Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO, 1628 The first collected
edition of Shakespeare's Plays (From the copy in the New York Public
Library)]
AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE
BY
H. N. MacCRACKEN, PH.D.
F. E. PIERCE, PH.D.
AND
W. H. DURHAM, PH.D.
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN
THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF
YALE UNIVERSITY
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1925
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1910,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1910. Reprinted April,
December, 1911; September, 1912; July, 1913; July, 1914; December,
1915; November, 1916; May, 1918; July, 1919; November, 1920; September,
1921; June, 1923; January, 1925.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
{v}
PREFACE
The advances made in Shakespearean scholarship within the last
half-dozen years seem to justify the writing of another manual for
school and college use. The studies of Wallace in the life-records, of
Lounsbury in the history of editions, of Pollard and Greg in early
quartos, of Lee upon the First Folio, of Albright and others upon the
Elizabethan Theater, as well as valuable monographs on individual plays
have all appeared since the last Shakespeare manual was prepared. This
little volume aims to present what may be necessary for the majority of
classes, as a background upon which may be begun the study and reading
of the plays. Critical comment on individual plays has been added, in
the hope that it may stimulate interest in other plays than those
assigned for study.
Chapters I, VIII, IX, X, and XIII are the work of Professor MacCracken;
chapters V, VI, VII, XII, and XIV are by Professor Pierce; and chapters
II, III, IV, and XI are by Dr. Durham. The authors have, however,
united in the criticism and the revision of every chapter.
{vii}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER II
ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CHAPTER III
THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
CHAPTER IV
ELIZABETHAN LONDON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
CHAPTER V
SHAKESPEARE'S NONDRAMATIC WORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
CHAPTER VI
THE SEQUENCE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
CHAPTER VII
SHAKESPEARE'S DEVELOPMENT AS A DRAMATIST . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHIEF SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS . . . . . . . . . . . 105
{viii}
CHAPTER IX
HOW SHAKESPEARE GOT INTO PRINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
CHAPTER X
THE PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD--IMITATION AND EXPERIMENT . . . 131
CHAPTER XI
THE PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD--COMEDY AND HISTORY . . . . . . 153
CHAPTER XII
THE PLAYS OF THE THIRD PERIOD--TRAGEDY . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
CHAPTER XIII
THE PLAYS OF THE FOURTH PERIOD--ROMANCE . . . . . . . . . . . 196
CHAPTER XIV
SOME FAMOUS MISTAKES AND DELUSIONS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE . . . . . 210
{1}
AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE
CHAPTER I
AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE
+Our Knowledge of Shakespeare+.--No one in Shakespeare's day seems to
have been interested in learning about the private lives of the
dramatists. The profession of play writing had scarcely begun to be
distinguished from that of play acting, and the times were not wholly
gone by when all actors had been classed in public estimation as
vagabonds. While the London citizens were constant theatergoers, and
immensely proud of their fine plays, they were content to learn of the
writers of plays merely from town gossip, which passed from lip to lip
and found no resting place in memoirs. There were other lives which
made far more exciting reading. English sea-men were penetrating every
ocean, and bringing back wonderful tales. English soldiers were aiding
the Dutch nation towards freedom, and coming back full of stories of
heroic deeds. At home great political, religious, and scientific
movements engaged the attention of the more serious readers and
thinkers. It is not strange, therefore, that the writers of plays,
whose {2} most exciting incidents were tavern brawls or imprisonment
for rash satire of the government, found no biographer. After
Shakespeare's death, moreover, the theater rapidly fell into disrepute,
and many a good story of the playhouse fell under the ban of polite
conversation, and was lost.
Under such conditions we cannot wonder that we know so little of
Shakespeare, and that we must go to town records, cases at law, and
book registers for our knowledge. Thanks to the diligence of modern
scholars, however, we know much more of Shakespeare than of most of his
fellow-actors and playwrights. The life of Christopher Marlowe,
Shakespeare's great predecessor, is almost unknown; and of John
Fletcher, Shakespeare's great contemporary and successor, it is not
even known whether he was married, or when he began to write plays.
