rover to light upon prize unjustly. Thus am I like a common mart, where all the commodities (both the good and the bad) are to be 51bought and sold. Thus, while devotion kneels at her prayers, doth profanation335 walk under her nose, in contempt of religion.” Francis Osborne, writing as late as 1658, says that it was a fashion of the times for the principal gentry, lords, commons, and professions, to meet in St. Paul’s Church by eleven, and walk in the middle aisle till twelve, and after dinner from three till six, “during which time some discourse of business, others of news.” Many bustling336 scenes in the old comedies are laid in this same middle aisle, where, amid bills posted as advertisements, and crowds of servants looking out for places, of sharpers, like Jonson’s Shift, with a keen eye for prey337, and of loafers, with nothing else to do, all sorts of people strolled about, with their hats on, chatting, laughing, and discussing finance or politics or scandal, till the whole place was alive with the hum of voices, the rustle338 of raiment, and the jingle339 of spurs. “I walked in St. Paul’s to see the fashions,” remarks a character in one of Middleton’s plays. There Face threatened to advertise Subtle’s misdeeds; and it is a matter of common history that Falstaff picked Bardolph up in the same spot. It was thus its reputation as a place of general convenience, and one in which to see and to be seen, that gave St. Paul’s 52the importance it undoubtedly340 possessed in the social life of the time.
St. Paul’s Walk and its varied interests would keep our young man occupied till the hour of dinner, a meal of which he would probably partake in the bustle and excitement of the ordinary. The ordinary—the forerunner341 of the modern restaurant and table d’h?te—was then a novel institution, and as such enjoyed immense popularity among the gilded342 youth. Three grades were commonly recognized—the aristocratic ordinary, for which, to judge from a remark in Middleton’s “Trick to Catch the Old One,” about two shillings would be charged; the twelvepenny ordinary, frequented by tradesmen, professional people, and middle-class citizens; and the threepenny, to which flocked only the lowest and most questionable343 characters. The first-named of the three, Dekker tells us, was the great resort of all the court gallants. There friends and acquaintances met, ate, gossiped, laughed, and not infrequently quarrelled, together; there braggarts, like Lafeu in “All’s Well that Ends Well,” “made vent2 of their travel”; there the latest intelligence was circulated, the latest scandal discussed, the latest fads344 of fashion displayed in all their grotesqueness345. 53A good picture of the ordinary during the dinner hour will be found in the twelfth chapter of Scott’s “Fortunes of Nigel”; but the genuine atmosphere is best caught in such a contemporary piece of writing as the “Gull’s Horn Book.”
Dinner over, with its customary game of primero, there were many ways in which our gallant could kill time. There was the theatre, with its more intellectual attractions; the bull-ring and the cockpit; the juggler’s booth and the tennis-court; the shops along Cheapside and about St. Paul’s, among which the connoisseur346 in letters, jewellery, and kickshaws would find it easy enough to while away an afternoon. But however he might pass the hours between dinner and supper, he would probably appear in full time for the latter meal, for which he might repair to “The Devil,” in Fleet Street, or “The Mitre,” in Cheap, or “The Mermaid,” in Bread Street; at which last-named place he might peradventure catch snatches of the conversation and laughter of a little group of men in one corner, among whom we should recognize, though he might not, the burly form and surly face of rare old Ben, and the serene347 countenance348 and deep, clear eyes of one who is more to all of us to-day than 54any other Englishman who ever lived—Will Shakspere, playwright and actor. After that would not improbably follow the wildest episodes of the day, which likely enough would end in deep carousal349 behind the flaming red doors of a tavern, or at the gambling350-table, or even in more doubtful places of resort. When in Heywood’s “Wise Woman” old Chartley is looking for his son, he bids his servants “inquire about the taverns351, ordinaries, bowl-alleys, tennis-courts, and gaming-houses, for there I fear he will be found,” a direction which gives us a fair idea of the favorite haunts of the young men of the day. Gambling particularly, in all its forms, was one of the prevalent manias352 of the time, and was often carried to such an extent that men would stake their very clothes, and even their beards, which might be used to stuff tennis-balls. In “Greene’s Tu Quoque” will be found a wonderfully realistic scene of a quarrel following a dispute over the cards and dice195, and ending in a challenge for a duel353. Then when the time came for him to reel homeward through the darkness with one sleepy page to light his way with a torch, our gallant would be either uproariously cheerful, or contentious354, or maudlin355, as his habit might be when in his cups. He would bellow356 55out loose songs upon the night air, molest357 straggling by-passers, come sometimes into conflict with the watch, and once in a while, when luck went against him, might find himself lodged358 for the night in one of the prisons of the metropolis. So the day would end; and with it must close this part of our study. But, after all, very inadequate359 justice can be done to such a theme in so brief and rapid a sketch114. We must go straight to the pages of Dekker, Greene, Nash, and Peele, if we would gain any adequate conception of the wilder aspects of Elizabethan social life.
