SECTION VII.

EARLY ENGLISH PLAYS IN GERMANY 307

APPENDIX 319

TABLES 324

I. QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 324

II. QUARTO EDITIONS OF OTHER PLAYS PERFORMED BY SHAKESPEARE'S COMPANY

326

III. NUMBER OF PERFORMANCES AT COURT, 1584-1616 327

IV. ENTRIES OF PLAYS IN THE STATIONERS' REGISTERS, 1584-1640 328

V. TRANSFERS OF COPYRIGHT IN PLAYS, 1584-1640 350

SUPPLEMENTARY TABLE OF MOSELEY'S ENTRIES IN 1653 AND 1660, AND

WARBURTON'S LIST 358

INDEX 361

NOTE ON ETCHINGS 364

[Illustration: W. Heydemann, Sc.

SHAKESPEARE'S FONT.]

INTRODUCTION.

IT is due to the reader of a new work on a subject already so often

handled as the Life of Shakespeare to tell him at the outset what he

may expect to find therein, and to state the reasons for which I have

thought it worth while to devote nearly ten years to its production.

Previous investigators have with industrious minuteness already

ascertained for us every detail that can reasonably be expected of

Shakespeare's private life. With laborious research they have raked

together the records of petty debts, of parish assessments, of

scandalous traditions, of idle gossip; and they have shown beyond

doubt that Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, was married, had

three children, left his home, made money as an actor and play-maker

in London, returned to his native town, invested his savings there,

and died. I do not think that when stript of verbiage, and what the

slang of the day calls padding, much more than this can be claimed

as the result of the voluminous writings on this side of his career.

For one I am thankful that things are so; I have little sympathy with

the modern inquisitiveness that peeps over the garden wall to see in

what array the great man smokes his pipe, and chronicles the shape and

colour of his head-covering. But on the public side of Shakespeare's

career little has been adequately ascertained; and with this we are

deeply concerned. Not for a mere personal interest, but in its bearings

on the history of English literature, we ought to ascertain so far as

is possible what companies of actors Shakespeare belonged to, at what

theatres they acted, in what plays besides his own he was a performer,

what authors this brought him into personal contact with, what

influence he exerted on or received from them, what relations, friendly

or unfriendly, they had with rival companies, and finally, in what

order his own works were produced, and what if any share other hands

had in their production. All these matters have been treated carelessly

and inaccurately by biographers of the peeping school; and in the last

of these we are gravely referred for the chronology of Shakespeare's

plays to a schoolboy compilation the author of which is so ignorant

as to speak of _Lust's Dominion_ as a play of _Jonson's_, the _News

from Hell_ as a _play_ of Dekker's, and Achilles as Laertes' son. This

marvel of inefficiency we are told is the best work on the subject;

and this while Malone and Drake are accessible to any student. In the

present treatise this hitherto neglected side of Shakespeare's career

has been chiefly dwelt on. The facts of his private life are also

given; but not the documents on which they are founded, these having

been excellently well collected and arranged in the recent _Outlines

of the Life of Shakespeare_, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, F.R.S.,

F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., Hon. M.R.I.A. This book is a treasure-house

of documents, and it is greatly to be regretted that they are not

published by themselves, apart from hypotheses founded on idle rumour

or fallacious mis-reasoning. I do not know any work so full of fanciful

theories and "_ignes fatui_" likely to entice "a deluded traveller

out of the beaten path into strange quagmires."[1] There is much else

besides documents not given in the present treatise; discussions as

to who might have been Shakespeare's schoolmaster, whether he was

apprenticed to a butcher, whether he stole a deer out of a non-existent

park, whether he held horses at the theatre door or "was employed in

any other equine capacity," whether he went to Denmark or to Venice,

and whether Lord Bacon wrote his plays for him. On all these points I

must refer to earlier and less sceptical treatises. What the reader

will find here is--(1.) A continuous narrative in which the statements

are mostly taken for granted in accordance with my own view of the

evidence accessible to us; (2.) Annals or chronological arrangement of

the same facts, with discussion of their mutual interrelations; (3.)

Discussion of the evidence on which the chronological succession of

Shakespeare's plays is based; (4.) Similar discussions for plays in

which he was not main author but only "coadjutor, novice, journeyman,

tutor," or even merely one of the possible actors; (5.) A few remarks

on the German versions of his plays acted on the Continent; and (6.)

Tables of quarto editions of his plays, &c., with a list of all plays

entered on the Stationers' Registers from the first opening of theatres

to their closing in 1640-42. This last item may seem to be somewhat

beyond the scope of this book, but it is greatly needed, and it is

better that so difficult a task should be performed by one acquainted

with dramatic literature than by some scissors-and-paste compiler who

cannot distinguish a play from a prose tract. As to the preparation

for the whole work it has been to me a labour of love, not, I trust,

altogether lost. I have read and re-read for it every play accessible

to me that dates earlier than 1640, have compiled annals for every

known writer of that period and discussions of the dates of his plays,

and have compared the results and corrected and re-corrected until

a consistent whole has been obtained. Of this whole only the part

relating to Shakespeare is here issued. I have to thank the editors

of _Anglia Englische Studien_ and _Shakespeariana_ for enabling me to

print some portions relating to other authors, which will, however,

require some minor corrections. I have also to thank Dr. Furnivall and

Mr. Swinburne for some wholesome criticism upon my earlier work; Dr.

Ingleby, Miss Lee, Mr. Boyle, Mr. A. H. Bullen, and especially Dr. H.

H. Furness, for kindly sympathy and copies of their own writings, some

of which might otherwise have escaped my notice; and above all Mr.

P. A. Daniel, for ever-ready help when asked for, and for judicious

strictures on received hypotheses or points debatable. The main

regret for the earnest student is that so many of these still exist;

as any attempt to give a biography of Shakespeare the form which is

æsthetically its due must fail so long as the true order of the facts

on which it rests is still esteemed matter of argument. If the reader

would wish to judge before proceeding further of the quality of such

argument in the present work I would refer him to the discussion on

_Mucedorus_ or that on _Henry VI._ in subsequent Sections.

One other point requires notice, if not apology. The plan followed

in this volume requires much repetition in order that the separate

arguments as to the chronological succession of the plays, and as to

the order of events in Shakespeare's life, should be presented in

intelligible sequence. This is an evil only to be avoided either by

mixing up the two, as is usually done, or by numerous cross-references.

Either of these methods leads to greater evils, both by interrupting

the logical connection of each series (for unfortunately the evidences

are mostly independent of each other), and, which is still more

important, by obliterating the mutual support given to the arguments

in the twofold lines of evidence by their leading in each division

to compatible results. The inconvenience of these repetitions has

therefore been submitted to.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

"These phrases to their owner I resign,

For God's sake, reader, take them not for mine."

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.

SECTION I.

THE PUBLIC CAREER OF SHAKESPEARE.

ON or about Saturday 22d April 1564, William Shakespeare, son of John

Shakespeare, glover and dealer in wool, and his wife Mary, _née_ Arden,

was born in Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon, and was baptized on the

26th. Nothing whatever is known of his early life, and the few meagre

details ascertained as to the condition of his family will be found

in a subsequent division of this work. Tradition and imagination have

supplied untrustworthy materials, with which his biographers have

endeavoured to fill up the gap in our information; but it is not until

28th November 1582 that we find any further reliable fact established

concerning him. On that day his marriage bond is dated, he being in his

nineteenth year, and his bride, Anne Hathaway, in her twenty-sixth.

Their first child, Susanna, was baptized 26th May 1583. To account

for this young lady's premature arrival a pre-contract is assumed,

but not proved, by recent writers. On 2d February 1585 their twin

children, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized; and in 1587, in the spring,

Shakespeare gave his assent to a proposed settlement of a mortgage on

his mother's Asbies estate. For ten years after there is no vestige of

any communication with his family. It is at this point that his public

life begins.

In 1587 Leicester's players visited Stratford for the first time. The

company, under the same name, that had performed there in 1576 had as

well as Warwick's been dissolved in 1583, in order that the Queen's

men might be selected from them. In 1586, during the prevalence of

the plague in London, this more recent company had been travelling on

the Continent, and on their return to England made a provincial tour.

Shakespeare probably joined them during or immediately after their

visit to Stratford, and during their travels received his earliest

instruction in comic acting from Kempe and Pope, who soon after became

noted performers; Bryan also belonged to the company at this date.

They probably acted mere interludes, not regular five-act plays. On

4th September 1588 the Earl of Leicester died; and his players soon

after found a new patron in Lord Strange. They then settled in London,

and acted at the Cross Keys in Bishopsgate Street. The head of the

company, in its altered constitution, was "Famous Ned Allen," who on 3d

January 1588-9 bought up for £37, 10s. Richard Jones' share of "playing

apparels, play-books, instruments, &c.," in order to set up his new

company. These properties had belonged to Worcester's men under Robert

Brown, and were no longer needed by him, as he and his players were

about to visit the Continent.

It was in this way that Shakespeare came to London as a poor strolling

player, but nevertheless his position was not without its advantages;

he was associated already with the most noted comedians of the time,

Kempe and Pope; and in Alleyn he had the advantage of studying the

method of the greatest tragic actor that had yet trod the English

stage. But he did not remain content with merely acting; he now

commenced as author. In order to ascertain under what conditions,

it will be necessary to briefly state what was the position of the

companies and authors in London in 1589.

At that date there were two theatres in London: the better of the

two, the Theater, was occupied by the Queen's men, for whom Greene

was the principal play-writer. Marlowe, Kyd, and R. Wilson had

also contributed plays to their _repertoire_, but just at this time

left them and joined Pembroke's, which, like Leicester's, had been

a strolling company, but were now settling in London. On the other

hand, Peele and Lodge, who had previously written for the Admiral's

company, acting at the other theatre, the Curtain, had also joined,

and still remained with, the Queen's. Nearly all these writers, if

not quite all, were actors as well as authors. Greene, the Johannes

Factotum of the Queen's men, had evidently expected to establish a

monopoly of play-acting in their favour, and was indignant at the

arrival of vagrant troops of Thespians from the country, just when he

had practically succeeded in crippling the rival company in London, by

enlisting some of their best authors in the service of his own. Hence

on 23d August 1589 his publication of _Menaphon_, with Nash's address,

containing a virulent attack on Kyd and Marlowe, then writing for

Pembroke's men, together with a glorification of Peele, then writing

in conjunction with Greene. The absence of any allusion in this tract

to Shakespeare or Lord Strange's company conclusively proves that

they were not as yet dangerous rivals to the Queen's. Pembroke's men

were, and there is indirect evidence that they had from their first

settlement in London obtained possession of the second theatre, the

Curtain. This evidence is connected with the first direct mention which

is extant of Shakespeare's company. For in this same year, 1589, the

Martinist controversy had been raging in London; Lyly, Nash, Greene,

Monday, and Cooper were the anti-Martinist champions; the Martinists

had been ridiculed on the stage in April, probably by Greene at the

Theater, possibly by the Paul's children in some play of Lyly's, or

by the Earl of Oxford's boys in one of Monday's. The authorities did

not interfere. But in November certain players "within the city,"

to wit, Lord Strange's and the Admiral's, were silenced for "abuses

or indecent reflexions" (Strype). A comparison of the _worthies_ in

_Love's Labour's Lost_ with the anti-Martinist writers, of the Euphuist

Armado with Lyly, the boy-satirist Mote with Nash, the curate with the

Reverend Robert Greene, the schoolmaster-pedant with the pedagogue

Cooper, and Antony Dull with Antony Monday, will I think confirm the

theory developed by me in a separate essay, that this was the play

suppressed on this occasion. It is characteristic of the independence

of action shown by Shakespeare's company throughout the reign of

Elizabeth that they refused to obey the injunction, and went and

played at the Cross-Keys that same afternoon, while the subservient

Admiral's company dutifully submitted. I do not suppose, however,

that the play as then performed was in all parts from the hand of

Shakespeare. It is extremely unlikely that he should have commenced his

career by independent writing, and there is not a play of his that can

be referred even on the rashest conjecture to a date anterior to 1594,

which does not bear the plainest internal evidence to its having been

refashioned at a later time. In all probability he began to compose

plays, as we know so many of his contemporaries did, as an assistant

to some experienced dramatist. It may seem idle, in the absence of any

positive evidence, to guess who was his original tutor in composition,

and yet, as the careers of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe conclusively show

that none of them were in 1589 connected with Lord Strange's company,

I venture to suggest that it was Robert Wilson. That dramatist is not

heard of in connection with Pembroke's or any other company after

August 1589, and he certainly continued to write for the stage. That

Shakespeare was greatly influenced by him and Peele is evident from

the metrical character of Shakespeare's earliest work, which abounds

in heroic rhyme like Peele's in tragedy, and in doggerel and stanza

like Wilson's in comedy. It is not till the Historic plays that the

influence of Marlowe's blank verse is fully perceptible, and in the

earliest of these, _Richard II._, rhyme is still dominant. Wilson was

in this view a better teacher for the inexperienced Shakespeare than

a greater man. Marlowe, for instance, might have biassed him on the

tragic side, and deferred or prevented his comedy from its earlier

pastoral development. _Love's Labour's Won_ must have been written at

about the same time as _Love's Labour's Lost_, and before the end of

1590 _The Comedy of Errors_ probably appeared in its original form. In

this same year was produced a play in which, although I cannot detect

Shakespeare's hand as coadjutor with its probable author, R. Wilson,

he most likely appeared as an actor--_Fair Em_; and that this comedy

contained a satirical attack on Greene is evident from the offence he

took at it, as shown in his virulent address prefixed to his _Farewell

to Folly_. Up to this date Greene's chief attacks had been directed

against Kyd in _Menaphon_ and in _Never too late_, but as yet there has

been found no allusion to Shakespeare in his writings anterior to 1592.

Yet Shakespeare must have been known to him as at least part author of

the plays acted by Lord Strange's men in 1589 and 1590. Of _Romeo and

Juliet_, originally acted in 1591, we also possess a version anterior

to Shakespeare's final remodelling, which palpably contains scenes not

written by him. These scenes, however, seem due to a finer artist than

Kyd, and there is independent evidence that George Peele had by 1591

also become a playwright for Lord Strange's men. One of the plays acted

by them in this year was probably Peele's _Edward I._, here mentioned

on account of a curious allusion which would seem to fix the character

performed by Shakespeare. In scene 3 Elinor says to Baliol--

"_Shake_ [thou] thy _spear_ in honour of _his name_

Under whose royalty thou wear'st the same."

