Well,' which may be tentatively assigned to 1595. Meres, writing three
years later, attributed to Shakespeare a piece called 'Love's Labour's
Won.' This title, which is not otherwise known, may well be applied to
'All's Well.' 'The Taming of The Shrew,' which has also been identified
with 'Love's Labour's Won,' has far slighter claim to the designation.
The plot of 'All's Well,' like that of 'Romeo and Juliet,' was drawn from
Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' (No. xxxviii.) The original source is
Boccaccio's 'Decamerone' (giorn. iii. nov. 9). Shakespeare, after his
wont, grafted on the touching story of Helena's love for the unworthy
Bertram the comic characters of the braggart Parolles, the pompous Lafeu,
and a clown (Lavache) less witty than his compeers. Another original
creation, Bertram's mother, Countess of Roussillon, is a charming
portrait of old age. In frequency of rhyme and other metrical
characteristics the piece closely resembles 'The Two Gentlemen,' but the
characterisation betrays far greater power, and there are fewer conceits
or crudities of style. The pathetic element predominates. The heroine
Helena, whose 'pangs of despised love' are expressed with touching
tenderness, ranks with the greatest of Shakespeare's female creations.
'Taming of the Shrew.'
'The Taming of The Shrew'--which, like 'All's Well,' was first printed in
the folio--was probably composed soon after the completion of that solemn
comedy. It is a revision of an old play on lines somewhat differing from
those which Shakespeare had followed previously. From 'The Taming of A
Shrew,' a comedy first published in 1594, {163} Shakespeare drew the
Induction and the scenes in which the hero Petruchio conquers Catherine
the Shrew. He first infused into them the genuine spirit of comedy. But
while following the old play in its general outlines, Shakespeare's
revised version added an entirely new underplot--the story of Bianca and
her lovers, which owes something to the 'Supposes' of George Gascoigne,
an adaptation of Ariosto's comedy called 'I Suppositi.' Evidence of
style--the liberal introduction of tags of Latin and the exceptional beat
of the doggerel--makes it difficult to allot the Bianca scenes to
Shakespeare; those scenes were probably due to a coadjutor.
Stratford allusions in the Induction.
The Induction to 'The Taming of The Shrew' has a direct bearing on
Shakespeare's biography, for the poet admits into it a number of literal
references to Stratford and his native county. Such personalities are
rare in Shakespeare's plays, and can only be paralleled in two of
slightly later date--the 'Second Part of Henry IV' and the 'Merry Wives
of Windsor.' All these local allusions may well be attributed to such a
renewal of Shakespeare's personal relations with the town, as is
indicated by external facts in his history of the same period. In the
Induction the tinker, Christopher Sly, describes himself as 'Old Sly's
son of Burton Heath.' Burton Heath is Barton-on-the-Heath, the home of
Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund Lambert's wife, and of her sons. The tinker
in like vein confesses that he has run up a score with Marian Hacket, the
fat alewife of Wincot. {164} The references to Wincot and the Hackets
are singularly precise. The name of the maid of the inn is given as
Cicely Hacket, and the alehouse is described in the stage direction as
'on a heath.'
Wincot.
Wincot was the familiar designation of three small Warwickshire villages,
and a good claim has been set up on behalf of each to be the scene of
Sly's drunken exploits. There is a very small hamlet named Wincot within
four miles of Stratford now consisting of a single farmhouse which was
once an Elizabethan mansion; it is situated on what was doubtless in
Shakespeare's day, before the land there was enclosed, an open heath.
This Wincot forms part of the parish of Quinton, where, according to the
parochial registers, a Hacket family resided in Shakespeare's day. On
November 21, 1591, 'Sara Hacket, the daughter of Robert Hacket,' was
baptised in Quinton church. {165} Yet by Warwickshire contemporaries the
Wincot of 'The Taming of The Shrew' was unhesitatingly identified with
Wilnecote, near Tamworth, on the Staffordshire border of Warwickshire, at
some distance from Stratford. That village, whose name was pronounced
'Wincot,' was celebrated for its ale in the seventeenth century, a
distinction which is not shown by contemporary evidence to have belonged
to any place of like name. The Warwickshire poet, Sir Aston Cokain,
within half a century of the production of Shakespeare's 'Taming of The
Shrew,' addressed to 'Mr. Clement Fisher of Wincott' (a well-known
resident at Wilnecote) verses which begin
_Shakspeare_ your _Wincot_ ale hath much renowned,
That fox'd a Beggar so (by chance was found
Sleeping) that there needed not many a word
To make him to believe he was a Lord.
