FROM 1591 TO 1593.
Naval war against Spain.--Death of sir Richard Grenville--Notice of
Cavendish.--Establishment of the East India company.--Results of voyages
of discovery.--Transactions between Raleigh and the queen.--Anecdotes of
Robert Cary--of the Holles family.--Progress of the drama.--Dramatic
poets before Shakespeare.--Notice of Shakespeare.--Proclamation
respecting bear-baiting and acting of plays.--Censorship of the
drama.--Anecdote of the queen and Tarleton.
The maritime war with Spain, notwithstanding the cautious temper of the
queen, was strenuously waged during the year 1591, and produced some
striking indications of the rising spirit of the English navy.
A squadron under lord Thomas Howard, which had been waiting six months
at the Azores to intercept the homeward bound ships from Spanish
America, was there surprised by a vastly more numerous fleet of the
enemy which had been sent out for their convoy. The English admiral got
to sea in all haste and made good his retreat, followed by his whole
squadron excepting the Revenge, which was entangled in a narrow channel
between the port and an island. Sir Richard Grenville her commander,
after a vain attempt to break through the Spanish line, determined, with
a kind of heroic desperation, to sustain alone the conflict with a
whole fleet of fifty-seven sail, and to confront all extremities rather
than strike his colors. From three o'clock in the afternoon till
day-break he resisted, by almost incredible efforts of valor, all the
force which could be brought to bear against him, and fifteen times beat
back the boarding parties from his deck. At length, when all his bravest
had fallen, and he himself was disabled by many wounds; his powder also
being exhausted, his small-arms lost or broken, and his ship a perfect
wreck, he proposed to his gallant crew to sink her, that no trophy might
remain to the enemy. But this proposal, though applauded by several, was
overruled by the majority: the Revenge struck to the Spaniards; and two
days after, her brave commander died on board their admiral's ship of
his glorious wounds, "with a joyful and quiet mind," as he expressed
himself, and admired by his enemies themselves for his high spirit and
invincible resolution. This was the first English ship of any
considerable size captured by the Spaniards during the whole war, and it
did them little good; for, besides that the vessel had been shattered to
pieces, and sunk a few days after with two hundred Spanish sailors on
board, the example of heroic self-devotion set by sir Richard Grenville
long continued in the hour of battle to strike awe and terror to their
hearts.
Thomas Cavendish, elated by the splendid success of that first
expedition in which, with three slender barks of insignificant size
carrying only one hundred and twenty-three persons of every degree, he
had plundered the whole coast of New Spain and Peru, burned Paita and
Acapulco, and captured a Spanish admiral of seven hundred tons, besides
many other vessels taken or burned;--then crossed the great South Sea,
and circumnavigated the globe in the shortest time in which that exploit
had yet been performed;--set sail again in August 1591 on a second
voyage. But this time, when his far greater force and more adequate
preparations of every kind seemed to promise results still more
profitable and glorious, scarce any thing but disasters awaited him. He
took indeed the town of Santos in Brazil, which was an acquisition of
some importance; but delaying here too long, he arrived at a wrong
season in the Straits of Magellan, and was compelled to endure the
winter of that inhospitable clime; where seeing his numbers thinned by
sickness and hardship, and his plans baffled by dissentions and
insubordination, he found it necessary to abandon his original design of
crossing the South Sea, and resolved to undertake the voyage to China by
the Cape of Good Hope. First, however, he was fatally prevailed upon to
return to the coast of Brazil, where he lost many men in rash attempts
against various towns, which expecting his attacks were now armed for
their defence, and a still greater number by desertion. Baffled in all
his designs, worn out with fatigue, anxieties, and chagrin, this brave
but unfortunate adventurer breathed his last far from England on the
wide ocean, and so obscurely that even the date of his death is unknown.
