evoked unmeasured applause. The success owed something to the beautiful
lyrics which were dispersed through the play and had been set to music by
Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high repute. {255b} Like its predecessor
'A Winter's Tale,' 'The Tempest' long maintained its first popularity in
the theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a passing sneer from
Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in
1614, he wrote: 'If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who can
help it he [_i.e._ the author] says? nor a nest of Antics. He is loth to
make nature afraid in his plays like those that beget Tales, Tempests,
and such like Drolleries.' The 'servant-monster' was an obvious allusion
to Caliban, and 'the nest of Antics' was a glance at the satyrs who
figure in the sheepshearing feast in 'A Winter's Tale.'
Fanciful interpretations of 'The Tempest.'
Nowhere did Shakespeare give rein to his imagination with more imposing
effect than in 'The Tempest.' As in 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' magical
or supernatural agencies are the mainsprings of the plot. But the tone
is marked at all points by a solemnity and profundity of thought and
sentiment which are lacking in the early comedy. The serious atmosphere
has led critics, without much reason, to detect in the scheme of 'The
Tempest' something more than the irresponsible play of poetic fancy.
Many of the characters have been represented as the outcome of
speculation respecting the least soluble problems of human existence.
Little reliance should be placed on such interpretations. The creation
of Miranda is the apotheosis in literature of tender, ingenuous girlhood
unsophisticated by social intercourse, but Shakespeare had already
sketched the outlines of the portrait in Marina and Perdita, the youthful
heroines respectively of 'Pericles' and 'A Winter's Tale,' and these two
characters were directly developed from romantic stories of
girl-princesses, cast by misfortune on the mercies of nature, to which
Shakespeare had recourse for the plots of the two plays. It is by
accident, and not by design, that in Ariel appear to be discernible the
capabilities of human intellect when detached from physical attributes.
Ariel belongs to the same world as Puck, although he is delineated in the
severer colours that were habitual to Shakespeare's fully developed art.
Caliban--Ariel's antithesis--did not owe his existence to any conscious
endeavour on Shakespeare's part to typify human nature before the
evolution of moral sentiment. {257a} Caliban is an imaginary portrait,
conceived with matchless vigour and vividness, of the aboriginal savage
of the New World, descriptions of whom abounded in contemporary
travellers' speech and writings, and universally excited the liveliest
curiosity. {257b} In Prospero, the guiding providence of the romance,
who resigns his magic power in the closing scene, traces have been sought
of the lineaments of the dramatist himself, who in this play probably
bade farewell to the enchanted work of his life. Prospero is in the
story a scholar-prince of rare intellectual attainments, whose engrossing
study of the mysteries of science has given him command of the forces of
nature. His magnanimous renunciation of his magical faculty as soon as
by its exercise he has restored his shattered fortunes is in perfect
accord with the general conception of his just and philosophical temper.
Any other justification of his final act is superfluous.
Unfinished plays. The lost play of 'Cardenio.'
While there is every indication that in 1611 Shakespeare abandoned
dramatic composition, there seems little doubt that he left with the
manager of his company unfinished drafts of more than one play which
others were summoned at a later date to complete. His place at the head
of the active dramatists was at once filled by John Fletcher, and
Fletcher, with some aid possibly from his friend Philip Massinger,
undertook the working up of Shakespeare's unfinished sketches. On
September 9, 1653, the publisher Humphrey Moseley obtained a license for
the publication of a play which he described as 'History of Cardenio, by
Fletcher and Shakespeare.' This was probably identical with the lost
play, 'Cardenno,' or 'Cardenna,' which was twice acted at Court by
Shakespeare's company in 1613--in May during the Princess Elizabeth's
marriage festivities, and on June 8 before the Duke of Savoy's
ambassador. {258a} Moseley, whose description may have been fraudulent,
{258b} failed to publish the piece, and nothing is otherwise known of it
with certainty; but it was no doubt a dramatic version of the adventures
of the lovelorn Cardenio which are related in the first part of 'Don
Quixote' (ch. xxiii.-xxxvii.) Cervantes's amorous story, which first
appeared in English in Thomas Shelton's translation in 1612, offers much
incident in Fletcher's vein. When Lewis Theobald, the Shakespearean
critic, brought out his 'Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers,' in
1727, he mysteriously represented that the play was based on an
unfinished and unpublished draft of a play by Shakespeare. The story of
Theobald's piece is the story of Cardenio, although the characters are
renamed. There is nothing in the play as published by Theobald to
suggest Shakespeare's hand, {259a} but Theobald doubtless took advantage
of a tradition that Shakespeare and Fletcher had combined to dramatise
the Cervantic theme.