In such a paper as the present, there is always danger lest the final impression left should be, if not a false, at any rate an inadequate one; for the temptation is strong to seize only the picturesque traits, and to pay such undue360 attention to grouping, color, and general effect, that we fail in preserving proper perspective, and throw portions of our description into unnatural relief. The risk of doing this is, of course, increased when, as in our own case, we take the point of view of the playwright and the popular writer, and study the world of men and affairs mainly through the medium of their pages. I trust none the less, that we have not erred156 on the side 56of painting life in Shakspere’s London in too bright or seductive colors. Yet, to tone down our picture, let us say a closing word about its darker aspects; for these were many, and they were very dark indeed.
As Mr. Swinburne has pointed out, one of the most difficult problems meeting the student of the Elizabethan drama, is that of reconciling the elements of lofty thought and gross passion, of high idealism and coarse savagery, which lie so close together, which are indeed bound up inextricably, in the very woof and texture361 of the plays of Shakspere’s time. The literature of the stage shows us with startling distinctness how in the world of the playwright there frequently went, along with the deepest and most original thought a revolting ferocity of manners, and along with a lofty sense of the beautiful and the pure a crude love of violence, a revelling362 in blood, a thirst for wanton outrage363 and low excitement. All these diverse elements are, separately, prominent enough in modern letters, as in modern civilization; what seems so strange and puzzling in our great romantic drama is the way in which they constantly blend in the most intimate association.
Now, these extraordinary incongruities364 are 57not alone to be found in the world of the playwright; they penetrated the life of Elizabethan society. To some phases of the coarse brutalism which formed one aspect of the complex spirit of the English Renaissance incidental reference has more than once been made. Did space permit, we might here add much corroborative365 testimony. But as space does not permit, I will content myself with accentuating366 very briefly367 the difference in temper between the age of Elizabeth and our own, as exemplified in one very crucial matter—in the treatment of the large criminal class.
We who are privileged to live in an epoch368 of growing humanity may well be startled and shocked at many of the facts brought to light by even a casual inquiry369 in this direction. Executions, be it remembered, were almost invariably public, and formed, as we have seen, not infrequent distractions370 in the monotonous371 round of life. Felons were hanged, drawn, and quartered; pirates were hanged on the seashore at low water; and capital punishment was in use for an enormous number of petty offences, including even theft from the person above the value of one shilling. The mere circumstance that we read of seventy-four persons being sentenced to 58death in one county in a single year, itself speaks volumes. Indeed, the severity of punishments was held something to boast of, and men were still of the opinion of Fortescue, who, in the reign of Henry the Sixth, had proudly proclaimed that “more men are hanged in England in one year than in France in seven, because the English have better parts.” Public malefactors of position were usually beheaded, and their heads exposed in prominent places, as on London Bridge or Temple Bar. On the tower of the former, Hentzner “counted above thirty” placed “on iron spikes373.”[1] Witches were burnt alive; a horrible fate also reserved for women who killed their husbands, which crime stood on the statute-books not as murder, but as petty treason. Heretics, too, were frequently burnt. Perjury374 was punished by the pillory and branding, and rogues375 and vagabonds, irrespective of age and sex, were sent to the public stocks and whipping-post.
