the middle and
lower classes never occurred to Shakespeare, for it was a subject of
discussion among his contemporaries.

It is hardly possible to construct a play with no characters but
monarchs and their suites, and at the same time preserve the
verisimilitudes of life. Shakespeare was obliged to make some use of
servants, citizens, and populace. How has he portrayed them? In one play
alone has he given up the whole stage to them, and it is said that the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" was only written at the request of Queen
Elizabeth, who wished to see Sir John Falstaff in love. It is from
beginning to end one prolonged "gird at citizens," and we can hardly
wonder that they felt a grievance against the dramatic profession. In
the other plays of Shakespeare the humbler classes appear for the main
part only occasionally and incidentally. His opinion of them is
indicated more or less picturesquely by the names which he selects for
them. There are, for example, Bottom, the weaver; Flute, the
bellows-maker; Snout and Sly, tinkers; Quince, the carpenter; Snug, the
joiner; Starveling, the tailor; Smooth, the silkman; Shallow and
Silence, country justices; Elbow and Hull, constables; Dogberry and
Verges, Fang and Snare, sheriffs' officers; Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, and
Bull-calf, recruits; Feebee, at once a recruit and a woman's tailor,
Pilch and Patch-Breech, fishermen (though these last two appellations
may be mere nicknames); Potpan, Peter Thump, Simple, Gobbo, and Susan
Grindstone, servants; Speed, "a clownish servant"; Slender, Pistol, Nym,
Sneak, Doll Tear-sheet, Jane Smile, Costard, Oatcake, Seacoal, and
various anonymous "clowns" and "fools." Shakespeare rarely gives names
of this character to any but the lowly in life, altho perhaps we should
cite as exceptions Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek in "Twelfth
Night"; the vicar, Sir Oliver Mar-Text, in "As You Like It"; Moth, the
page, in "Love's Labor Lost," and Froth, "a foolish gentleman," in
"Measure for Measure," but none of these personages quite deserves to
rank as an aristocrat. Such a system of nomenclature as we have exposed
is enough of itself to fasten the stigma of absurdity upon the
characters subjected to it, and their occupations. Most of the trades
are held up for ridicule in "Midsummer Night's Dream"; Holofernes, the
schoolmaster, is made ridiculous in "Love's Labor Lost," and we are told
of the middle-class Nym, Pistol, and Bardolph that "three such ant