But
oral tradition respecting a great man whose work has fascinated the
imagination of his countrymen comes into circulation early, persists
long, even in the absence of biography, and safeguards substantial
elements of truth through many generations. Although no biographer put
in an appearance, it is seldom that some fragment of oral tradition
respecting a departed hero is not committed to paper by one or other
amateur gossip who comes within earshot of it early in its career. The
casual unsifted record of floating anecdote is not always above
suspicion. As a rule it is embodied in familiar correspondence, or in
diaries, or in commonplace books, where clear and definite language is
rarely met with; but, however disappointingly imperfect and trivial,
however disjointed, however deficient in literary form the registered
jottings of oral tradition may be, it is in them, if they exist at all
with any title to credit, that future ages best realise the fact that
the great man was in plain truth a living entity, and no mere shadow
of a name.
III
When Shakespeare died, on the 23rd of April, 1616, many men and women
were alive who had come into personal association with him, and there
were many more who had heard of him from those who had spoken with
him.
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