How long did Shakespeare lodge with the Mountjoys? In his deposition, dated 11th May 1612, he states, as we have just seen, that he has known them for the space of ten years or thereabouts, therefore since 1602.
Thanks to Professor C. W. Wallace, the site of the Mountjoys' house has been identified. It stood in Aldersgate, at the corner of Silver Street and Monkwell Street (formerly Mugwell Street). Let us add that lovers of Shakespeare need not try to summon up visions of the past before the commonplace building taking the place of what might have been a sacred pile. A passing reflection, just a rapid recollection of poor Yorick, is enough. Modern London, grey, noisy, colossal, and vulgar, ill suits the brightness and the distinction of Elizabethan England.
Does the discovery throw any light on Shakespeare's character? M. Jusserand thinks so. "It shows us," he says, "Shakespeare unwittingly thrown by events into a quarrel; his efforts to minimise his rôle and to withdraw and disappear are the most conspicuous trait in the new-found documents."[266]
In conclusion, the chief fact to be remembered is that Shakespeare lived with French artisans during the most important period of his literary life. _Macbeth_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, perhaps _Hamlet_, were most probably written in the house at the corner of Silver Street. The mystery of the scene in French in _Henry V._ is now cleared up: the Vautrolliers, the Mongoyes and their circle taught Shakespeare French.
And yet there is about Professor C. W. Wallace's discovery something unsatisfactory that will be readily understood. The voice that reaches us over the bridge of time seems terribly disappointing: known only by the illuminating utterances in his works, the poet lived on in our memory surrounded with a halo of idealism; he was as an eagle soaring on high and whose wings were never soiled by touching earth. A pity it is that, instead of a formal deposition before a judge's clerk, chance did not bring to light a conversation with Ben Jonson. The veil is just lifted, we draw near, and the god we had figured dwindles into a mere man.
[261] _Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. v. chap. viii.
[263] Nor let us omit Professor Morel in _Bulletin de la Société pour l'étude des langues et littératures modernes_, March 1910.