cary who is in such
wretched plight that he sells poison to Romeo in spite of a Draconian
law, gives us another unflattering picture of a tradesman; and when
Falstaff declares, "I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or
anything," we have a premature reflection on the Puritan, middle-class
conscience and religion. In "As You Like It," Shakespeare came near
drawing a pastoral sketch of shepherds and shepherdesses on conventional
lines. If he failed to do so, it was as much from lack of respect for
the keeping of sheep as for the unrealities of pastoral poetry. Rosalind
does not scruple to call the fair Phebe "foul," and, as for her hands,
she says:

"I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,
A freestone colored hand; I verily did think
That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;
She has a housewife's hand."

No one with a high respect for housewifery could have written that line.
When in the same play Jaques sees the pair of rural lovers, Touchstone
and Audrey, approaching, he cries: "There is, sure, another flood, and
these couples are coming to the ark! Here come a pair of very strange
beasts, which in all tongues are called fools" (Act 5, Sc. 4). The
clown, Touchstone, speaks of kissing the cow's dugs which his former
sweetheart had milked, and then marries Audrey in a tempest of
buffoonery. Howbeit, Touchstone remains one of the few rustic characters
of Shakespeare who win our affections, and at the same time he is witty
enough to deserve the title which Jaques bestows upon him of a "rare
fellow."

Occasionally Shakespeare makes fun of persons who are somewhat above the
lower classes in rank. I have mentioned those on whom he bestows
comical names. He indulges in humor also at the expense of the two
Scottish captains, Jamy and Macmorris, and the honest Welsh captain,
Fluellen (Henry V., Act 3, Sc. 2 _et passim_), and shall we forget the
inimitable Falstaff? But, while making every allowance for these
diversions into somewhat nobler quarters (the former of which are
explained by national prejudices), do they form serious exceptions to
the rule, and can Falstaff be taken, for instance, as a representative
of the real aristocracy? As Queen and courtiers watched his antics on
the stage, we may be sure that it never entered their heads that the
"girds" were directed at them or their kind.

The appearance on Shakespeare's stage of a man of humble birth who is
virtuous without being ridic