Shakespeare is known to have acted "kingly parts," and this of Edward

I. was probably one of them. To this same year may probably be assigned

the original production of _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.

The Court festivities of Christmas 1591-2 mark an important epoch

in the fortunes of Lord Strange's company, and consequently of

Shakespeare, now rapidly coming to the front as their chief writer.

During the period we have been considering, 1587-1591, the Queen's and

the Admiral's were the only men's companies who performed at Court, but

at Christmas 1591-2 the Admiral's did not act at all, and the Queen's,

after one performance, gave place to Lord Strange's, and until the

death of that nobleman in 1594, his players enjoyed almost a monopoly

of Court performances. One presentation by the Earl of Hertford's men,

of whom nothing else is recorded, one by the Earl of Sussex', and two

by the Earl of Pembroke's, are all that can be balanced with six by

Lord Strange's in 1591-2, and three in 1592-3. This pre-eminence at

Court was retained by the company under all its changes of constitution

far beyond Shakespeare's time, until the closing of the theatres in

1642. Possibly the influence of Lord Southampton, who had come to

town and entered at Gray's Inn in 1590, and was stepson to Sir Thomas

Heneage, the treasurer, may have had something to do with this. He does

not yet, however, appear to have come into direct communication with

Shakespeare.

Immediately after this first appearance at Court, Alleyn arranged with

Henslow, his father-in-law, to give his company a local habitation in

a permanent theatre. This was of no small importance to them; they had

hitherto had to play in the inn-yard at the Cross-Keys. Henslow's new

theatre was the Rose on the Bankside, which opened in February 1591-2.

The singular fact that every old play (_i.e._, every play that had been

previously performed) there acted in this season had been with one

possible exception derived from the Queen's players, shows that the

hitherto most successful company were reduced to sell their copies, and

were probably on the verge of bankruptcy. Among these we find Greene's

_Orlando_ and _Friar Bacon_, Greene and Lodge's _Looking-glass for

London_, Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_, and Kyd's two plays of _Jeronymo_.

The only play traceable to another company is Peele's _Battle of

Alcazar_, called by Henslow _Mulomorco_. In fact, the Queen's company

were now practically without a play-writer. Of their formerly numerous

staff Marlowe was writing for Pembroke's men, Kyd and Peele for Lord

Strange's, Lodge was abroad, Wilson had left them, and Greene had

also quitted them for the Earl of Sussex'. Besides the plays above

enumerated, Lord Strange's players acted a dozen others of which only

the titles are known, and produced as new plays the following:--On

March 3, _Henry VI._ (a re-fashioning by Shakespeare of an old Queen's

play, into which he introduced the Talbot scenes, celebrated by Nash,

which drew such crowded audiences); on April 11, _Titus and Vespasian_

(a version of the Andronicus story extant in a German translation, and

probably written by Kyd); on April 28, the second part of _Tamburlane_

(not extant); on June 10, _A Merry Knack to Know a Knave_ (probably

by Peele and Wilson); and after an interval, during which the theatres

were closed on account of the plague, on 5th January 1592-3, _The

Jealous Comedy_ (probably _The Merry Wives of Windsor_); and finally,

January 30, _The Guise_ (Marlowe's _Massacre of Paris_).

I have brought together this enumeration of the new plays of Strange's

men that the reader may better appreciate the often quoted but sadly

misunderstood address by Greene to his fellow-dramatists in his

_Groatsworth of Wit_, not published till September after its author's

death, but manifestly written and probably circulated in manuscript

in the early months of 1592. Its aim is directed against a company

of players, "burs, puppets, antics, apes, grooms, painted monsters,

peasants," among whom is "an upstart crow, a Johannes Factotum, a

Shakescene," who supposes he can bombast out a blank verse. This is

palpably directed against Shakespeare and Lord Strange's players, for

whom he was then writing and with whom he was then acting. But Greene

also says that they had all been beholding to him and to his fellow

writers whom he addresses; that is, to Marlowe, Peele, "young Juvenal"

(Lodge), and two more (Kyd and Wilson) "that both have writ," whom he

might "insert against these buckram gentlemen." This can only apply

to the Queen's players, for which company alone Greene had written up

to 1591, having supplied them with a play every quarter and purveyed

more plays for them than the other four (Marlowe, Peele, Kyd, and

Lodge), as Nash tells us in his _Piers Penniless_. There must then

have been an amalgamation of the better portions of the two companies,

the Queen's and Lord Strange's, just before the opening of the Rose

Theatre, a conclusion confirmed by the fact that the Queen's plays had

passed into the hands of the other company, and, as will be seen when

I treat of the Henry VI. plays, deduced by me on other and independent

grounds. This attack of Greene's was, I think, answered by Shakespeare

in his _Midsummer Night's Dream_, produced in its first form c. June

1592. Bottom and his scratch company have long been recognised as a

personal satire, and the following marks would seem to indicate that

Greene and the Sussex' company were the butts at which it was aimed.

Bottom is a Johannes Factotum who expects a pension for his playing;

his comrades are unlettered rustics who once obtain an audience at

Theseus' court. The Earl of Sussex' men were so inferior a company

that they acted at Court but once, viz., in January 1591-2, and the

only new play which can be traced to them at this date is _George a

Greene_, in which Greene acted the part of the Pinner himself. This

only shows that the circumstances of the fictitious and real events

are not discrepant; but when we find Bottom saying that he will get

a ballad written on his adventure, and "it shall be called Bottom's

Dream, because it hath no bottom" (iv. i. 212) and that peradventure

he shall "sing it at her (?) death," we surely may infer an allusion

to Greene's _Maiden's Dream_ (S. R. 6th December 1591), apparently so

called because it hath no maiden in it, and sung at the death of Sir

Christopher Hatton. This play of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was produced

after the closing of the theatres, c. 12th June 1592, on account of

the plague; it and the _Jealous Comedy_, produced 5th January 1592-3,

when the theatres reopened for that month only, were almost the last

in which Shakespeare worked as a journeyman or with a coadjutor. When

he revived these earlier plays for the Chamberlain's men he carefully

replaced in almost every instance the work of his quondam companions

by other and certainly not weaker lines of his own. Some of his own

work of this date, apparently left unfinished on account of the sudden

closure of the playhouses, he appears to have taken up and completed

in his 1601-2 plays. But no doubt the greater part of this autumn was

occupied in writing _Venus and Adonis_, dedicated to Lord Southampton

(S. R. 18th April 1593) as "the first heir of his invention," a product

of "idle hours:" idle because during the plague no new plays were

required of him, nor even rehearsals; the players travelled and acted

old plays only. In these circuits a whole company did not usually

journey together; it was more profitable to separate into parties of

half-a-dozen, and of course to cut down their plays so as to be capable

of representation by this small body of actors. One part of Lord

Strange's men, consisting of Alleyn, Pope, Bryan, Hemings, Phillips,

and Kempe, so travelled in 1593; but no document has been preserved

respecting the remainder of the company, which included probably

Burbadge, Sly, Condell, Holland, Cowley, and Shakespeare. It appears

from Alleyn's correspondence that Cowley was the bearer of a letter

to him from London to Bristol; that his section of the company had

been at Chelmsford in May, were at Bristol in August, and afterwards

visited Shrewsbury, Chester, and York. Meanwhile, on June 1, Marlowe

had been killed in a brawl, and his version of the Andronicus story

was acted by Sussex' men at the Rose, 23d January 1594. From their

hands this play passed to Pembroke's men c. 8th February, when Sussex'

company broke up and went into the country, and from them to the Earl

of Derby's before 16th April. But this company of Derby's was no other

than Lord Strange's. After Henry Earl of Derby died, 25th September

1593, Ferdinand, his son, who succeeded him, and who had previously

borne the title of Lord Strange, was called either Strange or Derby

indifferently, he having no son to whom the title of Lord Strange could

be, in accordance with custom, assigned in courtesy, although by strict

right this title appertained to the Earls of Derby and not to their

sons. Along with this Andronicus play the following can be traced as

passing from Pembroke's company to Lord Strange's at this date: _The

Taming of a Shrew_, _Edward III._, _Hamlet_, _3 Henry VI._; and besides

this transfer of playbooks there was also a partial transfer of the

company itself. Beeston, Cooke, Sinkler, Holland, and others were among

these new members. The cause of this arrangement was no doubt poverty;

already on 28th September 1593 they could not "save their charges to

travel, and were fain to pawn their apparel." So writes Henslowe to

Alleyn.

I must now recur to 1593. Immediately after Christmas the theatres

reopened; but at the Rose the Earl of Sussex' men acted instead of

Lord Strange's, who played about the city, at the Cross-Keys for

example. When Sussex' men broke up, on the 8th April, the Rose remained

empty except for three days, 14-16th May, when the Admiral's company

acted there, no doubt under Alleyn, who was servant to the Admiral

as well as to Lord Strange. The Admiral, however, had himself laid a

restraint on the Rose theatre (probably c. 8th April), and ordered

that Lord Strange's players should play "three days" (_i.e._, three

days a week) at Newington Butts. This was petitioned against by the

watermen, whose calling was greatly in request when the Rose was

open, and by Lord Strange's players themselves. No redress appears to

have been granted during the life of Lord Strange, who died on 16th

April, but when the company had found a new patron in Lord Hunsdon the

Chamberlain, and had submitted to the order by playing on alternate

days with the Admiral's at Newington Butts, then the restraint on the

Rose was removed. The Chamberlain's players, however, did not act

there, but under Shakespeare and Burbadge reopened the old Theater,

while Alleyn left them and acted with the Admiral's at the Rose.

Before passing to notice the poems written by Shakespeare during this

period of "travelling," I may note that these plays acquired from

Pembroke's men appear to have been written by Marlowe or Kyd. _Edward

III._, by Marlowe, was, with alterations by Shakespeare, acted about

the city in 1594. _Titus Andronicus_ and _3 Henry VI._ were also acted

by the Chamberlain's company; but they show no evidence of extensive

alterations at Shakespeare's hand; he probably merely corrected them.

Another play of this date, _Richard III._, bears strong internal

evidence of Marlowe's craftmanship, but was no doubt completed and

partly rewritten by Shakespeare. The Kyd plays, on the other hand,

were not utilised in this way. New plays on the same plots as the old

_Hamlet_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_ were afterwards produced by the

Chamberlain's men--_Hamlet_ by Shakespeare, _The Taming of the Shrew_

by Lodge (most likely), but greatly altered by Shakespeare some years

after. Another play performed by Derby's men contemporaneously with

these was _The Seven Deadly Sins_. This play had not been derived from

Pembroke's men, but from the Queen's, for whom Tarleton had originally

plotted it. The plot as acted in 1594 still exists, and is especially

valuable as showing the composition of Lord Strange's company at that

date. Shakespeare, however, took no part in it. The large number

of performers singularly agrees with the statement in the players'

petition above alluded to that "our company is great." There was also

a play _Locrine_, published S. R. 20th July 1594, as revised by W. S.,

which has been interpreted William Shakespeare. I do not think he could

in any way have been concerned in this revival of Peele and Tilney's

stilted performance, and suspect that W. S. means William Sly; nor

do I think that any other play of Shakespeare's, save those already

mentioned, can be assigned to a date anterior to the formation of the

Chamberlain's company except _Troylus and Cressida_ in its original

form, which was probably acted c. 1593. In fact, Shakespeare was from

the breaking out of the plague in 1592 until the settlement of his

reconstituted company in 1594 chiefly occupied, not with plays, but

with poems. His _Venus and Adonis_ has already been noticed, and on

9th May 1594 his _Rape of Lucrece_ was published. In the Dedication to

Lord Southampton, Shakespeare speaks of "the warrant I have of your

honourable disposition:" in what especial way Southampton had shown

his favour to Shakespeare has been the subject of many conjectures.

My own opinion is that he had introduced him as representative of his

fellow-actors to Lord Hunsdon, and procured them their new patron;

but in a scandalous book called _Willobie his Avisa_, published 3d

September 1594, the version of the connection between the nobleman

and the "old player" is that W. S. had parted with a mistress to H. W.

and been rewarded accordingly; and it would be useless to deny that

the _Sonnets_ written between 1594 and 1598 distinctly allude to some

circumstance of this kind. The _Avisa_ book was, however, suppressed or

"called in" on 4th June 1599, as a libellous production.

This year may be regarded as the turning-point in Shakespeare's

public career. Until the establishment of the Chamberlain's company,

he had been an actor gradually rising in the esteem of his fellows,

but often obliged to travel and to act about town in inn-yards, and

his play-writing had been confined to vamping old plays by other men,

or at best to assisting such writers as Wilson or Peele in producing

new ones. He had served, as it were, a seven years' apprenticeship.

But henceforward he takes his place as one of the chief actors in the

principal company in London, acting in a licensed theatre; he is also,

with occasional assistance, the sole purveyor of plays to this company,

and he is the acknowledged writer of the most popular love poems of

his time. For it is to the author of _Lucrece_ and _Adonis_ that his

contemporaries assign their praises far more than to the writer of

_Lear_ or _Hamlet_. Poems were in their opinion fit work for a prince;

but plays were only congruous with strolling vagabondism. It is just

at this turning-point that the first nominal mention of Shakespeare is

found as acting before the Court at Greenwich on December 26 and 28,

along with Kempe and Burbadge.

The performance on 26th December was on the same day that Shakespeare

and his company had acted _The Comedy of Errors_ at Gray's Inn--the

earliest of his plays in their present form, but founded on a previous

version, in which another pen was concerned.

On 26th January 1594-5, _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was, I conjecture,

acted at Greenwich at the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby,

and afterwards on the public stage; it was evidently written for a

marriage, but, like the preceding play, had been altered for this

special occasion. Its original production was probably in 1592, at

the marriage of Robert Carey, afterwards Earl of Monmouth. In both

instances the bridegrooms were close connections of the patrons of the

actors; W. Stanley being brother to Ferdinand, Lord Strange, and Robert

Carey son to Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Chamberlain. Another 1595 play

was _Richard II._, evidently an imitation of Marlowe's _Edward II._

Marlowe was Shakespeare's first model in Historical Plays, as Kyd was

in Tragedy and Lyly in Comedy, but he followed Marlowe much more

closely than either of the other two. If any other author contributed

plays to the Chamberlain's company this year it must have been

Lodge, to whom _Mucedorus_ and _A Larum for London_ may probably be

attributed. At Christmas they acted five plays at Court.