In the succeeding lines the writer promises to visit 'Wincot' (_i.e._
Wilnecote) to drink
Such ale as _Shakspeare_ fancies
Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances.
It is therefore probable that Shakespeare consciously invested the home
of Kit Sly and of Kit's hostess with characteristics of Wilnecote as well
as of the hamlet near Stratford.
Wilmcote, the native place of Shakespeare's mother, is also said to have
been popularly pronounced 'Wincot.' A tradition which was first recorded
by Capell as late as 1780 in his notes to the 'Taming of The Shrew' (p.
26) is to the effect that Shakespeare often visited an inn at 'Wincot' to
enjoy the society of a 'fool who belonged to a neighbouring mill,' and
the Wincot of this story is, we are told, locally associated with the
village of Wilmcote. But the links that connect Shakespeare's tinker
with Wilmcote are far slighter than those which connect him with Wincot
and Wilnecote.
The mention of Kit Sly's tavern comrades--
Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turf and Henry Pimpernell--
was in all likelihood a reminiscence of contemporary Warwickshire life as
literal as the name of the hamlet where the drunkard dwelt. There was a
genuine Stephen Sly who was in the dramatist's day a self-assertive
citizen of Stratford; and 'Greece,' whence 'old John Naps' derived his
cognomen, is an obvious misreading of Greet, a hamlet by Winchcombe in
Gloucestershire, not far removed from Shakespeare's native town.
'Henry IV.'
In 1597 Shakespeare turned once more to English history. From
Holinshed's 'Chronicle,' and from a valueless but very popular piece,
'The Famous Victories of Henry V,' which was repeatedly acted between
1588 and 1595, {167} he worked up with splendid energy two plays on the
reign of Henry IV. They form one continuous whole, but are known
respectively as parts i. and ii. of 'Henry IV.' The 'Second Part of
Henry IV' is almost as rich as the Induction to 'The Taming of The Shrew'
in direct references to persons and districts familiar to Shakespeare.
Two amusing scenes pass at the house of Justice Shallow in
Gloucestershire, a county which touched the boundaries of Stratford (III.
ii. and V. i.) When, in the second of these scenes, the justice's
factotum, Davy, asked his master 'to countenance William Visor of Woncot
{168a} against Clement Perkes of the Hill,' the local references are
unmistakable. Woodmancote, where the family of Visor or Vizard has
flourished since the sixteenth century, is still pronounced Woncot. The
adjoining Stinchcombe Hill (still familiarly known to natives as 'The
Hill') was in the sixteenth century the home of the family of Perkes.
Very precise too are the allusions to the region of the Cotswold Hills,
which were easily accessible from Stratford. 'Will Squele, a Cotswold
man,' is noticed as one of Shallow's friends in youth (III. ii. 23); and
when Shallow's servant Davy receives his master's instructions to sow
'the headland' 'with red wheat,' in the early autumn, there is an obvious
reference to the custom almost peculiar to the Cotswolds of sowing 'red
lammas' wheat at an unusually early season of the agricultural year.
{168b}
The kingly hero of the two plays of 'Henry IV' had figured as a spirited
young man in 'Richard II;' he was now represented as weighed down by care
and age. With him are contrasted (in part i.) his impetuous and
ambitious subject Hotspur and (in both parts) his son and heir Prince
Hal, whose boisterous disposition drives him from Court to seek
adventures among the haunters of taverns. Hotspur is a vivid and
fascinating portrait of a hot-headed soldier, courageous to the point of
rashness, and sacrificing his life to his impetuous sense of honour.
Prince Hal, despite his vagaries, is endowed by the dramatist with far
more self-control and common sense.
Falstaff.