'Two Noble Kinsmen.'
Two other pieces, 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' and 'Henry VIII,' which are
attributed to a similar partnership, survive. {259b} 'The Two Noble
Kinsmen' was first printed in 1634, and was written, according to the
title-page, 'by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher
and Mr. William Shakespeare, gentlemen.' It was included in the folio of
Beaumont and Fletcher of 1679. On grounds alike of aesthetic criticism
and metrical tests, a substantial portion of the play was assigned to
Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Coleridge, and Dyce. The last included it
in his edition of Shakespeare. Coleridge detected Shakespeare's hand in
act I., act II. sc. i., and act III. sc. i. and ii. In addition to those
scenes, act IV. sc. iii. and act V. (except sc. ii.) were subsequently
placed to his credit. Some recent critics assign much of the alleged
Shakespearean work to Massinger, and they narrow Shakespeare's
contribution to the first scene (with the opening song, 'Roses their
sharp spines being gone') and act V. sc. i. and iv. {260} An exact
partition is impossible, but frequent signs of Shakespeare's workmanship
are unmistakable. All the passages for which Shakespeare can on any
showing be held responsible develop the main plot, which is drawn from
Chaucer's 'Knight's Tale' of Palamon and Arcite, and seems to have been
twice dramatised previously. A lost play, 'Palaemon and Arcyte,' by
Richard Edwardes, was acted at Court in 1566, and a second piece, called
'Palamon and Arsett' (also lost), was purchased by Henslowe in 1594. The
non-Shakespearean residue of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' is disfigured by
indecency and triviality, and is of no literary value.
'Henry VIII.'
A like problem is presented by 'Henry VIII.' The play was nearly
associated with the final scene in the history of that theatre which was
identified with the triumphs of Shakespeare's career. 'Henry VIII' was
in course of performance at the Globe Theatre on June 29, 1613, when the
firing of some cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the
playhouse, which was burned down. The theatre was rebuilt next year, but
the new fabric never acquired the fame of the old. Sir Henry Wotton,
describing the disaster on July 2, entitled the piece that was in process
of representation at the time as 'All is True representing some principal
pieces in the Reign of Henry VIII.' {261} The play of 'Henry VIII' that
is commonly allotted to Shakespeare is loosely constructed, and the last
act ill coheres with its predecessors. The whole resembles an
'historical masque.' It was first printed in the folio of Shakespeare's
works in 1623, but shows traces of more hands than one. The three chief
characters--the king, Queen Katharine of Arragon, and Cardinal
Wolsey--bear clear marks of Shakespeare's best workmanship; but only act
i. sc. i., act ii. sc. iii. and iv. (Katharine's trial), act iii. sc. ii.
(except ll. 204-460), act v. sc. i. can on either aesthetic or metrical
grounds be confidently assigned to him. These portions may, according to
their metrical characteristics, be dated, like the 'Winter's Tale,' about
1611. There are good grounds for assigning nearly all the remaining
thirteen scenes to the pen of Fletcher, with occasional aid from
Massinger. Wolsey's familiar farewell to Cromwell (III. ii. 204-460) is
the only passage the authorship of which excites really grave
embarrassment. It recalls at every point the style of Fletcher, and
nowhere that of Shakespeare. But the Fletcherian style, as it is here
displayed, is invested with a greatness that is not matched elsewhere in
Fletcher's work. That Fletcher should have exhibited such faculty once
and once only is barely credible, and we are driven to the alternative
conclusion that the noble valediction was by Shakespeare, who in it gave
proof of his versatility by echoing in a glorified key the habitual
strain of Fletcher, his colleague and virtual successor. James
Spedding's theory that Fletcher hastily completed Shakespeare's
unfinished draft for the special purpose of enabling the company to
celebrate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine,
which took place on February 14, 1612-13, seems fanciful. During May
1613, according to an extant list, nineteen plays were produced at Court
in honour of the event, but 'Henry VIII' is not among them. {263a} The
conjecture that Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated in 'Henry VIII'
(to the exclusion of Shakespeare altogether) does not deserve serious
consideration. {263b}
XVI--THE CLOSE OF LIFE
Plays at Court in 1613. Actor-friends.
