That carried erst their fardles on their backs,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,
Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits,
And pages to attend their masterships;
With mouthing words that better wits had framed,
They purchase lands and now esquires are made. {199a}
The travelling actors, from whom the highwayman Gamaliel Ratsey extorted
a free performance in 1604, were represented as men with the certainty of
a rich competency in prospect. {199b} An efficient actor received in
1635 as large a regular salary as 180 pounds. The lowest known valuation
set an actor's wages at 3s. a day, or about 45 pounds a year.
Shakespeare's emoluments as an actor before 1599 are not likely to have
fallen below 100 pounds; while the remuneration due to performances at
Court or in noblemen's houses, if the accounts of 1594 be accepted as the
basis of reckoning, added some 15 pounds.
Thus over 130 pounds (equal to 1,040 pounds of to-day) would be
Shakespeare's average annual revenue before 1599. Such a sum would be
regarded as a very large income in a country town. According to the
author of 'Ratseis Ghost,' the actor, who may well have been meant for
Shakespeare, practised in London a strict frugality, and there seems no
reason why Shakespeare should not have been able in 1597 to draw from his
savings 60 pounds wherewith to buy New Place. His resources might well
justify his fellow-townsmen's opinion of his wealth in 1598, and suffice
between 1597 and 1599 to meet his expenses, in rebuilding the house,
stocking the barns with grain, and conducting various legal proceedings.
But, according to tradition, he had in the Earl of Southampton a wealthy
and generous friend who on one occasion gave him a large gift of money to
enable 'him to go through with' a purchase to which he had a mind. A
munificent gift, added to professional gains, leaves nothing unaccounted
for in Shakespeare's financial position before 1599.
Financial position after 1599.
After 1599 his sources of income from the theatre greatly increased. In
1635 the heirs of the actor Richard Burbage were engaged in litigation
respecting their proprietary rights in the two playhouses, the Globe and
the Blackfriars theatres. The documents relating to this litigation
supply authentic, although not very detailed, information of
Shakespeare's interest in theatrical property. {200} Richard Burbage,
with his brother Cuthbert, erected at their sole cost the Globe Theatre
in the winter of 1598-9, and the Blackfriars Theatre, which their father
was building at the time of his death in 1597, was also their property.
After completing the Globe they leased out, for twenty-one years, shares
in the receipts of the theatre to 'those deserving men Shakespeare,
Hemings, Condell, Philips, and others.' All the shareholders named were,
like Burbage, active members of Shakespeare's company of players. The
shares, which numbered sixteen in all, carried with them the obligation
of providing for the expenses of the playhouse, and were doubtless in the
first instance freely bestowed. Hamlet claims, in the play scene (III.
ii. 293), that the success of his improvised tragedy deserved to get him
'a fellowship in a cry of players'--a proof that a successful dramatist
might reasonably expect such a reward for a conspicuous effort. In
'Hamlet,' moreover, both a share and a half-share of 'a fellowship in a
cry of players' are described as assets of enviable value (III. ii.
294-6). How many shares originally fell to Shakespeare there is no means
of determining. Records of later subdivisions suggest that they did not
exceed two. The Globe was an exceptionally large and popular playhouse.
It would accommodate some two thousand spectators, whose places cost them
sums varying between twopence and half a crown. The receipts were
therefore considerable, hardly less than 25 pounds daily, or some 8,000
pounds a year. According to the documents of 1635, an actor-sharer at
the Globe received above 200 pounds a year on each share, besides his
actor's salary of 180 pounds. Thus Shakespeare drew from the Globe
Theatre, at the lowest estimate, more than 500 pounds a year in all.