At this period, a peculiar education was regarded as not more necessary
to enable a gentleman to assume the direction of a naval expedition than
the command of a troop of horse; and it is probable that even by
Cavendish, whose exploits we read with amazement, but a very slender
stock of maritime experience was possessed when he first embarked on
board the vessel in which he had undertaken to circumnavigate the globe.
He was the third son of a Suffolk gentleman of large estate; came early
to court; and having there consumed his patrimony in the fashionable
magnificence of the time, suddenly discovered within himself sufficient
courage to attempt the reparation of his broken fortunes by that
favorite resource, the plunder of the Spanish settlements. On his return
from his first voyage he sailed up the Thames in a kind of triumph,
displaying a top-sail of cloth of gold, and making ostentation of the
profit rather than the glory of the enterprise. He appears to have been
equally deficient in the enlightened prudence which makes an essential
feature of the great commander, and in that lofty disinterestedness of
motive which constitutes the hero; but in the activity, the enterprise,
the brilliant valor, which now form the spirit of the English navy, he
had few equals and especially few predecessors; and amongst the founders
of its glory the name of Cavendish is therefore worthy of a conspicuous
and enduring place.
By the failure of the late attempt to seat don Antonio on the throne of
Portugal, the sovereignty of Philip II. over that country and its
dependencies had finally been established; and in consequence its trade
and settlements in the East offered a fair and tempting prize to the
ambition or cupidity of English adventurers.
The passage by the Cape of Good Hope, repeatedly accomplished by
circumnavigators of this nation, had now ceased to oppose any formidable
obstacle to the spirit of maritime enterprise; and the papal donation
was a bulwark still less capable of preserving inviolate to the
sovereigns of Portugal their own rich Indies. The first expedition ever
fitted out from England for those eastern regions, where it now
possesses an extent of territory in comparison of which itself is but a
petty province, consisted of three "tall ships," which sailed in this
year under the conduct of George Raymond and James Lancaster. After
doubling the Cape and refreshing themselves in Saldanha Bay, which the
Portuguese had named but not yet settled, the navigators steered along
the eastern coast of Africa, where the ship commanded by Raymond was
lost. With the other two, however, they proceeded still eastward; passed
without impediment all the stations of the Portuguese on the shores of
the Indian ocean, doubled Cape Comorin, and extended their voyage to the
Nicobar isles, and even to the peninsula of Malacca. They landed in
several parts, where they found means to open an advantageous traffic
with the natives; and, after capturing many Portuguese vessels laden
with various kinds of merchandise, repassed the Cape in perfect safety
with all their booty. In their way home they visited the West Indies,
where great disasters overtook them; for here their two remaining ships
were lost, and Lancaster, with the slender remnant of their crews, was
glad to obtain a passage to Europe on board a French ship which happily
arrived to their relief. But as far as respected the eastern part of
the expedition, their success had been such as strongly to invite the
attempts of future adventurers; and nine years after its sailing, her
majesty was prevailed upon to grant a charter of incorporation with
ample privileges to an East India company, under whose auspices
Lancaster consented to undertake a second voyage. Annual fleets were
from this period fitted out by these enterprising traders, and factories
of their establishment soon arose in Surat, in Masulipatam, in Bantam,
in Siam, and even in Japan. The history of their progress makes no part
of the subject of the present work; but the foundation of a mercantile
company which has advanced itself to power and importance absolutely
unparalleled in the annals of the world, forms a feature not to be
overlooked in the glory of Elizabeth.
These long and hazardous voyages of discovery, of hostility, or of
commerce, began henceforth to afford one of the most honorable
occupations to those among the youthful nobility or gentry of the
country, whose active spirits disdained the luxurious and servile
idleness of the court: they also opened a welcome resource to younger
sons, and younger brothers, impatient to emancipate themselves from the
galling miseries of that necessitous dependence on the head of their
house to which the customs of the age and country relentlessly condemned
them.
Thus Shakespeare in his Two Gentlemen of Verona,
..."He wondered that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
While other men of slender reputation
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
Some to the wars to try their fortune there;
_Some to discover islands far away_;
Some to the studious universities.
