In this harebrained exploit we
are told that he was taken prisoner and carried to the keeper's
lodge, where he remained all night in doleful captivity. When
brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy his treatment must
have been galling and humiliating; for it so wrought upon his
spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade which was affixed to the
park gate at Charlecot.*
This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so incensed
him that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of
the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakespeare
did not wait to brave the united puissance of a knight of the
shire and a country attorney. He forthwith abandoned the pleasant
banks of the Avon and his paternal trade; wandered away to
London; became a hanger-on to the theatres; then an actor; and
finally wrote for the stage; and thus, through the persecution of
Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost an indifferent wool-comber and
the world gained an immortal poet. He retained, however, for a
long time, a sense of the harsh treatment of the lord of
Charlecot, and revenged himself in his writings, but in the
sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the
original of Justice Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon
him by the justice's armorial bearings, which, like those of the
knight, had white luces+ in the quarterings.
Pages:
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410