THE LATEST PLAYS
At this point in Shakespeare's career he lost his first royal patron.
Queen Elizabeth, whose long and fateful reign drew to its appointed
close on March 24, 1603. The poet gave to the world no expression of
grief at her loss. Perhaps he could not do so in loyalty to his first
and well-beloved patron, Henry Wriothesley, who still languished in
prison for his complicity in the Essex rising of two years before. There
had been times in his career when, through no fault of his own,
Shakespeare had been looked upon with suspicion, and it may have been
that the path to royal patronage had been at times a thorny and
difficult one. In any case Elizabeth's generosity had been limited; she
had not intervened to check the attack upon the theatres by the "unco
guid" of London in 1601, when, but for the supineness of the Surrey and
Middlesex magistrates, the poet's financial prosperity might have met
with a serious set-back. Here, as in so many other places, we are too
far from the time to see the truth clearly, and those who seek to fill
in the shadowy outline of the poet's life must rely upon such conjecture
as may have been put forward in good faith by the people who were
nearer to him. King James loved the theatre; Queen Elizabeth tolerated
it; nor must it be forgotten that in the days when the poet's star was
in the ascendant his royal mistress had seen the greater glories of her
reign and was entering upon her declining years, not without many
troubles and much sorrow to mark the last milestones of the road.
One of the first acts of King James's reign was to confer special rights
upon the Lord Chamberlain's company, of which the poet was a prominent
member. Henceforward he was one of "The King's Servants," and the King
took a special interest in Shakespeare's plays, which were often
performed before him. Unhappily the plague drove the Court from London
in the autumn of 1603 to the Earl of Pembroke's seat at Wilton; but in
1604, when the Court returned to London, Shakespeare was first of the
nine actors who walked in the royal procession, and received a gift of
scarlet cloth for the making of a cloak worthy the occasion. Many other
honours followed. Great State occasions called for plays; Shakespeare's
were chosen, and his company acted them. The scenic art began to receive
a rather belated attention--in short, there was all the requisite
stimulus for a man of genius, and the poet responded to it nobly.
"Othello" was the first play written by Shakespeare in the reign of King
James, but he seems to have had "Measure for Measure" on the stocks at
the same time, for each was produced at Whitehall towards the close of
1604. "Macbeth," written in 1605 and 1606, was clearly intended as a
compliment to the king, who was a descendant of the unfortunate Banquo
whose royal line Macbeth saw "stretch to the crack of doom." Dr. Lee
makes the shrewd suggestion that inasmuch as this is the shortest of
Shakespeare's tragedies, we may have no more than an abbreviated acting
version. Other critics of note find certain corrupt passages in the text
that go far to justify this contention. We may be sure that Shakespeare,
then at the zenith of his power, would not have stinted the measure of a
work which seems to have taken more of his time than any previous play.
Following closely upon "Macbeth" came "King Lear," produced at Whitehall
for the Christmas festivities of 1606, and founded, like several of its
predecessors, upon Holinshed's Chronicles.
After this supreme effort the pace of genius faltered for a while.
"Timon of Athens" and "Pericles" are not pure Shakespeare; they do not
show us the master at his best--though the first named is fine enough to
have given enduring reputation to a lesser man. The question of his
collaboration is a difficult one to settle, but leading critics have
picked out the gold and rejected the dross, and their analyses prove
that Shakespeare's part in these works was not predominant.
=MICHAEL DRAYTON
In the National Portrait Gallery. (Painter unknown)=
It is no function of a simple record like the present to inquire into
this critical question closely; a dozen editions of Shakespeare's plays
published in the last ten years set down the latest researches of
scholars. To not a few of us the tragedy that followed "Pericles" is
among the finest of all that carry Shakespeare's name; surely, in some
passages of sheer undying beauty, "Antony and Cleopatra" stands
well-nigh alone. It dates from 1608, and, like "Coriolanus," the play
that followed (1609), is taken largely from Plutarch (North's
translation). "Cymbeline" is founded on Holinshed, and probably may be
dated 1610. "The Winter's Tale" belongs to 1611, and to this year may be
assigned the poet's moderate part in "Henry VIII."--he is far from being
responsible for the whole play. "The Tempest" belongs, at latest, to
1612. This, the latest and last work of the master-hand, was given with
all its beautiful songs set to music by Robert Johnson, a player and
composer of renown.
So, leaving Miranda and Prospero to console us, the greatest dramatist
of all time laid down his pen. Many a critic and lover of the poet has
seen in the last words of Prospero, spoken when he gives up his magic
wand, a reflection of the poet's mind. His life-work, too, was done.
Unaided, save by his own genius, he had moved from the obscurity of
Warwickshire's by-ways to a place by the side of the Immortals. In all
the firmament of poetry there was no star to outshine his. It may be he
knew that the years still left to him were likely to be few, and that
his heart turned more from the bustle of a great city's ways to the
quiet fields and lanes wherein his earliest inspiration had come to him.
He had written a few scenes of plays that other men would seem to have
designed and completed, but these fragments are of small importance and
may be passed over here. Whatever he had given to lend a lustre to the
work of his contemporaries would seem to have afforded him little
concern. Henceforward his life was to be spent far from the busy centre
of theatrical life, though he was compelled to come to town at short
intervals in the first two or three years following his retirement, and
there must have been ample atonement for the trouble, in the way of
association with old friends who still laboured in the metropolis.
When the poet passed into voluntary retirement he had but five years to
live, but his genius was still ripe. Did he elect deliberately to end
his labours before the first touch of weakness could reach them? Had he
realised his ambition, even as Prospero, who moves with such supreme
dignity through the last play? Was he content to have restored the
family fortunes? Was it to do this, to take full rank among the
gentlemen of Warwickshire, that he had striven so long? There is no
satisfactory answer to these questions. The records are silent as the
grave itself, and if the past has proved so silent on all points that
relate to the growth and trend of the poet's mind outside the domain of
his work, what may we hope from the future?