476 SCHELLING— THE COMMON FOLK OF SHAKESPEARE. 



maturer art, far more redolent of the soil. William, like Slender, 

 and many a man of better station, is a mere natural ; but his witless- 

 ness is as distinguishable from the folly of the Shakespearean 

 " clown," as his boorishness differs from the literal simplicity of the 

 Shepherd who becomes foster brother to Perdita in " The Winter's 

 Tale." Mopsa and Dorcas with their shepherds of the sheep shear- 

 ing, in these charming comedy scenes, are English country folk ; and 

 Autolycus, despite his fine Greek name, is a delightful English rogue 

 and incorrigible vagabond. 



And now that we have all but touched the bottom of the Shake- 

 spearean social scale, we may note that in Shakespeare poverty does 

 not necessarily make a man vicious ; nor does roguery destroy humor 

 in a man or deprive him of his brains. The porter in Macbeth is a 

 foul-mouthed drunken lout ; the nameless " old man " in the same 

 tragedy is a credulous recorder of marvels. But Adam, the old 

 serving man of Orlando, is faithful almost to death. Dame Quickly 

 of London is a silly old muddlehead, alike innocent of morals and of 

 common sense ; and her sister Dame Quickly of Windsor is a shame- 

 less go-between and meddler ; but the widow, keeper of lodgings for 

 pilgrims in "All's Well," has a virtuous and honorable disposition. 

 The drawer, Francis, in " Henry IV." " sums up his eloquence in 

 the parcel of a reckoning " ; but there is no keener, droller fellow in 

 the world than the grave digger in " Hamlet," and it is dubious if 

 for natural parts, however diverted to the " doing " and undoing of 

 his fellows, Autolycus has ever had his equal. Shakespeare's 

 carriers talk of their jades and their packs ; his vintners and drawers 

 of their guests and their drinking ; his musicians disparage their 

 own skill and have to be coaxed to show it ; and his honest botchers, 

 weavers and bricklayers hate learning, and in their rage variously 

 kill a poet and hang a clerk. And curious as all this may appear to 

 him who habitually views the classes below him as merely his serv- 

 ants or the objects of his organized charity, all this — save possibly 

 the homicides — is as true of today as of the age of Shakespeare. 



And here perhaps as well as anywhere, we may digress into " the 

 Shakespearean prejudice as to mobs." The mob figures as such 

 conspicuously three times in Shakespeare's plays, in the second part 

 of "King Henry VI.," in "Julius Cresar," and in " Coriolanus." It 



