“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee. The wanton smiled, father wept, Mother cried, baby leapt, More thou crowed, more he cried, Nature could not sorrow hide; He must go, he must kiss Child and mother, baby bless; For he left his pretty boy, Father’s sorrow, father’s joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.” We are apt to look for everything in Shakespeare, but in this matter of childhood we must confess that there is a meagreness of reference which almost tempts us into constructing a theory to account for it. So far as dramatic representation is concerned, the necessary limitations of the stage easily account for the absence of the young. Girls were not allowed to act in Shakespeare’s time, and it is not easy to reduce boys capable of acting to the stature of young girls. More than this, boys and girls are not themselves dramatic in action, though in the more modern drama they are sometimes used, especially in domestic scenes, to heighten effects, and to make most reasonable people wish them in bed. Still, within the limits enforced by his art, Shakespeare more than once rested much on youthful figures. The gay, agile Moth has a species of femineity about him, so that we fancy he would be most easily shown on the stage by a girl; but one readily recalls others who have distinct boyish properties. In Coriolanus, when the mother and wife go out to plead with the angry Roman, they take with them his little boy. Volumnia, frantic with fear, with love, and with a woman’s changing passion, calls upon one and another to join her in her entreaty. Virgilia, the wife, crowds in a word at the height of Volumnia’s appeal, when the voluble grandmother has been rather excitedly talking about Coriolanus treading on his mother’s womb, that brought him into the world. Virgilia strikes in,— “Ay, and mine That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name Living to time.” Whereupon young Marcius, with delicious boyish brag and chivalry:— “A’ shall not tread on me; I’ll run away till I am bigger, but then I’ll fight.” In the same play there is a description of the boy which tallies exactly with the single appearance which he makes in person. Valeria drops in upon the mother and grandmother in a friendly way, and civilly asks after the boy. “_Vir._ I thank your ladyship; well, good madam. “_Vol._ He had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, than look upon his schoolmaster.