Yet his father was Bishop of London, and in high favor with Queen
Elizabeth. We ought rather to wonder at the good fortune which has
preserved for us, however scanty in details or lacking in the authority
of its traditions, a continuous record of the life of William
Shakespeare from birth to death.
+Stratford+.--The notice of baptism on April 26, 1564, of William, son
of John Shakespeare, appears in the church records of Stratford-on-Avon
in Warwickshire. Stratford was then a market town of about fifteen
hundred souls. Under Stratford Market Cross the farmers of northern
Warwickshire and of the near-lying portions of Worcestershire,
Gloucestershire, and Oxfordshire carried on a brisk trade with the
thrifty townspeople. The citizens were accustomed to boast {3} of
their beautiful church by the river, and of the fine Guildhall, where
sometimes plays were given by traveling companies. Many of their
gable-roofed houses of timber, or timber and plaster, are still to be
found on the pleasant old streets. The river Avon winds round the town
in a broad reach under the many-arched bridge to the ancient church.
Beyond it the rich pasture land rises up to green wooded hills. Not
far away is the famous Warwick Castle, and a little beyond it
Kenilworth, where Queen Elizabeth was entertained by the Earl of
Leicester with great festivities in 1575. Coventry and Rugby are the
nearest towns.
+Birth and Parentage+.--The record of baptism of April 26, 1564, is the
only evidence we possess of the date of Shakespeare's birth. It is
probable that the child was baptized when only two or three days old.
The poet's tomb states that Shakespeare was in his fifty-second year
when he died, April 23, 1616. Accepting this as strictly true, we
cannot place the poet's birthday earlier than April 23, 1564. There is
a tradition, with no authority, that the poet died upon his birthday.
John Shakespeare, the poet's father, sold the products of near-by farms
to his fellow-townsmen. He is sometimes described as a glover,
sometimes as a butcher; very likely he was both. A single reference,
half a century later than his day, preserves for us a picture of John
Shakespeare. The note reads: "He [William Shakespeare] was a glover's
son. Sir John Mennes saw once his old father in his shop, a
merry-cheekt old man, that said, 'Will was a good honest {4} fellow,
but he durst have crackt a jesst with him att any time.'"[1]
John Shakespeare's father, Richard Shakespeare, was a tenant farmer,
who was in 1550 renting his little farm at Snitterfield, four miles
north of Stratford, from another farmer, Robert Arden of Wilmcote.
John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, the daughter of his father's rich
landlord, probably in 1557. He had for over five years been a
middleman at Stratford, dealing in the produce of his father's farm and
other farms in the neighborhood. In April, 1552, we first hear of him
in Stratford records, though only as being fined a shilling for not
keeping his yard clean. Between 1557 and 1561 he rose to be ale tester
(inspector of bread and malt), burgess (petty constable), affeeror
(adjuster of fines), and finally city chamberlain (treasurer).
Eight children were born to him, the two eldest, both daughters, dying
in infancy. William Shakespeare was the third child, and eldest of
those who reached maturity. During his childhood his father was
probably in comfortable circumstances, but not long before the son left
Stratford for London, John Shakespeare was practically a bankrupt, and
had lost by mortgage farms in Snitterfield and Ashbies, near by,
inherited in 1556 by his wife.
+Education+.--William Shakespeare probably went to the Stratford
Grammar School, where he and his {5} brothers as the sons of a town
councilor were entitled to free tuition. His masters, no doubt, taught
him Lilly's Latin Grammar and the Latin classics,--Virgil, Horace,
Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, and the rest,--and very little else. If
Shakespeare ever knew French or Italian, he picked it up in London
life, where he picked up most of his amazing stock of information on
all subjects. Besides Latin, he must have read and memorized a good
deal of the English Bible.
+Marriage+.--In the autumn of 1582 the eighteen-year-old Shakespeare
married a young woman of twenty-six. On November 28, of that year two
farmers of Shottery, near Stratford, signed what we should call a
guarantee bond, agreeing to pay to the Bishop's Court L40, in case the
marriage proposed between William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway should
turn out to be contrary to the canon--or Church--law, and so invalid.