The concluding years of Shakespeare's life (1611-1616) were mainly passed
at Stratford. It is probable that in 1611 he disposed of his shares in
the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. He owned none at the date of his
death. But until 1614 he paid frequent visits to London, where friends
in sympathy with his work were alone to be found. His plays continued to
form the staple of Court performances. In May 1613, during the Princess
Elizabeth's marriage festivities, Heming, Shakespeare's former colleague,
produced at Whitehall no fewer than seven of his plays, viz. 'Much Ado,'
'Tempest,' 'Winter's Tale,' 'Sir John Falstaff' (_i.e._ 'Merry Wives'),
'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' 'and Hotspur' (doubtless 'Henry IV'). {264}
Of his actor-friends, one of the chief, Augustine Phillips, had died in
1605, leaving by will 'to my fellowe, William Shakespeare, a
thirty-shillings piece of gold.' With Burbage, Heming, and Condell his
relations remained close to the end. Burbage, according to a poetic
elegy, made his reputation by creating the leading parts in Shakespeare's
greatest tragedies. Hamlet, Othello, and Lear were roles in which he
gained especial renown. But Burbage and Shakespeare were popularly
credited with co-operation in less solemn enterprises. They were reputed
to be companions in many sportive adventures. The sole anecdote of
Shakespeare that is positively known to have been recorded in his
lifetime relates that Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with a
lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare,
overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit, and met
Burbage on his arrival with the quip that 'William the Conqueror was
before Richard the Third.' {265a}
Such gossip possibly deserves little more acceptance than the later
story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of
Sir William D'Avenant. The latter was baptised at Oxford on March 3,
1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the landlord of the Crown Inn, where
Shakespeare lodged in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story of
Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant was long current in Oxford,
and was at times complacently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare
is known to have been a welcome guest at John D'Avenant's house, and
another son, Robert, boasted of the kindly notice which the poet took of
him as a child. {265b} It is safer to adopt the less compromising
version which makes Shakespeare the godfather of the boy William instead
of his father. But the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie
the assumption that Shakespeare was known to his contemporaries as a man
of scrupulous virtue. Ben Jonson and Drayton--the latter a Warwickshire
man--seem to have been Shakespeare's closest literary friends in his
latest years.
Final settlement at Stratford.
At Stratford, in the words of Nicholas Rowe, 'the latter part of
Shakespeare's life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs
may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends.' As a
resident in the town, he took a full share of social and civic
responsibilities. On October 16, 1608, he stood chief godfather to
William, son of Henry Walker, a mercer and alderman. On September 11,
1611, when he had finally settled in New Place, his name appeared in the
margin of a folio page of donors (including all the principal inhabitants
of Stratford) to a fund that was raised 'towards the charge of
prosecuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of the
highways.'
Domestic affairs.
Meanwhile his own domestic affairs engaged some of his attention. Of his
two surviving children--both daughters--the eldest, Susanna, had married,
on June 5, 1607, John Hall (1575-1635), a rising physician of Puritan
leanings, and in the following February there was born the poet's only
granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet's mother
was buried in the parish church, and on February 4, 1613, his third
brother Richard. On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall preferred, with her
father's assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the
ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently
charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did not
appear, and was excommunicated.
[Picture: Signature on Purchase-Deed]
Purchase of a house in Blackfriars.
In the same year (1613), when on a short visit to London, Shakespeare
invested a small sum of money in a new property. This was his last
investment in real estate. He then purchased a house, the ground-floor
of which was a haberdasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated
within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre--on the west side of
St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in
the near neighbourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former
owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the property for 100 pounds
in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613 agreed to pay him 140 pounds. The deeds of
conveyance bear the date of March 10 in that year. {267} Next day, on
March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum)
which stipulated that 60 pounds of the purchase-money was to remain on
mortgage until the following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at
Shakespeare's death. In both purchase-deed and mortgage-deed
Shakespeare's signature was witnessed by (among others) Henry Lawrence,
'servant' or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the scrivener who drew the deeds,
and Lawrence's seal, bearing his initials 'H. L.,' was stamped in each
case on the parchment-tag, across the head of which Shakespeare wrote his
name. In all three documents--the two indentures and the
mortgage-deed--Shakespeare is described as 'of Stratford-on-Avon, in the
Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.' There is no reason to suppose that he
acquired the house for his own residence. He at once leased the property
to John Robinson, already a resident in the neighbourhood.
[Picture: Signature on Mortgage-Deed]
Attempt to enclose the Stratford common fields.