For any or for all these exercises,
He said, that Protheus your son was meet:
And did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home;
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
In having known no travel in his youth."
But the advancement of the fortunes of individuals was by no means the
principal or most permanent good which accrued to the nation by these
enterprises. The period was still indeed far distant, in which voyages
of discovery were to be undertaken on scientific principles and with
large views of general utility; but new animals, new vegetables, natural
productions or manufactured articles before unknown to them, attracted
the attention even of these first unskilful explorers. Specimens in
every kind were brought home, and, recommended as they never failed to
be by fabulous or grossly exaggerated descriptions, in the first
instance only served to gratify and inflame the vulgar passion for
wonders. But the attention excited to these striking novelties gradually
became enlightened; a more familiar acquaintance disclosed their genuine
properties, and the purposes to which they might be applied at
home;--Raleigh introduced the potatoe on his Irish estates;--an
acceptable however inelegant luxury was discovered in the use of
tobacco; and somewhat later, the introduction of tea gradually brought
sobriety and refinement into the system of modern English manners.
Many allusions to the prevailing passion for beholding foreign, or, as
they were then accounted, monstrous animals, may be found scattered over
the works of Shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. Trinculo says,
speaking of Caliban, "Were I but in England now... and had but this fish
painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver.
There would this monster _make_ a man; any strange beast there makes a
man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will
lay out ten to see a dead Indian." And again; "Do you put tricks upon's
with savages and men of Inde?" &c. The whole play of the Tempest,
exquisite as it is, must have derived a still more poignant relish, to
the taste of that age, from the romantic ideas of desert islands then
floating in the imaginations of men.
In the following year, 1592, Raleigh, weary of his Irish exile, and
anxious by some splendid exploit to revive the declining favor of the
queen, projected a formidable attack on the Spanish power in America,
and engaged without difficulty in the enterprise a large number of
volunteers. But unavoidable obstacles arose, by which the fleet was
detained till the proper season for its sailing was past: Elizabeth
recalled Raleigh to court; and the only fortunate result of the
expedition, to the command of which Martin Frobisher succeeded, was the
capture of one wealthy carrack and the destruction of another.
Raleigh, in the meantime, was amusing his involuntary idleness by an
intrigue with one of her majesty's maids of honor, a daughter of the
celebrated sir Nicholas Throgmorton. The queen, in the heat of her
indignation at the scandal brought upon her court by the consequences of
this amour, resorted, as in a thousand other cases, to a vigor beyond
the laws; and though sir Walter offered immediately to make the lady the
best reparation in his power, by marrying her, which he afterwards
performed, Elizabeth unfeelingly published her shame to the whole world
by sending both culprits to the Tower.
Sir Walter remained a prisoner during several months. Meanwhile his
ships returned from their cruise, and the profits from the sale of the
captured carrack were to be divided among the queen, the admiral, the
sailors, and the several contributors to the outfit. Disputes arose; her
majesty was dissatisfied with the share allotted her; and taking
advantage of the situation into which her own despotic violence had
thrown Raleigh, she appears to have compelled him to buy his liberty,
and the undisturbed enjoyment of all that he held under her, by the
sacrifice of no less than eighty thousand pounds due to him as admiral.
Such was the disinterested purity of that zeal for morals of which
Elizabeth judged it incumbent on her to make profession!
It may be curious to learn, from another incident which occurred about
the same time, at what rate her majesty caused her forgiveness of
lawful matrimony to be purchased.