This guarantee bond, no doubt, was issued to facilitate and hasten the
wedding. On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was
baptized. His only other children, his son Hamnet and a twin daughter
Judith, were baptized February 2, 1584-5[2]. It is probable that soon
after this date Shakespeare went to London and began his career as
actor, and afterwards as writer of plays and owner of theaters.
{6}
Anne Hathaway, as we have said, was eight years older than her husband.
She was the daughter of a small farmer at Shottery, a little out of
Stratford, whose house is still an object of pilgrimage for Shakespeare
lovers. We have really no just ground for inferring, from the poet's
early departure for London, that his married life was unhappy. The
Duke in _Twelfth Night_ (IV, iii) advises Viola against women's
marrying men younger than themselves, it is true; but such advice is
conventional. No one can tell how much the dramatist really felt of
the thoughts which his characters utter. Who would guess from any
words in _I Henry IV_, for instance, a play containing some of his
richest humor and freest joy in life, that, in the very year of its
composition, Shakespeare was mourning the death of his little son
Hamnet, and that his hopes of founding a family were at an end?
Another piece of evidence, far more important, is the fact that
Shakespeare does not mention his wife at all in his will, except by an
interlined bequest of his "second-best bedroom set." But here, again,
it is easy to misread the motives of the man who makes a will. Such
omissions have been made when no slight was intended, sometimes because
of previous private settlements, sometimes because a wife is always
entitled to her dower rights. The evidence is thus too slight to be of
value.
Some other motive, then, than unhappiness in married life ought to be
assigned for Shakespeare's departure to London. No doubt, the fact
that his father was now a discredited bankrupt, against whom suits were
pending, had something to do with his {7} decision to better his family
fortunes in another town. Traveling companies of players may have told
him of London life. Possibly some scrape, like that preserved in the
deer-stealing tradition and the resultant persecution, made the young
man, now only twenty-one, restive and eager to be gone.
+The Tradition concerning Deer Stealing+.--Nicholas Howe, in 1709, in
his edition of Shakespeare says: "He had by a misfortune common enough
to young fellows fallen into bad company, and among them, some that
made a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him with them more
than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of
Charlecote near Stratford. For this he was persecuted by that
gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and, in order to
revenge that ill-usage, he made a parody upon him; and though this,
probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have
been so very bitter that he was obliged to leave his business and
family in Warwickshire and shelter himself in London." Archdeacon
Davies of Saperton, Gloucestershire, in the late seventeenth century
testifies independently to the same tradition. Justice Shallow in the
_Merry Wives of Windsor_ is on this latter authority to be identified
with Sir Thomas Lucy. He is represented in the play as having come
from Gloucester to Windsor. He "will make a Star Chamber matter of it"
that Sir John Falstaff has "defied my men, killed my deer, and broke
open my lodge." He bears on his "old coat" (of arms) a "dozen white
luces" (small fishes), and there is a lot of chatter about "quartering"
this coat, which is without point unless a pun is intended. {8} Now
"three luces Hauriant argent" were the arms of the Charlecote Lucys, it
is certain. There is some reason then, for connecting Shallow with Sir
Thomas Lucy, and an apparent basis for the deer-stealing tradition,
although the incident in the play may, of course, have suggested the
myth. Davies goes on to say that Shakespeare was whipped and
imprisoned; for this there is no other evidence.
+Early Life in London+.--The earliest known reference to Shakespeare in
the world of London is contained in a sarcastic allusion from the pen
of Robert Greene, the poet and play writer, who died in 1592. Greene
was furiously jealous of the rapidly increasing fame of the newcomer.
In a most extravagant style he warns his contemporaries (Marlowe, Nash,
and Peele, probably) to beware of young men that seek fame by thieving
from their masters. They, too, like himself, will suffer from such
thieves. "Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified
with our feathers that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide,
supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of
you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit
the onely Shakescene in a countrie ... but it is pittie men of such
rare wit should be subject to the pleasures of such rude grooms." The
reference to "Shakescene" and the "Tygers heart," which is a quotation
from _III Henry VI_,[3] makes it almost certain that Shakespeare and
his play are referred to. Greene's attack was, however, an instance of
what Shakespeare would {9} have called "spleen," and not to be taken as
a general opinion. His hint of "Johannes Factotum"
(Jack-of-all-Trades) probably means that Shakespeare was willing to
undertake any sort of dramatic work. Later on in the same letter (_A
Groatsworth of Witte Bought with a Million of Repentance_)[4] he calls
the "upstart crow" and his like "Buckram gentlemen," and "peasants."
Henry Chettle, a friend of Greene's, either in December, 1592, or early
in 1593,[5] published an address as a preface to his _Kind-Harts
Dreame_, making a public apology to Shakespeare for allowing Greene's
letter to come out with this insulting attack. He says: "With neither
of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care
not if I never be. The other [generally taken to be Shakespeare] whome
at one time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that, as
I have moderated the heate of living writers, and might have usde my
owne discretion--especially in such a case, the author beeing
dead,--that I did not I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene
my fault, because myself have seene his demeanor no lesse civill, than
he exelent in the qualitie he professes;--besides divers of worship
have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and
his facetious grace in writing, that aprooves his art...."
There is, then, testimony from two sources that by 1592 Shakespeare was
an excellent actor, a graceful poet, and a writer of plays that aroused
the envy of {10} one of the best dramatists of his day. Obviously, all
this could not have happened in a few months, and we are therefore
justified in believing that Shakespeare came to London soon after 1585,
very likely in 1586.
+Later Allusions+.--In 1593 the title-page of _Venus and Adonis_ shows
that a great English earl and patron of the arts was willing to be
godfather "to the first heyre" of Shakespeare's "invention," his first
published poem. In 1594 Shakespeare also dedicated to Southampton his
_Lucrece_, in terms of greater intimacy, though no less respect. On
December 27, 1595, Edmund Spenser's _Colin Clout's Come Home Againe_
contained a reference which is now generally believed to allude to
Shakespeare.
"And there, though last not least, is Aetion;
A gentler shepheard may nowhere be found;
Whose Muse, full of high thoughts' invention,
Doth like himselfe heroically sound."
The next important reference is from _Palladis Tamia_, by Francis Meres
(1598):--
"As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the
sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued
Shakespeare; witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred
Sonnets among his private friends &c. As Plautus and Seneca are
accounted the best for comedy and Tragedy among the Latines, so
Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for
the stage; for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his
Loves Labors Lost, his Love Labours Wonne, his Midsummer Night Dreame,
and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy his Richard the 2., Richard the
3., Henry the 4., {11} King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and
Juliet. As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speake with Plautus
tongue, if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak
with Shakespeare's fine filed phrase, if they would speak English. And
as Horace saith of his; Exegi monumentu_m_ aere perennius, Regaliq_ue_
situ pyramidum altius.
"Quod non imber edax: Non Aquilo impotius possit diruere: aut
innumerabilis annorum series et fuga temporum: so say I severally of
Sir Philip Sidneys Spencers Daniels Draytons Shakespeares and Warners
workes."
This is the earliest claim for the supremacy of Shakespeare in the
English theater, a claim never seriously disputed from that day to
this. The numerous other contemporary allusions to Shakespeare's fame,
which fill the _Shakespeare Allusion Book_,[6] add nothing to our
purpose; but merely confirm the statement that throughout his life his
readers knew and admitted his worth. The chorus of praise continued
from people of all classes. John Weever, the epigrammatist, and
Richard Camden, the antiquarian, praised Shakespeare highly, and
Michael Drayton, the poet, called him "perfection in a man." Finally,
Ben Jonson, his most famous competitor for public applause, crowned our
poet's fame with his poem, prefixed to the first collected edition of
Shakespeare's famous First Folio of 1623: "To the Memory of my beloved,
the author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.
{12}
"He was not of an age, but for all time!"
+Shakespeare as an Actor+.--The allusion quoted above of Henry Chettle
praises Shakespeare's excellence "in the qualitie he professes."
Stronger evidence is afforded by some of the title-pages of plays
printed during the poet's life. Thus Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his
Humour_ says on its title-page: "_Every One in his Umor_. This comedie
was first Acted in the yeere 1598 by the then L. Chamberleyne his
servants. The principal comedians were Will. Shakespeare, Aug.
Philips, Hen. Condel, Will. Slye, Will. Kempe, Ric. Burbadge, Joh.
Hemings, Tho. Pope, Chr. Beeston, Joh. Dyke, withe the allowance of the
Master of Reuells."
Before this his name had appeared between those of Kemp and Burbage
(named in the above list), the one the chief comedian, the other the
chief tragedian of the time, in comedies which were acted before the
Queen on December 27 and 28, 1594, at Greenwich Palace. The titles of
these comedies are not given in the Treasurer's Accounts of the
Chamber, from which we take the list of players.
In 1603, Shakespeare shared with Burbage the headline of the list of
actors in Ben Jonson's tragedy _Sejanus_. That he thoroughly
understood the technique of his art and was interested in it, is
evident from Hamlet's advice to the players. Throughout his life in
London, Shakespeare was a member of the company usually known as the
Lord Chamberlain's Company.[7]
{13}
+Shakespeare and the Mountjoys+.--The most important addition of recent
years to the life records of Shakespeare is that made by an American
scholar, Professor Charles William Wallace. He has unearthed in the
Public Record Office at London a notable bundle of
documents--twenty-six in all. They concern a lawsuit in which the
family of Christopher Mountjoy, Shakespeare's landlord in London, was
engaged; and in which the poet himself appeared as a witness.
Mountjoy, it appears, was a prosperous wigmaker and hairdresser, and,
no doubt, had good custom from the London actors. Shakespeare had
lodgings in Mountjoy's house in the year 1604, and at Madame Mountjoy's
request acted as intermediary in proposing to young Stephen Bellott, a
young French apprentice of Mountjoy's, that if he should marry his
master's daughter Mary, he would receive L50 as dowry and "certain
household stuff" in addition. The marriage took place, and the quarrel
which led to the lawsuit in 1612 was chiefly about the fulfillment--or
non-fulfillment--of the marriage settlements. Shakespeare's testimony
on the matter is clear enough in regard to his services as the friend
of both parties; but his memory leaves him when specific information is
required touching the exact terms of the dowry. Evidently he had no
mind that his old landlord should suffer from the claims of his unruly
son-in-law.
Mountjoy's house was situated in an ancient and most respectable
neighborhood in Cripplegate ward, on the corner of Silver Street and
Mugwell, or Muggle Street. Near by dwelt many of Shakespeare's
fellow-actors and dramatists. St. Paul's Cathedral, the heart {14} of
London, lay five minutes' walk to the southwest. The length of
Shakespeare's residence with the worthy Huguenot family is not to be
learned from the recent discoveries; but his testimony to Bellott's
faithful service as apprentice throughout the years of
apprenticeship--1598-1604--makes it strongly probable that during these
years, when the poet was writing his greatest plays, he lodged with
Mountjoy. In 1612 Mountjoy, according to another witness, had a
lodger--a "sojourner"--in his house; this may mean that Shakespeare was
still in possession of his rooms in the house on Silver Street. If it
be so, no spot in the world has been the birthplace of a greater number
of masterpieces.
It is interesting to note, in passing, that the various witnesses in
the Mountjoy lawsuit who have occasion to speak of Shakespeare always
refer to him most respectfully. The poet was evidently high in the
esteem of his neighbors.
+Shakespeare's Income and Business Transactions+.--Shakespeare was a
shrewd and sensible man of business. He amassed during his career in
London a property nearly, if not quite, as great as any made by his
profession at the time. In addition to profits from the sale of his
plays to managers (he probably derived no income from their
publication), and his salary as an actor, Shakespeare enjoyed an ample
income from his shares in the Blackfriars and Globe theaters, of which
he became joint owner with the Burbage brothers and other fellow-actors
in 1597 and 1599. Professor Wallace has discovered a document which
helps, though very slightly, to enable us to judge what his income {15}
from these sources may have been.[8] In 1615-1616 the widow of one of
the proprietors of the two theaters, whose share, like Shakespeare's,
was one-seventh of the Blackfriars, one-fourteenth of the Globe,
brought suit against her father. She asked for L600 damages for her
father's wrongful detention of her year's income, amounting to L300
from each theater.
