University of Virginia Library

I

The versatility of the greatest of all dramatists is conceded by every one familiar with his plays. The many-sidedness of that masterful genius who "walked in every path of human life, felt every passion," is the world's wonder.

Students have devoted much valuable time and consumed many gallons of midnight oil in efforts to prove that Shakespeare followed most of the vocations open to mankind. It has been shown that he was a finished actor — not a "strutting player whose conceit lies in his hamstring," but an artist competent to hold the mirror up to nature. His attainments as an attorney, "versed in strict statutes and most biting laws," have been ably set forth.

That he was a warrior, a "manifold linguist, and incomparable soldier," can scarcely be doubted; while his achievements as a physician, his knowledge of anatomy, and his profound accomplishments as an alienist and neurologist have been duly exploited by many writers. He was, moreover, a gardener cunning in the lore of plants as well as a subtle discerner of the secret springs of emotion; an ardent angler, who could sit all day upon a rock in the hot sun, like Patience on a monument, waiting to

Shakespeare, too, was a skilled metaphysician and an expert logician. He was a courtier of rare grace, a diplomat, a

man of the world, a lawyer's clerk, a pedagogue with a rod in pickle for the youngster "creeping like a snail unwillingly to school." Some investigators in this fertile field have proved to their satisfaction that the poet was a butcher; and it has even been suggested that he conducted an intelligence office, from Pistol's remark in "Henry IV":

In fact, Shakespeare seems to have been not only a jack of all trades but complete master thereof. A character in "Macbeth" remarks:

Undoubtedly, when those words were penned, the poet must have had the barber's trade in mind. For I shall now proceed to prove that if internal evidence counts for anything, Shakespeare was a barber of skill and experience, possessing a thorough knowledge of his craft.