Robert Cary, third son of lord Hunsdon, created lord Leppington by James
I. and earl of Monmouth by his successor,--from whose memoirs of himself
the following particulars are derived,--was at this time a young man and
an assiduous attendant on the court of his illustrious kinswoman. Being
a younger son, he had no patrimony either in possession or reversion; he
received from the exchequer only one hundred pounds per annum during
pleasure, and by the style of life which he found it necessary to
support, had incurred a debt of a thousand pounds. In this situation he
married a widow possessed of five hundred pounds per annum and some
ready money. His father evinced no displeasure on the occasion; but his
other friends, and especially the queen, were so much offended at the
match, that he took his wife to Carlisle and remained there without
approaching the court till the next year. Being then obliged to visit
London on business, his father suggested the expediency of his paying
the queen the compliment of appearing on _her day_. Accordingly, he
secretly prepared caparisons and a present for her majesty, at the cost
of more than four hundred pounds, and presented himself in the tilt-yard
in the character of "a forsaken knight who had vowed solitariness." The
festival over, he made himself known to his friends in court; but the
queen, though she had received his gift, would not take notice of his
presence.
It happened soon after, that the king of Scots sent to Cary's elder
brother, then marshal of Berwick, to beg that he would wait upon him to
receive a secret message which he wanted to transmit to the queen. The
marshal wrote to his father to inquire her majesty's pleasure in the
matter. She did not choose that he should stir out of Berwick; but
"knowing, though she would not know it," that Robert Cary was in court,
she said at length to lord Hunsdon, "I hear your fine son that has
married lately so worthily is hereabouts; send him if you will to know
the king's pleasure." His lordship answered, that he knew he would be
happy to obey her commands. "No," said she, "do you bid him go, for I
have nothing to do with him." Robert Cary thought it hard to be sent off
without first seeing the queen; "Sir," said he to his father, who urged
his going, "if she be on such hard terms with me, I had need be wary
what I do. If I go to the king without her license, it were in her power
to hang me at my return, and that, for any thing I see, it were ill
trusting her." Lord Hunsdon "merrily" told the queen what he said. "If
the gentleman be so distrustful," she answered, "let the secretary make
a safe-conduct to go and come, and I will sign it." On his return with
letters from James, Robert Cary hastened to court, and entered the
presence-chamber splashed and dirty as he was; but not finding the queen
there, lord Hunsdon went to her to announce his son's arrival. She
desired him to receive the letter, or message, and bring it to her. But
the young gentleman knew the court and the queen too well to consent to
give up his dispatches even to his father; he insisted on delivering
them himself, and at length, with much difficulty gained admission.
The first encounter was, as he expresses it, "stormy and terrible,"
which he passed over with silence; but when the queen had "said her
pleasure" of himself and his wife, he made her a courtly excuse; with
which she was so well appeased, that she at length assured him all was
forgiven and forgotten, and received him into her wonted favor. After
this happy conclusion of an adventure so perilous to a courtier of
Elizabeth, Cary returned to Carlisle; and his father's death soon
occurring, he had orders to take upon himself the government of Berwick
till further orders. In this situation he remained a year without
salary; impairing much his small estate, and unable to obtain from court
either an allowance, or leave of absence to enable him to solicit one in
person. At length, necessity rendering him bold, he resolved to hazard
the step of going up without permission. On his arrival, however,
neither secretary Cecil nor even his own brother would venture to
introduce him to the queen's presence, but advised him to hasten back
before his absence should be known, for fear of her anger. At last, as
he stood sorrowfully pondering on his case, a gentleman of the chamber,
touched with pity, undertook to mention his arrival to her majesty in a
way which should not displease her: and he opened the case by telling
her, that she was more beholden to the love and service of one man than
of many whom she favored more. This excited her curiosity; and on her
asking who this person might be, he answered that it was Robert Cary,
who, unable longer to bear his absence from her sight, had posted up to
kiss her hand and instantly return. She sent for him directly, received
him with greater favor than ever, allowed him after the interview to
lead her out by the hand, which seemed to his brother and the secretary
nothing less than a miracle; and what was more, granted him five hundred
pounds immediately, a patent of the wardenry of the east marches, and a
renewal of his grant of Norham-castle. It was this able courtier, rather
than grateful kinsman, who earned the good graces of king James by being
the first to bring him the welcome tidings of the decease of Elizabeth.