In 1596, there is little doubt that Shakespeare produced his _King

John_, founded on two old plays on the same subject which were written

for the Queen's men in 1589 by Peele, Marlowe, and Lodge. Their plot

has been very closely followed by Shakespeare and a few lines borrowed.

At some time between 23d July 1596 and 5th March 1597 he also revived

_Romeo and Juliet_, at the Theater; this new version was founded on

the old play of 1591, in which Shakespeare was only part writer. Of

plays by other authors only one can be traced to his company in this

year, namely, _Sir Thomas More_ (? by Drayton and Lodge). This play

was severely handled by the Master of the Revels for its allusions

to contemporary events, and the alterations made by him afford

instructive study to dramatic critics. On August 5, immediately after

the appearance of _Romeo and Juliet_, a ballad on the story was entered

S. R., and on August 27, T. Millington was fined for printing ballads

on _The Taming of a Shrew_ and _Macbeth_. This indicates the existence

of a Macbeth play at this time, but probably, like the older _Hamlet_

and _Lear_, one in whose production Shakespeare had no share. Kempe

mentions the Macbeth ballad as the first production of its author in

his _Nine Days' Wonder_. In February this same year James Burbadge

bought the property in Blackfriars, on which he began in November to

build the Blackfriars Theatre, wherein in 1597, after some opposition,

he succeeded in establishing the Chapel children under Evans. The

Chamberlain's company did not act at this theatre in Shakespeare's

time. There were six Court performances at Christmas 1596-7.

It is necessary now to recur to Shakespeare's private life. On 5th

August 1596 his son Hamnet died, and he unquestionably visited

Stratford and renewed relations with his family at this time. John

Shakespeare having applied to the Heralds' College for a grant of

arms, obtained this concession in October, and in the Easter term

1597 William Shakespeare purchased the property called New Place in

Stratford. In November 1597 the Asbies business was revived in a

Chancery suit brought by Shakespeare's parents against John Lambert,

son of Edmond. In the bill of complaint the Shakespeares describe

themselves as "of small wealth, and very few friends;" but it is clear

that their wealth must have had a recent accession, or they would not

now have renewed a dispute which, on their own statement, had lain in

abeyance since 1580. All these proceedings alike, the acquisition of a

residence in Stratford, the obtaining a grant of arms, the endeavour to

establish old claims to family property, point to Shakespeare's desire,

now that he had succeeded in London and made money, to settle in

Stratford as a country gentleman, and found a family. He may have hoped

for the birth of another son, his wife being in 1596 still under forty

years of age. But the inferences usually drawn from the incidents of

this time, that Shakespeare had constantly held communication with his

family, whom he had supported during his theatrical career in London,

and that he was, on this occasion, largely indebted to the bounty of

Lord Southampton, are mere fancies. The natural interpretation of such

records as have reached us is that it was not till touched by the hand

of the great reconciler Death, in the person of the expected heir to

his new-founded fortunes, that he ever visited his family at all during

the nine years since he left them to carve his own way as a strolling

player. If conjecture is to be allowed at all, I would rather suggest

that his family were offended at his choice of an occupation, and that

it was not till he had made a marked success that they were reconciled

to him.

Returning to Shakespeare's public career--on 5th March 1597 George

Carey, Lord Hunsdon, was created Chamberlain, and his players resumed

the title of "The Lord Chamberlain's." Early in this year was almost

certainly produced _The Merchant of Venice_, founded on an old play of

Dekker's called _Joseph the Jew of Venice_, written c. 1592, and acted

in 1594 by the Admiral's men, but not now extant. In the same year

was performed _1 Henry IV._ The comic powers of Shakespeare appear in

these plays in their highest development in Shylock and Falstaff, and

endeavours have been made by several (myself included) to mark this as

the beginning of a new period in his manner of work. In such attempts,

however, it is necessary to assign specific single dates to each play,

and consequently to neglect the proved fact of frequent alterations of

considerable extent having been made at revivals. I think it better to

regard as Shakespeare's first period the time anterior to the formation

of the Chamberlain's company, 1587-93, during which he was employed

only as "journeyman or coadjutor," and not to separate the series of

Comedies and Histories which were produced in their perfected forms

from 1594 to 1602. It may, however, be noted that at this time, 1597,

he had entirely discarded the doggerel couplets and the excessive

use of rhyme that mark his early work, and that this fact is useful

in analysing plays which, though produced later in the form in which

they have reached us, were founded on earlier versions in which he

was probably only a part writer. Another play acted by Shakespeare's

company this year was Drayton's _Merry Devil of Edmonton_. In this,

as well as in _Henry IV._, Sir John Oldcastle was originally one

of the characters. This name was adopted from the old Queen's play

of _The Famous Victories of Henry V._, from which the main plot of

Shakespeare's Henry V. series was taken, and certainly was not intended

to give offence to the Cobhams, his descendants. They took offence,

however, and the name was altered to that of Sir John Falstaff, taken

from another Queen's play, _1 Henry VI._, which I have already noticed,

and which, with the addition of the scene of the Temple Garden, was

acted by the Chamberlain's company.

Between August and October, the Theater having become ruinous, and

litigation between James Burbadge, its lessee, and Giles Alleyn, the

ground landlord, being imminent, the Chamberlain's company removed to

the Curtain. The Earl of Pembroke's company, who have for controversial

purposes been unjustifiably confused with the Chamberlain's, in August

acted as strollers at Rye, in September at Dover, and on their return

to London amalgamated with the Admiral's, and acted at the Rose. Among

the plays acted by Shakespeare's company at the Curtain was _Romeo and

Juliet_, as appears from a singular allusion in Marston's _Satires_,

which also serves to show that this play then, as now, was one of the

most popular of his productions. But his popularity is shown in another

way this year. Coincidently with the removal to the Curtain, we find

the first appearance of authorised publication of his plays, _Richard

II._ having been entered S. R. on 29th August, and _Richard III._ on

20th October. The _Romeo and Juliet_ printed this year was neither

entered nor authorised. On 26th December _Love's Labour's Lost_ was

acted at Court, being one of four plays provided for the Christmas

festivities by this company. It was probably specially commanded, and

the alterations from the 1589 version, which were very hurriedly done,

were almost certainly made on this occasion.

On 25th February 1598, the first part of _Henry IV._ was printed, and

the second part was acted soon after. The popularity of these plays

caused a re-issue in this year of the old Queen's play of _The Famous

Victories of Henry V._, brought out in order that the purchaser might

imagine he was procuring a copy of Shakespeare's plays. The genuine

_Henry IV._, for this and reasons alluded to above connected with

the elimination of Oldcastle's name, was published earlier after its

production on the stage than usual. For the same reason this alteration

was expressly alluded to in the Epilogue to _2 Henry IV._, "Oldcastle

is not the man." In this same year _Much Ado about Nothing_ (probably

a recast of _Love's Labour's Won_) was performed. On 7th September was

entered S. R., Meres' _Wit's Treasury_, which contains, among many

encomiums of Shakespeare, a list of twelve of his plays. This tract

was demonstrably not written till June, and the plays are manifestly

those that had been produced by Shakespeare during the existence of

the Chamberlain's company. These are: _Gentlemen of Verona_ (1595),

_Errors_ (1594), _Love's Labour's Lost_ (1597), _Love's Labour's Won_

(1598), _Midsummer Night's Dream_ (1595), and _Merchant of Venice_

(1597); _Richard II._ (1595), _Richard III._ (1594), _Henry IV._

(1597), _King John_ (1596), _Titus Andronicus_ (1594), and _Romeo

and Juliet_ (1596). Plays produced before or in 1594 that had not

been recast after that year are not mentioned; for instance, _1

Henry VI._ (1592), _Troylus and Cressida_ (1593), _The Merry Wives

of Windsor_ (1592), and _Edward III._ (1594). This list is of the

highest value, when rightly understood, in determining the order of

production of the plays. Another event, important to the welfare of

the Chamberlain's company, was the introduction of Ben Jonson as a

play-writer for their stage. This took place in September, and there

is no reason for doubting the tradition that he was introduced to them

by Shakespeare, who acted in _Every Man in his Humour_, as it was

published in the Quarto, before the end of the year. The fact that

the Chamberlain's men acted three plays at Court during the Christmas

festivities, closes the theatrical record for 1598, but one or two

other details remain to be noticed. The establishment of peace on May

2 by the treaty of Vervins, compared with _Sonnet 107_, "olives of

endless age," fixes the conclusion of these effusions as about this

time, and Southampton's marriage at the end of the year precluded the

need of their continuance. They probably were finished before Meres'

mention of them in _Wit's Treasury_ (written c. July) as Shakespeare's

"sugared sonnets among his private friends." Little details of evidence

are also extant, showing that since his purchase of New Place,

Shakespeare's residence was partly in the country. On 4th February

he appears as third largest owner of corn in his ward at Stratford,

and in October we find him procuring a loan of £30 in London, for his

friend and countryman Richard Quiney. His London residence at this

time was in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate; but still earlier than this, on

24th January, he was in negotiation about the purchase of some thirty

acres of land at Shottery, and Abraham Sturley wrote from Stratford

to his brother-in-law, the same Richard Quiney, urging him to suggest

to Shakespeare the purchase of the corporation tithe-lease; it "would

advance him indeed, and would do us much good," says Sturley.

In January 1598-9 James Burbadge brought his dispute with Giles Alleyn

about the Theater to a practical conclusion by removing the materials

of that structure from Shoreditch to the Bankside, and erecting the

Globe with them. This "round" was opened in the spring, and in it all

the plays of Shakespeare not hitherto noticed were originally produced.

Before quitting the Curtain, however, _A Warning for Fair Women_ was

there acted by the Chamberlain's men. This was in my opinion Lodge's

last play. Another play of the same date was Shakespeare's _Henry

V._, reproduced, with additions and alterations, at the Globe in the

autumn of the same year. Other Globe plays of this year were _As You

Like It_, and Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_. This latter

was the first of his comical satires, in which he introduces on the

stage Marston, Dekker, Monday, the Globe players, &c. Only this one

was acted by Shakespeare's company, and it is specially remarkable

that Shakespeare did not take a part in it, although he had acted in

_Every Man in his Humour_ in 1598. It is pretty clear that he disliked

Jonson's personalities, and it is certain that Jonson had to remove

them from the Globe Theatre to the Blackfriars, where the Children of

the Revels acted under Evans _The Case is Altered_ (1599), _Cynthia's

Revels_ (1600), and _The Poetaster_ (1601). Chapman supported Johnson

with _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (1601). The Paul's Children retaliated with

Marston's _Jack Drum's Entertainment_ (1600), and _Antonio and Mellida_

(1600); the Admiral's at the Rose with Marston's _Histriomastix_, and

_Patient Grissel_ by Dekker, Haughton, and Chettle (December 1599); and

the Chamberlain's with Dekker's _Satiromastix_ (1601). All these plays,

and the list is not exhaustive, are filled with personal allusions.

The quarrel was known as the "War of the theatres." The prevalent

dislike to regard Shakespeare as less than angelic has prevented due

attention being given to the direct statement in _The Return from

Parnassus_ (acted 1602-3) that he had put down all the playwrights

of the University press and administered a purge to Jonson in return

for the emetic which he administers to Marston in _The Poetaster_.

Shakespeare certainly did take part in this controversy, and it is in

the plays dating 1599-1602 that we must look for his contributions to

it. One thing, however, is certain, that he did not act as a violent

partisan. If he purged Jonson he did not spare Dekker, who had written

for his own company in this quarrel; "when rank Thersites opes his

Mastick jaws" (_Troylus_, i. 3) identifies him clearly enough. In

fact, when the Globe company wanted a thorough party advocate in this

matter it was not to Shakespeare that they applied. They took the

very unusual course of hiring a poet from a rival company, and hence

Dekker's _Satiromastix_ was written for them. I venture to add that

this would not have been allowed by Shakespeare had he been in London

at the time, and that it had to be transferred to the sole use of the

Paul's children, probably at his instance. Recurring to _Every Man

out of his Humour_, the beginning of all this strife, a comparison of

the actor list with that of Jonson's preceding play shows that Kempe,

Beeston, and others had left the Chamberlain's company on the opening

of the Globe. They no doubt remained at the Curtain, where a company

called Lord Derby's soon began to act. This secession did not injure

the Globe men, who became very popular. In October, for instance, we

hear of Lord Southampton going to plays every day, of course at his

old player _protégé's_ house. But that some serious quarrel had taken

place is, I think, evident from the exclusion of so important a name

as Beeston's from the list of chief actors in the first Folio edition

of Shakespeare. Duke, Pallant, &c., who seceded at the same time with

Beeston, are equally excluded, so that the omission is not accidental.

In this year a perfect edition of _Romeo and Juliet_ was published,

probably on leaving the Curtain; and _The Passionate Pilgrim_ was

impudently issued by W. Jaggard as by William Shakespeare. Beyond two

sonnets and a few lines from _Love's Labour's Lost_, published in 1598,

there is nothing in this book that can be shown to be Shakespeare's,

but much that cannot. Somewhere about this date an unsuccessful

application was made to impale the arms of Shakespeare with those of

Arden. The Chamberlain's men performed three plays at Court during

the Christmas festivities, viz.: on 26th December, probably _As You

Like It_; 5th January, probably _Henry V._; and another play on 4th

February. I think this was the occasion for which _The Merry Wives

of Windsor_ was written, or rather rewritten on the foundation of

_The Jealous Comedy_ of 1592. The Queen, whose admiration for the

character of Falstaff is well known, was sorely disappointed that

Shakespeare had not fulfilled his promise made in the Epilogue to _2

Henry IV._, that he would again introduce him on the stage; and there

is no reason to doubt the tradition that, wishing to see him under new

conditions, she ordered Shakespeare to represent him in love, which

order he obeyed by writing _The Merry Wives_ within a fortnight. The

dates all suit this hypothesis, and in any case there can be no doubt

that this comedy stands apart from the Henry V. histories, and was

last in point of time. Another play of this year was _Julius Cæsar_.

There is no evidence of any other writer than Shakespeare for the

company this year, in which the _2_ and _3 Henry VI._ (alluded to as

recast in Jonson's Prologue to his revised version of _Every Man in

his Humour_, acted by the Chapel children early in 1601) were revised

and partly rewritten by him. As usual in such cases, the old abridged

acting copies of the plays in their earlier shape were reprinted.

But there is more interesting matter connected with the publishers

in the 1600 entries. On August 4, _As You Like It, enry V._, _Much

Ado about Nothing_, and _Every Man in his Humour_, all Chamberlain's

plays, were ordered to be "stayed;" they were probably suspected of

being libellous, and reserved for further examination. Since the "war

of the theatres" was at its height, they may have been restrained as

not having obtained the consent of the Chamberlain, on behalf of his

company, to their publication. Subsequently, _Every Man in his Humour_

was licensed on 14th August, but not printed till 1601. _Much Ado_ was

also licensed 23d August, and printed; _As You Like It_ was not allowed

to appear, the company probably objecting that it had only been on the

stage for one year, but _Henry V._ was printed surreptitiously by T.

Millington and T. Busby before 14th August, on which date it appears

in S. R. as the property of T. Pavier, who reprinted it in 1602. The

peculiarity of this Quarto issue is, that it contains no matter which

does not also appear in the complete Folio version, whereas, in the

somewhat similar cases of _Romeo and Juliet_, _The Merry Wives_, and

_Hamlet_, there is in every instance some portion of the Quarto which

is palpably by another hand. This agrees with my view that these

three plays, as in the Folio, were founded on earlier plays, in which

Shakespeare was at most a coadjutor, while the Folio _Henry V._ is

a revision of his own play, produced not long before. Another entry

in S. R. is interesting. On October 28, _The Merchant of Venice_ was

entered to T. Hayes, with Pavier's consent; Roberts had already entered

it 22d July 1598, but it had not been allowed to appear, probably

because, like those mentioned above, it had then been only one year on

the stage. On October 8, _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was also entered.

Of the editions of these two plays published in this year information

will be found in another part of this book. On 11th August the two

plays on _Sir John Oldcastle_, of which only one has reached us, were

entered. They had been acted in 1599 at the Rose by the Admiral's men,

and were directed against the presumed scandal thrown on the "martyr"

in Shakespeare's Henry V. series. It should be especially noted that

the principal author of these plays was Drayton, formerly fellow-worker

with Shakespeare for the Chamberlain's men, and introducer of _Sir John

Oldcastle_ as a profligate parson in _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_. Of

Shakespeare's personal movements during this year we merely know that

he was in London in April recovering a debt of £7 of one Clayton, and

no doubt acting in the three plays performed at Court in the winter.

In March 1601 the Chamberlain's company were in disgrace for having

publicly acted "the outdated play of _Richard II._," no doubt inclusive

of the deposition scene (which had been omitted in the published

copies, under the censorship of the Master of the Revels), for the

entertainment of the Essex conspirators. They consequently "travelled,"

having previously produced Shakespeare's _All's Well that Ends Well_,

a considerable portion of which is of much earlier date (c. 1592), but

which, in the Parolles scenes, has distinct allusion to Marston's _Jack

Drum's Entertainment_ of the preceding year, and to the "war of the

theatres," not yet concluded. They also acted the play of _Cromwell_,

Earl of Essex, by W. S., in which the parallel between the careers

of Cromwell and the lately executed Earl is strongly brought out. I

believe W. S. to have been William Sly, the well-known actor of the

Chamberlain's company. In their travels this year the company visited

the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where they performed _Julius

Cæsar_ and _Hamlet_. The version of this last play so acted was not

the old play by Kyd, but one hurriedly remodelled by Shakespeare,

which we possess in an imperfect form in the first Quarto. Among the

Shakespearian additions occur passages alluding to the theatrical war

and the popularity of the Chapel Children, to which the travelling

of the company is attributed. This proves that Shakespeare was one

of the strolling detachment. Jonson seized on this defence in his

_Poetaster_, and represented that the travelling was due to the

inefficiency of their play-writers, and makes Tucca tell Histrio,

the Globe player, that if they will employ Marston, who "pens high

lofty in a new stalking strain," they "shall not need to travel with

thy pumps full of gravel after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk

upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked trumpet." The travels,

however, were not confined to England. In October they had reached

Aberdeen, where they received the title of "the King's Servants," and

Laurence Fletcher, their manager, was admitted burgess of guild of

the borough. In all probability a version of the old _Macbeth_ play

was produced before King James--such a version as that of _Hamlet_

acted at the Universities. Its plot would fit more aptly with the

circumstances of the Gowry conspiracy of 1600 than that of _Richard

II._ would with Essex, and anything more pleasing to the King and

people of Scotland could not have been selected. During the absence of

this strolling detachment Jonson's _Poetaster_ was produced, containing

a vigorous attack on the Globe company; and they, in Shakespeare's

absence, hired Dekker to reply in his _Satiromastix_, which, with the

aid of the Paul's children, they represented in the public theatre

of the Globe, and in the private convocation-room of Paul's. During

this same absence, on 8th September Shakespeare's father was buried

at Stratford. He apparently died intestate. After the return from

Scotland, the appearance of Shakespeare's name, as fellow-contributor

to Chester's _Love's Martyr_ with Jonson, Marston, and Chapman, marks

the conclusion of the theatrical quarrel, and the reconciliation of

all the principal combatants, except Dekker. But although this book

bears the date 1601, it could not, I think, have been issued earlier

than March 1601-2, after the production of _Twelfth Night_ on February

2 at the Middle Temple. Such presentations as this at Inns of Court

were usually of new plays; and there is in this play fairly conclusive

internal evidence that the theatrical quarrel was not over when it was

acted. With regard to Shakespeare's other play of this year, _Troylus

and Cressida_, it was as clearly produced after the reconciliation. The

entry in S. R., "as it _is_ acted by the Lord Chamberlain's men," is

absolutely conclusive that it was still on the stage on 1st February

1602-3, and was therefore produced, in all probability, in the later

half of 1602. In this play the Prologue, the love story of Troylus, and

all the scenes after v. 4, are taken from the old play of c. 1593,

in which Shakespeare only wrote as a coadjutor. The Prologue and the

later scenes--v. 5-10--are manifestly by the second pen in the main,

and printed by mistake, the end of the revised version being shown

by the repetition of the lines "Why, but hear you," &c., at the end

of v. 3. That the 1602 version of the play was intended to refer to

the theatrical quarrel of 1599-1602 is clear from the line "_Rank_

Thersites with his _mastick_ tooth," who is evidently Dekker, of whom

Jonson says in the _Poetaster_ (iii. 1), "He has one of the most

overflowing _rank_ wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes

if he disgust him." Dekker had produced the _Satiro_MASTIX shortly

before _Troylus_ was acted; and it has been noted that he was not one

of the contributors to Chester's _Martyr_. I believe the Troylus play

to have been the one in which Shakespeare put down all the University

men, and purged Ben Jonson's pride, as we learn that he did from the

University play of _The Return from Parnassus_, acted in January

1602-3; the character of Ajax, "_Slow_ as the elephant, into whom

nature hath so crowded _humours_," &c. (i. 2), hits off Jonson exactly,

and is a good-humoured reply to Jonson's self-estimate as Crites in

_Cynthia's Revels_ (ii. 1), "A creature of a most divine temper, one

in whom the elements and _humours_ are peaceably met," &c.

In May 1602 Gilbert Shakespeare (his brother being probably in London)

concluded the purchase on his behalf of 107 acres of land in Old

Stratford, bought of the Coombes for £320, and on 28th September

Walter Getley transferred to him (not in person), at a Court Baron

of the Manor of Rowington, a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane. The

lady of the manor retained possession until personal completion of

the purchase. The Chamberlain's company were re-admitted to act at

Court in the winter, not having performed there in 1601-2, probably

on account of the _Richard II._ affair. They acted, however, only two

plays. In the following March, 1603, Shakespeare remodelled _The Taming

of the Shrew_ by the rewriting of the Katherine and Petruchio scene.

The play before he altered it was one written, I think, by Lodge about

1596, and founded on the old Kyd play of 1589 acted by Pembroke's

men. On March 29 Queen Elizabeth died, and whether it be due to the

different requirements of the new Court, or to a natural development

of Shakespeare's mind, there can be no doubt that a marked change of

style and method took place at this epoch in his work. It should not be

forgotten that the primary object for which theatres were established

was that stage-players "might be the better enabled and prepared to

show such plays to her [or his] Majesty as they shall be required," and

that the "honest recreation" of the citizens was a secondary matter.

For proof of this see the Privy Council documents quoted by Collier in

his _Annals_, _passim_, and specially in i. 309. Hence the succession

of a new sovereign had greater influence on the tone of the drama than

we can well realise. In Shakespeare's case it inaugurated a period in

which Tragedy was predominant in place of Comedy and History. All his

greatest tragedies were produced during the next four years 1603-6.

Before quitting the reign of Elizabeth, I call attention to the

significant fact that the Chamberlain's company performed at Court

before the accession of James exactly twenty-eight plays, and that the

number of Shakespeare's plays known to have been produced during the

same period by that company is twenty, and of other men's eight. I do

not press this exact agreement as showing absolute identity between the

two lists; one or two of the Court plays may have been merely revivals,

one or two of the stage plays may not have been brought before her

Majesty at all, but I think the following inferences justifiable. The

Queen, evidently as a general rule, only allowed new plays, or plays

so largely reconstructed as to be reckoned as new, to be presented

to her. So far as the Chamberlain's company were concerned, these

plays consisted on an average of two of Shakespeare's and one of

another author's--these numbers, however, being rather exceeded in the

earlier years, and diminished in the later. Shakespeare consequently

was to this company in the same position as Greene to the Queen's

men before his time, purveying to their use "more than four other,"

which explains his rapid advance in popularity and accumulation of

property. And finally, the number of plays supposed to have been lost

has been grossly exaggerated by modern critics, who have based their

calculations on the Diary of Henslowe, whose policy was quantity rather

than quality, and who was continually deceived by his hack-writers

presenting to his illiterate ignorance old plays new vamped as if they

were completely new.

In 1603 the plague raged in London. In March before the Queen's death,

the theatres were closed, and in the license of May 19, which adopted

the Chamberlain's men as the King's Servants (a title already conferred

on them in Scotland in 1601), a special clause was inserted allowing

them to act "when the infection of the plague shall decrease." The

infection did not decrease, yet the theatres were reopened, but

probably only for a few days. Doubtless the authorities closed them

on account of the continuance of the sickness. The plays acted at

this reopening were probably _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, by

George Wilkins, a new author, which was founded on contemporaneous

events in Yorkshire, and certainly the perfected _Hamlet_ as we now

have it in the Folio. The older version, which had been entered S. R.

on 26th July 1602, was now published, having probably been "stayed,"

as was frequently the case with plays printed by J. Roberts (for

example _The Merchant of Venice_, _Troylus and Cressida_), but not

till the copyright had been transferred to N. Ling and J. Trundell. In

1604 Ling issued the second Quarto, which in some instances supplies

passages omitted in the Folio for stage purposes, and in others

presents alternative versions and additions evidently made for the

Court performance (one of nine) in the winter 1603-4. It was a common

practice to utilise the altered copies of plays acted at Court by

allowing their publication. Yet another play acted by the King's men

this year was Jonson's _Sejanus_, for which he was accused of Popery

and treason by Northampton. When he published it (2d November 1604, S.

R.), he stated that "this book in all numbers is not the same with

that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had

good share: in place of which I have rather chosen to put weaker, and

no doubt less pleasing of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius

of his right by my loathed usurpation." The only known writers for the

King's men at this date were Wilkins, W. S. (? Sly), Shakespeare, and

possibly Tourneur. Of these there can be no doubt that Shakespeare

is the only one that could have been the second pen alluded to. Not

that necessarily he was a coadjutor to Jonson in this play. It is more

likely that as he acted one of the principal parts in it he inserted

or altered scenes in which he himself appeared. It is clear that "the

second pen," whoever he was, objected to his share in the play being

published, and no wonder, seeing how its main author had been accused

on account of it. This probably explains why the book was kept in the

press six months, from November 1604 to April 1605. When it was issued

Jonson's _Volpone_ was just coming on the stage, and it is noticeable

that Shakespeare did not act in that play, and that immediately after

Jonson quitted the King's men and joined Chapman and Marston in writing

_Eastward Ho_ for the Revels children, in which _Hamlet_ is ridiculed.

All this seems to point to a quarrel between Jonson and Shakespeare,

and certainly Jonson's behaviour in the Sejanus matter is not, as

Gifford calls it, manly. To drag in unnecessarily an allusion to a

friend whose personality must have been known to the public of that

time, into an address prefixed to a work accused of Popery and sedition

was unmanly; and, as his friend had objected to it, was discreditable.

No intercourse can be shown between Shakespeare and Jonson after 1603.

On 30th January 1603-4, the new company of the Revels children replaced

the Chapel boys at Blackfriars. They were, however, in the main

composed of the same actors, and were not unfrequently mentioned under

their old name. On March 15, we find that among the King's train,

at his entry into London, were nine of the King's company, dressed

in the scarlet cloth allowed for the occasion. As these nine are

identical with those in the license of 19th May 1603, which is statedly

incomplete, they must have been in some way distinguished from the rest

of their fellows. They were, no doubt, shareholders in the Globe. Cooke

and Lowin, who acted in _Sejanus_ and _Volpone_, do not appear among

them; nor do Tooley, Gough, and Sinkler, who were at this time members

of the company. The nine were Shakespeare, Phillips, Fletcher, Hemings,

Burbadge, Sly, Lowin, Condell, and Cowley. In July, Shakespeare was in

Stratford, recovering in the local court some £2 odd for malt, &c.,

sold to one Rogers. In August he was summoned to London, the King's

men having to attend at Somerset House to play at the reception of the

Spanish ambassador. During this year he produced _Othello_ and _Measure

for Measure_, which were acted at Court in the winter festivities,

along with five old plays of his, and two of Jonson's. _Hamlet_ does

not occur in this list, as it undoubtedly would have done if produced

in 1604. It was, in fact, published this year as it had been acted at

Court in the previous winter. Another play acted by the King's men was

Marston's _Malcontent_, with an Induction by Webster, in which the

reason of its appearance is explained. The Blackfriars children had

acted _Jeronymo_ in 1600, an old play of Kyd's, which had passed to

the King's men from Lord Strange's, by whom it had been purchased of

the Queen's. It had probably been taken from the Chamberlain's men to

the Chapel children by Jonson, who in 1601, September 25, transferred

it to the Admiral's, and wrote additions to it for Henslowe. This

appropriation of their property irritated the Globe players, and when

they got the chance, at the reconstitution of the Blackfriars children

in 1604, they procured _The Malcontent_, which had been acted by these

pigmies, and produced it on their own stage as "one for another."

