United States or Nauru ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Why, if I choose, she shall tramp barefoot through the mud after me, singing street-ballads in every town in England, and going round with my battered old hat to beg for halfpence afterwards. I'll humble her! I'll do it I'll do it as sure as there's a moon in the sky!"

Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had the prestige which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy.

Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had the prestige which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy.

He gave those well-known street-ballads which one hears everywhere in Italy, especially in Naples: "Addio mia bella Napoli," "Funiculi Funicula," "L'altro ieri a Piedigrotta," "Margherita di Parete era sarta delle signore," and also more serious songs, such as the languishing "Ogni sera di sotto all' mio balcone sento cantar una canzon d' amore."

He began now to resort to his poetical vein as a source of profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he privately sold for five shillings each at a shop which dealt in such small wares of literature.

Two of these were printed by his brother and sold as street-ballads, but they were, as he informs us, wretched doggerel, and the ridicule thrown on them by his father deterred him from similar attempts.

He would write street-ballads to save himself from actual starving, sell them for five shillings a-piece, and steal out of the college at night to hear them sung. It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five shillings reached home with him. It was more likely, when he was at his utmost need, to stop with some beggar on the road who had seemed to him even more destitute than himself.

Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old plays waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had the prestige which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy.