"The coward conquest of a wretche's knife"

From the painting by Rembrandt

in 1594 and 1596; at any rate, Shakespeare says that, as his friend has possessed that intimate essence of himself, his spirit, when the body dies he loses in it "only the dregs of life and prey of worms," perhaps the "coward conquest of a wretch's knife, too base by thee to be remembered."

In most of the plays the advantages of decent and Christian burial are spoken of in a tone very different from that which would be used by one to whom solemn sepulture was a matter of course, and, as I have before hinted, I believe that this same haunting fear is shown both in this sonnet and his Stratford epitaph. The distress which his equivocal situation causes him on his friend's account was likewise shown in his father's application for a coat-of-arms (granted under James I.). This was not at all the petty vanity of a parvenu, as Mr. Harris would have us think, but a very real advantage, raising its possessor from the rank of "vagabond" to the status of gentility, always noticed by his contemporaries; and, as is said in sonnet 26, this coat

Puts apparel on my tattered loving,

Making me worthy of thy sweet respect.

That Shakespeare himself had a very high ideal of an actor's life is plainly manifested in the plays which mention this calling; and that he used his art not only to chronicle his time, but also to shape public opinion and even to influence the political destinies of England, will be evident to all who follow, and agree with, my exposition of the part he played in the lives of Essex and Southampton.

For what reader can glance at the following Essex documents and fail to see the model for a favorite Shakespearian type?

Essex was in person tall and well-proportioned, with a countenance which, though not strictly handsome, possessed, on account of its bold, cheerful and amiable expression a wonderful power of fascination. He was brave, chivalrous, impulsive, imperious, sometimes with his equals but incapable of secret maliceA Patron of literature and himself a Poet.

In the latter connection I will quote from his farewell letter to the Queen on his departure to quell the Irish rebellion.

From a mind delighting in sorrow; from spirits wasted with passion; from a heart torn to pieces with grief, care and travel, what service can your Majesty

expect, since my service past deserves no more than banishment to the cursedest of Islands?

Your rebels pride and success may ransom myself out of this hateful prison; out of my loathed body; which if it happen so, your Majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death, since the course of my life could never please you:

Happy he could finish forth his fate
In some unhaunted desert, most obscure
From all society, from love and hate

Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure;
Then wake again, and yield God ever praise
Content with trips and haws and brambleberry,
In contemplation passing out his days. . . .
Who, when he dies his tomb may be a bush
Where harmless Robin dwells with gentle Thrush.
Your Majesty's exiled servant,

ROBERT ESSEX.

Lodge speaks of the letter written by Essex in answer to Egerton's remonstrance for his own rebellion against the Queen as showing the "truest picture extant of his political character; the grandeur of his mind and the tyranny of his passions; his habitual loyalty and republican inclinations in this admirable letter we find the following vivacious expressions."

When the vilest of all indignities are done unto me,