They also in December acted "the tragedy of Gowry with all action

and actors," so Chamberlain writes to Winwood, December 18, "with

exceeding concourse of all sorts of people," but he adds, "some great

councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall

be forbidden." It probably was forbidden, as the play has disappeared.

Another mysterious play is _The Spanish Maz_, said to have been one of

the eleven performed in the winter at Court. Nothing is known of such a

play; but much is known of forgery connected with such statements.

In 1605, the tragedy of _King Lear_ was acted about 7th May, when

the old _Leir_, on which it was founded, but which was a _comedy_,

was entered S. R. as a "_Tragical_ History" of Leir, &c., "as it was

lately acted." Another play of very dubious authorship was acted by

the King's men before 3d July, when the ballad on the same events was

entered S. R.; this was _The Yorkshire Tragedy_. It was a continuation

of the story of _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, but treated more

realistically and more powerfully. It was published 2d May 1608 as by

Shakespeare, as in 1605 _The London Prodigal_ had already been, but in

the latter instance the publication was unlicensed and surreptitious,

while the _Yorkshire Tragedy_ was entered S. R. as "written by

William Shakespeare." The entry, however, was made for T. Pavier, an

unscrupulous piratic printer, who on other occasions tried to establish

rights in "Shakespeare's plays" which were not Shakespeare's; and no

weight can be assigned to his assertions. Another play acted by the

King's men, in March 1605, was Jonson's _Volpone_, or _The Fox_. This

was anterior in production to the plays already mentioned. Immediately

afterwards we find Jonson in connection with the Blackfriars children

again, and in prison for writing _Eastward Ho_. Shakespeare did not

act in _The Fox_; perhaps Jonson was offended at this; he at any rate

did not return to the King's men till 1610. On 4th May, Phillips,

Shakespeare's fellow-actor, made his will, and died shortly after.

We learn from this document, which gives us many other valuable

particulars respecting the members of the company, that Shakespeare and

Condell were the two of "his fellows" whom, next to Hemings, Burbadge,

and Sly, his executors, Phillips most highly appreciated; he left them

each a 30s.-piece in gold, but to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cooke, and

Tooley a 20s.-piece. He also left legacies to Gilburne and Sands his

apprentices, and to Beeston his servant. "His fellows" here means the

shareholders in the Globe, as contrasted with the "hired servants,"

to whom he left "£5 amongst them." There were then in 1605 eleven

shareholders, Cooke and Tooley having been added since 15th March

1604. On 24th July Shakespeare invested £40 in a lease of the tithes

of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, as had been

suggested to him in 1598. In August King James was at Oxford, and among

the entertainments presented to him were speeches by three young men

of St. John's, who personated the three Sibyls who had prophesied to

Banquo. This interlude would necessarily recall to the King's mind the

old Macbeth play, which had been probably presented to him in Scotland

by the Globe players, and if, as there is little reason to doubt, he

did write an autograph letter to Shakespeare, it was most likely on

this occasion, commanding a fuller version of _Macbeth_. This play was

certainly produced at Court, probably at Shrovetide in March 1605-6,

but it has been altered since, condensed and interpolated by dances

and songs and a new scene with Hecate in it, no doubt by Middleton in

1622, from whose _Witch_ the songs are taken. On 9th October the Globe

company acted before the Mayor and Corporation at Oxford, and then,

if not from the King, Shakespeare would be sure to hear of the Sybils

interlude. In all, ten plays were acted at Court this winter by the

Globe company. Among them was a version of _Mucedorus_, with additions.

This version has only come down to us in imprints of 1610 and later;

but there was an edition in 1606 mentioned in Beauclerc's Catalogue,

1781, from which the later title-pages were copied. From the title

it appears that it had been revived before the King on Shrove-Sunday

night at Whitehall. The original play had been acted about the city,

and therefore not later than 1594, before the Chamberlain's men

settled at the Theater. The additions are directed against Jonson,

whose strictures on monopolies, and sneer at "the miraculous effects

of the Oglio del Scoto" in _Volpone_, ii. 1, must have grievously

offended James, who had revived the touching for the king's evil.

Jonson had subsequently joined Chapman and Marston in writing _Eastward

Ho_ for the Chapel boys, in which the Scots were still more severely

satirised, and was evidently, as may be seen from the address prefixed

to _Volpone_, at daggers drawn with the Globe men. Hence, in the

_Mucedorus_ additions, the allusions to the "meagre cannibal," the

"scrambling raven with his meagre beard" (certainly Jonson, the

"thin-bearded Hermaphrodite" in _Satiromastix_), who had, stirred up

by Envy, written a comedy for the Globe filled with "dark sentences

pleasing to factious brains;" which would have led to their restraint,

as _Eastward Ho_ did for the Chapel boys, had not the King's players

been staid and discreet, and begged pardon of His Majesty on bended

knee "for their unwilling error." The threatened information must have

been in the autumn of 1605.

To 1606 no other play than _Macbeth_ can with certainty be traced: and

the marked change of metrical style at this epoch points to a period

of rest. In all his subsequent plays, many lines end with unemphatic

words, such as _and_, _if_, _which_, _but_ and the like, and this

change was not introduced gradually but suddenly and decisively. Hence

its value as indisputably separating the Fourth Period plays from

the preceding. On this ground it is pretty certain that _Timon_ was

Shakespeare's next production; he only wrote the chief scenes in it,

however, and it was finished for the stage by another hand. At this

time also, in my opinion, Shakespeare began to write _Cymbeline_,

which he afterwards completed himself. This arrangement of his work

seems natural; _Lear_, _Macbeth_, _Cymbeline_ closing the series

founded on Holinshed, and _Timon_, _Antony_, _Coriolanus_--the series

from Plutarch--succeeding them. A minuter examination of the question

will be found in a later part of this work. Of other play-writers'

contributions to the Globe in 1606 there is only one--_Pericles_, as

originally produced by Wilkins, which was ridiculed in _The Puritan_

by Middleton--acted by the Paul's children of this year. Wilkins

left writing for the King's men, and (1607) joined the Queen's men

at the Curtain. This was probably rumoured to have been caused by

some quarrel with Shakespeare, for on 6th August 1607, S. R., _The

Puritan Widow_ was published as by W. S., evidently meaning William

Shakespeare. Of all the instances in which Shakespeare's name or

initials were fraudulently inserted on title-pages, this play and _Sir

John Oldcastle_ were the only two in which they were prefixed to plays

not even acted by his company. At the Court in the 1606-7 season three

Globe plays were presented to the King of Denmark on the occasion of

his visit to England, and nine others in the usual course. _Antony

and Cleopatra_ may be confidently assigned to 1607. It was entered

for publication S. R. on 20th May 1608 with _Pericles_(no doubt as

originally written by Wilkins), but both plays were stayed; the former

as having been on the stage only one year, the latter to be superseded

by the issue in 1609 of the version as altered by Shakespeare. On

22d October _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ was entered S. R. for A.

Johnson. The entry for Hunt and Archer on 5th April 1608 is that of the

prose story by Thomas Brewer. The initials T. B. in this latter entry

have misled Mr. Halliwell and others to assign the authorship of the

play to Tony Brewer. On 26th November Shakespeare's _King Lear_ was

entered S. R. as it was played before the King on 26th December 1606,

"Saint Stephen's Night at Christmas last." This settles two important

questions; first, the relation of the Quarto text to the Folio--the

Quarto being the version played at Court, the Folio that retained by

the players for the public stage; secondly, the existence of a custom

in the Globe company of allowing, in cases of altered or revised

plays, the version not required for future stage purposes to be issued

to the public in print. Many instances of this custom are brought to

light in the present treatise. On October 7, Cyril Tourneur's (?)

_Revenger's Tragedy_ was entered S. R. The date of production on the

stage is uncertain. It had "been sundry times acted by the King's

players." Nor am I aware of the grounds on which the authorship is

assigned to Tourneur. It was published anonymously. On 25th June,

Susanna, Shakespeare's daughter, married John Hall, M.A., physician at

Stratford. There were thirteen performances this winter at Court by

the King's men. In 1608 Shakespeare probably produced _Coriolanus_. On

21st February Elizabeth Hall was baptized, within eight months from

her parents' marriage. The prospect of a continuation of his family,

though not of his family name, was some alleviation for Shakespeare

of the loss of his youngest brother Edmund, "a player," buried at St.

Saviour's, Southwark, 31st December 1607, "with a forenoon knell of

the great bell," _ætatis_ 27. Of Edmund's career in London we _know_

nothing; but surely he must have belonged to the Globe company. His

absence from the actors' lists offers no obstacle to this supposition;

they are, after that of _The Seven Deadly Sins_ in 1594, confined to

names of shareholders and principal actors. And if player for the

Globe, why not author? May he not, for instance, have written _The

Yorkshire Tragedy_ under his brother's superintendence, and may not

this account for its being published as William Shakespeare's? All

attempts to assign it to any known author have egregiously failed.

However this may be, and however poignantly William felt the loss of

the Benjamin of the family, a severer bereavement awaited him in the

death of his mother, buried at Stratford 9th September 1608. It has

always been a favourite hypothesis with me that Volumnia was drawn

from her as a model of matronly virtue, and it is certain that at this

date a final change took place in Shakespeare's manner of writing.

His plays since the accession of James had been, with scarcely an

exception, tragedies; from this time they are really, under whatever

head they may have hitherto been classed, tragi-comedies, and all turn,

as I pointed out many years ago, on the reuniting of separated members

of families. The first of this final group is _Marina_, the part of

_Pericles_ which replaced Wilkins' work, and which was written in this

winter and hurriedly printed in 1609 as a practical answer to Wilkins'

prose version, published in 1608, in which he claimed the story as an

"infant of his brain." Shakespeare's version must, I think, be placed

after his return to London from Stratford, where he remained after

his mother's funeral till 16th October, when he stood godfather for

William Walker. The Court performances this winter were twelve. On

28th January 1609, _Troylus and Cressida_ was entered S. R., not for

Roberts, whose intended publication in 1603 had been stayed, but for

Bonian and Whalley, who issued it with a preface stating that it had

never been "staled with the stage." This false statement was withdrawn

in their subsequent re-issue during the same year, but it proves that

the period during which the play had been performed in 1602 must have

been a very short one; such a statement could not have otherwise been

put forward with any plausibility. On 20th May the _Sonnets_ were

published, with a dedication to their "only begetter," Mr. W. H. I

think that these initials designate Sir William Hervey, to whom Lord

Southampton's mother left at her death in November 1607 the greatest

part "of her stuff." He was her third husband, and may have been the

original suggester to Shakespeare, as a friend to Lord Southampton,

that he should write a series of Sonnets to him recommending marriage

in 1594, when Southampton had not yet become devoted to "the fair Mrs.

Vernon," and was entangled in the affair of the frail Avisa. In 1609 he

was busily occupied with the Virginian company, and promoting voyages

for American discovery, an allusion to which underlies the Dedication

"wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth," _adventurer_

being the current phrase for explorer of unknown regions. On 7th

June Shakespeare's cousin, Thomas Green, then residing at New Place,

Stratford, issued a final precept in his behalf against one Hornby,

who had become bail for John Addenbroke, in a matter of debt for £6.

This litigation had begun in August 1608: juries had been summoned on

21st December and 15th February, and then Addenbroke absconded, leaving

Hornby to be answerable. The plague being prevalent this year, there

were no Christmas performances at Court, and not many on the public

stage. _Cymbeline_ was Shakespeare's only production. In its present

state it has evidently been subjected to revision and to alteration for

some revival after Shakespeare's death, when the doggerel in the vision

in iv. 4 was inserted; originally, no doubt, the ghosts appeared in

dumb show to music. The Globe players received £30 as a compensation

for being restrained from playing in London during six weeks, _i.e._,

during August and September, when the bills of mortality show the

plague to have been at its height.

In January 1610 the Revels children left the Blackfriars Theatre, and

set up with a new organisation under Rossiter at Whitefriars the new

private stage. It appears from the statement of C. Burbadge, in the

1635 documents discovered by Mr. Halliwell, that that family then

bought up the remainder of the lease from Evans, and took some of the

Revels boys, now grown up, to strengthen the Globe company. Among these

were Underwood and Ostler; but as C. Burbadge also names Field, who did

not join the King's men till 1615 or 1616, his subsequent statement

that they set up men-players, Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, &c., in

Blackfriars _at that date_, is not to be taken as necessarily exact.

The King's men undoubtedly took possession of Blackfriars for their

own performances in 1614 or 1615, after the Globe had been burned and

rebuilt; but there is not a trace of them until then in connection with

this private house except this _ex parte_ statement of C. Burbadge,

made for a special purpose, in a plea which is studiously ambiguous.

But there is evidence that other companies acted there. Field's _Amends

for Ladies_ was performed there by the Lady Elizabeth's company and the

Duke of York's (afterwards Prince Charles'). This performance must have

taken place during a temporary union between the Prince's men and the

Lady Elizabeth's, to which latter the play and its author were properly

attached; but that the Duke of York's acted continuously at Blackfriars

from 1610 to 1615, is very probable. It is not likely that a company

under such patronage, and admitted to Court performances every

Christmas, should have been merely a strolling company, and there was

no other theatre for them to perform in. The King's men held the Globe,

Prince Henry's (afterwards the Palgrave's) the Fortune, the Queen's the

Bull and the Curtain, the Queen's Revels' boys Whitefriars, and Lady

Elizabeth's at first the Swan till 1612, and after its abandonment the

newly renovated Hope in 1614, and then the rebuilt Cockpit or Phoenix.

