10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare… — Essays

Essays — Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare Society,[594] for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from the Mysteries[595] celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, from Ferrex and Porrex,[596] and Gammer Gurton's Needle,[597] down to the possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success, and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no book-stall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached[598] or not, whether he held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, his wife.

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