His interest in the Blackfriars Theatre was comparatively unimportant,
and is less easy to estimate. The often quoted documents on which
Collier depended to prove him a substantial shareholder in that playhouse
have long been proved to be forgeries. The pleas in the lawsuit of 1635
show that the Burbages, the owners, leased the Blackfriars Theatre after
its establishment in 1597 for a long term of years to the master of the
Children of the Chapel, but bought out the lessee at the end of 1609, and
then 'placed' in it 'men-players which were Hemings, Condell,
Shakespeare, etc.' To these and other actors they allotted shares in the
receipts, the shares numbering eight in all. The profits were far
smaller than at the Globe, and if Shakespeare held one share (certainty
on the point is impossible), it added not more than 100 pounds a year to
his income, and that not until 1610.
Later income.
His remuneration as dramatist between 1599 and 1611 was also by no means
contemptible. Prices paid to dramatists for plays rose rapidly in the
early years of the seventeenth century, {202} while the value of the
author's 'benefits' grew with the growing vogue of the theatre. The
exceptional popularity of Shakespeare's plays after 1599 gave him the
full advantage of higher rates of pecuniary reward in all directions, and
the seventeen plays which were produced by him between that year and the
close of his professional career in 1611 probably brought him an average
return of 20 pounds each or 340 pounds in all--nearly 30 pounds a year.
At the same time the increase in the number of Court performances under
James I, and the additional favour bestowed on Shakespeare's company, may
well have given that source of income the enhanced value of 20 pounds a
year. {203}
Thus Shakespeare in the later period of his life was earning above 600
pounds a year in money of the period. With so large a professional
income he could easily, with good management, have completed those
purchases of houses and land at Stratford on which he laid out, between
1599 and 1613, a total sum of 970 pounds, or an annual average of 70
pounds. These properties, it must be remembered, represented
investments, and he drew rent from most of them. He traded, too, in
agricultural produce. There is nothing inherently improbable in the
statement of John Ward, the seventeenth-century vicar of Stratford, that
in his last years 'he spent at the rate of a thousand a year, as I have
heard,' although we may reasonably make allowance for exaggeration in the
round figures.
Incomes of fellow-actors.
Shakespeare realised his theatrical shares several years before his death
in 1616, when he left, according to his will, 350 pounds in money in
addition to an extensive real estate and numerous personal belongings.
There was nothing exceptional in this comparative affluence. His friends
and fellow-actors, Heming and Condell, amassed equally large, if not
larger, fortunes. Burbage died in 1619 worth 300 pounds in land, besides
personal property; while a contemporary actor and theatrical proprietor,
Edward Alleyn, purchased the manor of Dulwich for 10,000 pounds (in money
of his own day), and devoted it, with much other property, to public
uses, at the same time as he made ample provision for his family out of
the residue of his estate. Gifts from patrons may have continued
occasionally to augment Shakespeare's resources, but his wealth can be
satisfactorily assigned to better attested agencies. There is no ground
for treating it as of mysterious origin. {204a}
Formation of the estate at Stratford 1601-10.
Between 1599 and 1611, while London remained Shakespeare's chief home, he
built up at Stratford a large landed estate which his purchase of New
Place had inaugurated. In 1601 his father died, being buried on
September 8. He apparently left no will, and the poet, as the eldest
son, inherited the houses in Henley Street, the only portion of the
property of the elder Shakespeare or of his wife which had not been
alienated to creditors. Shakespeare permitted his mother to reside in
one of the Henley Street houses till her death (she was buried September
9, 1608), and he derived a modest rent from the other. On May 1, 1602,
he purchased for 320 pounds of the rich landowners William and John Combe
of Stratford 107 acres of arable land near the town. The conveyance was
delivered, in the poet's absence, to his brother Gilbert, 'to the use of
the within named William Shakespere.' {204b} A third purchase quickly
followed. On September 28, 1602, at a court baron of the manor of
Rowington, one Walter Getley transferred to the poet a cottage and garden
which were situated at Chapel Lane, opposite the lower grounds of New
Place. They were held practically in fee-simple at the annual rental of
2s. 6d. It appears from the roll that Shakespeare did not attend the
manorial court held on the day fixed for the transfer of the property at
Rowington, and it was consequently stipulated then that the estate should
remain in the hands of the lady of the manor until he completed the
purchase in person. At a later period he was admitted to the copyhold,
and he settled the remainder on his two daughters in fee. In April 1610
he purchased from the Combes 20 acres of pasture land, to add to the 107
of arable land that he had acquired of the same owners in 1602.