There is no proof that Shakespeare ever acted at Blackfriars; there is

strong presumption to the contrary as to his supposed shares in that

theatre: it was the "private inheritance" of the Burbadges, and that

the King's men had shares in it at this time rests on the evidence of

forged documents and mischievously fertile imaginations, to which the

purchase of twenty acres of land at Stratford by Shakespeare from the

Combes in June seems to require access of capital to make this new

acquisition feasible. _Winter's Tale_ was certainly produced early this

year, before Jonson's _Alchemist_, which was acted and entered S. R.,

October 3, but was, however, "stayed" for the usual reasons, and did

not get published till 1612. The Address to the Reader (no doubt dating

1610) contains one of Jonson's numerous allusions to the "dance of

antics" in _Winters Tale_. Jonson, who had produced _Epicene_ for the

Chapel children in 1609, had returned to the King's men when the boys

left Blackfriars. Shakespeare's last play this year, and final finished

contribution to the stage, was _The Tempest_, produced about November,

after the news that the ships of Sir T. Gates at the Bermudas had not

been destroyed. This play as we have it has unfortunately been abridged

for Court performances, probably by Beaumont in 1612 or 1613, to whom

the insertion of the Masque may confidently be attributed. There were

fifteen winter performances at Court in 1610-11.

The loss of Shakespeare was repaired as well as circumstances would

permit by the accession of Beaumont and Fletcher to the King's company

in 1611. In that year they produced their masterpieces _Philaster, a

King and no King_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_: in 1612 _The Woman's Prize_

(by Fletcher alone), the play of _Cardenas_ (probably the original

form of _Love's Pilgrimage_), and _The Captain_. Jonson contributed

_Catiline_ in 1611, and Webster _The Duchess of Malfi_ in 1612. _The

Second Maiden's Tragedy_ (by the author of _The Revenger's Tragedy_,

I think) was also produced in 1611. At Court the unusual number of

twenty-two plays was acted in the 1611 winter and twenty-eight in

1612. These must have included nearly every play they possessed; and

the fact that the whole, or nearly so, of Shakespeare's plays were

revived at Court in these two years makes his retirement in 1610 to

my mind nearly a certainty, and accounts for the not very felicitous

praise of his "copious industry" by Webster in the Dedication of his

_White Devil_ in 1612. Webster couples the retired Shakespeare with

Dekker and Heywood: but Jonson's works he speaks of as "laboured

and understanding," Beaumont's and Fletcher's as "no less worthy

composures." This higher praise is given to the writers who like

himself were then contributing to the Globe repertory. He mentions

no one else but Chapman of "full and heightened style." Are we to

attribute to this mention of him the tradition that Chapman wrote _The

Second Maiden's Tragedy_? On 11th September 1611 Shakespeare's name

occurs "in the margin, as if a later insertion" (says Mr. Halliwell) of

a list of Stratford donors "towards the charge of prosecuting the bill

in Parliament for the better repair of the highways." In 1612 Lane,

Greene, and Shakespeare filed a bill before Lord Ellesmere complaining

that some of the lessees of the Stratford tithes refused to contribute

their proper shares of a reserved rent. It appears from this document

that Shakespeare's income from this source was £60. In the same year

Heywood, in his _Apology for Actors_, complained of W. Jaggard's having

printed in _The Passionate Pilgrim_, 3d edition, two love epistles

taken from his _Troia Britannica_, as by W. Shakespeare, "which might

put the world in opinion I might steal them from him;" he adds that

he knows the author was much offended for Jaggard's presuming to make

bold with his name. The name was in consequence withdrawn _altogether_

from the title-page. Notwithstanding this, many modern editors print

_The Passionate Pilgrim_ as Shakespeare's. On 4th February 1613 Richard

Shakespeare was buried at Stratford; whether the Gilbert Shakespeare,

"adolescens," who was buried 3d February 1612, was also a brother of

William's, is doubtful, but likely. On l0th March 1613 Shakespeare

bought of Henry Walker a house and yard near Blackfriars Theatre for

£140, of which £60 remained on mortgage (one of the trustees being in

1618 John Heming, Shakespeare's fellow-actor): he leased the house

to John Robinson for ten years. On 29th June the Globe was burned

down. It caught fire during the performance of _All is True_ (_Henry

VIII._) This was not the play as we have it--which is a later version

by Massinger and Fletcher, written for the Blackfriars Theatre, and

containing only three scenes that can be attributed to Shakespeare--but

a play in which there was a fool's part. Wotton describes it as "the

play of _Henry VIII._," but Lorkin says it was a new play called _All

is True_, representing some principal pieces of _Henry VIII._ Whether

new play or not it was probably by Shakespeare, written c. 1609, and

portions of it remain imbedded in that now extant by Fletcher and

Massinger c. 1617, the original MS. having perished in the fire. Just

at the same time one Lane had been maligning Mrs. Hall, Shakespeare's

daughter, in connection with Ralph Smith. Lane was summoned before the

Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester on 15th July and excommunicated on

the 27th. There were only seven plays performed at Court by the King's

men in the winter 1613-14, all their principal writers--Fletcher,

Beaumont, Jonson, Webster--having left them after the Globe fire.

Surely this is not consistent with the statement of C. Burbadge that

they had taken the Blackfriars building to their own use. No new play

can be traced to them till 1615, when the Globe had been[2] rebuilt,

and the Prince Charles' men had gone to the Curtain. Then they

certainly did take the Blackfriars to themselves, and with an excellent

staff of writers--Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Field--they occupied

it as well as the new Globe. A letter of John Chamberlain's to Sir

Dudley Carleton, 5th January 1615, says of the stage in general: "Of

five new plays there is not one that pleases, and therefore they are

driven to furbish over their old." Yet Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_ was

one of these 1614 plays acted at Court. I suspect that Lady Elizabeth's

players were not so well liked as the King's, and that Shakespeare and

Beaumont were greatly missed. Fletcher and Massinger were not yet able

to replace them even at Court.

In July 1614 John Combe left a legacy of £5 to Shakespeare; this

fact disposes of the silly story of Shakespeare having satirised

him in infantile doggerel. In the autumn William Combe, the squire

of Wilcombe, originated a proposal to enclose common fields in the

neighbourhood; he was supported by Shakespeare, who had been guaranteed

against prospective loss by Replingham, Combe's agent. The corporation,

through his cousin Greene, the town-clerk, remonstrated with him in

November when he was in London, and again in December wrote to him

representing the inconveniences and loss that would be caused. The

matter dragged on to September 1615, and then fell through. This is

the last notice of Shakespeare's action in any public matter. On

l0th February 1616 his daughter Judith was married to Thomas Quiney,

vintner, four years her junior, without licence, whence a fine and

threat of excommunication at the Worcester Ecclesiastical Court: and

on 25th April Shakespeare was buried. His will had been executed on

25th March. It was not regularly engrossed, but a corrected draft,

originally prepared for copying and completion on 25th January, but

evidently neglected until the sudden emergency of Shakespeare's

illness. It appears from this document that Judith's marriage portion

was to have been £100, on condition of her husband's settling on her

£150 in land; if this condition was fulfilled within three years he

was left £150 to his own use, if not it was strictly settled on her

and her children. This £150 is independent of £100 in discharge of her

marriage portion, and £50 conditional on her surrendering her interest

in the Rowington manor to Susanna Hall. To Joan Hart, his sister, whose

husband had been buried on 17th April, was left wearing apparel, £20,

a life-interest in Henley Street, and £5 each to her sons. To Susanna

Hall he left all his real estate settled in tail male, with the usual

remainders over. To Elizabeth Hall all his plate except the broad

silver-gilt bowl, which went to Judith Quiney. To his fellows, Hemings,

Burbadge, and Condell, £1, 6s. 8d. each for rings; the usual legacies

to the executors, poor, &c.; and to his wife his second best bed.

Of course she was fully provided for by freebench in the Rowington

copyhold, and dower on the rest of the property; nevertheless, it

is strange that she does not appear as executrix, that she had no

life-interest left her in house or furniture, and that in the draft of

the will, as made in January, her name does not appear to have been

mentioned at all. It is only in the subsequent interlineations that her

bequest appears.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] It had been reopened in June 1614.

SECTION II.

THE PERSONAL CONNECTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH OTHER POETS.

ONE of the objects of the present treatise is to bring into clearer

light the relations of Shakespeare with contemporary dramatists.

Strangely enough this has scarcely been attempted in earlier

biographies. His dealings in malt have been carefully chronicled: his

connections with poets have been slurred over. It will be useful,

therefore, to gather up the scattered notices of personal contact

between him and his fellows in dramatic production. Mere allusions to

his works, whether complimentary or otherwise, will not come under

this category. Such will be found collected, and well collected, in

Dr. Ingleby's _Century of Praise_; but they consist almost entirely

of slight references to his published works, and have no bearing of

importance on his career. Nor, indeed, have we any extended material of

any kind to aid us in this investigation; one source of information,

which is abundant for most of his contemporaries, being in his case

entirely absent. Neither as addressed to him by others, nor by him to

others, do any commendatory verses exist in connection with any of

his or other men's works published in his lifetime--a notable fact,

in whatever way it may be explained. Nor can he be traced in any

personal contact beyond a very limited circle, although the fanciful

might-have-beens so largely indulged in by his biographers might at

first lead us to an opposite conclusion.

With John Lyly, the founder of English Comedy, he seems to have had

no personal intercourse, although the reproduction by him of many of

Lyly's puns and conceits, and some few of his dramatic situations,

distinctly prove that he had carefully examined his published

plays. Nor does the solitary reference to Shakespeare in Greene's

_Groatsworth of Wit_, however it may display strong personal feeling,

lead us to suppose that there had been any personal relations between

these dramatists; in fact, the very wording of the passage properly

understood distinctly disproves the existence of such relations. Of

all the dramatists who had preceded him on the London stage the only

two with whom he can be even conjecturally brought in personal contact

before the opening of the Rose Theatre in 1592 are Robert Wilson and

George Peele. It is unlikely that he should have begun his career

as a novice and journeyman independent of tutor or coadjutor, and a

minute examination of the careers of these two dramatists leads me to

infer that they were connected with the same company as Shakespeare

in 1590-1. In any case, they were his immediate models in his early

work in several respects. It is from Wilson that his liking for

doggerel rhymes and alternately rhyming stanzas was derived: it is

from Peele that his love tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_--his only early

tragedy--derived, in its earliest form, as acted in 1591, whatever

in it was not Shakespeare's own. Wilson was probably his tutor or

coadjutor in Comedy and Peele in Tragedy. But this is after all

conjecture; on the other hand, it is certain that in 1592-3 a greater

than Peele or Wilson was writing for the same company as Shakespeare,

and necessarily in close connection with him. For Marlowe he certainly

had a sincere regard: from his poem of _Hero and Leander_ Shakespeare

makes the only direct quotation to be found in his plays; on his

historical plays Shakespeare, after his friend's decease, bestowed in

addition, revision, and completion, a greater amount of minute work

than on his own; and the earlier of his own histories were distinctly

built on lines similar to those of _Edward II._ and _Edward III._

The relation of Shakespeare's Histories to Marlowe's is far more

intimate than that of his Comedies or of _Romeo_ to any predecessor's

productions. I cannot find a trace of direct connection between

Shakespeare and any other poet than these mentioned, during the life

of Lord Strange. His connection with Lord Southampton seems to have

been more intimate than any with his fellow-poets. In the _Sonnets_

addressed to him there is mention of other pens who have dedicated

poems to his lordship, and whom Shakespeare for poetical purposes

professes to regard as dangerous rivals. The only persons known to have

_dedicated_ anything to Southampton are Nash and Markham, although

George Peele had written a high eulogy of him in his _Honour of the

Garter_ in 1593. Markham's dedication is one of four prefixed to his

poem on _The Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenvile_ (S. R. 9th September

1595); (1.) to Charles Lord Montjoy (in prose); (2.) to Robert Earl

of Sussex (Sonnet); (3.) to the Earl of Southampton (Sonnet); (4.) to

Sir Edward Wingfield (Sonnet). I am not aware of any previous attempt

to identify Markham with the rival alluded to in the _Sonnets_ of

Shakespeare, and yet there are many coincidences of language which

would lead to this conclusion. Take Sonnet 78, for instance. "_Thine

eyes_ ... have added feathers to the learned's _wing_ and given _grace_

a double majesty." In Markham we find in 1, "hath given _wings_ to my

youngling Muse;" and in 3, "whose _eyes_ doth crown the most victorious

pen" (_cf._ in 1, "that thine _eyes_ may lighten," &c.); and in 4,

the _double_ majesty of the grace, "vouchsafe to _grace_ my work and

me, _Gracing_ the soul beloved of heaven and thee." I do not find in

Markham the "affable familiar ghost" of Sonnet 86, but this and other

allusions may have referred to his _Thyrsis and Daphne_ (S. R. 23d

April 1593, five days after the entry of _Venus and Adonis_) which

is now unfortunately lost; and there is something like it in the

Grenvile Tragedy, in which Markham calls on Grenvile's soul to "sit

on his hand" while he writes, which the ghost apparently does until

it is dismissed to its "rest" at the end of the poem. Markham was an

exceedingly _learned_ man and the "proud full sail of his great verse"

would well apply to his stilted and conceited effusion. He does not

in it allude to Southampton's beauty, though he may have done so in

his _Thyrsis_, but he calls him "Bright lamp of _virtue_" with which

compare Sonnet 79: "He lends thee _virtue_, and he stole that word from

thy behaviour." On the whole I incline to regard Markham as the rival

poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As to Nash, his supposed satirical

allusions to Shakespeare, as set forth by the fertile fancy of Mr.

Simpson, have no more real existence than the allusions discovered by

other like imaginations in the writings of Spenser. His only notice of

Shakespeare's writings is the well-known mention of the representation

of Talbot on the stage, and that is highly complimentary. He may be

included under the "every alien pen" of Sonnet 78, but he is not (as I

once thought he was) the rival poet alluded to. It may be of interest

in connection with this matter to note that in _The Dumb Knight_, in

which Markham certainly wrote i. 2, ii. 1, iii. 4, and iv. 2, _Venus

and Adonis_ is satirised as a lascivious poem.

