and the
pot-houses; they lived by their wits, and they were not the first to
demonstrate that he who would enjoy immortality must first have
learned to live by his wits among mortals. It was while he led this
irresponsible bachelor life in London that Shakespeare met one
Elizabeth Frum, or Thrum, and with this young woman he appears to
have fallen in love. The affair did not last very long, but it was
fierce while it was on. Anne Hathaway was temporarily forgotten, and
Mistress Frum (whose father kept the Bell and Canister)
engaged--aye, absorbed--the attentions of the frisky young poet. At
that time Shakespeare was spare of figure, melancholy of visage, but
lively of demeanor; an inclination to baldness had already begun to
exhibit itself, a predisposition hastened and encouraged doubtless
by that disordered digestion to which the poet at an early age
became a prey by reason of his excesses. Elizabeth Frum was deeply
enamoured of Willie, but the young man soon wearied of the girl and
returned to his first love. Curiously enough, Elizabeth subsequently
was married to Andrew Wilwhite of Stratford-on-Avon, and lived up to
the day of her death (1636) in the house next to the cottage
occupied by Anne Hathaway Shakespeare and her children! Wilwhite was
two years younger than Shakespeare; he was the son of a farmer, was
fairly well-to-do, and had been properly educated. Perhaps more for
the amusement than for the glory or for the financial remuneration
there was in it, he printed a modest weekly paper which he named
"The Tidings"--"an Instrument for the Spreading of Proper New Arts
and Philosophies, and for the Indication and Diffusion of What Haps
and Hearsays Soever Are Meet for Chronicling Withal." This journal
was of unpretentious appearance, and its editorial tone was modest
to a degree. The size of the paper was eight by twelve inches, four
pages, with two columns to the page. The type used in the printing
was large and coarse, but the paper and ink seem to have been of the
best quality. A complete file of The Tidings does not survive. The
British Museum has all but the third, eleventh, twelfth, and
seventeenth volumes; the Newberry Library of Chicago has secured the
first, seventh, sixteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth volumes, and
the Duke of Devonshire has half-a-dozen volumes. Aside from these
copies none other is known to be in existence.

W