On the first, as on every subsequent, production of 'Henry IV' the main
public interest was concentrated neither on the King nor on his son, nor
on Hotspur, but on the chief of Prince Hal's riotous companions. At the
outset the propriety of that great creation was questioned on a political
or historical ground of doubtful relevance. Shakespeare in both parts of
'Henry IV' originally named the chief of the prince's associates after
Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the old play. But Henry Brooke,
eighth lord Cobham, who succeeded to the title early in 1597, and claimed
descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle, the Lollard leader,
raised objection; and when the first part of the play was printed by the
acting-company's authority in 1598 ('newly corrected' in 1599),
Shakespeare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied follower the new and
deathless name of Falstaff. A trustworthy edition of the second part of
'Henry IV' also appeared with Falstaff's name substituted for that of
Oldcastle in 1600. There the epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had
any characteristic in common with the martyr Oldcastle. Oldcastle died a
martyr, and this is not the man. But the substitution of the name
'Falstaff' did not pass without protest. It hazily recalled Sir John
Fastolf, an historical warrior who had already figured in 'Henry VI' and
was owner at one time of the Boar's Head Tavern in Southwark; according
to traditional stage directions, {170} the prince and his companions in
'Henry IV' frequent the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Fuller in his
'Worthies,' first published in 1662, while expressing satisfaction that
Shakespeare had 'put out' of the play Sir John Oldcastle, was eloquent in
his avowal of regret that 'Sir John Fastolf' was 'put in,' on the ground
that it was making overbold with a great warrior's memory to make him a
'Thrasonical puff and emblem of mock-valour.'
The offending introduction and withdrawal of Oldcastle's name left a
curious mark on literary history. Humbler dramatists (Munday, Wilson,
Drayton, and Hathaway), seeking to profit by the attention drawn by
Shakespeare to the historical Oldcastle, produced a poor dramatic version
of Oldcastle's genuine history; and of two editions of 'Sir John
Oldcastle' published in 1600, one printed for T[homas] P[avier] was
impudently described on the title-page as by Shakespeare.
But it is not the historical traditions which are connected with Falstaff
that give him his perennial attraction. It is the personality that owes
nothing to history with which Shakespeare's imaginative power clothed
him. The knight's unfettered indulgence in sensual pleasures, his
exuberant mendacity, and his love of his own ease are purged of offence
by his colossal wit and jollity, while the contrast between his old age
and his unreverend way of life supplies that tinge of melancholy which is
inseparable from the highest manifestations of humour. The Elizabethan
public recognised the triumphant success of the effort, and many of
Falstaff's telling phrases, with the names of his foils, Justice Shallow
and Silence, at once took root in popular speech. Shakespeare's purely
comic power culminated in Falstaff; he may be claimed as the most
humorous figure in literature.
'Merry Wives of Windsor.'
In all probability 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' a comedy inclining to
farce, and unqualified by any pathetic interest, followed close upon
'Henry IV.' In the epilogue to the 'Second Part of Henry IV' Shakespeare
had written: 'If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble
author will continue the story with Sir John in it . . . where for
anything I know Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be
killed with your hard opinions.' Rowe asserts that 'Queen Elizabeth was
so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff in the two
parts of "Henry IV" that she commanded him to continue it for one play
more, and to show him in love.' Dennis, in the dedication of 'The
Comical Gallant' (1702), noted that the 'Merry Wives' was written at the
Queen's 'command and by her direction; and she was so eager to see it
acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days, and was
afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased with the
representation.' In his 'Letters' (1721, p. 232) Dennis reduces the
period of composition to ten days--'a prodigious thing,' added Gildon,
{172a} 'where all is so well contrived and carried on without the least
confusion.' The localisation of the scene at Windsor, and the
complimentary references to Windsor Castle, corroborate the tradition
that the comedy was prepared to meet a royal command. An imperfect draft
of the play was printed by Thomas Creede in 1602; {172b} the folio of
1623 first supplied a complete version. The plot was probably suggested
by an Italian novel. A tale from Straparola's 'Notti' (iv. 4), of which
an adaptation figured in the miscellany of novels called Tarleton's
'Newes out of Purgatorie' (1590), another Italian tale from the
'Pecorone' of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (i. 2), and a third romance, the
Fishwife's tale of Brainford in the collection of stories called
'Westward for Smelts,' {172c} supply incidents distantly resembling
episodes in the play. Nowhere has Shakespeare so vividly reflected the
bluff temper of contemporary middle-class society. The presentment of
the buoyant domestic life of an Elizabethan country town bears distinct
impress of Shakespeare's own experience. Again, there are literal
references to the neighbourhood of Stratford. Justice Shallow, whose
coat-of-arms is described as consisting of 'luces,' is thereby openly
identified with Shakespeare's early foe, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote.