Incidental mention has already been made of sir William Holles of
Haughton in Nottinghamshire, the gentleman who refused to marry his
daughter to the earl of Cumberland, because he did not choose "to stand
cap in hand" to his son-in-law: this worthy knight died at a great age
in the year 1590; and a few further particulars respecting him and his
descendants may deserve record, on account of the strong light which
they reflect on several points of manners. Sir William was
distinguished, perhaps beyond any other person of the same rank in the
kingdom, for boundless hospitality and a magnificent style of living.
"He began his Christmas," says the historian of the family, "at
Allhallowtide and continued it until Candlemas; during which any man was
permitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came or what
he was." For each of the twelve days of Christmas he allowed a fat ox
and other provisions in proportion. He would never dine till after one
o'clock; and being asked why he preferred so unusually late an hour, he
answered, that "for aught he knew there might a friend come twenty miles
to dine with him, and he would be loth he should lose his labor."
At the coronation of Edward VI. he appeared with fifty followers in blue
coats and badges,--then the ordinary costume of retainers and
serving-men,--and he never went to the sessions at Retford, though only
four miles from his own mansion, without thirty "proper fellows" at his
heels. What was then rare among the greatest subjects, he kept a company
of actors of his own to perform plays and masques at festival times; in
summer they travelled about the country.
This sir William was succeeded in his estates by sir John Holles his
grandson, who was one of the band of gentlemen pensioners to Elizabeth,
and in the reign of James I. purchased the title of earl of Clare. His
grandfather had engaged his hand to a kinswoman of the earl of
Shrewsbury; but the young man declining to complete this contract, and
taking to wife a daughter of sir Thomas Stanhope, the consequence was a
long and inveterate feud between the houses of Holles and of Talbot,
which was productive of several remarkable incidents. Its first effect
was a duel between Orme, a servant of Holles, and Pudsey, master of
horse to the earl of Shrewsbury, in which the latter was slain. The earl
prosecuted Orme, and sought to take away his life; but sir John Holles
in the first instance caused him to be conveyed away to Ireland, and
afterwards obtained his pardon of the queen. For his conduct in this
business he was himself challenged by Gervase Markham, champion and
gallant to the countess of Shrewsbury; but he refused the duel, because
the unreasonable demand of Markham, that it should take place in a park
belonging to the earl his enemy, gave him just ground to apprehend that
some treachery was meditated. Anxious however to wipe away the
aspersions which his adversary had taken occasion to cast upon his
courage, he sought a rencounter which might wear the appearance of
accident; and soon after, having met Markham on the road, they
immediately dismounted and attacked each other with their rapiers;
Markham fell, severely wounded, and the earl of Shrewsbury lost no time
in raising his servants and tenantry to the number of one hundred and
twenty in order to apprehend Holles in case Markham's hurt should prove
mortal. On the other side lord Sheffield, the kinsman of Holles, joined
him with sixty men. "I hear, cousin," said he on his arrival, "that my
lord of Shrewsbury is prepared to trouble you; but take my word, before
he carry you it shall cost many a broken pate;" and he and his company
remained at Haughton till the wounded man was out of danger. Markham had
vowed never to eat supper or take the sacrament till he was revenged,
and in consequence found himself obliged to abstain from both to the day
of his death[111]. What appears the most extraordinary part of the
story is, that we do not find the queen and council interfering to put a
stop to this private war, worthy of the barbarism of the feudal ages.
Gervase Markham, who was the portionless younger son of a
Nottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminous
miscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chief
means of subsistence. He wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and both
in verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear to
have been the most useful, and those on field sports the most
entertaining, of his performances.
[Note 111: See Historical Collections, by Collins.]