Of intercourse with other dramatists while a member of the

Chamberlain's company, the first instance is that with Lodge

and Drayton. That the connection with Drayton terminated in a

misunderstanding is clear from the excision of the favourable notice of

Shakespeare's _Lucrece_ from his _Matilda_, and from Drayton's taking

the chief part in writing _Sir John Oldcastle_, the object of which was

to keep alive the ill-feeling produced by the unfortunate adoption of

that name from the old play of _Henry V._ for the character afterwards

called Sir John Falstaff. This connection with Drayton ended in 1597,

that with Lodge in 1599. If I am right in my attribution of part

authorship to Lodge in _Henry VI._ and _The Taming of the Shrew_ in

its original form, Shakespeare revised and altered his plays, but not

till after Lodge's retirement from connection with the Chamberlain's

company. Soon after this, in 1601, he founded his _Hamlet_ on Kyd's,

but with Kyd himself I have not been able to find that he was at any

time personally connected. Nevertheless, as regards mere outward form,

Kyd was the chief model for the great tragedies of _Hamlet_, _Lear_,

&c. Of course, as regards all poetic essentials, his influence on

Shakespeare cannot for a moment be compared to Marlowe's.

With Marston, Chapman, and Dekker, Shakespeare's relations were

ephemeral, in connection with the great stage quarrel of 1599-1601,

and in no respect personal, unless we suppose that he had a hand in

hiring Dekker to oppose Jonson. My own belief is that he was away

in Scotland when _Satiromastix_ was produced, and that the division

of the company left in London did this without his knowledge. With

Jonson his relations were evidently personal and of very varied

nature. He probably introduced him to the Chamberlain's company in

1598; he certainly acted in his play of _Every Man in his Humour_: he

did not act in _Every Man out of his Humour_--and then Jonson joined

the Chapel children, and entered on his three years' struggle with

Marston, Dekker, &c. In 1601 Shakespeare satirised these children

in _Hamlet_, and about the same time administered the "purge" to

Jonson mentioned in _The Return from Parnassus_: at the end of the

same year, he, Jonson, Chapman, and Marston were contributors to

Chester's _Love's Martyr_. In 1603 Jonson, who had again joined the

Chamberlain's men, wrote _Sejanus_ in conjunction with some one (with

Shakespeare in my opinion), and got into trouble for it. Shakespeare

certainly acted in this play, and must at that time have been on good

terms with Jonson. All the allusions to Shakespeare's _Henry V._, &c.,

in the Prologue at the revival of _Every Man in his Humour_ in 1601

by the Chapel children, and the purge administered to Jonson, had

been forgiven and forgotten on both sides. But in 1605 Jonson wrote

_Volpone_, in which Shakespeare did not act, and which gave offence at

Court: and this caused a new disagreement between him and the King's

men (formerly the Chamberlain's). He left them, and with Chapman and

Marston wrote _Eastward Ho_, in which _Hamlet_ is ridiculed, and for

allusions to Scotland in which, similar to those in _Volpone_, the

authors were imprisoned. The King's men retaliated with the additions

to _Mucedorus_, of which more elsewhere, and Jonson did not join

them again for years. He wrote for the Chapel children in 1609, and

not till 1610, at the end of the year, when Shakespeare's dramatic

career was just expiring, did he produce _The Alchemist_ for them at

the Globe. It is to be hoped that these two great dramatists were not

at open enmity during the later part of Shakespeare's life; but all

record of any real friendship between them ends in 1603, and little

value is to be attributed either to the vague traditions of Jonson's

visiting him at Stratford, or to the abundant praise lavished on him by

Jonson in commendatory verses after his death. Much more important for

ascertaining the real relations existing between them are the allusions

to _The Tempest_ and _Winter's Tale_ so abundantly scattered through

all Jonson's plays from 1609 to 1616, while Shakespeare was yet alive.

Of other dramatists who were connected with Shakespeare in King

James's time I know only of Tourneur and Wilkins--the former simply

as an author writing for Shakespeare's company, the latter as the

playwright who wrote _Pericles_ in its original form: the history of

the production of this play has already been given.

As to Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, &c., who after 1610 wrote for

the King's men, and the numerous contemporaries who wrote for other

companies, no trace of any intercourse with Shakespeare, personal

or otherwise, remains to us, though abundant guesses and hypotheses

utterly foundationless[3] will be found in the voluminous Shakespearian

literature already existing. The truth appears to be that Shakespeare

at no time sought for a large circle of acquaintance, and that his

position as almost sole provider of plays for his company relieved

him of that miscellaneous comradeship which was the bane of Dekker,

Heywood, and many other gifted writers of the time. Of any one of these

a far larger personal connection can be proved than I believe ever

existed in the case of Shakespeare: and to this we no doubt are greatly

indebted for the depth and roundness of those great plays, which could

never have been conceived without much solitude, much suffering, and

much concentration.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The reader should especially beware of a most absurd identification

of Shakespeare with the Crispinus of Jonson's _Poetaster_, recently put

forth by Mr. J. Feis in his _Shakspere and Montaigne_. It is a pity

that an essay, of which the first four chapters are so valuable, should

be disfigured by the palpable chronological and other blunders in the

latter portions of the volume.

SECTION III.

ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED.

Until April 1564.

On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of John Shakespeare of

Stratford-on-Avon and Mary Arden, at that time an only child, two girls

born previously having died in their infancy. John Shakespeare was son

of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also

resided: he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c. He lived

in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as 29th April 1552, having left

his father about 1550, and in October 1556 purchased two small estates

in that town--one that is now shown as the birthplace, the other in

Greenhill Street. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert,

a yeoman, had contracted a second marriage with Agnes Hill, widow,

and in the settlement then made had reserved to Mary the reversion to

estates at Wilmecote and Snitterfield. Some part of this land was

occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather. Mary Arden also received

under her father's will, dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum

in money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote, a house with sixty

acres of land. In 1557 John was a burgess, a member of the corporation,

and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the borough, sworn to

look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale, or beer. In September

1558 he was one of the four constables under the rules of the Court

Leet. On 6th October 1559 he was again chosen constable and one of the

four affeerors for determining fines under the borough bye-laws. In

1561 he was again chosen affeeror, and one of the borough chamberlains,

which office he held till the end of 1563.

1564.

In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and continued to December.

There died 238 in that half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John

Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation by way of a fine

of 12d. in April 1552 for having a muck heap in front of his door

in Henley Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the public

stores of filth. He now contributed fairly to relieve the poor and

plague-stricken; about 12d. per month.

1565.

In March John Shakespeare with his former colleague made up the

chamberlain's accounts from September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them

could sign their names.

1566.

In February he again made up these accounts, and was paid £3, 2s. 7d.

"for a rest of old debt" by the corporation. On 13th October his son

Gilbert was baptized.

1567.

In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph

Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated for the office of High Bailiff or

Mayor. Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the name appears as

"Mr." John Shakespeare.

1568.

On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was chosen High Bailiff. He was

succeeded the next year by Robert Salisbury.

1569.

On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter (named Joan after her

deceased elder sister) was baptized.

1571.

On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth daughter Anne was baptized.

William was now seven, then the usual age for the commencement of

grammar-school education, the use of the Absey book and horn-book

having been acquired at home. Lily's _Accidence_ and the _Sententiæ

Pueriles_ were the usual text-books for beginners in Latin. Shakespeare

had some knowledge of Latin, and a little French; all beyond this is

very problematical.

1573.

On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, was baptized.

1575.

John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.

1578.

In January John Shakespeare paid only the amount of borough taxes

paid by other aldermen. William was then fourteen, the usual age for

commencing apprenticeship. There is a tradition given by Aubrey that he

was apprenticed to a butcher. I believe this to be a myth, originating

in the epithet "kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some

writers still think that the tradition may be relied on. Another story

traced to the parish clerk of 1693 is that he followed his father's

profession. May be so; may not be.

1579.

In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund Lambert for £40, to

revert if repayment be made before Michaelmas 1580.

On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in the chamberlain's accounts

occurs this item: "For the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter,

8d.," the highest fee in the list.

On 15th October John Shakespeare and his wife convey their interest in

Snitterfield to Robert Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this year.

1580.

On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized.

On or before 29th September, the money in discharge of the Asbies

mortgage was tendered and refused unless other moneys due were also

paid.

1581.

On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden, deceased, were appraised.

On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery made his will.

1582.

On 28th November the marriage bond between William Shagspere and

Anne Hathway was given, under condition that neither party had been

precontracted to another person, and that the said William Shagspere

should not proceed to solemnization with the said Anne Hathway without

consent of her friends. They were to be married with one asking of the

banns. The bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,--the seal

is R.H., which may be Richard Hathaway's.

1583.

On May 26th Susanna their daughter was baptized. It is assumed that

a precontract existed between the parents which, according to the

custom of the time, "was not legally recognised, but it invalidated

a subsequent union of either of the parties with any one else"

(Halliwell, _Outlines_, p. 45). The reader must form his own opinion.

Taking into consideration the low morality of the time in such matters,

the fact that Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in

1582, the practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation

under conditional promise of marriage, should the probable birth of

a child make it necessary or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to

1597 we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw his wife, and the

palpable indications in the _Sonnets_ that during this interval he was

intriguing with another woman--for my own part I cannot help adopting

De Quincey's view that he was entrapped into some such conditional

promise by this lady and kept his promise honourably. Compare on the

precontract question the plays of _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_

by Wilkins, which is founded on the contemporary history of the

same Calverley who is the murderer in _The Yorkshire Tragedy_, with

Shakespeare's own views in 1604 in _Measure for Measure_; his opinions

in _Twelfth Night_, ii. 4 (early part, c. 1592), and _Midsummer Night's

Dream_, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands: and, by way

of showing that his plays do discover sometimes his personal feelings,

Valentine's resignation of Silvia in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_,

with the story involved in the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare's own transfer

of his illicit love.

1585.

February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's twin children, were

baptized at Stratford-on-Avon. By April 26th he had certainly attained

his majority, and his apprenticeship had probably expired.

1585-7.

Three or four years after his union with Anne Hathaway, he had, says

Rowe, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill

company, and, amongst 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 prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely,

and in order to revenge that ill usage made a ballad 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 it redoubled the prosecution

against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business

and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in

London." Whether this tradition be well founded or no, we are compelled

by subsequent events to place the date of Shakespeare's leaving

Stratford in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth in the story

traced to Davenant or not, that he held horses at the play-house door,

while their owners were witnessing performances inside, it is certain

that he was very soon connected with the stage, first as actor, then

as dramatic writer. It becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if

possible the specific company with which he originally joined.

In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular theatres existing

in London, the Theater and the Curtain. It clearly appears from a

report by Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown MSS. that at

Whitsuntide 1584 these were occupied by the Queen's players and those

of Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company, that of Lord

Hunsdon, acted at the Theater: although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom

I most usually refer to under his former and better known name of

Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It is true that the "owner of the

Theater," whom he takes to be a temporary occupier of that building,

but whom I regard as the ground landlord, Giles Alleyn, is called a

servant of Lord Hunsdon's, and that a company of actors, called Lord

Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December 1582; but it does not

follow that these men were occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only

companies anyhow known to us as in London in 1585 are the two already

mentioned. It is by no means likely _à priori_, nor would it agree with

the passages hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene

and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on his appearance in

London obtain employment in either. But there was a third company not

noticed in Collier's _Annals of the Stage_, into which he may easily

have obtained admittance. When the Queen's company was formed in 8th

March 1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the companies

of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester and Warwick, there must have

been sufficient men left unemployed to form another company. These

were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester: for in a letter

from Sir Philip Sidney, dated Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is

made of "Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player," who had gone

with the Earl to the Netherlands in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in

his _Apology for Actors_, 1612, tells us that "The King of Denmark,

father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company

of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable Earl of

Leicester." This King of Denmark, Frederick II., died in 1588, and

the exact date of the transaction is fixed by documents dated October

1586, in which we find that five of these actors had been transferred

from the service of Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I.,

Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt the conjecture of Mr.

Bruce that "jesting Will" was Shakespeare; but when among the names of

these five actors--Thomas King, Thomas Stephen, George Bryan, Thomas

Pope, Robert Persie--we find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical

with those of two actors in the very first list extant of the first

company with which we can positively connect Shakespeare as an actor;

when we find this same company acting at Stratford in 1587, at the very

time that Shakespeare's disappearance from all known connection with

that town for nine years commences; when we find among a list of plays

that had been acted by the English in Germany _Hester and Ahasuerus_,

_Titus Andronicus_ [_and Vespasian_], both of which we shall trace to

Shakespeare's company; when we also find a version of the Corambis

_Hamlet_ existing early in the same country--then I think we are

justified in saying that there is great likelihood of this company

having been the one in which Shakespeare found his first employment. If

so, he accompanied it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see)

forsook it for another.

1586.

Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed to such an extent that the

theatres were shut up during 1586. It was not then during this year

that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or obtained employment in

London theatres. But at the end of the year Lord Leicester's players

returned to England, and in January 1586-87 are mentioned together with

the Queen's, the Admiral's, and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to

Walsingham from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian MSS.

1587.

This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men, visited

Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not been able to trace their

previous presence there since 1576, although other companies paid

frequent visits to this town. It is singular that in this year, the

only one in which this company visited Stratford during the twelve

years intervening between the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare,

we find also the only record of the poet's presence in the place

of his nativity. I give this in the words of Mr. Halliwell. "In

1578 his parents had borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his

mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion, Edmund Lambert of

Barton-on-the-Heath. The loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying

in March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally desirous of having

the matter settled. John Shakespeare being at that time in prison

for debt, and obviously unable to furnish the money, it was arranged

shortly afterwards that Lambert should, on cancelling the mortgage and

paying also the sum of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute

title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not have been made had

it not been ascertained that the eldest son William had a contingent

interest, derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his assent was

essential to the security of a conveyance. The proposed arrangement was

not completed, but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded. I believe

that immediately after this, in 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford either

with or in order to join Lord Leicester's company.

1588.

The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September 1588. Previously to

this date the company of players acting under his patronage had

played in London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate Street,

and more frequently had travelled in the country. At the death of

Dudley, they had of course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt

found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company (containing as

we shall see some of the actors already known as Leicester's men)

are first traceable in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title of

Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been merely acrobats or

posture-mongers. But before entering on the history of this company

under its new name, of which we _know_ Shakespeare to have been a

member, we must note some particulars regarding other dramatists,

especially Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, which indirectly concern

Shakespeare, and have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.