When Shakespeare makes Master Slender repeat the report that Master
Page's fallow greyhound was 'outrun on Cotsall' (I. i. 93), he testifies
to his interest in the coursing matches for which the Cotswold district
was famed.
'Henry V.'
The spirited character of Prince Hal was peculiarly congenial to its
creator, and in 'Henry V' Shakespeare, during 1598, brought his career to
its close. The play was performed early in 1599, probably in the newly
built Globe Theatre. Again Thomas Creede printed, in 1600, an imperfect
draft, which was thrice reissued before a complete version was supplied
in the First Folio of 1623. The dramatic interest of 'Henry V' is
slender. There is abundance of comic element, but death has removed
Falstaff, whose last moments are described with the simple pathos that
comes of a matchless art, and, though Falstaff's companions survive, they
are thin shadows of his substantial figure. New comic characters are
introduced in the persons of three soldiers respectively of Welsh,
Scottish, and Irish nationality, whose racial traits are contrasted with
telling effect. The irascible Irishman, Captain MacMorris, is the only
representative of his nation who figures in the long list of
Shakespeare's _dramatis personae_. The scene in which the pedantic but
patriotic Welshman, Fluellen, avenges the sneers of the braggart Pistol
at his nation's emblem, by forcing him to eat the leek, overflows in
vivacious humour. The piece in its main current presents a series of
loosely connected episodes in which the hero's manliness is displayed as
soldier, ruler, and lover. The topic reached its climax in the victory
of the English at Agincourt, which powerfully appealed to patriotic
sentiment. Besides the 'Famous Victories,' {174} there was another lost
piece on the subject, which Henslowe produced for the first time on
November 28, 1595. 'Henry V' may be regarded as Shakespeare's final
experiment in the dramatisation of English history, and it artistically
rounds off the series of his 'histories' which form collectively a kind
of national epic. For 'Henry VIII,' which was produced very late in his
career, he was only in part responsible, and that 'history' consequently
belongs to a different category.
Essex and the rebellion of 1601.
A glimpse of autobiography may be discerned in the direct mention by
Shakespeare in 'Henry V' of an exciting episode in current history. In
the prologue to act v. Shakespeare foretold for Robert Devereux, second
earl of Essex, the close friend of his patron Southampton, an
enthusiastic reception by the people of London when he should come home
after 'broaching' rebellion in Ireland.
Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him!--(Act v. Chorus, ll. 30-4.)
Essex had set out on his disastrous mission as the would-be pacificator
of Ireland on March 27, 1599. The fact that Southampton went with him
probably accounts for Shakespeare's avowal of sympathy. But Essex's
effort failed. He was charged, soon after 'Henry V' was produced, with
treasonable neglect of duty, and he sought in 1601, again with the
support of Southampton, to recover his position by stirring up rebellion
in London. Then Shakespeare's reference to Essex's popularity with
Londoners bore perilous fruit. The friends of the rebel leaders sought
the dramatist's countenance. They paid 40s. to Augustine Phillips, a
leading member of Shakespeare's company, to induce him to revive at the
Globe Theatre 'Richard II' (beyond doubt Shakespeare's play), in the hope
that its scene of the killing of a king might encourage a popular
outbreak. Phillips subsequently deposed that he prudently told the
conspirators who bespoke the piece that 'that play of Kyng Richard' was
'so old and so long out of use as that they should have small or no
company at it.' None the less the performance took place on Saturday
(February 7, 1601), the day preceding that fixed by Essex for the rising.
