In ordinary company a word led to a blow, and the
fight was often brought to a fatal conclusion with dagger or sword or
both. In those rough days actors were almost outlaws; Ben Jonson is
known to have killed two or three men; Marlowe died in a tavern brawl.
Courage has always been highly esteemed in England, like gentility and a
university training. Shakespeare possessed none of these passports to
public favour. He could not shoulder his way through the throng. The
wild adventurous life of the time was not to his liking, even in early
manhood; from the beginning he preferred "the life removed" and his
books; all given over to the "bettering of his mind" he could only have
been appreciated at any time by the finer spirits.
Entering the theatre as a servitor he no doubt made such acquaintances
as offered themselves, and spent a good deal of his leisure perforce
with second-rate actors and writers in common taverns and studied his
Bardolph and Pistol, and especially his Falstaff at first hand. Perhaps
Marlowe was one of his
ciceroni in rough company.
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