In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague, they

produced, in what succession we need not here determine, Greene's

_Orlando_ and _Alphonsus of Arragon_, Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_,

and Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. Those plays are enumerated in Peele's

_Farewell_, 1589, as--

"Mahomet's pow, and mighty Tamberlaine,

King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest."

"Mahomet's pow" is the head of Mahomet in _Alphonsus_; King Charlemagne

was probably a character in the complete play of _Orlando_, of which

only a mutilated copy has come down to us; Tom Stukeley is the hero of

_The Battle of Alcazar_; and "the rest" most likely indicate Lodge's

_Marius and Sylla_ and Marlowe's _Faustus_. Greene and Peele wrote no

more for this company, but in 1587 removed to the Queen's men, who had

been travelling in the country. On 29th March 1588 Greene's _Perimedes

the Blacksmith_ was entered on the Stationers' Registers. In the

introduction Greene attacks Marlowe and Lodge, who had remained with

the Admiral's men, in a passage worth quoting: "I keep my old course

still to palter up something in prose, using mine old posy still, _omne

tulit punctum_; although lately two gentlemen poets made two madmen

of Rome beat it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision,

for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical

buskins, every word filling the mouth like the fa-burden of Bow-bell,

daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamberlaine or blaspheming

with the mad priest of the sun. But let me rather openly pocket up the

ass at Diogenes' hand than wantonly set out such impious instances

of intolerable poetry. Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical

spirits as bred of Merlin's race, if there be any in England that set

the end of scholarism in an English blank verse, I think either it is

the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much

frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out

all the greatest part of their wits." For the fuller understanding of

this satire it may be noted that no "priest of the sun" is known in

an early play except in _The Looking-glass for London and England_ by

Lodge and Greene, which is certainly of later date than _Perimedes_,

yet may indicate Lodge's liking for that character; that Diogenes is

the name assumed by Lodge in his _Catharos_, 1591, and that Marlowe's

name was written Merlin as often as Marlowe. There can be no doubt as

to the persons aimed at, nor of the effect of the satire, for both of

them left off writing for the Admiral's men; and Marlowe during the

next two years produced _The Jew of Malta_, which can be traced to the

Queen's company, and together with Greene, Lodge, and Peele produced

the plays of _The Troublesome Reign of King John_, and _The First Part

of York and Lancaster_ on which _2 Henry VI._ is founded. The internal

evidence for the authorship of these last-mentioned plays is very

strong: they were, however, published anonymously.

1589.

Before the entry of Greene's _Menaphon_ on the Stationers' Registers on

23d August 1589, _Hamlet_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_ must have been

represented by Pembroke's men, and Marlowe must have left the Queen's

company. As _Menaphon_ is accessible in Professor Arber's reprint

to the general reader, it will be sufficient to refer to it here

without quoting passages in full. That Greene refers so satirically

to Marlowe as to prevent our supposing that at this date they could

be writing jointly for the same theatre, is clear from a hitherto

unnoticed passage in p. 54: "Whosoever descanted of that love told you

a _Canterbury_ tale; some _prophetical_ fullmouth, that, as he were

a _Cobler's_ eldest son, would by the last tell where another's shoe

wrings." Marlowe or _Merlin_ was a shoemaker's son of Canterbury. That

Doron in the story is meant for the author of _The Taming of a Shrew_

was shown by Mr. R. Simpson by comparing Doron's speech in p. 74:

"White as the hairs that grow on Father Boreas' chin," and the passage

in Nash's introduction, p. 5, about mechanical mates, servile imitators

of vain-glorious tragedians, who think themselves "more than initiated

in poet's immortality if they but once get Boreas by the beard," with

the words of the play itself: "whiter than icy hair that grows on

Boreas' chin." Mr. Simpson was, however, entirely wrong in identifying

Doron with Shakespeare, and did not notice that Doron's entire speech

parodies one of Menaphon's in p. 31, just as _The Taming of a Shrew_

parodies Marlowe's plays, or "the mechanical mates" alluded to by Nash

imitate the "idiot art-masters" in the "swelling bombast of a bragging

blank verse," or the "spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon."

The name Menaphon is taken from Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. In these

passages Greene and Nash satirise Kyd, then writing for Pembroke's

company. In another paragraph, p. 9, Nash speaks of "a sort of shifting

companions" that "leave the trade of _Noverint_ whereto they were

born," who get their aphorisms from translations of Seneca and can

"afford you whole _Hamlets_ of tragical speeches." This passage is

familiar to all students of Shakespeare; and yet no one has, I think,

pointed out that Nash identifies these "famished followers" of Seneca

with the "Kidde in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Fox's newfangles,

forsook all hopes of life to leap into a new occupation." This pun in

a tractate containing similar allusions to the names Greene, Lyly,

and Merlin is equivalent to a direct attribution of the authorship of

_Hamlet_ as produced in 1589 to Kyd, and is also a refutation of those

who have seen in the whole passage an allusion to Shakespeare.

Very shortly after Greene's _Menaphon_ Nash issued his _Anatomy of

Absurdities_, which had been entered on the Stationers' Registers 19th

September 1588, and which contains much of the same satirical matter as

his address in _Menaphon_.

We have now to pass from the private quarrel of Greene and Nash, as

representing the Queen's men at the Theater, with Marlowe and Kyd, the

writers for Pembroke's company, to a much more important controversy in

which many of the same dramatists were concerned. Between October 1588

and October 1589 the Martinists published their Puritan controversial

tracts; in opposition to them various writings had appeared, whose

authors were Cooper, formerly schoolmaster, afterwards Bishop; Lyly

the Euphuist; Nash the satirist; and Elderton "the bibbing fool"

ballad-maker. They had also been ridiculed on the stage, in April 1589,

at the Theater, most likely by Greene; at the Paul's school probably by

Lyly; and either in ballad or interlude by Antony Munday, even at that

early date a dramatic writer. As the anti-Martinist plays were on the

side of the clergy and of secular authority they were not interfered

with. But in November 1589, in consequence of certain players in

London handling "matters of Divinity and State without judgment or

decorum"--in other words, having the impertinence to suppose that there

could be two sides to a question, Mr. Tylney, the Master of the Revels,

suddenly becomes awake to the danger of allowing such discussions on

public stages, and writes to Lord Burleigh that he "utterly mislikes

all plays within the city." Lord Burleigh sends a letter to the Lord

Mayor to "stay" them. The Theater and Curtain, where the Queen's men

and Pembroke's were playing, were _without the city_, so that the

anti-Martinist plays were not interfered with; the Paul's boys were

for the nonce not regarded as a company of players: so that the Mayor

could only "hear of" the Admiral's men, who on admonishment dutifully

forbore playing, and Lord Strange's, who departed contemptuously, "went

to the Cross-Keys and played that afternoon to the great offence of the

better sort, that knew they were prohibited." The Mayor then "committed

two of the players to one of the compters." These players, however,

gained their end, for all plays on either side of the controversy were

forthwith suppressed, and commissioners were appointed to examine and

licence all plays thenceforth "in and about" the city played by any

players "whose servants soever they be."

It is pleasing to find Shakespeare's company acting in so spirited a

manner in defence of free thought and free speech: it would be more

pleasing to be able to identity him personally as the chief leader

in movement. And this I believe he was. The play of _Love's Labour's

Lost_, in spite of great alteration in 1597, is undoubtedly in the main

the earliest example left us of Shakespeare's work: and the characters

in the underplot agree so singularly even in the play as we have it

with the anti-Martinist writers in their personal peculiarities that

I have little doubt that this play was the one performed in November

1589. If the absence of matter of State be objected, I reply that it

would be easy for malice to represent the loss of Love's labour in

the main plot as a satire on the love's labour in vain of Alençon for

Elizabeth. We must also remember that it is most likely that for some

years at the beginning of his career Shakespeare wrote in conjunction

with other men, and that in those plays that were revived by him at

a later date their work was replaced by his own. In the case of the

present play, as the revision was for a Court performance, we may be

sure that great care would be taken to expunge all offensive matter:

the only ground for surprise is that enough indications remain to

enable us to identify the characters at all.

1590.

_Love's Labour's Lost_ would no doubt be closely followed by _Love's

Labour's Won_, which play I for other reasons attribute to this year.

We must now again refer to Greene. His _Farewell to Folly_ had been

entered on the Stationers' Registers, 11th June 1587, but was not

published till after his _Mourning Garment_, the entry of which dates

2d November 1590. In the introduction, which was certainly written

at the time of publication, although the body of the work had been

lying by for some three years and more, Greene distinctly alludes to

_Fair Em_ and accuses its author of "simple abusing of Scripture,"

because "two lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness,

his mistress runs over him with this canonical sentence 'a man's

conscience is a thousand witnesses'; and her knight again excuseth

himself with that saying of the Apostle, 'Love covereth the multitude

of sins.'" The exact words in the play are "Love that covers multitude

of sins" and "thy conscience is a thousand witnesses." Greene, says

Mr. R. Simpson, who first drew attention to this allusion to _Fair

Em_ in a paper unfortunately spoiled by an absurd attempt to identify

Mullidor,[4] of "great head and little wit," with Shakespeare, has

parallel plots to those of _Fair Em_ in his _Tully's Love_ (1589) and

_Never Too Late_ (before 2d November 1590). To me the connexion seems

closer between this satire, by Greene the profligate parson, based on

Scriptural grounds, of a play written for Lord Strange's company, and

the persecution they had just endured for venturing to present a play

in favour of the Martinists. And as if to emphasise his intention in

this direction, Greene says in his Dedication of his tract, "I cannot

_Martinize_." That _Fair Em_ was the production of R. Wilson will I

think be evident to those who will read it with careful remembrance.

The _Comedy of Errors_ was also probably acted this year in its

original form.

1591.

In this year were most likely produced two plays, not in the shape

in which they have come down to us, but as originally written by

Shakespeare and some coadjutor, viz., _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and

_Romeo and Juliet_. The question of the dates of these and all other

plays of Shakespeare will be separately argued further on. It may be

just worth while to note that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser, who has

been so carelessly identified with Shakespeare, with Kemp, and with

Tarleton (!) is certainly Lyly. The line "doth rather choose to sit

in idle cell" (_Tears of the Muses_) identifies him with "slumbering

Euphues in his cell at Silexedra" (_Menaphon_). Compare "Euphues'

golden legacy found after his death in his cell at Silexedra" (title of

Lodge's _Rosalynde_).

1591-2.

In the Christmas Records of this year, the Queen's company made

their final appearance at Court on December 26th. Lord Strange's

men performed at Whitehall on December 27th, 28th, January 1st,

9th, February 6th, 8th. The import of this fact has not been fully

appreciated. The exceptionally large number of performances of Lord

Strange's men show a singular amount of Court favour, and go far to

prove that Elizabeth did not sanction their persecution at the hands

of Burleigh two years before. They henceforth, under various changes

of name and constitution, until the closing of the theatres in 1642,

retain the chief position in the performances at Court. This date,

1592, is in the history of this company of players, and therefore in

that of Shakespeare, their chief poet and one of their best actors, of

the very greatest importance.

The old plays of _King John_, on which Shakespeare's was founded, were

published this year, as having been acted by the Queen's company--an

additional indication of an important change in their internal

constitution.

1592.

This year was scarcely less eventful than the preceding for the company

to which Shakespeare belonged. On 19th February Henslowe opened the

Rose theatre on Bankside for performances by Lord Strange's men under

the management of the celebrated actor, Edward Alleyn. Whether (and if

at all, for how long) Alleyn had been previously connected with the

company, we are not directly informed; but as he gave up playing for

Worcester's men, c. January 1588-9, the exact time when the players

of the late Earl of Leicester found a new patron in Lord Strange,

that is the probable date of his joining them. This possession of a

settled place for performance gave his company additional influence and

status. At first they played old plays, among which may be mentioned

Kyd's _Jeronymo_ and _Spanish Tragedy_, Greene's _Orlando_ and _Friar

Bacon_, Greene and Lodge's _Looking-glass_, Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_,

and Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_. This last-named play, may, like

Greene's _Orlando_, have been originally sold to the Queen's men, and

to the Admiral's afterwards; but whether this be so or not, we have

the singular fact to explain that four plays, three by Greene and one

by Marlowe, all belonging to the Queen's men, are now found in action

by Lord Strange's. Combining this with their sudden disappearance

from the Court Revels, it would seem that some grave displeasure had

been excited against them, and that they had become disorganised. In

fact, although they, or a part of them, lingered on in some vague

connection with Sussex' players, they now practically disappear from

theatrical history. Of new plays Lord Strange's men produced on March

3d, _Henry VI._, which is by the reference to it in Nash's _Piers

Penniless_ (entered 8th August 1592) identified with the play now

known as _The First Part of Henry VI._ It was acted fourteen times to

crowded houses (Nash says to 10,000 spectators), and was the success

of the season. I have no doubt that this play was written by Marlowe,

with the aid of Peele, Lodge, and Greene, before 1590, and that the

episode of Talbot's death added in 1592 is from the hand of Shakespeare

himself. In this last opinion it is especially pleasing to me to find

myself supported by the critical judgment of Mr. Swinburne. On 11th

April the play of _Titus and Vespasian_ was first acted. Had it not

been for the existence of a German version (given in full in Cohn's

_Shakespeare in Germany_) we should not have been aware that this play

was identical in story with that known as _Titus Andronicus_. It is

unfortunately lost--a loss the more to be regretted since it has led to

the supposition of the extant play having proceeded from the hand of

Shakespeare. On 10th June _A Knack to Know a Knave_ was performed for

the first time. Mr. R. Simpson without the slightest ground conjectured

that this was the play that Greene says he "lastly writ" with "young

Juvenal." The most successful new plays in this season were _Henry

VI._ and _Titus and Vespasian_ (performed seven times in two months);

of old plays _the Spanish Tragedy_ (performed thirteen times), _The

Battle of Alcazar_ (eleven performances), and _The Jew of Malta_ (ten

performances).

On June 22 the last performance took place before the closing of the

theatres on account of the plague.

On August 8 _Piers Penniless_ was entered S. R., which contains Nash's

reference to _I Henry VI._

On September 3 Greene died.