“In London, and within a mile, I ween,
There are of jails and prisons full eighteen,
And sixty whipping-posts, and stocks, and cages,”
59writes Taylor, the Water Poet. Scolds were ducked, and many minor376 offences were rewarded by burning the hand, cropping the ears, and similar mutilations. Finally, felons refusing to plead were subjected to the peine forte372 et dure, notwithstanding the proud and oft-repeated boast that torture has always been unknown to the English law.
Surely it is needless for us to go farther than all this, unless it be to add the striking fact that, despite such brutal severity in punishment, crimes and outrages377 of every description remained alarmingly common throughout the whole of the period with which we have been concerned. Enough has been said to throw in some of the heavier shadows necessary to complete the slight sketch we have been trying to furnish of the social life and every-day manners of Shakspere’s time.
With this as our last word, then, we take leave of “the spacious378 times of great Elizabeth,” and become once more denizens379 of our own century. And here it would be easy, of course, to fall into the cheap Macaulay-vein of moralizing; to strike a contrast between present and past, point out all the manifold and magnificent 60achievements of modern civilization, and end with rhetorical rhapsodies over our “wondrous380, wondrous age.” It would be easy, I say, to do this; and I doubt not that it would be effective. But when in my study of the literature of any bygone generation I make myself at home for a time among dead things and long-forgotten people, I do not, I must confess, find myself in any mood for brass-band celebrations. The feeling left with me is a vaguer and sadder one. For, as I turn back into our own world, I remember that this past was once verily and actually the present; that these dead things, these long-forgotten people, were once intensely alive; that the tragedy and the comedy of existence went on then as it goes on to-day; and that in the breasts of men and women fashioned like ourselves beat human hearts, after all, very like our own. Hope and disappointment, joy and despair; the memory of yesterday, the expectation of the morrow; the hunger and thirst of the spirit; the lust89 of the eye; the pride of life; the “ancient sorrow of man,”—all that goes to make up the sum total of our little earthly lot,—was their portion, too, as it will presently be the portion of the countless generations by which we in our turn shall be replaced. And thus, 61musing, I think of the nameless young men and maidens of that dim, far-off age, who repeated the sweet old story of love, as their fathers and mothers had done before them, as their distant descendants do to-day, while there was confusion in high places, and storm and struggle about the land. I think of the tears that were shed as gentle hearts broke in anguish381; of the brave deeds wrought382; of the tales of the faith of sturdy manhood and the trust of womanly devotion, which will never be retold. I think of the lives that ran their placid383 course; of the children that came as years went by, bringing “hope with them and forward-looking thoughts”; of mothers weeping over empty cradles; of tiny graves, long since obliterated384, where many a bright promise found “its earthly close.” I think of lives that were successful, and of lives that were failures; of prophecies unfulfilled; of splendid ambitions realized only to bring the inevitable385 disillusion386; of sordid387 aims accomplished; of vile242 things said and done. The whole dead world seems to take form and flesh in my imagination; the men and women start from the pages of the book I have been reading—a mad world, my masters, and a strange one; but behold388, a world singularly, almost grotesquely389, like our own. And then 62my thought takes a sudden spin; and this age of ours seems to slip some three centuries back into the past, and becomes weird390, and phantasmal, and unreal. And I find myself peering across the misty391 years into this throbbing392 world of multitudinous enterprise and activity from the standpoint of an era when you and I will be long since forgotten—when no one will know how we toiled393 and suffered and loved and died, when no one will care where we lie at rest. How curious to think of it all in this way! And with what tempered enthusiasms and sobered judgments394 must we needs go back to take up again the burden of life knowing that the deep, silent current of time is sweeping395 us slowly into the great darkness, and that hereafter the tale will be told of us as it has been told generation after generation since the world began: Lo, their glory endured but for a season, and the fashion of it has passed away forever!