The progress of the drama is a subject which claims in this place some
share of our attention, partly because it excited in a variety of ways
that of Elizabeth herself. By the appearance of Ferrex and Porrex in
1561, and that of Gammer Gurton's Needle five years later, a new impulse
had been given to English genius; and both tragedies and comedies
approaching the regular models, besides historical and pastoral dramas,
allegorical pieces resembling the old moralities, and translations from
the ancients, were from this time produced in abundance, and received by
all classes with avidity and delight.
About twenty dramatic poets flourished between 1561 and 1590; and an
inspection of the titles alone of their numerous productions would
furnish evidence of an acquaintance with the stores of history,
mythology, classical fiction, and romance, strikingly illustrative of
the literary diligence and intellectual activity of the age.
Richard Edwards produced a tragi-comedy on the affecting ancient story
of Damon and Pithias, besides his comedy of Palamon and Arcite, formerly
noticed as having been performed for the entertainment of her majesty at
Oxford. In connexion with this latter piece it may be remarked, that of
the chivalrous idea of Theseus in this celebrated tale and in the
Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as of all the other _gothicized_
representations of ancient heroes, of which Shakespeare's Troilus and
Cressida, his Rape of Lucrece, and some passages of Spenser's Faery
Queen, afford further examples, Guido Colonna's _Historia Trojana_,
written in 1260, was the original: a work long and widely popular, which
had been translated, paraphrased and imitated in French and English, and
which the barbarism of its incongruities, however palpable, had not as
yet consigned to oblivion or contempt.
George Gascoigne, besides his tragedy from Euripides, translated also a
comedy from Ariosto, performed by the students of Gray's Inn under the
title of The Supposes; which was the first specimen in our language of a
drama in prose. Italian literature was at this period cultivated amongst
us with an assiduity unequalled either before or since, and it possessed
few authors of merit or celebrity whose works were not speedily
familiarized to the English public through the medium of translations.
The study of this enchanting language found however a vehement opponent
in Roger Ascham, who exclaims against the "enchantments of Circe,
brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England; much by examples
of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out
of Italian into English, and sold in every shop in London." He
afterwards declares that "there be more of these ungracious books set
out in print within these few months than have been seen in England many
years before." To these strictures on the moral tendencies of the
popular writers of Italy some force must be allowed; but it is obvious
to remark, that similar objections might be urged with at least equal
cogency against the favorite classics of Ascham; and that the use of so
valuable an instrument of intellectual advancement as the free
introduction of the literature of a highly polished nation into one
comparatively rude, is not to be denied to beings capable of moral
discrimination, from the apprehension of such partial and incidental
injury as may arise out of its abuse. Italy, in fact, was at once the
plenteous store-house whence the English poets, dramatists and romance
writers of the latter half of the sixteenth century drew their most
precious materials; the school where they acquired taste and skill to
adapt them to their various purposes; and the Parnassian mount on which
they caught the purest inspirations of the muse.
Elizabeth was a zealous patroness of these studies; she spoke the
Italian language with fluency and elegance, and used it frequently in
her mottos and devices: by her encouragement, as we shall see,
Harrington was urged to complete his version of the Orlando Furioso, and
she willingly accepted in the year 1600 the dedication of Fairfax's
admirable translation of the great epic of Tasso.
But to return to our dramatic writers:... Thomas Kyd was the author of a
tragedy entitled Jeronimo, which for the absurd horrors of its plot, and
the mingled puerility and bombast of its language, was a source of
perpetual ridicule to rival poets, while from a certain wild pathos
combined with its imposing grandiloquence it was long a favorite with
the people. The same person also translated a play by Garnier on the
story of Cornelia the wife of Pompey;--a solitary instance apparently of
obligation to the French theatre on the part of these founders of our
national drama.
By Thomas Hughes the misfortunes of Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, were
made the subject of a tragedy performed before the queen.
Preston, to whom when a youth her majesty had granted a pension of a
shilling a day in consideration of his excellent acting in the play of
Palamon and Arcite, composed on the story of Cambyses king of Persia "A
lamentable tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth," which is now only
remembered as having been an object of ridicule to Shakespeare.