The Stratford tithes.
As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should
purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605,
he bought for 440 pounds of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one
years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of
Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was
subject to a rent of 17 pounds to the corporation, who were the
reversionary owners on the lease's expiration, and of 5 pounds to John
Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought
Shakespeare, under the most favourable circumstances, no more than an
annuity of 38 pounds, and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest
in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to
the corporation led that body to demand from the poet payments justly due
from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard
Lane of Awston and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit
in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all the
tithe-owners, and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to
Lord-chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is unknown. His acquisition
of a part-ownership in the tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.
Recovery of small debts.
Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation, and stood
rigorously by his rights in all his business relations. In March 1600 he
recovered in London a debt of 7 pounds from one John Clayton. In July
1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom
he had supplied since the preceding March malt to the value of 1 pound
19s. 10d, and had on June 25 lent 2s. in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and
Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, 1 pound 15s. 10d. During
1608 and 1609 he was at law with another fellow-townsman, John
Addenbroke. On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was apparently
represented by his solicitor and kinsman Thomas Greene, {206a} obtained
judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of 6 pounds, and
1 pound 5s. costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the triumph proved
barren. Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against one Thomas
Horneby, who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail. {206b}
XIII--MATURITY OF GENIUS
Literary work in 1599.
With an inconsistency that is more apparent than real, the astute
business transactions of these years (1597-1611) synchronise with the
production of Shakespeare's noblest literary work--of his most sustained
and serious efforts in comedy, tragedy, and romance. In 1599, after
abandoning English history with 'Henry V,' he addressed himself to the
composition of his three most perfect essays in comedy--'Much Ado about
Nothing,' 'As You Like It,' and 'Twelfth Night.' Their good-humoured
tone seems to reveal their author in his happiest frame of mind; in each
the gaiety and tenderness of youthful womanhood are exhibited in
fascinating union; while Shakespeare's lyric gift bred no sweeter
melodies than the songs with which the three plays are interspersed. At
the same time each comedy enshrines such penetrating reflections on
mysterious problems of life as mark the stage of maturity in the growth
of the author's intellect. The first two of the three plays were entered
on the 'Stationers' Registers' before August 4, 1600, on which day a
prohibition was set on their publication, as well as on the publication
of 'Henry V' and of Ben Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour.' This was one
of the many efforts of the acting company to stop the publication of
plays in the belief that the practice was injurious to their rights. The
effort was only partially successful. 'Much Ado,' like 'Henry V,' was
published before the close of the year. Neither 'As You Like It' nor
'Twelfth Night,' however, was printed till it appeared in the Folio.
'Much Ado.'
In 'Much Ado,' which appears to have been written in 1599, the brilliant
and spirited comedy of Benedick and Beatrice, and of the blundering
watchmen Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original; but the sombre story of
Hero and Claudio, about which the comic incident revolves, is drawn from
an Italian source, either from Bandello (novel. xxii.) through
Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques,' or from Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso'
through Sir John Harington's translation (canto v.) Ariosto's version,
in which the injured heroine is called Ginevra, and her lover Ariodante,
had been dramatised before. According to the accounts of the Court
revels, 'A Historie of Ariodante and Ginevra was showed before her
Majestie on Shrovetuesdaie at night' in 1583. {208} Throughout
Shakespeare's play the ludicrous and serious aspects of humanity are
blended with a convincing naturalness. The popular comic actor William
Kemp filled the role of Dogberry, and Cowley appeared as Verges. In both
the Quarto of 1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors' names are prefixed
by a copyist's error to some of the speeches allotted to the two
characters (act iv. scene ii.)
'As You Like It.'
