Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/286

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ensure greater steadiness in his pursuit of business, had taken unto himself a wife, the daughter of one Hathaway, in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Good-nature or incaution, however, led him into the societv of some idle youths, who committed occasional depredations in the parks of the sur- rounding gentry. Being detected in a nocturnal adventure of this kind upon the property of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Chalcot near Stratford, he was prosecuted for the offence; and irritating the pro- secutor to a still greater degree of violence, by an abusive ballad, he was under a necessity of avoid- ing the effects of the criminal process, by quitting hi-; business and family at Stratford, and hiding himself in the metropolis. As his usual means of giving were now at an end, Shakespeare was obliged to adopt some new ones for his future support. His situation required promptitude of decision, and the sfiigeno capital and little preparation; he, therefore, d( termmed upon that line, and accordingly immedi- ately engaged himself upon low terms, and for the most subordinate parts. But the omnipotence of exalted genius is not to be controled for any length or time by the frowns of fortune; Shakespeare -;*>:, emergerl from the obscurity in which neces- m; v had for a moment involved him ; and though hio> iif.striouical talents never raised our poet to capital

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