The Queen, in a later conversation with William Lambarde (on August 4,
1601), complained that 'this tragedie' of 'Richard II,' which she had
always viewed with suspicion, was played at the period with seditious
intent 'forty times in open streets and houses.' {175} At the trial of
Essex and his friends, Phillips gave evidence of the circumstances under
which the tragedy was revived at the Globe Theatre. Essex was executed
and Southampton was imprisoned until the Queen's death. No proceedings
were taken against the players, {176a} but Shakespeare wisely abstained,
for the time, from any public reference to the fate either of Essex or of
his patron Southampton.
Shakespeare's popularity and influence.
Such incidents served to accentuate Shakespeare's growing reputation.
For several years his genius as dramatist and poet had been acknowledged
by critics and playgoers alike, and his social and professional position
had become considerable. Inside the theatre his influence was supreme.
When, in 1598, the manager of the company rejected Ben Jonson's first
comedy--his 'Every Man in his Humour'--Shakespeare intervened, according
to a credible tradition (reported by Rowe but denounced by Gifford), and
procured a reversal of the decision in the interest of the unknown
dramatist who was his junior by nine years. He took a part when the
piece was performed. Jonson was of a difficult and jealous temper, and
subsequently he gave vent to an occasional expression of scorn at
Shakespeare's expense, but, despite passing manifestations of his
unconquerable surliness, there can be no doubt that Jonson cherished
genuine esteem and affection for Shakespeare till death. {176b} Within a
very few years of Shakespeare's death Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, an
industrious collector of anecdotes, put into writing an anecdote for
which he made Dr. Donne responsible, attesting the amicable relations
that habitually subsisted between Shakespeare and Jonson. 'Shakespeare,'
ran the story, 'was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after
the christening, being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up and
asked him why he was so melancholy. "No, faith, Ben," says he, "not I,
but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift
for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolv'd at last." "I
pr'ythee, what?" sayes he. "I' faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen
good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them."' {177}
The Mermaid meetings.
The creator of Falstaff could have been no stranger to tavern life, and
he doubtless took part with zest in the convivialities of men of letters.
Tradition reports that Shakespeare joined, at the Mermaid Tavern in Bread
Street, those meetings of Jonson and his associates which Beaumont
described in his poetical 'Letter' to Jonson:
'What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.'
'Many were the wit-combats,' wrote Fuller of Shakespeare in his
'Worthies' (1662), 'betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a
Spanish great galleon and an English man of war; Master Jonson (like the
former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his
performances. Shakespear, with the Englishman of war, lesser in bulk,
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take
advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.'
Mere's eulogy, 1598.
Of the many testimonies paid to Shakespeare's literary reputation at this
period of his career, the most striking was that of Francis Meres. Meres
was a learned graduate of Cambridge University, a divine and
schoolmaster, who brought out in 1598 a collection of apophthegms on
morals, religion, and literature which he entitled 'Palladis Tamia.' In
the book he interpolated 'A comparative discourse of our English poets
with the Greek, Latin, and Italian poets,' and there exhaustively
surveyed contemporary literary effort in England. Shakespeare figured in
Meres's pages as the greatest man of letters of the day. 'The Muses
would speak Shakespeare's fine filed phrase,' Meres asserted, 'if they
could speak English.' 'Among the English,' he declared, 'he was the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage' (_i.e._ tragedy and comedy). The
titles of six comedies ('Two Gentlemen of Verona, 'Errors,' 'Love's
Labour's Lost,' 'Love's Labour's Won,' 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and
'Merchant of Venice') and of six tragedies ('Richard II,' 'Richard III,'
'Henry IV,' 'King John,' 'Titus,' and 'Romeo and Juliet') were set forth,
and mention followed of his 'Venus and Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,' and his
'sugred {179} sonnets among his private friends.' These were cited as
proof 'that the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and
honey-tongued Shakespeare.' In the same year a rival poet, Richard
Barnfield, in 'Poems in divers Humors,' predicted immortality for
Shakespeare with no less confidence.
And Shakespeare, thou whose honey-flowing vein
(Pleasing the world) thy Praises doth obtain,
Whose _Venus_ and whose _Lucrece_ (sweet and chaste)
Thy name in Fame's immortal Book have placed,
Live ever you, at least in fame live ever:
Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.
Value of his name to publishers.