Lilly, the author of Euphues, composed six court comedies and other
pieces principally on classical subjects, but disfigured by all the
barbarous affectations of style which had marked his earlier production.
Christopher Marlow, unquestionably a man of genius, however deficient in
taste and judgement, astonished the world with his Tamburlain the
Great, which became in a manner proverbial for its rant and
extravagance: he also composed, but in a purer style and with a pathetic
cast of sentiment, a drama on the subject of king Edward II., and
ministered fuel to the ferocious prejudices of the age by his fiend-like
portraiture of Barabas in The rich Jew of Malta. Marlow was also the
author of a tragedy, in which the sublime and the grotesque were
extraordinarily mingled, on the noted story of Dr. Faustus; a tale of
preternatural horrors, which, after the lapse of two centuries, was
again to receive a similar distinction from the pen of one of the most
celebrated of German dramatists: not the only example which could be
produced of a coincidence of taste between the early tragedians of the
two countries.
Of the works of these and other contemporary poets, the fathers of the
English theatre, some are extant in print, others have come down to us
in manuscript, and of no inconsiderable portion the titles alone
survive. A few have acquired an incidental value in the eyes of the
curious, as having furnished the ground-work of some of the dramas of
our great poet; but not one of the number can justly be said to make a
part of the living literature of the country.
It was reserved for the transcendent genius of Shakespeare alone, in
that infancy of our theatre when nothing proceeded from the crowd of
rival dramatists but rude and abortive efforts, ridiculed by the learned
and judicious of their own age and forgotten by posterity, to astonish
and enchant the nation with those inimitable works which form the
perpetual boast and immortal heritage of Englishmen.
By a strange kind of fatality, which excites at once our surprise and
our unavailing regrets, the domestic and the literary history of this
great luminary of his age are almost equally enveloped in doubt and
obscurity. Even of the few particulars of his origin and early
adventures which have reached us through various channels, the greater
number are either imperfectly attested, or exposed to objections of
different kinds which render them of little value; and respecting his
theatrical life the most important circumstances still remain matter of
conjecture, or at best of remote inference.
When Shakespeare first became a writer for the stage;--what was his
earliest production;--whether all the pieces usually ascribed to him be
really his, and whether there be any others of which he was in whole or
in part the author;--what degree of assistance he either received from
other dramatic writers or lent to them;--in what chronological order his
acknowledged pieces ought to be arranged, and what dates should be
assigned to their first representation;--are all questions on which the
ingenuity and indefatigable diligence of a crowd of editors, critics and
biographers have long been exerted, without producing any considerable
approximation to certainty or to general agreement.
On a subject so intricate, it will suffice for the purposes of the
present work to state a few of the leading facts which appear to rest on
the most satisfactory authorities. William Shakespeare, who was born in
1564, settled in London about 1586 or 1587, and seems to have almost
immediately adopted the profession of an actor. Yet his earliest effort
in composition was not of the dramatic kind; for in 1593 he dedicated to
his great patron the earl of Southampton, as "the first heir of his
invention," his Venus and Adonis, a narrative poem of considerable
length in the six-line stanza then popular. In the subsequent year he
also inscribed to the same noble friend his Rape of Lucrece, a still
longer poem of similar form in the stanza of seven lines, and containing
passages of vivid description, of exquisite imagery, and of sentimental
excellence, which, had he written nothing more, would have entitled him
to rank on a level with the author of the Faery Queen, and far above all
other contemporary poets. He likewise employed his pen occasionally in
the composition of sonnets, principally devoted to love and friendship,
and written perhaps in emulation of those of Spenser, who, as one of
these sonnets testifies, was at this period the object of his ardent
admiration.
Before the publication however of any one of these poems he must already
have attained considerable note as a dramatic writer, since Robert
Green, in a satirical piece printed in 1592, speaking of theatrical
concerns, stigmatizes this "player" as "an absolute Joannes Factotum,"
and one who was "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."