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1
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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playwright
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| n.剧作家，编写剧本的人 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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consolidation
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| n.合并,巩固 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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contentions
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| n.竞争( contention的名词复数 )；争夺；争论；论点 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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solvent
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| n.溶剂；adj.有偿付能力的 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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emancipating
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| v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的现在分词 ) | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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acerbity
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| n.涩，酸，刻薄 | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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antitheses
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| n.对照，对立的，对比法；对立( antithesis的名词复数 )；对立面；对照；对偶 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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licentiousness
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| n.放肆，无法无天 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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40
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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41
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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42
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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43
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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44
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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45
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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46
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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47
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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49
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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50
facets
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| n.（宝石或首饰的）小平面( facet的名词复数 )；（事物的）面；方面 | |
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51
prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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52
misuse
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| n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用 | |
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53
revivals
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| n.复活( revival的名词复数 )；再生；复兴；（老戏多年后）重新上演 | |
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54
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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55
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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56
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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57
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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58
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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59
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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60
slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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61
slanders
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| 诽谤，诋毁( slander的名词复数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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64
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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confluence
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| n.汇合，聚集 | |
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stringent
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| adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的 | |
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enactment
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| n.演出，担任…角色；制订，通过 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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slumbers
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| 睡眠，安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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80
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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83
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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89
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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90
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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91
congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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92
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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93
tripe
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| n.废话，肚子, 内脏 | |
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94
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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95
apocryphal
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| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
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96
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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97
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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98
barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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99
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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100
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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101
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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102
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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103
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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104
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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105
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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106
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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107
eastward
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|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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108
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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109
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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110
archers
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| n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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111
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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112
sequestered
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|
| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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113
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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114
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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115
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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116
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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117
ostentation
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| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
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118
satirized
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| v.讽刺，讥讽( satirize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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120
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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121
apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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122
besieging
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 ) | |
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123
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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124
vendors
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| n.摊贩( vendor的名词复数 )；小贩；（房屋等的）卖主；卖方 | |
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125
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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126
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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127
retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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128
pillory
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| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
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129
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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130
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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131
felons
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| n.重罪犯( felon的名词复数 )；瘭疽；甲沟炎；指头脓炎 | |
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132
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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133
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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134
brawl
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| n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂 | |
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135
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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136
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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137
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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138
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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139
arteries
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| n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道 | |
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140
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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141
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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142
bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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143
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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144
apothecary
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| n.药剂师 | |
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145
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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146
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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147
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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148
lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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149
impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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150
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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151
garrulity
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| n.饶舌，多嘴 | |
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152
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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153
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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154
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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155
trumpery
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|
| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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156
erred
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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157
corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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158
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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159
crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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160
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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161
knavery
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| n.恶行，欺诈的行为 | |
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162
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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163
imprints
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| n.压印( imprint的名词复数 )；痕迹；持久影响 | |
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164
satirizes
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| v.讽刺，讥讽( satirize的第三人称单数 ) | |
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165
snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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166
trademarks
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| n.（注册）商标( trademark的名词复数 )；（人的行为或衣着的）特征，标记 | |
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167
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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168
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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169
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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170
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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171
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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172
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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173
derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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174
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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175
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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176
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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178
pates
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| n.头顶，（尤指）秃顶，光顶( pate的名词复数 ) | |
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179
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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180
persecuting
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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181
doting
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| adj.溺爱的，宠爱的 | |
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182
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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183
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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184
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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185
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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186
portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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187
sociability
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| n.好交际，社交性，善于交际 | |
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188
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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189
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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190
chasms
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| 裂缝( chasm的名词复数 )； 裂口； 分歧； 差别 | |
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191
enactments
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| n.演出( enactment的名词复数 )；展现；规定；通过 | |
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192
promulgated
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| v.宣扬（某事物）( promulgate的过去式和过去分词 )；传播；公布；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
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193
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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194
garbs
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| vt.装扮（garb的第三人称单数形式） | |
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195
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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196
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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197
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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198
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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199
diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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200
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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201
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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202
subdivide
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| vt.细分（细区分，再划分，重分，叠分，分小类） | |
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203
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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204
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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205
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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206
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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207
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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208
exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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209
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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210
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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211
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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212
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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213
tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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214
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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215
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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216
conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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217
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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218
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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219
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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220
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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221
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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222
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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223
bolsters
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| n.长枕( bolster的名词复数 )；垫子；衬垫；支持物v.支持( bolster的第三人称单数 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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224
incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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225
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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226
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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227
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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228
scantily
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| adv.缺乏地；不充足地；吝啬地；狭窄地 | |
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229
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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230
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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231
sanitation
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| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
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232
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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233
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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234
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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235
savoring
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| v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的现在分词 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝 | |
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236
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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237
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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238
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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239
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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240
satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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241
indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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242
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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243
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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244
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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245
partially
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|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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246
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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247
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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248
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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249
slanderous
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| adj.诽谤的，中伤的 | |
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250
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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251
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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252
paternal
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|
| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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253
chastise
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| vt.责骂，严惩 | |
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254
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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255
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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256
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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257
cuffed
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| v.掌打，拳打( cuff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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258
smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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259
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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260
candor
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| n.坦白，率真 | |
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261
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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262
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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263
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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264
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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265
abstemiousness
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| n.适中，有节制 | |
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266
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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267
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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268
gastronomic
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| adj.美食（烹饪）法的，烹任学的 | |
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269
undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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270
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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271
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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272
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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273
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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274
inebriate
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| v.使醉 | |
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275
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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276
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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277
appalling
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|
| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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278
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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279
inebriety
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| n.醉，陶醉 | |
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280
incumbent
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|
| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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281
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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282
offset
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|
| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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283
outspoken
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|
| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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284
follies
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|
| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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285
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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286
tassel
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|
| n.流苏，穗；v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须 | |
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287
worthily
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| 重要地，可敬地，正当地 | |
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288
scotch
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|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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289
extravagant
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|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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290
picturesqueness
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291
satirist
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|
| n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人 | |
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292
cuffs
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|
| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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293
agate
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| n.玛瑙 | |
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294
rouged
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|
| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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295
scented
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|
| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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296
starched
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|
| adj.浆硬的，硬挺的，拘泥刻板的v.把（衣服、床单等）浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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297
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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298
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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299
artifices
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|
| n.灵巧( artifice的名词复数 )；诡计；巧妙办法；虚伪行为 | |
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300
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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301
gambols
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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302
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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303
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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304
reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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305
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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306
monstrous
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|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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307
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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308
speculative
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|
| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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309
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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310
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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311
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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312
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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313
chafing
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|
| n.皮肤发炎v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的现在分词 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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314
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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315
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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316
orthography
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| n.拼字法，拼字式 | |
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317
parlance
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| n.说法；语调 | |
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318
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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319
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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320
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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321
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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322
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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323
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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324
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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325
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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326
plebeian
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|
| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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327
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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328
earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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329
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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330
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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331
rendezvous
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|
| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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332
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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333
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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334
hoists
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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335
profanation
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| n.亵渎 | |
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336
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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337
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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338
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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339
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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340
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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341
forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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342
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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343
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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344
fads
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| n.一时的流行，一时的风尚( fad的名词复数 ) | |
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345
grotesqueness
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346
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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347
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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348
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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349
carousal
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| n.喧闹的酒会 | |
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350
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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351
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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352
manias
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| n.（mania的复数形式） | |
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353
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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354
contentious
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| adj.好辩的，善争吵的 | |
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355
maudlin
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| adj.感情脆弱的，爱哭的 | |
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356
bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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357
molest
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| vt.骚扰，干扰，调戏 | |
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358
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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359
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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360
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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361
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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362
revelling
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| v.作乐( revel的现在分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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363
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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364
incongruities
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| n.不协调( incongruity的名词复数 )；不一致；不适合；不协调的东西 | |
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365
corroborative
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| adj.确证（性）的，确凿的 | |
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366
accentuating
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| v.重读( accentuate的现在分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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367
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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368
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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369
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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370
distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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371
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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372
forte
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| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
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373
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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374
perjury
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| n.伪证；伪证罪 | |
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375
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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376
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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377
outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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378
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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379
denizens
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| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
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380
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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381
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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382
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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383
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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384
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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385
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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386
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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387
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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388
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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389
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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390
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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391
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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392
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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393
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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394
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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395
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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