'As You Like It,' which quickly followed, is a dramatic adaptation of
Lodge's romance, 'Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie' (1590), but
Shakespeare added three new characters of first-rate interest--Jaques,
the meditative cynic; Touchstone, the most carefully elaborated of all
Shakespeare's fools; and the hoyden Audrey. Hints for the scene of
Orlando's encounter with Charles the Wrestler, and for Touchstone's
description of the diverse shapes of a lie, were clearly drawn from a
book called 'Saviolo's Practise,' a manual of the art of self-defence,
which appeared in 1595 from the pen of Vincentio Saviolo, an Italian
fencing-master in the service of the Earl of Essex. None of
Shakespeare's comedies breathes a more placid temper or approaches more
nearly to a pastoral drama. Yet there is no lack of intellectual or
poetic energy in the enunciation of the contemplative philosophy which is
cultivated in the Forest of Arden. In Rosalind, Celia, Phoebe, and
Audrey, four types of youthful womanhood are contrasted with the
liveliest humour.
'Twelfth Night.'
The date of 'Twelfth Night' is probably 1600, and its name, which has no
reference to the story, doubtless commemorates the fact that it was
designed for a Twelfth Night celebration. 'The new map with the
augmentation of the Indies,' spoken of by Maria (III. ii. 86), was a
respectful reference to the great map of the world or 'hydrographical
description' which was first issued with Hakluyt's 'Voyages' in 1599 or
1600, and first disclosed the full extent of recent explorations of the
'Indies' in the New World and the Old. {210a} Like the 'Comedy of
Errors,' 'Twelfth Night' achieved the distinction, early in its career,
of a presentation at an Inn of Court. It was produced at Middle Temple
Hall on February 2, 1601-2, and Manningham, a barrister who was present,
described the performance. {210b} Manningham wrote that the piece was
'much like the "Comedy of Errors" or "Menechmi" in Plautus, but most like
and neere to that in Italian called "Inganni."' Two sixteenth-century
Italian plays entitled 'Gl' Inganni' ('The Cheats'), and a third called
'Gl' Ingannati,' bear resemblance to 'Twelfth Night.' It is possible
that Shakespeare had recourse to the last, which was based on Bandello's
novel of Nicuola, {210c} was first published at Siena in 1538, and became
popular throughout Italy. But in all probability he drew the story
solely from the 'Historie of Apolonius and Silla,' which was related in
'Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession' (1581). The author of that
volume, Barnabe Riche, translated the tale either direct from Bandello's
Italian novel or from the French rendering of Bandello's work in
Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques.' Romantic pathos, as in 'Much Ado,'
is the dominant note of the main plot of 'Twelfth Night,' but Shakespeare
neutralises the tone of sadness by his mirthful portrayal of Malvolio,
Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian, the clown Feste, and Maria,
all of whom are his own creations. The ludicrous gravity of Malvolio
proved exceptionally popular on the stage.
'Julius Caesar,' 1601.
In 1601 Shakespeare made a new departure by drawing a plot from North's
noble translation of Plutarch's 'Lives.' {211a} Plutarch is the king of
biographers, and the deference which Shakespeare paid his work by
adhering to the phraseology wherever it was practicable illustrates his
literary discrimination. On Plutarch's lives of Julius Caesar, Brutus,
and Antony, Shakespeare based his historical tragedy of 'Julius Caesar.'
Weever, in 1601, in his 'Mirror of Martyrs,' plainly refers to the
masterly speech in the Forum at Caaesar's funeral which Shakespeare put
into Antony's mouth. There is no suggestion of the speech in Plutarch;
hence the composition of 'Julius Caesar' may be held to have preceded the
issue of Weever's book in 1601. The general topic was already familiar
on the stage. Polonius told Hamlet how, when he was at the university,
he 'did enact Julius Caesar; he was kill'd in the Capitol: Brutus kill'd
him.' {211b} A play of the same title was known as early as 1589, and
was acted in 1594 by Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's piece is a
penetrating study of political life, and, although the murder and funeral
of Caesar form the central episode and not the climax, the tragedy is
thoroughly well planned and balanced. Caesar is ironically depicted in
his dotage. The characters of Brutus, Antony, and Cassius, the real
heroes of the action, are exhibited with faultless art. The fifth act,
which presents the battle of Philippi in progress, proves ineffective on
the stage, but the reader never relaxes his interest in the fortunes of
the vanquished Brutus, whose death is the catastrophe.