The tragedy of Pericles, which was published in 1609 with the name of
Shakespeare in the title-page, and of which Dryden says in one of his
prologues to a first play, "Shakespeare's own muse his Pericles first
bore," was probably acted in 1590, and appears to have been long
popular. Romeo and Juliet was certainly an early production of his muse,
and one which excited much interest, as may well be imagined, amongst
the younger portion of theatrical spectators.
There is high satisfaction in observing, that the age showed itself
worthy of the immortal genius whom it had produced and fostered. It is
agreed on all hands that Shakespeare was beloved as a man, and admired
and patronized as a poet. In the profession of an actor, indeed, his
success does not appear to have been conspicuous; but the never-failing
attraction of his pieces brought overflowing audiences to the Globe
theatre in Southwark, of which he was enabled to become a joint
proprietor. Lord Southampton is said to have once bestowed on him a
munificent donation of a thousand pounds to enable him to complete a
purchase; and it is probable that this nobleman might also introduce him
to the notice of his beloved friend the earl of Essex. Of any particular
gratuities bestowed on him by her majesty we are not informed: but there
is every reason to suppose that he must have received from her on
various occasions both praises and remuneration; for we are told that
she caused several of his pieces to be represented before her, and that
the Merry Wives of Windsor in particular owed its origin to her desire
of seeing Falstaff exhibited in love.
It remains to notice the principal legal enactments of Elizabeth
respecting the conduct of the theatre, some of which are remarkable.
During the early part of her reign, Sunday being still regarded
principally in the light of a holiday, her majesty not only selected
that day, more frequently than any other, for the representation of
plays at court for her own amusement, but by her license granted to
Burbage in 1574 authorized the performance of them at the public
theatre, _on Sundays only_ out of the hours of prayer. Five years after,
however, Gosson in his School of Abuse complains that the players,
"because they are allowed to play every Sunday, make four or five
Sundays at least every week." To limit this abuse, an order was issued
by the privy-council in July 1591, purporting that no plays should be
publicly exhibited on Thursdays, because on that day bear-baiting and
similar pastimes had usually been practised; and in an injunction to the
lord mayor four days after, the representation of plays on Sunday (or
the Sabbath as it now began to be called among the stricter sort of
people) was utterly condemned; and it was further complained that on
"all other days of the week in divers places the players do use to
recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of
bear-baiting, and like pastimes, which are maintained for her majesty's
pleasure."
In the year 1589 her majesty thought proper to appoint commissioners to
inspect all performances of writers for the stage, with full powers to
reject and obliterate whatever they might esteem unmannerly, licentious,
or irreverent:--a regulation which might seem to claim the applause of
every friend to public decency, were not the state in which the dramas
of this age have come down to posterity sufficient evidence, that to
render these impressive appeals to the passions of assembled multitudes
politically and not morally inoffensive, was the genuine or principal
motive of this act of power.
In illustration of this remark the following passage may be quoted: "At
supper" the queen "would divert herself with her friends and attendants;
and if they made her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and
pleasant discourse with great civility. She would then admit Tarleton, a
famous comedian and pleasant talker, and other such men, to divert her
with stories of the town, and the common jests and accidents. Tarleton,
who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant play; and
when it was acting before the queen, he pointed at Raleigh, and said,
'See the knave commands the queen!' for which he was corrected by a
frown from the queen: yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of
too much and too intolerable a power; and going on with the same
liberty, he reflected on the too great power of the earl of Leicester;
which was so universally applauded by all present, that she thought fit
to bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. But yet she
was so offended that she forbad Tarleton and all jesters from coming
near her table[112]."
[Note 112: See Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. Among the
various sources whence the preceding dramatic notices have been derived,
it is proper to point out Dr. Drake's Memoirs of Shakspeare and his Age,
and Warton's History of English Poetry.]