With puritans and puritanism Shakespeare was not in sympathy, {268} and
he could hardly have viewed with unvarying composure the steady progress
that puritanism was making among his fellow-townsmen. Nevertheless a
preacher, doubtless of puritan proclivities, was entertained at
Shakespeare's residence, New Place, after delivering a sermon in the
spring of 1614. The incident might serve to illustrate Shakespeare's
characteristic placability, but his son-in-law Hall, who avowed sympathy
with puritanism, was probably in the main responsible for the civility.
{269a} In July John Combe, a rich inhabitant of Stratford, died and left
5 pounds to Shakespeare. The legend that Shakespeare alienated him by
composing some doggerel on his practice of lending money at ten or twelve
per cent. seems apocryphal, although it is quoted by Aubrey and accepted
by Rowe. {269b} Combe's death involved Shakespeare more conspicuously
than before in civic affairs. Combe's heir William no sooner succeeded
to his father's lands than he, with a neighbouring owner, Arthur
Mannering, steward of Lord-chancellor Ellesmere (who was ex-officio lord
of the manor), attempted to enclose the common fields, which belonged to
the corporation of Stratford, about his estate at Welcombe. The
corporation resolved to offer the scheme a stout resistance. Shakespeare
had a twofold interest in the matter by virtue of his owning the freehold
of 106 acres at Welcombe and Old Stratford, and as joint owner--now with
Thomas Greene, the town clerk--of the tithes of Old Stratford, Welcombe,
and Bishopton. His interest in his freeholds could not have been
prejudicially affected, but his interest in the tithes might be
depreciated by the proposed enclosure. Shakespeare consequently joined
with his fellow-owner Greene in obtaining from Combe's agent Replingham
in October 1614 a deed indemnifying both against any injury they might
suffer from the enclosure. But having thus secured himself against all
possible loss, Shakespeare threw his influence into Combe's scale. In
November 1614 he was on a last visit to London, and Greene, whose
official position as town clerk compelled him to support the corporation
in defiance of his private interests, visited him there to discuss the
position of affairs. On December 23, 1614, the corporation in formal
meeting drew up a letter to Shakespeare imploring him to aid them.
Greene himself sent to the dramatist 'a note of inconveniences [to the
corporation that] would happen by the enclosure.' But although an
ambiguous entry of a later date (September 1615) in the few extant pages
of Greene's ungrammatical diary has been unjustifiably tortured into an
expression of disgust on Shakespeare's part at Combe's conduct, {271} it
is plain that, in the spirit of his agreement with Combe's agent, he
continued to lend Combe his countenance. Happily Combe's efforts failed,
and the common lands remain unenclosed.
Death. Burial.
At the beginning of 1616 Shakespeare's health was failing. He directed
Francis Collins, a solicitor of Warwick, to draft his will, but, though
it was prepared for signature on January 25, it was for the time laid
aside. On February 10, 1616, Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith,
married, at Stratford parish church, Thomas Quincy, four years her
junior, a son of an old friend of the poet. The ceremony took place
apparently without public asking of the banns and before a license was
procured. The irregularity led to the summons of the bride and
bridegroom to the ecclesiastical court at Worcester and the imposition of
a fine. According to the testimony of John Ward, the vicar, Shakespeare
entertained at New Place his two friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson,
in this same spring of 1616, and 'had a merry meeting,' but 'itt seems
drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted.' A
popular local legend, which was not recorded till 1762, {272a} credited
Shakespeare with engaging at an earlier date in a prolonged and violent
drinking bout at Bidford, a neighbouring village, {272b} but his
achievements as a hard drinker may be dismissed as unproven. The cause
of his death is undetermined, but probably his illness seemed likely to
take a fatal turn in March, when he revised and signed the will that had
been drafted in the previous January. On Tuesday, April 23, he died at
the age of fifty-two. {272c} On Thursday, April 25 (O.S.), the poet was
buried inside Stratford Church, near the northern wall of the chancel, in
which, as part-owner of the tithes, and consequently one of the
lay-rectors, he had a right of interment. Hard by was the charnel-house,
where bones dug up from the churchyard were deposited. Over the poet's
grave were inscribed the lines:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.
According to one William Hall, who described a visit to Stratford in
1694, {273} these verses were penned by Shakespeare to suit 'the capacity
of clerks and sextons, for the most part a very ignorant set of people.'
Had this curse not threatened them, Hall proceeds, the sexton would not
have hesitated in course of time to remove Shakespeare's dust to 'the
bone-house.' As it was, the grave was made seventeen feet deep, and was
never opened, even to receive his wife, although she expressed a desire
to be buried with her husband.
[Picture: Signatures from each sheet of the will]
The will. Bequest to his wife.