While 'Julius Caesar' was winning its first laurels on the stage, the
fortunes of the London theatres were menaced by two manifestations of
unreasoning prejudice on the part of the public. The earlier
manifestation, although speciously the more serious, was in effect
innocuous. The puritans of the city of London had long agitated for the
suppression of all theatrical performances, and it seemed as if the
agitators triumphed when they induced the Privy Council on June 22, 1600,
to issue to the officers of the Corporation of London and to the justices
of the peace of Middlesex and Surrey an order forbidding the maintenance
of more than two playhouses--one in Middlesex (Alleyn's newly erected
playhouse, the 'Fortune' in Cripplegate), and the other in Surrey (the
'Globe' on the Bankside). The contemplated restriction would have
deprived very many actors of employment, and driven others to seek a
precarious livelihood in the provinces. Happily, disaster was averted by
the failure of the municipal authorities and the magistrates of Surrey
and Middlesex to make the order operative. All the London theatres that
were already in existence went on their way unchecked. {213a}
The strife between adult and boy actors.
More calamitous was a temporary reverse of fortune which Shakespeare's
company, in common with the other companies of adult actors, suffered
soon afterwards at the hands, not of fanatical enemies of the drama, but
of playgoers who were its avowed supporters. The company of boy-actors,
chiefly recruited from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and known as
'the Children of the Chapel,' had since 1597 been installed at the new
theatre in Blackfriars, and after 1600 the fortunes of the veterans, who
occupied rival stages, were put in jeopardy by the extravagant outburst
of public favour that the boys' performances evoked. In 'Hamlet,' the
play which followed 'Julius Caesar,' Shakespeare pointed out the perils
of the situation. {213b} The adult actors, Shakespeare asserted, were
prevented from performing in London through no falling off in their
efficiency, but by the 'late innovation' of the children's vogue. {214a}
They were compelled to go on tour in the provinces, at the expense of
their revenues and reputation, because 'an aery [_i.e._ nest] of
children, little eyases [_i.e._ young hawks],' dominated the theatrical
world, and monopolised public applause. 'These are now the fashion,' the
dramatist lamented, {214b} and he made the topic the text of a reflection
on the fickleness of public taste:
HAMLET. Do the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, that they do, my lord, Hercules and his load too.
HAMLET. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and
those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty,
forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.
Jealousies in the ranks of the dramatists accentuated the actors'
difficulties. Ben Jonson was, at the end of the sixteenth century,
engaged in a fierce personal quarrel with two of his fellow dramatists,
Marston and Dekker. The adult actors generally avowed sympathy with
Jonson's foes. Jonson, by way of revenge, sought an offensive alliance
with 'the Children of the Chapel.' Under careful tuition the boys proved
capable of performing much the same pieces as the men. To 'the children'
Jonson offered in 1600 his comical satire of 'Cynthia's Revels,' in which
he held up to ridicule Dekker, Marston, and their actor-friends. The
play, when acted by 'the children' at the Blackfriars Theatre, was warmly
welcomed by the audience. Next year Jonson repeated his manoeuvre with
greater effect. He learnt that Marston and Dekker were conspiring with
the actors of Shakespeare's company to attack him in a piece called
'Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the Humourous Poet.' He anticipated
their design by producing, again with 'the Children of the Chapel,' his
'Poetaster,' which was throughout a venomous invective against his
enemies--dramatists and actors alike. Shakespeare's company retorted by
producing Dekker and Marston's 'Satiro-Mastix' at the Globe Theatre next
year. But Jonson's action had given new life to the vogue of the
children. Playgoers took sides in the struggle, and their attention was
for a season riveted, to the exclusion of topics more germane to their
province, on the actors' and dramatists' boisterous war of personalities.
{215}
Shakespeare's references to the struggle.