But damages asked in court are always high, and include fees of lawyers
and other items. The probability is that Shakespeare's yearly income
from these sources was never over L500. To this, though the figures
cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty, we might add L100
for salary and L25 for plays yearly. The total would amount to fully
L600 a year from 1599 on till 1611, about which date Shakespeare
probably retired to Stratford. If we reckon by what money will buy in
our days, we may say that Shakespeare's yearly income at the height of
success was $25,000, in round numbers. This is certainly a low
estimate, and does not include extra court performances and the like,
from which he must certainly have profited.
+Shakespeare's Life in London+.--What with the composition of two plays
a year, continual rehearsals, and performances of his own and other
plays, Shakespeare's life must have been a busy one. Tradition,
however, accords him an easy enjoyment of the pleasures of the time;
and his own sarcastic remarks against Puritans in his plays may
indicate a hatred of puritanical restraint. He must have joined in
many a merry feast with the other actors and writers of the day, and
with court gallants. The inventory of property left by him {16} at his
death indicates that while he had accumulated a good estate, he had
also lived generously.
+Stratford Affairs and Shakespeare's Return+.--While William
Shakespeare was thus employed in London in building up name and fortune
for himself, his father was in financial straits. As early as January,
1586, John Shakespeare had no property on which a creditor could place
a lien. In September of the same year, he was deprived of his
alderman's gown for lack of attention to town business. During the
next year he was sued for debt, and had to produce a writ of _habeas
corpus_ to keep himself out of jail. In 1899 he tried to recover his
wife's mortgaged property of Ashbies from the mortgagee's heir, John
Lambert, but the suit was not tried till eight years later. Soon after
this the son must have begun to send to Stratford substantial support.
In 1592 John Shakespeare was made an appraiser of the property of Henry
Field, a fellow-townsman. Henry Field's son Richard published _Venus
and Adonis_ for Shakespeare in 1593, from his shop in St. Paul's
Churchyard. From this time John Shakespeare seems to have lived in
comfort. His ambition to secure the grant of a coat of arms was almost
successful at his first application for one in October, 1596; three
years later the grant was made, and his son and he were now "Gentlemen."
In May, 1597, William Shakespeare bought New Place, a handsome house in
the heart of Stratford, and at once became an influential citizen.
From that time to his death he is continually mentioned in the town
records. His purchases included 107 acres in {17} Old Stratford (May
1, 1602), for L320; the right to farm the Stratford tithes (July 24,
1605), for L440; an estate of the Combe family (April 13, 1610), and
minor properties. In all his dealings, so far as we can tell, he seems
to have been shrewd and business-like.
Little is known of Shakespeare's children during these years. Hamnet,
his only son, was buried August 11, 1596. Susanna, the eldest
daughter, married a physician, Dr. John Hall, of Stratford, June 5,
1607; Judith married Thomas Quiney, son of an old Stratford friend of
Shakespeare's, February 10, 1616, two months before her father's death.
Shakespeare's father had died long before this, in September, 1601.
Shakespeare's retirement from London to his native town is thought to
have taken place about 1611, though there is no real evidence for this
belief, except that his play writing probably ceased about this date.
In 1614 a Puritan preacher stopped at New Place and was entertained
there by the poet's family. It is certain that Shakespeare visited
London from time to time after 1611. One such visit is recorded in the
diary of his lawyer, Thomas Greene, of Stratford. As late as March 24,
1613, there occurs an entry in the accounts of the Earl of Rutland of a
payment to Shakespeare and Richard Burbage of 44 shillings each in gold
for getting up a dramatic entertainment for the Earl of Rutland.
In 1616 Shakespeare's health failed. On January 25, a copy of his will
was drawn, which was executed March 25. On April 23, 1616, he died,
and two days later was buried in the chancel of Stratford church.
{18}
+Shakespeare's Portraits, Tomb, and Descendants+.--Two portraits, the
"Ely Palace" and the "Flower" portraits, so called from former
possessors, are thought to have better claims to authenticity than
others. New discoveries are announced, periodically, of Shakespeare's
portrait; but these turn out usually to be forgeries. The engraving by
Martin Droeshout prefixed to the First and later Folios, though to us
it seems unanimated and unnatural, is still the only likeness vouched
for by contemporaries. It is thought by many to be a copy of the
"Flower" portrait, which bears the date 1609, and which it certainly
very closely resembles. If the Stratford bust which was placed in a
niche above Shakespeare's tomb in Stratford church before 1623 was
accurately reproduced in Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, then the present
bust is a later substitution, since it shows differences in detail from
that sketch. It is coming to be believed that the eighteenth-century
restoration so altered the bust as to make it quite unlike its former
appearance.
Shakespeare's grave is in the chancel of Stratford church. A dark,
flat tombstone bears the inscription, which early tradition ascribes to
the poet:--
"Good frend, for Iesvs sake forbeare
To digg the dvst enclosed heare:
Bleste be y^e man y^t spares thes stones,
And curst be he y^t moves my bones."
The monument to Shakespeare, with the bust on the north wall, is facing
the tomb.
In his will, Shakespeare provided that much the larger portion of his
estate should go to his eldest daughter, Susanna Hall and John Hall,
Gent., her husband, including New Place, Henley Street and Blackfriars
houses, and his tithes in Stratford and near-by villages. This was in
accordance with custom. To Judith, his younger daughter, the wife of
Thomas Quiney, he left three hundred pounds, one hundred as a marriage
portion, fifty more on her release of her right in a Stratford
tenement, and the rest to be paid in three years, the principal to be
invested, the interest paid to her, and the principal to be divided at
her death.
{19}
Shakespeare left his sister, Joan Hart, L20 and his wearing apparel,
and her house in Stratford rent-free till her death, at a shilling a
year. His plate he divided between his daughters. The minor bequests,
which include L10 to the Stratford poor, are chiefly notable for the
bequest of money (26s. 8d.) for rings to "my fellowes, John Hemynges,
Richard Burbage, and Henry Cundell." These were fellow-actors in the
Lord Chamberlain's Company.
Within half a century Shakespeare's line was extinct. His wife died
August 6, 1623. His daughter Susanna left one daughter, Elizabeth, who
married, April 22, 1626, Thomas Nashe, who died April 4, 1647. On June
5, 1649, she married John Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire,
afterwards knighted. She left no children by either marriage. Her
burial was recorded February 17, 1669-70. Shakespeare's daughter
Judith had three sons,--Shakespeare, baptized November 23, 1616, buried
May 8, 1617; Richard, baptized February 9, 1617-8, buried February 16,
1638-9; Thomas, baptized January 23, 1619-20, buried January 1638-9.
Judith Shakespeare survived them all, and was buried February 9,
1661-2. Shakespeare's sister, Joan Hart, left descendants who owned
the Henley Street House up to the time of its purchase, in 1847, by the
nation.
The best books on the life of Shakespeare: J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps,
_Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, tenth edition, London, 1898 (the
greatest collection of sources and documents); Sidney Lee, _A Life of
William Shakespeare_ (New York, Macmillan, 1909), (the best extended
life, especially valuable for its study of the biographical value of
the sonnets); Professor Wallace's articles referred to in the text.
[1] This reference was discovered among the Plume Mss. (1657-1663) of
Maldon, Essex, by Dr. Andrew Clark, in October, 1904. Sir John Mennes
was, however, not a contemporary of John Shakespeare, but doubtless
merely passed on the description from some eyewitness.
[2] The dates between January 1 and March 25, previous to 1752, are
always thus written. In 1752 England and its colonies decided to begin
the year with January 1 instead of March 25, as formerly. Thus for
periods before that date between January 1 and March 25, we give two
figures to indicate that the people of that time called it one year and
we call it a year later. Thus, Judith Shakespeare would have said she
was baptized in 1584, while by our reckoning her baptism came in 1585.
[3] "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide." This line is also in
the source of Shakespeare's play. See p. 133.
[4] Printed first in 1596, but written shortly before Greene's death in
1592.
[5] Registered Dec., 1592, but printed without date.
[6] These may be seen, as well as all others up to 1700, in the
re-edited _Shakespeare Allusion Book_, ed. J. Munro, London, 1909.
[7] See p. 48.
[8] See the _New York Times_ for October 3, 1909.
{20}